All along the watchtower

Nobody told me there'd be days like these...and I give thanks for that! I give thanks for all the opportunities for practising patience, and letting go of attachment to outcomes...and for finding little moments of pleasure in watching during all the potentially frustrating waiting around.

I give thanks for the light on the estuary and the river. For the lady in the first fabric shop I went to hunting high and low for the end of a roll I wanted a further snippet from and finally turning it up under a draped piece of something else being used as sun protection as the brightness streamed though the glass. This turned out to be particularly pleasing as the seemingly innocent detour on the way to the hospital set off a chain of delays in my schedule that meant I not only never got to the back up sewing shop, I never got a cup of tea all afternoon either! I give thanks, shrinking into myself among a crowd of smokers yelling into phones outside the station, another crowd further along burst into harmonious song...

I give thanks for the smell of fresh cut grass, for purple clumps of aubretia tumbling from nooks in stones and the crimson blossoms of a magnolia tree unfurling against a white wall. There's lots of blossom coming out now, and that's always lovely isn't it? Today I was delighted to see more tree buds opening too...they seem to have been so bare for so long it feels a great relief!