My Great Grandchildren

At Christmas I was given a lovely calendar for 2015 with various photos of one or more of my three greatgrandchildren. This is the one for March. It's so lovely I can't keep my eyes away from it. It had to come down from the wall as the builder has finally arrived to add a new window to my kitchen diner, and I wanted to protect it from dust. A great opportunity to scan and share this one.

Friday the 13th

I'd completely forgotten that today was Friday the 13th until a few moments ago when I logged into my email and discovered I am a little over $40 better off as my article about this phenomenon sold today at Constant Content.

That was only one of the happy events of today. It rained quite hard in the night and was still raining when I got up this morning, but by 10,30, when I was ready to take Jade for a good walk, it had stopped. Before that I had tucked her into her rainproof coat and let her out into the back garden.

After the rain we enjoyed a grand tramp through the woods and Jade obediently stayed on the far side of the gate while I hotfooted it to the pooh bin at the Upton House car park. The farmer was about to bring his cows across the lane and was really impressed that she stayed exactly where I left her until I returned. I wasn't: that's what I had told her to do. (The picture is by John Lamper, and shows the rather splendid frontage of Upton House, which is surrounded by the country park.)

After that Jade stayed at home while I went to catch up with some of the Streetlifers over a drink at lunchtime. I had to leave them early though to head on to my singing group practice, where we had a hilarious time with all the jokers bang on form. When I got home Jade was looking out of the window to watch for me and we've just had a lovely cuddly hour on the sofa.

So I have enjoyed today. I think Friday the 13th could be good for me.

Postumous Poetry

One of my friends lost a dear friend last year. She told me that she was the only person who had seen her friend's poetry, and there was plenty of it over the years. She doesn't want it to die with her, so has undertaken the massive task of collating and publishing it on a website. I've looked at quite a few of the poems and found some of them really intriguing. I'll be popping in from time to time to read more as the collection grows. If I have piqued your interest, go to marionjonespoetry.com.

Here's a taster - my favourite so far:

Not when the sun-lit blue of summer seas

Posted on February 11, 2015

Not when the sun-lit blue of summer seas
Laps softly white against the golden sand ,
When fluffy clouds drift gently in the breeze
And the fierce sun glares in the blueness over the land ,
When tanned young swimmers laze by the lazy deep ,
With soft warm sand for a pillow as they sleep —
But when the white unbridled horses shake
Their manes of foam , and leap in the grey-green sea
When grating rollers wild on the pebbles break
And the black sky thunders warning of storms to be ,
When men in oilskins struggle with wind and wave ,
In peril launching , loved souls in peril to save ,
Praise we most fully Him who all things made
Whose voice these men , as once the storm , obeyed .

14th September 1952

How to Make Friends and Influence People

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My life by Jade: Helping my Mummy

My poor Mummy has writer’s block so she asked me to help her out by producing this and apologising for not posting for such a long time. Actually I think the block has been in getting her to sit down at the computer. There has been so much else going on here, and it’s not going to get much better for a while.

She finally found a builder to put in the new window that will bring light into the alcove that the computer is to move into with all the stationery and stuff that is left after the big turn-out (which is still under way). We hope that will be done next week. The leak from the towel rail in the shower room has been fixed properly at last. When all the lights went out last night, it did rather seem like the last straw, but in the morning light she found the trip switch that turned most of them on again: all except the one which broke and tripped us into darkness. We can manage just as well without that one.

Today we went to another vet to get a second opinion on my ‘arthritis’. I am only four years old but my front legs are hurting nearly all the time now. He was a very thorough vet and he confirmed that I have joint problems in both my shoulders. Mummy had thought it was only one but I let her know about the other one this morning when he pulled it. He was a very nice man and gave us several options for how to deal with it, and now we have to discuss it with my usual vet again.

In between all this Mummy has been making some new friends which meant one day we went for a walk with four other dogs and their two Mummies. We also had some visitors so we can write more posts about all that as well.

Will that do for now, Mummy?  Thank you, Jade.

Things that Make me Smile

I am feeling very chuffed today. I've been quietly getting on with my project of dismantling my home office and getting rid of all the business documentation I can. It's quite a task with files that date back to 1995 when I set up as a marketing consultant, specialising in targeting and tendering, in partnership with a former colleague after we were both made redundant.

Some years before that I had started writing a novel on my old Amstrad WP, then shelved it when life became far too busy. Several years ago, I turned my house upside-down trying to find my hard copy and resurrect it, but had no success. I thought I must have accidentally destroyed it, and although it was still all in my head, I lost heart and gave up on it again.

I should have known better. Just this morning it has turned up in a file marked writing ideas which I obviously haven't opened in donkey's years. So that has put a big smile on my face.

What else is new? The weather - Tuesday last week I was writing about snow. The last couple of days Jade and I have been out walking in sunshine. Yesterday I managed to park on the cliff top outside the harbour, and we walked down the chine to the ocean.

Once we were there, Jade shot off to gallop around on the beach. She  must have suddenly realised I wasn't with her because she then turned to high-tail it back.

Photos by Chris Downer (2007)

The trouble was she didn't see me as she thundered straight past and went hairing off down the promenade dodging the legs of all the walkers. She soon realised her mistake though, heard I was calling her from behind, and turned around and came back so we could have some fun on the sand before taking a zig-zag path back up the car.

Snow

Yes, we woke up to some snow this morning. Quite surprised actually, and rather gutted actually, because two days ago, after sheltering my latest purchase of potted daffodil bulbs on the kitchen windowsill for several days, I decided it was safe to plant them out because the cold snap in the north of the country hadn't reached us properly here in the south. I suppose I was asking for it. Yesterday we had a sharp frost and then today, the snow.

Not a great deal but enough to make me put on the snow and ice stud belts (bought recently from the AA via the internet) over my boots when I took Jade to the park first thing. By the time we went out again after lunch the sun had chased all the snow away, and I felt safe driving my car. (I'm a real wimp about things like that.) So we had a brisk tramp harbourside around Hamworthy Park, with some beach play thrown in, and I took a blanket to wrap her in when I had to leave her in the Asda covered car park for a quarter of an hour. She was still under it and warm as toast when I returned to the car with my groceries.