Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Wednesday 28 December 2016

Words for Wednesday

This meme was started by Delores a long time ago.  Week after week she provided us with challenging prompts.    Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took over.  When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged and cajoled for other volunteers to share providing the prompts, and Words for Wednesday became a movable feast.  Delores discontinued her blog for a while, but she has returned.  Her new blog can be found here.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...  We can use some or all of the prompts.

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.


This month the prompts were to be provided by Vest at his blog.  Life has got in his way (as it does), so this month I will provide the prompts.  
 
If he does put up a post, then we will just have more words to play with. 

This week's prompts are:


  1. angel
  2. lullaby
  3. condition
  4. sad
  5. melt 
  6. crocodile
And/or
  1. formula
  2. honeydew
  3. bumble
  4. sticky
  5. hoax 
  6. felon
Have fun.
Next month Granny Annie will be providing the first of the year's prompts, and in Febuary we are travelling full circle and they will be provided  by Delores, who originated the meme.
I am looking for other volunteers for subsequent months.  Please leave a response in the comments if you are happy to challenge us.
 
 

Sunday 25 December 2016

Hanukkah and Christmas have landed.

Hanukkah and Christmas have arrived here, and they are rapidly approaching those of you in the Northern Hemisphere.

For those who celebrate, I hope it is everything you wished for.



Sadly it is a difficult time for many, so please.


Today and every day.


Wednesday 21 December 2016

Words for Wednesday

This meme was started by Delores a long time ago.  Week after week she provided us with challenging prompts.    Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took over.  When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged and cajoled for other volunteers to share providing the prompts, and Words for Wednesday became a movable feast.  Delores discontinued her blog for a while, but she has returned.  Her new blog can be found here.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...  We can use some or all of the prompts.

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.


This month the prompts were to be provided by Vest at his blog.  Life has got in his way (as it does), so this month I will provide the prompts.  
 
If he does put up a post, then we will just have more words to play with. 

This week's prompts are:


  1. root 
  2. fortuneteller
  3. funeral 
  4. gushing
  5. carriage
  6. bake
And/or
  1. mobster 
  2. chart 
  3. melody
  4. major
  5. foot
  6. limousine
Have fun.
  

Sunday 18 December 2016

Sunday Selections #307

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week?  Not really.  An assortment of the things which have appeared this week.


After some very hot days we had some rain.  Life giving gentle rain.  The garden and I rejoiced.  Jazz sulked.

As always we were visited by birds.  Including a very grubby corella (and some of his/her cleaner relatives).




A sunflower seed which the birds had overlooked took root and was allowed to grow.  And when I say 'allowed' I mean that the birds allowed it.



Some wet liliums gave me joy.





And a spiderweb which had caught raindrops rather than insects.  You might need to embiggen these images to see the rain jewels...





And, because it is very almost Christmas.
For more years than I care to remember we have been making Christmas cakes (and shortbread) to give to family and friends.  In four different sizes.
Some of this years crop  (and no, they are not burnt, it is the camera angle and the lighting in the kitchen).




Sunday Selections will not appear next Sunday.  For those of you who celebrate (and indeed for everyone ) I hope that the day (and the year to come) is filled with love and laughter.

Wednesday 14 December 2016

Words for Wednesday

This meme was started by Delores a long time ago.  Week after week she provided us with challenging prompts.    Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took over.  When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged and cajoled for other volunteers to share providing the prompts, and Words for Wednesday became a movable feast.  Delores discontinued her blog for a while, but she has returned.  Her new blog can be found here.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...  We can use some or all of the prompts.

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.


This month the prompts were to be provided by Vest at his blog.  Life has got in his way (as it does), so this month I will provide the prompts.  

 
If he does put up a post, then we will just have more words to play with. 

This week's prompts are:


  1. guest 
  2. blowtorch
  3. horizontal 
  4. groan 
  5. episode 
  6. action
And/or
  1. wreck 
  2. featherweight
  3. luxurious
  4. parrot 
  5. heating
  6. grizzly


Have fun.


Sunday 11 December 2016

Sunday Selections #306

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme. This week, as is not uncommon I am returning to two of my obsessions.


Starting with birds.  I do like Crested Wood Pigeons, and was pleased with these photos.  It seemed to be having a bit of a bad feather day around the nether regions though.






And then to the sky.  To an almost surreal sky, which changed by the minute...












Wednesday 7 December 2016

Words for Wednesday

This meme was started by Delores a long time ago.  Week after week she provided us with challenging prompts.    Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took over.  When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged and cajoled for other volunteers to share providing the prompts, and Words for Wednesday became a movable feast.  Delores discontinued her blog for a while, but she has returned.  Her new blog can be found here.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...  We can use some or all of the prompts.

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.


This month the prompts were to be provided by Vest at his blog.  He has not yet put up the prompts, or responded to my email so I am stepping in for this week at least.  I do hope that he and his wife are ok.

If he does put up a post, then we will just have more words to play with. 

This week's prompts are:

  1. protest
  2. burden
  3. pattern
  4. reckless
  5. hopscotch
  6. camel
 
 
And/or
 
  1. crown 
  2. locust
  3. blast
  4. first 
  5. grabbing
  6. old
 
I am sorry to be late to the party.  Have fun.



Sunday 4 December 2016

Sunday Selections #305

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme.  I am pretty certain that grief is grey.  So this week I have been looking for colour.  And have found it.



An eastern rosella which visited.








In the garden.








 


 And in the sky.











The last is reflections of the sunset in the windows along our veranda.










Wednesday 30 November 2016

Unchallenged Truths we Learn in Childhood

We don't challenge them, sometimes for years.  Or I didn't.  And when we do, we learn they have little or no basis in reality.

This is not a deep post, pondering the meaning of life.  The truths in question were described by Andrew in a recent post as Debunking myths. 

I am not certain that myths is the right word.  Urban legends?  Old Wives' Tales?  All three?

I think all of us grew up with some of them, but I also think that they are cultural and generational tales.

One of my sisters-in-law and an older friend firmly believe that going out in the cold (particularly with wet hair) will give you a cold.  Fans at night are dangerous too for similar reasons.

Slightly off topic, the friend in question has a firmly held belief which always amazes me.  He tells me that cats are filthy animals, and this is confirmed by how often they wash!!!

The same sister-in-law tells me that sitting on cold things (particularly concrete) will give you piles.

My mother insisted that if we went swimming immediately after a meal we would develop cramps and drown.  Immediately.  I am pretty certain that one has been disproved.

Flowers should be put out of a sickroom at night because they give off carbon dioxide and would asphyxiate the patient.  I suspect the bedroom would have to be tiny, the patient very unwell, and the plants huge or numerous for that to be valid.

I was also told that if I let any part of me (like my hand or arm) dangle out of a moving car a passing car WOULD cut it off.  I am too ashamed to admit how old I was before I realised if the car was that close we were going to be in an accident anyway.

And recently I read one I had never heard.  The author of an autobiography I am reading at the moment said that growing up in Britain in the 1920s he was told not to lie down and fall asleep in a field with poppies in it, or he would be drugged by opium and never wake up.

And again from an earlier Britain, one of Charles Darwin's granddaughters said that her contemporaries were told that if the skin between your thumb and your forefinger was cut, or even scratched, you would develop lockjaw and die.

How about you?  Did you grow up with these?  Or with different ones?  Please let me know in the comments.
 

Sunday 27 November 2016

Sunday Selections #304

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme. This week?  Hopefully my tears won't short out the keyboard before I finish.  Monday was hot here.  Jewel went out briefly in the morning but was subdued and off her food when she came in again.  On Tuesday she was no better so we went to the vet.


X-rays and blood tests gave us dreadful news.  Jewel's kidneys had failed and she had a tumour on her bladder.  There was no hope and nothing we could do, so we made the dreadful (for us) decision to let her go.  And my tears have fallen in floods ever since.  Jazz misses her too.  And looks for her.  And calls her.  And cries.  Which makes me cry too.

So this week is all about Jewel.  Precious.  Beautiful.  And gone too soon.  





Jewel was a rescue cat, who had already been adopted and returned once before she came to live with us.  She settled into our home and hearts quickly, and while she has left the home she remains in our hearts.

And a huge thank you to those of you who have supported me as I wept.