Restaurant at the end of 2001

I give thanks for Rachel coming to share yesterday's pop up banquet, and bringing some organic pumpernickel and Belvoir pop with her too!

I give thanks for making it to the last of the vocal coaching sessions - they have been hard work but oh so rewarding, not least because it's such a joy to the see the joy in others when they feel rewarded too. I hope our musical director appreciates the new tuned instrument he has to work with, and that we made our tutor aware of how much we appreciated her work with us...but I'm grateful I can be quite sure that members of the choir appreciated being told they were the strangest bunch of characters she'd ever encountered - much affirmative nodding of antennae and waving of tentacles there! Well, OK, slight exaggeration, but we are for the most part beyond box of frogs and well into restaurant at the end of the universe territory and inordinately proud of the fact. I give thanks for finding a place not only to enjoy the delight of singing in harmony, but feel the comforting and unusual sensation of being surrounded by my own one-of-a-kind kind.

I give thanks for understanding the many folk over many years who've pointed out ways in which I could be better at being have thought they were doing the right thing by telling me so...and that it's OK for our ideas of what constitutes 'right' to differ...

I give thanks for watching the final episode of The Silk Road, finding out who Zarathusa was and what it was he spake about, plus the origins of the paisley motif. Is this boteh an eternal flame?

I give thanks for finally unpacking the bag I took out with me yesterday and finding an old mobile for recycling from Cathy and a packet of trifle sponges from Rosalind that I'd forgotten about.

I give thanks for using wisely all my relative vigor of the last few days and that today my pain levels are such the universe can unfold or end without me, and I don't care if I have a table at the restaurant or not. I give thanks some nice people in France have organised a tennis tournament and some other nice people put it on free TV... And I give thanks the matches have not been too riveting as I've been sleepy and weepy this afternoon so that needed to attend to that as well... but not when the Tesco delivery arrived.