Days of Gratitude - Finding Interesting People Across The Stepping Stones

It's time for another blog post.  As the days pass without posting I get further behind with it all.  I do my best to keep going out, to keep experiencing the world around me and taking photos of it all.  And there are things I want to be writing about too.

But between having days on which my head doesn't allow me to do much at all, keeping busy on the other days, and co-writing a blog with Blob Thing, I run out of time to write my own blog.  It's a problem, at least for me.  Blob's blog is taking more time than expected.  The plan was to post a photo of him each day and maybe add a short explanation.  It hasn't worked.  On every day in the last week we've written over 1000 words together about some or other adventure he had.

So here, at last, after a gap of ten days is a blog post of my own.  Another one of the gratitude posts.  There have been some pretty tough days this month with my head.  Some of them have been a major struggle and on quite a few I haven't had the mental energy to be able to leave the house.  Slowly I am learning to accept that I will always have difficulties.  Before accepting myself as autistic there was always some hope that a therapy or a self-help practice would offer a full solution, a cure all to my head.  While there were things that had helped me a lot - and most especially accepting myself as Clare - there were still lots of problems and I hoped to find a way for them to vanish.  But autism isn't curable.  It's for life.  And that's okay.  Coming to terms with it has been tough but I think I'm getting there now.  It is difficult to live with and it always will be.  But for various reasons I don't want to be cured, to be not-autistic.

That's something to write about another day.  Yes, another unwritten post that might become written eventually.  Here instead are five days of gratitude.

1^st July

Grateful for a little wander in Morpeth before visiting the local charity shops.

Grateful to have found Carlisle Park and walked by the river and seen the stepping stones.

Grateful not to have got very wet in the rain.

Isn't Blob Thing stunning?!

He was so brave on the stepping stones and jumped across them all.

Another day for Blob to blog about.  And another day for me to blog about too.  In all honesty my time in Morpeth was far better than I had expected it to be.

2^nd July

Really, really hard day mentally. And my knee (which managed over 12 1/2 miles walking today) hurt so much I was close to tears.

So. A quiet day at home.

Grateful for the game Fez. I played quite a bit of it a while ago and just started it again. I must have gone another way because I pretty much don't recognise anything in the game so far! It's nicely relaxing. Not much running about and avoiding things that kill you!

 And grateful for these guys in the picture. I sat and binge watched the last episodes of the final series. They have given me much enjoyment over the past few years. And now it's over. What began as a not that interesting good/bad guy of the week drama evolved into one of the best things on TV. Rest in Peace Person of Interest. Thanks for the wild ride.

3^rd July

Grateful for dry weather and a knee coping surprisingly well.

I started my Wear to Tees walk having been distracted by refugees when I tried to start it a fortnight ago.

It was meant to be a short walk but somehow became longer. From St. Peter's Metro to Easington Colliery. Next time, Easington to Hartlepool maybe.

Grateful that, though it's my longest walk in a LONG while, I am not aching much.

4^th July

Grateful to have got through a tough head day and to have managed to attempt at least one positive step in it.

Grateful to have Amanda in my life even though we have to be so far apart most of the time.

Grateful for photos and the memories they bring. The last year is full of good memories and having the pictures helps greatly on the most difficult days.

[I didn't include a photo in the Sunday Assembly Gratitude Group that day.  But here is one, a card I received from Amanda exactly one month earlier in celebration of my re-birthday, a day that means a lot more to me than my legal birthday.]

5^th July

Grateful to have gone out for lunch with Beth. Even though plans went very wrong.

Grateful for how quiet the cathedral cafe was when I later sat there with a drink and a book. I haven't been there in ages.

Blob enjoyed it too and went exploring afterwards.