Thankful Thursday

I lack any talent whatsoever when it comes to playing a musical instrument and am poor at identifying individual tunes.  However I have a great love of music and the emotions that it can evoke.  I am thankful for the fact that I can appreciate music and that it has played such an important emotional part in my life.

Today I saw some people who were limited to life in a wheelchair.  I have been told by the medics that one of my knees needs replacing.  I am thankful, however,  for being able to walk and play croquet and for being able to do so with relatively little pain most of the time.

I am thankful for the fact that I live in countries where I have freedom to be who I am, to do the things I want to do and say the things I want to say.

Thankful Thursday

It was never my intention to make this a weekly blog posting but during this week I have learned of several people who have had news that they will be less than thankful to have received.   Two involve news that I can well understand having had similar news given to me.  So the first thing I am grateful for today is the twelve years and a few weeks I have had since I was first given that news.  I sincerely hope that those people will be writing a similar post in twelve years.  In fact in one case I have already agreed the place for lunch this time twelve years hence.

During that 12 years so many things have happened: some good, some not so good, some mindblowingly wonderful and some heartwrenchinly bad.   They have given me the outlook on life that I have and have taught me to live life for the moment.  So that is the second thing for which I am grateful today.

And I'm thankful that I was persuaded to visit New Zealand and circumstances have allowed me the privilege of seeing Milford Sound (West Coast, South Island, New Zealand) and on a fine day and with a good friend, Steve.

Publish Post

Thankful Thursday

Last Thursday Jaz of Treacy Travels wrote a blog post entitled Thankful Thursday.  I though 'What a wonderful post'.  I spent a while contemplating the things for which I am thankful and for which I feel thankful every day that I wake.  Then when I was awake in the middle of the night one night I wrote some of the things down starting with being thankful that I don't suffer from insomnia.

The interesting coincidence was that one of the books I read when I was on the journey across the world was Alexander McCall Smith's The Lost Art of Gratitude.  'She had not expected him to thank her: indeed she rarely expected anybody to thank her for anything.  Gratitude was a lost art, she felt.  People accepted things, took them as their right, and had forgotten how to give proper thanks..........he had at least said thank you and she, in turn, was thankful for that."  

So today I am especially thankful for:

walks with my brother

days on the mountains

my son Gaz