Wow, it’s been 6 months since I put anything on here and all the excuses and reasons come down to one thing – my health.

Yep, I’ve been ill…more ill than I’d ever believed it was possible to be.  I still can’t get a complete diagnosis of what has struck me but the most likely explanation is my immune system attacking itself after too many years of doing too much, and taking too little time to recover when I have been unwell.

There is a range of symptoms that most people won’t want to know about and no way to fix it without steroids that have their own range of really unpleasant side effects.

But this post isn’t about what’s wrong with me, it’s to celebrate the kindness of others.

Little kindnesses like my friend who texted me at an ungodly hour because they saw my unhappy message on Twitter before I’d deleted it to check I was OK.

The kindness of people offering to come and visit me; one made a two hour round trip and stayed for 2 hours when they had much more important things to do.

The people I work with showing me enormous kindness in their patience and understanding.  Even more, seeing their joy at seeing me made me realise that people do care.

Kindnesses from the online community who have kept me sane when all I wanted to do was huddle up on my hospital bed.

The work of the staff in the wards I stayed in at Whipps Cross Hospital in London; amazing kindness in helping me try and cope even they didn’t know what was going on.

My family’s patience and kindnesses have been beyond compare.

I’ve learnt a lot from these kindnesses:

• Appreciate what you have
• Wifi access in hospital is a massive business opportunity
• Don’t take your health for granted
• Fatigue is real and is more than physical tiredness
• Daytime antiques programmes are very dull
• Benelovence and compassion aren’t limited

Thanks for being kind enough to read this and please think about being kind for its own sake, not for any other reason.

All images from FlickR and used under an attributed,non-commercial,non-derivative,2.0 generic creative commons licence from Andi2..