Odd Feelings and Emotional Moments

See the view in this image, this is what I am surrendering of my own choice in less than 4 weeks time. Looking through my photographs, this one, made me think. Originally my need to move home was based on the extreme length of time it takes to reach where my little Mum lives, followed by a need to find a decent place for me to enjoy a little retirement and some peace and quiet.
Coming to this estate at the invitation of my friend, gave me the space I needed to recover from ill health and rebuild my energy. Leaving, is sapping the very will from me.

I can't stay, that is because of fiscal reasons, the estate is now let out, and my friend did offer me an alternative home as a gesture of kindness, but we all have to be responsible for ourselves in the end, and I cannot keep accessing charitable gestures,  it doesn't sit well with me.
So here I am, looking for a place to live for a few years, use as a base so that I can begin my last great adventure.

The desire to travel and research and paint and take the images and make the articles I wish too, is as strong now as when I first conceived the idea. The only difference is, I realised I still needed a base for it to work properly. Britain is not a very forgiving land, the weather can be treacherous and the winds catastrophic because we are not a wide open place. Trees fall randomly, my luck says I would be one of the random places, that sort of thing. It is the knowledge if it can happen to anyone, its going to be me, ensures I have a high level of safety awareness. having a base means, time out, review time and recuperation time if my health should become an issue.

I began to research places to rent over three weeks ago and all I can find are awful little tiny places with no gardens and views that consist of more boxes all the same shape with possibly a door painted a different colour but that's about it.

No trees, or fields, no forests, no hills, just........bricks, concrete and other peoples rubbish.
After ten or more years of open vistas, mountains and fields for views it is without doubt, singularly depressing.

In some countries, like Rumania or America there is land to spare, places where someone who loves the alternative off grid life style can genuinely become integrated with the land, at one with their world. That isn't truly available i England, might, 'just' be possible in Wales or Scotland but it would still be a real challenge to find the kind of unloved land that needs someone with my skills to love it to beauty and splendid usefullness.

I am, today, at the bottom of my own pit of despair, to drive away from here will hurt, to leave behind ancient woodland and willingly encase myworld, my life, my entire being in a concrete jungle with all its attendant issues is not what I truly wish to do. There is no alternative that I can see except perhaps to take up the life of a tramp and stay a homeless person, refusing to commit to civilised living....its a tempting thought

Golden Paste and The Interesting Brain Fog and a Major Sulk

Life is seldom easy going, every single one of us can point to a half dozen challenges, both big and small to deal with on a daily basis. But when your brain is filled with 'fog' the ability to decide, to challenge, to simply on some occasions actually think...becomes a decidedly nasty factor of life.
Too much stress and my mind went into a bank of negative fog and refused to come out.

I can be a Drama Queen as well as the next female, I can have a good sulk as well as the rest of humanity but this was something entirely different. With so much going on in my life, so many different challenges and a half dozen different ways of dealing with any one issue and combinations thereof....I lost the path. Wandered off into the 'poor me' alley and settled down on a handy bench full of 'its not fair' moments. In other words, I was sulking.

AT the point of trying to balance where the heck my usual 'cool' had gone, I entered the brain fog. I had not only lost my thought self, I had now compounded the issue with a complete lack of care for my physical self. Oh the biter was finally bit.

As Silver I often work for people in similar situations....I will never use the term ' you just have to pull yourself together' to anyone ever again...because when it was said to me all I could think of was HOW?. Just how on earth do you get your act together when every fibre of your being wants to turn tail, run to the nearest cave and hibernate for a few decades.

The answer was actually right in front of me around 4 or 5 weeks ago. T
I began a series of movements to create a better me.
I removed wheat and refined sugar from my diet. I added Kefir to my regime.
I meditated again. I removed negative thinking patterns by writing it all down, deleting it or burning it to physically display to my brain i didn't want to keep 'thinking', I promoted good sleep and
I discovered Turmeric ! or more correctly Golden Paste.

This link will take you to a great website that actually explains all the ins and the outs. 

Turmeric Life

All I can say is that the moment I took the divine Golden Paste a mixture of pure virgin coconut oil, organic turmeric and fresh ground black peppercorns my entire brain fog literally just went away.

The difference was amazing, not only in my physical self, my mental self, I can think again, the clear cut, focused me is back. No more muddled thinking.
Its hard to realise who 'that woman' was then

and who I am now.

I posted into the Turmeric User Group on Face book, I displayed the horrible picture of me taken at the exact moment of a crisis and the powerful results after clearing out the brain, using Golden Paste and of course buying 'the hat'.

Its all good.

Of course i followed the recipe recommended on the website. I had cut out the wheat/refined sugar/started to fight back, drank kefir but it wasn't lifting the fog, it helped the physical me a little, but the brain stuff just sat and sulked  ever more.
Golden Paste really did mind wipe the fog, gone, not a tiny bit left. I don't know if my Pitruity Gland was on the blink, calcifying perhaps, or some kind of depression had got a grip...whatever was wrong...it isn't there now thank heavens.

Now I am back to mapping out my journeys. How I will get them together, where I will go and what I want to photograph, research and challenge...I am indeed ME, at last. I won't be losing my Golden Paste, I will use it to keep those golden moments in my life that little bit longer :)

This Glorious Sky

Have you ever looked up into the sky and been awed ?. Did you ever try to capture the moon between your hands, a falling star on the tip of your finger?

Have you ever seen The Glory?

I have.

Tonight I walked out into the dark night. Where I am at this time, there are no lights, no street or road near bye. I am in the middle of a forest, in the deepest part of Devon and there is no such thing as light pollution. There is simply the night sky and the glory.

Stars sparkle with an extra keen brightness, planets twinkle away with a luminosity beyond anything I would see from a city or town. The sky itself is deepest black and every single tiny star shines like so much diamond  looking as if they have been powered by a couple of million watt L.E.D. lights helping it along. It really is that stark a contrast, that brilliant a display. It fills me with awe.

Staring upwards, my ears attuned to the Owls screech or hoot, the soughing of the wind, the trees leaves are turning into the shades autumn creates, drying out, rustling and drifting in falling scattered black shapes against the moonlights beams. It is a magical. mystical moment.

All thought seems suspended in this night scape, the clamour of television, the almost angry shrill of telephone land line or mobile, is absent. No voices other than the small wild creatures of the night make themselves heard. I can hear my own footsteps as I cross the rough stoned drive, crunch, crunch, as I make my way to a small circular clearing at the top of the drive. It is surrounded by old, ancient trees. Mostly Oak, several I would call 'mighty' standing with the gnarled branches and thick , almost comforting in size, trunks.

Sentinels of the land, they stand in black shadowed majesty pointing towards the sky, and when I look upwards, the trees branches are closing overhead in a circle of silhouetted twigs, leaves and branches. Natures own picture frame gives me a perfect capture of the nights sky and the brilliance of stars scattered across the sky canvas makes me almost breathless. It is truly beautiful.

Vast, majestic,it is inspiring thoughtful contemplation and I feel small, and insignificant in the great pattern of the Universe. I find perspective in that enromous array. I find my place in the world, in the scheme of things. I am not the centre of the Universe, part of it, but not the centre and the issues hauntng me at this time, will not matter at all in ten, fifteen, twenty years time. They will not be of importance and the scale of time I use, is nothing but the blink of the Universal eye in reality.

I love the Glory, the times when every single star seems to be almost within reach, when the Milky Way is sharp and bright and snaking its way across my vision  with come hither glitter, begging my adventurous soul to find a way to come, see, touch, the stars.

I am never going to truly travel through those stars, my heart longs to sail in alien ships through skies of uncharted beauty, my eyes long to see for themselves, not through the lens of a telescope, the grandeur, the magnificence of those galaxies and those amazing clouds and planets, the Rings of Moons, of planets. it will not be, not in this life time.

I content myself, that one day perhaps one of my descendents will. It is a comforting thought. My travelling gene passed on and fulfilled in some distant time. I like the idea, and content myself with seeing tonight, the stars glittering and shining , twinkling and pulsing and think how glorious our sky is.
Finding peace in simple veiws of a canvas that changes nightly and gives a lasting memory.

Tonight I saw the glory, it was............breathtaking.

I Blame Ray Mears

When the BBC transmitted Coast for the first time it was a magnificent programme that inspired thousands to explore our land. Ray Mears, Bush craft, Northern Wilderness and Survival with Ray Mears proved so popular that other programmes soon followed. Dead or Alive, Mantracker and many others inspired a human desire to challenge, to experience, to 'be' the one to test their own abilities against Nature itself. I cannot deny they also influenced my own current choices. I blame Ray Mears for inspiring my itchy foot syndrome, his display of skills, interesting bits and pieces, his Wild food programme, all tickled the restless me. All; filmed with his unique personality shining through, the sincerity, the genuine love of the land, and it spoke to that hidden part of my soul. 

I am not as ingenious, knowledgeable or clever as Ray Mears, I am 63, a little old lady...how could I have my adventure, bring into it as much as is possible of all that has inspired me, and keep myself safe.........there was the seeds of it all, lay before me, less than two months ago. 

Today is the decision day. The light at the end of the darkness; is there, in my own hands. All the research has come together, all the inspirations, the positives and the negatives have joined the dots of my questions into a workable theory and it is time. 

My time. 

Throughout my mental processing I have had the support of a network of beautiful people. Friends, sisters in strife, brothers in bother and steady, balanced people with thoughts, concerns, objections, promotions and a variety of comments... (most not printable in an article viewed by any age group).

 I have been told to stop, to do it, to wait, to go now and advised methodically and consistently to do my research before I make my decisions. I have taken it all on board. 

Those who have written, e mailed and rung me, in boxed me with numerous links and articles have had my very best interests at heart. For that I love them unconditionally. To be the focus of so many person’s real concerns, expressed in terms they knew I could accept fully, is humbling.

 I have, taken it all on board, I have begun my own physical processes and I am determined. 

I will begin my adventures, with Caesar and Jake as my companions, cameras and lap top, kindle and I phone all safely tucked up in my little car by the end of October.

 I am ready, my heart, my body, my mind is all focused on the journey yet to be.

 At the root of it all is the thoughts that began this madcap idea.

My father, bless his soul, passed to the next realm at the age of 67, my dear mother is still with us at the magnificent age of 87, heart whole, mind as sharp as a blade and more life in her little finger than I have in my entire self.

 The thought was simple,

 IF I live as long as my Dada then I have 4 Christmases, 4 Birthdays, 4 years to enjoy all that I have so much wanted to see and experience.

 IF I am blessed with my Mothers energy and hold on life, I will only have a limited time before my body will be too fragile to take the many extra testing points such a journey will naturally create.

 It is time, I have maybe 4 maybe 24 years ahead of my life.

 It is time.............to hit the road.

Cross With Myself

 My world centres around my art, my writings, my dogs, growing things,making things and watching one or two television programmes obsessively, Bones,CSI (any version) and The Great British Bake Off, in other words, from the gruesomely realistic to the gorgeously edible. I use my lap top and my PC far more than most. I live a 'virtual life' as do many thousands of others. Facebook beckons over breakfast. e mails demand before dinner, catch ups and reviews,articles and various blogs I follow; entice before tea.

I prefer my own company, am happy to Skype, FB or exchange little video snap shots of life and carry on regardless working through the day at various times. I am self employed, enjoy my work and combine my various interests as a way of funding myself through life. Genealogist, Consultant and Author, Photographer , Artist and Blogger. None of which on there own make me a living, but the combinations make me an income I can cope with on a monthly basis.

So a pretty together female, who keeps herself, has a lot of energy usually, can be opiniated, pro active and all the other little facets to make up my personality...then today, well......................

I am so cross with myself this morning, after months of being 'good' I turned into a mealy mouthed and negative wit batting person. I am dissapointed with myself. I have had life lessons for over 60 years now, things to be, say,do which worked, didn't work, should have worked and all the experiences inbetween.

Putting my foot in it because I have had very little sleep is not a good thing. I have more control than that...or rather I thought I had more control than that. Instead, a gentle enquiry from a well meaning Till girl at Tesco today had me rip into a series of cutting and vicious and unusually for me gender and various other based comments meant purely to display my own anger, bruised feelings and annoyance. Poor girl didn't know what to say to me except...'oh thats awful'

I came home to the usual excited welcome of my dogs and realised that living a reclusive life has a really bad effect on communications with others. Over share, excited verbalisation of everything in your head....or total voluntary mutism seem to be the extremes and on a sliding scale a mix of the two can be the reactions and responses to being exposed to other human beings when the norm is to see not a living soul for weeks on end.

The poor Tesco Till Girl had received ( almost one could compare it to or make an analogy of the PC when it 'dumps data indiscriminately') the entire contents of my head in a vicious swiping, cutting commentary about a situation I have found myself in and a very negative phone call the previous evening. The result was a sleepless night, an inability to work and the pent up thoughts and anger which had been repressed 'burst through' the normally trap like 'lips seal'........she got it, I said it, I own it...and I wish I had saved it for the real people responsible. The display was short, not particularly public insofar as there was just one chap in the queue behind me, but.I feel cross with myself.

I need to process why I lashed out without thought at the situation. Am I feeling far more threatened than I have been willing to admit, am I in need of a short delve into humanity and a bit more exposure to other people, what made me that person....and once its sorted in myhead, I am so not going to Tesco for a few weeks...embarrassed , I owe the till girl an apology, she didn't need to know the negatives...and I didn't need to vent at her, but she handled it well and I need to go sort out what I really do need to do...........tell the person responsible exactly what I think.

Engage brain before using mouth syndrome .

To go or Not to go ?

Susan Morrison Jones (63) 2015

Well! to quote Primo Levi ' but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing the blind,deaf stone alone with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head

Winter is coming ! to add a quote from Game of Thrones.

I can't decide. My dogs are eager to be off and away, they have itchy feet too. Caesar and Jake are the corner stone of my life. They are four legged but they are my family, my friends. We have amazing discussions where I get to do all the talking and they patiently listen, give me a little encouraging lick, or snuggle to let me know they are still attentive. But they can't answer me. I can only guess what they want. The only thing I am certain of , for them, is we will be together.

This is where I am finally at, the penultimate moment. Do I go NOW ? or do I wait a few weeks and get some money under my belt ?

What to do is driving me crazy. The sun is shining, the weather is beautiful, I can hear the sea in my head. Legolas in the final chapters of The Lord of The Rings says he can hear the sea calling him and comments he will never be at peace again....me too! I have missed my beach, my beautiful five miles of unspoiled gorgeous sand, sea and dunes. I have missed my friends so much. Need the wild Welsh Hills and the deep dark forests. Its like having an amputation of the spirit.

But the sensible side of me is saying wait, wait, wait. A Camper Van would have answered a great many issues and I would have been gone the day I had the keys, but it isn't too be. Out of my financial capabilities and so its the car, the dogs, a few material possessions and the all important decision.......when ?

but it will be soon now. I can't scratch that itchy foot syndrom out of my personality, its there, its permanent. SO now.......its that moment when I have no choices beyond now...or then, but the when ultimate moment is November the 1st.

Tally Ho indeed

Highway to Hell. Stairway to Heaven

Mount Snowdon 2014

Inspirational people like Olive Riley (108 yr old Blogger), and 102 yr old Buster Martin are just two of the reasons I am going on my Last Great Adventure (LGA) others who inspire me are the 92 yr old lady who clouted a mugger in New York with her Brolly and the 84 yr old Victorian woman who climbed Mount Everest. But the greatest inspiration of all is the human condition. The people whose lives are currently so much more difficult than my own.

I watched Tony Robinson in his Me and my Mum programme, in it was a wonderful woman Rosa who is spending the best part of her young adult life caring for her mother who suffers from dementia. During her part of the programme she made comments concerning how she will deal with growing old, and if she becomes like her mother and as she has no family herself...her ultimate doom...the Care Home.

I worked for years in Care Homes, not all are bad places, some are truly very caring, supportive places but some, a few, are the hell holes of a so called caring society and I have witnessed it for myself. The  result of my witness was to get sacked for speaking out !!!

 The thought that one day I would inhabit a place like that has set me thinking...what will I do when I grow old?

For a start one has to pre - suppose that some sort of early warning would be given you that your losing the marbles God granted you or else a seriously strong display that your health is going to trap you in your own home....and hopefully that is when you can make a choice.

Why is a choice necessary in the first place? Well because quite frankly I am surrounded by our caring society as it stands now and I don't give much for my chances of staying free, capable and sane.

I nearly wrote some examples and thought better of it, examples of this modern day where men and women live alone, and are left to struggle because their family are busy or they have no friends to rely on or else they have developed peculiar traits which society cannot accept because we are expected to all live the life the media is displaying as a norm..............

I decided against those examples because quite frankly this blog  would turn into a sermon and that’s not the purpose here. We ALL know of people who live alone, who struggle, and who are independent and often refuse help more out of pride than anything. I know very well that I am guilty of pride. It has stopped me more than once from asking for help and I am still young enough to deal with my life...but one day I won't be.

What to do go down in a blaze of glory or whimper away until I fade completely? Do I intend to burden myself on my children? On my sister? Or shall I find a beloved who could care for me if I fell or had a heart attack?

Do I climb Mount Snowdon one more time?

Or do I let nature take its course?

Or do I intend to 'leave at my own time' and swallow a packet of whatever!!!!

The sheer fact that I am thinking about all this is not because I am maudlin but because right up until your 50 it doesn't really matter then you tip over the apex of life’s journey and it’s all downhill from here...who knows how long you will live for, how long is a piece of string ?.......exactly !

So at 50 you think oops! and start to live a little more freely, by 55 yrs your determined to live well, to spoil the kids/grandkids/friends and then you’re facing 60 and it’s a different story altogether...this is a serious development, your own on the slide now, it’s getting faster and age is not a number any more, it’s an ailment.

Health matters start to raise their ugly head, not colds and flu but arthritis, rheumatism, aching this or that, nasty tests start appearing on the Doctors screens, suddenly life is very ,very sweet because it might not be yours for much longer.

Then you find you can't lift the cleaner up the stairs so you buy a lighter one and a lighter one again, you find it’s not so easy to change the curtains anymore, the washing is a chore again.

Washing that was once done over the bath, is now done in a push button box...and it’s just as tiring as the old method. Food is faddy, bath time is a nightmare just in case you slip or fall or Gods forbid get stuck in the bath. You smell your clothes and your flesh in case you smell like an old woman. That curiously musty smell so familiar when you go visiting your granny is suddenly possibly YOU.

Old is not a mental status it’s a factual aspect of our flesh and it is failing us by the time we reach where I am now looking at the door marked 'old woman'. Not yet, not for a few years but I am getting closer to it, very close and it scares the hell out of me.

What was laughed at in my 40's is no longer a laughing matter; the casual remark about needing a Zimmer Frame with go faster stripes becomes a possibility. The fear that you might not wake up in the morning becomes a threat.

Whoever said the 'state of mind' stuff obviously didn't wake up with a back that creaks, or a knee that is stiff, or hands that swell up in the cold. They never had to stop eating chocolates and cream and butter or sweets because they just entered heart attack alley with the cholesterol levels from hell. Old Age is a state of body AND a state of mind.

Living this curious learning curve is wonderful. I love every minute of my life but I also have to start looking ahead to when I am 'old'...where will I live. Do I stay close to family, just in case I need someone to help me?  or do I go for the last great adventure..........

PRO AND CON

The last great adventure is of course where my heart reaches out for, what kind of adventure, where, who with, when, how, and all the associated problems/resolutions to seek and so I made a choice.

The last great adventure it is.

How I came to this conclusion is immaterial really, the idea of slowly vegetating in a house with no real comforts beyond an old PC and a bit of furniture doesn't really make for a thrilling ride down the path towards eternal oblivion.

I constantly have drama of one sort or another in my life so traipsing off to an adventure just of my own is something that glitters on the horizon like a diamond just out of reach. The  living is there, do I reach for it and at least try or do I write about it and pretend I did.

I decided to reach for it and that is why this blog is being written. It is the beginning of the plan, the very gate I shall step through to start that last adventure before I apply for my slippers and shawl. Something to sustain my world as I slip down the final road and stride through the final gates of life....it is, I hope, going to be an exciting ride.

I made my mind up, either I am on a Highway to Hell or I am clambering up the Stairway to Heaven...either way I am sliding through the gates sideways, vodka in one hand...a bar of chocolate in the other, screaming 'WHAT A RIDE' .......adventures here we come.