Peace of my mind

I give thanks it was so quiet here last night I forgot to put my earplugs in...and forgot I hadn't so that when I woke in the night and heard the heater on frost control click on I was surprised how noisy it was.

I give thanks for porridge made with rice milk and dried cranberries, fairly kidney friendly and warming and filling on a cold day.

I give thanks for a morning busy with this and that, aware and appreciative of greater mobility and lower pain levels...but also aware and appreciative of the need to be gentle with back and my left hand side.

I give thanks some work is being done to the communal door here so that both the pharmacy and grocery deliveries could be brought straight up to my flat door. There's several causes for gratitude in that sentence!

I give thanks for noticing an unusual feeling of peaceful contentment ...suddenly realising it was still quiet upstairs (these two are inextricably linked) and perhaps a postprandial loll with some craftwork the sofa might be in order...maybe watch something on TV without the volume higher than I like it or heavy headphones on. Obviously I rarely watch anything live, especially on a weekday afternoon out of Wimbledon season, but I scrolled through the channels anyway, recognising a programme along the way but not the episode which as (as far as I knew) I'd seen every one in existence was a bit of a puzzle. It's set in a fictionalised south west county I'll call Heaven, with filming that does its beauty justice and lots of glimpses of familiar places (plus ones that make you go 'Ooh, I want to go there!' ...but as well as the lushly visible scenery there's remarkably little visible acting if you know what I mean, and some chuckles along the way. So finding a whole new series had started just added to the feelgood factor of the day...

I give thanks for reading in my horoscope that tomorrow will be good for being valued for true worth, money and business, adventure, romance, boldly asserting needs and losing inhibitions! If I get an unrealistically good one I usually say some other better positioned Aquarian can have it...this time I reckon I'll compromise and share ;-) Asserting already, see!

Salt and lime

I give thanks for swapping the great ideas for new life directions Rachel and I have had in the last couple of weeks. For her responding to my request to bring a phone charge lead...I get through them like nobody's business! For the simple delight that is Tesco finest butter mash with Quorn Cumberland sausages and veggies on the side. For a treatment that hit all the right spots, including the lala button...a dreamy night and a long lie in...

For some salty morning chat with our man in Jericoacoara. For a pause in the sunshine by our chilly waves before getting my curls trimmed this afternoon. For Maddie's exuberance at her upcoming trip and for there being one last raspberry and echinacea teabag for me!

For walking a little more and hurting a little less. For living somewhere where a potter around a few shops and businesses can be such a heart warming experience. For visiting our revived, no longer Greek run deli and picking up some still available Greek delicacies such as honey drenched baklava and the famous garlic cabbage. No, I wasn't convinced by the idea of garlic cabbage either but it's raved about so much on their Facebook page I had to give it a go...and now I am!

For the lime light on the mimosa buds late in the day...and for a recent dream about polishing my camera lens and starting taking photos again which I thought might be allegorical...but maybe is not.

For the subtly changing pastel colours in the sky after sunset. Exquisite. For several quiet neighbourly hours to enjoy myself without the rumbling grumbling mardiness of others in the background...

Knot and natter

I give thanks for a much better night's sleep than I've had for a while. I've yet to find a way of wearing those Actipatches comfortably in bed but applied as much other science as I could - lavender oil to breathe in, arnica and MSM cream to rub on, chamomile tea, paracetamol, and a warm bath not reading a book or looking at my phone. Whether any of it made any difference or it was just luck or exhaustion who knows...

I give thanks for discovering when I changed the dressing that my wound had officially become a scar...a little scabby still in places but all joined up at last!

I give thanks for getting up and on with Plan A today, though stupidly sore despite all that respite and rest last night. For thoughtful chauffeuring from Jenny to Knit and Natter, and catching up with a few of my other chums there. For seeing the decorations and donations other people had made, and for the lush biscuits I bought to share being very gratefully received...including by me!

I give thanks for time between arriving home and finishing sorting dinner to lie in some of the strange positions that unknot my pinched nerves a bit. I give thanks that Rachel's coming to try and treat my ills and distract me with chatter this evening.

Blind leading the lame

There were a few times yesterday I was grateful how my mobility is improving...and that though it's still not comfortable the pain is manageable. This was before evening when the pain started running riot again. I give thanks for catnapping between its roaring in the night...for the usual solitary distractions and the warmth from my electric blanket to soothe the sore bits a bit...and for eventually getting a handful of hours from early morning.

I give thanks I could see the stunning sunrise I missed because people who didn't posted pictures and videos on line. And for eventually feeling fit enough to get out of bed for the last grand prix of the season.

I give thanks for delicious pea and spinach soup for my lunch. Didn't like the sound of it much to be honest but you should always put a gift soup in your mouth!

I give thanks for tackling my broken kitchen blind before darkness, not least because it cuts out some of the cold. Many trips up the ladder to investigate were required... and down again to reposition said ladder and some large potted palms in the way...and luckily for my poor left leg, a fair amount of cogitation in between, as I could see the unfixed side could be easily fixed if the whole thing were taken down but no amount of cogitation could come up with a way to do that (and put it back!) on my own. I give thanks for my good friends resilience and resourcefulness... and in advance for my memory si I don't forget to treat it gently now I've cobbled a mend together... and to ask someone capable to do it better next time someone capable is here and amenable to amelioration...

I give thanks that after restoring order, hobbling through the cooking and washing up and preparation for tomorrow, I was able to join my apparently slumbering neighbours and catch up with a few zzzzs as well.

Easy like Sunday

I give thanks for an unusual level of peacefulness in the adjacent horizontal and vertical rooms so I could sleep on the sofa last night. The thing about my sofa is that it's actually a bed and, though the mattress is well past the current suggested best before date, it's still the comfiest place I know to stretch out! It's also handy for the kitchen, but most particularly welcome on this occasion as I'd run out of steam preparing my bedroom bed for winter and gave thanks for having a ready made alternative available.

I give thanks for lounging (literally) for a late lie in with donated sweet grapefruit and colour supplement, quite understandably convinced it was Sunday morning after Thursday night having such a Friday night feel, and Friday's companionable pottering about being what I'd more usually do on a Saturday.

I give thanks for eventually subduing various chores including a pile of washing up and a grovel under the bed with extension leads to plug my electric blanket in. For not getting too ratty when I had to abandon activities to let the pain subside. For not getting too disheartened having to listen to other people get ratty when a nap would have been more pleasing...  For lying down with a fascinating book on domestic history instead which has to be read flat as it's too heavy to hold! For finding a portion of homemade apple crumble in the freezer...

It's not what you do

I give thanks for a disproportionately pleasant afternoon with Mima tracking down an alternative route to a garage the wrong side of the expressway, plus sharing tea and cake in Costa on a retail estate. Sometimes it's not so much what you do but who you do it with... and Costa serve cake that's exceedingly better than a certain well known mass producer, and even many cafes! Sometimes where you do it makes a difference too of course...I give thanks for how pretty it is even sitting by the recycling bins in a carpark near here! I also give thanks for learning how to use the satnav on my phone...there's not a lot of call for that as a pedestrian and, though I keep reminding myself to be grateful how far my sciatica has improved, I can still only walk as far as I can see when I set off - unless it's round a corner that's not very far away!

My tastebuds had been somewhat thwarted in the sweet bakery department yesterday when I thought Colin was bringing me some on his way to Brazil (as you do!) but, as Brazil takes a long time to get ready to go to, provided a selection of other more time appropriate delights instead. I give thanks for all of these...including garlic mushrooms with pecorino cheese cooked for my dinner, a very romantic operatic duet (no, not a euphemism!), and a very early breakfast in bed...

Glitter calls

I don't know what the opposite of log is but I slept like one last night! I give thanks for soothing music to listen to, and for waking up early so I'd plenty of time to decide what not to do today. I give thanks for a timely message from Mima offering to take me and/or any of my stuff to what we used to call the tip as I did have a bag of such things recently gathered and waiting...plus a deadline for a lift to town was as handy as the lift itself!

I give thanks for some rather stunning sea-nery en route and that. though many premises were unreasonably (though seasonably!) less abundant in seating I was able to go about my business with a little help from friendly local staff. I give thanks for going further and getting more done than I hoped I might. I give thanks though I'd slowed to a kind of leg drag zombie shuffle by the time I made the taxi rank, I did make the taxi rank and there was a helpful cab driver waiting. I give thanks for doing almost nothing for the next couple of hours!

I give thanks for finishing the garland for the library decorations...and a scarf for the sale for funds there. I think the one at the top is the scarf and the one at the bottom is the garland, but it's a tough call...and no, I agree, neither of them is very photogenic! Early blog tonight at my bathwater is calling - have a pleasant evening peeps!

Tales from the cryptic

I give thanks for an extra blanket and an extra couple of biscuits to help me drop off to sleep eventually. Can't do a lot more than I'm doing already about the pain but increasing other comfort levels does encourage relaxation. Reinstalling my winter quilt and electric blanket (and maybe a bedroom biscuit tin?) are on the agenda of course, but though I'm not short on energy and enthusiasm I have to work between the bouts of hurting and setting the hurting off again. Guess I should be grateful for sciatica giving me lots of practice at improving my ability to pace myself eh?

I give thanks for almost drifting off into a delicious catch up nap this afternoon before a tantrum breaking out on my doorstep. I give thanks it wasn't aimed at me and none of the clinking bottles got broken this time. For kind of returning the favour by accidentally laughing very loudly at QIXL...

I give thanks for shafts of hazy late light repainting the houses opposite pale gold... For the bright black and white of magpies against the remaining autumn foliage...

I give thanks for surviving an attack of the Epson DX4400 demons... and that Laura has one too so that I know they're not my own personal demons!

I give thanks for exchanging cryptic clues but not cross words with Colin...

By the pricking...

...of my knees I get useful clues as to what my next step should be, and I give thanks I'm beginning to decipher their code. If it's just a little prick (funny - doctors don't seem to say that much any more do they?) it's safe to carry on a while, but if it's a big prick then a major electrical storm is brewing in my leg and I need to seek horizontal refuge immediately and lengthily. Whether it's possible at the time is another matter of course, as is the gamble when there's no pricks around at all and I have to decide whether to gratefully stay still and enjoy the respite or get up and risk disturbing them again!

I give thanks for a bit more sleep in the night, and a bit less pain during the day so that I've been able to tackle a few small tasks that were only going to get bigger if left to their own devices...like cleaning the kitchen sink!

'Tis the season for my social anthropologist soul to be jolly fascinated by the revving up of what passes for ritual...and I give thanks for musing on the mysteries. Otherwise, being only marginally involved, it's often a rather poignant time as most human interactions involve listening to other people's plans for gifts and menus and social arrangements while dreading having to share mine in case they feel sorry for me...and make me wonder if I should feel sorry for myself as well - never a good plan!

This year I give thanks for my autumnal incarceration meaning I'm avoiding a lot of that...and also, so far, resistible charitable offers... but I do give thanks for a plan to meet some ladies from choir for a cuppa and maybe a mince pie! Of course there's things do I enjoy doing at the turning of the year but they're not likely to be on the agenda this time, so I can but give thanks for years of practice at not doing what I enjoy...and for memories of when I have. What are they? Well two of them are a) to be in the middle of the seemingly sleeping British countryside b) and to sing Tchaikovsky's Crown of Roses in four part harmony. Just listening to it is not the same...but on the other hand I do find it hard to sing because it always makes me cry...and, heathen that I am, it's the music that does that not the words! Thus I give thanks for finding a link in a its (original?) non-distracting Russian...and also because in this recording the mic picked up the bass line so well. The bass is ace! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Zwjn-2n_A

Left behind

The last couple of Mondays I've given thanks for the company of a couple of my favourite people, but today (and no offence meant to either of those dear souls!) I've been really rather grateful for being home alone to play with my new toy... Batteries not included, nor required - it's some new software for my laptop, and I give thanks so far to be as engrossing as I hoped it might be given the price! I wanted something to help me mentally leave behind some aspects of my life when physically they can't be escaped, and even just beginning to explore what can be done with it has been so absorbing it's going to be tricky to find some other things to be grateful for...

Hmm...I give thanks for a couple of books, one fiction one non, to occupy me through the teeth grittingly painful stretches of the night...and for things being a little easier today. For managing to do some (allegedly) sciatica relieving exercises...and a little deep muscle massage of the knots in my poor left buttock! 

I give thanks for having some easily prepared food to hand to refuel both body and brain...and for getting the washing up and other most essential chores done. I give thanks for heaters, cosy clothes and throws - on a sunny winter's day my flat retains warmth quite well, but when it's dark and wet and windy my personal thermostat is somewhat challenged. I would like to put it out there that after many years' homes without I'd like my next one to have central heating please...and a wood burner too if that's not too much trouble for the universe or me! I give thanks for not having to go out - the rain and the pain would have been a bit of a challenge too methinks...

Thrilling minutes

I give thanks I chose 'series record' for the tennis so I could carry on watching yesterday afternoon's protracted but engrossing match when it crossed channels before the end. Oh, I do love a good shout at the TV... and I'm so grateful I managed to avoid seeing the final score as there's no point in shouting if you know what's going to happen next!

I give thanks for more cheap(er) frills from eBay...and that I can do ironing again as long as I don't have to stand up to do it! I give thanks I can buy clothes I like at prices I can afford without having to trawl charity shops or slave labour stores where they play music to slash your wrists to ...with internet shopping you can listen to music to have played to you when you're in a coma instead! Oh, I do love I can still dance as long as I don't have to stand up to do it!

I give thanks for some sleep and a selection of free thrilling dream sequences including...(ha ha, no I'm not going to share that one on here!)... including one where I went into the kitchen this morning and discovered what sounded like almighty thunder last night was actually a mighty chunk of the terrace wall collapsing and that much of the building was now architecturally al fresco but in a non-threatening dreamlike way.

I give thanks for cinnamon toast with honey and Earl Grey tea for breakfast in bed, hearing a ship's horn and being able to look on line and see which one was leaving port... And then being able to watch through binoculars (and less leaved trees) as it glided out through the channel. I give thanks for my ability to find and feel afresh the little possibilities for joy even on days like today when the hurting is mostly merciless and immobilising and I have to resort to lying on the sofa with Columbo...

Not having enough good stuff to do with my body is something I just have to grin or grimace and bear, but not having enough good stuff to do with my brain is the real happiness assassin. Cunning craft design, blog composing and conquering the complicated logistics of running a broken life still leave a lot of mental capacity hanging around synaptic clefts looking for trouble to get my head into. So I give thanks for an idea returning to me yesterday that I first had almost thirty years ago but had to shelve until the internet, domestic computing (and my access to it!) had evolved enough to try to use. I'm not saying more just now... It's just at a researching, discovery and maybe development stage, learning some new skills and relearning some old ones along the way, but I give thanks that's still giving me some enjoyable unenergetic things to for now and maybe some enjoyable things to think about doing in the future...because I do love that too whatever position I'm in!

Moroccan roll

I give thanks for being snug inside listening to the storm set in this evening. For a picnic tea lolling in front of the TV with hot veggie sausage rolls, crusty bread, salad and odds and ends. For thinking to record the tennis before spending the longest day out with the most walking about than I've done for a very long time. It was painfully slow and quickly painful, but I did it and am most grateful I did...and that I don't have to do much tomorrow!

I give thanks for being able to easily obtain essentials we'd gone out for, as well as a trip to one of the few towns I willingly go non essential shopping in - it's very small and has small independent shops where you can ask for or be offered a chair! For going into one of my favourites and pretty much getting the pretty paltry amount of Christmas shopping I need to get done all done. I give thanks for a moreish Moorish tapas lunch...and for takeaway cake for afters when we actually couldn't manage any more.

I give thanks for the leaves staying late on the trees this year as I missed so much of the early part of autumn. For friendship and laughter, and for Laura's kindly chauffeuring and baggage handling. For feeling I really am beginning to return to something a bit like life.

Stay in the distance

'Lethargy?' asks the renal doctor running through the list of symptoms I'm supposed to say yes to so they can tell me how ill I am. Lethargy? Oh, I wish! Maybe if I could manage more of that I wouldn't lie awake at night racked with pain, maybe when doing things hurts during the day I'd capitulate instead of wanting to conquer, and just sit contendedly still. Maybe I wouldn't get so frustrated and bored and mardy and cross... But no, I don't wish it really, I'm grateful for my steadfast resistance to in the box or towards the box medical thinking. And I give thanks when the young man popped next door to check with his boss the treatment plan I proposed was OK with her, she sent the message back she'd clocked me looking very well in the waiting room...

I give thanks for my post blood test feast of forbidden fruit (and veg!), for the excellent Inspector Borowski secreted in the recesses of Channel 4's Walter Presents - dark, but also very humorous. Managed to stay still for quite a bit of that, apart from knitting and typing, and getting up for cuppas and snacks. I give thanks to Jan and Liz for virtual chat to keep me company, and to Colin for suggesting something to think of on my own...in case I hadn't thought of it myself!

I give thanks for confirming I can still hear drums, a couple of times when there's been heavy morning rain pattering closer by I've thought I could detect the rhythm but they sound more...distant?...than they did before.  Better soundproofing perhaps...

I give thanks for watching the shafts of rain joining the clouds and sea, and randomly coming across a good tennis match. The ATP finals coverage on free-to-view TV has been rather erratic, and my signal was erratic this afternoon too but I managed to retune and tune out the neighbourly rumbles and get a little more non lethargic rest.

Sea me

Last night I was too sore for stillness or movement, too bored for a book or TV, too restless for sleep and too tired to do anything about it... one of those evenings I long for company and I have to remember to be grateful I don't have it because what company would I be? I gave thanks for the unseasonable mildness, for the unusual quietness of the neighbours, for my vivid imagination taking me down to the sea. I love the sea at night. You'd think you wouldn't see it, but somehow you do...and it sounds different, especially when it's quiet though that's probably because often other things are.

I give thanks for remembering wild camping with Rachel by a beach last year, and the very scary noisy seal. The quick chilly dip with Mima with everyone else without a wetsuit shivering on the shore. The painted water in the Bay of Biscay and the whale blowing bubbles beside me.

I give thanks for remembering a sea related something I've wanted to do for years, and whenever I remember I still haven't I wonder 'How hard can that actually be?' but somehow it stays just hard enough not to get done. Ah, it's good to have things I want to do that I still could do though...

I give thanks for thus in my mind escaping the here and now, which is not very mindful I know, but when you mind the here and now a lot is quite a helpful thing to do. I give thanks for writing my thoughts down while they were fresh in my head...for thinking of a title for this post and remembering the first time I saw the film Tommy. For remembering though I often feel a remarkably pointless piece of humanity, I write things down sometimes and sometimes people like to read them so, you know, I try...

I give thanks for sleep eventually enveloping me...and for my detailed memory and imagination standing me in good stead through a trying afternoon...and what seems to be building up to a difficult evening for some people within earshot too. Hmm...what shall I think of next?

Some sympathy and some taste

I give thanks sorting out some stuff about the place yesterday evening, reaching up and bending down and generally getting some useful, if not particularly enjoyable, exercise. I give thanks for finding a selection of oddments in fridge, freezer and cupboards to make a such an unexpectedly hearty meal I couldn't move for a while after eating it... For ready to eat poppadoms which are even yummier heated up!

I give thanks for finishing a saucy book and starting on a sad one. All life is here inside my head, between the printed pages. I give thanks for getting some stretches of sleep between the boring gnawing pain. For the golden horizon at dawn. For pancakes for my brunch...

I give thanks for mental exercise working on the next few days' logistical problems - how to get to several different local shops, the library and post office within appropriate time frames and with minimal walking, stairs and taxi fares. For managing to change the wrong lemons I picked up distractedly when life handed me something sweeter on Monday. For cabbing beyond the call of duty (and the fare!) from Nick when I was unable to pick up a parcel having left behind my phone with the code (especially when he want back the first time pretending I was still in the car he couldn't get the parcel either as the machine that takes the code had broken down!) I give thanks I was able to brighten his day in return anyway by introducing him to the Bryan Ferry version of Sympathy for the Devil, which somehow his fifty-five years of musical devotion had failed to find before. What's that - you haven't either? Please allow me to introduce you too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZlMilJs5NE

I give thanks that when he called to say he'd finally got it I spotted the Openreach engineer pulling out wires up the pole from my doorstep so when my internet went down a few minutes later and I could see the chap packing up the ladder I could shout out the window to please attend to the matter. I give thanks he did and the connection came back long enough to write most of this...though it's wandered off again now and he's wandered off for his tea. Gotta give thanks for smart phones eh?

I give thanks though I missed a rather far fetched target of being mobile enough to get to tomorrow's hospital appointment and back by feet and bus, I'm well enough not to need a hospital car. I admit I really had to dig deep for this gratitude because though it's wonderful there's such a thing as volunteer transport for those who don't have friends and family to oblige, I find it more soul destroying and dread filled being forced to to be driven by someone I'd rather not be with than the appointments I need it for. Nonetheless, I've been up and down those stairs three times today, and hobbled about indoors and out and am somehow still somewhat uprigh, so however fed up I might be with my limitations I'm exceedingly grateful they are undeniably diminishing.

A musement

I give thanks for Daryl's fish pie, and for Rachel's acupuncture, and for the exquisite camera work of Planet Earth II...I could so feel for those flamingos waking up stuck in the ice, and the bears shimmying their itches up against trees.

For falling asleep quickly and then waking up and mulling and musing away a couple of hours of discomfort...reflecting how the 'year of living differently' that seemed to be drifting into living deterioratingly, still seems to have some new experiences to savour.

For something in the whiteness of clouds and winter blueness of the sky this morning reminding me of the air above mountains. For managing to quash and squash my wanderlust which always tugs hardest when I see that through bare branches, and when even the bus stop is too far to go is almost too much to bear. I give thanks for doing some sciatica stretches instead.

For more musing and mulling and finally realising still having my earplugs was adding to the dreamy detachment as much as the usual culprits, taking them out and hearing the phone ring straight away. For the glorious weather meaning I could head off up the road in dressing gown and socks to stop the pharmacy delivery driver leaving the package outside the wrong house, and suffering only mild embarrassment not hypothermia in the process! For finding a courier package on my own doormat again too. Who knows if it's fairies or fair play from neighbours but I'm very grateful anyway...as I am to those thoughtful traders on eBay who keep sending me their second hand clothes!

Two thirty or not

Yesterday evening I was in an advanced state of hobble and moan, so I give thanks for the little miracle of getting into bed and all the pain just disappearing. The funny thing about pain disappearing, whatever the sort, is that you don't stop and wonder about its departure, you just get on being you and only realise in retrospect. I give thanks for remembering the me I am when I don't hurt...and surprising someone else.

I give thanks for turning the light out and dropping almost straight into deep and dreamy sleep. For waking sore enough to stay still but not unpleasantly, and lie there lazily mulling over the day's logistic challenges. For remembering my much altered dental appointment had finally landed at two thirty, and that they didn't! For wondering how to get there, whether I'd get to the Post Office too, and how I'd ever get to Waitrose as even if I got a cab I'd need someone to push a trolley round for me to hold on to...before the Universe interrupted and said 'No problem - I got this!'

I give thanks to Colin for his kindness and Colinness. For his patience...and mine! I give thanks restorative doses of Tesco's spinach and ricotta stoneground pizza, bought on a whim on special offer and so delicious I had to slice it and freeze it or I'd have polished it off in one sitting. For making the dentist and the folk in the Post Office laugh - the Post Office staff are a doddle, they're such friendly folk, but the dentist's been a tough nut to crack especially as I try to see him only twice a year...

I give thanks for the indescribable (and uncapturable) colours as darkness fell, like a sepia tone but lilac grey, with the deep orange of the leaves holding on to the last of the light the longest. I give thanks for dossing around on my bed waiting for Rachel to come with tea and acupuncture needles. All in all the kind of day if I'd been stuck in Punxsutawney I wouldn't have minded repeating...

Quiet warm

Oh my, how wonderful was that? A whole evening quiet enough to enjoy a film...and a night quiet enough to sleep without earplugs! Well, I say sleep, but I was much too sore to do that for a while...But I could listen to the owls, and finish a very enjoyable novel, set as novelly in North Devon so that characters kept popping off to Instow, Clovelly or Bideford which doesn't happen a lot in fiction I find. And I could reflect on how much better I'm beginning to feel, and that the pain relates to doing more active pursuits than just making a cup of tea or cleaning my teeth. Lots and lots of gratitude there...

I give thanks for trying to stay in bed today, as I know rest is still needed, but I get so bored and even if I try not to think about the things I'd love to do and can't possibly, there are so many others that I probably could with a bit of effort so it's a question of weighing up the potential effort for the potential reward (and potential painful punishment after!)

I've got one of those multi pocket hangers that went on the back of the front door last winter to hold hats and gloves and so on, and the hanger and hats and gloves have been living on the living room floor for days so I thought maybe that would be a place to start... There's a set of hooks that go over the top of the door, but they don't match the holes on the hanging pockets so opening the door and taking the hooks down to see if I can repeat last year's attachment with string seemed a good way to start the starting... And I'm so grateful I did as I realised why I kept thinking I was hearing people tap on my door as they go by - a parcel had appeared on my mat and it was my new bathroom heater!
I'd been trying to work out if it would be likely to have arrived at the Post Office tomorrow and whether it would be feasible to pick it up after I'd been to the dentist if so...and how to get it home after that. So one mental and physical conundrum saved and solved and much more gratitude for that...

And I give thanks for remembering what I forgot to give thanks for yesterday - discovering Mima was giving Trish some broken crockery today to make a mosaic with. I've been collecting some for a while for the same purpose, and though I hope I do try it one day, realistically it's not going to be just yet, and meanwhile someone else could be using it instead of it cluttering up a place I'm trying to keep in a state of maybe one day I'll move!

Row the boat

I give thanks at last last night's tantrums passed and I was able to stop having a quiet one of my own snivelling into my pasta and wishing my life away. I know there are worse things than having to listen to people shouting at each other, and I give thanks I know I'm lucky I have a ceiling over my head (for one thing it means the leaky roof is further from me!) but it makes me very sad and stressed all the same.

I give thanks for tucking my earplugs in tight and reading an enjoyable book as slowly as I could to make it last as long as it could. For taking them out after the pre-dawn squall of squabbles woke me to listen to the pouring rain. For it being warm enough to have my bedroom window open.

I give thanks for reading there's a new film out I want to see. Doesn't happen often, and I get to see them on the big screen even less so, but I like reading a review and thinking I'd like to...makes me feel less cut off from normal life.

I give thanks to Colin for distracting me from my troubles a bit, and to Mima for extracting me during the start of round three. For tea and teacakes at a sea view cafe watching a ship come in and sunset tint the sky and sea. I was pretty sore and stiff after yesterday and walking again was very painful, but she tried to drop me and pick me up as close as she could with the road closed for tomorrow's ceremony. I give thanks that due to not listening properly I waited at the wrong spot for a lift back for a few minutes, but if not for the mix up we'd have missed the hazy almost full moon shining through a bank of pink clouds above a bank of grey.

I give thanks for someone who wasn't making the noise apologising for the someone who was, which made me feel rather better about it as it's nice to know that people do think of how things affect me...He also suggested tonight might be quiet, and though I don't know and didn't like to ask why that might be the case, I shall attempt to watch a film from five years ago recorded on TV, which is how I usually get to see them, and which if I got to hear it too would be a bit of a treat.

All by myself

Considering how short the days are now they can seem remarkably long...and dark, no matter how sunny! Feeling rather teary and weary last night I gave thanks for the moonlight bright on the sea, for a new pair of delightfully snug fitting earplugs to create a more peaceful space. For forcing myself to get some supper despite lack of inspiration or enthusiasm. I gave thanks I try to find the joy...or I swear sometimes I'd lose it!

I gave thanks for an extra extra blanket to ward off the extra chill, a book to fill one sort of emptiness and an after midnight cookie for another.

I give thanks to Jenny for giving me a lift to town...and while in town, all by myself, collecting my new specs...and then walking to the Co-op to buy a loaf of bread and a pint of milk...and then round the corner to the Post Office to collect my mail before she picked me up from near there. If you know where I live you'll know these are not huge distances, but equally if you know how incapacitated I've been you'll know these wobbly totters were one huge step for womankind...and though supermarket shopping is quite high on my list of things I'd really rather not do, I was very very grateful!

I give thanks for thinking it would be nice to do something to celebrate my increasing independence tonight...and if I can think of something I could possibly enjoy all by myself listening to grumpy neighbours stomping about, I guess you'll hear about it tomorrow...

Night moves

I give thanks for QIXL making me helpless with laughter... and later, when one man and his dog in the room above my head didn't want to sleep when I did, and I felt like weeping, for remembering the earlier mood. The sofa's made up as a bed, but I didn't feel up to moving to see if the people in the room above that were quiet, and even if they were it's covered in stuff I didn't feel up to moving so I'm grateful I came up with the idea of listening to some soothing music. I give thanks there were headphones and a tablet to hand and that eventually I found a position where the broken charger lead would stay in and could drift off to the ten hour version of Weightless. I give thanks I woke up in pain an hour later though as the tablet was getting very hot under the covers!

I give thanks for creeping around making myself a cup of tea (do as you would be done by!), trying to work out ways I can get better quicker, and start the process of at least trying to move out of here. Other folk who've had sciatica have recommended improbable, impractical things like swimming, going to the gym...or, given my limitations, even seeing a physio, and I've seen exercises on line that my tummy would rather I didn't do just yet. But I thought about Monday, when for a while I was moving almost normally nimbly...and wondered what was different apart from the more pleasurable purposes for moving, and remembered in the not so small hours of its morning, when sleep had been 
so hard to sink into, finding a position that seemed to help...and maybe carried on helping. And I tried it again, and I think maybe it does...

I give thanks for getting a few bits of this and sorted, for watching the more sea appear as more leaves fall from the trees and for being reminded of this tune that always makes me smile - and no, it's not the Happy Mondays or Bob Seger!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnkjvECEQr4 

No news is

Not for the first time this year I give thanks I'm so used to dealing with difficult news and dire visions of the future. Everything's going horribly wrong and is bound to end badly? Yes, I know, so people have been telling me for some considerable time...but seeing the reactions on Facebook this morning just made me think of Nat King Cole...or was it Torvill and Dean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwXhI0I2iaM

Whatever it is...whether you heard it in packaged paragraphs on TV, or from a grim faced surgeon in some windowless hospital cell, or from the mouth of the lover you thought still wanted your kiss...whether you feel angry or hurt, or fearful or powerless...your thoughts and feelings are the one thing you do have power over, the one thing you can change...if you choose and are ready to do so. I give thanks we all know this really, however much we forget.

Anyway...I give thanks for eating the leftovers saved from last night's tea for last night's thirds...and then polishing off a portion of dessert! For lots of sleep and some enjoyable dreams, and managing to make two people smile across the ether before leaving my cosy bed for my morning cup of tea...

I give thanks for not leaving my cosy bed for much at all today. Best place to be with cold grey showers and what feels like an electrical storm going on in my leg! I give thanks for getting in the bath before the chill of sundown seeped through the flat, and for warming up the bathroom beforehand by means of an oil filled radiator and an extension lead. Health and safety might shake their heads but as long as you take it out before you start chucking water around there's no cause to worry...or so I thought, until concentrating on trying out a knitting stitch on the sofa I became aware of a hissy slightly buzzy noise that seemed to be getting louder. Wondering what domestic disaster was unfolding I made my way to the bathroom but my ear passed the flat door on the way and I realised it was coming from the stairs...and sounded remarkably like a steam cleaner or fancy pants vacuum making its way up the landings and flights. I don't know if this was anything to do with my most recent recorded delivery letter to the management company, or if some other service charge payer had been asking where the services are, or whether it's entirely coincidental after several months of no response at all...but the outcome is that for three consecutive days I've had three separate things I've chosen to grin from ear to ear about and I'm very grateful for that! I don't believe things can only get better, or that everything comes to those who wait...but what goes down does tend to come up again if you hang around a while :-)

Wishy washy

I give thanks for Rachel walking in last night and saying 'I can smell coffee!' People usually exclaim at the fragrance of incense but she's been here often enough and has a sensitive enough nose to detect something different in the air. I give thanks for a good treatment lying on my side draped over a long sausage of pillows and cushions - almost like cuddling someone in bed! And for a better night's sleep afterwards...

I give thanks for memories of yesterday's bright interval to see me through a drearier one today - volunteer transport to a particularly unwelcome hospital appointment. Waiting for the car I gave thanks for meeting a man measuring up for a broken window in the communal door I've been politely but persistently requesting be fixed for many months now... and later that autumn trees look good even in cloud, and though the company wasn't nearly so pleasurable at least we managed a mostly amicable mostly silence. 

I give thanks for a unusually friendly and helpful clerk in the office helping me with a puzzle over reimbursement - they're so reticent sometimes you get the impression your fares come out of your wages! I give thanks the vascular access team used the phrase 'if and when' more than once while perusing my difficultly dainty arteries...and that I didn't have to tell them where to go!

After a busy couple of days I give thanks for taking it easy this afternoon, dozing and dreaming and only doing the nicest and/or most necessary things like making pasta with mushrooms and leeks in cream cheese and pasta sauce...and ordering a new heater for my bathroom. Collecting packages and post is still very problematic but so is enjoying a leisurely evening bath in an unheated bathroom this time of year!

Scene there

I give thanks for a good catch up chat with Laura, I'm not a great fan of talking on the phone but once in a while with the right person in the right frame of mind... And I give thanks for finding out she was quite pleased I'd not accepted her offer of a trip out somewhere as she ended up waiting in all afternoon for a plumber! I give thanks for finding some bits for supper and wondering what chance there might be for finding something worth watching on TV just as the new David Attenborough series was starting. I thought it was a trailer at first so was pleased it was not, and that even though I don't get a strong enough Freeview signal for HD the picture quality was so good it was like having my outdoor starved eye balls massaged with scenery. I also realised compared to baby iguana and adult penguin my life is not so hard.

I give thanks for going to bed feeling mellow and relaxed and thus quite unprepared for the ensuing hours of excruciating pain. For my great inventiveness in coming up with new arrangements of limbs and pillows to support them, as each time I did there was a fleeting relieving...and for eventually falling into some snatches of sleep.

I give thanks for a trip out to take tea under a tree on a blanket in surprisingly warm sunshine, a drive down my favourite lane, at its most breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, and a shared tub of ice cream to sustain us for the journey home. Eyeballs and other parts not lately delighted being much pleasured along the way...thank you Mr C! Sorry...Dr C I should say...

Something and nothing

I give thanks for a mostly successful day of the dead slow... Not stop, you understand but stopping in between each something for some nothing -  sit down or even a lie down between each little bout of activity. It's boring, but less so than getting myself so sore by carrying on.

I also give thanks for someone so relatively aged and infirm I'm still pretty bendy and supple, but I must try to remember, for a little longer at least, that just because I can get into a particular position doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so. If I twist I may shout!

I give thanks for sleeping better last night. I give thanks for not being cold... but that I'm planning ahead and in incremental stages of wrestling have changed to autumn time on the goose down clock.

Um... What else? I give thanks I missed a call earlier asking if I'd like to go out somewhere, because I would have had to wrestle with refusing a treat and accepting a needed restful day...rumour has it I'm in for a treat tomorrow anyhow so by not doing something today there'll be nothing to stop me tomorrow (allegedly).

I give thanks I'm getting comfier in the bath... though I still need lots of practice, and a new heater soon for sure!

Crabby

I give thanks for being too sore tonight to care about not going to any bonfires or firework displays. I give thanks I'm not bothered even getting up to look out of the window seems too much of a chore! But I give thanks for getting on with a few chores in the day that clearly needed the use of muscle groups that have been lounging about for a while... And for smiling over Nick the cab driver's ideas for making a fake November 5th at home including buckets of ice water for my feet.

My appreciation and enthusiasm levels for most things are pretty low just now, but I give thanks I happily admit I'm wrong and QI is not unwatchable without Steven Fry. I give thanks for being able to laugh out loud without hugging my tummy.

I give thanks for an interesting dream about a hermit's 'open day' where they set up imitation caves and grottos in a shopping centre, offering sausage rolls and squash and answers to questions about the role.

I give thanks for watching the changing sky, the whispers of waves on the sea, and the late afternoon sunshine on the leaves. I give thanks I wrote this title and thought of ginger beer...could be a good sign or a bad one but the thought of the taste was nice.

500 milestones

I give thanks that every day now, in some small way, I'm passing milestones on the long road of recovery. Some are too trivial or personal to share, but each one gives me disproportionate joy and determination to reach the next one. I  give thanks today I passed one significant enough for others to truly grasp - booking taxis to town and back and spending the best part of an hour out without a paramedic or minder to make sure I was OK. I give thanks I was OK!

I give thanks for managing to dig a little deeper into the heap of clothing I thought would be organised as normal before the gritters came out for the season, and find a hat and some boots a little flatter than the new ones, so that it merely felt as if my flesh was being flayed with stinging nettles rather than actual electric shocks. For the sun coming out to join me...

I give thanks for getting to use my Specsavers 'golden ticket' before the expiry date by asking for a chair and mostly trying on frames from the lowest tiers. Somehow I shuffled it along beyond the lowest valid prices without noticing as I wasn't wearing my own glasses at the time... So I give thanks for loving myself and the new choice so much I just bought them anyway! The myopic among you will know if you think the ones you choose in soft focus are attractive you may be in for a shock when prescription clarity sets in but some times I can't find any I like even when I can't see them properly either!

I give thanks for spending a quiet and still morning partly to prepare for the challenges ahead, partly to keep my blood pressure within limits required for anaemia meds...and for that going successfully too. I give thanks for quite a lot of quietness and stillness since I got home as well, certainly more mellow than last night so far with neighbours rowing noisily and my bathroom heater breaking. 

I give thanks for winding my solitary skein of Skye into balls ready to turn into a hat for myself when other crafting commitments permit. I give thanks for coming to the moving but dreaded end of a beautifully crafted novel based on the life of the last woman to be executed in Iceland. And for Colin (a man with far better places to spend his time than between the pages of historical fiction) bizarrely knowing of the book as he'd been to the beach where the events took place almost two hundred years ago...

Dish of the day

I give thanks for the pretty colours in the sky after sundown yesterday evening...for the clear and starry night. For more sleep...still in dribs and drabs, but I feel a lot less drab for more of it, and more of it is indicative of the fact the pain is considerably less troublesome than it has been.

I give thanks for sticking to plan A for a restful recuperative day, resisting the temptation to tempt someone to take me out just yet when we both know it would be far more enjoyable when I'm a little bit less of a wimp. In the meantime I give thanks for being on a promise...for soup! Makes me feel warm inside already...

There's a lot not to be grateful about living this high up when moving around is still a problem...but a zoom on my camera, a well positioned sofa and reasonably recently cleaned windows means I can take a picture like this without having to get up from my comfy cosy seat, and I do give thanks for that!

I give thanks for some very tasty leftovers pasta for a late lunch today with roasted peppers, leeks, goat's cheese and pesto plus half my body weight in garlic...which probably should make us all very grateful I spent the day alone.

I give thanks for ordering the wool for Bob's new jumper. Last time I made him one, a couple of years ago, my knitting group chums were astonished I had an adult son who would willingly wear my knitwear. But then neither my son nor my knitwear are quite like anyone else's, and I give thanks for that as well!

Sleeping duties

I give thanks for a nap between blogging last night and tea. It felt as if I could do with at least half a dozen more, so after eating I abandoned a recorded film, a virtual conversation, a tank of hot water waiting for my bath and a bowlful of washing up I was half way through and played a trick on my body. I'd twigged I was beginning to dread going to bed to lie awake suffering, so I went and had a series of fully dressed naps instead - at least half a dozen, adding up to round about nine hours sleep, which even in pieces is a healthily restorative chunk to have!

I give thanks for scheduling domestic duties for today so I had to do little more than the chores I abandoned last night, prepare for a small excursion...and recover from the vast fatigue that followed it. I give thanks to Julie assisting me in not only going to the Post Office to pick up mail, but accompanying me in walking from there to a nearby cafe, where I walked from our table to the counter to order, and later to the loo and back, and then down the street a little and round the corner to another shop to make a purchase...after which I had to hug a lampost and park my bum on a seat outside Subway until she picked me up in the car again! I limp, and was so limp on my return that after she'd gone beyond the call of duty to carry my bags upstairs, and then go down them and back for a pharmacy delivery that arrived just after we had at the top, that I've had two more naps since. But hey, I'm very grateful for such signs of genuine progress.

I give thanks for a new pair of gorgeous black boots from Office I can currently only wear sitting down as though you and I and everyone else would describe them as flat, those tender places in my left leg can detect a tiny incline at the heel. And a fabulous rather retro second hand magenta wool mix coat that I could wear any time, any place, any where this winter that anyone could be persuaded to take me. Growing up ginger I was led to believe I couldn't wear pink. I give thanks I'm growing grey!

Karma housefly

I give thanks for the mild and hazy autumn sunshine. For helping a few frantic imprisoned flies outside to enjoy it. Well they say what goes around don't they?

I give thanks I'm feeling recovered enough to hate being kept from the great outdoors myself...and I give thanks I still harbour a vague belief I may recover enough for the pleasure of being there to outweigh the pain of getting there before I lose the plot entirely.

I give thanks to Rachel for turning my mattress in hopes that might alleviate some of the ghastly night time pain, and that though it didn't, the non-painful places were far more comfortable anyway. I give thanks for being awake enough to have grabbed a cuppa and the landline phone far earlier than seemed suitable after so little sleep...but just before a call from someone on the doorstep with medical supplies. For a big gap between this and going downstairs to let a cheery Tesco driver in with more groceries.

I give thanks for moving around inside the flat with increasing ease...and for increasingly lengthy periods of time. For never being too far from a chair or a bed or a sofa and for knowing sometimes I still have to stay still.