I've gone off...

the blogging boil.

All of a sudden my posts seem...

well not to put too fine a point on it...

trite!

This week has been a strange one,

Tuesday, I took a much loved elderly neighbour

to have his eye injection.

The 'specialist' I use the term loosely,

was so busy telling the nurse about her wonderful

holiday that she without a care just

wanged the injection into his eye...

'Owwww!'

'How many fingers am I holding up?'

'I can't even see your hand, let alone fingers!

he replied.

More drops went into his eye...

'Now how many?'

'Ditto!!!'

She then proceeded to put her finger

over the eye and rub it in a circular motion.

To disperse the fluid into the place it was

intended for?

What do I know?  I'm just an ordinary woman,

not one swathed head to toe in fabric

with only my face showing!

Isn't Assad an eye specialist as well?

Of dozens and dozens of eye injections this

was by far the most painful.

My lovely man is a sprightly eighty three

with a seriously ill wife at home.

Then on Wednesday it was my birthday.

Yesterday I went up to Kings College

Hospital with a friend whose husband had just had

an operation to drain a bleed in his head.

Kings College Hospital is where 

Simon was given the news that he only had

months to live.

So for me it was going to be a toughy.

No worries...

I'm a big toughy- teflon-toffo!

On the train a young woman half a carriage away

answered her phone,

as I looked, all the while thinking

bloody phones!

I watched as she dissoved into tears.

Leaving my friend, I set off down the carriage

where people sat reading their papers,

completely unconcerned.

Touching her lightly on the shoulder

I asked if she needed some help.

She said through the tears that

the call had been from the hospital to

say get there as quick as you can

your husband is dying.

We were on a train with eight stops to go!

I hugged her as she told me about his brain tumour,

which she said was a secondary cancer.

The words poured out as she talked me through the ghastly tale.

Her one year old son had the day before been running a high

temperature and she wanted to get home to him.

'If only they'd told me my husband was dying, I would have stayed!'

Still our fellow travellers carried on trying it seemed, not to notice.

'As soon as we reach the station, give me your coffee and run.'

That was the last I saw of her.

That beautiful young woman with her whole life

in front of her, has been on my mind ever since...

was she on time to be with him when he died?

As my friend and I walked out of the station,

both of us wondering what to expect with her husband:

I got a tap on the shoulder.

'You were meant to be in that carriage today

for that lovely young woman!'

That lady was also going to see her husband in neuro-critical care.

Four women,

four different ages and times.

Picture the Saturday scene...

Boudicca arrives home...

on foot...
from the pub,

on foot?

Yes, you read it right...

on frigging foot!

She had a flat in her chariot wheel

(offside)

This weekend has seen her deep

in the regionals, her own not

withstanding.

Essex girl (well nearly) Dartford actually...

so she's technically Kentish.

Friday found her discoursing in her
very best estuary accent with

Georgie neighbours.

Saturday...

fluent Brummagem.

She's nothing if not multi-lingual.
There's many things that make her come over all
peculiar, and regional accents are one.
Don't you just love'em?

A bustling pub set in the Kent countryside,

where cousins of the world unite were

holding their bi-yearly shin-dig.

Pints were sunk, wine flowed and the talk

ranged far and wide.

If there's one thing she loves,
when not out with knives
flashing, cutting all men to the quick
with her repartee:
she does enjoy a catch-up with
her adopted family.

Leonard Cohen...

In my world is like Marmite.
It seems to me, you either love him or hate him.
I've always been of the latter,
not hate exactly, because I try not.

I've always said in my best no-nothing
way, his music is the one to slash your wrists to.

I ought to own up here,
that I am the first to say
 when child or person says

'I don't like that!'

'Have you actually tried it?'

'Err, no, but I know I'm not going to like it!'

I am that person about Leonard Cohen.
The minute I hear his voice I instantly
turn the radio off.

Well that is until today when I've
avidly read this article

'Two people with one mind'

Cohen by his own admission has suffered a
'lifetime's relentless depression.'
So I wasn't so far off in my thinking.

After reading the article I decided that perhaps
I'd been hasty in my reaction to the man and his music.
I played snippets of the tracks of the album on itunes.
His voice I'm afraid I still can't get on with;
he makes Rod Stewart sound positively
mellifluous.
Her voice on the other hand is achingly
wistfully wonderful.

Her debut solo album 
'Everybody Knows'
I am definitely buying.

Leonard, I did try
and I'm afraid my thoughts and feelings stay the same.

I'd be interested on your take on
the man and his music?

Shocking revelation in

today's paper...

the headlines screamed...

'Most of women's

holiday clothes return

unworn!'

This is news...

broadsheet to boot?

Over the years

we have been very, very fortunate

to travel to many exotic faraway

places in the world.

And with just the exception of the Artic,

where packing Liberty

bodices and big thick knicks in

hand luggage is taking

the fleecy-lined Michael. 

We have latterly only ever taken

carry on luggage...

'Ooh Matron!'

The joy, when you swan off the plane

and head straight out is

not to put too fine a point on it...

Amazing,

especially on the trip home.

Outward journey; you then have to wait

for the others also booked for 

paradise.

Smug is the look that

is writ large on your chops,

as you peel off the sexy

flight socks and let it all hang out.

Books are by far the weightiest

items in my case.

Shifts, swimsuits,

Isambard Kingdom Brunel strength brassieres, 

knickers and sandals.

Is all this 'girl' needs.

Before you say what about a kindle?

What about a Kindle?

I got it into my head that electronic

books are full of the

Reader's Digest condensed finest.

That went out of the window in

short order...

I'm nothing if not dogmatic.

Professor Karen Pine, 

a researcher in development psychology said...

women yearn for home comforts whilst away.

'They over-pack to cope with those feelings of stress

 and reduce the uncertainty.'

Uncertainty?

Yer, right: like the sort of uncertainty...
 as to whether to wear

the spangly bikini or the burka?

Drink bubbles, Breezers or Adam's ale?

If this is to be believed then men

must pack chisels and hammers

in order to not feel their

DIY skills will depart at the speed

that they sink Tiger beer.

The tramp and the...

cat.

A sorry tale.

The cat was a very important puffed up

individual.

Always preening and yowling

about her lot in life.

Claws to die for, and some had. 

The lightening flash of her paw and the spit of her venom,

enough for all comers to admit defeat and

high-tail it off at speed.

South paw, north paw,

paws at dawn:
pause for thought?

Her body showed the scars of many a 

furry fight. 

Her patch was sacrosanct.

No toms entered here...

unless with her

specific invitation.

Their intentions were

vetted and cross-checked.

No extra-marital caterwauling

in the dead of night.

She was above such carrying-ons.

An alley cat made good.

All in her world was going well

until that fateful day,

when out of the corner of her

jade green cats eye,

she spied a very

moth-eaten looking excuse for

a member of the feline fraternity.

Along with the drawbridge, her hackles were raised. 

Regally she peered out surveying her defences.

Out, out, OUT!

she shrieked.

Good money was spent to

ensure her breeches were not...

well... breached.

Over the days, she got a better look 

at this thin, scraggy looking excuse for

a puss.

'You can say one thing for him, he certainly is brave!'

she thought.

But wait...

Followed hard-on, by

'Brave or just plain desperate?'

The cannon was repositioned,
the artillery lined up in readiness.
Huffilly she harrumphed and lay in wait.
Fleeting glimpses were seen as the poor beast
skiddaddled away at the merest of vibrations of her passing.

Inside her cold, hard heart, something was stirring.

'He's moth eaten, he's manky, probably mangy,
he's hungry, he's unloved, lost and
far from home!'
These thoughts bubbled up from deep
inside.

***

The tramp was like so many before him...
down on his luck,
when with spotty hankie on a stick
he spied a very commodious abode.
A long ancient hedge with many
nooks and crannies.
The garden where chilled out
blackbirds stretched their wings
to absorb the sun's rays...
A tasty snacklet if ever there was one.
Cushy billet in a green house when the
nights turn cold.
Even a shower if you trod a certain path.

George Seagull had arrived...
or so he thought!

The big green eyed catwoman had other ideas.

'It's not that I don't like cats, it's just that 
I can't commit.

It's not that I don't like cats, it's just that
I don't like what they do the the birds.

It's not that I don't like cats, it's just that
I don't like harvesting cat crap instead of carrots!

Not unreasonable is it?

Added to which I have a very elderly dog
who likes cats even less than I do!'

She hates feeling this way...
just what is a contrary cat to do?

A killer line...

I've always had a way with words.
A killer one-liner is what I love,
not only issuing out of my rosebud lips either!

Over lunch with the family on Sunday
 my WDinL Claire said...

'Centre of attention that's where 
you're happiest!'

It's a Leo thing, Leos do 
tend to be larger than life...
well that's my excuse.

And do you know something...
I think she's blooming well
right!

Last time they were here,
I was really getting in the zone
talking about one of Lettice's poos.
Even going to the trouble of, with hand on the sofa
making the circles of the offending item,
which I was likening to a
Walnut Whip.
Boy was I having fun!
Well that is until...
Claire looked up from her
never-ending knitting:
she's knitting a scarf for the great wall of China.
That gives you a mere sensation of the 
scale of the projects she undertakes.
Talking of undertakes...
thinks...
'I'll get her to knit me a shroud, when the time comes!'

She stopped; the world fell silent, and
out of her mouth came the immortal words...
'You need to get out more Linda!'
Well laugh, I never thought my drawers would dry.

Anyway I digress...

This is my lovely dad...

and me.

Alright I know you've seen this photo
before, however the reason I've chosen this is
to illustrate my story.

We had a lovely dog called Poppet,
which Dad would hold up like this and say
'Who is the best looking?'
Coz Chris and I, at about the age I am in the
photograph would scream...
'Poppet, Poppet, Poppet! 

This little charade would go on for
what seemed like years,
until the last fateful day when
I replied...
'Even arse-upwards she'd still win!'
Needless to say that went down in our family
folklore.

Dad never did it again...
Can't for the life of me think why?

A day at the races...

flesh to the fore...

young fillies

old nags,

flab and flubber

muscles and tone

thighs to crack a walnut.

All forms of human life were

on the Knavesmire

to run the York 10k.

Not a horse in sight!

Putin in training for when he eventually 
leaves office

Sunday early morn in Kent;

first train out to London.

I was on a mission.

Those of the folk that have the misfortune to 

know me, are all too aware I do love a surprise.

Aaron was running, and what's a mum

to do when her only child is competing?

Don't get me wrong, I'm anything but a

gooey-wooey mother.

Battle-axey, more like.

First light found me catching our local 

Sunday equivalent of the milk train.

Kings Cross... 
first train to York 9 am.
Compartments tin-tight with

Oriental sardines
 off to the Edinburgh Festival...

First stop York...

Flying out of the station,
the tide of red faces tottering home,

sort of told me, I was a tad too late!

The race was in its dying stages.

These were the elite runners,

keen for the train to do the puffing.

as in the days of John Betjeman

it surely would.

As I arrived at the finish line,

the unfit were breasting the tape.

My phone beeped...

'I've done it!'

Sent half an hour before.

Too late!

Pounding the streets,

over the Ouse to find them.

Another text...

'Shall we make the lunch booking for five?'

'Already done!'

was my two word reply as 

I turned into their road.

What's a girl to do?

When, is a surprise, a surprise?

I'm all at sea now.

After a superb family lunch,

I was back on a third-full early train home.

A good day...

But wait...

The train slowed,

stopping at St. Neots.

The guard announced that

 we might be delayed

by two hours, two hours?

When only half an hour from London.

How could that be?

There was a collective groan from the carriage. 

A person had been hit by the train ahead of ours.

'We are unlocking the doors to allow

 you out to stretch your legs!'

Obviously by the smoke coming from the platform

to allow those who do, to puff to their

hearts content, or not, as the case may be?

I got out to phone home.

It really winds me up people talking on the phone

in railway carriages.

I do have a loud voice, due to years of

public speaking, well that's my excuse.

Others might have a different take on it!

Imagine Brain Blessed in drag...

that dear readers is me.

They re-opened the buffet.

I smugly walked down the train

on the platform, thinking

what a very clever idea LL!

Err... trouble with that was, I then had to

shimmy past the two carriage lengths of

people in the queue.

Not so smug now!

Small bottle of Chilean wine,

bag of crisps and a good book.

I was content in my little corner of

the carriage.

Other folk not so!

Spare a thought for the poor

body on the line, kept bubbling up in my

mind, as folk muttered and cracked funnies.  

I was late back last night,

happy to be home safe and well.

Incy Wincy Spider...

 I crept down

to find Lettice cowering in the bathroom.

The growling god of Thor,

rumbled and grumbled across the sky;

accompanied by the flashes of his mistress's thighs...

Frack me! Her power as she flashed, 

would leave the Energy minister

out of a job.

A brazen hussy, worldly wise and full of 

her electric magnetism.

We sat the dog and I,

two lost souls in the sea of doggy fear.

Ted arrived, minutes later.

'Tea for two at two?'

I enquired.

As we sat, the storm rumbled away.

All doors to manual,

the breeze through, refreshed and renewed.

It was then I spied, in the gloom and  cooling air.

A spider, not one, but three waiting... in a row.

'Those wire flowers have done that

to you before! It's only the centres that you see!'

Arachnids in line in the 
half light... but wait... 

This morning the flower spiders

had a friend.

In the past I've written about my love of spiders.

I even had a pet spider who chose to live in 

the window in the kitchen.

I found him dead in the sink the

days just after Simon died.

When we go away for any length

of time I always put a towel over the bath

as a means of escape if one fell in.

In my utility room, which closely 

resembles Steptoe's yard, I carefully

drape string into each mug, glass, vase, jug

and bowl, for the very same reason.

Spiders are never killed in this house.

It comes in part from

my lovely mum

who always said...

'If you want to live and thrive,

always let a spider run alive!'
I always have...
in her memory...
She died aged 48.
Some might question her belief
in the saying.
Me, I can't kill anything...
however...
Some politicians I could
oh so easily knife.
Not the same though is it?