What I’ve learned this week . . .

Dear Diary . . . (and fabulous readers)

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 cats visited 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  our  my 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.   She was 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 towards her.

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 meeooaawwl  growling, 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 learned that 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!

 

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What I’ve Learned This Week.

Hello you!  Aw I’m so thrilled to see you here, thank you so much for coming.  I could do with a cheery friend with a smiling face.  Fancy a coffee?  Tea?  You sit down at the table and I’ll pour us a drink.  Help yourself to biscuits!

So … you’re here to find out what I’ve learned this week aren’t you?  Well… I’d better make a start then!

This week I seem to have spent ages crying over one thing or another.  Things I’ve seen on the news.  A programme about a footballer whose wife had passed on (from Cancer), leaving him and three children.  (wept several times during that programme).  I cried hot tears for the Liberian children in West Africa, and all of the children living in poverty around the world, when I watched one of our annual big fund-raisers – Comic Relief – on TV.  (I donated.  Like I wouldn’t?).   Oh … and other things had me in tears … some of them piffling little things and then others which weren’t in the least bit piffling,  but I’m not going to list and share them because if I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster, I don’t want to put you on one as well!  eek!

I’ve learnt that just as I sit down to visit ‘my reader’  (a wonderful device on WordPress,  where all the blogs a person follows, with all the latest blog posts, are all listed out for them on one continuous page!) …  and have a look at all the blogs I follow and leave comments or likes etc….  it’s right at that VERY moment that the phone rings; or the door knocks; or it’s time for lunch/dinner/something/or other.  And I think I’m now so far behind on all the fabulous people’s blogs I follow, that I’ll never catch up ever again!  But … I’m trying.  I really am.  So bear with me if I haven’t been to your blog yet…  I’ll be getting there very soon.

I’ve learned this week ….  rather a lot about Octopuses.  (… not Octopi.  Octopuses is the preferred plural).

People of the world who watch the news (and especially those who love football)  for sure will remember that eight-tentacled seer – Paul the Octopus – who was used to predict football scores during the World Cup in 2010.  Yes?  Well for those who don’t know or would like a reminder … here’s a very short video of Paul, choosing the final ‘winner’ (in his opinion) …

During the 2010 World Cup, the cephalopod pundit, living in a German  Sea-life centre was SO accurate in his forecasting that he became an international headline.  He got nine out of ten matches in that tournament SPOT ON!  When it came to predicting a football winner, this little chap was amazing.

Now before I go any further …  I’m not a football fan.  Not even a teeny bit.  In fact I dislike it so much that I can’t be in the same room as a television which is broadcasting it.  The noise, the roar of the crowd, the wails and ‘woo hoos’,  I can’t bear it.  (Now you see why I have a craft room   🙂   lol).

Anyhoo …back to Paul..  There were, of course, people who said when Paul fished a tasty mussel out of a box which was ‘wearing’ the flag of one of the football teams who were in a forthcoming match, it was just coincidence that he picked the winner.

However they couldn’t have been more wrong.  An Australian philosopher, Peter Godfrey-Smith had detailed his own opinion of the Octopus, and upon reading it, it soon becomes clear that Paul was no ‘one-off’.   Godfrey-Smith told of one captive octopus that lived in a laboratory tank.  He said that they are very particular about their diet.  They like crab, eased fresh from the shell.

In this experiment, a researcher had been feeding captives chunks of frozen squid.  One day, as she made her way down the row of tanks, the scientist’s noticed one of the Octopuses in the tanks.

“It had not eaten its squid, but was holding it up conspicuously,” Godfrey-Smith writes.  “As she stood there, the octopus made its way slowly across the tank to the outflow pipe, watching her all the way.  Then, still watching her, it dumped the bit of squid down the drain”.

She wasn’t impressed with the food in that restaurant, that’s for sure!

credit:  Getty Images

An octopus has no bones,  its bone-free body can be ‘re-made’ to fit the space available, and its skin –  (and this might surprise you) – can see!  An octopus’ skin is rippling with little receptors that react to light and allow it to navigate its way around the depths of the ocean, changing colour as it goes.

Sadly, these fascinating, cunning, clever creatures don’t live much past the age of two.  And this is why no one ever saw Paul back on the footballers seats, prophesising who was going to win the next match.  Paul passed away shortly after the end of the football tournament in 2010 which made him famous world-wide.  A fabulous one season wonder.

More about Professor Godfrey Smith and Octopuses, along with a photograph of the man himself, can be found on the following link,  which will open in another window for you:-   Harvard Gazette – Thinking like an octopus

So .. what else did I learn? . . .

Ohhh… I learned this, about the Prime Minister’s Residence, at number 10 Downing Street,  here in the United Kingdom…

It is only since Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister in 1902 that the Prime Minister has been expected to live at No. 10.  Only one former Prime Minister has ever died there:  Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who resigned as Prime Minister on the 3rd April 1908 but was too ill to move and died 19 days later.  His last words were: ‘This is not the end of me.’

10 Downing Street is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Britain. The front door cannot be opened from the outside because it has no handle, and no one can enter the building without passing through an airport-style scanner and a set of security gates manned by armed guards.  However, in the first five years after Tony Blair became Prime Minister,  37 computers,  four mobile phones,  two cameras,  a mini-disc player,  a video recorder,  four printers,  two projectors  and a  bicycle  were stolen from the building.  (Not sure what that says about who  …  Tony Blair or his staff.  [gulp])  lol

Ohh, and you’ll never guess what I learned about…. Potatoes!

Genetic testing has proved a single origin for potatoes,  – in the area of southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia where they were domesticated between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Potatoes were taken outside the Andes region about four centuries ago and now they are the world’s fourth-largest food crop, after maize, wheat and rice

Following centuries of selective breeding there are now about 5,000 different varieties of potatoes.

Now let’s see…  there was something else I know I learned, and really wanted to share with you … what the divil was it? .. OH …  TIME TRAVEL!  Now pay attention you lot at the back.  This is good stuff!

According to General Relativity, everything in the Universe is played out on a stage that has three dimensions of space and one of time.  This space-time is warped by the mass and energy of the Universe’s contents.  Theoretically a large enough concentration of mass or energy can distort time so much that it folds back on itself like a crumpled sheet. 

These folds were described by Kurt Gödel in 1949 and are known as ‘closed time-like curves’.  They ought, at least in theory, to allow us to revisit past moments in history by using an idea developed in 1988 by Kip Thorne and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, who showed that tunnels through space-time (wormholes), would allow time travel by taking a shortcut from one fold to the next.

There are still plenty of obstacles to time-travelling through wormholes. Not least is the fact that the only wormholes we can possibly make with present-day technology are tiny: only subatomic particles would be small enough to travel through them. 

I learned more about Time Travel …. but I’ll save it until next week.  I don’t want to explode your brain!  (ohhh the very thought!).

So …  this is how much more educationamalised I am this week.  You know … I’m seriously beginning to wonder where I’m storing all this stuff, and how much of the other stuff is being shifted out.  What if something really important is being thrown over-board, like …  my address, or my name?  How will I know what to tell the Police if I get lost?  “What’s your name?”  I dunno!  “Where do you live?”  Don’t know that either …. but I can tell you something about potatoes which might thrill you!   Don’t laugh … it could happen!

But anyhoo …  we have now come to that time where you sit back,  get comfortable … and I slay you with some jokes.  Well … perhaps not slay you exactly …  perhaps ‘tickle your chuckle muscle’.  …  Are you ready??  Ok, lets go!

The Jokes

I went to a karaoke bar last night that didn’t play any 70’s music…
at first I was afraid,  I was petrified!

❤

My doctor thinks I’m taking hallucinogenic drugs… how do I know?  … let’s just say a little bird told me.

❤

My dad has a weird hobby; he collects empty bottles…  which sounds so much better than “alcoholic.”

❤

My husband and I decided we don’t want children;  . . .  so if someone wants them, we’ll drop them off tomorrow.

❤

What do you call a line of men waiting for a haircut? . . .   A barberque!

❤

What do you call a train loaded with toffee?  . . .   A chew chew train.

❤

What’s round and bad tempered?  . . .  A vicious circle.

❤

and finally . . .

I don’t think I got the job at Microsoft  . . .    they didn’t respond to my telegram.  😀

Thank you so much for coming and having a coffee moment with me.

I hope you have a beautiful Friday, and that tomorrow doesn’t catch you by surprise  …..  (in case you hadn’t noticed … tomorrow is April Fools Day!).  May you find some more smiles to add to those you’ve just found, and I hope both today, and your whole weekend, are truly blessed.

May the winds be soft, the rain be somewhere else, and may your heart and mind work together as one.

Be good to each other and  . . .  may your God go with you.

Squidges ~

 

Things I’ve Learned This Week

Welcome, dear readers, to the Friday Postcard from the land of Cobwebs, where you learn about the lessons life has taught me in the past week.

Without further ado, I’m going to plunge you straight into the shallow pool in which I paddle…..

I’ve learnt that it’s bloomin’ annoying when they suddenly take my hair shampoo off sale and instead bring out a NEW, IMPROVED variety, without any warning.  Had they put out a notification that they were going to do this, I would have gone and bought up as many bottles as possible and kept them in storage, for use whenever I needed it.  I’m now left with yet another seek and find operation to find a shampoo which doesn’t make my hair hang like it’s suffering with a bad bout of depression, or my head itch or burn. Or any number of combinations.  Why do companies do this?  It’s most impolite!

I learnt this week (and this one surprised the heck out of me)  that (last year) the Hershey Company of the USA had British Chocolate made by Cadbury BANNED in the USA, and because of that two of the biggest importers of Cadbury Chocolate were no longer allowed import and sell the British Chocolate within the USA.

The Hershey Company banned (yes banned) Cadbury Chocolate from the USA!  No I couldn’t believe this either so went in search of the truth.  Turned out … it was true….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcVpp0fGETM

Now I have a handful of friends who were born and bred in the USA and they all love British Chocolate.    So I hope that they will continue to be able to find what they desire.  However … a certain blogger – Chicken Grandma – will (next week) get her first taste of Walnut Whips which I’ve posted to her.  If she loves them … I want her to be able to seek and find them so that she can keep up her supply.  😉

I’ve learned that  when I’m not feeling too well,  I really, really should stop what I’m doing and just let my body heal itself in its own time, and not push my luck.  Because pushing my luck ends up costing me more days of not being too well.  So give in, give up and go to bed.  That’s the rule I’m going to go by from now on.

I learned the hard way that when I see some crafty item or another, and I fall in lurve with it, I should think carefully about whether I should buy two or three packs at the time …  because that store where you bought your item from, might just put the price up to double the price you paid just two days earlier, once it finds out that crafters really, really like this item and want it on their Christmas cards!  DOUBLE THE PRICE IN JUST A COUPLE OF DAYS!  What a liberty!  Grrrr!  😦

I realised (so I guess I learned this about myself this week) that I no longer take myself as seriously as I did when I was younger.  I’ve found that I’m far more relaxed and more chilled now.  Things don’t bother me like they used to.  Appointments being cancelled … [shrugs] that’s ok.  Just make another one.  The store being out of stock of the item I travelled there just to buy ….  ah nevermind.  Find something else, or wait till they get it back in.  Nothing really gets me angry or mad any more.  I’m just the chilled out person I always knew I could be if I tried.  Thing is … I’m not trying.  It just seemed to happen!

I’ve learned that no matter how serious your own life is,  everyone needs a friend to be silly with.  Someone you can just be silly with.  Harmlessly so.  Innocent fun.  Just regular silly stuff.  Someone to have a laugh or a giggle with.

I’ve learned that my 5-year-old Grandson, Little Cobs, is apparently  the Worlds Chief Fingernail  Superintendent, and if he feels that my nails are too long for any Grammy of his, then he’s going to tell me about it over and over until I get my nail scissors out and cut that nail to a length he finds acceptable.  (yes … this really did happen.  I josh you not!).

I’ve learnt that Mr. Cobs and I are going to have to resort to trickery to get Little Cobs out of the house when he comes every Saturday for the day.  His daddy drops him off with us, and the moment that front door closes, we cannot get him to come out with us in the car at all.  He just doesn’t want to leave the house, not for weeks on end now – he’ll take his bike out into the garden and race around that, but that’s as far as it goes.

And … we think we may have figured out why.  He knows that if he goes out in Grammys car, it could be that we’re taking him home.  Soooo he might think that we’ll take him home if we go out, soooo …  we’re going to swap things around.  We’re going to pack a winter picnic in the car, then instead of Daddy dropping him off, we’ll instead go there and collect him from daughter and son-in-law’s home….  then we’ll go take him somewhere for this picnic (if it’s too cold to eat outdoors, then we’ll sit in the car and eat it).  Then afterwards we can do something outside.  Something fun.  Even just kicking a ball around the park with Grandad or even something like a hunt for treasure on the beach (if the sun is out).  Anything, just to get him outside having a bit of fun.

And finally ….

I’ve learned that the obnoxious smell which my dog can emit – particularly and only when her bottom is facing my way – be it in our bedroom, the living room or any other room – including my Craft Room (how very dare she)  …. might turn me green;  make me fall off my chair;  go into debt to buy sprays and expensive scented candles which will disguise the smell enough to stop me vomiting ….  but I’ve learned that I can actually live through them …. even when holding my breath and trying to make a hasty retreat to some other room where she can’t follow me!

Mr. Cobs let her eat what was left in one of our cats food dishes today which has caused her a windy pops problem  … and if he EVER does that again I’m going to either:-

A)  D.I.V.O.R.C.E him.  

B)  Cut his ‘pom poms’ off (yes we really do call them that ever since our youngest daughter asked us, when she was knee-high to an ant,  “Why does Daddy have pom poms and I don’t?”.   They’ve been ‘pom poms ever since.      … or 

C)  Shave all his hair off while he’s blissfully snoring the night away.

Be Warned, Cobs The Bogey Man!  Be Warned!.

Well … that’s a list of all the lessons life has taught me in the last seven days.  Or rather … it’s the ones I can remember.   So what about you?  Have you learned anything this week?  Has life taught you the secrets of how to stay forever young?  Win the lottery?  Be forever as beautiful as you are right now?  What?  C’mon, share what lessons you’ve learned this week.

If they’re tough lessons which require us all to gather around you and hug you … then we will.

If they’re lessons which require us to laugh  … then we’ll do that easily.

But if they’re lessons that we can learn from, then we’ll willingly all sit in silence as you tell us what we need to know so that we don’t make that same mistake.

If you’ve learnt nothing at all this week … then for goodness sake tell us your favourite joke!  We all need to laugh far more than we do.  So come on…  share your best joke with us!

Sending oodles of squidges from my corner to yours. ~

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