Lesson I thought

I give thanks I'm sure I'll give thanks one day for the lessons I'm learning now. I'll be sure and let you know when I do...if I live that long, I'm still blogging and you're still reading what I write!

I give thanks for the smell of rose nag champa. There's been a new box unopened on my chest of drawers for days and still the fragrance, though faint, is in the air.

I give thanks for the Interlink driver tooting his horn and hearing it from several floors up and the other side of the building so I could go and collect medical supplies. For some forms I've been waiting for being at the post office at last.

I give thanks for increasingly discovering I've a lot less to be grateful for than I thought. Of course I liked the illusions and delusions, that's the point of them afterall is it not? But on the whole I'd rather accept I'm stuck in several sorts of big dark hole and stop believing in any ways out.

Meanwhile I give thanks to Mima for whisking me off for a quick car cream tea with a view. Although this spot is not far away it's been a while since I've been there and the memory of then was quite poignantly appropriate today...as it the nostalgic tint.

Pail blue

I give thanks to you for reading this! I try to limit communication when I'm stressed and depressed as almost everything I hear seems to make the feelings worse...including and especially all the negativity I spout myself of course. But though solitude and silence can keep its spread in check, you can't use a bad time as an excuse to take time off from writing a daily gratitude blog now can you? I apologise for all grumbling and groaning sneaking in and give thanks I'm trying my best.

I give thanks the cheese and onion potato pie was a great success, well apart from the potassium content of course...but hey, a girl's gotta live as well as die! A blue mood is not conducive to cordon bleu cookery but I'm aware I've not been nourishing myself as well as I might over the last couple of weeks so I give thanks for making more effort today.

I give thanks for surviving an energetic session of bailing out during the downpour last night, and being so sleepy afterwards I dropped off mid mental complaint about neighbourhood sounds - so that cloud certainly did have a silver lining, didn't it?

I've been tired and sore today and utterly disinterested in trying to get anything done except trying to get myself better. I give thanks for my bath and my bed, Earl grey and earplugs and a good book - precious balm as ever. For fragrant bubbles and clean sheets. For realising just as it's my blog, and thus can be however I want it to be...likewise my puzzles can be too. In crossword world there are many conventions and rules, practices expected and frowned upon, but I've found some pleasure today in working on one that has a whole mixture of clues - straight and twisted definitions, general knowledge, cryptic wordplay and puns. I give thanks I'm quite aware (and really don't care) it's a pretty pointless things to do...

(Not) going for a song

I give thanks for coming up with an idea that got me quite motivated for a while last night. There's a concert I want to go to, in a place that's hard to get to by public transport (and impossible to get back from late at night) and it dawned on me I could stay somewhere nearby, and thereby get a little break, and get to hear the music I would so like to. It turned out there wasn't any accommodation to be had within sensible distance of the venue, but I did enjoy the feeling that I could do something I wanted ...even though it didn't last.

I give thanks for coming up with an idea for another place to enquire about how to stop going round in legal circles. Every organisation I've contacted so far has said to talk to one of the others (if they have responded at all) so there again a little bit of optimism for a little while...before being referred back to the place I first started! I give thanks for some free advice about what to do as I can't get free advice anyway... And I give thanks the one bit of free legal help I have been able to get seems to have resulted in a copy of the service charge accounts at last. Well, I certainly have a copy of the accounts...it could just be a coincidence that after two years of asking they arrived after a solicitor stepped in, of course, but I don't think so, do you?

I give thanks for a bit less pain today so I could stop watching my inboxes (and clogging up other people's) and go and watch Mima shopping instead! For a pot of tea and a slice of Battenburg to share... For the rain because the growing things need it...and it renews my commitment to make it stop raining indoors. For it seeming likely there might cheese and onion potato pie for my tea...I've certainly made some but I'm learning not to hold on to any assumptions for too long these days!

More fool me

I give thanks for acupuncture softening the blues a little, and for a suggestion of something I might enjoy joining in with later in the year. I know we just have to live in what we're experiencing now, not yearn for the past or long for the future, but when the present feels like something you wish you hadn't unwrapped there's no harm in imagining a situation in which you might feel different again. I think...maybe...don't quote me on that!

I give thanks for the pretty little puffy clouds yesterday, for pasta with homemade pesto for tea, the washing up done for me and so much homemade gooseberry fool I'm having some today as well! For rubbing arnica gel into Rachel's sore back, and remembering how much I used to love giving massages and reflexology.

For more of the same for myself today, plus Actipatches and low grade analgesics to soften the experience of a little sciatica retrospective that seems to be visited upon me. I'd been racking my brains for somewhere I could go or something I could do while I felt physically stronger...so I'm grateful I'd not come up with a plan that had to be set aside. Today's little product malfunction was easier to deal with at home anyway, and as I always feel rather slapped down by the universe when they happen I give thanks I was feeling downhearted anyway.

With so many intentions up in the air, or already crash landed, even taking things one day at a time seems over ambitious just now, and I give thanks for aiming for smaller increments, living hour by hour or, when I can manage it, moment by moment, trying to be mindful and meditate. There's been a lot of waiting to find out about stuff today...Will the recycling bins be emptied this time? Will I hear news about the roof, or where to get some legal advice that won't send expenditure through it? Will it ever stop raining in Eastbourne? See if you can guess the answers, eh? I give thanks for patience...and email communication as I'm still waiting to see if BT can sort out the billing mix up and am even more loath than usual to use the phone.

I think not

I give thanks for liberal doses of my favourite available drugs for home medication - books and TV to stop me thinking about things I'd rather not.

For a serious bout of thinking to double check I was applying all available wisdom and courage to trying to move home... And deciding I was, and just need to find a tad more serenity...

For thinking long and hard about how to forget myself and get some outdoors, some soul stirring place I could get to, some physical activity accessible to me...before remembering there was stuff to be done in town and, as I couldn't face the bus or a cab, carrying stuff to and fro would have to do for today. I give thanks my mind says that's not enough, though my body tends to disagree...

I give thanks for sitting on the seafront watching a man not in the first flush of youth take a kayak lesson. I've wanted to try kayaking for years and now understand it's probably a good thing I've not! For getting excited seeing you can now play table tennis on the seafront (something I used to very much enjoy) before realising I probably wouldn't be any good at it now...and certainly not without a partner!

I give thanks for spotting small pink and white striped convolvulus flowers blooming on a shorn grassy bank. To Ann for sending me a parcel of fresh reading material and little treats. I give thanks Rachel is coming to make my tea and give me some acupuncture tonight...I think a spot of nurturing might be good for me...

This sporting strife

I give thanks I went to the party...I met some nice people and ate some nice food (with some to bring home too!) though, as usually happens when I mingle in new circles, I came home feeling a bit of a failure, well a lot of a failure in fact. So I give thanks, when waking up sad about that this morning, I remembered the line about triumph and disaster in Rudyard Kipling's If, and finding the poem to read again. For reminding myself though they are the bits that show, material and social success aren't the only things that matter in the world and indeed, unseen, others may also believe they are not doing as well as they could or should.

I give thanks I turned down the opportunity to look round some local gardens. Being low is very tiring and my envy levels are already way too high!

I give thanks for trying a self help book though it didn't help at all. For realising what I most wanted of all wanted to do today (out of the small range of feasible possibilities I could come up with) was compose and create some music... and for filling in a few hours wandering round the internet trying to find some software to make that happen without a small orchestra in my employ. Though failing to find any way of playing so much as a single note, I give thanks for a fine idea...and that by the time I'd given up it was time to watch the afternoon's sporting strife instead. I give thanks for managing to coax the TV aerial into co-operation (most of the time) again, firing up the headphones in case the neighbours got too loud...and not needing them (yet).

I give thanks for an excellent Queen's singles final to distract me from my distresses, followed by catching up on probably the most eventful F1 race ever. I give thanks for proud parents watching, it always moves me knowing they're there and they care whatever the outcome, even though (or maybe because?) I've no idea what it's like to be a cherished adult child.

I give thanks for folk sharing pictures of the good things they've been doing, great places they have been...and espeially those who take the time to spare a kind word or two. I give thanks for a day off trying to make things better...and for quite a lot of it managing not to think about how bad they seem.

Best thing for it

I give thanks for the mercy of sleep. Whatever ails you in body or soul, if you can sleep you can escape for a while... Though your troubles might invade your dreams of course. I give thanks one of my dreams contained nothing obviously relevant to anything bothering me at all!

I give thanks for writing one more letter to one more organisation about one of the things that bothers me that should not be going on. I give thanks I can express myself...and that sometimes people listen...

I give thanks for still having HD tennis on my TV...and for rain pausing play here and there so I could knock up a batch of feta pastries and preen myself. I've not used the main oven much on my new cooker yet and am still in awe of the fact you can just close the door and it shuts! Such luxuries...there'll be a man coming round with a tower of Ferrero Rocher at this rate, just you wait and see!

I give thanks for wearing my posh frock. Well obviously it's not that posh because a) I'm wearing it and b) I made it... but as I made it last year for occasions of a slightly smart and summery nature and there haven't been any since then, it still feels nice to slip it on. Unfortunately I'm wearing it to go to a party, and although of course I'm grateful (if somewhat astonished) to be invited to one, going on my own to a gathering where I know virtually no one is not anywhere on any list of stuff I like to do. Oh well, I give thanks for working out some years ago that one good thing about my lack of social skills is it makes everyone else in the room feel they are in comparison full of grace and charm! So I perform a vital service really, don't I, in my discomfort and dismay? As well as providing pastries...

I give thanks I've a bottle of advocaat in the fridge from which to take a swig of Dutch courage!

Therapy?

I give thanks for a day off from trying to fix anything but myself! In the long run I'm still sure it's good trying to make my situation better...but when it takes a lot of effort and doesn't go well it can make it feel worse for a while. I could think of a few therapeutic things that would be fine and dandy for restoring my spirits but sadly they weren't available, so I give thanks for giving myself lots of what was to try and get a bit of happy back instead - snacks and snoozing and reading, tea and sympathy and congratulations. Congratulations? Well yeah, I might not have managed to achieve much in life but for that very reason I think it's laudable I keep trying, keep believing it's worth it, keep believing I'm worth it...no matter how ludicrous it may seem to everyone else!

I give thanks though down and world weary I feel pretty healthy all things considered. For no game changing phone calls or emails to send me into a nose dive or spin.

I give thanks for the TV box/aerial/signal also doing what it could to fix itself as best it could so I got to watch some tennis this afternoon..in proper job HD with pause, rewind and fast forward too! For some folk in Swansea having dinner parties at each other's houses and making me laugh a lot...

For the almost grey out of sea and sky while gust of wind blew and a shaft of sunlight shone...

So, that was the chasm of the day got through...now how to deal with the abyss of the evening? More of the same plus a bath I suppose don't you? I give thanks for the hug of hot water, for those little winsome wish bubbles still swirling around in my head...

A bit rocky

I give thanks my little dip took me out of myself... but it also took it out of me so I'm giving thanks I'd had a proper lunch yesterday as making tea was a task too far.  For one more scone for my supper instead. This girl can...but she pays a heavy price! You know what I think? I think I should have a lot more good bits in my life to build up my resilience...

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I give thanks for managing to stop fretting over the bad bits for bits of the night and get some stretches of sleep. For moving very slowly through the things I had to do and the things I felt I ought to do today, trying to be a good little human and behave in the way folk would prefer of me. For understanding even the best of us tend to fail at that as no matter how well we think we're putting ourselves in other people's shoes we can still only think with our own two feet...or other body parts!

I give thanks for this School of Life video about retelling our stories of our pasts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brpk26Oq4aE

I give thanks for all the times when I've thought better times were on the way. Maybe I was mistaken, maybe I was misled...but to have a bit of faith in the future can be a wonderful thing for a while, even when it's misplaced. Following a phone call a few minutes ago I'm teetering on believing something again...so I give thanks I know to enjoy it while I can while not getting too attached to the feeling. I give thanks I know that knowing what you need to do and actually succeeding are two very different things!

What a difference a couple of weeks makes eh? This time a fortnight ago it was all rockpools and optimism...Oh well...

It's not right

I give thanks for making fruit frogspawn. It was meant to be vegetarian jelly but it was sweet and cool and refreshing anyway so close enough will have to do.

I give thanks for hearing the garden birds singing and watching the greying dawn of the longest day.

For having the wits, even at my wits' end, to put in a long day of legal research and letter writing after yesterday's curveball news that the next step trying to get the roof fixed is to apply to the county court for a specific performance order. I give thanks I understand the law is on my side but still feel daunted and defeated before I even begin this process...which is the point of it I suppose. Even the most comfortable among us must have some vague awareness now that rich landlords can do pretty much whatever they like where poor tenants are concerned, and I can't help but suspect the lack of visible service charge accounts might concealing some skulduggery too. So, no matter what difficulties follow, including pretty much abandoning hope of making a sale and moving on I guess, I have to give thanks for having the chance to do something for team nobody.

I give thanks for taking advantage of a Eurosport offer earlier this year as my BBC channels have wandered off into the ether again just in time for what looks to be an interesting grass court season. It's happened before, and before BT pressured me into giving up my TV package under some seriously dodgy circumstances, so I can't blame them for it anyway... I give thanks for headphones to filter out some enthusiastic angle grinding nearby. And you can just slip them off for the pesky adverts too!

I give thanks my cut price copy Radar Keys work fine in disabled loos. It feels a bit criminal not to have bought the proper ones...but so does the price of those...

I give thanks for grudgingly agreeing to take my grumpiness down to the rapidly disappearing beach and meet Mima who thought it might be warm enough to swim late this afternoon despite my considered opinion it wasn't. For the big crashy splashy waves making our bottom halves so wet when we paddled we just had to anyway and for it being actually astonishingly warm both in and out of the water. For a 50p bag full of scones reduced at the bakers to go with a cup of tea...and a lift home after. For feeling I might sleep better tonight...or possibly even before then!

It's not fair

Oh gosh, I don't know...sometimes being grateful is so hard, isn't it? I give thanks for knowing those are the times when it's most important to try.

I give thanks for the warm sunny weather which on the whole suits me very well, though all the wide open windows mean I hear and smell I lot I'd rather not! I give thanks you can just wash and dry stuff overnight.  I give thanks dark glasses are the thing to wear as I've been rather tearful and am the world's worst liar I don't want people asking if I've hay fever or a summer cold.

I give thanks for realising there must be folk in the world who don't feel beset and beleagured most of the time... and, in trying to visualise such a state, recalling the precious moments now and then when I don't...

I have so many seemingly insurmountable and entangled problems requiring either attention, or patience while someone else decides whether they're worthy of theirs, sometimes I can't decide which to worry at next. It's very wearying so I give thanks I came up with a plan today to treat the situations like a fair, when you only have enough money for one ride must choose it and that's that. Unless any curveball news veers me off in another direction I'm only going to wrestle with one hassle a day, otherwise just bury myself in a book and pretend it isn't happening...or it is happening if it is not!

Today I had a great craving to walk in woods with the sunshine dappling down and I give thanks I could do it in my imagination as I couldn't think of any I could easily get myself to... I give thanks, feeling increasingly less physically feeble again, I did get myself outside once more however. It must be the post EPO high I get sometimes. Makes me want to do all kinds of things I can't, but I must try to build up my stamina in case one day I can...

I give thanks for the missing parcel arriving at last..and for the Tesco man giving me the best laugh I've had in a while - assuring me he was just outside my door, and then when I arrived just outside my door and he realised his mistake, reversing at top speed back up half the length of our potholey road

It'll be all right on delight

I give thanks for an episode of 'It was all right in the 70s' - classic bad TV making me laugh but also realise how little had really changed... apart from more people wishing it would maybe...

For remembering I have a box of fancy pants Turkish Delight - a sale price Valentine's selection bought by me for me because I'm worth it at a reduction! For remembering to put it in the fridge... to make up for nor being allowed the amount of ice-cream I'd prefer to eat in this weather...

For sticking to the plan and wearing a big bottomed bikini under my dress so I could flop on the sand for a little while here and there in between attempting to hunt down missing pills and parcels. A little while here and there is fine as I always feel rather self conscious and silly on the beach on my own when it's busy. For a paddle and wanting to swim. Equanimity may be the best way but on balance I'd rather have wanting than not wanting I think!

For the burst of belief and relief when another conversation suggests one more unsorted something will be soon...

For the scent of roses in the public flower beds, the firework shadows of the palms...

Bucket and sewing machine

I give thanks for the breathtaking changing pastels of the sea at sundown last night...the fragrance caress of clean sheets

I came across a story about a woman fighting cancer that kept coming back by ticking off what seemed to be rather ambitious experiences on a 'list for life' - I'm sure you know the kind of thing. I'm grateful there are people in the world who can do wonderful stuff - sick or well - but these feats are impossible to emulate for the great majority of life limiting illness sufferers no matter how adventurous their spirit or how far reaching their dreams, so bucket list tales do rankle a little. They're not really inspirational unless you already have an aspirational lifestyle with plenty of money, love, and luck. and as statistically you are far more likely to have poor health if you don't you may be less likely to fill your final months with activities like swimming with oceanic predators but trying to avoid loan sharks... Tsk, tsk...ranting again, I'm sorry. There are more nerves than the sciatic one feeling the pinch just now...

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that though the last few years have been less glossy magazine and more Big Issue and scrunched up tissues, I give thanks can see the little bits of glory in it here and there. For making another veggie pasta for lunch/tea and getting the washing up done and the kitchen cleared up afterwards. For electricity, mains water and the internet. For vacuuming just enough floor to cut out pieces of chambray to make some shorts. For knowing how to use a sewing machine and having one!

I give thanks for Mima taking me across the river in the still hot late afternoon sun to paddle on a different beach, sit in the sun and eat ice cream...followed by tea and cake at hers and a lift home. For a clock with 'Sea's the Day' on it. I'm partial to a pun and I've not seen that one before... and for one of the best planted and tended cottage garden style beds I've ever come across...

Feel good guys

I give thanks for cheering up yesterday evening with The Real Full Monty* making me laugh out loud and cry. The original movie did too with the sensitive but amusing way it showed men it was OK to have worries about physique or age or financial status, parenting skills, sexuality or sexiness...so such a great idea to raise awareness for men's cancers recreating the dance sequence with relative celebrities. I've always loved to watch Ashley Banjo build movement to music skills and bring out a confident stage presence in unlikely candidates...but to see him slightly vulnerable and shy about performing without his Diversity persona was also touching and a fitting finale, though Danny John-Jules is, was and always shall be legend! Anyway...check out your bits now and then chaps eh? And not just admiringly!

I give thanks for tracking down some more stoma friendly swimwear at bargain prices. Not stoma specific you understand - that tends to be both too big and too expensive for me. I would so love a holiday with some relaxing in the sun...or a home with outside space or nearer the beach...but I don't know how to make any of that happen right now. So I thought if I wore a cozzy under my clothes and took a little towel when I went into town on a nice day I could get an hour or two pretending here and there. I give thanks for cunning plans...even if they come to nothing it's good to feel you can conjure them up in the first place.

As even the nearest beach was a beach too far for me today, I give thanks for the communal gardens being not too communal this afternoon and spending an hour or so there. There's no facilities for a refreshing dip so I should give thanks for a neighbour's dog giving me big wet kisses and saliva soaked sticks and balls but I wasn't that grateful to be honest you know! I give thanks for getting the laundry done and the mattress turned...and for a siesta on the sofa...

I give thanks when I was home alone waiting to die I came across an ad for folk to write to prisoners on death row and thought it was something useful I could do for a little while...and that six years on Kostas and I are still nattering away! I give thanks for the thoughtful and supportive comments he makes when he senses my self esteem needs some boosting. Imagines it might be the other way round did you? Yep, me too!

*on ITV player

Someone else

Well, I managed to stay awake all day yesterday! I know...round of applause I think! I give thanks for this 5 parter really helping

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-trial-a-murder-in-the-family/on-demand/63974-001

...far too gripping to nod off or to mind having to lie still!!!

I give thanks for exchanging a few words with someone who is similarly pole-axed sometimes by an invisible condition. It's hard to understand if you're not...and hard to understand what it's like not to be if you are. I sometimes think there'd be a lot less suffering in this world if we all were better at imagining what it would be like to be other people...we would do more to try and make their lives better perhaps, even out some of the having and not having that cause their pain and sorrow...instead of satisfying ourselves with the thought that someone else should do something about it, or just dismissing everyone other than ourselves and our very nearest and dearest as unworthy or unimportant. Having been often (and still) confronted with 'Well it's OK for you to have a poor housing situation because you don't have the money to fix it (or to force the people who are supposed to to)...' the news at moment, and some of the unspeakable spin and comment is making me a bit ranty... I feel like maybe I should apologise, I feel like maybe I should not!

So... back to the job in hand! I give thanks for the first big mug of tea in bed in the morning...and the second, ha ha!

I give thanks for finally managing to wash my hair, get dressed and chop some veg for some pasta. For finally getting outside to deposit rubbish in receptacles and pick up those prescriptions and packages that hadn't gone awol somewhere along the line. For a shot of vitamin D from the sunshine, for a seat at the bus stop when the wait at the taxi rank proved too much. (Sadly this shop is not in quite the right place!)

For not knowing how to make it up the hill and then pretending someone had tenderly tied a big red ribbon round my middle and was gently reeling me in. Must've worked...I'm here aren't I? Sadly I don't think pretending someone else is making my tea is going to be so successful... I must away to the kitchen and attack the leftovers before I fall asleep again!

Compassion and fatigue

No news is good news at the moment it seems. I try not to pay attention what the media tells you to (let alone what it keeps under wraps) but sometimes it's hard not to, isnt it? I give thanks for all the people trying to do good in the world especially, selfishly, the people who try now and then to do good to me, sending me a message or a photo to make me smile. I give thanks I do what I can too, keeping a public journal to remind us all to be grateful, making puzzles to take our minds off woes.

I give thanks for some better news in my personal life including the bin men coming for the missed recycling at last. We only realise how much we rely on public services when they fail don't we? For finding out the lady who did look at and like my flat but didn't buy has been diagnosed with a chronic fatigue illness and didn't think it would be suitable. Well, I can empathise with that - it's not! For deciding to drop the price a little just in case it helps bring the punters in. I get exasperated when folk don't try to help themselves and give thanks I keep on plugging away as best I can. For finding out the Council's solicitor has agreed to write to the management company not providing service charge accounts, as they have been ignoring my requests and flouting the law for a long time now. Sometimes helping yourself is about asking someone else to join in...

I give thanks the docs are planning to increase my dosage of the superdrug to try to get my anaemia under control. It might help me to feel more emotionally strong if I didn't feel so physically feeble. For feeling reasonably confident I should be able to summon the energy/enthusiasm to get to the pharmacy to collect my epipen...maybe even tomorrow! Of course I would have to get dressed first, a process I've been too exhausted to contemplate the last couple of days. It cracks me up when I'm doing OK and out and about and you can see people question my disabled 'privileges'. The days when you don't see me are the ones I get them for. Meanwhile...maybe a Higgedy spinach and something pie? It's not that sort of anaemia but it's a quick and tasty snack...nowt wrong with my appetite!

I give thanks for these creative school interpretations of classical music pieces - very amusing and heartwarming
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04pc0j8

Ask Alanis

I give thanks one of the things that got cancelled yesterday was my appointment to view someone else's flat this morning. Don't know if it's ironic...you'd have to ask Alanis about that... but I was tired and sore in body and spirit so did appreciate an extra lie in instead.

I give thanks neither nice lying man nor not so nice tell it straight(er) woman rang in the end - it gave me a full two and a half hours to sit about feeling sorry for myself! For the clearly much needed practice in handling disappointment... I'm OK with not being able to have what I want if it's clear I can't from the beginning...it's when I'm told I can and then find out I can't I struggle. Unresolved childhood trust issues I'm sure...if you had my childhood you'd understand, trust me! I give thanks I still have faith and belief in people and systems even if it's sometimes misplaced and takes a while to build up again after a blow.

I give thanks for my bath water and duvet giving me much needed hug substitutes. For the sweet talk of the biscuit tin, earplugs to turn down the neighbours, a novel to turn down my head.

For finally getting moving late this morning, sorting out laundry and household chores, composing one more plea to the council to empty the recycling bins, one more request to BT for I'm not quite sure what - divine intervention? -  before pain levels and snooze control meant I had to go back to bed for the afternoon. I give thanks prescriptions needing picking up in town weren't urgently required...and not being able to make it to a support group for people with long term health conditions is probably what Alanis said too.

I'm still giving thanks for my happy happy hours going on the water and sitting on the beach yesterday despite the pain and fatigue.  When you're poor, sick, lame and not precious to anyone making sure you get access to pleasure is always going to be a struggle. That's just a fact of life...and if you want one that's what you have to do. I have to confess, though, I do deeply resent all aches and exhaustion caused by extra cleaning for people who say they want to come and see my flat and then don't. Especially vacuuming - sciatica and suction machines are best kept far apart and getting me use one when I don't need to seems unecessarily unkind to me!

Killing time

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam as humans sure do drive me wild sometimes! I give thanks there are gun laws in this country or I could see myself running amok with one one day...

I give thanks for Rachel coming to eat tea and stick needles in me...that was a good bit...and for waking up feeling positive about at least some of the things going on/not going on in my life...before a couple of phone calls from the universe to remind me trust is a treacherous place to be...

I give thanks Plan A had been to go out and stay out between a dental appointment late this morning and someone coming to view later this afternoon to avoid the knee strain of slogging up and down the hill, or purse strain and nerve strain of cabs. One of the drivers puts 'my love' so many times in a sentence I do wonder if it's a form of Tourette's...but it's one of my hates for sure! Unfortunately the mildly exasperating first call and downright hair pulling second one left me with not quite enough time to do all I needed to do before I left but I give thanks for doing the best I could, leaving the flat spruce even if with only half my lunch and no towel...

I give thanks for my new dentist being much nicer than his surly predecessor and his generic appellation (sounds like a folk dance but you know what I mean) being 'mate'! For some soothing banter with the takeaway tea people, and the soft sea sounds giving me a kind of internal Indian head massage.

I give thanks for the sunshine, for three swans flying like a Chinese painting of cranes. For the supine seal on the sandbank soaking up the rays. For walking further than I thought I could (should?) to find a little space and also to keep an eye on the kite surfer fast becoming a spec on the horizon in case the coastguard was required. He wasn't...he was just a very good kite surfer!

I give thanks for the two guys who turned up at the bus stop and helped me turn a conversation round with a woman who really wanted me to join in moaning about cancer, especially terminal cancer...or if I really couldn't manage that maybe dementia, the pointlessness of faith or perhaps how terrible the summer traffic was. I'm sorry I was so frustrating for her to talkn to but I was so grateful for their distraction.

I give thanks for refusing to check my internet for any more sweet little lies while I was out...so it was when I got home I found the email cancelling the viewing instead! I give thanks for carrying on believing the man who said he'd call today and that everything would be OK with my phone line woes had been the one telling the truth... not the lady who phoned this morning and said he hadn't...until he didn't. I now have to wait and see if she calls me back to confirm everyone else has been lying for the last six weeks, including the people who wrote the booklet I have beside me, and if I have, as it seems, been expensively and extensively duped by those providing a so called social tarriff.

Then if no one minds I'm not going to talk to anyone else but have a little cry in the bath because I'm completely out of awesome for now...

Better late than

You might think because I don't go out to work I don't get that Monday morning feeling. Well, I do, because I have to get back to work at waiting for people who are to do their jobs. I give thanks for failing to list the people/organisations who are failing to do this as far as I'm concerned at the moment because it is a gratitude blog after all. I give thanks for remembering all the times my eyes have crossed in boredom listening to other people rant about protracted power struggle or performance problems...and vowing not to do it in face to face life either! I give thanks for my patience...and remembering other people have their own difficulties to deal with...even the ones we wish would deal with ours!

I give thanks to Jenny for giving me a lift to the library and catching up with some of the ladies there, including Sue who gave me the remains of a gorgeously coloured ball of wool she never wanted to see again as she'd found it so hard to knit with. It doesn't look that hard to me but Sue came to knitting late in life so it's probably like me and driving. Can be done but not without tearing of hair, gnashing of teeth and palpitations...which are, of course, much safer in an easy chair than on a busy road.

I give thanks for seeing a couple of flats on line worth a look and booking appointments to look...

For trying one more pleasantly upbeat enquiry to a certain telephone company that has a very poorly publicised reduced price service for those on reduced means...and seem (from my extensive experience of trying) to make it as tricky as possible to get it on one's line. I give thanks for thinking at the time of writing that this will all be sorted in a couple of days (more)

I give thanks for Nadal commenting on winning the French Open a dozen years after the first time 'I thought I'd have been on my fishing boat by now'. For thinking of myself in 2005 and how differently I imagined my future might pan out. Regrets? Well, yeah a few...I've been grandly slammed by life in the interim but consider myself a champion several times over in spite of...or probably more likely because of. Heck, I can even end a sentence with a preposition and feel no guilt at all!

Fine tuning

I give thanks for the light bulb moment when I realised surplus cheap and rather horrid hair elastics would make cheap and excellent knitting needle organisers. I got a huge bag for a pound some years ago and still have lots to spare...

For a deep hot bath and a mug of Horlicks to warm me on a less than cosy night...and ending the day in better fettle and humour than I began it.

For making it to the bus stop and back today...with, of course, two scenic bus rides in between. For this proud little roadside poppy enchanting me during a blustery wait...

For picking up some cheap and cheerful sandals I'd already tried in the wrong size and decided to risk ordering in what I hoped might be the right one, especially as online they were also a fiver cheaper! As I was on not the highest end high street in the country I also got a pretty mug, a mug full of tea and a packet of Tunnock's wafers and still had loads of change from £15. I give thanks for spending some of that on an addition to a busker's hat. He was playing foot tappingly good fiddle with some lovely Celtic grace note twiddles to an almost empty street and I went out of my way especially to reward him.

For there being something new starting on TV that looks worth a look this evening. No...not the same thing every hetero female in the country seems to be getting all of a flutter about - doesn't do anything for me at all!

Back in touch

Um, ho hum...bit of a struggle to stay grateful today...so, well...I'm grateful that I try! I've not been especially delighted to be re-acquainted with the path of my sciatic nerve...nor to be lacking in sociable acquaintances to take my mind off the associated discomfort and confinement but I have been grateful it's a path not a multi lane motorway of pain, and not a gorgeous summer's day making me feel extra lonesome and locked in... For it being the kind of rain that doesn't need emptying indoors!

I give thanks for working on some crosswords, and some stitchery witchery trying to mend and make fit a reduced price summery top I actually bought in a shop... It's not finished yet, but hey, no rush it seems...

For realising, after fretting a little that people would be upset whichever way the election went, that it seems as if most sides feel as if they've won...

For the human neighbours being quiet...and some of the noisiest flies I've ever encountered being persuaded to buzz off

For some interesting documentaries and Jan taking taking the time to have a bit of virtual chat and keep me in touch with the world outside my head...

Don't go over board

Heavens I've been tired and sore today! I am clearly very out of practice at holidays so must take a lot more as soon as I can... I give thanks for coming to this conclusion!

I give thanks for the tasks most requiring attention being more cerebral than physical, and the unavoidable physical ones, like getting meds and veg, taking place in actual sunshine! I give thanks for a taxi arriving on the rank eventually to bring me home...and when I eventually faced up to opening letters from hospitals (always scary) they had no bad news inside...

I give thanks for the sale board reinstated in a better spot and another viewing arranged for next week. For taking time out from trying to get the management company here to manage, or support systems to support, and working on trying to get a major telecommunications company to communicate instead...For having some good tennis to watch while waiting!

I give thanks for remembering not to take the disappointments and delays too personally, nor to excessively comfort eat... For finding this picture on my phone of a back gate to the beach with its don't go over boards...

What comes around

Well it was a very short holiday but we packed a lot of my favourite things in like stunning scenery, good company, tasty food and being driven to places not easily reached without a vehicle. I give thanks for all of the above...to Mima for taking me and for my legs taking me where she couldn't!

For leaving the county for the first time in many months...for the changing light and changing shipping in the bay, the relative clemency of the weather and the kind welcoming of Mima's relatives (and the lush homes they were staying in). For the swallows's nest under the eaves and deer foraging on the garden shrubs at twilight...

It's exactly six years since I started this blog, and five since I first wondered if I should stop as circumstances evolved, which I have several times since then...

I give thanks for people reminding me of its true purpose which was not to be a cancer journey journal but a reminder to me in producing it, and to anyone who reads it as and when, to find and take pleasure in the little treasures of each day. It is a precious thing to learn to do this in a world where the prevailing spin is often not so good. I give thanks I began...and have decided to keep on keeping on despite the fact my original reason has changed and many of my original readers have been lost along the way one way or another. I give thanks for finally understanding it doesn't matter why or what or who or when...the important thing is that it's here!

The weather man

Everywhere you go you take the weather with you... plus any baggage you may have of physical ailments and mental anguish. I give thanks I know that... But oh my goodness how grateful I am to be getting away a little way for a tiny break from the daily routine lately of seemingly endless struggles to get anything done. I was in tears of desperation last night about all the frustration and fobbing off so, as I can't seem to fix anything outside of myself just now I give thanks for the chance to recharge my batteries ready for the next round on my return.

I'm starting writing this early in the morning as internet access will be limited. And for once I give thanks for that as I won't have to keep checking for messages not arrived or deal with unexpected twists and turns when they do. Hmm...  so what else can I find to say? I give thanks for the 'finest' convenience food tea last night and a gorgeous (bargain price of course!) Uniqlo summer dress unpacked from ebay afterwards. Obviously I won't be wearing it for the foreseeable future (I'm taking a hat and a hot water bottle for this trip) but I will one day... oh yes!

I give thanks for happy wetsuited windsurfers enjoying the current meteorological conditions. For one of them making me laugh in the bath this morning without even being in the building. There's no such thing as bad weather you know...just inappropriate attitude...

Chocolate teapot

I give thanks my electricity didn't fail last night despite flickering on and off for a while.

I give thanks I managed to stand up to the wind today, though it was wobbling me about for a bit... For resolving to eat more cake and buying a brownie (after my blood tests of course!) but it was such a disappointment I had to put half of it in the bin...  For finding a posh chocolate shop has set up in town over the last few and buying some of that instead!

I give thanks for being reminded the Citizens' Advice Bureau, for all their sterling work, is also a citizen's advice bureau in that they have no more information at their disposal than any citizen could find if capable of a thorough rummage through the internet. Expert advice or assistance is, of course, for citizens with money not for poor folk being misused by same. I give thanks for not giving up...for having as many bucketfuls of resilience and resourcefulness as rainwater...

I give thanks to Mr Tesco for cooking my tea tonight...if only he could have stayed for the vacuuming as well! Sometimes being wonderful just wears you out...even with the full quota of working body parts I've heard...

I give thanks, all being well, Mima is helping me escape tomorrow. Feel the need for some fun in the sun...but in the meantime, hopefully, I can have a day's worth in the wind and the rain!

French letters

I give thanks for my bed, a mug of redbush tea and a good book when I'm bad at sleeping.

I give thanks for not sleeping all day as there was much correspondence still to be attended to about repair and mis-management issues here...and many buckets of rainwater to be emptied.

For the joints being in better humour than over the last few days so I could get on with domestic chores and sewing alterations

For some enjoyable tennis at Roland Garros to watch in between

That I spilled frozen fruit on my clean floor...because I could just pick it up and carry on using it of course!

Reliant cat

I give thanks I know it's best not to rely on anything in life...but I still need reminding as every so often I find I've gone and done it, duh! I was feeling a bit lost and lonesome last night, my joints were hurting, there was nothing I could do that I wanted to and I was so bored with the things I could. I realised it had been several days since I'd spoken to anything other than a cat and it felt as if I could really do with someone to cheer me up. And I was grateful I knew not to expect anyone to, or even hope they would...and came up with the idea of watching some Red Dwarf for a bit of a chuckle intead....but, I don't know, for some reason I didn't find a plot line about dying without a kidney transplant tickled the funny bones at all...

I give thanks for watching the folk downstairs and their friends playing sort of cricket outside in the gardens...that looked fun and did make me laugh.

For finding this link about loneliness which made me feel worse

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/5a5db873-bc83-4159-9006-57a4d689f902

and this about gratitude which made me feel better

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/d5afc70b-cc3f-4321-960c-d11f68f24c88

For remembering to be grateful for sheets (I'm reading a book set in Ireland a long time ago where straw and a blanket were the thing) and later for modern urological technology - when it functions as it should. Sometimes you don't know what you've got til it proves unreliable!

Today it seemed as if doing nothing at all might be the best plan so I give thanks to Mima for luring me out with the promise of cake...and cleaning! Though the cleaning part turned out to be truer than the cake...I give thanks for a lift from door to door to door anyway, getting rid of some bulky recycling and tea and conversation. For the changing light in sea and sky as bands of rain passed over.

Some attachments

Why don't Buddists vacuum in corners? Because they have no attachments of course! I give thanks I've not vacuumed anywhere today actually...

I give thanks for making dhal for tea this morning, pasta with roasted veg, feta and sundried tomato pesto at lunchtime for lunch and a batch of unfortunately irresistible flapjacks in between. I would have made someone a wonderful...  Haha, oh no, I wouldn't...not unless they worked on an oil rig or something and were only around some of the time!

Um, what else? Well the clouds were pretty last night...little puffs of peach turning pink against the streaky stormy grey. I didn't get a picture, only of the retreating rain beforehand, but I give thanks for that, for Come Dine With Me making me laugh...and for finally battling my way into that cunningly and tightly sealed package. For the iron inside being as good as you might expect for £4, if not slightly better! My bank balance was too light this week to buy a proper one, but proper ones are too heavy for my weedy wrists anyway, so no need to fret about that.

I know some people are surprised I still iron at all, but when you've hand made beautiful cotton bedding, it's much better to use it smooth... and I'm mid-alteration of a Monsoon silk top (second hand off ebay of course) that I've loved for two years but never worn because it is silly too big, and that needs a bit of a press on the new seams. I give thanks for my cunning stunts with pins and needles and sewing machines...

So...I'm a chef in the kitchen, a seamstress in the living room...in what other rooms do I shine? Ahem...well I'm pretty damn good in the office too! In between cooking, and laundering I've been gathering documentation from all manner of devices and converting to attachable formats to send to a chap in housing who may be able to help with the long running sagas of non management here. I give thanks for my perseverance.

And talking of long running sagas and perseverance, I realise I've been writing this blog for a few days shy of SIX years. I give thanks for being f-f-fantastically awesome too!

Heaps

Standing in the rain, in pain, waiting for a late bus by the side of a busy road it's easy to feel as if you're at the bottom of the heap... so I give thanks there's always at least one passenger to make you think 'Heck no, a long way go yet!' Though that probably isn't kind, I know...

I give thanks for all the people out and about who seemed to be enjoying themselves including the little boy with a scoop of ice cream almost as big as his head!

I give thanks I've a mac, comfy shoes and a zip up shopping bag that water runs off. I give thanks though it's frustrating when things break and I can't fix them that I have the money to buy (astonishingly cheap) replacements and (just about) the physical wherewithal to go and pick them up. I give thanks that instead of presenting the two items in two almost impossibly large and unwieldy boxes like they did last time, they had crammed them into one, slightly unwieldy and slightly too heavy package instead. I give thanks for getting some other bits I needed/wanted without too much hassle and bother, including what looks and smells like a good loaf of bread but which I've not had the energy to cut a slice from since my return.

I give thanks for this lovely little wildflower bank at the end of the terrace where once there was just a heap of rubble and rubbish. For pausing a moment, putting down the big box and bulging shopping bag and just standing watching flowers in the rain...

x

Snow good

I give thanks for a much needed nap on the sofa, which woke me up enough to do the evening stuff...and then a good long late sleep with a lovely dream about living in my (so far) dream flat, walking on the beach (which would be very close by) and then having a nap and waking to see snow on the roof tops (which would also be very near). Ah well...dreams do sometimes come true and I give thanks for a happy week or so believing that one might do, but it's been snapped up by some other happy shopper now. I give thanks there's no one around to see how gutted I really am about this...

It's so easy to think your life will be better when...if...and in the meantime your life goes on...until it doesn't! I give thanks for thinking about how lucky I am to know that, to know to make the best of things...for typing it and then hearing from the estate agent that the viewer of my place was interested enough to be asking about running costs. Live in the moment but don't give up on the next one being better eh?

I give thanks for more travellers' tales and photos, and dealing with the envy by thinking 'Well, I've neither the money nor the energy to go anywhere today but I shall emulate the holiday experience by not trying to run the world from my laptop or run around being a domestic goddess...' Sometimes physically doing stuff is a huge challenge for me...and sometimes not doing stuff is a huge mental one but with pain levels high and spirit levels low I give thanks for trying not to put myself under any pressure to succeed or achieve today.

I give thanks for all the folk (myself included) who realise I might seem to be weak, but actually am exceptionally strong. For having me to provide cups of tea, kindness and sympathy. For the sunshine drying my sea green towels by the window instead of browning my skin by the sea... For looking out the other side and seeing a rusting car taking root there had been removed.

I give thanks for playing with working out clues for my next crossword. Once in a while I come up with one I find particularly pleasing in its simplicity...and today's is: Airline 100 club (5)