Oh, & my three good things are we went to a garden centre & bought some plants & went for a drive afterwards; went out for lunch; went to the allotment & all is well, started sone artwork.

Jen, it was lovely to be able to share yohr time at the park. Your drawing is beautiful - you are talented at drawing trees - no easy task & notoriously tricky. I used to do a lot of pencil sketching when my husband belonged to a village cricket team hears ago - i would go along witjh him & sketch what i saw. I recently came across an artist on KZfaq who does wonderdul tutorials of the kind of art i like to do (Miss Betsi - not sure if that's the correct spelling) so i've been reviving my art a little, learning new skills & appreciating what i produce, even though it may not be perfect - she says the important thing is to start, & i think the fear of making mistakes in my art & music is what has contributed to my letting them lapse, so it feels good to be starting again. It's amazing what healing effects Nature has on us - like you, I can breathe in that glorious scent, especially when i'm among trees, it has an almost instant calming effect on me. I also agree that meditation is good to help with trauma, especially when my mind & nervous system feels overwhelmed or when i can't get ro sleep. Again, i found a KZfaq presentation (by Tim Fletcher) on trauma & the brain to be of enormous help - at last, someone who really understands. That's a LOT of pumpkins! was just thinking how wonderful it would be to see them asll lit up, when you said there is a night event where all the pumpmins are lit!