This morning I drove into town to force me into driving elsewhere after my normal morning catch-up with the guys at the bar...

After two hot chocolates I got my car and went to Aldi in Coín, when I came out a male podenco was hanging about, he walked towards me and my cart, which I then caught on heel because I was watching the dog... I said "hola" to the little chap and took my groceries to my car.. another person also spoke to the dog.

He just stood looking sad, lost, lonely and hopeful of something, someone...

He stood head hanging low and eyes following me...

I got one of the little bottles of water I'd just bought and Pippa's drinking bottle from the car and took them to the dog.  He nervously stepped back from my approach so I filled the water bit and placed it on the ground for him.. he walked up and drank his fill...

His face was just like Pippa's and I drove away in tears.

Just filing through my photographs on my Kindle, came across this from June sometime...

It's so true, all or nothing eh!

I have been spending time in my Oculus, doing well, well better, learning to navigate my way from place to place, how to move more fluidly, and to fly, when you can.

Not used to interacting with strangers, but it's getting easier. saying "hi" to random avatars is not easy, especially if they look like a robot, or a slime (Ghostbusters), a just a floating skull!!!

There are a few too many young kids on there, school holidays at the moment.

And funny all our avatars being the same height when voices are so young!

In a ketchup only bar, Tony's Bar! Us few adults got together and went on together to other Altspace locations... One place I can't remember what it was and there was a really cool game where I would happily hang out in.. but searching today, no luck!

Still it's great, and looking forward to the Quest coming out in the Spring!

My arm hurts from all the basketball I've been playing the last few days!!

I better change to left handed for a while! Lol!

Went to a cool gallery today, chatted to the artist and he talked about his art, and the problems with loading for the Altspace world.

Yesterday a friend came to visit and we went down to Fuengirola for fish and chips...

And then to IKEA in Malága before heading back home.

A good day.

This evening at 18:00 as the sun was going down... 

TTFN
Marian

Well that almost week has gone very quickly...

I made some notes on the train from Shrewsbury to Birmingham...

Lets see what they were!

Deer - Yes, I saw deer running near the tracks and back into a forest, beautiful moment, a small herd of them...
Sheep - Yes plenty of these! and some cows, but mostly sheep!
Men with guns - This was an odd sight! Suddenly there were three or four guys standing in a field with shotguns drawn pointing skyward!! Not sure if they were clay pigeon shooting or aiming for real birds!
Field of pheasants - And within a few minutes and only about three fields along was what was quite literally a field full of pheasants!!!  Dozens of them, some close to the tracks and flying off low to the ground to get away from the carriage! Male and female... so many of them I couldn't count them... but they should be counting themselves lucky the guys with guns were not in the same field!!!
Tree carving - This was stunning! A tree still standing, but all branches cut from it, and the trunk had been carved beautifully, almost looked like a totem pole.
Sunshine - A beautiful afternoon the sun shone from the moment I left work, standing on the platform awaiting the train, the last time I will flag a train down probably... the last time I stood there, much more was well with the world... and the world I am in now is very changed...
Rivers - I passed along and over many rivers... so many small streams winding their way around the fields and through the forests.
Waterfalls - Beautiful, after some rain the rivers and falls full of rushing water, so pretty in the sunshine.
Brown earth - Not sure why I wrote this?? There had been some fields prepared I guess for spring, left bare and brown, and richly colored.
Colors of autumn - Lots of leaves on trees still... and now its winter isn't it! Still so many leaves to fall.
Watercolor skies.. - Yes an artists pallet across the skies... so many times I see landscapes my step dad could have, would have painted.

And after the train, I got lost, or just confused, at Birmingham International station, thinking it was the airport I couldn't understand why I couldn't find the hotel!! So after getting un-confused I found the airport and the hotel! Once I could actually get back out of the airport!! Signs saying where to go to fly... but to actually exit!! I didn't see a single one!!

I ate dinner in the hotel, although it was an Ibis basic, it had a wonderful restaurant which they don't normally have, maybe because its at the airport... and a coffee room close to mine, except no caffine coffee!!! Don't know what that was all about!!!

I left lots of bottles of stuff in the room in the morning and weighed my case in the airport, it was still 2.5k over the limit so had to dump all the rest!! And a pair of shoes!!! OMG!!! Lol.. oh well hey ho!!

Good flight home, got my car... bought groceries in Lidl on my way through and then I was home!

I got the tree up, got more shopping and wood for the fire yesterday...

And today, Christmas Day, has nearly passed. Watched movies, made lunch, a glass of wine, a couple of shots of something similar to Bailys... some time of the VR... Lots of calls and messages from friends and family...

And I am done.  Too tired to re-read so E&OE blah blah

Last night I was awoken at quarter to one in the morning and again at twenty to six!!! Well, Okay, this morning... Both bad times, for me... and I didn't get back to sleep again after the second trip downstairs... especially after yesterday waking up at 5am...

I was pulled from my last dream into consciousness... I could actually feel the feeling of being pulled somehow! I got back into bed and lay there until 6:45 (when I thought I might just as well rise and shine.)

And I thought as I lay there about that feeling of being pulled and I wondered where exactly I was dreaming... Do we dream in our minds? our souls? and if the latter where do our souls reside when we sleep... within us or outside sometimes...

I know sometimes I sound a bit crazy!! Wired! or weird!! lol.. but the scientists found that people can and do leave their bodies when they sleep, the rare and lucky few! They even did that test where three guys arranged to meet up once they were asleep and although only two got to sleep and met... they held a conversation and wrote it down in the morning, it was word for word perfect!

So who is to say where we go when we dream... because I was very much pulled back into me this morning...

And those phenomenon things I have, thankfully not too regular where I wake and can't move, what am I waiting for? My soul to reconnect? Sleep paralysis its called.

Lol... Okay okay, maybe I am too tired and talking while half awake, asleep? Seven weeks with no break isn't so great you know... and today the thetrainline.com just reminded me to activate my train ticket... activating me to book a ticket for tomorrow, because whenever I booked it I was tired already and booked it for today!!! Thirty-seven pounds down the drain! I would rather have given it to someone who needed it than book a ticket wrong like this!

I am rereading this to correct the mammoth amount of errors! Tooooo tired!! Hopeless!! Lol

Talking earlier on the phone this morning with a friend about some funny stuff we do, almost daily! And I remembered being in such need of chocolate one day at work I drove to a supermarket and bought three or four packs of four of the Cadburys Flakes and the guy behind in the line commented on such an amount! I told him I was the Cadburys Flake girl from the old TV advert! And he believed me, he was like 'oh my god yes! you are! wow, this is amazing!....' etc etc... I just grinned and left feeling happy I had my chocolate!

My friend said she bets he told everyone!!! Looking back at that now, 1985, her and I were maybe the same age, ish! Well, okay maybe I was a little older than her... but not enough for him not to believe me! I wonder how many people he told!? I was that famous Cadburys girl he met in Waitrose in Beaconsfield that time!

Heart of stone 1985

I have been in possession of this amazing piece of writing since I was about 25...

The sad sad voice in this heart of stone
sings a song of a love that once was known.
This song now changed from its merry key, has,
in its way no dint of misery. For on its way to
composition, joy was known and joy was hidden.

As joy was shown, this sad sad song, sung
with love by this heart of stone, must release
the tears of a joy once known.

If joy was hidden, it must now be shown,
to reveal the treasure locked in a memory of a love once known.

For love once shown is love alone, enduring in this
heart of stone, let not treasures, both known and
hidden be shut in and unbidden.

The sad sad song of joy sings its way from a
misery to a life with sweet sweet memory, for
joys, both shown and hidden, are treasures between us given.



I wonder to this day if the person who sent it to me is the author of it... because it is nowhere to be found elsewhere, I publish here from time to time...

It needs sharing, and I doubt the person who wrote it is still alive now, so sadly will also remain hidden and unknown also.

I am nearly at the end of my time here, and its now with mixed emotions I shall leave... there are times when I get through (don't know how!), being overly positive and funny and changing conversation to better and funnier topics and everything is great! Until it passes and I can't see it anymore even myself..

I've met up with two friends while here which has been wonderful; special times. Hadn't seen one friend for far too long, and the other I may never see again! Lol yes I am always dramatic!

The Best That You Can Do ("Arthur's Theme") - Christopher Cross (w/Lyrics)

Wishing I was going back for Christmas actually... Actually I seem to use the word actually way too much these days! Lol

Old Westbury Gardens

Just photographs today, tired from having to get up in the night, and a disturbed break, when I was actually having a catch-up nap... Give up, only five full days left now... six sleeps... if I can sleep.

June 4th 2018 Astoria Park NY

If I post these photographs from Astoria Park a million more times before I stop posting at all... then expect it.. this evening is lodged in my memory as an all time special!

Old Westbury Gardens

These last few days have been very much up or very much down! I was sent a photograph of Pippa which completely floored me... and feels like I have swallowed a lead weight... I have become quite good at blocking out things which hurt my head, but not everything is so easily blocked...

Atlantic City

Feel some words of wisdom should be written here... lol

I have so many happy things to think about, I do, and I know where I am is making it worse, I haven't been able to speak to people I normally speak to, on the phone or face to face, people who are important to me, seven weeks is four or five weeks too long!

Maybe it's best I don't write much today, called up twice in the night, and early start.

Trying to be overly positive all day and not much sleep doesn't make a good combination...

Rain yesterday, please let the sun shine today! 

Today's mindfulness tip on my phone read: 'Be a spectator of what goes on in your mind.'

Which makes sense, watch what goes on there, I don't have to listen to it all and take part, I don't have to let it lead me, or upset me or push hither and thither... Like this morning, my mind raced immediately as it does at random times during the day, and the awful times in the night of my fur-baby and you would not want to know what happens in my mind then, what awful thoughts and emotions take me over. I can't write them. I probably actually never will be able to tell you.

So! Moving on swiftly to this past night! I was so tired and went to sleep quickly, then woke up about only twenty minutes later, at only eleven!! My foot was aching, well my heel... I must have mentioned my sore heel over the past few years? It just aches when I am laying down, not walking.. anyhows its been more painful the past few weeks, so I had already taken paracetamol for it and it hadn't kicked in, haha.. no pun intended! I must have gone to sleep because I awoke again before one am... and in agony with it, I just could not find a way to lay my leg or foot which didn't aggravate the pain; I saw two am, and then fell asleep somehow... but at three am I got called by the lady I am supporting, and was with her for about a quarter of an hour, and apart from the heart banging thing that happens when called by someone, the pain was worse in my heel... I took more paracetamol and tried again to sleep.  When the alarm went off at 7am I was shot... I am so tired, my heel still hurts and I am sitting down with no pressure on it at all at the moment,  I must have googled this problem, this pain a hundred times, but for the first time Achilles came up, and seems to answer most of the questions I have over it... although if it is and I have been suffering with it for so long, I should have had it seen to by now! Which could be why the pain is now so bad.

I have enough trouble sleeping at night now, with insomnia, those damn thoughts in my head from night till dawn... and pain in my foot is the icing on the cake!

I used to sleep well, I woke often, just turned and fell straight back to sleep, that was me, I could wake up twenty times but always fell immediately back to asleep, my mind free of worries.. always been a few aches and pains with some of the crapola I have, but they didn't bother me. Is this the true reason that people sleep less when they get older!! For godsake I am not there yet!!!

The lady I am with now, one of her great sayings is 'Old age doesn't come alone' she says it with a deep drawn out voice to accentuate the words, how very true this is!! Lol (If you are going to try to say this, think the old voice tape we have all heard "London calling" "London calling"... from WW2.

How very true those words are though...

This was the thought I awoke with this morning, I had switched off my 7am alarm and was waiting for the 7:30 I had quickly added, to give me a few extra minutes if I could.. but I had this thought and woke up properly, 7:10 and was out of bed feeling a little bit better... sans my body! Lol

'Think very carefully about the people we have become, reach your hand back to that younger self...'

Maybe I didn't finish my thought, maybe that's up to you... maybe that is just it...

Me, about thirteen... Who was I then? Lol not much smaller, actually still the same size I think! Lol.. but in my head? I guess I wasn't me yet...

One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted.
Do it now.

Paulo Coelho

I'm getting déjà vu! Did I post this before? It's on my notes! So very maybe probably!

Just been out to fill the bird feeders, trod in pheasant poop! Nice! Did take a photograph, of the pheasant I mean! Not the poop! But heck, I took so many of him before what's the point! He's been over glamorized! If it's the same one, I'm proud of him making it through though, him and his Mrs who I saw wandering around here the other day, can't be an easy life, being a hunted bird!

We have a movie on about a long train journey across the states.. how absolutely wonderful..

Let's see! Okay, fly to LA stop over with my bro, then board the train... a slow train, all the way to New York.. visit with family, fly back!

I'll be Googling train journeys now, Amtrak? Who else?

I could Blog my way across America! Funny when I go off on a tangent like this isn't it! But, it's always good to dream, 'they' say. I suppose though I do spend too much time dreaming, it's hard sometimes to stay in the here and now...

Home

A wall in the town I am working near... These were here last time, as you can see they're not new... But not sure I posted any photographs of them...

And if I did? Hey ho!

Yesterday I was picked up down the road by my buddy!! We talk every week, message a lot every day... but I hadn't seen her for over a year, so great to catch up properly... we sat in a local cafe, unfortunately I chose the best seats but near the only other people sat near where we were, so we tried not to get to high pitched when we talked, or too opening!!

Didn't want to shock the locals!! Lol

A good day yesterday anyway, all in all...

This morning I woke up, early, don't know what the time was... I awoke with a thought in my head, a weird and slightly awful thought, I did Tweet it just now.. but wanted to write it here for prosperity! Haja!!

This is what I thought...

'Wherever I am I'm a long way from home.'

Roads were made for journeys not destinations.

'Confucius'

Today I begin with a quote...
A good quote
A beautiful quote
A quote that makes me feel lighter... I love getting on the road and just driving....

Just scanned through for photographs of roads on my phone...

So many road photos, some not even mine?? I need to clear through my history! Lol

I had to try hard not to post the New York ones which come up whenever I search for anything I want to share!

Zero degrees outside, and I am doing two positive things today! I have been seriously missing out on my intake of water while I have been here in the UK, might sound nothing much, but I do have some sort of kidney problem thing hiding away and all I need to do is make sure I drink! Water!!

And so I am keeping a glass of water in this kitchen and every time I walk in I shall drink from the glass!!

The second thing is I am phoning my manager to say I won't be returning here, I have to, self preservation, it is what it is.

Last Monday evening I took down in the pitch dark all the recycling bins to leave on the grass verge at the bottom of the drive.. did I tell you already?  Anyway, in the morning the guy brought the bins all up and said I didn't need to.. I meant to check yesterday when they will be collected again... forgot, what with everything, and today sat here I saw in the dusk a reflective jacket coming up the drive!!! And went outside! Lol ... well, yes.. of course I did!! And apparently the recycling is every week and so this week, not only had I not put the bins down the drive by mistake), I hadn't even put them out for collection at all!!

Feeling more positive today! Two weeks to go!! My phone is not stepping up to the plate at all in this beautiful morning light... I took so many beautiful photographs when I was here two years ago... okay so maybe this link doesn't take us to the best! But back in time anyway!

My camera would do so much better with the above shot!

Blogging from my kindle which will no doubt choose it's own words not unlike my phone!

I have a couple of weeks left here, this four week placement feeling like an eternity coming directly from a three.

Trying to decide if I am struggling here because of that, or I just shouldn't have returned here. Sadly I think it's more the latter reason.

Being beyond tired, and just wanting to be where I feel at home... able to just be me, with familiar things and... Lol and?

My tide has to turn.

Keep having reminders on Facebook on Google photos; I don't want them anymore, no more what was, it has to be what may come...

What dreams may come...

I've come back, after posting... Just checked, this time last year I was with my brother and his family in LA...

That's not even me anymore.. well it's me, but really not, twelve months...

Also I really think I should get that color back!