There is a yin and yang balance to life, if you choose to look for it. Just lately I’ve been in pain – a finger joint on my left hand has finally succumbed to arthritis. It’s been on the move for the last year or more, the joint slowly swelling, but in the last week has begun to painfully throb.
Under the weather
Do you have arthritis? If not, count yourself lucky. Rather unfairly at my age, I think, I now have two points in my body that are affected: in my left foot – the searing arthritic pain of which is currently on several years’ sabbatical, thank the Lord (but the effect of which has left me with a misshapen foot), and now my left hand. What is particularly frustratring me is that it would be my left hand, wouldn’t it? That’s my fully functioning hand. If it was my right hand it would rarely be used and so the swollen joint wouldn’t be accidentally and continually knocked, and I wouldn’t be noticing how it now hurts every time I even bend my fingers (which, in the case of my left hand is, not surprisingly, very often).
Still, I count myself lucky that it’s merely a finger joint and not a hip or an entire arm that is in arthritic agony (that would be a real stinker).
I’d just managed to again painfully bash my hand against the furniture while cleaning yesterday when the phone rang. The caller purported to be from the company that I tend to buy my shoes from. (I say ‘purported’ because I don’t see 
a scam here but you never can tell nowadays) . They said that as a subscriber to their newsletter my name had been entered into a competition to win shoes for the next year and that my name had been drawn as the winner. Winging its’ way to me shortly via Recorded Delivery will be hundreds of Pounds worth of vouchers to cover shoes for every season – from January through to December. How cool is that? Of course I am not a shoe fettishist like other members of my family, and it just so happens that I have only just bought enough shoes to last me for the next year (at least) but, hey, I’m not complaining! I’m on the winning side! I was seriously thinking that this year would be marked only by one ‘money out’ situation after another yet the other day I won £25 on the Premium Bonds [woohoo] and now I’ve won a whole load of shoe vouchers. Could this be a turn in the financial tide? That would be nice.
So there. The yin and the yang balance at work: I am in physical pain but at least I’ll have plenty of pretty new shoes to distract me and with my current winning streak, who knows? Perhaps I’m in line for a big lottery win!
I’ve heard that the noise of leaf blowers drives people up the wall in the U.S. We don’t tend to use those things over here in the U.K. (a rake will do us) but I’m assuming that the dreaded leaf blower is mostly a problem reserved for the months of Fall. 
Over at 
This recipe was advertised on my Googlemail page and just the title made me click on it. I had no idea that people still ate Spam let alone a ‘French Fry and Spam Casserole’ (with a few crushed cornflakes in there for good measure)! 
~ The Gentle Voice ~ 