Fox In Socks

““Being soaked alone is cold. Being soaked with your best friend is an adventure.” ”

— Emily Wing Smith, Back When You Were Easier To Love

So. I am living in Queensland, yes? Yes. And in theory, that means several things. Slower voices. Strange words like 'port' for suitcase. A sudden overwhelming urge to support the Reds in the Super 15s. Banana bending. (Just kidding, large mob of angry Queenslanders coming towards me with pitchforks). Endemic to where I am living, of course, lots and lots of fake tan, fake hair and fake boo- uh... body parts.

And I assumed, glorious, glorious warm weather. Sunshiny days. Mild evenings. A winter of blissful non-frostbitey 'ha-has' to my Southern sisters.

Yes. In theory... yes.

There is no denying that the people watching is amazing around these parts. It's a veritable smorgasbord of 'come as you are, or perhaps as you always wanted to be, but didn't have the guts to be anywhere else'. I feel bewilderingly normal, and thus stand out like a sore thumb, because I have no image. None. I need to develop one, but as everything I have seen so far involves heavy body inking, tandoori tanning, bleaching and/or inserting of silicone, it might take a while and involuntary anaesthesia before it happens.

As for the weather?

Hmmmmmmm.

I arrived back home Sunday night from an unexpected weekend away, and it was, as our lovely pilot cheerfully informed us, eight degrees. Apparently the night before it had been four; the second coldest night in Gold Coast history.

This is not what I signed up for.

My ugg boots were supposed to stay firmly in the back of the wardrobe; I was only to pull my coat out of same wardrobe when going to more southerly climes - I actually gave away the more substantial layers of style that composed the House of Kate. Winter? Winter, to misquote A Game Of Thrones, was not coming.

Last night I actually had to put socks on. This will not do.

I would like Queensland to get its act together please, and turn on the sunlamps. OK, so I may be the palest person on the planet, and my skin tone may somewhat resemble a speckled trout's tummy, but that is beside the point; I like to feel warm whilst I am sitting in my straw hat and thirty plus. You can be sun smart and smugly happy at the same time.

You may well ask, as I have just spent the last zillion paragraphs whinging, where the gratitude is in this post.

It's quite simple really.

It may be a touch frostier than I was expecting up here in the not so sunshiney state, but when it comes down to it, I am massively lucky. Unlike a hell of a lot of Australians, I am sleeping in a lovely warm bed, and if I need to, I can grab as many extra covers as I want to put on said bed. I have, for that matter, a warm coat.

If you want to get down to brass tacks, I have socks.

Things are a bit rough for me health wise at present, and it has made me more than usually aware of a few things. Every time I think about what I don't have, I am constantly reminded of what I do have. It makes me feel humble, and grateful, and very, very thankful despite all of my groaning and moaning about feeling a slight chilliness in the air, and I know how trivial my complaints are compared to what so many people are facing on a day to day basis - simply trying to survive.

I don't wish to sound preachy, but if you are lucky enough to be a 'have' this winter, take a moment to be grateful, and think about the 'have nots' - and actively do something to help.

You may just find the sun will come out if you do.

The Bright Side Of The Road

““Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.””

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

I was thinking late last night that I hadn't written a gratitude post for a while. And I have a confession to make. Whilst there have been some fairly big things that I have wanted to get off my chest in the last few posts, and which weren't suited to the attitude of gratitude - and boy, has that resulted in a few hiccups - there has been another reason for a slight reduction in the ratio of thankfulness.

I haven't actually been feeling very grateful for much at all.

I think, to put it plainly, that I have been having a violent attack of a well known disease of the twenty first century. There are a lot of sufferers out there - although sufferers is perhaps a misnomer. Malingerers is probably a better word for it.

To be blunt, I have been feeling sorry for myself. Having a fit of FirstWorldItis. Things have been going wrong. Laptops acting up. Banks stuffing me around. Telstra (shudder) messing with my ADSL. Health not - well, not crash hot, although that perhaps is a fair whinge in small doses at least. Really bad sleeps. Sebastian Vettel winning the Bahrain Grand Prix (again). And a few other things which I had best not talk about because this will simply become a diatribe rather than what it is supposed to be, which is a post about positivity rather than the reverse.

Then I woke up this morning in my comfy bed. And I looked out my window at the view of the sunrise, which I am lucky enough to do, and realised something.

I realised I am lucky enough to wake up in my comfy bed and look out my window at the view of the sunrise.

And felt like slapping myself around the head for all the negative and dark sulks that I had allowed to take over for the last little while, because so many people don't have that privilege. So many people.

This is not supposed to sound Polly-Anna-ish. I am not trying to be saintlike - goodness knows I am more on the side of the devils than the angels when it comes down to it, and realistically quite cheerfully so. They seem to have more fun without the shame attached, plus devil costumes are way sexier at Hallowe'en. But I do know this - and I am speaking for everyone I know, and for everyone who I believe reads this blog; if we, as intelligent, educated individuals, hold our gratitude inside ourselves, or indeed don't acknowledge everything that is good in our lives, and instead focus on the black and dark and dreary, then we may as well not bother going forward. Because we have so much - so very, very much - and we take it for granted 98% of the time.

Every person has crap to deal with. Often it is a case of same crap, different day.

But.

When you woke up this morning, were you waking up in a bed? Yes. Did you get to look out at a sunrise, or at least at the sky? I'd say so. Did you have technology at your fingertips, and food to eat, and coffee to prop your brain and your eyelids open, and a shower to shock yourself into sensibility with?

Then you are on the sunny side of the street.

And the very bright side of the road.

And life in its entirety is something to be truly grateful for. No matter what. This is something I am going to endeavour to carry with me today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. Because no doubt FirstWorldItis will strike again soon, and I will need a reminder of this morning's sunrise.

And my very comfy bed.