Blessings and Surprises

I am lucky that I can count my blessings. They are many and one of the blessings that I have is the friendship of people from afar, who I have never met in person, as well as people who I can give a hug to, who I see regularly.

The person who sent me this tag in a special packet from overseas will know who they are and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity.

I know that I am surrounded by love and friendship.

Photos copyright: Maggie May

As well as the blessings of friends who have been persistently praying for me and sending positive vibes and wishing me well, there are the blessings of the unexpected happenings.

I had thought that the pots of tulips that my friend, Squirrel gave me last Christmas, had nearly come to an end. The tulips were all a lovely shade of pink and just recently, bright orange ones appeared. Just as I thought they were the last ones to break through, some almost black ones appeared too.

Today is election day in Britain. I wonder what surprises might be in store for us when the votes are counted. I wonder if it will be a surprise?

The unexpected is always happening. Life is full of surprises.

A not so brilliant surprise was this egg that was left on my path by Mr Fox, who I haven't seen for a good while and I had thought he might have died of mange because of the sorry state he was in. Obviously he or another fox still comes to my garden and deposits eggs at random. This time there was just an empty shell.

The blackbird decided against nesting in my tall shrub, even though she /he had started to build a nest. It really wasn't the safest place to raise a family. However, the male comes regularly into my garden and gathers worms for his family. Now how does he manage to drape half a dozen worms in his mouth so neatly? You would think that when he opened his mouth to pick the last one up, that the rest would fall out. That never happens.

The Shut In Days

Photo copyright: Maggie May

I have got quite used to being shut in the house. The days seem to just merge into each other.

I start off the morning in the front room, where we have a coal effect gas fire. I have a laptop in that room and spend sometime on that. I can see things from the front room window. Not many people are about. The local schools are shut, so there is not as much casual parking and I haven't seen any children about. Some of the cars that do pull out of the space on the road where they have been parked, slide about all over the place and have difficulty getting onto the un-gritted road. None of us has off street parking or garages where I live.

My son and granddaughters talk to me via the web cams. It is good to see them.

My sister in law bought me a jigsaw for Christmas. That is on a board in the back room. I have not finished it yet as it is double sided and takes much longer to fathom out. There is a certain therapeutic pleasure in doing a jigsaw though.

I usually end up turning off the gas in the front room and then spend the late afternoon / evening in the back, where we have another gas fire. However the central heating usually starts up by then.

This changing from one room to another makes me feel like I am breaking the day up into bite sized chunks. See how institutionalised I am becoming!

I am feeling better because this is the week that my body picks up before the next session.

I am not sure yet how I am going to get to the hospital on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

I was listening to the local radio and a lady who had to get to a hospital appointment urgently rang in to say that a taxi firm had charged her £25 each way! Like me she only lives about 2 miles from the hospital. People rang in to say that the normal fare should be £8 each way. Obviously that firm was trying to make some money out of the snow.

My hair dresser friend (who helped me chose the wig) has been round to see me twice. The second time was today and I asked her if she would shave my head. The scalp is very sore and the hair is coming out so slowly and shedding everywhere. It looks very dead and it is totally unwanted now that I know it has to come off.

Once again, she told me she couldn't bring herself to shave everything off, but she said that she would cut it very short about an inch in the longest place and nicely shaped up the sides. This did in fact look very nice and the front looked like a punk sort of style all sticking up. I might wear it like that when the hair is growing back. While she was cutting the back a large chunk came off in her hand...... so I don't feel I can go around with a bare head in case it does that again when in company. So I am back to wearing a scarf. I feel as though I have changed my religion to a middle eastern one, where the hair has to be covered. However,the hair manages to find a way out of the scarf and ends up sticking to my clothes down my back. I didn't realise that I had so much. It has always been very fine, fly-about hair.

My friend came unexpectedly today by bus. (She lives several miles away.) She came with bread and milk and pizza as well as bringing some cake treats. She also brought some *pick me up* Bible quotes written out for me, so that I could look them up when the going got tough.

I will be forever grateful to her. She made me feel like it was Christmas all over again.

That is true friendship, isn't it?