Last resorts

Well, you know, I always say the best days are the hardest days ones to write my blog...so many things to remember to be grateful for...and to stay awake to list them!

First of all I have to be grateful for not being as miserably stiff and sore last night so that sleep seems more likely and maybe not spending half the morning tomorrow groaning. I know I have to be grateful for what I still can do and not be greedy, but this holiday is such a treat and may be the last such possible and it's hard not to feel not a moment must be wasted, nor corner explored.

So I give thanks for trying to be more careful today and for John and Jo's kindness and care. For being brought two cups of tea in bed and left to snooze with a book a while and then being driven out as close as possible to places I wanted to see - ancient stone structures and settlements and the surprisingly green and rolling countryside.

I give thanks for the surprising wild life too...flying flocks of egrets, kites and vultures whirling on the thermals, the first of the latter the others had ever seen, while I got to see the first naked man I have for many years, clearly habitually so from the eveness of his bronzeness. I don't who was more surprised when he turned a corner into a field and found me just hanging around resting in the long grass beneath a tree, or me looking up and seeing him just hanging around...

I give thanks for finding a cheese farm and stopping to try and buy some. For a refreshment stop open in a town almost completely shut and shuttered for siesta time. ..and the delicious olives they brought us with our drinks..

But most of all I give thanks for my oldest friends for still being my friends. I don't know how they manage it, bless them, but in a life of loss and broken connection it's very precious to have had something last.