Desire

I give thanks my kidney problem doesn't stop me travelling about, despite the doctors' dire warnings. Fibromyalgia, on the other hand, would rather I stay still. If you'd seen me in the afternoon you might have thought there was nothing wrong with me... If  you'd seen me a few hours later you might have called an ambulance! So much pain in so many places! This has been my first experience of a budget chain hotel as well, and I give thanks I now know nights in white polyester (or whatever they make their bedding out of) really don't help a bit. Great showers though...and I would have given thanks for a lunchtime check out time if lounging around til lunchtime had been a good idea with the weather to out run.

So today a lack of sleep, an excess of soreness, the biting cold and the delays and dismays of a convoluted rail journey didn't make for a lot of gratitude. In fact I could have wept with frustration when I found myself in a carriage full of seats taken up with coats, luggage, lunches, papers etc and had to ask several times if a place was free before anyone would admit it was and make room. Of course I fully understand the desire to travel in relative comfort, space and solitude and that my lack of desirability as a close companion can work in my favour too when there's room beside me and I politely move my bag out of the way but others scuttle by. This particular train also had the surliest and most unwilling tea trolley staff I've ever encountered so I did give thanks when I finally managed to wrestle refreshment out of one.

I give thanks for all the different sorts of snow I've seen from indoors. My favourite was the one that wasn't falling, or lying on the ground, but adhering one one side of some tree trunks and branches just as if decorated from a spray can.

Feeling more and more glum the nearer I drew to home and all the gloominess of various prospects waiting, I heard my mother's unloving voice in my head telling me I only had myself to blame. But then I realised I had myself to be grateful to too...who else would have gone to so much trouble to bring me a little joy?