Spiked

This morning I was still giving thanks for those waves yesterday, plus the bright moon last night and a flash or two of even brighter lightning...  I was grateful to get going fairly early and vigorously, presumably as a result of my acupuncture rather than the rather demanding choir practice, and this meant when the wool shop I went to right by the station didn't have the yarn I was sure they would, I was able to risk a detour to a shop I was pretty sure wouldn't but did! I'm grateful I'd already realised the new one I was delighted to find on line was in a city of the same name on a completely different continent and that there was something to bring home at the end of the day as, after three long poky and painful attempts at persuading my veins to accept the iron, they and the staff gave up and I was sent home unfilled.

I'm grateful for the companionableness of the crowded trains and buses...for the girl squashed next to me on one bending down to retrieve something I dropped and a lady I'd been chatting to about knitting showing me pictures on her phone of hedgehogs she'd made that made that have inspired me to look for the pattern.

I was grateful for the sights of the day - a carrier bag flying high free above the city street, and another one being used by someone in a wheelchair as an impromptu waterproof hat, long shadows on the bristly harvested fields, surprise pink patches of cyclamen in shadowy spots and a dazzling double rainbow cheering up a slow bumpy grumbly ride home. And for the scents - I've finally found a new perfume I like after Lush willfully discontinued my favourite. This one's by Lush too and I like it as much as Nag Champa which, as anyone who knows my nose knows, means I like it a lot. However, as I haven't actually bought any yet I have to keep sniffing my sample sprayed wrists and might have to not wash up tonight to let it linger...

O zone

I'm grateful that Mondays only come once a week as I usually have more to do on Mondays than the rest of the week and, although the things are usually nice things, they can be a bit tiring when there's too much pain and not enough energy around. This Monday I've also got half an eye on Tuesday as I've got to go and have intravenous iron at the hospital and want to have as many of the relevant bits and bobs in the right place ready as possible too so that's been extra stuff to do today and I'm grateful I (think I've) got those things done... I'm also very grateful to the NHS for topping up my blood with iron as it's been a bit low for a while and I'm looking forward to be running on full again.

Meanwhile, I'm grateful for spending a lot of the morning in bed, not just because it seemed a good idea at the time but also because the afternoon turned out to be a zone of close to zero functionality including taking my completed library chair back cover to the library to with a variety of minor mishaps, mistakes and miscommunications culminating in thinking a delay had led to missing a bus (there was no one waiting at the stop and it's due time was passed so a reasonable assumption), wandering off and just getting too far away to go back for it when it arrived. 'Sod it,' I thought, 'I'm going to look a the sea instead of going home'...and oh my goodness I'm grateful I did because the sea was very scenic!

As I'd taken my finished library chair back to the library to photograph in situ but forgotten to photograph it I'm grateful I have some other illustration to include instead (as long as it uploads OK!)...and I'm grateful for Tesco redelivering something they took away in their delivery by mistake today (fresh cream apple turnovers, one would want to be without those would one?)

I'm grateful to Biddy for some shortbread biscuits in return for/as a result of borrowing why Kindness is Good For You and for Rachel for washing up while I type this!

Check this out

I give thanks the noisiest folk in the neighbourhood have either been away or away with the fairies this weekend, so that the area's been very quiet - even the dogs have hardly barked though last night a gentleman owl did call for a lady to woo! I find the peacefulness delightfully soothing (and ideal for snoozing of course!) but I'm grateful I've stayed upright to work on a couple of crafty projects including finishing off this blanket so I can take it to the charity it's destined for when I'm in that part of town tomorrow...

I give thanks for my Sunday not roast. I've never understood why slabs of animal are quite such popular fare but once in a while I did enjoy the veggie equivalent, until root crops sizzled in the oven went the way of nuts and tomato puree with Marmite and Vecon (which makes the most delicious gravy ever!)...so even having a couple of spoonfuls of a hazel and almond loaf with some savory rice was very nice. The upside of having to drastically limit your intake of erstwhile favourite foods is that the tiny portions you are allowed are the source of such intense pleasure, and similarly last night I enjoyed two squares of chocolate - two of the ones you probably thought were a decorative textural feature in those miniature Green & Black's bars! I give thanks that abstinence makes the taste buds fonder and can also cause you to lose pounds (avoirdupois) and gain pounds (sterling). I give thanks I had a few extra of the former and can always use a few more of the last!

Still waters

There was plenty of gratitude to feel before I was even properly awake this morning - for disturbing dreams not being real, for the sound of soft but persistent rain, and for being in less pain than I have been for a long while so that getting out of bed wasn't the usual scary process...  This also meant I could make pancakes for a late breakfast which is always something to be grateful for!

I'm aware of a correlation between a certain amount of stillness and a reduction in levels of pain but the level of stillness required is pretty silly ie. not getting dressed, lifting a mug or holding a book let alone dressmaking, washing up or typing, and if you're a long time dead and long times hooked up to a dialysis machine might precede it, that seems a bit of a waste of the bit beforehand to me... But I promised myself a bit of extra rest this weekend and am grateful to say I've been doing quite well so far with a laid back morning watching quali and sewing a few inches of lining to a blanket I made, and a much a doze about nothing afternoon having naplets with a novel and attaching some more fish to a shelf decoration for the library,

And I'm grateful for still more very low impact activity planned for the rest of the day - heating up some leftovers, watching some TV and a long bubbly bath. I still give thanks every time I have one, and when I tie my hair up before I get in. I have shed the shadows of many difficult times in my life but being bald and banned from wallowing still haunts me a little now and then...

Maintaining one's position

Some mornings staying in bed seems the only sensible course of inaction, so today I was grateful I could do that for a little while at least, giving thanks for the tea in my mug and the pretty pattern on it. I was grateful for the insights into the human mind that a dip into Facebook's news feed can give. We're all so keen to identify ourselves by identifying with those who share our opinions and preferences - Don't you like this? Hate them? Think this is sad, cute, despicable, funny? For a while there I began to formulate an alternative view of how we might behave...but you can all give thanks I've forgotten what it was now anyhow!

I'm grateful for only spending fifteen minutes in a queue to the DWP to ask for a new letter to take to appointments for reimbursement of fares, and that the advisors I spoke to were more sympathetic and humorous than the young woman in the hospital office who only just stops short of insisting I have 'benefit scrounger' tattooed on my forehead to validate my request (at my own expense of course).

And then eventually I was grateful I overrode the overriding need for rest and got up in time to do what had to be done, and even a few things that didn't like popping into a cafe with Linda as we happened to find ourselves in the same part of town at the same time. There are ladies who lunch, I believe, whereas I'm one who merely munches... teacakes, biscuits, scones... Anything to fill the gap where chocolate cake used to be!

I'm grateful to Jenny for making my home so clean, and that, by remaining horizontal, consuming leftover food and recorded documentaries, it looks set to stay that way for a while.

Irony

Well last night I was grateful I eventually managed to get comfy enough to fall asleep and today to get out of the house despite still being decidedly un-. I gave thanks for remembering to snap the flattering paint job on the wrought iron at the station, and the pretty ride on the train to the mystifying city where there were men's jumpers on sale with padded Father Christmases on tummies even though most of the men seemed to have padded tummies of their own!

I give thanks for all the talented buskers I heard. One of them (the violinist who plays so movingly sometimes here) had hand written signs with his phone number on 'for bookings' and I was grateful to see a smartly dressed lady writing it down!

I'm grateful for a bus that goes right up the hospital entrance and for chuckles on board as we passed a council worker joyfully jumping up and down on a truck bed full of trimmed branches to try and flatten them.    

I'm even grateful that the clinic was running so way over time that it was too late to go to the castle cafe as planned with a friend afterwards, because he had a car we could drive to a little town on the other side of the estuary instead.  I'd not been there for years so it was grand to see it again with the afternoon light pearl blue on the water, and to try out a friendly new cafe down by the quay. I'm grateful it had a station so I could get home, and that the bathwater is hot and ready for a soothing soak...

Get up in the morning

This morning I was grateful for the soft warm sunshine streaming in my south facing windows since I was feeling particularly soft myself and in need of late lounging in my bedroom. But I also gave thanks when it clouded over with sporadic showers as I find it much easier to laze lengthily indoors when the weather's a tad less clement. I gave thanks for remembering the light on the lake before the day got busy...

I give thanks for thinking 'It's about time there was a new season of QI', looking it up and seeing it starts this week! Also for remembering I haven't watched all of the last one yet. I save them for when I most need to laugh out loud and preferably when there aren't too many neighbours around - I don't want them banging on the door shouting 'I want some of what she's having instead'

I give thanks for phoning my electric company. No, really, I do indeed because a cheerful and (apparently) competent advisor answered the questions the website couldn't because it was having a hissy fit and confirmed I was nicely in credit and my Warm Home Discount application had been received so that I may be even more so in due course...

I give thanks for some BBC4 documentaries reminding me of hit songs and hot fashions of my younger years and that, should anyone ever want to bring me round from a coma (or worse), they ought to try Desmond Dekker's Israelites before anything more invasive!