Shaggy cow story

After a few days rather enthusiastically flinging ourselves at the Highlands we've both been giving thanks for a day of taking it quite easy. ..I even passed up on most of the Great Glen scenery and slumbered gently for stretches of the journey on the bus. It's been a long while since I travelled such distances without a captain of the ship to mastermind the actual transportation and could sleep for England...so give thanks I'm in Scotland and have to wake up and appreciate it now and then!

I give thanks for a field of shaggy tawny Highland cattle. For finding a Lush shop as much by instinct (or subliminal distinctive smell?) as map reading. For a surprisingly good busker (it would be impolite to say why we were suprised he was good!)

I give thanks for all the locals I've heard praising more of the astonishingly bright sunshiny weather - it's always good to have one's efforts appreciated!

I give thanks for an absolutely delicious dinner at the hotel here. The food at the other one was OK but this? Mmmmm... I give thanks for it being free on the first night to (successfully) try to tempt us to have more...

Would if I could

I give thanks for an amble that turned into a ramble and, cruising for a snoozing afterwards...I give thanks for a nap!

I give thanks for getting where we thought we might like to despite the most misleading map and signs...and someone telling us it would probably be shut. I give thanks it would have been had we been further misled and got there a few minutes later. I give thanks for beautiful scenery with few humans around to sully it...and that the ones we interacted with tended to be male and friendly... 

I give thanks for certain accents and physiques ;-) 

I give thanks for finding cake, hot drinks, loos and a postbox when required...

I give thanks for clement weather - sunny spells and not too cold to be out and about, but cold enough for tiny star shaped snowflakes to fall and settle briefly before melting.

I give thanks for the curious coincidence that when you take a novel away with you to read it often turns out to be at least partly set where you are...

I give thanks for getting some sort of blog post together despite a very distracting concurrent conversation with Jan...

Double lochs

Lots of gratitudes since last I posted as one would hope might be the case... wonder how many I'll remember before I click the post button...

The pleasantly uneventful first part of the journey apart from the biplane looping the loop and spiral diving high above the train... The incredibly friendly Lebanese restaurant/takeaway (where I'd bought food before and was glad to find again) giving me free pitta and baklava as they were so busy and I had to wait while they cooked the falafels fresh...and Jan being given free tea to go with out take out dessert cake... finding seats suddenly available in the cavernous crowded station.

Strange as it may seem gratitude for the very long delay leaving London as this meant realising a long held dream and crossing the full splendour of Rannoch in full daylight...thick snow on the tops and a scattering trackside too with part frozen tarns and lochlets reflecting the bright blue sky, lots of well camouflaged deer to spot and (after a free light snack breakfast as they'd run out of cooked things we might eat) arriving in time for a quick check in at the hotel and grab a slab or two of homemade cake before setting off another of the region's most scenic lines. Best of all I'd like to be campervanning and walking round here but, as I can't be, I'm grateful for the trains taking me to such wildness.

I give thanks for Jan finding something veganish in amongst the seafood offerings for lunch... and for me finding a seafood one I wanted - mmm monkfish coconut curry! I give thanks for also finding a skein of bluey greeny pinky mauvey flecked wool that I decided I'd call Raasay and the women selling it understood... Oh and a great brightening doubling up rainbow made by the only rain we saw (that didn't rain on us!)

Sound of sleet

I give thanks for the brilliant sunshine this morning and sight and sound of soft sleety hail this lunchtime making me think 'Ooh, I must go out in that!'

I give thanks for getting what needed to be done done (I think) and getting on a train. For pausing to pick and sing a song on my guitar before I left, that one of you maybe knows which one I picked...and that I remembered the words and the feelings that inspired them.

I give thanks for the changing light on the countryside as weather passes over...the flock of birds in flight with sunlight so bright on the white parts near their tails they looked almost electrically illuminated.

I give thanks that I'm going somewhere and someone wants to go with me.

I give thanks for free WiFi on this stage of the journey as I'll be without a connection for a while after that...

I give thanks this train is going to the end of the line and I am too as I can't guarantee to stay awake...

Night in shining drama

Well now...what's to say? After a busy day last night I was grateful to go to bed early, dropping swiftly into deep and dreamless sleep before being woken by a storm of shouting and banging doors. I was grateful eventually everyone involved settled again, but I couldn't and I gave thanks I always try to find something to be grateful about otherwise I really don't think I would have been at all...

I gave thanks that I've no one to fight with, and though doors are frequently closing to me they're not often actually slammed.  I gave thanks it's not me running around screaming in the middle of the night, that despite the cards I've been dealt, the poor way I've played them and the way I've been played, I don't kid myself anything that comes in a bottle or packet could improve the situation. I gave thanks I don't blame and though it feels unbearably hard just to be sometimes, let alone to be here, I know it's nobody's problem but mine.

I gave thanks for the ferocious wind, the twinkling stars in the clear sky and the twinkling lights of the ships in the bay. I gave thanks to Jan and Gary for offering to take time out of their lives to help me escape from mine for a bit.

Today, I've been grateful to catch up with rest in the quiet bits, and in the noisier ones to catch with what I should have been doing instead of resting. I give thanks I've finished the dress alteration that's been exercising my brain as well as my hands. I give thanks for anything that exercises my brain in any ways other than dwelling on things I cannot fix that break me.

For duck's sake

Er... I give thanks for not so sweet dreams? Not unsavoury nightmares, but nothing too unbearably blissful either...

I give thanks for the bright blue sky and sunshine, the varied coloured clouds, the rain and rainbows, howling wind, hail, sleet and almost snow...all in a very short space of time.

I give thanks for being outdoors mostly in the sunny bits...For a scenic bus ride to get some things I needed, and that as several of them cost less than expected I could buy a little something I didn't!

I give thanks for a take away cup lid rolling down the road like a miniature hub cap... For ducks foraging in the corner of a field. Saw one up a tree not long ago...ducking amazing!

I give thanks for Silvana taking my bloods more gently than she did last month when my arm ended up matching my jumper. You may know the jumper... if not you can probably work out the colour scheme...

I give thanks for exchanging a few pleasantries with some of my more thoughtful neighbours encountered around and about...For earplugs, headphones, compassion and some teeth left to grind for those less obviously so...

Home learning

I give thanks for the sweetest dreams. Gee but it's sad thing to wake up sometimes...

I give thanks those gluten free crackers turned out so well, and that Rachel was genuinely grateful for both those and her early birthday gifts including gluten free crumpets! It often seems difficult for me to find ways to please others when there's so much they can do for me so it's a lovely feeling when I'm sure I have.

I give thanks for her making me two cups of tea and doing the washing up... Very occasionally someone other than Rachel makes me a cup of tea but she's pretty much the only person who ever does my washing up!

I give thanks somewhere I'm going reminded her of somewhere she's been...and of the first dance song from her wedding, this version of which moved me to tears but in a goodish way. I've such deep sorrow behind the smiles just now it's a blessing to have a socially acceptable excuse for a spot of public weeping...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKLpVNZ6PA

Part of the poignancy is due to my upcoming travels taking me nearly home. I can't go really home for logistical reasons (I'd need someone to drive me and put up with accompanying tales and more tears)... and also because of course you can never return to a remembered emotional state of being, as the very fact you remember it means it no longer is as it was. I give thanks for all the opportunities for learning in this - including the reminder that emotions are not logical things!

I give thanks for this random collection of facts you probably didn't know about. Well, one you did as I told you before...feel free to forget some of the others...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-35667660