Beneficial

Yay, it's the weekend! I give thanks for the prospect of a day on the tiles...well as much as is possible anyway :-) There are so many ideas I want to try... For the forecast hot sunny weather fizzling out so, although other matters will need my attention, picking my way between the holiday crowds to enjoy some won't have to be fitted in...and there'll be far less temptation to indulge in ice cream from one of the new kiosks in town. For selfishly being even more grateful there's even some light rain this evening - that's quietened down the outdoor sports bar crowd considerably!

I give thanks for feeling a little more human towards the end of yesterday, and being able to appreciate how much brighter the moon seemed now the night floodlights are gone. For a good meditate/snooze during treatment this afternoon and the benefits of cleaner blood and mind. For knowing I'm anaemic again and that monthly renal blood tests are due next week so the team will know I am too and put me back on the booster programme and I can benefit from that. For confirmation that Clive is coming on Sunday to help get ready for Sam and that Sam is coming on Tuesday, which means I have a few prep jobs to get on with myself but oh in what a good cause! I have a very vivid mind's eye but it will be nice not to have to use it imagine finished walls...

Martian

I forgot to say I'd been grateful yesterday for quite gentle Pembro side effects but today, maybe as I've been freed from the need to carry on regardless, they've made themselves far more noticeable and I've mostly been giving thanks for very little demanding my energy or concentration at all.  For last night's liberal application of Tiger Balm after a bath sorting out my painful back so it's just the generalised 'flu like' aches to cope with.

I give thanks for getting a few non negotiable items of clothing and crockery clean. For having planned ahead so there's nutritious food to eat requiring little preparation or more washing up to do after. For my comfy bed with a patch of bright blue sky to see in between, or not as the case may be...I thought some fresh air and sunshine might do me good and eventually it did, but I fell fast asleep as soon as I returned even though was someone using power tools not far outside the wide open window! For the spacious graciousness of the new sea wall promenade despite there still being work to do, including installation of seats which I could have done with done today. The seasonal demographic of the town has changed this summer and it feels as if all the mice from Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads are scurrying around round here instead, but it seemed calmer there somehow...and, being such a softy, it made me rather emotional to be strolling along after watching the building work going on for so many months. Also for seeing ducklings on the brook on the way home, and for goosebumps music, which of course means different music to different people but apparently some people don't react that way at all. Have they just not been listening to right sort of stuff...or are they from another planet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ095S0MmnA

Floored

I give thanks for my floor! When cars are designed I'm pretty sure very little thought goes into the comfort of back seat passengers, and my ride home today was excruciating after an already difficult spinal day. Supine on a supportive hard surface is very soothing, though there's not a lot you can do when you're there! For spotting a very convincing Spiderman and Batman at the garage we passed on the journey complete with Batmobile! It's all going to be fine now folks...

I give thanks for having extra curly hair today for some unfathomable reason....and for the fact that I actually like it that way. For remembering a conversation about these mysteries with an Italian nurse I'd not seen for many months and whose name I'd forgotten, and when I got to the hospital it was her who was ready to get those needles in!

For watching mesmerising footage of the swirling spiral of the socially distanced Haj. And for remembering how I was struck the other day by another Zen aspect of mosaic making, in which the spaces between the pieces have such significance. For dragging myself away from experimenting with a new consignment of different but still addictive sorts of tiles to try. Well, there's not much else I can spend my money on just now is there...and it sure is a pleasing way to pass the time...

Cutting

I felt out very out of sorts this morning so give thanks for keeping on keeping on, and feeling better later on. For doing some of the things that had to be done as well as some of those I'd rather. For watching people on the sea wall walkway, which is not finished but has been made passable without the need for fluorescent orange clothing unless it's a fashion statement. I give thanks I can still see plenty of sea as well as humans and concrete and the way part of the concrete slopes down to the beach so lines of heads emerge and disappear as in some kind of physical comedy mime...

For beginning to learn to cut tiles for mosaic. It's tricky for me as it requires not only a firm squeeze of the right hand holding the nippers, but dexterity in the left to put the pieces in its jaws. Somehow overcoming the challenge makes it more rewarding as long as I only do a few at once otherwise that makes it more painful! For watching (and listening!) to four men struggling to manoeuvre giant arcade games on and off the back of a tail lift van. They were all young and slim with shirts and ties and shiny pointed shoes which seemed rather incongruous.

I give thanks for being friendly and kind while dealing with another transport muddle that resulted in missing my treatment slot and lots of phone calls and waiting around. I'm only half way through now at the time I thought I'd be home again and tucking into my curry, and my tummy isn't happy but I give thanks for the cannula going in first time, the internet working and the radio being quiet which is about as good as gets. I give thanks for starting writing this earlier and for thinking to finish and post it now while I'm still fairly chirpy... 

Vanilla

I give thanks though the mishaps have been many today, so far they've been quite small! For my treatment going OK, that's the main thing after all. For a side room with a window to the outside world, some sky and a bush and a reflection of a hydrangea in one of the windows of the lovely old hospital buildings that they are probably planning to pull down. 

I give thanks for trying to get as much done as possible before I get home tomorrow and wish I had done more...and for being accepting of my extreme fatigue and ensuing clumsiness and muddleheadedness which has meant this has been less successful that I would have liked. Likewise for the delays which were not my fault which have made the day seem exasperatingly short...For not having to get up early in the morning. For the pretty peachy fluffy clouds...

I give thanks I made a chickpea and vegetable curry yesterday and just have to wait for it to cook. For the prospect of a long soothing soak in the bath afterwards when I've cleaned away the debris left by cleaning the food bin in it earlier after the bag inside it sprung a leak... For making a quick cheer me up cake and for having a new jar of vanilla paste. What a shame I only found it after the cake was cooked!

Water-based

Mmm... I give thanks for drizzly summer Sundays when I have plenty to do indoors. For just enough brightness between the showers for trippers to brighten the day for local businesses, traipsing about between the adventure golf and gift shops clutching ice cream and chips...and not nearly enough to persuade me to make myself presentable and fight for a place in the fleeting sun. For watching the steps by the railway reappearing as the scaffolding and hoarding boards thar have been there for many months are gradually taken away.

I give thanks for generally taking it easy, but gradually getting a few things done. For enough odds and ends of paint to spruce up the drawers for my mosaic tiles materials though I was horrified to realise on opening an as yet unused tin of something I thought was a close substitute for the very pleasing satinwood I've used before, that this one wasn't water-based. Ych a fi, quelle horreur etc! I'm grateful there was some white spirit left under the sink here when I moved in but I didn't really want to use that nasty VOC laden stuff either... For a soothing play with aforementioned crafty bits while waiting for varnish to dry...

I give thanks for getting ahead with the cooking as I'm scheduled for three hospital treatments days in a row at the start of next week and will need some quick and nourishing food. The trick now is to leave that alone and make something else for supper...that's going to be egg-based I reckon...

Abridged

I give thanks for a lovely long deep sleep - apart from the extended wakefulness in the middle making it two too short lovely deep sleeps! For managing to stagger through the out of sorts and disconnected day that followed. For dampness and intermittent rainy clouds keeping the crowds at bay, so that I managed to move myself stagger around outside for a while too. For walking easing the pain in my back from grovelling on the floor painting bits of that chest of drawers...it also gave my sore hands a rest but obviously not my knees

I give thanks for the bridge over the railway being open and standing on it to watch the men at work trying to finish the behind schedule walkway on the wall while beginning to clear away their temporary constructions and kit. For admiring the enterprising ice cream van parked in one of the few spaces not blocked off for their vehicles to catch the trade passing to and fro from the cove...and then reading when I got home that they were free ice creams given away by Network Rail to apologise for the delay I suppose. I'm grateful I didn't know before as I might have been even more tempted! For giving in to the call of reduced price cheesecake in the Co op instead. I've missed picking up end of day bargains there and this had quite renally friendly ingredients and a delicious not-too-sweet taste.

For seeing people on holiday and remembering how good that easing of responsibility feels. For trying to be happy for them and not sad for myself.