Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

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.

Sunday 20 November 2016

Sunday Selections #303

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 turning to the sky again this week.  This week was the Super Moon (though there is apparently another in December).  I missed the last one because of cloud.  And as Monday afternoon wore on, it looked as if I was going to miss this one too.


We had cloud for much of the day, and the skies opened around four.    A little while later, a glance out the window showed me a rainbow.  Which I love.

So I was out the door.

Not only a rainbow, but a double rainbow.  Bliss.




And then it grew, and spread across the sky.




It was still raining on and off, so I didn't have great hopes for the Super Moon.
But around eight we got lucky.  There was a small break in the clouds. and lunar beauty on display.










Two unexpected treats in the one evening. 

Thursday 17 November 2016

More Letters of Note

Yet  another post about my greedy reading.  Please feel free to skulk away if you are over this obsession of mine.  A couple of years ago the skinny one gave me Letters of Note compiled by Shaun Usher.  I loved it.

Last week, despite having just completed an overdue book cull, when I spotted More Letters of Note, I knew I had to have it.  So I succumbed.  The price was good too.


Shaun Usher also has a website which you can find here for you to explore.

The letters are amazing.  Beautiful, moving, tragic, funny.  Letters written by politicians, eminent scientists, celebrities, letters written by the unknown.  Some of them were familiar to me, most were not.

More Letters Of Note has 122 letters in it.  Some are short, some very long.  Some I would call written communications rather than letters, but they are all as the subtitle suggests 'correspondence deserving of a wider audience'.

I guzzled it, neglecting other reading and rather a lot of tasks from my to-do list.  I suspect I will revisit this book, just as I do its predecessor. 

A taste of some of the letters I loved follows.

On August 12  1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123 from Tokyo to Osaka crashed, killing all but four of the 509 passengers and 15 crew on board.  Those on the plane had 32 minutes from realising that the plane was in trouble to the crash.  Many wrote letters to their loved ones.  These missives are now known as the JL123 Isho (last notes).  Now, of course there would be phone calls and texts.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was an early adopter of the 'new fangled writing machine' - and apparently the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to his publisher.

A letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra surprised me.  It is titled 'I drank too much wine last night'  and included the words ' I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day'.  She could be nasty too '...I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.'

I chuckled at a letter from 13 year old Andy Smith to Ronald Reagan saying that his mother had declared his bedroom a disaster area and asking for federal funding to hire a clean up crew.

It includes a very short letter from Suffragette Bertha Brewster to the Daily Telegraph which I will reproduce in full
'Sir,
Everyone seems to agree upon the necessity of putting a stop to the Suffragist outrages; but no one seems certain how to do so.  There are two, and only two, ways in which this can be done.  Both will be effectual.
1.  Kill every woman in the United Kingdom.
2.  Give women the vote.
Yours truly,
Bertha Brewster'

It really is a book (and a website) full of gems.






Sunday 13 November 2016

Sunday Selections #302

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.


I am starting with a trip to town I took last week.  All the photos were taken on my phone - which is usually neglected.

Starting with red clover in flower at the bus stop.  I don't think I have ever seen it flower before.



This is a new installation.  You will probably have to enlarge it to see some of the responses - and there were four or five more boards in place.  I don't think there is anything in particular I want to do before I die.  I am obviously sadly lacking in ambition.



It is warming up fast here.  I felt for the yarn-bombed trees.

 I always love the reflections in this building.

We had a brief sunshower/storm the other afternoon.  I found the light fascinating.  Twenty minutes later we had full sunshine and daylight again.







And more from the garden.


A gazania.


Yet another bearded iris.

And double delight rose - which has a delightful scent too.

Wednesday 9 November 2016

The Dog Ate my Homework...

Except it wasn't a dog.
It was a cat.
And it wasn't my homework, but a library book.

This is the culprit.  Jazz.  Looking totally innocent.  Of course.



I really didn't enjoy telling the librarian that I was returning a damaged book.  It isn't the first time either.  I had to replace a book a friend lent me because Captain Psychotic decided to shred it.  He leaves my books alone though.

Which is fortunate.  I wouldn't want him to be totally exhausted.

There are less books in the house than there were (I have just completed a cull) but still too many.  Another obsession.




Sunday 6 November 2016

Sunday Selections #301

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. Himself arrived home at the end of last week.  He loved his time away and has thousands of photos to go through.  And I am not exaggerating.


However, this week I will give you more from the garden, part of a bird, and the last of the shots he sent me from his phone.

I am reverting to type and mostly featuring individual blooms.





Almost the last of the tulips.



The pergola, festooned with the white banksia rose.




A Green Goddess Calla Lily.  The white ones have been and gone, and the coloured ones are yet to bloom.



This orchid flower spike caused me to curse the birds.  It was eight or nine inches long, and had many buds.  Until a vandal bird pinched the end off it leaving only three blooms.  Sigh.



The deed had been done, so this wasn't the culprit, but he hightailed it along the veranda as soon as he saw me.  Guilty conscience?

And a return to China.  The skinny one went to the Great Wall on a weekend.  And it was very, very crowded.



So he went back again a few days later.








Much more better.