You can never get a funeral director when you want one

Well, we got through the evening. People participated and all was well. Three boys in the corner - actually they were men - kept having the giggles. In true schoolmarm style I threatened to separate them.

Responses to the question in previous post varied from "Eat everything they tell me I shouldn't" to "Be a witness to others" (you always get one dedicated Christian!) to "Call the funeral director."

I also made a really nice variation of this salmon traybake yesterday. Its tastiness was probably due to the butter and honey sauce (fat and sugar, a wonderful/terrible combination).

So this morning I went to the gym with Husband. I start off on the treadmill so I can watch morning television to take my mind off the pain. As well as the usual celebrity nonsense - I'm told they're celebrities but I have no idea who they are - there was an item about research done in America comparing the cognitive functions of people over sixty-five with pets and without. Unsurprisingly people who had dogs showed better cognitive functions but even cat owners were better than those with no pets.

I pointed this out to Husband. The fates are telling us we should get a dog. And Daughter sent me a link the other day to an article, 7 Best Dog Breeds for Fighting Depression. Honestly it's a no-brainer, but Husband persists in his resistance. I shall wear him down. (He will read this and come and say, "No, you won't," but I will.)

Baby George and Husband before he ate the chair. (George that is not Husband.)

Enough already

An unexpected hiccup means that I am leading bible study this evening. I only found out at about 10.30 this morning so it's been a bit of a mad panic to pull something together. We're looking at Elijah and his non-death. 

Because he knows he's about to leave this world he goes off to visit other groups of prophets presumably to encourage and/or warn them. So I thought I'd begin the study by asking, "If you knew you were about to die what would you do?"

Should I admit that my first thought was, "Eat Maltesers like there's no tomorrow," which there wouldn't be? Of course I'd want to be with my family, tell them I love them and Jesus loves them, but I felt I needed something more meaningful, something that could take its place amongst famous last words.

I couldn't come up with anything. Can you?

The best I could do is, "Never believe you're not enough. You are."

(Do what I say not what I do.)

So, thank you, Monty, for calling in sick this morning having forgotten you were leading anyway.

Small Kindnesses

 

The new and the old

Well, an interesting day.

Cleaner, Bev, is very nice and efficient. She loves cleaning. We chatted in between and all is well but I am still not comfortable with the idea of paying someone to clean for me. But I shall force myself to accept it! And I did get lots of writing done while she was here as I was terrified to move out of the study.

Alfie Porsche has been in the garage garage i.e. not ours but a repair one, for about six months and they can't get him started. Husband made the decision to put him for sale as is. The advert went up Saturday and today he was bought. The man, a car renovator, also came to the house, saw Brian Beetle, and bought him too. 

It is sad to see them go but practical. We've not used Brain - Brian but the sentence still stands! -  for several years and they've been causing Husband a lot of stress he can do without.

So we will have an empty double garage - because of course we don't keep Mini in there. And on that front, we will indeed be getting a new Mini - when they can find it. Apparently it's a display model and no-one is quite sure where it is at the moment.

Alfie

Brian

* * * * *

I find that every time I go on the internet for anything I get distracted and end up buying a book or two. Does anyone else have this problem? 

How to waste a day without trying

It took me until 3.30 this afternoon but I finally completed the book titles game. Thankfully there were lots of clues on Facebook but even with the clues I still struggled with several especially the one I included in my last post. It turned out to be very simple - although I'd never heard of the book. In fact I didn't know most of the books. I did know the children's ones though. 

In between I also had a video chat with the grandchildren in Italy and wrote over two thousand words in my manuscript. 

Not a bad if inactive Sunday.

Now I have my cleaner coming tomorrow for the first time. I'm terrified! I don't know what to do.

And it's about five weeks to Christmas so I resolved last night to make a real effort to get my eating under control and try and lose a bit before then. One day in and I'm doing good but hate it already.

It's addictive

Every year the National Book Tokens website runs a Hidden Books competition. (I don't know if you'll be able to access the page outside the UK.)

There are twenty book titles hidden in the picture and all you have to do is find them in order to be in with a chance of winning £500 of book tokens. It is very hard. It's as much about deciphering clues as knowing book titles. I've been trying since last night and still only have eleven and that's having clues from Daughter who has completed it!

Here's one I'm struggling on.

Mean anything to anybody?

Still on the subject of books I've read two 5* ones recently. Before that I had a spate of disappointing ones so I'm pleased.

The Gosling Girl by Jacqueline Roy. 5* A girl who committed a serious crime as a child is released from prison with a new identity. Things go downhill from there. Sad, challenging, depressing, real. And if that doesn't make you want to read it I don't know what will. 

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. 5* The other extreme. Funny, delightful, wonderful. A cleaning woman befriends a giant octopus in an aquarium. He helps to change her life.

A little slice of Slice

Husband wasn't able to book a table at Slice for my birthday so we went last night. A superb meal as always. I say that as if we go there every week instead of once a year.

Husband had the scallops and I had the artichoke (both included in photo) and the first image is the amuse bouche, a poussin leg and chestnut rissole on a cranberry sauce. All servings are very small of course leaving you filled but not overly full.

You can see here how Slice gets its name. It's a small restaurant seating sixteen at most.

 

* * * * *

This morning I popped into Zac's to do some clothes sorting prior to a big clear-out next week. I was very ruthless! After spending several hours sorting jeans I would earnestly beg all manufacturers to put the size clearly on the waistband, not to hide it here, there or halfway down a trouser-leg.

You have to wonder though at some of the items we get donated. I'm pretty sure these are gun holsters.

And because I thought I would be walking around town today I put my jeans on for the first time this autumn. Correction, I squeezed and pushed until I got my jeans done up. Must stop eating so much. (She says after showing you the seven- course meal she most recently devoured.)

A puffin for no reason

This morning I - foolishly - had my glasses on and realised our bedroom window frames (inside) were filthy! So bad I had to clean them. 

I notice when the windows need cleaning - though I don't necessarily do it - but never really look at the frames. It was a shock. Brr. Clean now.

Mini went for her MOT today (annual test of roadworthiness). She passed but Husband has been looking at new second-hand cars for about a year, dithering, and then saying, "We'll keep Mini," but today things progressed a stage further. We may be getting a new car!

More to follow no doubt. Unless he changes his mind again.

What else? Not a lot. I've written a bit each day so my total word count now is 17,128. I have to confess I have copied chunks from the original version, the bits that will fit in with the new one. It is exciting though, finding out what your character is going to do or say next. 

I've just finished reading This Much is True, the autobiography of Miriam Margolyes. A bit rude but not as bad as I'd feared. She is very open and the first half where she deals with early life is more interesting than the later bits about films, plays, she's been in. She doesn't hold back on her opinions about other actors. I see she has a sequel out but I'm not sure there can be much left to tell.

I'm currently reading a novel about a very intelligent octopus and the woman who cleans the aquarium. 

Ah yes, that's what I was going to say. Do you ever think about writing a blog post because there's something you want to say but by the time you begin you've forgotten what it is? 

Politics. Last night parliament voted on an amendment to the King's speech that asked parliament to agree that we should join other countries and organisations in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

125 MPs voted in favour, 525 MPs voted against or abstained. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, issued a three-line whip telling his MPs they would be suspended if they voted in favour. A few dared to disobey but most went along with it.

Our MP is currently already under suspension from the Labour Party because of alleged sexual improprieties (phwoah, I spelled that right first time) so is sitting as an Independent so therefore would have been free to vote for the motion but didn't. In spite of being very verbal about the need on Twitter. Several MPs who I thought would have defied the ban because they appear principled didn't. It is a sad day.

As you may remember I recently joined the Labour Party. My view was that if I want to make a difference I need to be inside it. Some letters will be written. (I keep getting emails inviting me to party meetings but I am way too nervous to ever speak at anything like that because I think with my heart and people argue with their heads.)

Meanwhile the Supreme Court has ruled that the government's plan to send refugees to Rwanda is unlawful. So that's an end to it you'd think. But no, the Prime Minister plans to introduce emergency legislation to allow it to go ahead regardless. In other words, we don't like this law so we're going to make up our own. So far the UK is still signed up to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) but for how long?

Then there's King Charles. Starting a new food charity while not paying taxes. Or there's the scheme costing £8 million to offer every school in the country a framed portrait of the King. While children go to school hungry.

Mutter, mutter. I need a nice bright cheery photo. Have a puffin.

The distraction

NaNoWriMo word count total = 15,387. Quite happy with that. Had a day off on Saturday for my early birthday.

I've been doing some research for the novel. I really do love doing research. Finding out all sorts of interesting things most of which won't go in the novel, unless I can shoe-horn them in, which I may do because it's fascinating. (Yes I know that doesn't make a good novel.)

And of course one line of research leads to another almost totally unrelated but which has to be followed. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the internet is a wonderful thing.

But it is so easy to be distracted. As in life generally. 

I was browsing to do some online shopping last night and ended up downloading a book for me. That wasn't the intention at all. I wasn't even browsing through books so I don't know how it happened. It's a book of Christmas-themed stories by famous women writers so will be worth it I believe. 

Still at school

We also had Mrs Staples who taught - can't remember but she did optional first aid courses in the lunch hour. I took one and fainted in the first lesson when she talked about a butcher cutting the artery in his leg. I didn't go back though she urged me to. She was rumoured to be Russian.

Miss Loxton took me on my own for A-level maths because I wanted to do biology as well and that wasn't possible in the normal syllabus so special arrangements were made for me. She told me I gave up too easily. Strange the things you remember, or perhaps not. 

Miss Jones taught us maths up until then. I recall she married at some point and came back to school with a new name. She was surely too old to marry! (Probably in her 30s or maybe even 20s.)

Miss Bailey, physics, another stereotypical spinster lady.

For gym we wore navy knickers and . . . we must have had t-shirts but I don't remember them. I was not at all sporty. We played netball on the pitch within the school grounds but for hockey we had to walk to the top of the hill behind the school to play in the Ganges, and still we wore navy knickers though in summer when we walked down the hill to the public tennis courts we played in white shorts. My mum made me a white culotte dress and I was the envy of everyone.

Our uniform was a gymslip, shirt and blue and green tie. Thankfully after the first two years you could wear a skirt instead of the hideous gymslip. Outside of school it was the rule that we had to wear our berets. If you were caught not wearing it you could be punished. Nobody wore them on the bus or until the last possible moment. Some girls could wear them and look cool; I was not one of those girls.

I am in the second row, fourth from the right. 1965-66

Talk about unflattering hairstyles. I have to wonder if my mum used a pudding bowl.