No Internet

Just a quick post to let you know that I have no internet connection until further notice. The server I was using has  been taken over by some one else & has let me down. I will have to wait until son has the time to switch me to a more reliable company. 

I WILL be back and I shall be missing you all. I am in a cafe that has a connection.

'Bye for now.

Repeated Patterns In My Life.

Yesterday Harry and I had a lovely day. We got on a bus using our free bus passes. We travelled a long way. We ended up in a lovely place with beautiful scenery and picturesque houses and old buildings and I took a photo of a gargoyle and we laughed at the pigeons sitting on the heads of every statue. We sat in a shady place while we ate sandwiches, because it had turned out really warm and sunny and I felt for the first time for a long time that I was bordering on happiness. It has taken me over a month to get over the sudden exit of the Japanese family and to come to terms with the various ways in which the big C has affected all our lives. The way it waits to pounce on us when we least expect it to. Harry's hospital appointment is not for a couple of weeks yet so we have a respite before the worry of what the blood test will reveal.

The afternoon turned out to be ideal. We eventually headed back home and had a take away meal, a surprise visit from my brother and we stayed up to watch a thriller film, "Flight Plan" which had us both gripping our seats! A really good day from start to finish!

Until, I suddenly remembered to switch off my mobile, that is. A text from my daughter, with the news that her husband had been rushed to hospital again. For those of you who don't know the present situation, I will just do a quick recap. Son in law had a brain tumour removed about three months ago. It turned out to be linked to his malignant melanoma that he had in a mole on his leg twelve years prior to that. He thought he had got over it. Now it seems he has all the symptoms back from the tumour. Could another one have grown that fast? We will have to wait and see. It sounds a pretty virulent, nasty type of cancer.

My daughter is distraught and the boys are obviously going to be disturbed by seeing their father screaming in agony. The eldest is possibly autistic and waiting for tests. Harry is fighting prostate cancer. My brother's wife has bone cancer, following the return of her breast cancer that she had twelve years ago. Twelve....... a significant number.........again. As well as all this, I had to cope with the sudden departure late one night of the family who had left in anger over a dispute about dripping washing in the loft. They had been with me for 11 months. All this has taken its toll on me, but yesterday I was happy for the first time for ages.

This has happened in the past when I have dared to declare myself to be happy.

Going on an outing with the children and finding my husband's motorbike on the front path and a note saying, "Don't worry, Harry is suffering concussion in hospital."

A day when I'd gone on a painting course for the day and daughter, who was twelve then, had to have my mother sign an emergency form so that she could have surgery for a broken elbow.

Six times at different points of our lives, usually holiday time, my husband has collapsed on me, while I had dared to be in a happy state of mind.

Maybe it would be better if I didn't let myself get too happy in the first place. That way I wouldn't be opening myself up for another knock to the floor.

Sorry for being so pessimistic today. I had a funny post ready to publish but that seems inappropriate now. Once again, you will have to bear with me. I will rise again as I always do, but I wish daughter didn't live so far away............

The Culprit!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This is the photo of my little shed that I painted blue. I was wandering round Wilkinson's and spied this little snail in the exact colour of blue to match. Well I have enough real snails in my garden without adding artificial ones too. I bought it, though, for cosmetic reasons and it lived on the top of the shed roof and looked like it was meant to be there.

Meanwhile, all the real snails get thrown over the fence onto the service lane behind! This gives them the chance to "scuttle off," in a snail like way, if they survive their flight! If not and they get run over.......... well I didn't have to kill them did I? They had a chance!

I went down to the shed the other day and noticed something was different! The plant had obviously grown a bit but the snail was gone! Had it crawled off in the night? Hardly likely! The real culprit from next door was sitting on the shed wondering what I was going to do about it! Well it might not even be him! There are four of them living next door and they all like to curl up on my shed!

The snail was found lying behind the potted plant with his horns broken off! I will not be taking a photo of him as it is too depressing, but he won't be sitting on top of the shed any more!

This is my story and these are my photos for Photostory Friday.

Time To Discard These?

authorblog: Weekend Wandering

This week, David asks us, "Do you have an item of clothing that you haven't worn for a year?"

Well, yes, several if I'm honest, though I do generally have a policy to to get rid of anything that I haven't worn for a year. Some things I have though have never been worn. Why are they in the wardrobe then? What right do the have to be there at all?

There are three things hanging up against the wardrobe in this picture. The first is a waistcoat made out of silk from an ancient kimono and was a present from Japan. It is lovely to look at but there is something wrong with the way the armholes pucker up at the back. So if I was to wear it, there would have to be major surgery on it. Like wise the second waistcoat. My mother gave me that one and I think it was made in South America and I like the colour and design but once again, there is something about the way it hangs around the back of the armholes. Now I have put this down in writing, I feel that there must be something wrong with the way my arms or back makes it hang. Obviously I should not be wearing waistcoats but strange to think that other people give them to me!

I don't know why I have them still. I just seem to not be able to bear get rid of them. I have just been waiting to get them fixed!

The third thing is a yukata (kind of Japanese dressing gown) that I bought when we visited Japan in the year 1999. I have had several given to me as presents and obviously cannot get to wear several at a time. Also in England, for much of the year these flimsy things are too cold and so I need to put on my warmer, cosy one.

What am I going to do with these three items after this post has been published, you may well ask?

Well they are going back in the wardrobe of course! In the meantime, if you bump into anyone wearing these articles of clothing, you will be able to say, "Hi Maggie May, I recognize those clothes, so it must be you!

The Concert (Memory Lane)

This is the story from my childhood when my brother and I were taken to a concert.

My father was what you would call a highbrow. He was a clever scientist but sometimes not always on the ball when it came to common sense! I always found him to be rather remote and my brother Godfrey and I learned not to bother him too much because he could get very annoyed with us for the slightest thing. When I look back I realized that he was not very good with children's needs at all but he mellowed into a lovely grandpa to my children. They have very happy memories of him so I think he must have practiced on Godfrey and me, before moving on to become that lovely Grandpa!

However, when I was a child, his favourite saying was, "Children should be seen but not heard!" This was completely old fashioned even when I was a child. In some ways he treated us like adults and took us to see some operas, recitals and concerts that were totally unsuitable for young children.

I can remember when I was about five years old and Godfrey only half that age, my Mum and Dad took us to a very stuffy church concert. I can picture it all very clearly in my mind's eye......... a church hall that was very dreary and rows of chairs filled with very old people. The women all wore hats, so where we were sitting, we couldn't see much of the stage at all, even though we were quite near the front. We were the only children there. Large fat ladies trilling out arias that seemed to go on for hours. We were getting very bored as there was nothing at all to interest young children. Nothing to see, no reason to be there at all. Naturally we were restless and must have whined and moaned, as the lady directly in front of us, turned round and offered my brother and me a boiled sweet each out of a white paper bag. I popped one into my mouth, glad of the diversion, but before Mum could stop him, Godfrey had put one into his mouth and promptly started to choke! He literally couldn't breath.

My Dad swooped him up under his arm and calmly walked out of the hall. My Mum looked very distressed and after what seemed like an hour but could only have been a few minutes, father and son returned to the hall and walked with smiling faces to their seats and Godfrey was munching his sweet! Apparently Dad had turned him upside down and slapped his back and the offending sweet dislodged from his windpipe!

We both sat still as mice for the rest of the concert and I think that little emergency shocked us into silence while the arias droned on.................!

Funny I should remember that so clearly!

A Last Minute Find!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Not long ago on a Saturday, Harry and I used our bus passes and went a long journey! We arrived at a suitable place to take photos. Well I wanted to take photos and Harry was happy to just be there and admire the scenery.

Well, I was happy as a sand boy snapping this, that and the other, when all of a sudden my camera jammed. The zoom wouldn't go in or out and that left the lens open, which I gather is not a good thing. I found a camera shop and explained what had happened. They examined it and took out the battery and the zoom snapped shut. I had got a flat battery. Feeling rather foolish, I thanked them and was a bit annoyed that there was so much to photograph and my camera was dead! Blast!

"Never mind," Harry said, "We can come again next weekend when the camera is all charged up." I thought that was a good idea and that was exactly what we did.

Only this time it was raining! Not possible to take all the lovely photos! Oh well might as well go into the shops and look through the second hand book stalls out of the rain. I bought a book and when we were on our way home we passed a stream and I felt something had moved on the edge of my vision. I went to investigate and saw baby ducklings. They seemed to be on their own. Then I looked closer and saw the mother with about six babies. She let me get quite close and I zoomed right in and took the photo. I felt that was worth waiting for. 

Harry and I will try another weekend and see what else we can snap when the weather is better.

We might even be able to take photos of the ducklings when they are bigger, if they are still there.

This is my true story and photo produced for Photostory Friday, hosted by Cicely and MamaGeek.

Naked Dolls

Not everyone approves of Barbie dolls, I know that. However we were given a load of second hand dolls that were dressed up in lovely clothes. We also had a big bag of spare clothes to dress them up in and the granddaughters have had a wonderful time playing with them. Some of them were Bratz dolls which are almost as bad as Barbies. The reason that they are disliked by adults is because they are not in the correct proportions to a real person. They have huge heads and eyes, elongated legs and minute feet and if they were real, they would be severely disabled. There is also the fashion obsession that goes with these dolls, not to mention their adult bosoms!

Putting aside all these non desirable details, the girls have a habit of removing all their clothes and leaving them all piled in a naked heap! Once their clothes are removed, they lose their appeal altogether and in fact they do not get played with after that.

In the beginning, I went round putting more clothes on them after the girls had gone to bed and once more they would be played with! 

Before too long, though the naked pile of dolls would grow into a heap and be discarded. They look as though they are having some kind of orgy!

As I work in an After School Club, I have noticed that girls of all ages seem to do this, even with baby dolls. The clothes will be torn off and discarded and the dolls not played with again until they are dressed!

What is going on? Can someone enlighten me?