Maggie Munster

Photo copyright: Sam May

Those naughty granddaughters dressed me up on Halloween. Something to chuckle about while I am indisposed.

I think I will hang on to the wig!

Hope to be back soon.

Footnote: I am back at home now gathering myself up together and will catch up with everyone's blog.

Had excellent care in our wonderful hospital. I cannot fault the Nation Health Service.

I will have to wait for the results of the biopsies.

What you have to do to get an extra week off though!

The Fight Is On....

Ok, so I had to blog about my shock yesterday in my last post. People have been so kind with comments and email and sending me funny things. The bra was sent by Mickle from Mickle's Pickle and it was great of her and I had a laugh. Anyway thank you for all the support and kindness in comments on the post and email. It really means a lot.

I am now in fighting mood and getting myself into gear for whatever might be ahead.

This is the post that was supposed to go out this weekend, so here it is. Back to business.

Blogging Is Like A River...

Photo copyright: Maggie May

I have sensed that there has been a kind of apathy going round in Blogland lately. Everyone, myself included, has experienced a huge hole since David left.

Eddie Bluelights has made a great success of taking over his Sunday Roast and Hilary also with her Post Of The Week but there is still an unexplained void. Just makes you wonder how any one man could post so many photos and articles and keep the interest of hundreds of people, every day?

All this nostalgia has come to a head for me, after reading Saz's excellent post recently (Fat,Frumpy & Fifty) and she's none of the first two! It was entitled *What Is Your Sell By Date?*

It set me thinking. I wonder what my sell by date is? I don't mean that literally, thank you very much. I mean my blog shelf life.

I have lost several good blogging friends without warning and many others have tapered off writing altogether, only returning intermittently. Even sadder was when a couple of friends died.

Is it strange to think of people who I have never met, as friends? I think not. I feel that I have shared so much with other bloggers over the years and when they suddenly disappear, there is a feeling of sadness, bereavement even.

There is that saying, when one door closes another opens and there is much truth in that. There are many new and upcoming bloggers out there in cyberspace as well as all the established ones that I already know and value and those ones that I have yet to meet.

One of the comments in Saz's post was that (blog) life was like a river, flowing endlessly on........ I suppose gathering some new things and losing others as it swirls along, just like in real life. Another person said that she thought that a true friend thinks you are a good egg even if you are slightly cracked!

I liked both those replies!

In the end, we must decide who are we blogging for, other people or ourselves? It is good to have people appreciate our work, but as long as blogging gives us pleasure then that is the main thing.

I feel that my blog is therapy for me and combines my interest in photography with my love of writing. However, I think it is essential to visit others' blogs and leave comments. How can anyone have a one sided relationship? So please keep those comments coming in......... they are much appreciated and I will do my utmost to return to you.

Roses From America

I am at a loss as to what to say really. Behind the scenes I have been really worried because a couple of months ago I discovered a lump in my groin and after leaving it a few weeks hoping it would go away (as you do), I went to the doctor who thought it was a hernia and that I would need an operation.

Before that happened I was to have an ultra scan and see a Consultant in our local hospital. That happened last Saturday and I was told then that it definitely wasn't a hernia, so I was worried.

Today I was summoned to the hospital quite urgently and was told that they think I have a lymphoma (cancer) and they have booked me in for surgery on Monday. This is in order that they might look at the gland in order to see what they are dealing with.

I have told one or two people before this post and Jackie from Teacher's Pet, sent me these lovely cyber flowers from America which I thought was very kind of her. (I feel quite pleased that I managed to get them into this post unaided and everyone knows that I am a technophobe.)

Anyway........ I am very grateful for prayers from everyone who can spare them and please all of you keep on praying that something can be done for me.

I am not sure when the results of the operation will get back to me or when my treatment will start.

We already have enough to worry about in the family as my husband has been battling cancer for seven years and my sister in law too.

I have always had to be the strong one and help my family out and now this has come along and messed up everything. My lovely son, Sam has promised to help me through it for a few days while I have the operation and he has promised to get the decorations finished in my kitchen.

I am going to find it very hard telling my daughter the news, as she lost her husband last year and my grandsons lost their father. They are just beginning to get their lives back together again and now they have to cope with this too. Please pray for them too.

Sorry to be a damper but I am quite bowled over with the grief that my family are going to feel. Yes...... it is a kind of grief even though no one has died. You see I have been there before....... when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and my husband with his cancer. It is not the patient who suffers the most. It is their family. Somehow it seems to be worse for them.

This is not the post I was going to send out today.

I have several in my drafts folder but they can wait until next week.

Wordless Wednesday.

Liquorice Alsorts anyone?

Photo copyright: Maggie May

To Autumn

Photos copyright: Maggie May

The clocks went back one hour last night so we are really entering winter time but as far as I am concerned it is Autumn. I hate the clocks going back one hour and would sooner leave things as they were, having really dark mornings but lighter evenings.

These photos are a selection from a recent walk. I am sometimes really pleased that my camera lives in my bag, so that I can snap the unexpected whenever I want.

I walked through an archway that divided some allotments and I think this arch had crab apples trained over it.

The girls were walking on ahead through the archway.

I encountered some lovely berries and brightly coloured plants.

I am reminded of John Keats poem, To Autumn.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Wooden Dolls

Hosted by Cecily and Kelli

I received my first Kokeshi doll (the large black one at the back of the group) as a present, when my son Sam was living in Japan. They are traditional dolls that originate in Kokeshi and they are made locally out of wood. Each doll has a pedigree and a name that means something.

Harry and I eventually went to Japan and after a lovely holiday staying with the family, I bought a few more dolls to add to the collection. My original one had looked quite lonely on its own. These dolls were being sold all over the place in Japan.

From then on, whenever my son came back to visit, he bought one or two Kokeshi dolls and my collection grew!

When I first started collecting these dolls, they were virtually unheard of where I live but I am surprised to see that many local shops now sell them. The Orient has certainly arrived in my city in a big way!

I have always been interested in Babushka dolls ............ Russian dolls that fit one inside another. When I was little I had come across a set when I visited someone's house and it seemed fascinating to find one doll inside another doll, inside another and so on until the tiniest one emerged. They were really exotic and unheard of in my locality.

These dolls have also stormed our city and there seems to be no need to go to Russia to get a set of them now. Most of mine came from charity shops, though some have a doll or two missing from inside!

Have you got a collection of anything that you want to share?

Photostory Friday is hosted by Cecily.

Bristol Harbour Festival

Photos are copyright: Maggie May

During the summer holiday, Bristol always has a Harbour Festival when thousands of people come down to the lovely water front and take part in the festivities on offer. Stalls from different European Countries, many visiting small boats as well as staged rescue acts from the helicopter and dingy, sometimes involving dogs who haul people out of the water. All good fun and interesting to see.

The festival went on for a whole weekend and culminated in a grand firework display.

Bristol is very proud of The Matthew that is always moored along our water front. This is a replica of the ship that John Cabot used to cross the Atlantic in 1497 to America. The newer version has visited America and survived the Atlantic but it does have an engine and radio for back up.

One thing that always strikes me is how small this ship is and how tiny it must be in that huge ocean, battling over huge waves with sails puffed out in the wind.

The ship in the picture below is the SS Great Britain. This was the first propellor driven iron ship to ever cross an ocean. She travelled to America and Australia and was later found abandoned in The Falkland Islands, was rescued and brought back to Bristol where she had been launched in the very beginning.

It took years to restore her to her former glory and she is now in dry dock and is a popular ship to visit.

I must admit that I love visiting the water front regularly, but especially during The Harbour Festival when flags are flying everywhere I look.

Watery Wednesday is hosted by 2sweetnsaxy. Look her up for some great photos from all over the world.