Grateful: Day 100 - Day 100!

Thank you, first of all, to Ruth, for not minding me switching the computer on at 11pm. I may not make the midnight deadline, but here I am all typey and doing it. It's day 100! Not the day for a morning upload.

I shall do this for another 100 days before deciding anything else.

I wrote stuff down today. I was grim-faced and grumpy most of the day, faced with a fat, tangled ball of work that didn't really make sense. However, there were lots and lots of pleasing things all round.

The pond, of course, and the fact that I could swim and change and ride down and still get to The Hub at 8.45. And when I did, I lifted out my bag of swimming gear to find a stately ladybird attached to my towel. He was lucky to be alive. I'd used that towel and I know he came from home. I've had a bit of a run of them at Ruth's. I don't know how they're getting in, but there are always a few. One fewer now. Released into the wild. I had a little chat with him and lifted him onto the handlebars of a wheel-stripped bike.

I woke early this morning, worrying about some work (the one I did today and the one I had to shame-facedly give back - I just don't have the time to do it well). When I got to The Hub, Anna (lovely, warm, kind Anna) said it would be fine, better, even, if I did Tuesday instead. RESULT! Thank you, thank you. When I sleep, I will sleep sounder and sweeter tonight for that little gift. The work is done and sent. The weight has lifted. Next stop: Tax Return.

The first thing to cheer me up during my work (apart from Anna, Multi-Alex and a lovely cup of tea) was Eminem. He's a foul-mouthed git, that one, and sometimes I have to skip forward (it's not the foul-mouthedness, it's the content, when that happens). But today, it was Business, off of The Eminem Show LP. Totally brilliant. It made me very happy indeed, even faced with MUCH more work than I'll be getting paid for.

Also, I managed to drop my headphones in said lovely cup of tea, and I was pleased by the proper 'plop' they made. And by the fact that they still work. That's pleasing too. As was the fat bluebottle that landed on my right hand for a moment, then disappeared. Oh, and I made myself laugh by drinking a long drink of water and just remembering the lady on the train in Cologne laughing all wide-eyed at me for doing just that.

And the cranes! Looking out at the always regal view over London from the 4th floor Islington Hub, I thought I saw some changes. All of those long, leggy cranes are moving. Very

slowly. It's just a change in angle. It's almost dream-like. But there they are, working, moving things. There was a beauty in that too.

The satisfaction of sending off that email with work attached was just so flavoursome. And just in time for yoga. The class was long (meaning I am effectively 'fasting' - I don't eat after 9pm now, and we didn't finish till five past, so last week's lesson is already in effect - no food since about 3pm. It's not 24 hours, but it's a start).

It was also very peaceful and very calming. I felt a gentleness in my core that I haven't felt for a week or two. Bless Foca hard (Vic, you know where - with a name like that, you have to, really, don't you?). He smiles such a lot when he's giving lessons, like he's really just enjoying it. There's a peace about him, but a puppy energy too. And the postures were very soothing and very focused.

I liked the lessons today. They were about knowledge and about devoting your actions to the juice that is the universe. They use the god terminology, but I just can't stomach that, for me. They also say 'do what you like', so I will. I like the idea of offering up your stuff to a higher purpose.

It's kind of the same as mindfulness, and kind of not. It's all sorts of things that all sorts of people do. I can't call a thing God, or Him. It rankles in my belly (like so many other things do at the moment - it's just a rankley kind of time). But blessing things feels fine. Blessing, I like.

And thank you, finally, for Ruth. Such a pleasure to talk to her this evening, and laugh, and sniff little bottles of herbs and flavours to see whether to respect the dates on them and throw them out or just keep them anyway. One was from 1998. Can't remember what we decided on that one. I think it was a keeper. Others were too old to even HAVE dates. We kept those too. The bottles were pretty.

The pictures are being strange today. You're not having one of Eminem. Not even for Day 100. Thank you for all the lovely comments I've had while writing this blog. Thank you for people that read often or even only once. It always, always, always makes a difference.