Cabopino Beach..

Today someone said he thought he had seen me on beach, back home, I guess my spirit or soul sometimes goes a wandering...

Had my flu shot this morning, arm aches already! Usually the next day but this was quicker.. then few hours later blood test taken, different arm!! If that even makes a difference eh! 

So tired again today, I was out for an hour and a half this morning, also defrosted and cleaned the fridge freezer, and cleaned the bathroom floor, whoever put black mirror type tiles down on a bathroom floor never intended to have to clean them! Nightmare!

Been having bad dreams as well, adding insult to injury with my bad sleeping.. 

Had one of those weird moments this morning, listening to Harry Potter on my ear buds, just coming home from flu shot and Asda, and the narrator is saying 'October 16th.....' and I stop in my tracks!! Today is October 16th!! Weird eh? Coincidence.. yes!

Been trying to decide whether to get a car or not! I miss driving, I want a car, but do I need a car?? 

M.

Fall in love with moments..

Not really a quote, but, certainly something to think on...

Moments like when I took the photograph above.. snapshots of our lives

 

I'm sure one day I'll stop posting photography from back home.. or at least old ones, new ones are better ...

People from England who live abroad and still call England home, so I am allowing myself that privilege now, with Spain, my heart will always be there.. among the Málaga and Cadiz mountains and across the plains between them..

Down on the Costa del Sol beaches and flitting from best remembered bars and chirinquitos..

Ghosts of loved ones and friends shall always remain...

Yes, I am better, quite suddenly yesterday afternoon, better! Just my normal tired, which is fine, been dealing with that for decades, so just pleased my antibodies have won the war on COVID that was attacking me so vehemently!

Just in time for my flu shot tomorrow, I hope! And blood test tomorrow, another one! 

I ventured out last night too, into town no less, in the evening in the dark! Beware the dark ... Stay clear of the forest, sorry I mean beware the moors, stay on the path!

Had a nice evening, a non alcoholic gin y tónica, and was home by 20:45!!

It is most definitely autumn now, that wonderful autumnal smell, feeling, the promise of Halloween, of log fires, frost on the hedgerow, pimping out the spiders webs in silver frosting.. the sunlight glistening on melting frost.. 

Ooops sorry, Waxing lyrical! 

M.

Need a quote and searched my notes, this isn't really a quote, and I may have published this before, but it caught my eye and shall now reside here .

Boundaries we make for ourselves, too scared, some of us, to break free, to realize our own selves, to be brave enough to just be us and not feeling caged by own self-made electronic fences.

 

A photograph from my trip back home last month, alright feels like months ago, I guess, coming back and feeling sick hasn't helped with that!

I am better, but no way better better.. I am so incredibly exhausted, can't even tell you.

Fed up that I could have had my surgery today, and now still don't know when it will be.. and so tired... Still, sleeping at night is a bonus eh!

I did get out Saturday, a coffee near a marina, and hardly a walk around then some lunch, was lovely, but too tiring.. And today, walked to Asda and home, need to get out, need to exercise and try and build up my strength but just so damn tired!! 

Which is funny, because I'm normally not a 100% awake anyways but now it's ten times worse! 

M.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

Cynthia Ozick - Short Story Writer-Novelist-Essayist

January 2021, home.

Test kit this morning faulty, so awaiting new kits to arrive today! Still feeling crappy, dizzy, weak and my right eye is so sore.

It's reminding me of the awful eye infection I had June 2020, when I ended up having a call with the eye department of Coventry Hospital and my wonderful client paying for a taxi to bring me my medication, penicillin! Doctor on the phone said I could have lost my vision in that eye had I not done something about it.. I had had two earlier infections, the two months preceding this worse one, and only been given cream for my eye... But then, who knew it was something worse.

So today, actually a poem, from one of the Pod casts about a spy in France during WW2..

It says on Google it's is now commonly used for funerals 

***

The life that I have is all that I have

And the life that I have is yours.

The love that I have of the life that I have

Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have

A rest I shall have,

Yet death will be but a pause,

For the peace of my years in the long green grass

Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks (1920--2001) was an English poet, playwright/screenwriter (he wrote the excellent Peeping Tom) and cryptographer. He showed a fondness for codebreaker from a young age, and during World War II worked for the SOE--the British espionage agency given the task of helping resistance movements in Occupied France.

***

The kits came yesterday afternoon! I'm negative now!! 

And also now it's Friday afternoon, I went to bed about 7pm last night and woke up at 8am! Two things COVID have helped me with a) my ankles are not swelling up now! Laying down all day and night definitely helps with swollen ankles! It's my heart meds by the way!! And instead of my anklet being either close fitting or too tight, I've been able to fit three fingers under the cord, laying against my ankle together not one on the of the other!! Obviously!! 

And 2) I've slept! Not something I can normally do! 

And yes the two things a) and 2) were on purpose to make you laugh! And now I see you didn't even notice! 

Today this morning I went down to Asda, was tiring and wobbly and weird to be out in the world after six days, I felt very zombie like.. and the world looked different somehow, coming back was heavy going, it's up hill, but only just, nothing like back home.. 

Oh in Asda, I bought a Kraken (as in Kraken rum,) glass, a spare for my son, couldn't complete my purchases until an assistant came to check on a flagged product. I said the only thing I have is a glass? Is there an age limit now for buying glasses! We laughed! Apparently so she said! Saying it was for my son she said 'well, make sure he only drinks squash from it then!' I said, he's 45!! 

I've spent the rest of the day doing nothing much, but have remained downstairs all day, so that's a bonus, see if I can manage to stay awake until 8 tonight!

M.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

Seneca - BC-65 AD - Philosopher

The Pipster above, one of my favourite photographs, I suppose because I remember the whole moment in time so incredibly well.. We had gone for a drive to the lakes, the Conde del Guadalhorce Reservoir, where we went a great many times of course.. we had walked and then decided to go to the bar at the top of the mountain above Bobastro, you'll not find the bar now..

But from there you can still look down at El Chorro railway station and see the trains heading to Ronda and Seville, and from up there come face to face with eagles soaring high catching the warm thermals.. 

Anyways, we went there, and Franco had gone in to order coffees, Pip was keeping an eye on him!

And here above, is mmmm forty one or forty two years ago, Tony and I, and Elsa our beautiful German Shepherd pup.

I'm writing each new post after just posting the one I wrote before! I'm going to get confused! Lol, so it's still Wednesday, I'll test again tomorrow.. need to know when I'm safe around my family. I am thinking I could try for a walk later anyways, as long as I don't go anywhere or bother anyone at all. Just to get some exercise and fresh air, although to be honest walking around the house is stretching my abilities at the moment, I'll see...

The group of series I am listening to on Spotify is called The Spy who.. and from the there it takes us on a journey through many famous spies, and the many we have never heard of, and should have.

I'm not sure, but I think I may have already listened to four series, and I don't think I am anywhere near the end yet. They are fascinating, compelling and part of our history. 

I just hope I am absorbing what I have listened to so far.. with my foggy head, I don't want to forget..

My COVID symptoms:

Sore throat 

Extreme tiredness 

Voice gravelly 

Sense of smell

Sense of taste (animal fat, meat)

Cough and yucky stuff

Aches and pains

Dizziness 

Stomachache lower abdomen 

Right eye pain, and weeping

(Weeping as in eye not my overall tears of feeling bloody awful!)

M.

Grief is our timeless gift of love. Where there is deep grief, there is great love. If we allow ourselves to love, we must also give ourselves permission to express our grief. To continue to live well and to love well depends on it.

Laurie Taylor 

Me and my mom! Rocking it in Los Angeles California styley back in the day; tv, color camera, all mods cons that were not in the England we arrived into the following next year! 

Mom and I had full washing facilities in the apartment, obviously indoor bathroom! And arriving into England to a house with an outside toilet, a tin bath that had to filled manually! And a mangle for squeezing the water out of wet clothes!! Must have been strange for my mom, me, not so much, being totally unaware really, in the grand scheme of things... She worked for Thomas A Edison, in New York City. I am guessing a son or grandson was running the business by then. Head too wooly to check.

I know, I'm sure my random posts, full of nonsense much of the time, is my way of making sense of my world.

One that from the beginning wasn't how a life should be.. although of course who says mine is the wrong way.. but it wasn't an easy one.. oh well, okay, that too then! 

But my ramblings are my way of dealing with my thoughts, which after what? Twenty three years of Blogging? Without may well have sent me to a beautiful house in the countryside where dress code would be white, and the walls very comfy to fall against! 

Okay, okay yes, being dramatic as usual! But honestly, I need to write. Definitely a book could come out of that dramatic paragraph alone! This COVID is really in my head!! 

My small book about my stepdad, Dennis C. Randall sells a few copies a year, it doesn't make me rich, I can't write something as big as I write here, among these pages, I know I can ramble more than a hundred thousand words, but they wouldn't make a cent! 

More importantly it doesn't help me empty the continental stream of words in this head of mine, like Blogging does.

Highlight of the day!! The hospital called to say they have had a cancellation and I can have my surgery on Monday yeahhhh!! Only of course I can't booooooo..

We talked and as I might still have COVID and my immune system is presently being hacked by nasty bodies attacking my lungs and heart and other organs, it can't happen! Sods law or what!! I just knew they were going to do that, my poor troubled gut told me so! It's only troubled by the way because I'm not really eating, not, of course, because of COVID!! 

M.

Quote isn't meant in a depressing way.. I say laughing in my pit, on the morning of what will be my fifth day in bed!! Seriously!! Maybe not the best of quotes! 

Life is a great sunrise and I cannot see why death wouldn't be a greater one

Vladimir Nabokov

Above photograph taken whilst walking one morning through our Sierra de Mijas back home.

This COVID thing is really getting to me now.. I'm sure I wasn't this bad before? And last time I don't remember my taste going weird? I know it's been a long two years, a change of life two years, a monumental change actually, so some things dim in memory.. 

But last night I came down to bring down my cup and saw the babes and my son sitting there munchy through mince pies, as in the sweet Christmas treat, for those of you not familiar with this beautiful sweet pastry, crammed full of fruits and spices, sometimes warmed and covered generously in cream or warm custard or vanilla ice-cream! 

Sorry! Anyways.. I asked for one, and getting it back up to my room I prepared for the above wonderful taste.. and what did I get, what weirdly can I can still taste in my mouth?? Animal fat! It literally tasted like animal fat! It tasted so bad I haven't eaten today yet because my mouth tastes so horrible I don't think I can face it again.

Last evening I made my way through a string of movies, well string of two! Both very good, but maybe not very good for watching one after the other! They were The Map of Us and Between The Lights. Both well worth watching, separately, luckily feeling so tired and ughhh I went straight to sleep after watching.

Only now feeling so extremely sad!! Like impossibly sad.. I guess being in bed for four days does nothing for us mentally, not leaving the house, I have the window wide open, but not exactly out and moving about, not that I have the energy or capability right now, having to talk into my phone half the time because it seems confusion reigns with regards to sentences and words.

Last night I woke up thinking about a couple of my old penpals.. wondering what happened to them... and wish I could just pick up a thread, pick up a line.. Alan Andre from Mauritius and Eugene Kumar from Singapore.. Cannot remember at all what the former did in Mauritius, for some reason the army comes to mind now.. and the latter worked offshore for a French company! Lols that narrows it down at lot!! No?

Watching another movie now, when I'm not feeling sorry for myself! 

It's called Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.. it's also very good, subtitles though, so have to concentrate more .. I'll add a quote from it now..

Me and my quotes eh! 

Being held prisoner by this thing I suppose does mean I'm Blogging more!! 

Oh and I tested positive again today! Will test again Thursday, why am I testing? Because I can't give this virus to someone, anyone, vulnerable, I managed to work through COVID here in England, and not a single one of my clients caught it.. I am grateful for that.

And I still feel this way. It's not a gift to give. Was looking for a phrase there, but only found sad things so stepping away from that will post now and get back to the movie, but maybe another cup of tea first.

M.

The best portion of a good man's life is his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love

Wordsworth

 

We often take for granted the very things t