Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor Frankl - 1905-1997 - Psychiatrist and Author

I really love this quote above, I am very quick to respond, just me, always have been.

Trouble is when you have to choose to either respond or just let it go; in letting go and not saying my piece I can end up not listening and just blocking things out, sometimes ignoring to the point of.. well, nothing! 

This does not make sense now I've reread it, and for a quote at the end normally and placed therein before I even Blog, it has become the centre piece of my writing today!! (Yesterday!!)

Easter weekend.. only bit drizzley yesterday, Monday, other days were okay... And today Tuesday back to sunshine.. beautiful! And warm enough, no jacket just a T-shirt to walk to the Post Office, time to send the test off! Hides face!

I wonder how the couple in our old home managed through their first Semana Santa.. the last for me I remember so well, probably as well as the first one... Standing on my living room balcony, talking to my neighbor next door, she's also sold, month after I left... 

So much change, after so long... 

And now it's Wednesday! See how fast time flies by... 

I needed to add a photograph and wanted the one above, of a what appears to be... Random biscuit barrel in a charity store! 

But we had this!! Exact same one, either us, or my mom? But can't ask her... Of course.. it's as familiar as an old friends face.. 

Anyways! I digress... I went to attach it yesterday, the photograph, then realized I wanted to crop it first, got to my photographs then sorted out other stuff and well, before I knew it, I had forgotten about my Blog and why I was in that folder!

M.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

Plutarch - Greek Philosopher

Photograph above taken up at Alhaurín Golf, ten years ago... Someone else lifes, was it mine?

Feels strange.. it came up on a memory on my Facebook.. I'm sure I can switch them off if I want to.. but I don't, want to.

Life only moves on when the terms for acknowledging all that's gone before have been reached.. Mmm need to keep that quote! 

We had very high winds today, felt like the house was going to take off! 

I luckily or unluckily have been tucked up in bed for the most part of the day, two days of a sore throat last week and mouthy me proudly exclaimed that nothing came of it! But two days later it did! And am still suffering, more as the week has progressed.

Have been up and still up and about now, on my third medicinal drink of the day, that's actual cold remedy hot drink, sounded a bit like an alcoholic beverage then didn't it!

Last weekend went for a wonderful drive through Derbyshire, and stopped in an area where barges more up, I've forgotten the name of it! 

There were stores and restaurants, and a nearby canal to walk along, which we did..

We stopped for lunch along the canal, an Indian restaurant, sitting on bench by the water, before hot day, low twenty's... I got sunburnt, just for the helluva it!

Was a very beautiful day... 

Photograph below was at Nottingham Castle.. 

M.

 "Anni, amori e bicchieri di vino, nun se contano mai"

Missed a Blog post from last week... 

So a quick bit from yesterday, which is actually still today, but posted already!! 

ps it's Thursday now!!

Today went to the Castle with son and his babes... Them and me running around on the climbing castle, it's fun, not so much even at my vertically challenged height! Having to keep low from knocking myself out, but so much fun! 

Sat on a bench, at a bench I should say! For lunch and rests, and coffee from the café on site.. 

A lady bug came to say 'hello' and flew off when I got to close with my phone for close up photographs! 

Also a Bombylius major, the fly bee... They are so amazing to watch! 

After the castle we went into a favorite shop of ours, Forbidden Planet it's called... A comic book store with everything plus more more more! 

I said to my son, 'I most certainly haven't grown up because I just want everything in here, and more or less everything everywhere else too!' He said something like, 'that's a good thing, no one wants or should grow up, that would be boring..'

Wise words indeed son.

M.

The idea is to die young, as late as possible!

Someone asked me yesterday about am I more relaxed now... and I replied yes I am, because I most definitely am, after 2024..  what a year... 

Not my worse, by any means, but still not sure how I got through it in one piece, oh hang on! That I didn't do! Not in one piece, but in many pieces!

Although still, it's a bit like PTSD, I can't think about much of my twenty three years in Spain without crumbling... And I wish I could just stop and think, remember so many amazing best days of my life, best years of my life really, age, fitness levels.

It's such a big great wonderful part of my life, but leaving it still breaks me.. I want to look back at my thousands of photographs, I want to close my eyes and go back to days and places and people, I want be relive and be happy about the happiest times...

But as soon as I begin I want to cry and I literally can't take the overwhelming feeling of loss that comes into my heart, loss of it all, especially my home, my house, my home overall. It chokes me.

I don't want to be like a client I had in healthcare who lost large pieces of her memories, not through dementia, but through stress and loss and sadness.

We live our lives to enjoy and to remember and take these amazing lives we live through with us, onwards and upwards! As Aslan says!

Funny I end my Blog today here, with these words, when the quote below I placed there weeks ago, always ahead in quotes while sometimes slow on posts...

M.

Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.”

—David Searls

Sat here on the tram now, sat in a group of people all on their phones!! Oh my god what a society we live in now!! Is it better? Like this? Surely not?? Especially as I have ear pods in, toe tapping and lip syncing, silently! 

Although I probably look like someone you wouldn't want to sit next to!! Especially now as I am giggling to myself as well as I write this!

It is another absolutely beautiful day ... Wall to wall sunshine... Blue skies... spring springing all around... Stunning... 

Now, yesterday! Matlock Bath, just south of Matlock.. also known, thanks to Lord Byron as Little Switzerland.. the River Derwent passing through... It was like being at the seaside yesterday! Loads of bikes, how we arrived; loads of fish and chip restaurants, coffee shops and people!! It was Mother's Day here in England.. and everyone was out on the roads or treating moms to a special day..

I'd never been before, done so much around the south of England, but hadn't very often made the journey up to Derbyshire... 

It is full of natural outstanding beauty.. and seen on a bike that much the better, for me, including all the 'fresh' smells!! 

Was a wonderful ride out, bar the slipping off the seat part!! Not completely, just sliding forwards and backwards!!

And ending up in a local bar for a.. coffee! Of course!

And today those muscles I didn't think about while trying to hold on, are telling me they were well used!! It feels like I spent a few hours at the gym! 

Now, in town finishing my Blog, drinking coffee and eating mint tiffin in Waterstones..

Came into Waterstones for the love of the smell of books! It is beautiful!

Okay, so bibliosmia is the word for the smell of books, but says more for old books because of the breakdown of ink, paper and chemicals ... And vellichor.. also means the smell of books! For the same reason! 

I do love the smell of old books but new ones... Well, open up a new book and just breathe... Beautiful.. 

M.

Don't worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try

Jack Canfield - Author

Really beautiful, long walk along the canal and nearby river ways running alongside.. 

All the flora and trees coming green, really feels like spring is in the air...

Glorious day, over five miles of walking.. lots of dogs and people tagging along behind them!

The swan beneath, the partner was sitting on their nest, way too close to the towpath, worrying close... I didn't pause to take a photograph as the swan was so close and looked a bit stressed!! 

A weir to take excess water from the canal.. 

Was just so good to be out in the wonderful fresh air.. taking big beautiful breathes in.. 

I missed the smell of England.. sounds strange I'm sure... But the forests, the land, smell of nature.. Spain was, is, amazing for sure, but I guess the smells we grew up with are more ingrained than we realize.. 

I miss so much from Spain, but we have to work out what we miss most, in the end, it's those things we have to know if we can live with, or without.

M.

We are all broken... That's how the light gets in. Ernest Hemingway 

Blossom out all over the place this past few weeks, everywhere you look... Walking under these trees I had to give the branch a bit of a gentle shake, just for the fun of it.. very gentle by the way! But was beautiful seeing the blossom shimmering..

It's been warmth enough, and dry enough to be out six days a week too.. still only been a few rainy days since back from Spain March 5th... I like my beloved españa.. still raining! A lot! Yesterday the streets of Alhaurín El Grande ran white with hailstones and rivers throughout! 

All on Facebook and general viewing on the many Spanish newspapers online.

Last week I got the letter from the pensions people!

Time passes.. tick tock, tick tock! 

What have I been doing, I've been here and there and about, gathering no moss as always! 

Out with friends, and family.. went to the babes school assembly yesterday for Eid, saw a video presentation made by the class, very good.. then a second video made by another class featuring a poem they had written... Was so lovely to be included in this assembly.. 

The next part is hard to write, but I have to, I need to.

We met a beautiful couple back when Tony was two weeks old, so, nearly forty three years ago, they became very good friends, the best. 

I have always remained in contact with them, and visited them, and them me, they moved to Spain not too long after me, maybe six years only.  

They're family to me, and he passed away last week, last Wednesday, and I still can't believe it.. and because I have been in his wife's shoes, I feel the more devastated because I know how she feels and this breaks me even more.

He was the life and soul of the party, of life.. a good, kind, caring.. funny wonderful man who will be missed by many many people and my heart goes out to his wife.. 

M.

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

Auguste Rodin - 1840-1917 - Sculptor