Somehow stuck

 

I've been looking at the post I wrote just over a year ago for most of that time as I have this blog as one of my daily opening tabs.  Each time I contemplated writing something new, it really didn't want to happen.  I've been somehow stuck and didn't know what I was stuck in.

The anniversary of Mike's farewell ceremony happened about two weeks ago and with it the anniversary of the first of my many serious back injuries.  I suppose I was somehow waiting for a year to have passed and then some more time, to prove that things had actually started to get better.

It will be a while longer before I expect to be anywhere near where I was before last September and part of the reason is that with all the lying down that I have had to do my lung capacity suddenly shrank markedly.  I have made a resolution (only on Friday, give me a chance!) to do more breathing exercises to try to increase the lung capacity.  I always had great lungs, ever since learning the clarinet as a teenager, so it's something of an unwanted novelty to not be able to complete a long sentence without a breath.

What I've been able to do recently is making some jewellery.  Not many hours in the day and not every day but progress is happening.  Unless you're an absolute ostrich you'll know that the Christmas season isn't far away and you may also be aware that for artists it represents possibly two thirds of our annual income.

This is a short post, to make sure I can complete it, so that's about it for now but I promise to write more often in future.

If you spot a theme in the photos, well done.  The three dahlias which survived from last year (and are only flowering just now in October) are all pink.  Is that a co-incidence?  Or maybe the pink ones are more hardy?  I'm not sure.  But I was delighted to manage one of my favourite shots recently with this bee on a pink dahlia.  Bending and crouching have been largely off the menu during this year but I'm hopeful for next year.