Things I Love Thursday

Once again, it's time for "Things I Love" Thursday -- inspired by Lulu's posts by the same name.  Today's post is a much-needed antidote to my last, about the folk singer Taylor Mitchell.  If you're new here, you can see last week's TILT here.  And for a wholly-different kind of themed Thursday, why not visit Live It, LOVE It and check out TMI Thursday.

This post is harder than the last, since it hasn't been a week filled with things I love -- but that is all the more reason to write it.  To celebrate the little things, and all that.  I'm going to try and make an effort each week not to repeat things from the last time, even if they are still current and relevant, just to try and add some variety.  So, while this week I still love the warm autumn days, and the cats are still adorable, they aren't making the list.

Top of the love pile this week comes swimming.  I've enjoyed swimming for as long as I can remember -- and though I love it significantly less when the local pool is busy and obnoxious people get in my way, I still enjoy going.  I love what good exercise it is, and for a lazy person like me how it's good exercise for what feels like little effort.  I like the zen of it, when the pool is quiet -- the way the smooth, still water parts for me, and then surges softly back when I pass.  I even enjoy the clean smell of chlorine on my skin, which is no doubt an anchor -- the good feeling I get from the endorphins becoming associated with the smell.  But hey, it works for me. 

I also love this week the kindness of random strangers.  Walking home in the dark the other night, my plastic bag split, spilling my worldly belongings onto the street.  Luckily, I was able to retrieve my glasses, my wallet, my keys and my book without any of them being damaged.  Unfortunately, I didn't realise at the time I had lost my spare mobile -- with the special sim card for cheap overseas calls that I use for calling the girl.  It was some time later down the road I noticed the phone was missing, but I couldn't recall if it had ever been in my bag, or if I might have just left it at the college where I'd been on my personal development course.  I considered retracing my steps, but didn't know where I had been when the bag had split or if I would be able to find a black mobile phone in the dark.  Or even if I had lost it.  I resolved to call the college the next day to ask if it was left there.  Expecting not to see the phone again, I ordered a replacement sim card and looked into the possibility of another handset.


I got a call a few hours later from the girl, to say that a man had found the phone in the street and called her, since she was the last dialled number.  He didn't know it was 4am in Western Australia when he called her.
To skip to the end, I spoke to the guy and then drove over to his house and got the phone back.  I had originally expected the odds of seeing it again if I had lost in the street to be fairly low -- but the kindness of a stranger proved me wrong.

The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.  Yes, it's a bit of an old book now, and yes almost everyone we know has already read it, but I just started rereading it.  I've recently been reading another book called Between Inner Space and Outer Space which is incredibly interesting, but also at times a little hard going.  After I dreamed one night of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, I decided that this book wasn't suitable bedtime reading.  Which is where Ms Niffenegger's novel comes in -- I wanted something to read last night, it was there, and it was a better choice than Slinky Malinki which I had just bought for my nephew.  So why is it listed as a thing I love?  I had forgotten how good it is.  Not just the story, but the writing itself.  I went through a phase of reading every book twice -- as soon as I finished it, I would start again, so that I could appreciate the writing and not just the story.  I don't remember why I stopped doing it, but The Time Traveller's Wife is a good candidate for this behaviour.

And, finally, I guess this week I just love the little things.  It's easy for me to get bogged down when things seem to be going badly -- I had to tell our landlord that the girl and I are moving out.  It made me sad to do, and to think of leaving the house.  But I love that I have a loving family that will take us both in.  I love that in a few months we will find a new place of our own to live in London.  I love that I am not sleeping rough on the streets.  I love that I am very fortunate indeed, that while people are dying in daily attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am safe and cared for, and that my troubles pale in signifcance to what so many people face.