Brown and sticky

I give thanks for an early night and a long sleep between clean sheets. For waking up refreshed and ready to assume the duck position for life's next swipe of the big stick. Sometimes it knocks me when I'm down; sometimes when I'm up, and knocks me down...so I'm grateful for being somewhere in between this time and as prepared as you can ever be. If you're really prepared it's not a knock is it? It's simply playing cricket...

I give thanks for the neighbours being out so I could process the experience in the way I do best, including talking out loud to myself to hear the things I need to hear. I give thanks for a tricky sewing job requiring dry eyes and non dripping nose, plus dirty floors requiring vacuuming so a little light howling and domestic violence could also ensue. I give thanks for tackling, almost successfully, the removal of seagull poo from a prominent window pane...appreciating the cosmic appropriateness of the challenge, and the fact I failed to complete it. 

I give thanks for the warmth of the sun's embrace and for the sparkle of the sea smiling at me from the seat with the clearest view... I give thanks for cobbling together a gratitude blog post on a day when it's not been my foremost emotion.

Rules of the game

Mmm...nice tea! Copious thanks were given to David for a menu of so many favourite things provided by lucky guesses... You can tell they were guesses because one of them was beetroot juice and that would have been up there with the least favourite things if I'd ever imagined such a horror existed. I give thanks for volunteering to try some...and declaring it not quite as bad as it might have been. Oh, and for understanding why I don't get invited to dinner very often of course!

Today I gave thanks for a rare juxtaposition of good energy levels, pain free joints and warm sunny weather. I had a real yen to go for a Walk, but such is the case in the middle of the summer when the nicest places are too far away and would be too crowded, or inaccessible without a car, even the lower case variety's a bit of a conundrum. I gave thanks for setting to with domestic chores, and sewing projects, and a little light ebay therapy until I could resist no more and went for a brisk toddle down here. Locals will know where, and locals who know where I live and how feeble one can feel will know it's a good enough toddle from my flat door and back to feel a small w walk has been done.

I give thanks for the textile recycling bin having room for the textiles I'd taken to put in it, for the tide being out so there weren't too many people on the wall or packed on the sand below it. For listening to children making, remaking and negotiating the rules of a game they were playing climbing on the other side of the sign I sat with my back against to eat my lunch. For the line of confetti sails on the horizon as some far away race took place.

I give thanks for all audible neighbours being out for a while so I could lounge on the sofa with ice cream and the Outlaws without feeling aurally intruded upon. That gelato scoops straight from the freezer. For leeks and mushrooms in cream cheese and pesto sauce cooking for my dinner - another of my favourite flavours, but I already knew that so not so much of a surprise...Oh and a lemon tart for dessert I was given to bring home yesterday as there wasn't time or room. Double gratitude for the double provision of that...

Birds of a weather

I give thanks my joints have been gentler the last couple of days...particularly today, as instead of contemplating the wonders of the universe I had to get out and interact with it. For non blood test related chat with Sylvana while she took some, and meeting and being able to assist Linda on a shopping quest. For the sculpture trail which I've not given my full attention to yet looking as if it will be well worthy of some some time this summer.

I give thanks the man who tripped and fell on me in the veg shop didn't cause any damage, even to the eggs I was clutching at the time...and the man who tripped and almost fell on me on the pavement later didn't because twice in one day would be unnecessarily odd. 

I give thanks for warm sunshine in the gaps in the clouds, and for the gathering greyness showering a few little sprinkles here and there between.

I give thanks I've been invited to have tea at someone else's tonight...and that as it's somewhere else I've been offered a lift home afterwards as well.

Somewhere under the sunbow

I give thanks for a very pleasant day. I'm not sure how much of the pleasantness was in my head rather than outside it - but does it matter? I give thanks I had nothing urgent or serious to do, because savouring doing things slowly has been very much the flavour of it...oh, and the flavours! I give thanks for savouring those as well...

There was warm sunshine, of that I'm sure, as I saw other people exposing parts of their skin to it... and I gave thanks for exposing some parts of mine as well... I give thanks for turning my face up for a kiss of it and seeing the faintest hint of a halo round the sun...and that my camera saw it too!

I give thanks for their being lots of awaited post awaiting me at the post office, including a letter inviting me for a pre op assessment at last. For getting it together to make a couple of phone calls querying things in the letter, at least partly coherently (I think), talk to a couple of people on line who know me better than to expect too much in that department, operate a machine safely that washes things, and one that I watch things on. 

I give thanks for doing a lot of smiling for no easily discernible reason...and for not feeling the need to come up with one either. I give thanks it's been so quiet here...outside my head!

Sound

I give thanks for the sound of the wind and the smell of the rain. For top deck bus rides where the trees come up to the windows to say hello, and you look down on the marbled light and shade of the sea.

I give thanks for a non acupuncture related meet up with Rachel. For avoiding the worst of the main road clog ups and a quick scenic detour down pretty lanes for a glimpse of the river's curve below. For a visit to a rather random wellbeing centre/coach house cafe/shabby chic wedding venue where a ukelele group were gently strumming and singing I Believe in Angels while we visited the glitter heart mirrored bathroom before being tucked under colourful blankets, gazing up at stuccoed ceiling and chandelier before closing our eyes.

I give thanks for the bus home eventually arriving, and missing the worst of a squally shower when I got off at this end. For a noisy nearby neighbour going out for a while not long after I made enough noise over hers for her to know I was home...and for enjoying letting my ears and other body parts go back to the bit they enjoyed between the two preceding paragraphs...

I had a gong bath...and though words don't fail me they fail to do it justice. Absolutely one of the most literally awesome and amazing, deep, delightful and wonder full experiences I have ever had in my entire life... A lot of thanks was and still is being given...

The rest of the day

I give thanks for my perseverance the last few days, persisting with doing the things on my to do lists. For body parts I usually pat and say 'There there, dear, you just have a little rest' being pressed into grumbling, fumbling, but ultimately successful action.

I give thanks for years of creative thinking and penny pinching, and thinking outside of not the kind of box that usually goes with the phrase; for the people that helped me, and the people who seemed to hinder me and thus made me try even harder.

I give thanks for years of not having a proper one not hindering my home making skills a bit...and for my property appraisal revealing I had appraised the situation correctly and have pinched and pressed pretty well.

I give thanks for dancing round the flat for a couple of minutes of exuberant relief and joy before the aforementioned bits and pieces threatened to go on strike and I did the kind and sensible thing and settled down for a read and a knit and a snooze.

Tie and dry

I give thanks for the delicate shapes and colours in the sunset sky last night...

For going out in the rain today... For coming home to shelter and warmth afterwards. And clean...and tidy...and (for a little while) quiet! I love clean and tidy and quiet, I soak in it like a fantastic fragrant pool of warmth for the soul...

For the Hospice shop happily taking my unwanted electricals...for a cab driver I've not seen for while coming to carry me and this weighty pile down to town so we could have a catch up chat on the way. 

For a very jolly knitting session...tears of laughter at times! For Cathy kindly bringing me some unwanted sewing patterns she'd brought before and I'd not been there to receive. 

For Linda bringing out a pretty dress I thought she'd brought to mend or alter. 'It's so you,' Carol said looking at me, 'Don't you mean it's so Linda?' I said...but she didn't. Linda had brought the dress before as well...and it was for me too! I was so touched. I've struggled to get the colours to come out right in this photo, but I give thanks I'm sure if there's any adjusting of fit needing doing I'll be the right woman for the job!