Good-bye waistline...

Lakeland Plastics have now started selling mango flavoured liquorice - ohhh, I am salivating already!! (How do I know? My daughter has rung me to tell me this important fact - we keep in contact about these vital things in life! The annoying thing is that there was no sign of this in the Shrewsbury store this week.
Now I wonder if she will buy a packet, and will she bring me some when we next meet up??

I can see!

Wow! What bliss, to be abletot see distant thengs, the computer screen and read a book - all without taking off my glasses. I have taken possession of a pair of vari-focals today and they are wonderful - if not a bit weird. If I move my head up and down whilst looking at the same thing, then slight sea sickness happens - key boards move etc. However, I can read a menu, a book, a map - all without taking my glasses off and raising the item to my nose to read the print. Its brilliant!
Sittin ghere writing hthis is funny, if I tip or turn my head to one side, the keyboard appears to have a wave like surface - perhaps it is moving surrealism, how's that for an experience?

Tadpoles, bullfrogs etc

At last, I have found the tent I want and tried it out! I can get into it, there is an excellent through draft and it is very waterproof so, I have a tadpole tent.

Why? Well, I am going on a trip with some friends to Africa in the dark months of the winter. They are taking a year out but I am joining them for a part of their African tour and we will be camping for most of the time. I shall have to carry my tent, sleeping bag etc so everything has to be light in weight. Buying it has been slightly testing, because everyone else has said the season for buying tents is over. I didn't want to buy one without trying it out so online buying was a no goer. Its funny how global we are in some ways, yet still stick to the seasons in our home country although travel does not fit in with this.

But Shrewsbury did me proud, the men put the tent up in the shop, I crawled in and sat up in it(I could, so that was the main worry ssorted) and there is a lot of room in there, so I bought it. I already have a collapsible washing bowl, solid shampoo, and other such necessaries for the trip, so now I have to play at packing the rucksack!

My luxury is going to be a wine glass - plastic of course, but I think there are certain standards you have to keep to in life!!

I wonder what other luxuries I could take? I shall ponder on that one.

Scrumping.

I went to stay with my son for a night this week-end. It is so lovely to be entertained and fed by your grown up 'progeny'. (Is there any other name for grown up children?) We talked late into the night and decided to walk over to the next village to buy a paper for a leisurely Sunday morning stroll.

On the way we house hunted for suitable 'pie in the sky' properties - those that are very spacious, attractive, far too expensive and have large enough gardens. There were lots! What's more, many of them had planted crab apple and mountain ash trees at the edge of their gardens.

Then we found a treasure - sweet almonds! There were lots of them on the pavement. If I had been a well behaved mother I would have left them there, but.. of course I couldn't. We picked up a substantial number and left some for others or their owners. I have never picked almonds before, so that was a first for me. The icing on the cake came when Rupert found he had no nut cracker, so I had to take them home with me.

Do you remember how hard it used to be to crack almonds that had not been through a roller mill to soften the shells? I had forgotten the frustration of childhood Christmases when the almons were all left until last and an adult had to crack them for us. The inherited nut cracker did its best and cracked them open, would they be sweet almonds or the bitter ones?

They were absolutely delicious! I think, that I might plant a couple on the garden!!

History Matters!

It is strange how I have not questioned why I write this blog, I don't think it is important, but it fills a need for me to write and also lets me keep in ocntact with others. So the request for as many people as possible to write about their day today has me all of a flutter - I'm just ordinary. But that is what they want, so I think I will do this. Why not have a look?

This is the link site: href="http://http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/page96.asp">

Will that clock chime a little more quietly please!!

I have a headache this morning, my annual headache. I blame Lynne, its all her fault! We had a drink together last night, she was on the wine and I was drinking gin and tonic. Oh yes, and she was in Cyprus, whilst I was in Shropshire. We are such good friends we can do these things!!

There was no computer with video link, we were texting each other, then we actually used the phones and I think I ended up ringing her. ( I will hide that bill from myself..!!)

In all this retirement time I have been a poor blogger. Well, at the moment I am busy sticking doen the loose parquet flooring blocks on the floor. The builder who built this estate didn't always do things to the highest standard, and the flooring was certainly one of the lower standards of work. Gradually, the blocks have been working loose and it feels like I am walking on clunky water. So each day I stick down a section, first of all I hoover under (Yes, under!!) the blocks, scrape them clean and sometimes I have to burn off the pitch, then I have this glue called serious stuff and glue each one back down. I can only do a small section at a time becuase otherwise I wouldn't remember where to out the blocks and no doubt I would get the pattern wrong!! I have also glued myself into a corner and had to leap over the wet blocks because I am not supposed to walk on them for 24 hours. (I don't do leaping normally.)

In between kneeling down for ages and bending over I am also sorting out the sitting room, so that is in chaos too!! The videos are going to my son to be put onto DVDs and then he can have the old videos for his machine - that has emptied a drawer in the desk so now the scrabble and other games have a place to live. If this sounds like bartering for space, it is incredibly difficult to find hiding places in a house that does not boast one single storage cupboard!! Today's target is a clear table so that I can put some flowers on it and also find space for my coffee cup.

However, I have six weeks in which to sort this all out. An arbitrary deadline but there we are. So, DLG, I shall have to postpone our next drinking bout for a few weeks because in this state I can't get down on my knees and glue blocks, shucks, I will have to go shopping!!