Predictably irrational

I give thanks for waking up in a slightly better humour than that in which I spent a lot of the night. For good bread toasted for my breakfast. For three fruit marmalade and crunchy peanut butter. No, I'm not supposed to have peanut butter but it's good bread so it only comes in little slices...

For a sunny morning with no inclination to battle the pain and lack of inclination to go out but having to, so making the best of it anyway. For a line of white washing flapping in the breeze. For room to squeeze my recycling in the the car park skips...

For the mesmerising waves at high tide today, and realising I knew the people next to me also gazing at them in awe. For the jet skiers jumping over the sandbar. For accepting the irrationality of finding them infuriating noisy show offs in summer, but in winter entertaining and cool. For accepting that the desire to experience a jet ski ride had better be added to my list that rhymes with 'bucket'...

For getting wet and cold when the weather changed and warm and dry at home. For the sky clearing to pretty clouds at sundown...

For an interesting book about some of the strange things that influence our decision making...selected after failing to get a response from someone as to whether the different one they were reading on a similar topic was any good, and thus an example (maybe). For finishing this poem...apart from punctuation (maybe)

Trust me

The one you see it is not me

The real one stayed behind

Inside a place I'd rather be

A time that seemed more kind

My puppet self can well portray

The character you're casting

You paint the scenes with words I say

The set and stage outlasting

The changing games of pantomime

My substitute can lose

The motley match and easy rhyme

That other fool can choose

The costume and the glib conceit

My wary wounds conceal

From other trusts that were deceit

From hurts that do not heal

If you could lay your mask aside

Your prompted script and cue

Then risking ridicule and pride

In truth I'd mirror you

My heart is hidden otherwise

My self held safe and tight

Reflections flicker in my eyes

But you'll not see their light

Feta compli

I give thanks for the seductively stormy weather - well it takes all sorts I guess but I love a good storm me! Unfortunately I was in far too much pain for it to succeed in luring me outdoors to fully experience its glory...it's been one of those days when everything has hurt too much to do much of anything for long... sitting, standing, lying sleeping, cooking, cleaning, typing, weeping...

I give thanks for rotating position and activity much as possible to spread the discomfort around. For simply resisting absolutely unnecessaries like brushing my hair, but sticking with the tasks where pay off is worth the discomfort - like making feta pastries. If you've ever had my feta pastries you will understand - little morsels of comfort for body and soul.

I give thanks for a vicarious hike in the Himalayas (ah, the Hunza valley - long have I dreamed!), and vaguely intellectual pointlessness of Endeavour (I've wanted to go to the Oxford Natural History Museum for a very long time too and it gets a look in now and then, plus I'm a sucker for a few bars of Barrington Pheloung and a spot of sixties memorabilia!)

I give thanks the neighbours have been much quieter the last couple of days - much appreciated! No, they don't read my blog...  I haven't forgotten the poem, and give thanks for your encouragement. On the last verse now (I think)

I give thanks for bright mimosa blossom in the rain...

Have I got muse for you?

I give thanks for the bright mild weather, ideal for being out and about. I give thanks for a double yolk egg for my omelette. I give thanks for sewing some seams of the garment I've been making up and slowly making, and yes it seems to be cardigan shaped.

I give thanks that neither my mind nor my body were in the mood for going anywhere today - it's easiest when they're in agreement I find. I give thanks there was no one who wanted or expected me to be anywhere - I'm in far too disagreeable a mood for that!  And yes, there might be some could turn my mood around but I would find it even more disagreeable if others seemed to have control over my humour, I'm sure, so I'm grateful not to find out!

I give thanks that the muse doesn't mind, she thrives on moody and mardy! There's me thinking I was going to be rewriting a story and suddenly there's a poem wants to be brought into being too... I don't know, anyone would think I had nothing better to do but sit about all day and...
Oh...
Yes...right...

It begins like this, and there appear to be a few more verses on the way. Let me know if you'd like to hear the rest. (I give thanks it's my blog and I can include them even if you don't!) It seems to be called Trust Me - she thinks up the names as well!

The one you see it is not me
The real one stayed behind
Inside a place I'd rather be
A time that seemed more kind

My puppet self can well portray
The character you're casting
You paint the scenes with words I say
The set and stage outlasting

Eastward go!

I give thanks for talking to Bob last night...for the first time in what I suspect was actually 365 days! We were commiserating about the perils of would be perfectionism in creative endeavour...and I give thanks he understands why I was, as we spoke, downloading a free office suite for my newish laptop so I could try to work on a story that arrived in my head pretty much narratively complete on a trip to Westward Ho! years ago, but which needs the necessary words more pleasingly arranged (if I can ever decide exactly what is most pleasing!)...and which steadfastly refuse to leave my head alone...

I give thanks the neighbourhood was quiet in the night so that I could fall asleep listening to the waves and wake to the sound of the wind. I give thanks to the Coen Bros for directing my dreams in between...

Today the aches have been a pain, but I give thanks for not feeling ill apart from the pesky cabin fever, nor particularly weary apart from weary of the world.

I give thanks for briefly braving the crowds getting rid of the excess pounds avoirdupois along the eastern beaches and then the pounds sterling in the shops...I give thanks they seemed to be having a good time...and that I liked the way the sea looked.

Radiohead

I give thanks for lying back in the bath with a special pillow for my head...it made the outside comfortable when the inside was uncomfortably listening to sounds of neighbourly discord and distress. I'm grateful only words were thrown and doors slammed this time...

I give thanks for some good bits in my dreams, and for managing to get my lethargy and disillusionment out of bed eventually to get on with the reality of the day. I give thanks for some bits that were slightly more nourishing to the body than munching junk food snacks, and slightly more productive than reading books and watching TV. I give thanks for even a few random bursts of stray belief...and to Terry Pratchett for the phrase.

I give thanks that folk seem to be in a better humour today for their sake; and for mine that there have been gaps in the radio listening that they prefer and which unfortunately I find most wearing - the kind with a thumping bass play list and booming speech between - also that only one household at once has been indulging their passion so it's been possible to avoid having to overhear to some extent.

It came into in my head to say I was grateful my drugs of choice are for the most part situations or activities that produce chemicals inside my brain rather than substances with scientific formulae...but when I stopped to consider the thought, I realise I'm not quite sure why. You still crave when you cannot have, and it still doesn't make you feel better - just forget for a while about feeling bad.

I don't know

After sleeping like a small broken twig in a big scary forest, I was very grateful when I finally made out of bed this morning to find John and Jo back with a cup of tea waiting and the smell of warm buttery pastries filling the kitchen. It is a mystery to me that people I've known for thirty something years are still happy to know me, in small doses at least! Admittedly it's only two people, and they come as a pair, and I know that most fifty something folk have gathered far more moss, probably even have people who've known them their whole lives and still want to, but I don't know what it's like to be one of those people. And that's why it's a mystery, and why I'm so grateful that they came and spent some time with me at a particularly miserable time of year for people for whom such experiences are...

I give thanks for their gift of a big box of Sanctuary goodies. It's very unusual for me to get big presents and I'm always very grateful for little ones, of course, but it made me feel special and kind of real somehow, which I know probably doesn't make much sense but it doesn't have to...feelings aren't logical and it's nice to have nice ones!

I give thanks for the quiet times since they left this lunchtime... I'm grateful of course that my neighbours are better at social interaction than I, but it doesn't mean I always appreciate listening to them when I'd rather be napping or curling up quietly with a book, or catching up with a few things worth watching on TV. After yesterday's almost non stop grazing I don't know if I'll feel like eating anything as big as a meal again for days... but I'm grateful there's lots of things left to eat when I do! I'm grateful for the prospect of a bubbly bath, a buttered crumpet and a mug of Roobosch tea, earplugs and Alan Bennett reading to me in my head.

Who could ask for moor?

I give thanks for a lovely Christmas full of favourite things including

thoughtful gifts, and even more for the gift of friendship...

for friends also wanting to do what I absolutely mostest wanted to do ie. go up on the moor for a picnic!

for a perfect gap in the imperfect weather and getting up to a tor so windswept I was very nearly swept away more than once - seriously hard work and slightly scary, but extremely exhilarating, and not cold or wet or too murky to see the view...though far too blowy to get a good picture. Jo took a nice one of the road on the way back though to prove we'd had the best and left the rest behind us!

for the sharing of (copious amounts of) good food ...including delicious home made soup and spicy sundries in the tinsel decorated car and left over trifle when we got home..

for and a deliciously darkly unseasonal TV drama to curl up in front of...and more helpless laughter than a glass of apple Bottle Green each and a sheet of slightly crumpled silver foil should logically have been able to produce...