Gratitude!

I’ve done a reasonable amount of crying this week. It’s the annoyingly long process of dealing with Leo’s birth circumstances and paying off the emotional debt. I’ve certainly been feeling the lockdown a bit lately. (I’m aware this doesn’t sound like gratitude, but I also don’t want to paint an edited picture).

So.

This week I’m grateful for bouncing ideas off people, for hanging out with people over Zoom, for exciting project meetings, and for ticking tasks off lists.

I’m grateful I can feel my natural curiosity returning - I was reading a book on ‘taking good meeting minutes’ last night and could hardly put it down. I’m grateful for a day spent working on my book, and for having the foresight to do a ‘test publication’ (there are so many little tweaks to make). I’m thankful for long messages from friends by email, and for Richard playing hide and seek with Nova over Facetime.

I’m grateful for Leo’s little grasping hands (and that I don’t have hair to pull), for the way that Nova has started to say ‘Actually’ when she’s correcting us, and for Kat, who made me sticky toffee pudding. Thank you to responsible friends who canceled plans when that was the right course to plot. I’m thankful for nice weather for going to playgrounds, for timetables and take-out and tea in thermos flasks

I’m grateful to be suddenly seized with a desire to learn more about cookery, and thankful that Kat remains supportive of this despite visibly gagging when tasting last night’s experiment. I’m thankful to started running and cycling again after a several week absence - exercise really does keep me happy.