Cheers!

My main gratitude for the day has to be for not having a social life! There are people I would love to see but as long as seeing me remains low on their lists of priorities there's all the more time for rest and recuperation between those boringly exhausting chores like housework and hospital appointments. I'm grateful to Peter for showing me you can warm a mug before you make tea like you would a teapot...useful for people who get distracted whilst brewing or sipping as well as those who live in draughty lairs! Much gratitude too to him for offering to take me to my afternoon hospital appointment next week as he’ll be over this way in the morning for a dentist appointment of his own. 

Apart from the arduous journey to and fro yesterday I had to walk much further than was comfortable to get to the restaurant (though I enjoyed this wall art on the way!). There was cafe right by the door where I had to wait forever for the bus but half the seating area was taken up by a stand promoting a carers' association. I'm grateful I resisted the temptation to tell them I cared for myself and to move the bleeping display so I could sit down!

Not only tired but in a lot of pain, today I've been grateful for even the tiniest achievements beyond the absolutely essential. At a time of year when there are so many extra things we may want to get done it's good to appreciate just getting washed and dressed, washing some dishes and putting some laundry on. I'm grateful for piped water and electricity, for a variety of teabags and tasty nibbles and for things to eat in the freezer that needs a clear out anyway to make room for the (metaphorical) plumped up baby cow!

I've been grateful the winds last week blew off enough leaves for me to be able to see more sea but the bus and train rides yesterday revealed how many trees round here continue to have autumn coloured or even still quite green leaves on their branches and I'm grateful for that too as it's making the winter seem shorter already

In between

I'm grateful for an extremely early night last night and, by my standards, quite a sleepful one too!
I'm grateful for a pretty sunrise to wake me, and pretty light on the clouds and the water before it got dark this evening.
I'm grateful for reading my horoscope first thing and thus being warned about the day there'd be in between...and for forgoing reliving its more trying moments to share with you...
I give thanks for getting to where I was meant to be, and home again, and for doing the things I meant to in between these rather arduous journeys. I'm grateful for thinking to pack a crochet hook and tiny ball of wool to use some of the waiting time usefully.

I give thanks to Rachel for her acupuncture yesterday which helped me get through today and for this view I shared with a pigeon and a mince pie while waiting for that...

Method in the multiverse

Woohoo! I’m very grateful I’ve (at last!) managed to download the correct drivers for my printer and clean the nozzles. Now I’ve run out of ink but hey ho…it’s progress! I’m grateful to Pat for sending me a virtual advent calendar which I think I may have finally succeeded in downloading too after several failed attempts, but I’ll avoid testing it for now to avoid any possible further frustration...

I give thanks I did manage to stay awake for my bath last night, but only after nearly falling asleep in a bowl of soup for my supper, plus that I got most of the shopping on my list for today before deciding I just couldn’t carry any more. I’m grateful for a much needed nap when I got in, and for optimism that a) at some point I’ll be able to get up and get some tea and b) tomorrow I’ll be able to get up and get to my hospital appointment...

I’m also grateful for finding some eco cleaning products that don’t have that awful industrial smell of e(run for)cover – lovely lemon fragranced Naturally Powered anti bac and Method’s ‘Fresh Air’ Laundry Liquid that smells a bit like being up a Swiss mountain!

Hammered home

It always surprises me when I remember that there still is a world in which people do something in the morning, something in the afternoon...and then maybe even something in the evening as well. This morning I gave thanks that whatever the workmen upstairs were doing they were doing it so quietly I could sleep on and recover from the shock to my system of doing something on a Monday and on a Tuesday! My body had woken me up several times in the night to complain that this just wasn't right and I was very grateful when it gave up moaning about it and let me get some healing zzzzs instead!

I'm grateful I managed to get up and going before it started getting dark...always a challenge this time of year! I'm grateful I managed to get some of the things done on my list of things I really wanted to do do, the ones that seemed most important to me at the time anyhow. I do find my feebleness exasperating sometimes but when that is the case I remember to be grateful that no one's saying any of those even more exasperating things like 'Pace yourself', 'Leave it for another time' or 'Can't you get someone to help you?' Valuable energy can be expended on pointing out the pointlessness (or restraining myself!) when platitudes like that are trotted out, however well meaningly!

I give thanks for the pretty sunset and the pretty tanker still in the bay. Pretty is subjective, I know, but I love the way the look of it changes as the light does, or it moves position in the currents.

I'm grateful my Hammerong jobs have come out OK (in the soft light of the bathroom anyhow!)... Hammerong? Putting Hammerite paint where it's not really meant to go, of course! My aches and pains are meant to go in a deep hot bath later. I'm grateful I have the bath and the medical permission, just need to make tea...and stay awake after eating it!

Lights, camera, action

Wow...the light was the same strange pink when I opened the curtains this morning as when I drew them last night...gratitude for a rather unusual coincidence. I give thanks I didn't have to get up when the light was still that colour and for the internet because it helps you get a lot done without leaving your sofa or even your bed!

I've needed a lot of sofa and bed today after going to choir yesterday evening but they were very grateful I did as there's some sort of bubonic cold going round to which sopranos seem to be particularly susceptible and we were vastly outnumbered by the altos, and even the baritones for once! I was grateful I went because I love to sing in company anyway and being besieged by deeper notes added an extra camaraderie to our little trebling clan. And an extra sense of camaraderie meant I couldn't say no to singing carols in Morrisson's this afternoon at a time when the majority of the singers were unavailable, especially as Sheila kindly offered a couple of us a lift. I'm grateful for discovering wearing reading glasses to see the score means that everything is a comforting blur beyond. As I can't stand up for long and can feel rather self conscious in a seat at the front, the blur effect helps a lot...in a similar way that footlights hide the audience when you're on stage.

I give thanks that I have no human interaction likely now til Thursday afternoon and can eat garlic in copious quantities which it seemed rude to do before!

And lastly, I know it's wicked, but I have to give thanks that an old workmate posted a pic of himself with Tom Daley on Facebook earlier this year. He's a great one for teasing and joking others so he's taking the endless gibes in good humour...

Strange days

Some days just don't work properly do they? Some days, if you'd bought them, you'd take  them back and say 'This day is faulty! Can I have another one please? Oh well, good job you can't or you could be there for ever trying days that weren't right and missing your life in the process...

I'm grateful it's coming up three quarters through anyhow! And um...I give thanks the workmen weren't too noisy this morning and for nattering with Linda at the knitting group this afternoon. I give thanks for some curious synchronicity with Chris the cabman and his tricky schedule today...especially as he forgot me earlier so I couldn't give him his birthday chocolates! And I'm grateful for the strange pink sky this evening...not a sunset, just all the cloudy sky strange pink...

Diversity

Oh, great gratitude for the misty murky weather today! I love being in the countryside in that too but there's usually plenty of it to come in a winter so it's easier to stay indoors (and bed!) for, unlike the bright mildness of yesterday...

I'm grateful for discovering there's the sport of chess boxing where there are alternate rounds of each. I don't have any desire to participate in anyway but I just like the idea it exists...

I'm grateful for all the random ingredients needing eating up in the fridge and freezer...all the less chopping, slicing and stirring for me! More time to dabble with various craft projects, though, as they're to give to people, I can't actually show you anything I've done...

I'm grateful for a TV series where compulsive cleaners try to encourage those who hoard most things including dirt make their homes spick and span. It sounds like a bandwagon programme proposal but it's rather illuminating and moving how the opposing natures and lifestyles can learn from one another.

I'm grateful for these wonderful images of other ways of being beyond the ones we know - eye opening!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-24917850

And for the heart warming ones of cross species affections in a couple of programmes about 'Animal Odd Couples'. I thought this would be something supercute and sickly and almost missed them so I'm very grateful I did not!