Hello … I’m back! I‘ve been away for a while. M.I.A. (Missing In Action) for what feels like years, and although I kept trying to pick up the blogging ropes again, real life kept coming up with other stuff and *threw a spanner into my plans and thoroughly messed things up.
*’threw a spanner into . . .’ [normally ‘the works’] is a British term, used when something upsets your plans or messes around with anything you might be doing and generally puts a stop to your plans or ideas etc.
Where have I been and why?Well … I’ve not been travelling the world (sadly). I’ve stayed right where I am, – and I thankfully haven’t had Coronavirus or Covid 19 – so I count that as a massive blessing. Although health problems did come into the equation.
Originally I lost my crafty mojo. It was as if my brain had forgotten how to be creative! I have a craft room of amazing incredibleness, and couldn’t seem to be able to bring forth the creativeness which lives inside me 100% of the time. So to have lost my mojo, for what felt like forever, was upsetting to the point of depressing. How the heck did I lose my mojo? It was attached to me like Peter Pans shadow was sewn to him by Wendy Darling.
Then . . .I had a flare up of medical problems. … I suffer with the ‘amusing’ problem(s) of nerve damage, caused by a road traffic accident some years ago in which I injured my lower spine. Added to that, a beautiful combination, my body developed diabetic neuropathy a few years ago (another nerve damage thing) and these two things decided to gang up together in order to have a little fun of their own making, and it caused horrible havoc in my body for rather a long time. Miserable pair of beggars. (grrr).
Then …with the belief that I am a Superwoman who can achieve ANYTHING I WANT, (I’m not and I can’t), I tried to shift the garden bench roughly 12 inches, by shoving it with my thigh. The result of this unbelievable stupidity was a great big, massively HOT, KABOOM, felt in my lower spine, – reminding me that I’m not ‘Super’ anything, other than SUPER STUPID! Which Mr.Cobs confirmed, with those exact words too!
Then … (as if that wasn’t enough),three weeks later, I only went and injured my knee by giving it a thoroughly good whacking on the corner of our big wooden bed. “Darn it!“, “Oh dear me!” and “For Goodness sake!” were sort ofthe words which popped out of my mouth, … followed by some tears. Mr.Cobs called out an enquiry of:- …. “What the heck was that big bang?”from the living room, to which I could only tearfully shout back:- “It was ME!”.
So anyway …. ‘Real Life’ was also going on at the same time, with it’s Coronavirus Lock-down and social distancing; Mothers Day; A Grandchild’s Birthday (I’ve spent every birthday with him since he was born… in fact, I was there when he was born!); being confined to the house like a prisoner; etc etc. The result was a situation of dreadful fed upness, and some things just had to go onto the back burner until I was ready to pick them up again. So … that’s where I’ve been and that’s some of what kept me ‘busy’ and not blogging!
But anyhoo . . . . Moving forward ... I felt the desire to create something. But it wasn’t the normal paper, paint, clay, card designing or any of the things I normally create.
I’d seen some really lovely creationsmade by Textile Artists and had the greatest desire to have a proper ‘go’ at this magical art form. I had a bit of an idea about using textiles for things other than their intended use, as I’d done a short textiles course about twelve years ago. But the important thing was that I wanted to try something. I wanted to create. My creativeness was putting in a phone call, and I answered the call!
Sooooo– I am now officially a self taught Textile Artist. I’m creating art works using fabric and textiles.
I’ve made some thingswhich I want to share with you, but I haven’t taken any photos yet, so that’s my job for this week.
I’m also having a ‘go’ at writing a book.Yup, me! Some of you said I should write one, and I knew I had a book inside me, waiting to get out, and finally it’s happening. It’s only at it’s very beginning – but that, according to a song I know – is a very good place to start!
It’s so lovely to be back chatting with you.OH MY GOOD GARDEN CABBAGE! I almost forgot … during my ‘away from blog land’ time, a knock came at the door one day and Mr.Cobs went to answer it. It was a police lady. She’d come to enquire about me.Where I was?and How I was? Was I there? Could she see me, please?Oh.My.Goodness! – what had I done to cause the Police to come to the door asking to see me?!!!Totally freaked me out!
I hobbled to the door with the help of two walking sticks and the lovely Police lady reassured me that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but they had received an enquiry that they had to follow up on. Apparently someone via my blog and WordPress, had contacted the authorities and asked for someone to check on me and make sure I was still alive!
I have never felt so guilty for doing nothing than I did right at that moment!
I didn’t even know that you could ask the police to go and check up on someone in this sort of circumstance!
I had to confirm it really was meby giving my date of birth, place of birth, and various other questions which I can’t now remember, and then she very quietly asked ifeverything was OK at home?Flippin’ heck… she thought Mr.C might have been knocking me about, or keeping me from blogging! I laughed raucously … and the police lady began to laugh too. Well, the end result was that I told her I felt very guilty that valuable Police time had been wasted all because I hadn’t blogged for a while, and I couldn’t apologise enough to her for all this wasting of police time.
She was so sweet, and said that if they receive an enquiry like this, they have a duty to investigate. She said that someone associated with WordPress and my blog had made the enquiry and she could now send re-assurances that I was indeed alive and it was merely real life and some health problems which were keeping me from blogging at that time.
So .. to whoever it was who made the initial contact with the police– I do hope that you received the confirmation that I was Ok and still alive and that life had simply been a bit of a trial! Please let me know if it was you, so that I can be re-assured that your concerns were answered.
This all sounds like the last few months of absence have been dreadful, and in some ways they have … but there have been wonderful moments too. I had a significant birthday (ending in an 0), which, despite lock down, was so very lovely. The nicest anniversary – with bunting put up in the garden and afternoon tea. Some really beautiful, magical changes in our little garden. Oh! … and … there has been a new addition to the family. But … I’ve blathered on for more than long enough, so I’ll tell you about that another time.
Right now …I’d better get going on some photographs so that I can share the evidence of actually being a ‘Textile Artist’! (I’m sure I’ll still be working with papers, clay, paint and card again at some point so please don’t give up on me!).
In the meantime, I send my love and one huge bucket of squidges to each of you.
I’ve learned a few life lessons this week. Not all of them useful in any major sort of way, but all of them are probably important in one form or another. Let me elaborate:
I’ve learned (yet again) that there are some adverts on the Television that make my skin crawl and infuriate me. This is the current one: (turn sound up a little so that you can enjoy it) …
That ⇑ TV advertisement drives me insane. And … it’s not just me. Mr. Cobs admitted today that he “. . . cannot abide this &*%£*)@ advert!” – as he dived across the room to grab the remote and turn on ‘mute’.
I’ve learned this week. . . that I really don’t much like my neighbours cat, Missy. She’s an antagonist of the first degree.
Alfie (aka Alf Capone) our HUGE great, black cat with a white diamond on his chest (looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo – in the style of James Bond) – is absolutely a lover, not a fighter.
Alf Capone. Used Furniture Dealer
Where-as Maisie Dotes,our teeny weeny, little wittle, butter wouldn’t melt, wide-eyed, elegant looking, princess tippy toes, DIVA – is an out-and-out fighter of huge proportions.
Two unknown catsvisited our garden a couple of days ago, when both Alf and Maisie were in the conservatory. Alf looked up from his feed bowl (breakfast no. 4) looked at them both, then sat down by the window, with a very soft body pose, not bothered at all that these two intruders were in our garden. He was only interested in what the entertainment was going to be.
Where-as . . . Maisie … oh…. my … goodness!!! She had been fast asleep, but had obviously heard the hiss and spit which began at a low-level. So low that we couldn’t hear it, but she could. Her head spun around like a possessed thing. She glared out of the conservatory windows and took on an indignation like no other cat could have achieved with their posturing.
She was out of that bed, and at the door within seconds, demanding that she be let out. “Ohhh ho ho ho… not on your nelly Miss Maisie. You can fuss all you like, you are absolutely not going out there!” I told her.
“But … but …. they’re in ourmy garden!!!” She said, over her shoulder, but not taking her eyes off these two shocking, alien invaders.
Then …. a third cat appeared. Ohhh My Stars!!! This was the one which got Maisie scratching and banging her paws on the glass door, demanding that it be opened because she had to kill that cat!
This cat we knew. Shewas called Missy.
Missy lives in the cottage to the back of ours.In the next road along. She’s a brazen thing and cares nothing for boundaries or correct, polite behaviour. NOR does she care that we have a dog. Her belief is that our dog is fair game and she’ll take it on if it dares to challenge her.
One of the ‘new’ intruders had obviously come across Missy before, and when she appeared on the top of her owners shed, right at the bottom of their garden, the one intruder turned slowly, and made its way carefully along the fence and away from any trouble. Missy smirked.
The other cat obviously didn’t know Missy at all, for he, the daft thing, walked along the top of the fence and towardsher.
Mr. Cobs and I were both now trying to talk to the cat and tell it to ‘RUN AWAY… RUN AWAY!!!” … but it either didn’t hear us, or it just decided that it felt he could take this stroppy individual on single-handedly.
There followed a long drawn out period of BIG hissing, spitting, and meeooaawwlgrowling, before I could take no more and walked to the conservatory door, and opened it and closed it again, fast and loudly. The intruder cat jumped down and ran off … but Missy … well she sat there and told me to “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”.
After 5 minutes of everything being quiet, I finally opened the door and let Maisie out … thinking that Missy would have got bored by now and gone home. Nope. Wrong. Maisie jumped to the top of the fence and began a hunched over, “get ready, I’m going to box your brains out!” warning sound, and started moving REALLY fast down the fence.
… “Cobs! Cobs!!! come and get her she’s going for it!” Mr.Cobs had to rush out of the house, and grab her off the fence. Now … she didn’t take kindly to this. She didn’t want to come in.
He picked her up one-handed (she’s really very tiny, more like a kitten than a cat) – but she was having none of it. She shouted “Noooooooo” – and reached out with one paw and Velcro’d that paw to one of our big Pine trees.
Cobs Snr. tugged and tugged and couldn’t get her to let go of that tree. His left hand was around her tummy and body, so with his right hand he reached up and unhooked her claws from the tree – only for her to reach out her other paw and grab the tree with her claws on that paw. No one was going anywhere.
I glanced at Missy …. and I could actually see that cat smirking at our cats situation.
Mr.Cobs eventually won, and, despite her best efforts to make him let her go, Maisie was brought back into the house and the door was firmly shut behind her.
She was as mad as a box of frogs! She whined and moaned for England. Had it been a moaning contest, she would have won a Gold Medal.
So … although I learned that I don’t much like the neighbours cat, Missy, . . .
I also learnedthat I have more dedication to the safety of our little cat Maisie than she appears to have herself. Had there been a punch up – Maisie would have had her ears well and truly boxed by Missy, for Missy is a big, bold as brass, killer cat, with evil intent. She runs this neighbourhood with an iron paw!
Well … that’s pretty much the major lessons I’ve learned this week … oh … apart from … … why is it, when you’re having a great day and everything is going right … why does something – a letter, a phone call, someone or something …. always come along just to be the fly in the ointment? [insert grumpy face]. Yeah … I learnt that this week too.
Other than that … it’s been a truly grand week!
So … what have you learned this week? Do tell!
Thank you so much for coming and sharing a coffee with me. I love having your company. Wishing you a wonderful Friday and an even better Weekend!
Yesterday, Thursday, was the first day FOR WEEKS that it didn’t rain (or snow). Personally I think a celebration is in order!
We’ve had the most awful rain here in the South of England. Heavy, bucketing it down, soak you to the skin, horrid, horrible rain. I’ve had to remind myself, over and over, that God doesn’t tell me when to water my garden, so I don’t have the right to tell him when to water his. I’m pretty sure that there’s method in what I consider to be a ‘rain madness’ – and I’m sure that all will become clear(ish) eventually. But until then, I’ve agreed with Mr.Cobs that it’s probably better that he continue to build the Ark from the kit I bought him, which he began work on a few weeks ago:
Not entirely convinced that it’s going to be big enough for all those 2×2 animals from around the world that are the requirement for a structure like this – but we’ll do our best, and if they have to be Lego sized, then so be it. I’ll pack a magician who might be able to turn them into the real deal when we get through the journey. 😀
Aaanyhoo . . . I thought we could do with a smidgen of fun on a Friday, since we are now officially in Spring (except for those of you on the other side of the planet – and I’m sure ‘fun’ is a requirement for Autumn going into Winter, down there!). So with FUN in mind, I share with you a Text Message received from daughter No.2 . . .
She sent me, in full, the following:
The Washington Post has published its yearly neologism contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meaning for common words … and the winners are:
Coffee (n), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj) appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v) to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj), impotent.
Negligent (adj), describes a condition in which you absent mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
Lymph (v), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n), gross olive-flavoured mouthwash.
Flatulence (n), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n), a rapidly receding hairline.
Rectitude (n), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologists.
Circumvent (n), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Frisbeetararianism (n), (back by popular demand): The belief that when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Those tickled me in just the right place, and also brought back a memory of something I read a few years ago, about words which had a meaning of what they meant, and also the opposite of what they meant. Get these . . . .
Dust,along with the next two words, is a noun turned into a verb meaning either to add or to remove the thing in question. Only the context will tell you which it is. When you dust are you applying dust or removing it? It all depends whether you’re dusting the crops or the furniture.
Screen can mean ‘to show’ (a movie) or ‘to hide’ (an unsightly view).
Seedcan also go either way. If you seed the lawn you add seeds, but if you seed a tomato you remove them.
Stoneis another verb to use with caution. You can stone some peaches, but please don’t stone your neighbour (even if he says he likes to get stoned).
Trimas a verb predates the noun, but it can also mean either adding or taking away. Arising from an Old English word meaning ‘to make firm or strong; to settle, arrange,’ “trim” came to mean ‘to prepare, make ready.’ Depending on who or what was being readied, it could mean either of two contradictory things: ‘to decorate something with ribbons, laces, or the like to give it a finished appearance’ or ‘to cut off the outgrowths or irregularities of.’ And the context doesn’t always make it clear. If you’re trimming the tree are you using tinsel or a chain saw?
Resignworks as a contronym in writing. This time we have homographs, but not homophones. “Resign,” meaning ‘to quit,’ is spelled the same as “resign,” meaning ‘to sign up again,’ but it’s pronounced differently.
Offmeans ‘deactivated,’ as in “to turn off,” but also ‘activated,’ as in “The alarm went off.”
See … even on non edumacational days, you STILL learn something new! lol
Have a truly blessed rest of your day, and a wonderful weekend.
OK …. let’s get this over and done with. It’s unpleasant, and I know that it will cause you some anguish and pain, and even cause you to close all the curtains and lie down with either a cake, a bar of chocolate or a stiff drink …. or maybe all three if the first one doesn’t work … so we’ll just do it and get it over with, OK?
Get ready. Sit up straight and gird your loins.
We know that this may be dangerous or difficult for your brain to compute, but we’re going to do it because we is ADULTS!
Ready?
Deep breath in ….. let it out slowly as if you are blowing down a straw ….
…. …. …. there are … … … … ninedaystillChristmas (not counting today or the day itself).
I know… I know. Some of you will find that a thoroughly unpleasant thought. But we have to face it at some point. No good skirting around it or believing that, if no one mentions it then it’s not really that close. Your advent calendar should be telling you the truth! Look on me as your unpaid for, not stolen, loving, living, breathing, caring, Advent Calendar.
So anyhoo … we’ve got that over and done with so shall we get on with some edumacation? Good. Let’s get on with it then . . .
On This Day in History
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia legislature.
1863 – Romania used for the first time a mountain railway (from Anina to Oravita). A mountain railway is a railway that ascends and descends a mountain slope that has a steep grade. Such railways can use a number of different technologies to overcome the steepness of the grade. Mountain railways commonly have a narrow gauge to allow for tight curves in the track and reduce tunnel size and structure gauge, and hence construction cost and effort.
1891 – James Naismith introduces the first version of basketball, with thirteen rules, a peach basket nailed to either end of his school’s gymnasium, and two teams of nine players.
1905 – The Pushkin House is established in St. Petersburg to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (June 6 1799 – February 10 1837) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling – mixing drama, romance, and satire – associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers.
Born in Moscow, Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals; in the early 1820s he clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. While under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov, but could not publish it until years later. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was published serially from 1825 to 1832.
Pushkin and his wife Natalya Goncharova, whom he married in 1831, later became regulars of court society. In 1837, while falling into greater and greater debt amidst rumors that his wife had started conducting a scandalous affair, Pushkin challenged her alleged lover, Georges d’Anthe’s, to a duel. Pushkin was mortally wounded and died two days later.
Because of his liberal political views and influence on generations of Russian rebels, Pushkin was portrayed by Bolsheviks as an opponent to bourgeois literature and culture and a predecessor of Soviet literature and poetry. In 1937, the town of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honor.
1914 – Gas explosion at Mitsubishi Hojyo coal mine Japan, 687 killed. This accident is the worst coal mine disaster in Japanese history.
1939 – Gone with the Wind premiered at Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, GA, USA. Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American dramatic-romantic-war film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel of the same name and directed by Victor Fleming (Fleming replaced George Cukor). The epic film, set in the American South in and around the time of the Civil War, stars Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland, and tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern viewpoint.
It received ten Academy Awards, a record that stood for twenty years. In the American Film Institute’s inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked number four, although in the 2007 10th Anniversary edition of that list, it was dropped two places, to number six. In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 top 10 the best ten films in ten American film genres after polling over 1,500 persons from the creative community. Gone with the Wind was acknowledged as the fourth best film in the Epic genre. It has sold more tickets in the U.S. than any other film in history, and is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. Today, it is considered one of the greatest and most popular films of all time and one of the most enduring symbols of the golden age of Hollywood. (I haven’t ever managed to watch this film all the way through. I’ve seen bits of it, but never seen the film from start to finish, in full).
1960 – Richard Paul Pavlick is arrested for attempting to blow up and assassinate the U.S. President-Elect, John F. Kennedy only four days earlier. Richard Paul Pavlick (February 13, 1887 ¨C November 11, 1975) was a retired postal worker from New Hampshire who stalked and then attempted to assassinate U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy on Sunday, December 11, 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida. He failed, but 3 years later in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Richard Paul Pavlick
Pavlick, 73 years old at the time of the assassination attempt, had previously lived in the small town of Belmont, New Hampshire with no family. He became known at local public meetings for his angry political rants, which included complaints that the American flag was not being displayed appropriately, and also criticized the government and disparaged Catholics, focusing much of his anger on the Kennedy family and their wealth. On one occasion, Pavlick’s anger erupted when he met the supervisor of the local water company at his home with a gun, which was then confiscated.
Pavlick’s enmity toward John F. Kennedy boiled over after the close 1960 U.S. Presidential election, in which Kennedy had defeated Republican Richard Nixon by 118,000 votes. Turning over his run-down property to a local youth camp, Pavlick disappeared after loading his meager possessions into his 1950 Buick.
After Pavlick left town, Thomas M. Murphy, the 34-year-old U.S. Postmaster of the town of Belmont, New Hampshire began receiving bizarre postcards from Pavlick that stated the town would hear from him soon “in a big way.” Murphy soon noticed that the postmarked dates coincided with visits by John F. Kennedy to the communities and he then called the local police. The local police, in turn, contacted the Secret Service, who interviewed locals and learned of his previous outbursts. In the midst of these conversations, they also found out that Pavlick had purchased dynamite.
During his travels, Pavlick had visited the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, photographing the Kennedy home while also checking out the compound’s security.
Shortly before 10 a.m. on Sunday, December 11, as John F. Kennedy was preparing to leave for Mass at St. Edward Church in Palm Beach, Pavlick waited in his dynamite-laden car hoping to crash his car into Kennedy’s vehicle to cause a fatal explosion. However, Pavlick changed his mind after seeing John F. Kennedy with his wife, Jacqueline, and the couple’s two small children.
While waiting for another opportunity over the next few days, Pavlick visited the church to learn its interior, but the Secret Service had informed local Palm Beach police to look for Pavlick’s automobile.
Four days after the attempt, on Thursday, December 15, Palm Beach, police officer, Lester Free, spotted Pavlick’s vehicle as he entered the city via the Flagler Memorial Bridge into Royal Poinciana Way. Police immediately surrounded the car (which still contained 10 sticks of dynamite) and arrested him. After his arrest, Pavlick said, “Kennedy money bought the White House and the presidency. I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being President.”
On January 27, 1961, Pavlick was committed to the United States Public Health Service mental hospital in Springfield, Missouri, then was indicted for threatening Kennedy’s life seven weeks later.
In a tragically ironic twist, charges against Pavlick were dropped on December 2, 1963, ten days after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Judge Emmet C. Choate ruled that Pavlick was unable to distinguish between right and wrong in his actions, but kept him in the mental hospital. The federal government also dropped charges in August 1964, and Pavlick was eventually released from the New Hampshire State Mental Hospital on December 13, 1966.
Pavlick died at the age of 88 on November 11, 1975 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire-eleven days short of the 12th anniversary of Kennedy assassination.
1973 – John Paul Getty III,grandson of J. Paul Getty, American billionaire is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10, 1973.
1993 – History of Northern Ireland: The Downing Street Declaration is issued by British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.The Downing Street Declaration was a joint declaration issued on December 15, 1993 by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major and Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach of Ireland. It affirmed the right of the people of Northern Ireland to self-determination, and that the province would be transferred to the Republic of Ireland from the United Kingdom if and only if a majority of its population was in favour of such a move. It included for the first time in the history of Anglo-Irish relationships, as part of the prospective of the so-called Irish dimension, the principle that the people of the island of Ireland, North and South had the exclusive right to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to produce a positive change of attitude by the Republicans towards a negotiated settlement.
The joint declaration also pledged the governments to seek a peaceful constitutional settlement, and promised that parties linked with paramilitaries (such as Sinn Fein) could take part in the talks, so long as they abandoned violence.
The declaration, after it was ‘clarified’ by the Northern Ireland Office, was considered sufficient by the Provisional Irish Republican Army to announce a ceasefire on August 31, 1994 which was then followed on October 13, by an announcement of a ceasefire from the Combined Loyalist Military Command.
2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopensafter 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean. The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply The Tower of Pisa (La Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. It is situated behind the cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa’s Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) after the cathedral and the baptistry.
Although intended to stand vertically, the tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation and loose substrate that has allowed the foundation to shift direction. The tower presently leans to the southwest.
The height of the tower is 55.86 m (183.27 ft) from the ground on the lowest side and 56.70 m (186.02 ft) on the highest side. The width of the walls at the base is 4.09 m (13.42 ft) and at the top 2.48 m (8.14 ft). Its weight is estimated at 14,500 metric tons (16,000 short tons). The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase. The tower leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is 3.9 metres (12 ft 10 in) from where it would stand if the tower were perfectly vertical. BBC News on the Day – The Leaning Tower of Pisa
2005 – The 2005 Atlantic Power Outage began. The Atlantic Power Outage of 2005 caused hundreds of thousands of people along the Atlantic coast of the United States to suffer power outages. Winter ice storms caused power cuts starting on December 15, 2005.
Electricity was not restored in many places until December 20, 2005, by which time one death was blamed on the outage.
🌲 ☃️ 🌲
Born on This Day
1892 – J. Paul Getty, American oil tycoon (d. 1976)
1939 – Cindy Birdsong, American singer (The Supremes)
1942 – Dave Clark, English musician (The Dave Clark Five)
1948 – Cassandra Harris,Australian actress (d. 1991) – Born Sandra Colleen Waites in Sydney, Australia, Harris was a student of NIDA acting school from 1960 to 1963 and performed in the successful Sydney stage production of Boeing Boeing from 1964 to 1965. She appeared in The Greek Tycoon (1978), Rough Cut (1980), and the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only as the Countess Lisl von Schlaf, the ill-fated mistress of Milos Colombo (played by Israeli actor Topol). While she was filming this movie, her third husband, Pierce Brosnan, met James Bond series producer Albert R. Broccoli, which eventually led to his casting as the new James Bond with starring roles in four James Bond films. Harris had allegedly always wanted to see her husband portray James Bond, but her death occurred prior to his selection for the role in “Golden Eye.”
1949 – Don Johnson, American actor
1955 – Paul Simonon, English bassist (The Clash)
1963 – Andrew Luster, Max Factor heir
1970 – Frankie Dettori, Italian jockey
🌨 🌨 🌨
Died on this Day and Remembered here
1944 – Glenn Miller, American musician (later declared dead on this date, exact date of death unknown) (b. 1904)
1962 – Charles Laughton, English actor (b. 1899)
1966 – Walt Disney, American animator (b. 1901)
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Thought for the Day
Every book starts with just one word.
Every great idea is sparked by a single thought.
Every morning sees a new sunrise.
And every journey begins with a single step.
So now, knowing all of this, why are you waiting for whatever you’re waiting for?
If you don’t begin, you can’t win!
❄️ ❄️ ❄️
And finally . . .
I think it’s time, since it’s only NINE DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS DAY, to break out the old joke book and give you a few smiles to take out into your day, and annoy other people with. Obviously, given the time of year, it’s going to be Christmas Jokes, so whine all you like, I shall simply end up asking you if you’d like a little cheese with that whine.
What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney? Claustrophobia!
What do you call an elf who sings?
A wrapper!
Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can ‘ho ho ho’!
Why does Santa Claus go down the chimney on Christmas Eve?
Because it soot’s him
Why did Santa go to the doctor? Because of his bad “elf”!
Why are Christmas trees so fond of the past?
Because the present’s beneath them.
What kind of motorbike does Santa ride? A Holly Davidson!
What do you call a cat in the desert? Sandy Claws!
And that, indeed, is ‘all folks’!
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee moment with me. I so love it when we all get together around the table and have a few giggles and laughs over a coffee, and a bit of an Ooooh and Aaaah, over the history of the day.
May your Friday be wonderful. I hope the day gently does what Fridays normally do – get to the end and give you a sigh. May you find some fun in the day, and see that the mood you’re in was a choice. When you realise this, you can then decide to make a better choice. Choose your mood wisely. Who knows what might be dependant upon what mood you’re in.
Sending you my warmest wishes during this cold December that most of us are experiencing. Stay warm, dress right for the weather, and come home safely.
Happy Friday! This week has flown by in one way, and yet it’s dragged it’s feet in another.
Something was missing in my life. It’s seemed to be a long stretch of a week. Then I realised what it was. It was Little Cobs. He went back to school on Tuesday so I haven’t seen him since last Saturday. He’s a joyous handful when he’s here, but when he goes home my heart goes with him. He’ll be here again on Saturday, and no doubt drag his HUGE bag of cars out of his bedroom here, then he’ll search for the length of black drain pipe which I got Grandad to rub the ends of so that it wasn’t sharp, and he’ll prop the one end up on the footstool, and his cars will zoooom down the tube and we’ll find out who’s the winner! It’s kind of his early introduction to betting. LOL. (No, we don’t use money or anything else. We just use our eyes and guess which one will go the furthest)
Oh anyhoo … look at me chatting away when what you’ve come for is some edumacation. So let’s get going shall we?
On this Day in History
1504 – Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence. Michelangelo’s David, sculpted from 1501 to 1504, is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture and one of Michelangelo’s two greatest works of sculpture, along with the Pietà. It is the statue of the young Israelite king David alone that almost certainly is one of the most recognizable stone sculptures in the history of art. It is regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty.
Michelangelo’s David
The 5.17 meter (17 ft) marble statue portrays the Biblical King David in the nude, at the moment that he decides to battle with Goliath.
However; the proportions are not quite true to the human form; the head and upper body are somewhat larger than the proportions of the lower body. The hands are also larger than would be in regular proportions. While some have suggested that this is of the mannerist style, another explanation is that the statue was originally intended to be placed on a church façade or high pedestal, and that the proportions would appear correct when the statue was viewed from some distance below.
The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.
To protect it from damage, the sculpture was moved in 1873 to the Accademia Gallery in Florence, where it attracts many visitors. A replica was placed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1910.
The cast of David at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), had a detachable plaster fig leaf, added for visits by Queen Victoria and other important ladies, when it was hung on the figure using two strategically placed hooks; it is now displayed nearby.
In 1991, a deranged man attacked the statue with a hammer he had concealed beneath his jacket, in the process damaging the toes of the left foot before being restrained. The samples obtained from that incident allowed scientists to determine that the marble used was obtained from the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in Carrara. The marble in question contains many microscopic holes that cause it to deteriorate faster than other marbles. Because of the marble’s degradation, a controversy occurred in 2003, when the statue underwent its first major cleaning since 1843. Some experts opposed the use of water to clean the statue, fearing further deterioration. Under the direction of Dr. Franca Falleti, senior restorers Monica Eichmann and Cinzia Pamigoni began the job of restoring the statue. The restoration work was completed in 2004.
By the 20th century, Michelangelo’s David had become iconic shorthand for “culture” David has been endlessly reproduced, in plaster, imitation marble fibreglass, and lends an atmosphere of culture even in some unlikely settings, such as beach resorts, gambling casinos and model railroads.
1888 – In London, the body of murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found, disembowelled in an East London street, the second victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited.
1900 – Galveston Hurricane of 1900: a powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1921 – 16-year-old Margaret Gormanwon the Atlantic City Pageant’s Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy. 1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V2 rocket as the first German V2 flying bombs fell on Britain, exploding at Chiswick in London, killing 3 people.
1960 – Publishers Penguin Books were charged with public obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s controversial book – ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. 1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1966 – In England, the Severn Bridge was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, linking south Wales with south west England. 1966 – The first Star Trek,the landmark American science fiction television series, premieres with the first-aired episode, “The Man Trap”, on NBC.
1968 – The Beatles perform their lastlive TV performance on the David Frost show. They perform their new hit Hey Jude. 1968 – British tennis player Virginia Wade beat American Billie Jean King to win the US Open.
1974 – Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 – Gays in the military:US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “I Am A Homosexual”. He is given a general discharge, which was later upgraded to honorable.
2004 – The NASA unmanned spacecraft Genesiscrash-lands when its parachute fails to open. The Genesis spacecraft was the first ever attempt to collect a sample of solar wind, and the first “sample return mission” to return from beyond the orbit of the Moon. It was launched on August 8, 2001, and crash-landed on September 8, 2004 after a design flaw prevented the deployment of its drogue parachute. The crash contaminated many of the sample collectors, but subsequent processing was able to isolate useful samples, and as of March 2008 all of the mission’s major science objectives are expected to be achieved successfully.
Born on this Day
1921 – Harry Secombe, Welsh entertainer (d. 2001) 1922 – Sid Caesar, American comedian (d. 2014) 1925 – Peter Sellers, English actor (d. 1980) 1932 – Patsy Cline, American singer (d. 1963)
1979 – Pink, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
🌷 🌷 🌷
OK… now it’s playtime. (All schools have a playtime, and this one is no different) …
I will only give you links to click on that I’ve tried and tested and know for sure that there is nothing bad hiding in them. So please rest assured that any link you find on this blog has been tested before I load it here. I’ve been playing around with most of these links for … oh my goodness, around ten years, so I know for sure that they’re safe.
Today … instead of a game, I share with you something that I have tons of fun on every now and again.
If you don’t have a Gravatar picture of yourself, or a photo of yourself on your blog – in your sidebar – then you can ‘build’ yourself on this website! It’s not really you as such, but it’s ‘you’ in a cartoony sort of way.
You can build a body, a skin tone, hair, lips, teeth, eyes, glasses, facial hair, even tattoos! You can make it look like you … but if you were stood in a line up, no one would be able to pick you out based on that image. lol. Aww … look, I’ll give you the link so that you can have a play with it yourself. It’s lots of fun… BUT … have a look around first, and click on the things so that you know what they look like… because once you have chosen some of the things there, you can’t undo them (some you can change – but not all of them). . . and you’ll have to start from the beginning. Other than that, it’s a great little time waster.
Well we’ve come to the end of the school day, here in Cobweborium Land. Don’t you wish all your school/work days were as short as this? A bit of fun, over a cup of coffee and time to go off and relax! lol
Wishing you all a truly wonderful weekend. Thank you so much for coming and spending a little time with me. I love seeing you here.
May your weekend be everything you want it to be. 🌹
Right … It’s Friday and it’s time to … PIN BACK YOUR LUGHOLES (ears) …. for you are going to be Educationamalised!
Factoids for your FridayFun …
A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
It is impossible to out-swim a shark .
The slowest fishis the Sea Horse, which moves along at about 0.016 km/h (0.01 mph).
The tongue of a blue whale is as long as an elephant
A snail has two pairs of tentacles on its head. One pair is longer than the other and houses the eyes. The shorter pair is used for smelling and feeling its way around.
In the Sahara Desert,there is a town named Tidikelt, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though, the driest place on earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island. There has been no rainfall there for two million years.
A house fly lives only 14 days. (but not if Mr.Cobs and his fly swat is near!)
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world’s ice covers Antarctica. This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it) Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.
Istanbul, Turkey is the only city in the world located on two continents.
In the United States: The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
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An Anagram of:
“To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” Is:
“In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten”
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Fake trees were invented by a company who made toilet bowl brushes, the Addis Brush Company. Regardless of how far the technology has come, it’s still interesting to know the first fake Christmas trees were really just big green toilet bowl brushes.
And ….
Did you know… The can opener was invented 48 years after cans were introduced!
My Contract states that I HAVE to leave you with a smile or a chuckle if it tickles you in the right place. So …. here goes:
Fifty-one years ago, Herman James, a North Carolina mountain man, was drafted by the Army.
On his first day in basic training, the Army issued him a comb. That afternoon the Army barber sheared off all his hair.
On his second day, the Army issued Herman a toothbrush. That afternoon the Army dentist yanked out seven of his teeth.
On the third day, the Army issued him a jock strap.
The Army has been looking for Herman for 51 years.
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Happy Friday my lovely blogging friends. If you’ve got this far and are still alive reading then I’m so proud of you for getting through the whole course and your certificate is in the post. You are now far more Educationamalised than you were a little while ago.
I’m wishing you a truly fabulous Friday, and a truly terrific weekend.
Enjoy every moment of it. Don’t wait for another day. Don’t put off doing something until you’ve lost 10lbs. Don’t bother about the spot on your chin. Don’t worry that you don’t feel you have the right outfit. Who cares if you’ll be by yourself doing ‘it’ – walking in the park; Taking photo’s of the ducks on the lake; Shopping for something or other. Just do it. Don’t put it off. Do it today. Now. Or … this weekend.
Take care of yourself … and each other. And … whatever you decide to do with your weekend or where-ever you decided to go … may your God go with you.
These ATC’s which I’m about to share, weren’t actually what I was going to post about today, but the painting I was going to share has gone missing. I remember putting it somewhere safe, so that I could take photo’s of it once I’d finished making the card I was working on. Do you think I can remember where the safe place was? Not on your nelly!
So … filling in for the missing bit of art, are two ATC’s/ACEO’s which I painted a little while ago. I have photos, but didn’t realise until I looked at them to pop the photos on this post, how grainy and fuzzy they are. I asked Mr.C if he thought that the photo’s were good enough to post on the blog here, and he said ‘yes, ‘course they are!‘ … so we’ll blame him.
(Please note… I didn’t say it was his fault. I said we’ll blamehim. BIG difference.) 😀
These were ‘two of a kind’ ATC’s – both hand painted by me and meant to be together as a pair. You see … this first one is called: ‘Just the Two of Us ~ what a pear!’
ATC/ACEO – mounted and framed. The painting is called ‘Just the Two of Us ~ what a pear!’
Sorry the grainy images. I’m not sure what happened – maybe I shook the camera or possibly had it on the wrong setting … I have no idea.
ATC/ACEO hand painted by Cobwebs. The painting is called: ‘Just the Two of Us ~ what a pear!’
The slightly wonky left hand side of the pot was intentional. The painting represents how the life of two people (the pears in this case), grow together, but they don’t crowd each other … and they make their home in a slightly wonky pot which tells the story of how life isn’t as perfect as we’d perhaps like it to be, but we make the best of what we have and what is just a ‘wonky’ pot to some, is a really pretty home of fabulousness to others.
Life isn’t perfect, and neither is the wonky pot. But it’s still fabulous – just like life in general when you think about it.
The second of these ATC/ACEO’s, – which is the other half of the pair of paintings, – is called: ‘Appley Ever After!’
ATC/ACEO – mounted and framed. The painting is called ‘Appley Ever After‘
This painting is of a round Topiary Tree, complete with 6 Apples . A family of Apples living ‘Appley Ever After‘.
ATC/ACEO hand painted by Cobwebs. The painting is called: ‘Appley Ever After’!
It speaks for itself in the title … the ‘family’ of apples could be a couple and their four children, or just a couple with their parents and in-laws … there are more ways than one to make a family. But they all lived ‘Appley Ever After’!
I mounted and framed these two paintings and put them for sale … and was thrilled, from the top of my head down to my wriggly toes that they both sold within a couple of days! I wondered if the lady buyer was going to give them as a gift (maybe a wedding present, as they’d ‘fit the bill’ – so to speak) or if she was keeping them, and she told me she wanted to keep them and hang them in her own home. I felt so honoured.
At the top of this post I’ve made a white ‘card’ which gives you the measurement of an ATC/ACEO. This size doesn’t differ. You aren’t allowed to go above this size. Now I actually measured this out and made it exactly as you see in the photo … but I know that WordPress will re-size images sometimes, so if you get a rule or measuring tape, you’ll be able to judge if it’s showing up at the right size. If it isn’t … just look on your rule/measuring tap to actually be able to visualise how small an ATC really is.
I would love you to have a go at one. You don’t have to paint … you can do practically anything on a bit of card, paper, Watercolour paper, board, wood, …. anything!
Ok…. I’ve yacked long enough, so I’ll shut up and let you finish your coffee in peace.
Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee moment with me. 🙂
Sending squidges and love to you in your corner, from me in mine. ❤
Happy Friday, 26th May. It’s the last Friday of May. Time, as we’ve already agreed, passes fast now.
It’s ‘been a week’ this week. There’s been some fun. But then there have been some very low spots.
For those of you who don’t know … I live in the United Kingdom, and I’m pretty sure you’ll all know about the savage brutality which happened in my country on Monday, the 22nd of May.
The first thing my brain said was: ‘Why? Why in the name of God would someone believe that it’s OK to kill someone? Anyone? Children, teens, through to Grandma’s and grown ups. Why?’
And … that’s the thing. Exactly what is it which happens inside someone’s brain, which convinces them to kill, maim, injure, mutilate, lacerate, disfigure, and mangle innocent people in order to ‘please’ their God?
Who’s God tells them that this is OK?
NO God is going to tell ANYONE that it’s OK to kill any other person. In fact it’s the exact opposite of that which ANY God would say.
Someone is brain-washing these people, because that’s the only way that someone is going to have their normal thinking brain, turned into a willing slave in order to carry out someone elses instructions.
I’ve cried many hot tears over this vile act of evil savagery and even now, 4 days later, I know I’m still not all cried out. However, something a dear blogging friend, Chicken Grandma, said on her blog a couple of days ago, as a reply to a comment I posted: “May we be light, may we be strong, may we be courageous, and may we as people of the world stand united in the process of bringing sanity back.”.
And she’s right. We must be strong, courageous, and we must stand united in bringing back the sanity to our World. We must also try to love those who wish to do us harm. For two wrongs don’t make a right. An eye for an eye simply ends up making the whole world blind.
If we are to overcome, we must all stand together as one, and, using love, save this world.
Shall we move onto something more entertaining?
Mr. Cobs shared this with me this week …
He was reading the papers, on-line, and came across a story about a product being sold on Amazon which tickled the heck out of him. (He does have a very ‘off centre’ sort of sense of humour – but then, look who he’s married to! lol)
The details of the product read like this: (if you have trouble reading or looking at any photos, right-click on the photo and click to ‘view image’ – and it will open up in a larger size.)
Now that seems pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? A toilet brush … gives you the idea that you’ll know what to use it for… however … someone decided they’d have a little fun with some feedback for this . . . (ladies … do you have on your Depends?) . . .
Well dear ol’ Mr.C was laughing his head off – but at the same time trying to keep it together, and he was going red in the face and sounded more like Muttley than Cobs the Bogeyman!
Once I’d seen it … I sounded like that too. lol. Apparently it’s quite a trend, I understand, to outdo anyone else with the funny feedback on things. I found out that reviews for Sugar Free Gummie Bears are among the funniest things to read on Amazon. lol
What else have I learned this week?
That Indian Curries are now off the menu. I came late to Indian food. I was pregnant with daughter number 2 when all of a sudden I announced that the neighbour must have been making a curry, and it smelled DELICIOUS!
Before this I hated curry. The smell could make me heave. But suddenly, at six months pregnant with second child, all I wanted was an Indian curry. Mr. Cobs thought he’d died and gone to heaven! The very next day he bought everything required for making one, and made it, and I’ve eaten curries Indian food ever since. Until now. Now that I’ve reached over the age of ___ it would seem that my body is now saying NO MORE to Indian food. Actually … it’s begun saying no more to a fair few different bits of food. It’s making me quite cross. How very dare it move me into a boring diet of denial.
Deny me this. Deny me that. Deny me everything I might find enjoyable. It’s even now stopped me from eating …. CUCUMBER! Cucumber is basically water with a green skin. So what’s the problem? [sigh]
I also learned this week … yet again .… that I HATE the hot hot heat of summer. I live in the south of the country (England) by the sea, and it get’s quite ‘hot’ here in the summer. I don’t like the summer much because it causes me to get grumpy and makes some medical ‘issues’ I have so much worse that it’s tiresome and annoying.
Note to other drivers on the road: Drive NICELY. Don’t cut me up nor follow so closely behind me that it’s obscene, during the heat of the summer. Because I become something other than the sweet thing you might think I am to look at me. Trust me. Mightier men than you have tried to show me, ‘the little woman’, that their driving is wonderful … and I’ve left them crying and sucking their thumbs. DRIVE NICELY in the summer, around where I live, or else!You have been warned.
Well … this last week it’s been hot.Very hot. Too hot. VERY MUCH too hot. We have ceiling fans … but even those aren’t helping. They seem to just be moving hot air around. And now … I’m feeling like a grumpy moo. I’m hot. I’m sticky. And I’m not in a great mood.
Note to self: When I win the lottery (big time), I’m going to pay someone to fan me. I shall lay on a bed of hand-made cotton mattresses – 8 deep. (Think Princess and the Pea), wearing nothing but a muslin ‘gown’ (designed by a tent maker), and be fanned by my personal fanner. Ahhh… just the thought is putting my mood right. 😀
Kind of on the same subject ... I also learned this week that my Grandsons (Little Cobs) school has been forced to employ a parking attendant for when mummies and daddies collect their darlings from school at the end of the day. (3pm)
I learned that this parking attendant(a tall man of somewhere between 30 to 40) has let the job title, and the yellow High Vis jacket (much like the motorway police wear) go to his head, and he’s become a bossy so and so.
I watched him, as I was sat roasting at the equivalent to Gas Mark 6, in my car, in the full sun. He arrived on site and without even leaving his car, he wound down the window and instantly told a woman to move her car out of the reserved parking space. (Which she did. A rookie mistake) He then parked his car in that space, got out of his car, put on his yellow High Visibility jacket and then walked over to her where she’d now parked her car on the corner of a bend on the school grounds, and directed her to go and park on the road outside the school.
It was at this point that Mr.Cobs was to hear me say, low and in a rather wishful thinking voice: “Ohhhh…. I DO hope he comes here and tells me where to park my car”.
Because Little Cobs has a disability (Cerebral Palsy) his mummy and daddy are allowed to park on the school grounds to collect their son. However, we are sometimes called into action to collect him. And the problem is that although the school know when we will be coming (instead of Mommy or Daddy), we don’t have the special parking permit which one is supposed to display in order to park on the premises. So, strictly speaking, he should have noticed that I was parked without a permit.
I was hot. Roasting in the direct sunshine, and I saw him being a little officious and pumped up at wearing his High Vis. jacket. I SO wanted him to come to my car and attempt to ‘talk to the little lady’ (me) about parking else where. I so wanted to explain to him that the only place I would be parking my car other than right where it was, would require him to bend over.
He went to another car and told the driver off for parking where they were parked. Yet…. they weren’t in anyone’s way, and they had just loaded a disabled grandchild into the car. (More grandparents in the same situation as us). The gentleman behind the wheel obviously told him in a polite way that he wasn’t moving the car because there was another child to collect …. but he would move the car once said child was collected.
Again… I voiced … “Go on… come and tell me to move my car“. He didn’t. Maybe he recognised a woman who was suffering the heat of being baked in a tin box, waiting for a ‘challenging situation’ to happen. Whatever it was, he gave my car a miss. Maybe … next time. 🙂
Well … I’m pretty certain that there are more things which I’ve learned this week, however, my head’s a colander and things drain out of those holes, even when I try to stop them from falling out.
However … we now are in requirement of a few jokes, so without further ado, I give you . . .
THE JOKES
A woman called the airline customer-service desk asking if she could take her dog on board.
“Sure,” said customer services, “as long as you provide your own kennel.” They further explained that the kennel needed to be large enough for the dog to stand up, sit down, turn around, and roll over.
The customer was flummoxed: “I’ll never be able to teach him all of that by tomorrow!”
❤ ❤ ❤
Q: What do Pandas have that no other animal in the world has?
A:click and drag–> Baby Pandas<—
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Q: I travel all over the world, but always stay in my corner. What am I?
A: click and drag–> A stamp.<—
❤ ❤ ❤
Q: How many seconds are there in one year?
A: click and drag-> 12 of them: January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd, April 2nd, May 2nd, June 2nd, July 2nd, August 2nd, September 2nd, October 2nd, November 2nd, December 2nd.<—
❤ ❤ ❤
A recent scientific study showed that out of 2,293,618,367 people, 94% are too lazy to actually read that number.
❤ ❤ ❤
And God said to John, come forth and you shall be granted eternal life.
But John came fifth and won a toaster.
❤ ❤ ❤
and finally . . .
What do you call a dog that does magic tricks?
A labracadabrador.
Thank you so much for coming and sharing a coffee with me. I so enjoy our Friday get togethers.
I hope for you a fabulous Friday. May the day be peace filled and enjoyable. And may your weekend be one which leaves you feeling like you’ve actually done something with your time. That’s always a great feeling!
Sending love, from me in my corner, to you in yours. Be good to each other, and … may your God go with you.
Guess who had a play in their craft room? [grins] I’m still not feeling 100% and the mojo is still M.I.A. and hiding somewhere in the craft room, but I’m still on the case and, with the help of our dog (an animal who can smell a biscuit crumb from 30 yards) I’m hoping to find that missing mojo very soon.
In the meantime I put together a Birthday card made with components from Hunkydory.
It’s a 3D card which folds completely flat, so no need for a big box. When opened up (into an X shape) the middle sections are hung from invisible thread (from my sewing threads box) and the two dimpled gold rings, and the central disc picturing the racing car, spin around – in a slight breeze (from opening a door nearby), or if you blow very gently on them.
below are three photos which show each ‘quarter’ of the card so that you can see it from all sides.
So – finally, one card done! That’s a big move forward in the right direction. I’m off again to the craft room this afternoon, so fingers crossed … there might be something else to share on another day soon. [GRINS a very hopeful grin!]
Happy Wednesday the 18th of January!Did you know that … on this day in History:-
1644 – Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America’s 1st UFO sighting
1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay to set up a penal colony
1896 – 1st demonstration of an X-ray machine in US.
1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded
1944 – The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert for the first time. The performers were Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge and Jack Teagarden.
1964 – Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
1967 – ‘Boston Strangler’ sentenced to life
1973 – John Cleese’s final episode on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on BBC TV
1980 – Pink Floyd’s “Wall” hits #1
1981 – Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
1991 – Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy’s Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins
That’s just a little handful of things which happened on this day in history.Wikipedia have a huuuge list, and if you’d like to read more about todays date simply click on the name.
Hope your week is off to a good start and that the weather is treating you kindly, wherever you are on the planet. But … if the weather is fowl and you have bills to pay you’d rather not be paying … just think … you’re in a better place than you could be. So please look at what you’re blessed with, and have a truly lovely, blessed, rest of your day.
Sending squidges from me in my corner to you in yours.
Instead of a ‘What I’ve Learned This Week’ post (which I normally share on a Friday), I felt it would be appropriate to make a post about some of the things I’ve learned this last year which we’ve just said goodbye to.
Some of the things life taught me during 2016 are fabulous, and some aren’t.
I’m a believer in a particular ‘thing’, which life taught me when I was in my early teens, which I call: If something happens, it happens For A Reason.
It might be a truly wonderful, amazing, biggest wish and want of your heart and soul. Or it could be something not so wanted or desired. However, what ever this ‘thing’ is, it will have been placed on your pathway for a reason, and you are meant to learn something from it.
So let’s begin the journey of discovery about what I Learned during 2016, shall we? Are you strapped in securely? Do you have your crash helmet secured? Clean underwear on? Okey Dokey, hold on tightly to the person sat next to you, because that way it’s less likely that you’ll fly off half way round the ride!
I learned last year …. that when I finally find some moccasin slippers which fit beautifully, with good soles, and are lined with cotton inside them (because of my stupidly sensitive feet) … I should buy two or even three pairs, because when the pair I originally chose, and have been wearing till they fell apart, I won’t be able to find any more, anywhere near as comfortable or lovely as them, and the place I bought them from changed the design and put non-cotton linings in their new design. I’ve been looking since February of 2016 for a new pair, and so far I’ve found nothing which comes anywhere near. I’ve bought new slippers – in fact I’ve bought four pairs of different slippers since then, but none of them are anywhere near as comfortable and, to be truthful, I hate them all.
The older I’ve got, the more I’ve grown to appreciate bits of my body, in particular my feet. Look after your feet people, because they have to last you for the rest of your life. Buy shoes which fit. Don’t wear heels every day – swap things around – to give your feet chance to work properly. And don’t wear anything which is tight around the toes. It’s not brain surgery, and it’s simple to understand. Look after your feet.
I also learned that I need to Plan Ahead. Not for the emergency things, like a power cut and we had no electricity – because I plan for all emergencies like that.
(In fact, I plan so ‘beautifully’ (?) for that sort of emergency that if there were an actual power cut here where we live, I could give every neighbour candles and still have enough for us).
I need to stop waiting till the last moment to do some of the regular things – like make an appointment for the doctor (I wait until I’m ready to be admitted to hospital before I’ll give in and make an appointment), – and instead of putting things off, I need to do things there and then(!) so that they’re already done and ready for when they need to be ready. Case in point: This Post!
I knew I was going to do this post and I knew when I needed it done for. And yet, here I am, on the last day of 2016, tapping away on my keyboard knowing that this post HAS to be ready to ‘go live’ in the early hours of 2017. Why on earth didn’t I begin building this post when I sat having a rest or a coffee, or even last week?! The answer is: Because I’m a dimwit! That’s why!
PLAN AHEAD WOMAN ... and stop leaving ‘it’ till the final moment!
Next!:
I learned during 2016 that Crafting is an obsession to me. And not only is crafting itself the obsession, but crafty shopping is also an obsession. I will go to a store with a list of (say) three or four items that I need. However, when I hit that shop with all those lovely crafty goodies, I go batship crazy and am like a child who’s on a sugar high and been given permission to have as many things as they can stuff into a trolley within two hours. Yes seriously. I will sometimes catch the bored stiff eyes of ‘Cobs The Bogeyman’ (aka Mr.Cobs) as he wanders around after me (following me like a little lost puppy) asking … “can we go now?”.
The man should be awarded a Knighthood in the New Year Honours List (which we have here in the UK), for Services to Retail; Excelling in the Art of Husbandry; and generally being Mr. Wonderful. (although that last one can sometimes come into question).
“Arise Sir Cobs.” she says. [as the Queen finishes dobbing him on each shoulder with her trusty sword].
NEXT!
I’ve learned this year that … New Years Eve is the only acceptable time to wear glitter without being mistaken for a stripper.
As a crafter this is the saddest bit of stuff I’ve ever learned in my whole life. I’m always twinkling with glitter, even if I haven’t used any for a week. A spell in my craft room seems to cover me in glitter, which I leave trails of behind me, wherever I roam, or go. (Including into the loo – which tickles Mr.C – but I won’t tell you what he says about it. Suffice to say it has something to do with storage of the twinkly stuff and my knickers)
NEXT!:
I won’t make up stories about my parents being the most amazing parents in the world.My parents weren’t the best parents in the world, but they were the best ‘THEY‘ could be. They taught me many lessons. Life Lessons about:
appreciatingevery thing I had. From the toys that were given to me as a child, to the teachers I had at school and the lessons I learned from them.
How to make friends and be a friend. ( I still have problems making friends because I’m SO painfully shy).
Ensuring that I knew the importance of keeping Sunday as a family day and Christmas and Easter, and Birthdays, as special days and honour the family by spending time with them – all of them – from my parents to my Grandma & Grandad, Uncles, Aunties, Cousins etc.
To look at both sides of any choices which were placed in front of me. Good-v-Bad. To make sure that I had looked at things from every angle in order to make sure I made the right choice for me.
To have an opinion. Aw heckaroonie, I could count on my Mom to have an opinion, and to feel free to voice it – even if I or anyone else disagreed with her, she had her opinion and would stick to it too.
To be willing to help. From the age of around 12, I used to do the family weekly shopping all by myself. My mother would be working and my father wasn’t the shopping sort of chap, so I was left a list next the kitchen sink, every Saturday morning, along with money, and I had to go all by myself to the local shopping centre, and visit the big Supermarket; greengrocer; butchers; newsagent; and possibly the pharmacy too, in order to get all the things on the list, within the money that I’d been left to buy it with. Then bring all those groceries home – walking all the way home carrying four bags full of groceries. This taught me a huge lesson as a child: How to be an important part of the family. How to manage money; How to Budget; How to Shop for a whole family with all their various likes and dislikes; and … Spend money on the right things when that was the only option open. As an adult, when I married, I was so grateful for those shopping and money management lessons.
I learned many more lessons from my parents and I’m grateful for them. However, a lesson they never got the chance to teach me (and I so wish they had) was how to deal with someone, a family member in this case, who not just wounded me but broke my heart with their words, all within about 90 seconds, and without me getting chance to ask why? What? How? When? Who? Why? WHY??
My parents aren’t around now for me to talk to and ask advice from on how to deal with what happened and to share with them how it’s affected me, and over the last year I’ve wished daily that I had someone older and wiser to advise me, and to just listen. Before now, I’ve had my mother in law to chat with, and she’s been brilliant. But she’s getting on in age and is showing some signs of a dementia type of illness so of course I simply won’t give her a problem like this for her to listen to.
So it’s been left to me to ‘grow up’ and get to a place where I have come to a decision about what I have to do.
This whole thing happened because I’d offered this particular family member help to clean their house. I’d offered before and they seemed to welcome the idea of this help – things were getting on top of them and all sorts of stuff had become very difficult for them as they were suffering with depression.
Offering to help with the cleaning was the only thing I knew how to do which I thought might help in some way. But I’d been waiting for them to tell me when they’d like me to come over – for it’s how we’d left it. I offered, they brightened up and said yes, and said they’d let me know when. I’d waited weeks and weeks, and wondered if perhaps they didn’t like to ask, so I offered again, and it tipped this person over the edge of reason and they simply exploded. They shouted an awful lot of hurtful things at me, and told me that they didn’t love me, or like me, and that they didn’t want anything more to do with me. It was such a total shock because we’d always got on really well.
So … I finally learned in the last week of 2016, that for my own sake, I have to leave this deep wound alone and move on. Mr.Cobs has helped me see that after 15 months, if nothing has put things right after this length of time, then I HAVE to let it go and move on from it. For the sake of my heart, and my health, I have to leave this behind me and allow my heart time to heal.
It’s difficult because I hate to see how depression is keeping this person fixed, almost like a prisoner, in one place and no longer enjoying life. But, as Mr.Cobs has said over and over – I have to let it go. I cannot continue to fret over this.
I’ve learned that I’m grateful for my parents being the best parents they could be, teaching me, showing me and making me aware of the things that are important. And … I think they would have told me I realised, probably about eight months ago, that I HAD to just let go of this ‘thing’, stop turning it over and over inside my heart and mind, and instead move on.
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m moving on Mom. ❤
Y’know … I felt as if I just heard her say, over my left shoulder, ‘Good girl.’
*I tell you none of this for sympathy … and I want none. I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned last year, and this was a really BIG learn for me.
OK… moving on: NEXT!
I learned,during 2016, that it takes me two months to learn to write the new year numbers down on anything that I need to write it down on. So I’m going to try harder with 2017!
NEXT!
I learned all over again in 2016, how much I enjoy writing posts for this blog. I’ve ‘met’ so many wonderful people via the blog and I cannot begin to tell you how enriching it is to know you all. YOU reading this now. YOU enrich my life by being in it. So I take this opportunity to thank you for being who you are. You’re truly amazing. (And boy oh boy, you’re such a blessing!)
NEXT:
I’ve learned how much I adore the simple jokes in life. Complicated jokes are great … but sometimes they can be a bit too clever and they make my brain hurt trying to keep up with them. But the simple, almost childlike jokes … aw, they are the jaw achers which I adore. I shall attempt to remember to add a small handful at the end of this ‘ream of internet paper’.
NEXT!
I’ve learned the importance of an afternoon snack. 4pm (ish) seems to be the point at which my sugar levels drop to a low and I will either fall asleep in my chair or take myself off to bed for a nap. However … if I have something snackwise, at around 4pm, then I’m good to go for the rest of the day. Have a snack!
And finally….
I’ve learned the importance of not hitting your knee on a substantial coffee table, made of 2″thick pine and made in such a way that a family of four could live in it in an emergency. Actually … I learnt this lesson on the closing moments of 2016 … so only just, and the swear words are still bouncing off the walls of my brain! Grrrrr! Gosh, that knee hurts now, and it’s really, really hot to touch and swollen too!
OK… I know you’ve been waiting for this part …. here come the jokes:
On New Year’s Eve, Marilyn stood up in the local pub and said that it was time to get ready. At the stroke of midnight, she wanted every husband to be standing next to the one person who made his life worth living. Well, it was kind of embarrassing. Because, as the clock struck, the bartender was almost crushed to death.
~~~~~~~
What’s the difference between a ‘hippo’ and a ‘Zippo’?
. . . . . . One is really heavy, the other is a little lighter
~~~~~~~
Two Clowns divorce. A Custardy battle follows.
~~~~~~~
Question for you … Why is the winner of the Miss Universe contest always from earth?
~~~~~~~
An annoying person told me “People have 2 Ears and 1 mouth, so they should listen more than they speak.”
I replied “People also have 1 mouth and 2 legs, so maybe you should shut up and go away.”
~~~~~~~
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. After that, everything else was ‘Made in China’.
~~~~~~~
Women: A species that loathes you for asking their age,but will torture you forever if you forget their birthday.
What is red and bad for your teeth? . . . A brick!
Isn’t it scary that doctors call what they do “practice”?
Love means nothing to a tennis player.
Knock Knock Who’s there?
Who. Who who?
What are you? An owl?
Knock Knock Who’s there?
Smell map Smell map who?
If you’re not giggling by now, say it out loud. If you’re still not giggling after that then click and hold the click over this —>“Smell map who?” sounds like ‘Smell my poo’ when said out loud<—
Knock, Knock Who’s there?
Hatch Hatch who?
Bless you and cover your mouth next time.
Knock, Knock Who’s there?
Spell. Spell who?
OK, W. H. O.
Knock, Knock Who’s there?
Mikey. Mikey who?
Mikey doesn’t fit in the keyhole
Knock Knock
Who’s there? I eat map.
I eat map who? Oh yuk! That’s disgusting! (you might have to say it out loud if you haven’t got it yet).
And finally …..
Wife texts husband:Where are you? Why aren’t you home yet?
Husband texts back: Love, do you remember the jewellery shop on Regent Street where you saw a diamond necklace and fell in love with it and I couldn’t afford it then, but I said ‘I will get it one day for you’?
Wife replies (all excited): Yes I do, I do.
Husband texts back to her: I am in the pub just next door to that.
fnar fnar!
Well I guess that there’s only one thing left for me to do now and that’s this (It’s only 34 seconds long):-
Rememberyou can reset your resolutions on January 14th (Orthodox New Year) and February 8th (Chinese New Year). After that, even I can’t help you.
❤
I personally have only one resolution. To rediscover the difference between wants and needs. May I have all I need and want all I have.
❤
May love, peace and harmony be yours in 2017, and my greatest wish for you is for contentment to be yours. For when you have contentment, you then have everything you could possibly want. Happy New Year to you!
lol)
The Art of Cobwebs 