Friday evening.

I am listening to Tchaikovsky on Classic FM, I have the Shabbat candles lit, and have just finished reading"The Clothes on their Back" - which was another holocaust novel in disguise! I seem to read so much about this subject, its like a wound that needs to be picked at and doesn;t heal.

I am also wondering why I lit the candles - I have never done this before.

When I married Glyn in 1975 and was so disowned by my parents for marrying out of faith, I took on their hard line view on religion. All or nothing.....but in so doing I allowed them to not only estrange me from my brothers and sister, but also to push me away from my heritage, and I find that I would now like to reclaim some of it.

I don't honestly know what I believe in  - I certainly don't believe that each religion has a right to claim their version of God is correct, and I am not sure I believe in God either. Be that as it may, I have a right to be counted as a Jewess, and I want some of the good things back, the sense of community and belonging, the intelligence and humour, and the Yiddishness of Yiddish people. Hence the candles. A small gesture, and a way to show my grandparents who died in the Holocaust that I have not forgotten, will never forget, and to say to my father that it is possible to go through the world with dignity and honour without being a fundamentalist with a perverted world view. In fact not being one makes it all the easier!!

I do not pretend to have led a blameless life or that I did not make a lot of mistakes when I was younger, but time slows us down, and mellows us. It is also like a spiral to me, you come back to the same place but in a different elevation as it were, looking at the same thing from a different view point.

Thats how I think of life - as I giant helter skelter from which we see the world rushing by.....same view and -oops - its gone again, but so fast.

I have had a bad day today with the neuropathic pain in my left arm which is driving me mad. I don;t know what to do with it at the moment, the cold weather is making the pain much worse, the medication I take slows me down so that I don't feel creative, and the ice on the roads is making it impossible to get out which is my usual coping mechanism - distraction therapy. Also we came back to Wallasey for my reading group and Crop - which have been cancelled due to the ice.....so I haven't even had those to enjoy.

Even Martha Dog looks fed up......!! She has been on my lap most of this evening - a bit of a big lap dog, but MUCH loved, she has such a sweet nature and is so affectionate. Love comes in all sorts of shapes!

Maybe I can stay in bed late tomorrow, and the pain won;t be so bad. Its the only other way to cope other than distraction therapy....