Continuing the story of Lydia and Me https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk
Lydia and I have both had healthy breakfasts today.
Her dry food has a high protein content, with lots of different ingredients including pumpkin, chickpeas, salmon oil, blueberries, dried ginger root, green-lipped mussels, glucosamine, chondroitin, Vitamin C, and others.
These pellets form the main basis of her diet, which I top up with additional food and treats. I try to make sure that the treats also have a high nutritional value.
I hope that her diet, combined with our regular exercise, combined with our training routines, will help to keep her healthy in mind and body. I hope that the love and attention I give her will help to keep her healthy in spirit.
My own breakfast this morning took the form of half a banana, some fresh strawberries, natural yoghurt, no-added-sugar muesli and some semi-skimmed milk. Historically I haven’t always been great at making sure that I have a healthy diet, but I’m getting better at it now. I’ve previously worked through an eating disorder and body dysmorphia, so it’s taken me a while to reach a point of having a healthy attitude to food. I do now though, on the whole.
In this blog I’ve most recently been writing about life with reference largely to my relationship with Lydia. This is because we are working together, Lydia and Me. She is learning to “heel” and I am learning to ‘heal’. In fact, we are both learning to heal, and we are helping each other.
Pottery also features as part of the healing process for me.
While I describe myself as a ‘Poetic Potter’ and a ‘Potting Poet’, I haven’t written a lot of poems recently.
I used to write more poetry, particularly when I had no other outlet for or inclination towards the creative arts. I do, however, belong to a poetry group, a poetry ‘corner’.
We meet once a month in a local library. It’s the library in the town where I was born.
Each month, we set a theme for the following month’s meeting. This month, the ‘theme’ is the name of the town where we meet; the town where I was born.
The ethos of our group is one of positive feedback; it is a very gentle and supportive group, facilitated by a very gentle and supportive leader. We get a chance to read out poems that we’ve written, and to receive comments about them. This is the poem that I have written for the next meeting:
The Library
We met in a library
It’s a different library
to the one I meet others in, today
Since then
a lot of waves have washed
upon the shore
and pulled back
into nothing at all
I have little in the way of recall
to the times between
but that doesn’t mean
I don’t or didn’t care
It just means
I am aware
of a great tidal void
between then and now
Except that in this library
at this time
I am nowhere near the same
as I was in that library, then
I hope that we can meet
in this library
again.
© Maggie Baker 2025
A fellow member of the group described the meetings as ‘soul food’.
I’m looking forward to some spiritual sustenance on Saturday, when we have our meeting. I’m also looking forward to further spiritual sustenance tonight, when I go to the Buddhist meeting. This will be for the second in the latest group of four classes: ‘Transforming Through Adversity’.
Glad About 