Procrastination

 authorblog: Weekend Wandering

This week, David asks the question, "Do You Ever Procrastinate?" Well the answer is a resounding Yes! Don't you?

The problem is, there is usually something much more interesting to do than the job in hand. It is sometimes more appealing to leave an unpleasant task for another day. Things like cleaning the oven or turning out heaps of muddles can make me feel better after they are done. Especially jobs that have been nudging and nagging  me for ages. So why do I sit down and blog or start some new venture or waste hours trying to shoot a butterfly ( with a camera, in case people start to ring the RSPCA!) when I could be tackling the jobs that will make me feel better afterwards? Probably because the blogging or other ventures, make me feel better NOW!

Is procrastination the same as laziness? Not according to my  Collins Thesaurus. Laziness implies doing nothing or being lethargic. When I procrastinate, I am busy doing other things and delaying doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing. A different thing altogether.

So, is procrastination a bad thing? Only if it means the delayed job never gets done, I would say.

The photo I used today, contains something which I strive and  endeavour to be, but am probably not! Can you spot what it is?!

Bling Fling

 Arte y Pico Award.

This unusual award comes from Jeni from Down River Drivel. She says that the Arte y Pico award was specially designed to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their creative energy and talents. This can be through writing, artwork, design, interesting material or contribution to the bigger community. It is a special honour to receive it.

The award should be sent to 5 other bloggers who meet this criteria.

I first "met" Jeni through David Mcmahon when he invited her to take part in his Sunday Roast.

I am glad that I left a message on her blog, where I felt immediately "at home," so why not look her up?

Now I have to choose 5 others to pass this award on to.

A Mask To hide Behind other wise known as Girl With The Mask. Humorous every day!

Missing You Already where Mya hangs out! Saucy but very funny!

Crazy Cath's Reflections where some superb photography is taking place!

Gone Back South went away for a while then came back, changed her blog & writes short posts that are action packed and very good!

Expatmum is well known for her book, her interesting American perspective and her toilet stories!

So there we are! All done and dusted!

The Story Of The Three Bears!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This is a photo story hosted by Cicily and MamaGeek. It is held every Friday. It is my story and my photo.
This week I have again taken a photo to fit the story. I expect you are thinking that my pictures are not up to scratch and that I am really a story teller.
The sad looking bear in the blue scarf and jumper was mine when I was a baby. So he is a bit older than me, I should think and survived World War Two! However, he was to undergo many other things in his life, as my slightly younger brother knew just how to wind me up when he flung my bear repeatedly out of the upstairs window and onto the rockery below. It is no wonder that he has lost much of his hair and has a gammy arm. (I am talking about my bear now, not my brother!) I have never wanted to part with my bear that was called, Teddy, who sits on top of a book case with some of his friends.

The bear in pink is five years younger and belonged to a friend who I don't see now. He looks as though he had an injury over his right eye, but she didn't have brothers or sisters to knock him about. She must have done it herself! I don't really know how I came to have him in the first place. Maybe she wanted to clear up her house and thought I was an eccentric person to pass it on to! If she is reading this, please take him back.
Little bear belonged to my daughter when she was a bit older than a baby. He is a "suck a thumb" teddy and has a little open mouth & a huge thumb to stick in it. I think she took it to her house when she got married and I'm sure her boys played with him when they were much younger. One day when I was staying over at her place I noticed a big bag of toys that were bundled up for charity and I couldn't resist looking in! "What!" I exclaimed, "Are you throwing out 'suck a thumb' bear?"
I took him home & he sits near my computer. Mad or what?
Next time I will try and pick a real photo!

The Story of the Roly- Poly Poo!

When I was a child I lived in a tiny two bedroomed cottage on the edge of a small town in Lancashire. It had a lovely garden and I was very happy there. Because of the cramped conditions, my brother Godfrey and I had to share a bedroom.

I distinctly remember one night, lying in bed, when I was about four years old. Godfrey was already sleeping in his little bed just a few yards away. Downstairs I could hear my mother in the kitchen ironing the clothes. Every time the iron went down, the table she was using made a squeaking sound. The radio was on and she was obviously listening to a play, that she really enjoyed on the BBC Home Service. I found these sounds very comforting as I lay in bed, but that night I was restless and did not sleep. Too bad I needed to poo!

The toilet was downstairs and to get there I had to pass the kitchen. I would be disturbing my mother if I went down and it did seem a long way to go. 

There was a potty under the bed but we were only supposed to wee in it. I got out of bed and before I could help myself, I'd done a large poo in it!

"Now what shall I do?" I pondered.

Suddenly, inspired by an idea, I rolled it into a ball using a page from an old magazine.

There was a window on the landing that opened outward, overlooking the lovely back garden and directly below the window, was the sloping kitchen roof.

"If I roll it down the roof it will land in the garden and no one will know it was me," I thought.  

The plan seemed to work very well until the ball of poo got stuck on the roof only an arm's length away.

"Now that would be noticed," I thought, "Better get it back!"

It never occurred to me just how dangerous this was becoming. I now had to really stretch to get it. At last it was in my not so clean hands!

I decided to put it back in the pot and say nothing and with this resolved, I got into bed and fell asleep.

Funnily enough, nothing was ever said about the strangely shaped ball of poo with newspaper wrapped around it!

Fears In Abundance!

"The things That I Am Afraid Of!" is the subject that David Mcmahon from   authorblog: Weekend Wandering has set us this week. Well where do I start? There are lots of things and I am going to sound neurotic if I list them all. Well you seem to like it when I'm honest and bare my soul. I think I have touched on some of it before. So here goes...........

Number one on my list has to be the fear of depression, as I have had two very bad bouts of it in the past and I always realize that there is the possibility of "it" taking me over again, like Churchill's Black Dog! 

I mildly think about Altzheimer's disease and the possibility that I might be affected one day and the ensuing chaos it would cause to my family if I did. Following this, I think it would be awful to lose control of my body and have to be completely dependent on other people.

I am afraid of abandonment. This is because when I was a child, my mother used to say, "I will walk out and never come back." When I was getting on her nerves.

So my last post "Life feels Like A Storm" made me feel a bit like that and even though I am 66 years old, I felt very like I did as a small child again. This runs very deeply and I am still traumatized by this kind of thing. As it turned out, it was not such a terrible thing, as Sam called round yesterday and checked the computer and seemed just like his normal self. He said that Kaiko is fine and is so pleased to be in her own place. Well that is natural. I could not have lived 11 months with my inlaws, no way! Sam is bringing Amber over this afternoon as she has a birthday party to attend nearby. I am also finding I am less stressed and much more peaceful having the house to ourselves and so is Harry! Well, I am getting off track now so will move on to the next fear.

I think you all know my very real fear of my computer or router failing and not being able to get it fixed. No more blogging! That would be a nightmare. I really hate it when I am not in control of situations!

I hate public speaking and will never volunteer in church to read the lessons. I am a background person, snug in my little corner!

Well that just about covers all my major worries and all the little things like spiders and heights and flying, I can usually muster up the courage to do! Scoop up a spider, avoid heights, fly if I have to!

You might be puzzled by the photo that I used for this post? Well there is always hope or help round the corner. The triangular piece of sky is peeping through the clutter of trees and house and represents light, hope, help, God even. So that just about covers the subject!

Life Feels Like A Storm.

I feel all my creativity has gone! I am feeling incredibly sad, although I know it will pass.

The sadness, almost despair is because my family have moved out in anger. 

I will not go into details and I am not blaming anybody, but after nearly eleven months of living in our house, it became obvious that Kaiko and I, both of us incredibly stubborn, have become constantly edgy with each other and disagreed over certain issues that couldn't be resolved.

It was not supposed to finish like this. Everyone knew they would be going eventually and this was only ever meant to be a temporary solution.

Sam owns a property in an other part of the city. He needed to sell it in order to buy a property locally so that Amber could continue attending the school where she has been really settled and popular. Millie the youngest was about to start nursery near by in Sept and her name had been on the list for a good while. But this house is not selling so they are now living in it. However Sam intends to bring the children by car every morning on his way to work, so that I could take Amber to school and Granddad could pick her up while I am at work. 

Millie is to go to a child minder on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays but on the other two days, Granddad & I will look after her between us.

I wish Kaiko and I could understand each other but I don't think she will ever want to be close to me neither has she ever been.  I like to talk things over but the Japanese do not disclose their feelings. It is impossible to know what is going on in her dark, fathomless eyes. I have tried and failed!

I don't know how practical it will be to keep Amber and Millie at the school near here and feel I we will lose touch with our little granddaughters if they start new schools.

I expect most people will think that it was an impossible situation anyway. In laws living together and some said it would only last a month! Well at least we proved them wrong about that. At least they are in the same city and not the other side of the globe.

However, I am upset at the suddenness of it all. No time to adjust.

On a practical level, I know the time will come when something happens to my computer or router that I cannot deal with. If I go away for any length of time, don't think I have abandoned you. I have not the same technical support at hand, that's all!

Sorry to go on about all this. I expect time will heal. In the mean time, please be patient with me.

Little Bronze Jug.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This little jug is very old. Maybe getting on for a hundred years! In fact it belonged to my Grandmother. I don't suppose it is valuable as it was being sold in a market place, where it was stolen. It was stolen by my mother, when she was a small toddler. She must have been attracted to the colour because when the two of them returned home, it was firmly clenched in my mother's hand. 

My Grandmother, who was a very honest and upright lady, went straight back and paid for it. So in the end, it was legitimately hers.

I always liked this little jug when I was a child, so recently took the photo to go with the story. Is it supposed to be the other way round? Oh well... that's the way it was!

I am reasonably pleased with the photo. I took several and this was the best of the bunch, but it is not perfect!

Any way, I'm sure you'll agree it does come with an interesting story!

Visit Cecily and MamaGeek  for Friday Photostory.

Half Hour Before Work!

I was busy cooking earlier when I saw butterflies through the kitchen window and I couldn't leave what I was doing.

Earlier, when the grand daughters needed me, I saw a wood pigeon having a bath in the bird bath. Two collared doves were sitting ridiculously  on the bird feeder stand, trying without success to find a way onto the sunflower seed container and the fat ball. That would have made the perfect snap.

Yesterday a squirrel ran along the back fence. However, if I were to open the back door, all wild life would panic and disappear.

I had half an hour to spare before work. I could have spent it blogging or I could have read the new book I was about to begin.

I decided to get my camera and to lie low in the garden. As usual, not a creature in sight. Just then, a butterfly fluttered over the hedge. Why didn't I have my camera open? It went further down the garden and landed on a flower! My perfect snap! This was further down the garden and I would need to scramble down the rockery and would probably risk breaking my neck as well as the camera. I went the long way round. It was sitting perfectly still on a flower. I took aim ........ Blast! It knew I wanted a picture and I'm sure it was laughing at me as it flittered back over the hedge. The birds were around as they were chattering in the trees but did not come into the garden.

I heard the dreaded clock chime the hour. I had to leave for work and marveled at just how quickly half an hour goes by.

I reluctantly left, and noticed there were bluebottles in the house because I had left the back door open!

I did take one picture while waiting for wild life in the garden though, as I got bored! I hope you don't mind a photo of my washing while you are waiting for my perfect photo of a butterfly on a flower!

Camera Nightmares!

This week David Mcmahon from authorblog: Weekend Wandering asks "What Is Your Worst Camera Nightmare?"

Well this topic seems to have been put out just for me! Most things to do with photography can be a nightmare for me! My new found hobby is being really thwarted because of my lack of technical skills. Its not so much the taking of pictures that causes me trouble, because I am getting better at that, but there is still a problem with links, that is really doing my head in! I was hoping to join a photo story club but I have no idea how to get the draft from blogger into the link so unless some one can come up with help, this will not materialize. My technical support always seems to be out or too busy!

My very first camera was a Brownie 127 by Kodak. It took black and white small photos, which had to be taken to the chemist to be developed. Colour was only for the rich (in America) when I was twelve. This camera was fairly straightforward and I took some good photos with it.

Over the years I took photos of holidays and important events with different colour cameras. Some were instant and produced a snap will you waited, but most had to be developed. Mistakes with these type of cameras were quite costly, so I didn't really do much snapping over the years.

The worst group of photos that I have ever taken, were of holiday shots in Cyprus. I took two reels of film with me and put them in my suitcase. The film boxes were sealed, but after we got home and I went to collect the photos from the chemist, the pictures were barely visible and looked as though they had a foggy mist over every one. So although there was nothing wrong with the way I'd taken the photos, somewhere along the line of processing, a fault had occurred. Some one had warned me that xray machines at the airport, could do that to a film. Wish I had listened.

Well I am not dwelling on the mistakes and I certainly will not show any of the worst of my snaps. I have included one from my travels. I wasn't really being nosey looking into someone's window. I was interested in the ivy up the wall. I can almost see the curtain twitching though! My ambition is to be able to get quite close in to take a tiny butterfly on a flower. So far the butterflies only seem to emerge when I have no camera at hand. As soon as I run to get it, they disappear. 

My long suffering husband now not only has to put up with me trawling the blogs but also has me waiting about in the garden for creatures that might come but on the other hand might not! 

My Quiet Place..........

This is part of my little garden. My retreat where I sit in the middle of the city but in total peace and calm. I read or think out new posts or just look at everything. The above photo is of a clematis which is growing amidst the passion flower plant, which has buds that are about to flower. 

Always watching me is this stone cat on a wall, surrounded by campanulas.

I put a small cutting of campanula from my Dad's garden many years ago into a crack in the wall and I can remember him saying that it would never take! I carefully watered it and it settled very well. Now it covers the whole wall and has to be trimmed back regularly. Some things just have to be tried out!

This is the place where I sit near to the bird feeders. You can see my chair in the corner. The ceanothus  (tall blue flowering shrub) has done really well this year and helps to make our garden private. I think every one needs a little place where they can sit and recharge their batteries! 

The garden was filled with butterflies a couple of weeks ago, but just because I wanted to take some photos, they seem to have disappeared. The butterflies were Skippers. I don't know what plants they live on but they come for a few weeks every year. Obviously I have missed them.

Well, now on to a meme!  Lady Thinker  who has a blog called "Who Cares..." has given me a book meme to do.

She asked me to pick up a book and open it at page 123 and read out the 5th sentence!  Well this is very simple but what book shall I choose?

I will pick up the last book I read, which happens to be" Vegemite Vindaloo" by David Mcmahon from authorblog

I found this book to be a really good read. In places it was sad, but in others very funny. A sort of bouncing between two countries and two different cultures. Anyway, I enjoyed the book, so recommend it. Here goes.........

"The next time Bablu and his grandmother appeared, he asked the old lady if she would pass on a message to the boy's parents."

Well, there we are. Doesn't mean much when its just a sentence. However, it is at a place in the book where there is a struggle for the extreme poor to get an education. A Catholic priest decides to give a gifted child a chance of learning to read. A child that would otherwise be doomed to a life of poverty. This child grows up to have a very privileged  job and inspires some one else to give another needy child a break. By breaking through the boundaries of a caste system, a whole series of events lead to a change in the circumstances of two families!

I am now supposed to tag someone! However, I am going to leave this open for any one who wants to do this meme  and let me know if you decide to and I will come over and read it. I know that many of you have already done this one. Here's hoping that some of you haven't!

The Great British Weather!

This week, David  asks, "When Did You Last Complain About The Weather?" 

What are you joking? We are living in England for Heaven's sake! We complain about it all the time!

We have a poem. Not sure where it comes from.  I had to learn it at school. Maybe it is folklore.

Whether the weather be cold

Or whether the weather be hot,

We'll weather the weather

Whatever the weather,

Whether we like it or not! 

Most British people do just that because it never seems to be the same twice! There is plenty to talk about and that is why we British always remark about the weather to every one, every day!

You can speak to a perfect stranger and say, "Good morning, not so nice today!" Or "Is it going to rain, do you think?" Or "Nice weather for ducks!"

Some how or other our weather seems to bond us together and we are noted on the Continent for always talking about it. One of the great British eccentricities! Well that's OK its good to be different.

We are probably noted for our stoical approach to the weather and the fact that we will go for strolls down country lanes in rain or hot sunshine. Mad dogs and Englishmen ......... out in the noon day sun!

However, we do seem to complain a lot about our weather.

When I was a child, my Dad had an autograph album, but instead of having famous people write in it, he got all the relatives to write a poem or a drawing in there. I remember Auntie Minnie writing:-

As a rule

A man's a fool.

When it's hot 

He wants it cool,

When it's cool

He wants it hot!

He's always wanting

What is not!

That little verse stuck out in my mind. I wish we still had the autograph album as all the people in it would be dead by now.

I think the last time I really complained about the weather was when we had to go back to school in perfect sunshine, after the storm during our holiday traveling, that I have already written about!

You can link to  authorblog: Weekend Wandering  

Life Ain't A Bed Of Roses!

These roses are not mine. They are hanging over a neighbour's wall that I pass most days. I remembered to take my camera today and snapped them. As I walked by, wafts of lovely perfume enveloped me.

However, I am feeling like a rant! 

Life Ain't Like a Bowl of Cherries.........  and it Ain't a Bed of Roses either!

I read other people's blogs and I know that some of you are having a really tough time. However, we are OVERWHELMED! Overwhelmed by bloody cancer mostly! Most of you know that Harry is battling with prostate cancer and Rupe, my son in law has had brain surgery to remove a secondary cancer that stemmed from malignant melanoma from a tiny mole on his shin twelve years previously. Neither of those two can be cured and are being treated with drugs in Harry's case and radiotherapy in Rupe's case. Well that is only two people isn't it? No it is blimmen not! My sister in law, Gloria, had breast cancer twelve years ago and suddenly her arm is three times the size it should be and her shoulder hurts like mad and now it seems that the Big C has caught up with her again. What is going on? She is younger than me and her children are younger as my brother married later in life. She really doesn't deserve this. None of them do!

Strange how in both cases the cancer returned after twelve years.

Rupe & Debs (my daughter) were going through hell before the cancer struck and it looked as though their marriage was well and truly over. She was biding her time, waiting for the children to get older. Now she would be "The Big Bad Wolf" if she left him. However, he continues to treat her in a controlling way, wanting her to give up her job and monitor everything she does and he criticizes her continually so that her personality is in shreds. Well I am really upset about it. No one wants to see their daughter like that.

Oldest grandson is finding things difficult, and school wants to have tests done to see if he is autistic. I have wondered from time to time myself if he had autistic tendencies, though if he has, then it is not a severe case. Now he has broken his elbow, when he fell off his bike! Well that can be mended at least!

We had a good holiday, you may well think. Yes we did until Wednesday, which was half way through it and we decided to go to the theatre.  I was really enjoying a little family of entertainers involving children. I glanced at Harry and he looked really ill and I managed to get him into the foyer where he collapsed on me and became unconscious. He came round and was violently sick, everywhere! An ambulance was called and off we both went to Scarborough Hospital which is half way to Whitby and further than I could imagine. After waiting there for several hours in A & E, in very smelly clothes, it was announced that he had food poisoning, which I couldn't understand as no one else had it. We were discharged in the middle of the night, clothes stinking to high Heaven & I managed to persuade a taxi driver to take us back to the hotel and explained husband had not been drinking but had been ill. The hotel promised to get  the clothes laundered as Harry only had the one jacket & it was a good pair of trousers, too.

The day of departure the clothes were returned to me in sacks in the same condition as they were when I handed them in! That was a wonderful job waiting for me when I got home!

I wouldn't be surprised if you had all gone away by this stage! It would be understandable if you had. No one likes a Moaning Minnie! Well, that's how it goes sometimes!

I am going to call this place MOODY MANSION because there are so many moody people here at the moment. Well OK so Sam's house is not selling and he & Kaiko are still here and not living in the lovely little place of their own. But it is not my fault and there seems to be little sense in making ME the scapegoat!

I also would like to get a shower when I want and not have water flooding everywhere in kitchen and bathroom and to be able to give the washing machine a rest before it is flogged to death. Fortunately Amber and Millie don't mind being here and snuggle up to Granddad and me and show great affection.

I am thinking of having a plaque printed. It will be put on the porch door and will read:-

Welcome to Moody Mansion!

You don't have to be moody to visit here, 

But a sense of humour would sure help!

Quite honestly, if I didn't laugh I would cry at the situations I am finding myself in.

From a Coach Window

There is much to be said for traveling by coach. For a start, we were high up and could see over the hedges along the motor way for miles, which in a car is not always possible.

English motorways go through some beautiful countryside. (So OK, so do Welsh, Scottish and Irish motor ways.) I just happened to be in England.

As the scenes rushed by, I was reminded of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, that I loved as a child. From A Railway Carriage.

It described looking out of a train window at all the passing things that whizzed by, and the last line ....... "Each a glimpse and gone forever."

The light caused everything to look quite striking, even though it was raining. Many of the fields were bright yellow with crops of rape seed flowers, which were in sharp contrast to the many greens of fields, shrubs, trees and hedgerows that we passed. The fields stretched out into the distance where the far hills were obliterated by mist in a blue grey haze.

Church towers snuggled behind tree tops.

Fields of brown earth invaded by hundreds of large black crows grubbing for food.

Occasionally a sparrow hawk was seen hovering silently and effortlessly as it stalked it's prey.

Every now and then small factories appeared like a scar on the landscape.

Tiny huddles of campers in tents and caravans.

Sometimes, we went over a river, gorged by the rain and saw a boat or two moored by the banks, men fishing.

We went through pig farms that seemed to stretch for miles on either side of the motor-way. Rows and rows of round topped huts, as far as the eye could see, reminding me of refugee camps for some reason.

There were black and white cows, but further up north, only brown ones.

Fields of lambs that were half the size of their mothers, not gamboling like the little ones do but grazing quietly and orderly.

Not everything was beautiful as we sped along. Huge pylons and ugly cables spanned the farmland and stretched for miles.

Ugly cream gasometers that couldn't be hidden.

Power stations with large, fat chimneys, seen for miles and looking quite sinister against the sky.

Road kills, mostly birds lying against the central barrier ...... a squashed pheasant and two crows, one lying on it's back with it's legs stuck in the air.

We came to some traffic jams where the roads were being repaired and cones everywhere. Other vehicles started to overtake us, motorbikes and fast cars. Some with sleeping babies and one with a child lying across the back seat, not even strapped in.

One car that went past, had a large breasted lady sitting in the passenger seat with an unusually large box on her lap. The box had large writing on the lid. "TAKE CARE- LIVE RABBITS!" 

Now, who do I know with rabbits?

The Bridge

This week in Weekend Wandering, David invites us to write about whether we believe in "Forgive and Forget." You can follow people's posts and comments by linking to him.

Ideally we should all forgive and forget, because that is the right thing and certainly the Christian thing to do. However it is not always an easy thing to do and I often have had to really struggle with this. I definitely believe we should try though.

When I first thought about this subject, a bridge came to mind, with forgiveness on one side and forgetting on the other. Its the forgetting bit that is so difficult. We walk across the bridge thinking we have forgiven and when we reach the other side we are remembering again! Remembering can fuel up anger and resentment and we are back where we started.

Of course some things are more easy to forgive and forget than others. If it is a friend who upset you in an ordinary kind of way, then its relatively easy to forgive and forget the whole thing. However, just suppose that your best friend has done something terrible, like run off with your husband or wife, for instance! Well, it does happen sometimes and that would be hard to forgive, let alone forget.

I have heard of people who have had a child or another close relative murdered and somehow that murderer has been forgiven by a living relative of the deceased. We live in an age where we are encouraged to pay back and get revenge. It must feel, at the beginning, as though that is what you want to do. Make them pay........ get even in some way. It can't change anything and indeed it might be better to forgive, but how could you forget a thing like that? Yet people do it. They wipe the slate clean. Who knows whether I would be strong enough to do that? I hope I never have to find out.

I suppose every one has some one in their family that holds a grudge that is never forgotten. We are no exception to this rule and I did once try to go round and make peace with the person in question. It was Christmas, the time of peace and goodwill towards all men. However we were ordered to get off the threshold or the Police would be called. Well, that is pretty well impossible to solve, isn't it? The contempt that family member feels for us is not forgotten, but we don't dwell on it. I would forgive it if the relative would meet me half way. No good to dwell on it though as it would eat away at me like cancer. So it is semi forgotten, below the surface and that is the best I can do under the circumstances.

Sometimes, disputes simply cannot be solved and the only thing that can be done is to find some peace in the fact that you are willing to forgive if the other person will receive it. If not, then you have to try to "let it go." Give it to God or whatever supreme being you'd like to call upon. The secret is not to take it back! That's the difficult part.

So yes, I believe in forgive and forget, but I am still working on perfecting it! I'll be interested to hear how others manage to do this and admire them if they have been successful!