A walk in the dark

I thought I'd leave this as late as I could, hoping I'd summon up some more gratitude to share...or that if I failed, a less successful post would slip under the radar. Some days, even after all this practice, it can still be the greatest challenge of all to truly give thanks...

Anyone can be grateful for great things can't they? I understand about miles and shoes, that the ones that seem shiny may not be comfy to wear, and the ones that seem comfy may not get you anywhere at all, but I can see most people's shoes are not designed for stumbling along alone like mine and wish sometimes I could try a step or two that way ... And even if I manage not to be envious, which be honest I don't always succeed at either, it can seem on a hard day as if I've only really sadness to share which isn't the idea at all...

So anyway, I'll shut up now and try to come up with some gratitudes without any qualifying 'even thoughs'...

I give thanks that even when I think I can't deal with stuff, I can.
I give thanks that I've somewhere to live, and food to eat, heat and light and water.
I give thanks I have a bed, a bath, a TV and the internet. I give thanks I can read and write.
I give thanks that I have people who are quite fond of me.
I give thanks I can appreciate all kinds of weather.
I give thanks for rubbish and recycling bins and when I took things to put in them I took my camera too. It couldn't work out how bright it was at first but I kind of like the photo before it did...

Missed a bit

I give thanks for neighbouring dwellings being strangely silent yesterday evening, and indeed most of today. Some folk had clearly left the building but some were home and so quiet it was tempting to call out 'Are you OK? Should I call an ambulance?' But I didn't disturb the peace and give thanks for the joy of not having to watch something on TV just to drown out the sound of someone else doing something similar...

I give thanks for a wonderful dream of the warmth of not being alone, and for managing not to be too miserable waking up and finding it not real. That's always the tricksy bit isn't it - to be aware of what you're missing but not let the missing of it spoil what you actually have?

I give thanks for the morning sun on the lichen and a green field not far away; for remembering there might be mushroom and goats' cheese filo pies in the farmers' market and accepting I'd just have to snack on the memory as there was no way my body was taking me out today...

I give thanks for managing to avoid seeing the result of the men's doubles final in Melbourne so that I could properly enjoy the highlights on BBC...excellent stuff!

I give thanks for sorting out a cupboard and realising something else I'm missing this winter is ladybirds. Usually there's a bunch of them move in in October and half heartedly hibernate here but I've not seen one...nor heard their familiar buzzy rattle and hum... But most of all I think today (so far anyway) I give thanks for cleaning in a corner that rarely sees the light of day and thus finding a rose quartz earring loved and lost...and often missed a lot!

Oh bother!

Hmmm...well I give thanks I wasn't in as much pain yesterday as today or yesterday wouldn't have happened, and it would have been a shame to waste that lovely weather and the treat of being taken out somewhere.

I give thanks for a murky grey day today and that though I had to go out again it was only for an appointment at the local hospital, and to pick up some veg at the supermarket nearby. I give thanks I could afford a cab, and was able to book one with a driver I know so I could have a few minutes conversation too before the long hush of the weekend.

I give thanks for much snoozing planned over the next couple of days which I hope will be beneficial to my health, and detrimental to the doldrums of being stuck indoors with few things to do that don't cause too much pain to bother unless I must. I give thanks for an expected visitor not coming again so my freezer's stocked full of food...

I give thanks for lots of recorded TV to watch and, as I was scraping the schedule barrel to find anything to record at all, that the selection should assist in the arrangement of naps! I give thanks that if I don't mind a grovel and a rummage behind the TV I have a new hdmi cable so I can reattach the DVD player and watch one of those instead.

I give thanks for books as yet unread, and a big Lush bath melt that will last for two or three fragrant wallows while I do...

Ex files

I've been having a bad attack of horizonitis lately - where you get irritated by seeing the same ones over and over again! I give thanks the ones I have regular access to are so beautiful of course, but that doesn't mean I don't yearn for roads less (preferably never) travelled and, if not mountains, at least more moor...or a different shore...

I give thanks I'm very careful what I wish for these days and, however unlikely the dreams I want to come true might seem to be, there's still a hint of possible in them. So, just as what I wanted to do at Christmas somehow actually happened and I came to be where I wanted to be, today by a curious conjunction of events, I got to my longed for birthday destination... and I was very grateful! Look...a horizon I've never seen before! Bliss...

OK, it's not my birthday but I don't think anything very companionably or adventurously birthdayish is going to happen then. This year it's not just a difficult date, but a rubbish day as well - a Sunday so folk will be caught up with family as well as partners, and hopeful ever afters, and not even much in the way of public transport to take my solitary self somewhere I'd like to go. I give thanks I'm happy to compromise with the universe if it's happy to co-operate with me...

So obviously, tremendous thanks to Jared for reading my mind so successfully...and for the pleasure of his company as well as his amiable chauffeuring skills around an unexpectedly large chunk of the north of the county. I give thanks for a lush lunch, lots of snowdrops (also on the wish list) and a surprise low level flypast by some speedy jets. Also for the answer to a tentative enquiry as to whether his wife knows the daughter of a man I used to (as Facebook seems to suggest) being 'Yes, she came to our wedding!'

Home now I give thanks for headphones and earplugs when the wild things are inside the building, and pain buffers to stop the aches in their tracks awhile...

Mind how you dream

I I don't always have good dreams, or ones I'd like to hear other people have for real...last night it was all arguments and fighting in sleep world. I kept waking up relieved to find them not true then dozing off again and having more, so I was grateful when all that was properly over and I could get up and get on!

I give thanks after little prompting Jared said he was free to meet tomorrow as I think I've been too reclusive the last couple of weeks, and it's a few months since we did. I was also grateful as it meant I had to go out today and do the boring in town chores... and could blow those mind cobwebs away. I don't mind going out in wet and wild weather - I give thanks for the exhilaration (and getting warm and dry afterwards!) but I didn't mind when it cleared up to almost warm and dry before I left the building either...

I give thanks for Mima suggesting we meet up for a cuppa while I was out and sharing a topped up pot, a toasted tea cake and a lot of chuckles...

I give thanks for the mesmerising waves which I never got round to photographing because I was mesmerised!

I give thanks for getting the not heavy but awkwardly bulky shopping home, and after another cuppa falling into a much needed nap on the sofa with something quite missable being missed on TV.

I give thanks it's someone else's turn to cook tea...Uh-oh, only in my dreams, right? Oh, and I give thanks to Charlie for being fire alarm monitor...it keeps going off tonight but with all the leaks we're more likely to drown than burn at the moment we reckon.

How strange how sweet

I give thanks for a good rant with Rachel, an excellent shepherd's pie and sublime chocolate cookies...so good my mojo even popped back to sample them, making my description of the fox cries diminishing as it wandered off elsewhere go like this. 'You could hear it walking down the road...well not literally...it wasn't wearing high heels...not that sort of foxy!'

I can't give thanks for the neighbours arguing as I don't like hearing it or feeling the anger and distress, but it made me grateful for not having someone to row with...and the ensuing protracted silence was bliss!

I give thanks for Colin seeing into my mind and sending me a picture of the North Devon bay with the balcony...or did I see into his because he's the one who's been there not me...except in my dream!

I give thanks for the local food bank liking a recent post. I thought it must be a mistake at first... I mean we're 'friends' on Facebook but I wouldn't expect the people who run it to read my blog, and it's not like there was a relevant photo on it. Then I remembered I gave thanks for local food bank collection points in that one so I guess they did...

I give thanks for finally sleeping on the most bizarrely warm and bright of winter nights with an owl party going on in the gardens, a late breakfast with ginger marmalade to remind me of dear Biddy and a leisurely pleasurely day. I give thanks for the wave cam down the road...
http://www.teignmouth-nci.org.uk/live-webcam.html (dawn to dusk)

this banned advert about the alleged benefits of a vegan diet (dusk to dawn?)
http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/26/petas-vegan-sex-advert-has-been-banned-from-the-super-bowl-5644649/

and for just remembering there are still some cookies left!

Having a whale of

I give thanks for being woken up in the night by a fox barking again...well, if you're going to be woken up by a noise I'd rather it was a wild animal rather than a wild human ...or one of their domestications. There's a local Jack Russell wears a bandana and I'm afraid to my mind this sentence was already bad by the end of the first five words let alone the following three...

I give thanks for going back to sleep and having a great dream early this morning - the best bit of the day so far by far. I was having lunch with someone I know a bit, and some friends I used to know a lot somewhere in North Devon where there's a big sweeping bay. In my dream I knew the place well but I couldn't put a name to it in waking life. Anyway we were sitting in the sunshine on a high up balcony looking out over the still calm shallow water and I knew something good was going to happen and was saying 'Look, watch this!' and a big whale shark shaped and marked fish swam close to the shore giving a final wriggle just at the edge of the water to push itself out onto the sand. A fisherman went down to meet it and put his hand in its enormous mouth and pulled out a toy doll...then the fish went back and got another. What's that? You don't think it's that good a dream? Well it seemed good to me and my companions in my sleep...

I give thanks for sorting out a bag of fabric and yarn scraps fit only for recycling. I give thanks that after phoning up to check the place that takes them was open...getting there and finding they don't take them more...getting to the Red Cross skip in the car park and finding that full...Linda kindly took them off my hands!

I give thanks that thanks to my acting as a solicitor there's a management company to report repairs required to nowadays instead of a shouty landlord. I'll give even more thanks if they sort them out of course...

I give thanks after going to the knitting group and nodding and smiling (I typed sliming the first time!) in at least some of the right places, I got back and finished off making a veggie shepherd's pie for tea with Rachel... plus rustled up some gluten free chocolate cookies for a surprise as she can't eat the normal kind. Guess I'll always feel a failure but you can't say I don't try... Here's another picture from last night.