I smell of pond.No shower gel today. I showered, and enjoyed some bucket over the head bliss, but I caught a whiff of myself earlier, sitting a the table and it was decidedly organic.
Helen Cardwell (who phoned today, actually) taught me a few years ago that if, after swimming in a normal pool, you lick your arm later in the day, the full chlorine smell comes back. I love that. When I used to swim daily (during a particularly enthusiastic period at Hasbro), that was one of those little high points in my day. A dose of arm-licking.
I was tempted to lick my arm today, to see if I became pondier. Or rather, it crossed my mind. I can't really call it temptation. Oop. Just did it now. It works.
I have already packed purple shower gel for tomorrow, so were I to lick later in the day, lavender would be what came back. Tomorrow is my last day of swimming until Monday. Nooooooooo. Well, yes. I'll miss it, though. I always mean to do something else when I'm away... swim too, or run, or at least squeeze out a sit-up. I never do. Maybe this time, I will manage it, in the shape of some upside-down time. I could do the 20 min yoga pattern created for me by Esther Lilley when I still lived in the pointy rooftop in Ealing. That includes the plough. Flip it up and hey presto: I'll be ripe with fertility, free of all abdominal ailments, brainier, a better communicator and out and out more refined. I could handle that.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, somebody did a theft at me. I ordered some headphones from Amazon - just little cheap ones to replace the same brand ones that have lasted 3 or 4 years. They got delivered to a nearby house instead and when the courier came back to find them, they'd been had. The nice gentleman on the telephone, whose Welsh lilt pleased me, said he'd get it fixed within a few days. That'll be a treat for when I get back, then. Actual stereo.
Isn't Helen Cardwell good? It impresses me that we are still in touch. We know each other from school, the school I went to from 5th year to 6th form to pick myself back up after a few 'incidents' including not really going to school much for most of the 4th year, running away, doing the odd bit of minor crime. Helen was also my neighbour.
What I'm particularly impressed with is not just that we still know each other, although that in itself is a big thing, but that I am still discovering things about her, and that I'm so full of admiration for her. And I like her. Maybe I sound like an idiot saying that like it was news, but for me, knowing someone a long time isn't any kind of a guarantee of anything. I don't really see many people I've known that long.
But Helen is there. She was always better at keeping in touch with people than I was. And now so much has changed. Among so many other things, Helen is now a wonderful mother to a delicious, intelligent, compelling child (and has a lovely partner too). We're both differently grown-up ladies, and she is someone's mum. Like J is too. Someone's - two people's - admirable mum, who shows the way and still stays who she is at the same time. I have some good role models.
A fb comment from Nick Blagmaster really made my day. Now there's a man I wasn't courageous enough about loving, a long time ago. I love him now too, only very differently. I am glad he is, glad he's still blagging, glad he's busy in the world making mess and babies and bathrooms, glad he is happy. And glad he laughed at my blog. Very glad about that.
I've been thinking in a meta way about what this blog is doing for me. I have tried to narrow it down to the gratitude practice - what's that doing - but it's not just that. It's the pleasure of writing every day, and the little frisson of honour and excitement every time I understand that someone has read it. I love not knowing when I start what I'm about to say, or what was important, or how I'm going to say it. I love reading back what I've just posted. There's always something that's a surprise.
So what is it doing? Before I started, I stated a belief (to myself or maybe even to other people) that gratitude is a focus. If you start looking for three things each day you're grateful for, and you write them down, you'll never be short of things to say. The challenge won't be finding three things, it'll be working out which of the hundreds of things every day that are worthy of praise and bum-wiggling are the ones that make your list.
It's not 'what is there to be grateful for?', but 'what stands out today as the thing I'm absolutely blown away by?'. And then you realise that you don't have to keep your list down. You can let it be as long as you like. And when you're doing that, people (and dogs, in my case) flock to you to offer up more things to be grateful for. It's like they're drawn to me, to give me a Very Nice Time.
Today, a smiling dog, and another with a ball in its mouth, and a burly man who looks a bit like a murderer saying politely affectionate things to his curly terrier as he cleaned up after it. I saw a jogger bobbing along with a bag of shit in her hand about three weeks ago. I meant to mention it at the time. Remiss of me not to. I found that very pleasing indeed. She was being slightly pushy with her two co-runners. There was a bit of territory-marking going on. I just wanted to point and say 'but you're bouncing a bag of shit at your hip - assert yourself later, once you've been past a poo bin'.
I think I saw duck sex this morning. A mandarin male and I'm assuming a mandarin female (small, pretty, loud). It was quick. As quick as lions? I suspect even quicker. I'm not sure if it's even the right time. The warm weather may be confusing them.
The ladies often mention the warm weather - the fact that it's much warmer now for the time of year. Fills me with dread and excitement both. I fear for my breasts. Today, there was definitely a level of freeze in all but the core areas. They might have to be sacrificed. Oh god, we don't want a Frostbeulen-experience! I think I'll still be there whether it gets a bit uncomfortable or not. Christmas day is a hoot, apparently. And when it's really frozen, swimming in the pond has been described as a similar sensation to making your way through a slush puppy. I fear that anything non-vital might get frozen off. I'm sure I'll find out.
I was all excited about seeing Victoria Sandison today, but she's poorly so I didn't. Big shame, but I'm sure it's for the best. I shall save it up for another time. Ambreen was fasciating - I ahven't seen her since January, I think.
Oh dear, I'm starting to forget, at the beginning of a sentence, what on earth is about to happen in it. That's a sign it's time to go to bed, before I start to make unintelligible mishmashes.
I've developed a taste for salt liquorice. Get me. Just thought you should know.
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