Being a Grandmother and the lessons I have learnt so far . . .

Wow – being a grandmother

Being a Grandmother

I probably started my initiation as a grandmother when I was born. I had two grandmothers. One was an earth grandmother and the other, who brought me up, was the complete opposite. The ‘earth mother’ one taught me all about nature, cooking and how to grow pumpkins in compost. The other one took me at four, to the college of psychic science to be with the mediums there. They mothered me and began at an early age to teach me how to use my intuition properly. So, in a way I had very balanced role models.

My spiritual practice and support system has been there a long time but as a grandmother it is even more essential, like a super lighthouse guiding me through so that I don’t get lost or flounder. Part of that support system are the wise women and other grandmothers who share their journeys – I can’t imagine life without them.

One of my most precious possessions is a Native American pottery figure of an owl storyteller with her grandchildren. This was given to me a few years before I actually became a grandmother and somehow it started a ‘broody’ feeling deep in my gut. Babies seemed to gravitate towards me everywhere I went. My two sons got married not long after this, and, soon grandchildren started to arrive.

Storytelling

When Oisin was born, seven years ago, I felt a surge of passion I hadn’t expected and this has continued with the birth of each child. The last one was born just before Christmas and the passion is still the same. Each birth has had its own signature and, interestingly, I have had a different role each time. Caleb was so determined to be born at home (despite the fact that wasn’t the plan) that I was very much part of that process. It was an amazing family experience as he literally fell into my hands as my daughter in law had no contractions to speak of and my son cut the cord. Even if I haven’t been at all the births, my bond with each of my grandchildren is just as significant.

It was quite a challenge the first time I realised ‘Oh my goodness I have to share being a grandmother with someone else. Surely he is MY grandchild.’ For the first time in my life the green-eyed monster of jealousy reared its ugly head. Now I can laugh about it. I am incredibly grateful, as a therapist, that I recognised this quickly and got help. It took time, but what I finally got in touch with were my own fears around my mortality, which I hadn’t felt before. As a grandmother I am not going to be around all their lives, and that makes them all the more precious to me.

I enjoy letting the child in me play, explore, get dirty and, if I forget, they remind me of the wonder of the world we live in. With Miles, who has lived in cities so far, we love exploring different streets, go to parks and museums and weave stories about the people who live in the city. With the grandchildren who live in Norfolk, we tend to go to the beach or wild countryside and tell different stories about nature and animals. One of my ambitions as a grandmother is to be part of their getting to know both worlds, whether it’s a city or the countryside. Sometimes I can do that through storytelling and hopefully we can visit both more.

A few years ago, before grandchildren, I found myself with some Aboriginal grandmothers. They had been desperately thinking of ways to help their grandchildren who were beginning to sniff petrol out of boredom and abandonment by their parents. They learnt that if they sat quietly and painted stories containing the wisdom of their tribes, the children would eventually become curious and ask questions. I was privileged to see this happen and have used it as a way of passing on family history, not because my grandchildren have been abandoned, but because, as a grandmother – like my grandmothers before me, I am a holder of our history. A couple of years ago I wrote a book called ‘Healing the ouch of disappointment’ dedicated to my grandchildren. It contains the tools that I have used in my life and passed on to my clients as well as a story to help us look after our energy field. My grandchildren can read this even when I am gone and I suspect there might be another book or two before I pass on to another dimension.

I have learnt that my grandchildren are like sponges, and observe everything we do and how we interact with others. They need to make up their own minds what they choose to copy and what they don’t. They also have ears that hear round corners and are very good at spotting inauthenticity. As a potential role model they keep me on my toes, and as I am not caught up all the time with their day to day needs, perhaps I am more aware of this. Having had a grandmother who would repeat everything I told her, I know how important it is to be someone my grandchildren can talk to and trust. This reminds me that each relationship with the children is unique, and how important it is to have special time with them individually.

Being a grandmother does not mean that I need to give them more time than their parents. My sons still need their mother and that relationship is always growing. I love both my daughters in law and have never seen them as ‘just providers of grandchildren’. I had a stroke a year ago and the love and support I have had from my family is amazing but they have had their own challenges and we need to support each other. What I have noticed is that I can be quite a tiger grandmother over the whole family, not just my grandchildren, and sometimes I need to rein that in.

Very often the help and support that my grandchildren’s parents need is very practical: picking up from school, babysitting, feeding, helping with general family logistics – and I have been happy to do that, as well as the ‘fun’ things. Although I am a loved grandmother, I have to remember that my grandchildren are growing up and their needs will change. I have to watch out for having a favourite age, as each age will have its joys and pitfalls. What I can add to childcare, as opposed to someone from outside of family, is that I love the children with all my heart.

An added bonus of being a hands-on grandmother of seven children is that I can incorporate this into my practice as a psychotherapist. Not only do I have the experience of bringing up my own children, but I have young children around again and am part of their growing up. Sometimes I can be a ‘grandmother’ to clients and help them understand the dynamics in their own families. What a gift it is to be a grandmother …

 

This personal essay was written for Wilding Magazine Volume 3. (The journal for ‘free spirited’ families.) March 2016.

I highly recommend this beautiful publication, and feel very privileged to be part of this edition.

 

Choices and perception

Interesting that at the moment I am looking at how much my thoughts influence my perception. Some of you might be thinking “well of course they do” and, yes, I know that too but I have decided to take a closer look at the choices I make and how quickly based on my perception.

For instance today is a beautiful sunny spring day, high tide on the marsh, colours vibrant and had a lovely walk with my grandsons. Saw a different perspective because of the high tide which reminded me of a similar scene with one of my son’s in November and a happy occasion. Do I always feel happy on days like today? A friend of mine talks about “being in hell in Paradise”. Thought provoking! In fact do I feel happy all of the time? What choices do I make and are they the right ones?

My honest answer is No. So what do I do when the answer is No? For me I can’t waive a magic wand and change my feelings like that, however I can acknowledge them, make the choice about “how long do I want to feel like this for?” and then start the process of changing my perspective. Sometimes this can happen quite quickly and at others it takes longer. The truth can be that at times I haven’t wanted to or been ready. Today I do know that staying in the gloom is more uncomfortable than asking for help/support even though I know I have to make the change myself. Usually I need to tell one other person what is going on, then it is what I call an inside job. If I stay in the gloom, I make the wrong choices – either too quickly or not all, reinforcing the gloom.

I have been teaching meditation a long time and over the last year I have been aware that one minute meditations are very effective and can work like pit stops during the day. One of the reasons they are effective is because doing one is the first choice we can make in changing our perspective. Worth trying …

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Life pilgrimage. What does “hitting the wall” mean?

Writing about ” hitting the wall” in my recovery from a stroke made me think about it at other times of my life. In a strange way, it is almost every time I have done something for the first time. It doesn’t happen straight away – it is usually when I don’t expect it. I have been reading Satish Kumar’s book “No Destination” and he talks about when we journey as pilgrims we go with a sense of the sacred without making demands and we expect a certain amount of inconvenience and hardship.

It has made me realise that my life is a series of pilgrimages and eventually morphing into one big pilgrimage of gratitude and respect for the world I live in. So that means that “inconvenience and hardship” are there for me to overcome and become compassionate, understanding, stronger and loving. So I hit walls… Of course I do and will. Sometimes I come to a wall and it takes me a while to realise I can turn left or right and see where that leads me. At other times I notice there is a half hidden door in the wall which opens with a bit of effort. Sometimes I can see that it is actually possible to climb the wall with care as rushing at it is not a smart move I have discovered.

One of the best ways is to find somewhere to sit quietly and meditate upon the situation. Very often I then discover I have made the wall myself through fear, assumptions/expectations and misunderstanding timing – followed by an understanding of lack of preparation and maybe not trying to do things alone! Oh that pride and “I should be able to do this”! I think I have finally learned that my ego has no place here. I hope I have. Although I might want to give up, I never do because in my heart I know I am growing until I pass on to another dimension..

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved watching the sky and this morning was no exception and it is continuously changing which is what makes it fascinating to me. What appear to be inconveniences and hardships can often turn around. The Aboriginal people also taught me that where there is a poison there is an antidote, I have to notice it.

equinox15 010

 

 

 

Having a stroke, blog 3

Gosh I have just realised that I haven’t written anything since mid-July. This might have something to do  with the fact that, about a month ago, I hit a wall with my recovery from a stroke. ‘Hitting a wall’ emotionally is a strange feeling – a mixture of fear and wanting to hide. For about  3 or 4 days I tried to push the feelings away, but unsuccessfully. The fear was mainly about saying out loud that I felt I was going backwards in my physical recovery and that, that would continue.

Luckily I had an appointment with my doctor and was able to tell her how I felt. She explained that my body and my brain were trying to figure things out, which was causing some confusion physically. A few days later I was teaching someone to deepen their meditation practice, and during the course of these couple of days, she told me to get in touch with the lady who has always looked after any back problems I have had in the past. She has been able to use Cranio-Sacral techniques. During the first session she said ‘Oh, your right brain is angry with your left brain.’ This made total sense to me, as my left brain was being quite philosophical about the situation, and my right brain was frustrated and felt frightened because the way that I use my creativity had been hampered by the diminished dexterity of my right hand. It had felt as if the two sides of my brain were speaking to each other.

This is a classical example of living in the solution not the problem. Although my right hand is still wonky and slightly unreliable, at least I understand what is happening to me. Lots of my symptoms are hidden from other people, and I had got to the stage where, if one more person said ‘you are doing really well’ I would have decked them! Needless to say I got to the doctor just in time.

Although I see an NHS doctor, I do pay for the Cranio-Sacral treatments that I have, and I am very aware that not everyone can do that. What I have been given are very simple exercises, for instance; touching my nose with my left and right index fingers with my arms stretched out on either side, lifting one leg up and touching it with the opposite hand. It may be a question of asking your doctor or NHS Physio for these kind of exercises. I have subsequently found out that the symptoms I am experiencing don’t happen until about 6 months or later.

One of the interesting things is I have never been able to write with my left hand, and by accident discovered that I can. However, what I am now doing is still practicing slowly with my right hand, so that I don’t ignore the slow progress I am making with my right hand, but progress it is.

Whenever I feel discouraged I think of the 2 young women; Emma and Rebecca, who saved my life in February, and I keep trying. Their part of the story is for another blog.

Highlights of my overall improvement have been; going to Legoland with my grandchildren, and subsequently taking them to the Fakenham fair – all on my own. There are 3 of them here and the youngest is 2. More outings of this kind tell me that I am definitely getting stronger.

 

Having a stroke, blog 2

So why was I in agony – I had gone for a short walk the day after I came home, then the next day I went for another and a bit further. That night I was in agony. I was put on some medication immediately and after quite a few days of that medication I was in tears with the pain. Fortunately I had a friend with me and with perseverance I got to speak to a doctor and she said “Stop taking those pills immediately, you are allergic to them”. As if by a miracle the pain stopped. I should have been given more guidance before coming home. Nobody’s fault but you can fall between two stools very easily. Never really understood that expression till now but you can so easily forget to ask the right question and others make their assumptions about you.

Without friends and family, I would have been lost. A dear friend from France came and looked after me for a week. In that time she was like a terrier and moved heaven and earth to get the physio to come and see me. I had been left off the list for goodness knows what reason. The strangest thing is that I am usually good a these kind of situations, teach Assertiveness no less, but I had no “fight” in me whatsoever. I shall probably keep saying that for a while. Without her I would probably never have been seen by the physio.

Using scissors and cutting my first slice of bread was my aim at the time. Figuring how to put a Bra on was next. More about my progress anon. However, today what is foremost in my mind is the gratitude for the story of the two mugs that turned into five! My IPad has been a life saver and I saw there were some mugs for sale and they were lovely. I always need mugs! So I sent off for two. Then to my horror I realised they were going to the old address and emailed the contact number immediately. No worries said the lovely lady and it was sorted. By some blip, they got sent to the old address nonetheless. Another email, the lovely lady said she would send another two mugs, her fault, plus a print of feathers as an apology! I forgot to mention that she had added a mug with feathers on it as I had said it was a shame she hadn’t that mug left but she found one without a box.

In the meantime, my husband had gone to the old house and by a real stroke of luck had managed to get hold of the original parcel. So today I have five mugs which I have paid for with the added bonus of a beautiful print and a delightful coaster. What was I going to do with the extra mugs? Then I remembered the two friends who fetched me from the hospital and have come every week to study and chant with me as part of our Buddhist practice. A mug each feels the least I can do. More than anything gratitude is what gets me through the day. The  mugs are made by a very talented Sarah Travis and she has a great Facebook page. Thank you Sarah too.image

More about the stroke to come …

Having a stroke …

Well where to begin. On 3rd February I had a stroke – never been ill before, no medication, no warning. I was very lucky as I was in London at the time taking the tube to my hotel for the night and all of a sudden I was on the platform wondering what was happening to me. In a period of a few hours I was tucked up in bed in Charing Cross Hospital having discovered I had had a stroke.

Why am I going to blog about this? Perhaps it will help other people and it will certainly help me keep things in perspective. The question I have been asked consistently is “weren’t you frightened?”. The answer is “No”. That thought just didn’t come into my head. Whist I was in hospital they kept me pretty busy and even brushing my teeth was a challenge, funny and took most the morning to start off with. I was very lucky to have two amazing girlfriends look after me whilst there alongside my extraordinary sons;  one literally by my side every day and the other, half way round the world, phoning me every day.

Even when I was transferred to Kings Lynn things were ok. The issues started when I actually came home! I was overwhelmed by the love and support by family, friends and clients BUT I needed a fighter on my side. I didn’t have any fight in me and my experience is it is the moment you leave hospital you have a battle on your hands. That battle probably started just before I came home – a pattern of a life time, I looked weller than I was. Within days of being home I was in agony. A day at a time I haven’t felt a victim and most importantly haven’t lost my sense of humour. You have to hold onto that humour even through the tears and anger …

This is probably a good place to stop and I will post the next blog soon …

Happiness

Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on ‘being more’ rather than simply having more.

Daisaku Ikeda

 

At some random moment in the Summer still pondering of whether I was procrastinating or not this year, I signed up for a MOOC. No, I didnt know what that was either – it is a Massive Open Online Course. Yes, it turned out to be MASSIVE. It started two weeks ago and 100,000 people are taking part from all over the world and the subject is The Science of Happiness. Just the the thought of 100,000 people wanting to explore what happiness means to them made me happy because it is giving me hope.

The Science of Happiness | Positive Psychology | edX

https://www.edx.org/…/uc…/uc-berkeleyx-gg101x-sciencehappiness-14…

The Science of Happiness” is the first MOOC to teach the ground-breaking science of positive psychology, which explores the roots of a happy and meaningful …

What else makes me happy? Well it could be something as banal as finding just the right cake tin. What increased the feeling was that I found it on the Thursday Market in Fakenham reinforcing what I say about my home town: “if I stand there long enough, I always find just what I need”.
Web
Seeing this beautiful spider’s web on a wet and dreary morning made me happy, if it hadn’t been wet and dreary I wouldn’t have noticed it.
On the course I was reminded that we change 1% of our cells every day. If I can breathe in those feelings of happiness, perhaps I can make that 1% really worthwhile. My family, my friends, my work, my environment all bring me happiness and one of the questions I have is how can I sustain it realistically. I have a feeling that working on that 1% is part of the key.
Many different meditation practices can also be part of that key and one that comes to mind is Loving KIndness Meditation (Metta) where you give loving kindness to yourself, then someone you love, then someone you are not particularly fond of and finally someone you dislike. Then you send the kindness out into the Universe. This meditation is becoming more and more popular and again that brings hope and happiness for our future.
I was very happy to randomly meet a friend on the platform the other morning and we travelled down to London together. I love the apparent “random” happenings in my life. Being with a like minded person for an hour or so makes me happy and he told me about this funny and moving Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson which I am happy (oh dear!) to share with you as the subject is close to my heart.
Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity | Talk Video | TED.com

and so my happiness increases just sharing this with you…

In the Meantime … procrastination or not!

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Someone asked me last night about procrastination and I was wondering what exactly to write about and there it was! Two famous childhood sayings come to mind “Procrastination is the thief of time” (Edward Young, The Complaint: Night Thoughts) and “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today” (Lord Chesterfield letter to his son). Paradoxically, I also found in the dictionary: deliberateness, unhurriedness, deliberation, absence of haste or hurry.

All of the above reminded me of a question I was taught to ask myself by a very wise friend as opposed to berating myself: IN THE MEANTIME? When I ask myself this question, I very often discover that my perceived procrastination is an intuitive process which is working at a subconscious level. I am waiting for a key element to click into place that will pull all the threads together. A little bit like this post in the sense that if I hadn’t delayed posting something, I would not have been able to think about this so clearly until I was unexpectedly asked the question last night!

When I am truly procrastinating, I am now actually aware of it and it is usually about not having the enthusiasm for doing something or feeling ill equipped to do it, lack of trust or faith that I can achieve what I need to. Or, more importantly, I am dancing to someone else’s tune or their perception of what I should be doing! So what helps me disentangle all these possibilities?

Reflection is a helpful tool, looking back at past achievements and how I got there.

Talking it through with people I can trust.

Looking at my fears, remembering that fear can stand for False Evidence Appearing Real.

What are my true priorities right now?

Trust the process. If it is meant to be, it will happen or it might not be exactly how I envisaged. It might be different and very possibly better!

Meditation. If it is something I truly feel in my heart and would like to do, meditate on it regularly and ask for guidance.

Finally, don’t be my worst critic but ask myself the question “In the meantime?” Another question I ask myself is what is in the compost heap?

So in January I had great plans create a Meditation E-Course, make a film on Life & Death and start a new book! Has any of this happened, NO and it is now May. In the meantime, we had to suddenly move house which is in a lovely setting and I have magically acquired a cabin I can convert into a workshop/studio space as well as a meadow with a great pond I have permission to go to. I did several E-courses myself which have all produced a very rich compost heap, inspiration and meaningful connections with new and old friends. I was able to get some film material in the can and, as I mentioned before sometimes there is a key element missing. In  this case, it was fairly recently, facing as a family and individually, issues around life and death. There has been time to reflect on what exactly is the aim of the Meditation E-course – it will happen. As far as the book is concerned I received literally just now some missing information I need through some good people I have connected with in closed groups on Facebook. I have also learned more and more about social media and how it can work for the good.

My priority has been to spend quality time with my family as I have two new little granddaughters who have had a bumpy entry into this world as well as four little boys. Whilst I was with my family in Tokyo my daily meditation was to connect with the beauty of nature and symbols in the city. In fact this reflects an aspect of the E-course and the form of meditation which will underpin the intent of the course. As well as family, I have dear friendships I need to nurture and maintain my practice as a life coach/psychotherapist. Taking stock of my actual life is another tool, what is a realistic expectation and what isn’t. So I will continue to give time time and see where it takes me…

 

 

Pilgrimage

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As my blog is about Spirit of Place and how everything is interconnected, the word pilgrimage has been whirling around in my mind for a while. Looking up the origins of the word what jumped out to me were the words foreigner, beyond the country… The implication is that the person has travelled far. There are many different responses to the word pilgrimage: a quest of some kind born out of desire for something different (perhaps sometimes to escape the mundane world), it is an internal journey of discovery and reinforcement of spiritual faith, it is a physical journey to a sacred place like Mecca, Jerusalem, Machu Picchu and Stonehenge for instance, it is an adventure based on curiosity about other places in the world. A common factor seems to be the importance of what happens on the path and how that affects us personally.

Recently, I watched Simon Reeve’s programme on BBC2 on Pilgrimage which covered Christian pilgrimages from Lindisfarne to Jerusalem. Two things struck me: one was in Istanbul when a guide at Hagia Sophia said that the memories of what people had seen would eventually fade and what they would remember was the feeling of peace and Simon said something along the lines that he thought that peace was the rock upon which our future could be founded; the second was the expression during medieval pilgrimages about women that “they left pilgrims and sometimes returned whores”! Two very contrasting statements around pilgrimage.

So do we naturally gravitate to places that feed our deep desire for peace and can that journey be so challenging and arduous that we fall by the wayside as the price is too high? Are we too dependent on that external feeling of peace and the belief that it might rub off by visiting certain places? Are these places imbued with other people’s faith?  Does it matter?

To me it does matter, otherwise I wouldn’t be mulling this over. There is an image in my mind of the world being crisscrossed with pilgrimage pathways, sometimes incredibly long and sometimes short , but somehow they are all interconnected. I have a theory, shared by others, that the physical pathways were already there and that many sacred sites where built upon node points that naturally possess a sense of peace.  I have to say that, paradoxically, there are places that give me a sense of unease and pain and in hindsight they are often places where something painful or disruptive has happened.

I can see all this as a metaphor for both my internal and external quests. So as not to fall by the wayside when the challenges surface, I have learned that I need to do what I would do for any form of journey – prepare! The preparation is both literal and energetic and there are many different ways of doing this. The challenge for me is I realise I am always going to be on that pilgrimage on a daily basis and that my desire for peace is my rock, if I lose that I am lost. I once heard a shaman say that one of the most effective ways to visit sacred sites is firstly to go there and then in the safety of your own home revisit them through meditation and truly absorb what you need; the great advantage is you can do this any time. Meditation is a fantastic form of internal pilgrimage to feed our soul and the sacred space is then securely within us.

The videos in this blog are also forms of pilgrimage one a literal journey to Kamakura in Japan, another into the wonder of the minutiae in our garden, and thirdly part of the collective pilgrimage forming a field of peace on We Are All Cranes of Peace. Writing Healing the Ouch of Disappointment has also been a pilgrimage through my life and the lives of others http://amzn.to/1bxxbgn.

To finish, I had a fantastic gift today which was a reminder that I am a Third Culture Kid and there is a book called Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds by David Pollock & Ruth E. Van Reken.  I have a very varied DNA enhanced by living in many countries, travelling all over the world tracing my roots, at times feeling an outsider and misfit. Some of you may resonate with this but I discovered we are a multicoloured tribe.  I can value this interesting DNA today and feel at home anywhere in the world as long as I live in the day. It makes me smile to think that this great reminder was given to me freely on my pilgrimage into Facebook – a journey I have resisted for a while. A bonus is I got a great cure for my cold too…

 

 

GRATITUDE for all connections

Benches I Love from Chloe on Vimeo.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/early-in-morning-special-edition/id497370215

 

The Buddhist doctrine of the oneness of life and its environment (Jpn. esho-funi) focuses on the human being as part of the vast physical universe. Mutually interrelated, the subjective life entity and its environment operate together in a creative way. They are one, or as the original Chinese characters indicate, they are two without being two.” Daisaku Ikeda

This summer and the beginning of autumn have been very busy and all of a sudden I was finding it very difficult to concentrate. I thought about this quote and the spirit of this blog and realised that, despite the fact that I have been a Feng Shui practitioner for over 20 years, my working space and wardrobe were a mess. A friend of mine, Cilla Cerredo, has started a declutter programme and people have found it really useful. She  now has a great website www.clutterconqueror.com and a new 30 day e-course about to start.. You will see she has a great sense of fun which makes it easier and her story of how she started is very moving. Just receiving her free plan has given me the motivation I needed (work in progress). Decluttering is the first step and the most important one in starting to Feng Shui your environment – a great gift is very often finding precious things we thought we had lost and beginning to breathe better as we clear space. Gratitude comes back for what we have and, as well as throwing things away, we can also pass things on to others. A great way to start a Feng Shui programme..

Not only do we need to declutter our physical environment but we also need to declutter our minds and different kinds of meditations can help with this. There are all sorts of meditations on www.tiegsolus.moonfruit.com but I also like using other people’s work  and one of my favourites is Stephanie Harrison’s  www.lifeguidanceandinspiration.com  The other day I got the “Gratitude” card and there was this lovely exercise of sitting for 20 minutes thinking about all the things we are grateful for and doing it for 7 days. I often start with small simple things and from there the list grows. It has made a huge difference to my cluttered brain and I have passed it on to all my clients.

Then this morning I remembered  the photos I had taken during the summer of all the great benches I had seen and sat on. I realised how much I had enjoyed exploring and finding new ones. Finally, I had the extra creative energy to put a video together. I am also so grateful to having been given permission to use  Vincent McMorrow’s Early in the Morning which always makes me smile! I love the fact that birds and nature have enjoyed these benches just as much as I have. Doing projects we have been putting off is another form of decluttering and, yes,  I feel grateful again to the people who put the benches there in the first place. They start to tweak my imagination too and I start to wonder who the people were and why that was their favourite place…

A lot of my energy has gone into launching We Are All Cranes of Peace and it is now a separate page on this blog – please visit it as it is very close to my heart. Again I am incredibly grateful for all the support and social media help I have had as I am still wearing L plates! Once I have gratitude firmly in my heart again, I feel connected, contented, energised and motivated.

Happy decluttering…