Random Thoughts on 2018 in...

no particular order.
Living by the sea is a dream, however as with most things the dream and reality are odd bedfellows.

I have stopped my weekend glasses of wine. Interestingly I haven’t missed them. 

Lost all faith in politicians of every sort.  I no longer believe a word any of them are saying.

Meditation has brought about an air of calmness in amongst all the angst of moving, Audrey, who is dying, rallying, dying.

My blood pressure isn’t under control, even with all the walking, pill-popping. We eat a very well balanced diet; even this lunchtimes soup had ten veg in it, yes, TEN!  Alright all left-overs... but still!

I desperately want a rescue dog. Christmas saw me plough through seventy pages of the Dogs Trust web site.  I know now isn’t the time but certainly when we finally get to Ludlow.  Hubs will have been gently, oh so gently worked on.  Mind you I did get him to promise faithfully when our much loved dog died, no matter how much I whinge and moan we would never get another dog.
This is her...

I sense he is weakening, everso 
slowly!

The threadbare fairy wishes you a...

Happy Christmas!
These are the Christmas cards I sent this year.
2018, an interesting year for me, like the curate’s egg... good in parts.

The good I have taken from this year is to slow down, meditate and hand sew ‘odd’ things (strangely calming: weird or what?)  My health was suffering from being all things to all men.  Or at least trying to be!  
The meditation has brought about changes that I can hardly believe.
I feel evangelical about it.  
Try it!
Have a super Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.

Lettice leaf

Call me an old...

cynic, I don’t care!

This year’s mincemeat is decidedly gloopy.  On closer inspection as to the ingredients.  Sugar is the first ingredient, no surprise there, closely followed by apple purée, the villain of the peace.  A relatively inexpensive addition.  This sleight of hand is going on all around us, with less tissues in a box.  One pack less of crisps in a multi pack.  Lighter weight than before, need I go on? 

Now some might say 

‘Well LL is a chefette so why doesn’t she make her own mincemeat?’

Home made mincemeat in my book doesn’t taste the same.  Added to which I am far too busy allowing hubs to peel me the odd grape or two.

Shamefaced I have just read Sue’s
blog ‘Cottage at the end of the Lane’ (on my side bar) and low and
 behold there are two delicious recipes for mincemeat.  Too late for this year, however I am making an old year’s resolution to make my own next year.  Thanks Sue!
Oh, and I had better tack on a rider of not being such a miserable grump!?!
This paragraph was added this morning to the post ready to go for today.
Where is your spirit of Christmas
Lettice Leaf?

Do the supermarkets honestly think we the consumers haven’t twigged just exactly what they are doing?

Take us for fools at your cost says I an ex-Waitrose customer.

Those that know me...

are fully aware I don’t do dusting.  I am a top show girl, you know the sort, grey bra originally white, knickers where the elastic has lost the will to stretch, all topped of with designer clothes (that bit is a fib).
I am now at home for Christmas and I am happy.  Yesterday I was out all day delivering my food parcels.  Where this desire to feed folk comes from I have no idea?  My baking, preserves, jams and chutneys go nationwide.  Probably Freud would have field day on the reasons why?
Me, I just don’t care, it makes me  feel all warm and  fuzzy inside, so in my book a win-win.
I am now cosy indoors setting the scene for a quiet Christmas.
We will of course get out walking, but my determination this year is to keep it low-key.  No turkey, just an organic ham and a wild mushroom and cashew nut wellington.  For years I was a vegetarian so I have leanings that way, only giving up when I lived a self sufficient life in the 
Highlands of Scotland.  Many moons ago I hasten to add.

This was the object of my dusting, not only was the dust removed the leaves were carefully wiped over with tepid water.
I think I best go and have a lie-down I’ve come over all unnecessary!

You have to...

use you imagination here... okay?

Lady Docker-like I swept up the stairs of the near empty bus.

Alright I know Lady Docker to my knowledge would never in all her born natural have ever graced the top of a bus.  In order to enter into the scene, picture yours truly parked beside the only other couple on the bus... in the front seats obviously!

Graciously I said to the bored looking husband of the woman yacking on her phone.
‘Do you mind if we join you in driving the bus?’
Oddly he looked at me and reluctantly agreed, maybe it was the mink coat?
The daughter on the end of his wife’s phone was as bored with her mother as were we.  Luckily the call ended in less than two stops... 
‘Must go Mum I’ve got to stuff the turkey!’
Being conscious of our carbon 
footprint we availed ourselves of our free bus passes and had a trip to Canterbury, Christmas shopping.
A list from Audrey... who is still with us... just!  My gifts and parcels have been sent, so it was quite a relaxed shopping trip.
A good day, with the return trip a one-off David Attenborough special of the raw, up close and personal school kids on the top of a bus.
Our eyes dazzled by the light of mobile phones, the interaction of kids sitting on the heads of 
others in order to get them to 
move seats, the noise.  In all of this we sat like an uninhabited island in the sea of techies at play.  The journey passed in a blink of an eye.  I was engrossed.
As I swept down the stairs a polite boy stepped back allowing me to exit ahead of the rabble.
Only fitting really, maybe it was the mink!?!

Hacked off from...

Hythe calling.

I am falling out of love with blogging.

Why? 

Because I now can’t answer the folk who take time out to comment. I wrote a lengthy comment to Going Gently John and zilch happened.

Why google have taken against me, I really have no idea?

Then I wonder if it is wise putting the minutiae of my boring life out for the world to see?

When all said and done as I sit doing this, life is passing me by.

I must be mad... what do you think?

Help...

I seem to have hit a snag answering the comments.

Google keeps asking me to sign in and then won’t let me comment.

The funny thing is I can do this?

Any ideas?  Is it me or the power that these giants wield?

This is what makes me feel really crabby with our reliance on the infernal contraptions!