Between the sparkly skirt and those photographs and a motivational book I feel myself moving slowly forward....into the New Life.

Thank you to Dragonlily who in the comments many months ago said 'some things you just have to learn to live alongside with' She was right.

I'm taking a blog break to take advantage of a forecast spell of dry weather - I hope they've got it right!

Here are the first pages of the new life notebook

I accept is by far the hardest.

Wishing you smiles and sunshine.

What do I do once I have achieved the dream?

Does my dream-life still thrill me?

Still suit my circumstances?

Maintaining the dream isn't as exciting as creating the dream so....

Can I adapt the dream?

Can I dream a new dream?

I could just stop dreaming...or could I?

Have you achieved some of your goals and dreams?

(One thing I will stop is whining about the rain. So sad for the people of Houston.)

..to various things I've found interesting lately about coping with change: from Diane Ackerman whose book Deep Play I am finding fascinating, Leo Babauta on starting over, and Hannah Ritchell on grief.

Trouble is they are coming up like this www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/30/stroke-rehabilitation-love-story

and this zenhabits.net/startmeup/

and this hannahrichell.wordpress.com/2017/07/02/lauras-bench/#comment-2461

So messy!

And Weebly, usually so helpful, haven't fixed it yet, so I've just put them up anyway.

..go away!

I am trying to be positive and noticing how beautiful are the raindrops on the agapanthus,

and how pretty it is on the geranium and how it sparkles on the cornus and brings out the scent of the homeysuckle, and between showers I have enjoyed sitting on the doorstep reading The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, but truly, I am fed up with rain,

Rain is forecast for the next seven days!

A flying visit to the Edinburgh Festival - good exhibitions here and here,  Sunday morning coffee in Carluccio's - I do like the friendly young staff there - and a bargain in Marks and Spencer.

I decided to have this £15 scarf and took it to the till. 'That will be £1.09 please.'
I argued (?!) but she insisted that was the price....

Love it!

I photographed this disconsolate looking baby swallow at 10.30 this morning. I am sure it is waiting for some sunshine to fly in.

At 9.05 this evening I peeped out of the bathroom window to see exactly the same scene. I can't be sure it is the same bird - five of them have just left their nest above the studio window. They are all looking a bit bedraggled.  Sunshine tomorrow guys!

More BBC Four Japan Series programmes available on YouTube that is -

The Art of Japanese Life Nature
The Art of Japanese Life Cities
Handmade in Japan The Kimono
Handmade in Japan Mangei Pottery
Hokusai: Old Man Crazy To Paint

There are more but those are my favourites.

Thank you to Linda who found the quotation I liked so much from Jay Griffith's book Wild: An Elemental Journey -

We were not made for pavements and escalators but for thunder and mud.

More dramatic skies here too..

And more rain.

Join me for a walk along the shore path..(click on first photo to enlarge).

..without books?!

Atul Gawande in his clear-sighted and compassionate book Being Mortal describes courage as 'finding the strength to face reality',

Not just facing reality but accepting and even welcoming it, is the theme of Leo Babauta's free 44 Day Training Turning Uncertainty and Discomfort Into Mindful Openness which I have been dipping in and out of. The ideas are pretty challenging  and I will start over with it more than once probably.

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant have written Option B - Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy. Although from a very different culture to mine I found a lot to like in this book. There is also a website here.

On one of my favourite radio programmes Private Passions, I heard voice coach Patsy Rodenburg talking about being present. I was so impressed by her clarity and conviction that you can learn to use your positive energy, that I have ordered her book Presence and am looking forward to that arriving any day now...

I often start the day by reading the Daily Affirmation on Susan Jeffers site. Some I like better than others of course but for me it is a better start to my day than the news!

Are there books and websites which have inspired and motivated you?

..brimeth over!

I set out last week to move out of my comfort zone and 'refill the well' by doing and looking at some things which were a bit different from my usual.

What a week.

I attended the opening of the Andy Warhol Exhibition in the newly restored Burgh Hall in Dunoon, spent a day in Edinburgh looking at three exhibitions and eating out, I met up with friends, went with my sister to a party at Glasgow School of Art and was shown round some of the Degree Show by students, and celebrated a friend's work being selected for the annual Paisley Art Institute exhibition with a visit there.

Wine and canapes, breakfast out, oh the high life!

l loved it all and am now glad to be home.

It has rained for about ten days and I do want to ground myself by gardening (which was my original plan for June).

What do you do to fill the well? And is it fun?

Not just glamour and bling! I found several good reads in Vogue including one about a British family who have taken in a refugee written by the woman of the family, and the refugee, a feature by an Italian citizen living in Britain about her view of Brexit, and one by Arundhati Roy on political activism.....

Marie Kondo believes that tidying is a good way to get to know yourself.

This is her reasoning...

'After all, our possessions very accurately relate the history of the decisions we have made in life. Tidying is a way of taking stock that shows us what we really like.'

I will keep Kondoing. Although I don't know where I'm heading I have a feeling that  I am at least going in the right direction...

I enjoyed this insightful piece by the translator of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying - she explains how the phrase Spark Joy came about!

From this poem by Mary Oliver.

forward/back/panic attack
hopes/fears/smiles/tears
inward
onward
lit
from
within

Do you remember this?

I printed it out some time ago and have just put it on a wall in a more prominent place. It speaks (in my favourite Quaker phrase) to my condition....

Grilled halloumi, with watermelon, blueberries and spinach - eating a rainbow. Yum.

The anniversary of Barry's death was a day of sunshine and rainbows. I spent it quietly with family and searched out a few happy photos and letters and cards to share.

There were tears, of course.

Yet there was also a change in me.

I felt, and still feel, more peaceful about it, and found myself doing some of the (many) things I have been procrastinating about, and finding to my surprise that they were not as onerous, difficult, time consuming or as expensive as I had imagined them to be.

And here come the daffodils...

Do you find too, when you finally get around to something you have been putting off for ages, that it is not as bad as you thought and that you wonder why you didn't just do it sooner?


PS I have framed the picture of the resolute child (yesterday's post) and hung it in the hall to inspire me. Thank you Lynne.

OK.

When the going gets tough the tough get going. (A phrase my husband liked.)

So here I am, all togged up and ready to go....

Am I more positive than before I went on the retreat?   Hugely.

Am I healthier? Undoubtedly.

Am I slimmer? Yes, by 5lbs.

Am I happier? Yes, I am

Thank you Katrina, Carolyn, Mo, Lorna, Donald and Sally!

Taken from the train on my beautiful journey to here

I'm supposing (my word for 2017) that it's ok with you if I take an extended blog break....

I love this image. It is from another Christmas card. It seems to me to capture something very moving about friendship, especially womens' friendships, and about the way I feel about the friends I have made here.

I'm so grateful for your friendship, kindness and support.

I will continue with the occasional post for a bit, just to stay in touch....I do intend to be back - just not sure when :-)

.... a new life. As we all are in one way or another.

The Guardian newspaper runs a series of articles called Widower of The Parish by a man whose wife has died....He says 'Once you have accepted that the life you had is unrecoverable, you might just be able to create a new one that isn't just simply the old one but sadder.'

This item from Christina Rasmussen's blog struck a chord with me, particularly as I am going on a train journey soon.

Sometimes I listen to these meditations and find them helpful.

Snippets from a conversation or a song can resonate - 'One day I'll fly away, leave all this to yesterday.' which I thought of when I flew to Berlin.

2016 will always be for me the year that my husband Barry died, the hardest year I ever had, and much of it felt like wading through treacle. In slow motion. Exhausting.

I like this little being from a Christmas card -  Just how I feel of late..a bit fragile, wobbly, but still upright!

Here's to wobbling on  :-)

I think the answer to many of life's big questions might be Sometimes.

Is the world a good place? Sometimes.

Am I happy? Sometimes.

Are people essentially good? Sometimes.

Are human beings warlike? Sometimes.

Six year old Scott answers many questions with Maybe or Perhaps or Probly and if you ask him to do something he doesn't want to do he says No thanks with  a simplicty and charm that  disarms you, and you find yourself saying Oh, ok then to his back as he walks off to do whatever it is he'd much rather be doing...

A book intruigingly called Happy. Why More Or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine  by Derren Brown is on my Christmas wish list. In it is this quotation from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letter To A Young Poet

Things are not all as graspable and sayable
as on the whole we are led to believe.
Most events are unsayable,
occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated

Perhaps this is why we have painting and music, and dance and ritual.

Perhaps.

And why the candle placed in the garden by our daughter tonight on what would have been my husband's birthday says so much more than I can possibly say.

A walk in the forest lifts the spirits. It's good for the body and for the soul.

The paths are carpeted with larch needles. Unlike the crunch of crisp leaves this makes for a very quiet walk. The snow remains only on the higher slopes.

Most of the trees are bare, but the birch and the hazel are hanging on to their leaves.

The elegant shape of the young trees shows up all the more.

It's a shame in a way that we almost always coppice hazel (useful wood, more nuts) when you see what a beautiful single stem tree it can be.

Do you have somewhere you can walk in nature?

And do you have a Winter Plan?



I had to add this shot of the view from the sofa at 4.30 this afternoon. It was so very beautiful (the photo does not do it justice at all!)  The sky was pink and the snow was white, then the snow was pink and the sky was blue....I nipped outside for some logs and it was so ferociously stonily cold it was a bit scary. The birds were having a quick last feed on the window feeder but I could not catch one of them on camera - chaffinches, blue tits, great tits and coal tits fast and furious! You do wonder that they survive.

I hope you are warm and cosy wherever you are tonight.

..a little lost for words (I know! How can that be?)

I am taking a few days' break.

Please help yourself to one of these delicious pears.

There had to be one didn't there?

See it here if you have not yet seen it...

It's clever and says a lot about resilience and wit, but I can't quite laugh yet (as Hillary would say 'It hurts')  ...I'll stick with the original thanks! See yesterday's post.

The death of a dear uncle is giving me pause. He died early on Wednesday morning and I found myself glad that he would not have known the result of the American election. Even at the age of 97 he took a great interest in politics, philosophy and current affairs. Hopping on and off buses with him when he was 96 I asked him if he ever took taxis and he replied, quite seriously, 'I will when I'm older'.

I will miss him, and am thinking of the ways in which he inspired me in order to build some of his good habits into my own life....

..timetables!

We are lucky to have really good public transport here - if I could only master the timetables I'd have no complaint. A recent trip to Edinburgh involved a bus, a ferry, two further buses,  and a taxi when I ran out of patience with timetables on the last leg..

It's the connections of course that are the tricky part, with such variables as summer/winter, schooldays/non-schooldays, schooldays Thu and Fri only/schooldays Mon - Wed only, Saturday only/Sunday only, Bank holidays/local public holidays, holiday service on Glasgow Fair Monday and Paisley Fair Monday (no dates!) departs from up the glen/departs the other end of the village, only comes as far as the next village 6 miles away at certain times of day (varying according to school days as above), The car/passenger ferry is very reliable - only ever cancelled in gale force 8 and above, the passenger only ferry (known as 'the bathtub) is often cancelled when the weather is poor. The timetable states - 'All information is subject to change without notice. Argyll Ferries accepts no liability for any inaccuracy....' This ferry links with trains to Glasgow if 'link' is the right word. Waits can be from only 8 minutes to 50 minutes.

Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project talks of trying to cure herself of impatience in trying situations by finding a calm response with for example a 'waiting in line meditation'. I think I must develop a 'waiting for bus' meditation and 'waiting for ferry' meditation!