Thursday's Thoughts

It can't really be Thursday already. It seems no time at all since I wrote Monday's Meander...

I've resurrected an old laptop to use but it is going on and off the Internet like a yo-yo. I'm not sure if it's the router (also known as a vacillator) or the laptop itself. Whichever it is, it's most aggravating. It makes following people's blogs very difficult. So if I don't visit you or comment for a few days I apologise. Hopefully my proper laptop will be sorted or replaced in the not too distant future.

I just thought I'd show you a photo of one of my heroes. This is our regular Postman. He not only comes whatever the weather but he also knows where to leave parcels when I'm out or in bed and always has a happy greeting for us. Being our regular postman he has two advantages over the others – firstly, he knows where our house is. That may sound strange but the numbering in our road is weird and so some people takre our deliveries to the wrong house, drop them on a neighbour's doorstep or simply give up and take them back to their depot. The second advantage is for his benefit. He knows that our gutter leaks so when it's raining he has to approach the front door at an angle or have half the rain content of the roof tipped down his neck. Less regular posties don't know that and one or two have got rather wet – sorry!

This week he brought me a postcard - the first for my little postcard board even though it was from a fellow blogger rather than a postcrossing person. Thank you M. In the meantime my first outgoing postcard reached Finland and was acknowledged by a grateful recipient. The next day my card to California arrived there. Such fun.

Unlike the cards, I haven't been anywhere exciting – in fact, I haven't been out of the house. This is a Bad Thing. I should at least walk to the shops every day for the benefit of my heart. When you combine weather that has been so dull and yucky that there has been no inspiration to leave the warmth and comfort of home and a laptop so unreliable that playing on it is frustrating and what do you get? You get me curled up on my bed with a book and a cup of coffee. What more could I want?

A Monday Meander

I lost Heather recently. She disappeared off my blog reading list and I assumed she was either very busy or having a family crisis so I sent her an e-mail. Fortunately it seems there was simply a problem with my Google reader. Monica recently showed me how to add a Wordpress blog to my Google Reading List and I used the same method to add Heather back in. You go to Google Reading List on the dashboard and click 'Add' and paste in the blog's URL. It then gets picked up on the Google Reading List. I'm glad there was nothing wrong over in Vermont and that Heather wasn't too busy for us all.

I've been creating spine poems recently. Have a look around your bookshelves and see what you can come up with...

Last Friday Partner-who-drinks-tea and I went shopping and sorted out some laptop problems at the Hoylake computer shop before buying her a new laptop for the office. Needless to say we stopped off en route to have tea and a toasted tea-cake. We chose to go to Willow Tea House and Bistro – formerly Roses Tea Rooms in Heswall.

They do a marvellous Irish Breakfast Tea in delightful tea-pots that Partner-who-drinks-tea has been trying to get ever since we first went there.  She is also known as Partner-who-hates-being-photographed so that view of her in the distance is about as good as you'll get without me going down on bended knee to beg her permission.

My Kindle has a new look. Daughter-who-takes-photos pointed me in the direction of laptop skins and while looking at them I saw this Kindle one and couldn't resist it. I also got a different patterned skin for a laptop – now all I need is the laptop....

I now have postcrossing post-cards on their way to Monninkylä in Finland, Tustin in California in the USA and Moscow in Russia. Where next?

Still blogging...

I wasn't particularly well on Friday night and spent all of it awake so at five o'clock I got up and started blogging and reading blogs. I am try to limit myself to half an hour in the morning and half an hour at night. It was half past six before I realised I'd not only spent an hour and half reading blogs but I hadn't even had my morning coffee or tea. It's coffee if I make it or tea if Partner-who-loves-tea or Son-who-watches-films are about. The latter is usually up at night and asleep by day but it was his birthday on Friday and he was out all night at a friend's house. He so rarely leaves our house that worrying about him probably contributed to my wakefulness. Yes, I know he's 24 but.....

At seven I was still blogging...

Ten past seven Partner-who-loves-tea rolled out of bed, I was still reading blogs.

There are so many creative folk out – not just their writing but their art. I just loved this half finished painting by Silke at Metamorphosis. You can also see the finished work (which lives up to its promise) on the same blog.


Half-past seven and I was given a call that the kettle had boiled... bye bye blogs!

And now for something completely different....

This sculpture, created in 2000 by Noah Rose, was designed to show the the interplay between new urban development and the historic Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead on Merseyside.

The sculpture was inspired by the ribs of a ship's hull but with the hull itself missing. The composition – of 7 interdependent forms totalling 9m x 4.5m x 3m - changes as the viewer moves around its site, bowing down under the weight of history or unfurling towards a hopeful future. He made the piece of plasma-cut, welded and polished Stainless Steel in his studio with the help of assistant Palli Kristjansson.

So many gadgets designed to help in the kitchen are less than helpful and so much trouble to clean that doing the job the traditional way is easier. One of Richard's birthday presents is the opposite. It's really easy to use and clean.

It can either core and cut a pineapple into rings or into wedges and it leaves the outer husk available for making pretty fruit salad bowl designs....

(Available from Lakeland and no, I'm not being paid to advertise it; I'm just impressed!!)


That's about all for now. I've got lots to do before Partner-who-drinks-tea gets home from work (she has students almost every Sunday). And as we all know...

Have a good day...

And a weevil called Edwin

Tommy Handley

I sent Son-in-law-who-cooks an e-mail the other day. As usual it was seeking computer help so I began “It's that man again”. After I had written that I realised the phrase probably meant nothing to him. 'It's That Man Again' (or, commonly, ITMA) was a BBC radio comedy programme which ran from 1939 to 1949. The title was a contemporary phrase referring to ever more frequent news-stories about Hitler in the lead-up to World War II, and specifically a headline in the Daily Express written by Bert Gunn. This was humorously transferred to Tommy Handley, the popular comedian around whom the programme was developed. The scripts were written by the prolific Ted Kavanagh. "ITMA" is believed to have played a major role in sustaining morale on the UK's 'home front' during the Second World War. I'm sure I remember ITMA being on the radio – perhaps it was repeated during my early life (I was born in 1949). If not, I certainly know a lot of it from Mum and Dad's references to it.

Tommy Handley - it's that man again...

Other catchphrases I remember from ITMA include:-

"I don't mind if I do" – Colonel Humphrey Chinstrap's catchphrase, spoken by Jack Train, turning any remark into an offer of a drink. The origin of this catchphrase precedes ITMA, but was nevertheless popularised by ITMA.

"Can I do you now, Sir?" – Spoken by Dorothy Summers as Mrs Mopp the office char.

"It's being so cheerful as keeps me going" – Mona Lott, a depressed laundry-woman played by Joan Harben.

"But I'm all right now" – Hattie Jacques' character Sophie Tuckshop, after describing a long list of food she had eaten.

"TTFN (Ta ta for now)" – Spoken by Dorothy Summers' character, Mrs Mopp. From 1939, initialisms, previously rarely used except by the military, were heard more frequently by the British public. ITMA satirized them by coining TTFN, a "pointless" initialism (no easier to say than the phrase on which it was based).

My first postcrossing postcard is on its way to Finland. Once it is received I join the queue to receive one.

I've just bought a children's book that I loved as tiny child. I used to borrow it from Childwall Library on a regular basis. It's called “Slimtail's” (the author's apostrophe, not mine). It's about a family of mice and their pet weevil, Edwin. If you look closely at the cover you can see Edwin on the right. Having read the first story I was amused to see that I remembered it well – notwithstanding an intervening fifty five years or so. Ironic that nowadays I can pick up a novel in the library and be half-way through before I realise I've read it before.

Have a good week-end.

Happy Birthday, Rich

According to Andy Rooney - "The last birthday that's any good is 23."  Hard luck, Richard.

That waswhen he was  two days old - now he's 24 and the most natural cook I know.