Things I Learned This Week.

I’ve learned that I love my postman and that I appreciate him and the job he does even more than I ever realised I did.

Postman Pat and Jess the cat, picture courtesy of the BBC

When we first moved into this property we originally inherited a postman who … erm … how can I say this...  …   who really ‘wasn’t up to scratch’.

The chap spent the whole of his post round talking to his friends or partner on his mobile phone.  You would have thought that phone was super-glued to his face and would have to be surgically removed.  I had to speak to him one day (he’d delivered a letter that wasn’t only not for our address but not even to anyone in our area), he still didn’t remove his phone from his ear.  He just took the letter, shoved it into his post-bag,  carried on gossiping in his phone and didn’t acknowledge me in any way at all.  You’d have thought I didn’t exist!  I did question if I was perhaps invisible – but Mr. Cobs assured me I was clearly visible, and that  the postman was ignorant and obviously without manners. (telling me!)

Then, after a time, the post office did the thing they do now and again, and swapped all the post men/women around and gave them all new routes.  So we got a new Postman, and he has been amazing.  He’s a thoroughly lovely chap.  Looks out for people and if he hasn’t seen someone for a few days then he’ll check up with neighbours to make sure that Mrs. So and So is ok, or that someone has seen elderly Mr. Xyz.  AND … he puts regular letters in the little post box, but bigger things go in the hidden parcel box to the side of the porch.  Sometimes, if he has time and he knows we’re in, he’ll knock the door and actually bring them to us, have a moments chat etc.

our post box on the front of our cottage, and below it is the metal newspaper/magazine ‘roll’ where they can be stashed until we collect them

However … we’ve had another delivery man this past couple of weeks and he’s been shoving all sorts of things in our little post box – which is designed for letters – not parcels, packages or magazines.  There’s a metal ‘thing’ below the post box for magazines and news papers.  But no, he didn’t use that.  There’s even a parcel box, water-tight with a well-fitting lid, positioned out of the rain and hidden from general view … even with a blackboard by the front door telling a post man/woman where it is … but did he use it?  No.  He shoved all manner of things into the post box which really didn’t fit.  Mr. Cobs had the divil of a job getting one thing out because he’d pushed it so far in that it was jammed in there and himself was there huffing and puffing trying to get this item out without damaging whatever was inside it!

THEN … at the start of this week … OUR POSTMAN WAS BACK ON DUTY!  YAYAYAYAY!!!   [doing the happy dance].  Mr. Cobs was in the front garden when Mr. Postman turned up with letters.  Mr. Cobs said he’d never been so glad to see someone as he was at that moment, even telling the Postman that.  The postman said that he’d been on holiday.  Mr. Cobs told him how we’d missed him, what a nightmare the temporary chap had been, and that he wasn’t allowed on any more holidays.  lol.

I knew I loved our postman …  but now I love and appreciate him even more than I did before.  I just hope the post office doesn’t do the change around thing, because we’d all miss him dreadfully in the area where I live.

I learned this week that when you suddenly find yourself singing and humming a song which you used to know all the words of but have forgotten most of them, and actually haven’t heard that song for ages and ages, – I’ve learned that the one thing you really shouldn’t do is go in search of the song on You Tube so that you can listen to the song all over again.

You see … if you do, you won’t be able to STOP SINGING THE  *#&%!+*  SONG after that and, when you’re lying there, in the dark,  it will thoroughly get on your very last nerve at 3am in the morning when you can’t stop the darn thing playing over, and over, and over, ad nauseam inside your head! 

Please … enjoy the song before you go any further in your reading…

I used to sing this song for and to the amusement of our two girls when they were little.  They thought it was funny and would join in, singing in their little girl voices which quickly turned into giggling and falling about laughing.

But many, many years later – with one daughter now in her thirties and the other in her late twenties – that song, although I still love it to the moon and back,  should not be an ear worm and keeping you awake at 3am on any day! (I still love the song, and NO ONE, in my opinion, could ever adequately ever fill the role which Carol Burnett played in the film Annie,  for she was THE best actress for that role).

This week I’ve learned that …  if I  hurry up  just a little, I can take a shower and wash my hair in ten minutes.  Now this upset me because I had guessed that I was doing it in about 6 minutes,  but no.  TEN MINUTES!  Cor, what a waste.  I’ve got to improve on that time.

No, I’m not planning to enter the Shower Olympics in four years time, but I swear that I used to be in and out of the shower in a lot less time than ten minutes, and this really has kind of ‘upset’ me.  Is this more disturbing evidence that I’m growing old and cannot move fast even in the shower?  Hells Bells!  So right now … I’m in Training.  I have to improve my time to shower and wash hair.  I’ll keep you posted.

This week I’ve learned that I will NEVER, EVER, EVER get to that magical, mythical moment of having …  AN EMPTY IN-BOX  on my email account.  I seem to get almost there … just a few more emails to open ….  and the phone rings… by the time I’ve got off the phone 400 new emails have arrived and I’ve got to start all over again.

I don’t visit my email box every day.  I know that statement might make some of you gasp, but … well …. I have better things to do than open that email account up and spend an hour trying to sort through emails.  I visit my emails say, maybe 2 or 3 times a week.  The rest of the time I’m off doing something far more enjoyable which has nothing to do with computers or tinternet.  I don’t ‘do’ Fakebook.  I’ve actually got a Twitter account but I don’t ‘get it’.  What can you say in 140 characters which would be worth reading?

I’m going to the shop.  I’m back from the Shop.  I bought a cake.  I ate my cake…  here, have a picture of an empty plate.  I’m out with friends, having a great time. (Can’t be that great if you’re sending messages to Twitter). No…  I really don’t get the pull of Twitter. I’m just obviously not a Twit.

And finally …  I’ve learned this week, at around 3.30am one morning, when I was trying to go to sleep with an ear worm going round and round my brain,  that if someone with money and know-how doesn’t invent some sort of gadget or machine which will deliver an electric shock to a snoring husband,  the minute they start to snore too loud,  VERY SOON …  I’ll bally well do it, and I have just the person to test it on as well.

I love him like no one else, to the moon and back a gazillion times plus tax,   but I swear that I won’t tickle him next time to stop him snoring  roaring and rumbling like a lion,  I’ll buy a new bed just for me and put it in the spare room …. along with a lock on the door so that he can’t come and find me.   I’ll just stick a note on the outside of the door saying …  Do Not Disturb.  🙂

I had a trick which worked until four nights ago, when it stopped working.

You can try it if you have a snorer…  Imagine that you’re tut tut tut tutting a cat or a dog by kind of pulling your tongue off the roof of your mouth, quickly, over and over. You can do it softly, or you can do it loudly.  It’s supposed to work with around three tuts.  But I always found it took four or five loudish tuts.  It’s a sound which brings a sleeping snorer just up to the surface (but doesn’t actually wake them up) and stops them snoring.  And it worked brilliantly, but sadly it doesn’t work any longer. 

So … someone better invent the electric shock thing soon.  I swear to dog that they’ll make mega bucks from it.

Well, I’ve learned a lot this week.  phew!

So … what about you?  Have you learned anything that you’d like to share with us all?  Oh … and how long does it take you to shower and wash your hair?  Don’t guess the time, because I did that and was totally wrong.  Time yourself…  then come back and tell me.  We’ll compare notes.

Sending you loving wishes for a wonderful Friday, and hoping that your weekend is filled with peace and love.

Be nice to each other.

 

 

 

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It’s a Beautiful Day! Listen, and you’ll hear it.

I came across this song/video on YouTube by accident (I was actually looking for a song from an advertisement) – and I’m so glad that I found this because it’s so lovely. I began singing it the moment the music stopped and haven’t stopped singing it yet – 21 hours later!

I thought I’d share it with you. Let me know if you end up singing it and having an ear worm wriggling around your brain too. LOL. 😀

I’ll Rope You A Star ~ a handmade, little stars, Wand.

Did you know … that a Wand isn’t in the least bit magical?  It can’t do a thing.  It has absolutely NO power. NOTHING.  Let me explain more . . .

All a wand actually is,  is a ‘tool’ on which to focus your attention.  Believe me, if wands themselves really could do ‘stuff’ all on their own, I certainly wouldn’t collect the pretty wands which I do! (or any other sort of wand for that matter!).

Let me take you back to your school days.    Imagine for a moment that you’re sat in the classroom, and you’re giggling and whispering with the girl next to you.  Suddenly the teacher’s voice BOOMS out, and shouts your name!  You look up and see him standing there, with a cross face,  hands on hips.  He looks right at you,  gives you a stern telling off and tells you that you’re disrupting his class.

Embarrassing eh?

Now let’s replay that scene again . . . 

The teacher’s voice  BOOMS  out, and shouts your name!  You look up and see your teacher standing there pointing his index right at you.  He’s looking very cross.  Looking directly at you but still pointing his finger at you, shaking it the merest amount, he raises his voice and tells you off, – all the time he’s doing this he continues to point that finger at you.

Can you see (and feel)  how much more ‘menacing’ the whole scene becomes simply because he’s pointing his finger at you?

That finger doesn’t have anything magical about it, and yet it seems to hold so much more ‘power’.

That’s exactly the same as a wand.  All a finger pointing at you is doing is focusing your attention.  (and the person who’s pointing at you’s attention).  A wand is exactly the same thing.   It just focus’ the attention.

Well now I’ve blathered on about how wands don’t have any power, you can perhaps now understand why they don’t ‘freak’ me out, and even why I love to make pretty, magical to the eye, wands!   And this  ‘Rope a Star’ wand is magical to the eye.

The inspiration for this wand came from my childhood.  My mother used to tell me a poem, song, or story (I sadly can’t remember which) when I was little, but I do remember that I loved it.  Sadly I cannot remember what the story, song, poem was – and my mother has passed on, so I can’t ask her about it – but I remember a line from it which went something like:  ‘I’ll throw a rope out and rope a star just for you’ …  and that line conjured up such wonderful images inside my little mind,  and it still does now.

So I decided that I would throw a rope out and rope a star –  but this time I’d make mine a rope which wrapped itself around a wand, and the stars would hang from the wand itself.

There are little silver stars which dangle from lot’s of places on the wand, and there’s a crescent moon with stars hanging from the heel of the wand (at the top end as you’re looking at it in the photo.  The ribbon and star cuff around the top of the wand is removable.

Over the years I’ve tried to find the poem, song or story which mentions this ‘roping in a star’ and I’ve never found it.  But if you happen to know it or know where to find it, I’d be thrilled if you could either let me know or pop a link into a comment so that I could go and find it.

Have a truly blessed rest of your day, all,  . . .  and a fabulously twinkly, star lit night. 

There’s a Hundred Thousand Angels by your side.

I first found this incredible, hauntingly beautiful,  stunningly peaceful song about ten years ago.  Sung by Lucinda Drayton, of Bliss.  (Lucinda Drayton (vocals) and Andrew Blisset (Keyboards),  are: ‘Bliss’).  I’d recently lost someone and was in a place of numb anguish and hand wringing, heart breaking, continual pain, but to outsiders I looked perfectly fine.  We get better at playing ‘pretend’ the older we get, don’t we?.  From the moment I heard this song I never forgot that lyric,  and once you’ve heard it, you won’t forget it either.  Be you a believer or not.

Over the years I’ve shared this song with so many people and all of them have gone on to find the CD and own the music themselves.  I found myself urged this evening to go online and find the music to share it here.

It’s not loud – (there are no loud parts, no crashing, no banging, no drums)  –  so if you have your speakers set low,  maybe turn them up a tad or you’ll likely miss the beginning of the song.  I find the best way to listen to it is:   close your eyes, sit back in your chair,  relax,  and allow the song open up for you. 

Sleep well, dear reader.

 

With love ~