Cake tales

What a wonderful thing the unconscious is...I give thanks for happy dreams last night! Also for earplugs for muffling the sounds of those nearby who were conscious at the time...

Gratitude for the late sun yesterday whisping away the cloud...and a bonfire crackling in the gardens below. Quite autumnal really! Thanks too for an episode of Secret Street Crew with a lady even older than me among the dancers, and Ashley describing a church fete to someone who didn't know the phrase as 'Sells cake...and there's ribbons and old people...'

Speaking of which, I give thanks for enjoying a spot of sun, sea and cake myself this afternoon after calling in at the doctor's...and for making some soup from odds and ends of veg as, apart from this, I've not felt much like eating today and soup usually slips down a treat when your appetite has slipped away.

Great gratitude too for finally (I think!) getting the hem right on the linen trousers I'm making. Every time I've tried them on they seem to have got longer...well, either that or my legs have shrunk...and eating cake makes you grow taller, not shrink...in Alice in Wonderland anyway!

Let's twist again

Gratitude for last night's serendipitous collection of leftovers that turned into a tasty one pot tea. What love and time doesn't seem to mend, garlic often makes taste better!

For another aimless day...If you've forgotten what the aim is, or fail to achieve what you thought it was, embrace what is anyway. Afterall, what is is what you've got...

For finding an unusual phone game (no explosions, nothing to capture!) called Blendoku which is kind of like organising colour charts...Useful for times when you have no paint to watch dry, I guess, and rather soothing and satisfying when each arrangement is made... It's by a company called Lonely Few and their logo features an outline drawing of one person sitting on a sofa big enough for three or four. I kind of like that too!

I give thanks for all the interaction I overhear from here, that people are having a busy sociable weekend and enjoying it by the sounds of it. Even the wood pigeons were having a party early on! I give thanks for the increasing murkiness of the day so there's less of a sense of missing out, for the sharp green of new leaves against the grey too...

I'm struggling with my craft projects at the moment...both in the sense of finding the energy after essentials are done, and also because a couple of them are going through a truculent phase and need less mental limpness than I can offer just now too...so I decided to make a couple of scrunchies to tie up my bonny brown hair (or whatever) to have a little completion in my life! One fabric was left over when altering a dress, and the other salvaged from a top that died so pleasing from the waste not want not point of view too...

Gardening leave

I give thanks for the all the opportunities to do nothing since my last post! For a half price Hobbit from Sky to keep me company yesterday evening. For three good books on the go...one of which I took down to the gardens to read in a folding chair this afternoon before realising I couldn't keep my eyes open and I'd have to come back up for a sleep! For the lilac flowers opening...and blowing around far too much in the breeze to be photographed so I don't have to upload a picture but can hurry back to the important activity of avoiding it as much as possible...

For two seeds thrusting up little sprouts in the trays I planted...

Sweet success

It's not often I get to do something I really want to so I give thanks for a trip to the pictures last night. Shame the 'comedy' film was so unfunny but we did have a laugh when Peter (who is used to me handing him unwrapped ones in the car) popped a cellophane covered Werther's straight into his mouth. I was grateful to him for picking me up at the station and even giving me a lift home afterwards. That was very welcome as I was so tired, as was the stew I'd prepared earlier (as they say) which was waiting for our supper! I give thanks that Peter loves red lentils and rice cakes as much as I do as any opportunity to feel less odd's a bonus...

My lack of mobility (social and otherwise) means I'm usually extra isolated at Bank Holidays which can be rather sad,  so I give thanks that I planned ahead and got myself a new Ruth Rendell from the library and an 'indulgent' chocolate cake so that solitary confinement feels more like a treat...

Gratitude for the glorious spring greens as different leaves begin to open everywhere...and the blossming blossom too! Such a change in the last week and, though I haven't been far, as I've been on the road and the railway and on foot I've seen a selection of views.

Great thanks for my tea of jacket potato, cottage cheese and salad. Intrinsically tasty, but also because my natural inclination to eat quite wholesome food means chocolate cake cravings can be indulged!

Wave bye bye

Don't fret, I've not jumped out the window...it's just the time of year when, from the living room, the sea begins to disappear behind the leaves and I always feel a little wistful...until I remember it usually means the weather is warming up too! In the autumn I get wistful when the leaves fall off and then remember that soon I will be able to see the sea... I give thanks for this regular reminder of the cycle of life...

Much gratitude for getting not only the mattress turned the other day but the wire mesh base sections swapped around so that I no longer feel like I'm in a trough or slithering down a slope...well, not regarding sleeping positions anyhow! I can't say I'm sleeping better but I'm lying more comfortably when I'm not...

I'm very grateful for realising that if you have flaky pastry and marzipan you pretty much have almond croissants...near enough for my taste buds anyhow!

Thanks that the deeply distressed (and vocal about it!) dog upstairs was reunited with their owner after an hour or two and they were apologetic when I mentioned it, and for the sight of three other dogs playing tag on the lawns later. I'm grateful it's not been so sunny though this morning or I might have been tempted to go out myself and this would have been unwise as I have to go out later this afternoon. It's a nice going out but will be no less tiring than a nasty one, just a whole lot more worthwhile...I hope!

I'm grateful I've made a pot of stew for supper and Saturday tea...

Sharing

Mmmm...quiet! I give thanks the people upstairs are either asleep or out so I can only hear the more distant neighbourly noises warm weather and sharing of locality brings and can have a little snoozzzzze now I'm back from town. Always ready for more of those these days... I'd rather be awake, but if I'm only fit for sleep then I'm grateful when the situation fits the need!

Dot dot dot...

I give thanks for another glorious spring afternoon. Particularly grateful for less breeze this time so it was warm on the seafront by the doctor's as I hadn't the energy after my appointment to go to the sun trap back beach again... For having a seafront doctor's!  For a typical local sight of a cormorant fishing a few feet from shore, a paddle boarder a few metres further out and not many more beyond that a pilot guided tanker navigating the shoals. Love the sharing of sea space!

I'm grateful for picking up a couple of not too heavy or awkward packages at the Post Office with odds and ends for sewing and knitting projects, for Rachel bringing me a courier one she'd accepted for me (how kind!) and a dress she'd bought in a charity shop that hadn't fitted her for me to try (ditto!)

Gratitude too to Stephanie for sharing these pictures http://www.boredpanda.com/4-sisters-take-photo-every-year-for-36-years/ and Sylvie these http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2316987/Photographer-Niki-Feijens-eerie-images-abandoned-farm-houses.html, both of which I enjoyed greatly!

I give thanks that, by means of patient instalments I've been able to share news of what I'm newly I'm thankful for. Will I be able to stay awake til tea's ready now? 'Til bed time? Aaah, who knows?

Mayday Mayday

This evening I'm grateful I've come to rest after a very busy day. For the shenanigans upstairs ceasing for sleep time and for having the opportunity to be a good neighbour in return and call for an ambulance this afternoon when one of them appeared to move from stupor to seizure and worried the others a while. I'm so grateful I'm not an alcoholic...it seems very hard work!

For a 'long walk'...well, by current standards anyhow! For the weather being so conducive as many sedentary pauses were required. For all the entertaining things I saw...like a little dog working out how to get to a seagull on the edge of a dinghy that was making it cross. It had a few goes at reaching it by boat (walking across the moored ones...what did you think I meant?) before giving up and walking round to a place where it could swim safely between them. This meant it could really surprise that gull as it was looking the other way quite unaware the attack was coming from below. One bark and the bird nearly fell in!

For living somewhere so beachily beautiful, and well appointed...always a place to be out of the breeze, and miles away from an amusement arcade!

For Laura coming to help me give my bed a bit of a spring clean. I mean what I say...we took the mattress off and the base and cleaned the frame and underneath...mmm, clean...I love clean! And for a book about Scottish isles she found in a charity shop and gave to me. I've been thinking a lot about Scottish isles of late so hopefully this will satisfy my urges for a while as they are mightily hard to get to without a set of wheels, sails or very strong legs!

I'm grateful I have lots of things to eat that require nothing more than heating up for tea, and some not even that like fresh fruit salad made yesterday and blueberried up this afternoon. I'm grateful for remote control and sofa, earplugs and a book and a plan to practice the business of not being busy for a while...