Branching out

I kept hoping to hear things yesterday that I didn't...and still didn't today...so I give thanks for the practice in patience. Sometimes going with the flow means going with the unflow...and we need reminding how unimportant to other people what's important to us might be. 

I give thanks for relaxing during the evening... for the odd fifteen minutes here and there when I wasn't just 'getting that washing up out of the way', 'rustling up a quick pudding' and 'making a start on the ironing'! You might wonder what was the matter with me if you've not known of me long. If you have though you'll remember this was what I was like before anything was the matter with me. I give thanks for my former self popping back for a visit. I miss me when I'm not there...

I was grateful I was getting quite sore in the end and didn't mind going to bed...for lavender oil to help me turn off by brain and go to sleep...

Today they were burning stuff they'd strimmed and sawn so it was too smoky to open the windows and I was grateful I had no laundry to do. And for having some legal research to keep me stuck in the office (bed) for most of the morning as I felt like taking it easy for a while.

I give thanks for cold pasta left over from yesterday for lunch, eaten in the brisk breeze blowing off the sea...after walking down the hill for the first time since mid September! For not getting carried off by men in white coats for chuckling into my lunch box... It may not be a full and holy cure but it's a great and mighty wonder. (It's a hymn, in case you don't know...they stick in my head like song lyrics!)

I give thanks for Mima whisking me away up into the nearby hills where there is a cafe with a sort of verandah over looking folds of fields, cream teas and no sea breeze. While we chatted,  I spent some time playing with my typical shots of zoomed in on buds or views through the fencing until she said 'Ooh look at that bird in the tree!' when I swung round and clicked in just the right place, at just the right time and just about in focus which is such an unusual an experience in itself the shot just has to illustrate this unusual day.

Still got the edge

I give thanks for a lot of dead wood and undergrowth clearing in the communal gardens below. Chain saws and industrial strength strimmers make a right old racket but it's great to see the grounds re-appearing. I give thanks for making some counterpoint noise myself at the other side of the building where I had Youtube playing U2 to find a snatch of track I had playing in my head but couldn't identify. Put Joshua Tree on, wandered out of the room to do something else, came back in and found what I was looking for, whatever the song might say! I give thanks I enjoyed providing backing vocals whatever the neighbours thought...

I give thanks for deciding to call the big ladder Jack as we're spending so much time together now. For finishing all the top step jobs along one kitchen wall...and a good deal of dealing with lower level stuff too.  And as this afternoon I felt like I needed a good rub down with horse linament and putting out to graze, I give thanks for giving up and trying to gaze at the inside of my eyelids for a bit. Unfortunately though, after so much enforced inactivity for so long, it's a real struggle to force myself to read a book, or watch TV, meditate, play games on my phone, surf the intenet...pretty much anything involving being still. I give thanks for an early bath - baths still work!

I give thanks for reading about an exhibition about the history of British photography I'd like to see that was too far away... And then realising it was too late anyway! For finding there's accompanying BBC4 documentaries and it's not too late to watch first one as long as I do it tonight! Just need to find something for my fingers to do during...hmm...eating food perhaps for part of it? I give thanks all this busyness has given even more of an edge to my appetite than it had before...

Well on the way?

Well, goodness only knows what happened to me yesterday afternoon but I give great thanks it did!   I was up the big ladder cleaning the tops of the kitchen cupboards and picture rail beyond, and down on my hands and knees shampooing the carpet by the bed where I spilt tea the other day and more, much more, besides. There was enough discomfort to make me stop now and then for little rests, but I was so restless and kept wanting to get up and do more. In the end I had to go and have a bath to keep myself still for a bit, and force myself to sit in front of the TV and eat supper even though I was still full of energy and raring to go. I was still the same at bed time so I'm glad I could eventually settle down and go to sleep.

This morning I was quite aware of the full length of the path of the sciatic nerve but more aware (and much more grateful for!) that slightly sore stiffness that comes from using one's body rather than feeling emotionally abused by it.

I might have lingered longer under the duvet but I had to get up to open the bank of mum, and talk to my son about affairs of the part...and I give thanks for that. I give thanks for all the people in the past who told me what a failure at mothering I was as they made me question (eventually) the wisdom of having such personages in my life! Sure, I might have done better if I'd been properly mothered myself but considering I had no good example to follow I don't think I've done so bad...so far!

I give thanks for taking a cab to deliver a large bag of unwanted items to a charity shop, then taking a big walk round a small town visiting a variety of facilities including the opticians to order some photochromic specs as I'm clearly going to be out and about a lot more in the not too distant future, the doughnut kiosk as I clearly need to attend to my own needs where they are concerned at the moment, the beach, the post office, a couple of shops...and the disabled loo! I give thanks for Radar keys...

I give thanks for mosaics. That was something that struck me when I first considered moving to this part of the world - that there seemed to be many more of them around. And good buskers. And good firework displays. And some damn fine pubs. Let alone all the sun and sand and sea and stuff!

Although I felt almost capable of walking home up the hill I give thanks for resisting the temptation to try as I know that's a tough way to go, and I've a way to go before I get there. I know later/tomorrow this sense of being on the mend may prove to be just another false dawn in a long drawn out night...but hey, I've had a day and a half of feeling alive and being active and I have missed it so much I give great thanks just for that!

If not

I give thanks that pesky cough suddenly returned to the realms of hell from whence it came yesterday... particularly as I bought some cough medicine but couldn't open the bottle!

I give thanks for some reasonable sleep, and some pleasing dreams though I couldn't remember them, just the feeling they'd been nice...

I was disappointed about the amount of pain I was in when I awoke as I had a mountain of jobs lined up in my head, but though I know we shouldn't get attached to expectations, expecting less soreness was a sign of optimism...and to still be able to summon up optimism in the face of such a diversity of adversity is something to be grateful for I'm sure!

I give thanks for publishing my second of my library friends' crosswords and for garnering plenty of attention for their page if not a lot of clicks on the actual puzzle. If you'd like to have a go at solving it yourselves here is the link http://crossword.info/happiness_squared/FOTL2

I wanted to be a writer from when I first learnt to read, a 'columnist' since I first knew someone who wrote one (obviously long before blogs were invented) and a crossword compiler from when I first started solving them. So, whatever else I may have failed at, I have to give thanks I've achieved three ambitions anyway...and if only there were money in those I might have achieved a few more I guess!

My most burning current ambition being still to move to a home that I like better, I give thanks for beating the pain into submission, if not the management company, and getting stuck into a commendable, if not advisable, session of serious sorting and cleaning. I would so like to do something more pleasurable...but if you can't do that the next best thing is to get ready to, right?

I give thanks for enjoying a couple more of episodes of Eyewitness, but with an awareness the last couple of Walter Presents offerings have had rather lame and frustrating endings. I know good endings to stories can be hard to come up with...probably because stories don't really have them do they? One set of circumstances merely morphs into another continuously...but these series have finished on a cliffhanger, presumably in hope of an option of a second one...which is no good if you don't know if you'll have the option of seeing it!

Jeanetic engineering

I give thanks for taking care of business as best I can. For not writing a snotty letter but printing out a legal reminder form instead, and managing to sneeze and wheeze in the opposite direction while I filled it in! For a similar document lined up regarding another matter if gentle but persistent pressure doesn't prevail. People often mistake my relaxed manner for an excuse to relax their own standards of behaviour, which is fine up to a point...but not when it gets to the point they are failing to be polite if they know me personally or do the job they're supposed to if they don't.

I give thanks for going the extra upward feet to find some knitted chickens for the library roosting on a high shelf here. And yes...I can see perhaps it is hard to take people who knit chickens seriously! For thinking up some cunning crossword clues to keep my brain train from derailing or running on tracks that keep hitting the same old buffers.

I give thanks for those lovely people who received my new baseball boots by mistake redressing the balance of feeling rather hard done by lately, by delivering them to me today. For going about my busyness about town without excessive limping or limpness. I have to toughen up if I'm going to try to move home but I give thanks for not making things too tough by trying to do all the fetching, delivering and carrying in one afternoon. For a cup of tea and a catch up with those nattering knitting ladies...And while I don't give thanks that Rachel can't come for the next couple of weeks so there'll be no tea cooked for me or that welcome therapy, I was grateful for not having to hurry home and scurry around afterwards getting things done in time for her arrival.

I give thanks for two surfboards parked ouside the building. They're nothing to do with me of course but there's no harm in pretending is there? For trying on some jeans I collected and finding they actually fit! Oh, and for someone I was at art school with being on a documentary about George Michael. He's worn better than I have...well, and George of course!

It figures

I give thanks for the sunny mild weather today for all the folk out and about to enjoy it...

For me? Hmm...let's see...  I give thanks I managed to defrost my feet last night after they were too long bare after bathtime (the socks that live by the bed for this purpose having fallen victim to yesterday's falling tea!) I give thanks for soothing music on my tablet when earplugs didn't quite spare me a droning moaning post midnight monologue from upstairs. I give thanks for sleeping well - sometimes the times when you're unconscious are the best bits of the day! For being able to dry racks of laundry at the open windows, and daring and bearing to look out...

I give thanks for being in too much pain to do more than look as tomorrow there's a lot of going out I can't get out of and so I've needed to try and keep still, and hurting can help with that. I give thanks for cooking some pasta for lunch. It was pretty rubbish to be honest but when you can really only be bothered with cough medicine and biscuits even rubbish pasta is something of note. I give thanks for a little snooze on the sofa and a hearty serving of 'instant' sherry trifle later on.

I give thanks for deciding to watch some figure skating on TV because it's beautiful and as I've never been able to skate I thought this would be free from wistful nerve touching memories. However it included Penny Coombes (a young British skater who suffered a terrible injury) talking about how incredibly hard she'd found it to be stuck indoors in pain unable to do the things she loved, that though people might find it over dramatic, it had felt so much that she had lost herself it was as if someone had died. And though of course I wasn't grateful for her suffering, to hear someone else say something like that, instead of just politely nodding if take my brave face off and do, was very moving and reassuring. A broken body can break your heart and though of course it's not OK that it does, I give thanks for realising it's OK to feel that way. I've been feeling such a failure for feeling so sad so I give thanks at least maybe that bit can get better...

I give thanks for all the neighbours being out for a little while. Those bits are always better!

Micro soft office

I give thanks for deciding an early night would be good for me and turning off the latest Walter Presents Scandi Noir offering mid-scene setting in favour of a bubbly bath and undemanding novel. Couldn't sleep much because of this stupid cough but hey ho...took my mind off the sciatica pain now didn't it?

I give thanks for digging my head out of the sand for another battle in the long war of landlordly tussles. I've won a few over the years, sometimes with help from dear departed Pat, but I know I can manage on my own I just need to learn to be sterner and not so scared of conflict with bigger, stronger, shoutier people than me! I give thanks for winning a few preliminary rounds with my laptop (which refuses to let me open and print some important documents) by downloading them on my tablet (from which I can't print at all) and copying onto an email to myself to open on my laptop and paste onto a text document...all without leaving the comfort of my bed except for collecting mugs of tea and a bit of Welsh Rarebit...oh and a mad dash for cleaning cloths when I spilt one of the aforementioned mugs of tea all over floor, wall, bedside table, book, box of tissues...

I give thanks for trying to fix the problem with my laptop too...over and over again! That I'm not someone to give up at the first hurdle but when the hurdles won't give up I realise sometimes it's time to abandon the task, make another cup of tea, and try to keep it in the intended receptacles!

I give thanks for a rainy afternoon just right for lounging around as I've been really struggling to think of things I'd like to do that I can...or things I can do that I'd like to...although of course I've been keeping on top of the stuff I absolutely must like emptying the roof leak catcher! As I've also lost the will to cook at the moment I give thanks for lots of snacky or almost ready to eat foods about, like the leftover grated cheese just asking for some chopped onion, beaten egg and seasoning earlier. For lots more boxes of tissues for cold comfort...