Gratitudes

This pertains to a conversation I had earlier today about gratitude, giving thanks and fostering positivity. I'm grateful for this conversation, especially on a day like today when the UK has had foisted upon it, a leader who seems far from being fit for purpose.

Gratitude number two is twofold. I'm glad of a friend like Rachael who encourages me to enjoy the natural world, who loaned her moth trap and gave me the chance to look closely at the world of moths. It will be ages before I learn the names of the many varieties of native moths but I know at least five more today than I knew on Friday. That's a start. Checking the moth trap this morning I discovered this one, a poplar hawk moth. I'd seen pictures before but in real life, it's a lovely creature to behold. After the release, the moth found a resting spot on our monkey puzzle and was introduced in turn to Hannah, Richard and Brendan.

Thanks to the magic of digital photography my poplar hawk moth pictures were shared with Facebook friends and the wider online world. That is another gratitude, today's ease of recording images. Beats the olden days when film processing was expensive and took ages and the photographs were far too often a disappointment.

And every day I am glad that Bert is in my life. Today he said he was 95% happy. It must have been the full 100% yesterday.

My last gratitude is still to come. As I was telling Dave this morning I have, for the longest time, on the point of turning out my bedside light and getting ready to fall asleep, given thanks for my own comfortable bed, my own safe home. This comes from years of working in residential care homes and hostels and sleeping over in situations that were all too often unsafe and unpleasant. Now I get to sleep in my own bed almost every single night. What could be finer?