Following on with a very tenuous link (you’ll see why later) from my last entry I thought I’d tell you a little tale from when hubby and I were on our recent holiday….
One day we hired a car – the island was only about 10 miles by 11 miles and so we figured we could probably see most of it (!) with one day’s car hire. Hubby drove and we set off to visit the famous local harbour and then went off to explore the interior of the island. We started driving up this hill, crested the top and then swooped down the other side following the bend in the road*1. I saw something in a field on the right hand side of the road and as we passed it I looked at hubby, he looked at me and he said “What’s an…?” “…Elephant?” we both burst out….”doing in the middle of a field in the Caribbean…!” !!!
That was it, we were both certain that there was a small elephant – something about young elephant size, in the field, behind the hedge. How bizarre and random is that?
Well, we had to stop and double check, I mean, it was just so odd that we both thought and said the same thing at the same time….Anyway, hubby stops the car, grabs his camera and trots back up the road. What does he find? Well, by the time he got back to the ‘elephant’ it had lifted up its head and was idly chewing the cud, regarding curiously this odd tourist charging up the road towards it. You see, it was a cow, a grey and rather wrinkly cow whose head had been down at feet level and who had rather broad shoulders that looked like the ears of a small elephant….
…I guess you had to be there, but it was funny……
*1 Plainly following the road is a good idea….
I was out a little while ago and met an old friend. Now I’d been out all day and so had taken my chair and as I pushed along next to her going down the street she mentioned that it was the first time she had ever actually seen me using my wheelchair. I responded by saying that that was because we normally just met in coffee shops where you could park outside and I didn’t have too far to walk. “I’m really lucky”, I said, “I have the best of both worlds really, being able to walk but having the chair when I want it”.
“You’re not lucky”, she said, “as you have to use the chair”.
“But I don’t have to...” I protested
“Yes you do” she said. “You have to use it today because you couldn’t cope with being on your feet all day”
“But I can manage without it”
“No you can’t”, she said firmly.
“I can!”
“OK, let’s say you can. Could you manage without it today and then go home and cook tea?”
“I’d manage somehow” (At this point I’m getting a bit shirty)
“OK then, can you manage without it, cook tea and then do the hoovering?”
“I’m sure I’d cope somehow” I said sullenly....
“OK, can you do all that and then do the ironing afterwards?”
“Sure – I’m sure I could” I said (but without too much conviction).
“Ah, but could you do all that and then get out of bed the next morning?”
“Um, no?”
“That’s what I mean”, she said. “You see, I can do that just fine and be fine tomorrow – therefore I think that I am lucky but you are not” *1
Well, maybe she’s right, maybe I do need it, rather than just wanting it to make my life easier, but despite all that, I still think I am lucky to have the choice. You see, (and I’m sure my surgeon will be able to confirm this) if you cut me in half I’ll have optimist printed right through, just like a stick of rock.
*1This makes the poor woman sound like a right cow when it wasn’t that kind of conversation (and went on for much longer in a much gentler fashion). She was not being nasty (she is a friend after all) but she is really quite well known for calling a spade a bloody shovel…
I was reading this blog recently written by a scolio friend of mine from over the pond and it struck me that we have more in common than just the shape of our backs. We are both bloggers, but both of us agonised over whether to set up a blog in the first place because, in our own ways, we are quite private people.
Now you may wonder how any private person could be a blogger, but I get round it by actually being quite vague about many things in my life and the only detail I’ve ever really gone into is my internal workings! Now, I started blogging for a very specific purpose – I had scoliosis, was facing an operation and thought no one knew how I felt until I started reading a blog by someone else who had been though exactly the same thing as me. I was an avid reader and realised that if I too told my story then maybe I could help someone else in turn. So, I wrote my story (and am continuing updates too) but as you may know (if you follow my blog) that I have drifted off into …ah…other subjects – both wide and varied in nature. I wonder, why I continue with it all really, if I am such a private person, but mostly I write about stuff that amuses me in the vain hope that some of it may amuse you too.
You see, I actually think that lots of great and nice stuff happens to us all, all of the time. I was talking to hubby some time ago and he said he could never write a blog because nothing ever happens in his life but I just don’t think it s true. I think funny stuff happens all the time, its just that most of the time we are so busy and so wrapped up in our own little lives, that we just don’t recognise it and enjoy it.
Now, you’re going to think I’m going way off subject here, but stick with it, there’s a point to it really…
Some years ago I had some problems with anxiety. In fact, I became so anxious at one stage that I thought the lounge ceiling was going to collapse and I wouldn’t even sit in our camper van (I have no idea why, I was just afraid of it) – I had nameless anxiety. Not nice at all and very frightening even when you know it’s stupid and irrational. Anyway, the worst time of day for me was at night before I went to sleep. I would lie awake every night and worry. Worry about what I had to do the following day. Worry about the lounge ceiling. Worry about worrying etc…you get the idea. Anyway, I knew someone who suggested that I started following the Ten Good Things programme (or at least that’s what I call it). Basically every night before you go to sleep you must think of 10 good things that happened to you during the day. This is actually pretty hard to do to start with because you always try and think of BIG things. You always think you must only consider only important things when that’s not what it’s all about. D’you know, sometimes you get someone at a checkout who offers to pack your bag (and does so with a smile), you get an e-mail funny which makes you smile, you enjoy your lunch, you wake up and the sun is shining – little stuff like that. These are all good things and all these little things happen to each and every one of us every day – it’s just that most of the time we are so busy and so wrapped up in our own little lives that we just see can’t see them. Trying to remember the things means that we often examine what has happened to us in more detail and try to see the good in our day, rather than the bad. It makes us ‘slow down and smell the coffee’!
Well, I don’t want to start getting all preachy about this – I’m not trying to use my blog to start insisting that the whole world starts trying to spot their 10 things! I’m just trying to explain why I write my blog and why things amuse me. You see, every time someone says something funny, I try and stop and appreciate it. Then, because I did that I remember it and then I tell you guys because I thought it was amusing and hopefully it brings a smile to your faces too.
Maybe it’s all part of being an optimist, but I like to think it’s all to do with appreciation of life…
