Vision on

I'm grateful for my new spectacle frames in which I fancy I look rather good...but especially for the new lenses through which I see rather better which is brilliant (and may even mean the first statement is true, ha ha!)

For being summoned off the street to stop for a chat by idling shopkeeper therapists having a quiet day yesterday...

For Rachel for her therapeutic treatment and conversation even though she wasn't having a quiet one herself.

For charity shop books at bedtime...a novel in a style I enjoy and one with women talking about their relationships with girlfriends, partners, families and so on. These are deep unknowable mysteries to me so it's informative rather than affirming but I thought I might be less infuriating to females I know if I studied the subject a bit.

That it's rather cool and cloudy today as I'm whacked after going out yesterday and need to rest...it's also rather dark so I might just have to abandon sedentary creativity for a while and watch TV. Fine by me...

Oooh yes, and get this...I JUST TIED MY HAIR BACK!

Plenty of fish

OK, first thanks of the day is for my tea last last night...it rocked! Cheese on toast and a big salad of sprouts and leaves with black olives, red pepper, celery, butter beans etc etc... dressing made with left over oil from some sundried tomatoes and a LOT of garlic.

I'm grateful for the dainty pattern of the water stream just as it leaves my bathroom sink tap. It's like a faceted crystal...

For a trouser button moving session. Inwards not out. It's just as tiresome whichever way but psychologically more pleasing!

That I'll get to pick up my new glasses later. I'm looking forward to seeing them and even more to seeing out of them. It's sun and showers here so I can try both pairs!

I'm grateful to talk to delightful doctor Beccy who informs me GFR has dropped on new meds and creatinine levels climbed but this we all knew was likely, and to be honest I can feel. It's within reasonable limits though to carry on for the aspired to long term benefits and I'm still in the stage above the danger zone. She's OK'd self medicating for arthritis too so watch out little fishes everywhere...

I could do better than that!

You know I've been thinking and I've decided it's carrying the good weather round that makes me so tired! I'm in an advance state of creaky today and give humungous thanks that, although I have stuff to do of course none of it's pressing except the ironing...and that's a joke before someone tells me I don't have to!

I shared some of the sights that pleased me yesterday but the enduring memory of a feeling that lingers is the wind in my hair on the boat. Anyone who tries to keep their hair tidy will think this is mad...actually, probably anyone who hasn't been unintentionally bald for over a year. So you'll have to just smile indulgently and accept...to me it feels fab!

I'm grateful for discovering that something I thought was partly someone else's mistake, was really totally mine. For discovering this before I said anything to put them/me on the spot. I don't mind being wrong...but I don't like telling other people they are when they're not. It's so easy to get all self righteous and smug (bad enough!) but then you have further to fall to pillock level after, don't you?

I give thanks for strawberries and Elmlea for afternoon tea...and for finishing the first chair pad and a bibbity bobbity fringe for the scarf I made earlier, inspired by (though not exactly following) some of the patterns in my new books. Yes, in the image the seat cushion does look a bit as if someone had an accident...but it was an experiment on the otherwise plain reverse of the print side and in real life looks much better. Obviously the scarf would go nicely with a bibbity bobbity hat...readers of a certain age and musical disposition will understand perfectly, I'm sure! Even the title of the post...

Final destination

Well, today I thought I'd take myself out somewhere for lunch to try to lift my spirits... a change of scene, a change of headland... The motivation was there but not the mobilisation, if you catch my drift and though the taxi, the train, the bus and the boat were fine, the waiting and walking in between exhausting. The bus didn't stop where I thought it did, nor the boat set off where it used to and by the time I got to my final destination, I practically needed air sea rescue to bring me home! Never mind, I give thanks I tried and, as I'd been hankering after a recuperative break somewherel I'm grateful (I guess) to realise I'm really not well enough. Not completely delighted though, you understand...but I've been thinking maybe another time I could go somewhere for a trip out if there was just one vehicle involved...or two that were closely connected. Or take a trolley with a picnic down to beach here and pretend I'm on holiday. When I've recovered from this appetite attempt...which may take some time...

Anyway there were some things I saw that made me smile...

All the tourists enjoying the sunshine, everywhere bustling and busy. (I prefer quiet and empty myself but the economy needs the bustle and the tourists need the sun!)...Lots of couples holding hands, some young but many older...Swifts swooping round the bus top...

And my favourites of the day...

A dog with tail up and nose down on the scent of the shopping bag being carried by someone just in front and a chubby boy chasing empty crisp packet down the beach...

Sand and deliver

I fell very sound asleep last night, was very wide awake in the night and then slept soundly again til late-ish in the morning. Wonder if that's why I keep thinking it's Tuesday! Whatever the day I give thanks for...

The feeling of getting dirty and then getting clean again (this is a diy ref...nothing to do with sex or drugs!)

That sanding without covering your head makes your extra soft and shiny when you wash it!

That finally, today, I painted the last few feet of skirting in the flat. Yay!

Seeing the evening sunlight on the trees outside my living room window, and the unexpected places clouds may turn pink or orange as it sets...not necessarily anywhere near where it sets. This was taken facing north...



A large white seagull feather slowly spiralling down...

Giving up on Radio 4 exasperated by the politics...and finding the nostalgic Cocteau Twins on 6 Music. Fave tunes of once yummy mummies with flowing hair...

Oh yeah, and get this: 'Stan, it's my liver!'According to the laugh aloud book of Mondegreens I was dipping into whilst dipping in the bath yesterday this was what someone thought Adam Ant was singing...

Any driven Sunday

Not very chatty today. Hope you're all feeling fine and dandy and that fine and dandy are enjoying the attention so to speak! I hope that the Truro Race for Life went well and that Pat feels very proud of herself for having done it (if she has, of course...I know no more than you!). I give thanks for all the people who did anyway...all amateur fundraisers everywhere.

I give thanks for, if not exactly keeping the proverbial pecker up, at least getting it back again from half mast earlier and for remembering that even though it makes me sad I don't get to spend as much time as I like with people I love...at least I don't have to be with many I don't!

For the sound of a steam train special chuntering along the railway not far away and blowing its whistle. For a bit more diy work under and around the bedroom window. What I did yesterday made me very tired and probably didn't enhance my mood so I scaled things down today but have still made a little progress. It's good to make yourself busy and useful especially when you feel you are not. For a few words strung together. Oh and for the very pleasant weather. I give thanks for people going out and about and the traders getting some trade.

For what I have received

A good meditate last night...
Funny dreams afterwards...Anthony La Paglia and I were smuggling refugees and witnesses needing protection out of the country underwater! Not sure if this was in a TV series or 'real' life...
A happy balance of busyness and idling today...
Getting the wall under my bedroom window to a less unattractive state. My building is old...if you try to give it a facelift it looks a lot worse for a while (same would probably be true of me!)
Giving the frame and sill outside a bit of a clean up...seems much brighter inside now!
Having a long hot soak in the bath
Great supper yesterday and lunch today of cottage cheese, apple chutney and salad. I *heart* cottage cheese!
Boats in the bay...triangles of sails and the streaking of wakes of motors...