Wordless Wednesday - Seagull

Top EC Droppers for May

It's a couple of months since I've publicly recognised my loyal EC followers. I've also been less active here and in my own dropping, what with holidays, family events, and the great move getting in the way. So the following deserve a really special thank you from me.

The Way I See It

Computer Help and Advice

Split Rock Ranch

Poetic Shutterbug

Toltec Insights with Dr Susan Gregg

Richard's Journal

Behind the Bit

Caught in the Stream

Flitting on Fiction

Gewgaw Writings.

They are also great blogs in their own right, so do treat yourself by stopping by them when you have time.

Getting It Right

I just had to edit my last post as I realised I had one of my facts wrong. The Pharaoh who followed Hatshepsut was not Tutankamon, but Thutmose III, who was both her half brother and her stepson. That was how Egyptian royals maintained their line in those days.

Anyway, that atrocious error - a result of being in such a hurry to finish and get to bed so that I relied on my memory rather than double checking before I posted - made me think of my own and other writers' credibility.

It reminded me of the time I read a book in which the heroine took a train to the west country from London, starting at Victoria Station. As I often used to take a train in that direction when I lived in London, I am well aware that the options would be to go from Paddington or Waterloo Stations. She would never have gone from Victoria, unless she intended to change at Clapham Junction, which would have been a really futile exercise from her starting point. So that author lost credibility in my eyes, and my interest in her book waned.

I actually wrote an article about this, so I should know how important it is to check all facts, and then check again. I can only hang my head in shame, and apologise.

Female Pharaoh

Hatshepsut (pronounced a bit like Hat-cheap-suit) was a female who took on the role of Pharaoh after her husband died and her stepson, Thutmose III, was too young to rule. It was important to look the part, so she wore a false beard and flattened her breasts as much as possible.

The picture above is of her statue in her memorial temple near Luxor.

And this is a pic of the temple, built into the cliff in the desert.

English Weather Tanka

Rain pounds on rooftops.
Snuggle duvet closer round.
When bed is cosy
with dreams of sun-baked beaches,
why begin a day like this?

For anyone who doesn't know, this tanka follows the Japanese form of syllables: a sequence of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables on consecutive lines.

Advantages of Marriage Later in Life

pic is by Leon Brocard at Wikimedia Commons

I'm pre-posting this because I'm heading south again early on Friday to spend a few days with my sister, daughter and granddaughter. I'm so looking forward to it.

Hubby and I had our second wedding anniversary this week. It didn't phase us much because our years together are much longer than that. They span more than a quarter of a century. When we finally decided it was time for a wedding, we did it quietly and, I like to think, with dignity. Afterwards I mulled it over and wrote an article about it.

Here's how it went.

As the years go by, the reasons for getting married, rather than co-habiting, are not the same as for younger couples. When you are young, getting married to the person you love usually seems the obvious way to make a commitment to the relationship. Your life seems bound up in the other person’s. You want to be in each other’s company as much as possible, to be there for each other at the end of the working day. You want to have children and build a family unit that will take forward the heritage of both of your families, and of the life you forge together.

Many older people have already had children in an earlier marriage. Even if they haven’t, they may believe they are now too old, or they may be reluctant to start a family in their later years. Some people think it unfair on the children to land them with elderly parents who won’t have the inclination or energy to join them in play and other activities for youngsters.

So why bother to get married? You can still be together as much as you want without the marriage license. In western countries, it’s no longer frowned on by respectable people as it once was. But many couples still do it. If you ask a number of them for their reasons, they’re likely to come up with quite a variety of advantages for them.

If I've pipped your interest, please click here to read the rest of my article and find out what those reasons are.

Wordless Wednesday - Cleopatra's Swimming Pool at the Temple of Dendara