Blogging Hiatus

I haven't been sticking to my blogging schedule for the last few weeks while we have been preparing for our big move. I haven't been writing anything else either, and my sales at Constant Content have tailed right off. It just shows that you need to keep active there to get people to look at your portfolio. (Mine is here)

Within the next 48 hours my computer wwill be packed away, along with the rest of my office stuff. Already I'm feeling the withdrawal symptoms.

We should be in the the new house on Friday but my broadband supplier can't connect me until I have a landline number. Once I give them that, they say, it could take a couple of weeks. My landline supplier will not give me a number until moving day when, hopefully, they will connect us.

So it will be a while before normal service can be resumed here. In the meant time, I'll be finding my nearest library with computer use for free, so I can at least delete the spam emails.

Bye for now.

Hosta Flowers

This is the third year this hosta has been in this plot but the first year it has flowered. I had wondered if it ever would. It will definitely move with me now.

Notes on a Name

I’ve been a Knill since I was twentyone. Even though I recently married for the second time, I’m still using the name for my byline – and all those bills and bank accounts that I haven’t got around to changing.

My first husband’s family hailed from the west. We used to visit his Aunt Ida Knill and her unmarried brother, Harold, who still lived together in the family home – a cottage next to the church in Pilton, Barnstaple. They were great church goers, and early in the 19th century, the Knill family made up the complete church bell-ringing team. I was once shown a poem that had been made up about them. I believe it was published in the local newspaper. How I wish I’d managed to get and keep a copy of it.

Recently, I was browsing the web and came across a pyramid folly just outside St Ives in Cornwall, called the Knill Monument. The text says that it was meant to be a mausoleum for a former mayor of the town, John Knill, who built it in 1782. Sadly, however, he died when he was in London and wasn’t brought back.

But his will instructed that “10 young virgins and 2 older women, possibly widows, accompanied by the local minister, the mayor of St. Ives, a violinist, and a customs and excise man”, should dance around the monument while everyone else sings the 100th psalm "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands."

This spectacle can still be seen on 25th July once every five years. I imagine it takes some doing to be sure you’ve got 10 young virgins, let alone a willing customs and excise man, these days. But I’m setting a date for 2011, which is the next time it’s due to take place.

Dog Shampoo

In one of the forums I visit every day, a couple of members mentioned that their dogs had got in the way of some skunk spray. How horrendous is that? I just can’t imagine it.

Now by an amazing coincidence, I was just introduced to Dinovite’s Dogosuds dog shampoo, and I’m told that it works great to remove the skunk smell. It’s got to be worth a try.

Dinovite appears to have a lot more going for it too. It’s also a natural flea deterrent. It doesn’t contain any chemicals or perfumes that could irritate your dog’s skin or dry it out. Quite the opposite in fact, as it does contain pure, therapeutic, essential oils that have natural healing properties. You’ll find it lathers up well and rinses off easily. And then your dog will smell good for quite a while so you won’t have to be forever bathing him.

So, if you are a dog owner, is your dog itching, scratching and stinking beyond belief? Or do you wash your dog one day, just to have the stink return the next? Perhaps you wait weeks between bathing your dog because her skin gets so dry and flaky. Or perhaps you hate bathing your dog because you rinse and rinse and rinse...and still can't get the shampoo out properly.

Answer yes to any of the above? Head on over to Dinovite and find out how to get some Dogosuds and see what else they have to offer. You might even be able to get your first shampoo free if you’re quick.

Photo is from

Free Stock Photos for websites - FreeDigitalPhotos.net

At Lyme Regis