I’m not over fat just under tall

 

It’s funny...

But I do find the presence of stuffed toys in a totally adult household , just a bit creepy. 

I say this with the sudden realisation that I have three stuffed toys in the house. Colin The Chameleon, with his jaunty leg kicked sideways underneath the art wall; a cute duck billed platypus bought from Sydney Zoo is sat in my bedroom bookcase  and a now almost 40 year old Garfield sat benignly in my living room cupboard with a gentle smile upon his face.

I reassure myself that owing stuffed toys only really becomes creepy when they occupy your bed, you know the sort, sat unseeing , face forward between the pillows .....that’s when toys are creepy

Garfield was given to my by my twin sister when we were in our twenties.

I liked his slightly cynical view on life back then, and that’s a riot in itself. 

When most young people were saving the whale, joining Amnesty International ( which I later did lol)  and stretching their political wings against the poll tax or Thatcher’s policies 

What was I doing? 

I was watching movies and following the mantras of a ginger cartoon character

Go figure.

It’s a lovely day today and I am in my office sorting out what to do on my holiday next week.

Right on time Mrs Trellis totters past with Blue

She doesn’t see me up at my desk

I’ve already sorted a few meet ups with friends, lunch in Liverpool with Colin. More lunch with Cheryl from Ramsbottom ( a great sounding place) Outdoor dinner with Chic Eleanor and our friends in Conwy and a family get together this weekend if the weather holds and a socially distanced picnic with the hospice staff on Llandudno’s beautiful West Shore....

It’s a little too early for a Sheffield trip but that is on the cards alongside a London trip to see Nu....

I have missed her so over the past barren year. 

Mrs trellis 

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/32W88Zr

Droplets

 Sweet droplets

Rain mixed

With salty tears

Cleansing

Of body and soul

Desiring rest

Above all

from R's rue https://ift.tt/3xAQcSf

Decade

A decade ago today, I was sitting in my lovely "Lotus Room" in northern Bangkok watching live television. I had turned the magic box on because I wanted to watch the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It was a happy, joyful event beamed to me from London on the other side of the world.

Today we are all ten years older. Normally it is hard to track the aging process after just one year but a full decade is different. Hair is perhaps lost or greyer, eyes become more tired, lines start to form, girth may increase. A decade's worth of old people will have died as a decade's worth of babies arrived to take their places. A kind of shunting along.

Prince William still seems like a really nice guy. You can see it in his eyes. There is an earnestness about him and an innate dignity. He really cares about the plights of less fortunate people. In  Catherine he found a lovely, intelligent  spouse who understands what duty means. So different from the other two who shall not be named. You know who I mean.

April 29th 2011. There was no expectation of a deadly worldwide pandemic. No idea that America would put the self-obsessed host of "The Apprentice" in The White House with his fake hair and fake views. No thoughts of "TikTok" or Ed Sheeran or Tesla cars or Greta Thunberg. Our daughter Frances was just finishing university in Birmingham and our son Ian was still slaving away in men's fashion retail. Shirley and I had not been to New Zealand on The Pacific North West or Malta or Garlieston in Wigtownshire and I had not yet begun working at the Oxfam shop where I put in  over five years of service. A full decade of life. So much water under the bridge.

In April 2011, the population of  our planet was  almost exactly 7 billion. Today Earth's population is 862 million bigger - 7,862,293, 428 as I type this full stop>.  When will this endless population explosion be meaningfully addressed?

What were you doing a decade ago and how has your life changed - just as William and Catherine said - for better or for worse?

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/3gNVq7e