Wordless Wednesday: The Artist - Another Great Film

Dreaming of Time to Read and Blog

Not much time for blogging right now. I'm currently writing about caravan holiday homes in the South West, on top of my normal workload. Sigh. I could do with one of those right now, as long as it was warm and cosy enough to curl up with good book and forget the weather.

This picture file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike  2.0 Generic license.
Attribution: Evelyn Simak

Real Tulips Arrive

Yesterday we got a bit worried as the replacement flowers had not arrived. But early today a neighbour arrived with them as they had been delivered to her in error. My daughter sent me this pic to prove it.

The Stages of Saving

Guest post

I have been thinking a lot lately about the things that people save money for. Depending on what stage of your life you are in, the purpose of your savings can be pretty different. When you are in your teenage years, you are probably thinking about saving for a car. If you are somewhat financially independent, you are probably also thinking about saving for college. When you are in your twenties-thirties you are thinking about saving for things like a house and/or a wedding. When you are in your forties-fifties the cycle kind of starts over, only this time you are probably saving for your children's first car, and their college funds. Hopefully, you are also able to start putting some money away for your retirement. This is probably the most important thing, especially in today's economic climate. I know many people of the baby boomer generation who have had to put off their retirement for years because they had not saved money and banked on pensions and 401k's that have lost money or are no longer available to them and they didn't have the savings to make up the difference. Then, once you are retired, if you are like my grandmother, you save up to have extra money to spoil your grandkids with! Me, personally, I am twenty something and not interested so much in saving for a house or a wedding (thought I guess that would be the responsible thing to do) but more interested in saving up to be able to take a trip some place really awesome. I am not talking about a short vacation here either, I am hoping to put away enough money to stay somewhere for 6 months to a year. Depending on where I decide to go this could mean a substantial amount of savings, but I know it will be well worth the effort!

Mail Fail

This image from Wikimedia Commons is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

I ordered some tulips for my daughter from Post-a-Rose to say thank you for all my birthday treats that she organised and financed. Tulips are her favourites. An email told me they had been despatched last Monday by Royal Mail first class post, so they should arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday. But they didn't.

As they had been intended as a surprise, I waited till Thursday to enquire whether they had arrived. My daughter said that her post had not come through her letterbox till about 6 pm on Wednesday and there certainly weren't any flowers. The mail usually arrives at lunchtime so she had assumed the postman had delivered it to the wrong address and the recipients had delivered it to her that evening.

Now we think whoever it was kept the flowers. So if that did happen, who is more to blame? The postman who delivered them wrongly, or the neighbours who didn't pass them on? And will we ever know? It's not very nice not knowing which, if any, of the people you live near might do that.

Post-a-Rose are sending them again this week, at no cost to us. They say they will claim the cost from Royal Mail. Brownie points to Post-a-Rose and thumbs down to Royal Mail. I suggested she complain to her local sorting office and get them to give the postie a pep-talk.

Fingers crossed the tulips will get there safely this time, but sadly the surprise won't happen.

The Week After the Birthday

It's been quite hard getting back to work, after all the spoiling I got  last week. Since Monday, I've only managed 6 articles with deadlines coming up. Usually I manage two or three a day. Of course, I have to dovetail them with keeping house for hubby and son, plus caring for my lovely dog, and there was a bit of catching up to do. And I took Wednesday off for the senior screen film followed by lunch with some friends.

The film was The Descendants, and I wasn't overly impressed, apart from the wonderful scenery of the setting in Hawaii, and George Clooney's gorgeous mournful eyes. The story was rather depressing - good acting though. Here's the trailer.



Next week it's W-E, short for Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII. I have my ticket already. Hope it's good.

The weather hasn't been wonderful. This morning I got some washing almost dry outside. Fortunately I brought it indoors before we went out after lunch. Fortunately, because I ended up walking Jade in a hailstorm.

Wordless Wednesday: April Flowers