It's Still Life

1. For 14 (can that be right? Must be …) creative and inspiring years on WordPress where I’ve met some of the most talented people who are beyond the definition of generous with their time and expertise, and for all the life-long friends, and more recent ones as well, that I’ve had the joy to know. Thank you.

2. For my little Danish troll on the fridge door who makes me smile every morning. He’s been with me for 44-years, as long as I’ve been married to my husband.

4. I am thankful on a cold day for Pho Ga (Vietnamese chicken noodle soup) – for the heat, sourness and sweetness, the egg that even though a bit older than I’d wished poached perfectly, for chilli peppers that surprise the nerves at the back of my head, and for tooth-tender bok choy, I love making this soup.

5. Thankful for an excellent crop of tomatoes from the greenhouse this summer, and that I had help in clearing out of the old plants and cleaning it within reason (it is afterall outside all year). And for the nature’s generosity that the rose is blooming again.

6 That my son, his wife, and two of my four precious grandchildren (Nico and Luisa) are safe and back home after severe floods caused havoc in Bogotá Colombia. How ever will children cope and adapt to these weather changes as adults…

7. Spent today in Eastbourne. Went to my favourite fishmonger who asked where I was last Friday. There’s something uniquely special and heartwarming when people remember after you, knowing that your interrupted routine might indicate problems. I assured him all was well; I was just having issues with my eyes and thought it not wise to drive. He gave me a free kipper.

8. Thankful beyond words that this is the last night (in a long FFS week) that I must endure … the tradition of Bonfire Night (along with frightened dogs, cats, wildlife, and hedgehogs who think a stack of wood pallet boards with an effigy on top is a place of safety), because lest we forget when we watch the fireworks that this is about burning 16th century “heretics” at the stake.

9 To he who reads my assignments before I submit them, who singularly prods me on to do this because he believes that I can do it. My thanks are insufficient to your generosity.