Red Bandana Photo Phollies...

Me: Get over here, squirt. It's time to pose. Mom's got food. (Avalon: But I'm busy eating this new thing around my neck...)

By now, I'm sure you all know that The Porties are hosting "Bandana Day" on Thursday. Mom was incredibly late in sending our attempts at "wearing-red" photos to wilcoxhall@ymail.com. If you'd like to join in the merriment, hurry! Have your hoomans take a photo of you wearing red - it doesn't have to be a bandana, but you only have today and tomorrow to email those pics! I had a tough time making my sis try to get it together - she ruined my photoshoot totally. I am a mess - so not my usual perky look!

When she sat, I was looking away.
When I was focused on a mis-tossed cheerio, she had this weird look on her face. What's a good, big sister like me to do? She needs obedience, that's fur shore!
(Another note from Ma: sorry we haven't visited much lately - it's been a little chaotic around here, but we'll be back more regularly in a few weeks.)

Two Steps to...

Work on of one of the shrub beds revealed this beautiful and mysterious set of steps.



They are constructed of huge and very heavy Yorkstone slabs - they go nowhere, as far as we can tell.

They lead into the shrubbery then stop.

Huge, old shrubs and trees surround them and block the pathway.

Could they lead to another dimension?

They certainly don't lead through to the other side...

Are they leading up, or are they going down?

Are they hiding something?

Somewhere in the garden there is an old capped well - could this be it?

I doubt we shall ever know, but it is interesting to ponder.
Elsewhere in the garden the tulips are starting to come through - I planted these a few years ago and I still love their crazy colour scheme.

Amongst all my more sedate colour choices of pale pinks and lemons these tulips make an exuberant splash of colour which always makes me smile.It looks as though someone has splashed red paint all over yellow tulips.

Great Grandma and the Twins

My mama came down for a few days to see her new great granddaughters. I wish we lived closer so we could visit more often. We're five and a half hours apart. I am thankful that it's drivable in half a day, but one hour would be so much better; so would ten minutes! That's how close I live to Laurel, the twins' mother and my oldest daughter.
I think Laurel and her whole family will be going to the mountains sometime this fall for a vacation. They'll be going by my parents' house so Daddy can see them, too. He would have come down with Mama this time, but his shoulders hurt too much if he sits for that long.
I hope to get away for a few days myself this fall and have my annual get-away. I love my family but need time alone to plan, regroup, give myself some pep talks, read Scripture, and pray. It does a body good!

Rolling Stone and Gasoline

Moss doesn't grow fat on a rolling stone, and vines don't grow on a rolling automobile.
Such is not the case with my truck, though. I've been favoring the bicycle so much lately that viny vegetation from a nearby hedge started growing up my aerial.

The last time I bought gasoline for the truck was back in April. Since then I have driven 266 miles, using 14.6 gallons of gasoline.
At this rate, I am filling up my truck about four to five times a year, spending perhaps $120 - $150 a year.

Saint Andrew's Day sunrise

A frosty mist clears from the Royal Mile skyline as the sun rises on Saint Andrew's Day. To the left of the picture is the crown tower of St Giles Cathedral. In front of it a plume of smoke rises - someone in the New Town has sensibly got a fire going already.

Bike Hauler Home

The new bicycle hauler is FINALLY home. Its been a real pain (buying a car, not the performance of the car).
Last time I blogged about this, the dealership (Classic Chevrolet Cadillac) was trying to find another car. They refunded my deposit, apologized (the money should not have been deposited), and assured me they would find me a vehicle to my liking.
Last Monday, they advised me they found a silver Impala with the options I wanted. They inspected my old Impala for trade-in value.
Tuesday evening I received e-mail from the sales gal. I needed to come in to finalize the purchase - Wednesday. Had to be that afternoon (because she did not come into work until 2pm).
More frustration. I came in, she went through the $$$. It did not match my internet generated invoice (but at least it was in my favor). The big problem was that the trade-in was not listed. The Manager was not in because of a family emergency. Took them over 30 minutes to 1) start reworking the trade-in estimate and 2) call the manage and find out where the estimate was.
I had a min and max value in mind. They came almost in the middle of the range from keep the old car vs trade it in. Sales gal was pushing to get the deal signed. I was getting more frustrated. Left to cool down, clear my head. Back Thursday to sign paperwork.
From there, over to the bank. They told me it would take 3-4 hours to prepare the loan paperwork. Further, the bank officers I was working with was not in that day. Told them I would be back Friday morning when they opened.
Friday morning signed loan paperwork and delivered the check to the dealership. My sales gal was not in that day. I told another salesman that I had been also working with that I would be in shortly after 9am Saturday to take delivery.
Saturday at breakfast my phone rang (but I did not hear it). At the dealership I was advised that the car was not in yet. The truck is supposed to bring it in SOMETIME Saturday in time for me to pick it up.
I was pulling into the driveway at home when the phone rang - my car was in. Back into town. Finally took delivery of my new Impala about 11am.

Night in the Tropics

My tropical garden at night during the month of October.

The Company of Good Books

"What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings." The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge

I immediately knew what she meant when I read the paragraph above. Sometimes when I'm weary of life's clatter and noise, I retreat with a favorite author who feels very comfortable without requiring anything of me. I don't usually long for the comfort of favorite book characters as I do favorite authors. Some writers just give me a good feeling and take me to places I long for.

Some favorite authors that I reach for over and over again are Elizabeth Goudge, D.E. Stevenson, Pat Conroy, Jane Austen, Rosamunde Pilcher, Miss Read, Patrick Taylor, George MacDonald, and Anthony Trollope.

The places I usually like to retreat to are the British Isles, Italy, or the American South. I feel most comfortable in these places because they take me to a place like home where I'm most nurtured and soothed. Is it a coincidence that my ancestors are from these places? I don't think so!

What about you? Do you have favorite authors you turn to for comfort? If so, who are they? Or is it book characters you most often like to meet?

Xtreme Century Photos

My photos of Xtreme Century are posted on win-photo.photoreflect.com
Some of my photos at the Malvern stop did not turn out -- settings got changed on the camera. One of the things I do not like about the new (Canon Rebel T1i) camera - easy to change setting just with handling.
Anyway - hope you enjoy them.

Sackings imminent

Would you believe it's taken me almost three weeks to get around to writing this post? Despite (or perhaps because of) a rather disappointing way to start a 180km ride. It was three weeks ago that I discovered the Tweed Shire Council have now decided to seal all but 1km of one of my favourite dirt roads -- Urliup. I probably should have known it was coming eventually, but they seem to have forgotten what happenedlast time they pissed me off.

As it was, I now had 140km left to try to find another dirt road to fill the role that Urliup used to fill (which is basically a quick and effective way to escape "civilisation" and all it's dubious "benefits"). A few suggestions came to mind. Reserve Creek Road? Nah, not enough rainforest. Settlement Road, Chillingham? Nah, it's a dead-end with only one way in and out (very nice though). Richard's Deviation? Nah, too short. The same goes for Chilcotts Road.

I ended up climbing over the Burringbar Range on Cudgera Creek Road -- and very nice it was, too. If it was only a little closer and more convenient. It also reminded me of another option that I'll keep to myself for now. I finished the day with a final ride over Mt Jerusalem National Park (note: the real Mt Jerusalem is a fair way to the South, but since it's now legally inaccessible... ). That's another option, which also offers several other places to explore in the area.

Someone at Main Arm once told me there supposed to be caves in the area with aboriginal rock paintings inside. I've not seen or heard any evidence of that in the since, but as it's an area few tourists know about (Much less visit), and as I now have a new MTB to play with (more on that later), I might spend some of my summer doing just that, there.

Stubborn Irish People From Chicago

This post, "Stubborn Irish People From Chicago", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.
As some of you may have guessed, we were away from Austin for a few weeks and I'm having trouble returning to everyday life. It will take a long time to get reordered and catch up with all your posts, but that's not the reason why my Christmas tree is still up and the outside lights are still lit... the reason is that my maternal ancestors were a bunch of stubborn Chicago Irish people who always kept their trees up until Epiphany, the 6th of January. And at this time of year, I'm proud to be one of them.

My brothers and sisters and I were raised in this tradition, calling the day "Little Christmas", a time for visiting with aunts, uncles and cousins. Sometimes we stayed at one location - other times finger food was served at one house and desserts at another, with mixed drinks for the adults and 'Kiddie cocktails' for the youngsters - would anyone dare serve them today? Most houses had a piano or one of the electric organs that were so popular in the fifties and sixties - a couple of the aunts could play and everyone could sing. The party may have been stressful for the hosts and hostesses but we kids thought it was all wonderful.

Although I'm far away from my family and many of those people are no longer around to celebrate Little Christmas, the lights will shine here for a few more nights, to puzzle the neighbors and add a little sparkle to the January darkness.

There were a couple of hard freezes while we were gone and we came back to a garden that had changed greatly from the one we left - MSS from Zanthan Gardens referred to her rosebuds as 'freeze-dried'... I like that phrase enough to swipe it to describe the iris buds as they look now. A .. birthday gift from my mother and sisters was a miniature rose bush... I divided it into 3 plants last spring and one of them was still blooming yesterday near the shelter of a brick wall.

The Sasanqua camellia 'Shishi Gashira' seems untroubled by the colder weather - with just a few more buds not yet opened.

Inside the house the barely budded Thanksgiving cactus from the previous Blooms Day post had opened in the hoped for peachy-apricot color, which I like very much in the breakfast room.

Peachy-apricot must be the in color this January - back in November I decided to bring the Mother-of Thousands inside rather than let it freeze - my reward was a few delicate flowers in that shade... but they didn't appear on the usual 3-foot stalk. The plant was already taller than usual when I brought it in and it kept elongating all of December. Now the flowers hang almost at eye level, 58 inches above the surface of the potting soil.

Happy New Year to all of you who have made the world of garden blogging such a warm and interesting place!
This post, "Stubborn Irish People From Chicago", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Thought Life

Kathleen Norris, in her book Acedia and Me, quotes the Benedictine Mary Margaret Funk in her book Thoughts Matter: "We are not our thoughts. Thoughts come and thoughts go. Unaccompanied thoughts pass quickly. Thoughts that are thought about become desires. Desires that are thought about become passions."
Norris goes on to say, "While good thoughts have the potential to become virtues, bad thoughts are likely to become "bad passions or habits of action."
That got me thinking about the Bible verse that says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." I think this means that the thought has reached the desire or passion point. We become our thoughts if we allow them to go that far.
I can easily sink into depression if I allow my thoughts to go on unchecked. The best cure I've found for controllable depression is to think of things I'm grateful for, smile at myself in the mirror, and go do the next thing.
I also know that sometimes I think too much. Instead, I should just go on my merry way and LIVE. Too much thinking, for me, is self-absorption. It makes me morose and unproductive.
On the other hand, if I go day after day serving my family with no refilling of the 'living waters' of Scripture, I become angry and want to get away from everyone.
So if I'm going to be consistently happy, grateful, and content, I have to make a conscious effort to keep the balance between working and serving others and refilling my soul with Scripture and quiet. It's hard but necessary.

At the Beach!

Today, Dad took me to Limantour Beach, which I love to visit, but the waves kinda scared me. We were going to check out anything we could find for Pedro, but see what we found instead. Unfortunately, it was high tide, so there wasn't much. We'll go searching again soon. It was an amazingly gorgeolicious day. I'm watching the surf here and above, I'm exhausted after chasing the tennis balls. Then, I saw the crab and was kinda startled - cause it moved! Dad really tired me out by throwing me the ball so many times and I just had to lie down and take it all in. I had a great, great day, only it ended up with a spa treatment, cause I've gotten so dirty from the sand and mud from the last week and have to go to a fun match tomorrow - obedience, you know - yuck! Have a great Sunday everypup!xo Sammie

Rock in the suburbs

cover photography: Lee Cujesclick on the photo to enlarge.."Spoonman" 28.Six moves into the eight move sequence of the crux traverse, up with the right then out with the left to the horn and clip R.Then followsa tough slog to the final heart breaker, a long lunge offthe left with high feet.Trying to convert the drive from the high feet into liftafter all that hard work is the clincher.

Palo Duro Canyon SP - Take 2

It felt great to stretch out the legs in the room in Larned, KS. Was on the road towards Amarillo by 8am (late for my normal schedules). Lots of 2-lane driving Thursday and a construction delay (KS 23 south of Dodge City). Checked into the Quality Inn West, Amarillo. Very spacious (king mini suite?) room. Left the hybrid bike in the room, changed into cycling kit, and headed to Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

The weather had turned cloudy. The temperature dropped into the upper 60s (from upper 70s). Was much more comfortable for riding. I was not happy with the flat light (for photos).

The goal was to ride the Lighthouse Trail. The trail starts out as a flowing singletrack. Soon, another leg of the trail joins, and its now a very wide trail. The easy, flowing trail quickly changes to the rough up/down/rocky trail. I had to walk a lot of the trail. At 0.4 mile, it was obvious that this trail is over my riding abilities.

The photo with this posting was near the point I turned around. In the photo is Lighthouse Peak, Capitol Peak, and my Fuel EX7.

Back at the trailhead, I loaded up the bike. Made a short walk to shoot some of the cactus flowers. In February, this was as far I could go into the Park (road closed for hunting). On this trip, I drove to the end of the road and returned an the alternate park road. Stopped to take a couple photos.

Time for some food. The hotel desk clerk suggested Hoffbrau Steakhouse. the restaurant was just across the interstate. I pigged out of great food. Stuffed, I found my way back to the room, watched TV, checked e-mail and facebook, and then crashed.

Hannah Coulter and a Vanishing Way of Life

As I sit to write this post, I have an aching heart, lump in my throat, and unshed tears burning behind my eyes. All because of a book I almost didn't finish. I was ready to put it down around page forty, because of its slowness. But since it was for bookgroup, and I hate not to have read the book, I kept on. I'm so glad I did.

This is the first writing I've read by Mr. Wendell Berry. Oh, I've heard plenty about him. Lots of people talk about his poetry and admire his lifestyle of being a farmer AND an intellectual. So I've been meaning to read him for a long time, and when a member of the bookgroup picked this particular book to read, I was glad. Now, at long last, I'd read Wendell Berry.

He's written several books that take place in Port William, Hannah Coulter being one of them. And this one is written from a woman's point of view. That was the first thing that struck me as amazing. How could a man know and describe a woman's heart so well? I don't understand. I could no more write a book from a man's point of view than I could turn into a man. I just couldn't do it. Mr. Berry must have an extraordinarily developed sense of empathy. I wonder what it's like to be his wife? I'd like to meet and have a good long visit with her.

The book is about community life in Port William and how interdependent all the inhabitants are on each other, not only socially but economically. They call themselves 'the membership'. They remind me in many ways of the Amish and Mennonite groups the way they all come together to help bring in each other's harvests and have barn raisings and other gatherings to support each other.

I remember life being this way during my childhood in the late 50's and early 60's. I grew up on my grandparents' farm in a very small town in the Tennessee mountains. Life revolved around community and what was happening with each other. The children played outside until dark in the summertime while the adults finished chores or visited on the front porch. Life was slow and savored.

On Sunday afternoons, we'd go over to my daddy's parents' house and visit all afternoon. We only lived a few miles from them but didn't often see them during the week. The women would sit inside and talk about their children and recipes while the men stayed on the porch talking politics and other things newsworthy. I much preferred the company of the men as I thought their topics of conversation so much more interesting than the women's in the next room. Often my uncle would bring out his guitar and he, my daddy, my grandpa, and anybody else there would sing old hymns together.

Children then would sit quietly in the presence of their elders and listen if they were interested or go off and play with each other. Now that I think about it, I was usually the only one who loved listening to them. I learned much about life from my listening.

So other than Hannah Coulter being about her life, it's also about two ways of life; one dying life beginning after WW II and the new one taking its place. It's about the agrarian life being replaced by the technological. And it just makes me sad, so sad, for I lived this...am living it. I've seen warm summer evenings catching fireflies change to no one being outside. I see children not know the value of a hard day's work and not being willing to work unless they're paid much more than their worth.

I've seen farm after farm with fields lying fallow; the broken and rusty machinery of their trade lined up beside barns that no longer hold anything but memories. Gone are the aproned grandmas standing behind screen doors watching for their men to come home from the fields. And it makes me sad, for this was the world of my childhood, and I want it back.

The book also contrasts two kinds of people. One is the kind that hankers and yearns for more. More life, more travel, and more education. These are the ones that don't come back once they're seen and tasted the bigger world.

The other kind of person is satisfied to do what has been done for generations before him. He's not dissatisfied with his life and wants nothing more.

There's an irony in Hannah's story, because she wants her children, as most parents do, to have all the benefits she never had. So she and her husband make sure all three children have college educations. While wanting the children to come back and help on the farm and someday take over, they realize that because of their exposure to new ideas, people, and places, the children are gone forever which perpetuates the dying of the farm and the life the community holds so dear.

As a grandmother, Hannah notices a grave difference in how she grew up and how her grandchildren now live. Since she lived in Port William all her life, she knew intimately all the other people living there which included her family. You get to know people that you spend time with; face to face in conversation or side by side doing work.

Now since her own children have moved away and only come for occasional visits, she doesn't have the pleasure of knowing her grandchildren very well. And that is only made worse by her grandchildren's indifference to her by their absorption in their various video games, phones, and other electronic devices. There is very little to none 'face to face' anything going on.

For anyone who's studied much of history, you know that ways of life come and go and the world keeps on spinning. And I'm sure it will continue to spin until God deems it time to end.

But this I know. People need to realize that with technological advances, wonderful as they are, comes much personal responsibility. We need to know when to limit our childrens' time with their various machines of entertainment. To say, "Enough. Turn it off and go outside and play." And then to do likewise, for if we don't follow our own good advice, neither will they.

We can still have a rich, mindful life today but not without much vigilance. For this I've learned, that the more you have and the more complicated life becomes, the more is required of you and the harder it will be to live simply and wisely.

Getting up to date on First Aid and CPR

The American Canoe Association requires instructors to be certified in First Aid and CPR--a knowledge base that we've made use of on more than one occasion as coaches.

In the past, we've taken the two-day Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course offered by Wilderness Medical Associates, and we've long been interested in the Wilderness Advanced First Aid and Wilderness First Responder courses. But with time and money as limiting factors, we haven't yet managed to attain those certifications.

With our WFA about to expire, we set up a one-day American Heart Association Heartsaver First Aid course with John Browning, an ACA Level 4 Sea instructor trainer, emergency medical technician, and instructor with both the American Heart Association and Wilderness Medical Associates. This set-up allowed John to tailor the usual Heartsaver curriculum to a class mainly comprised of kayak instructors, and to add some additional wilderness and paddling-related elements.

Cap'n Browning, at the helm of the First Aid course.

The Heartsaver curriculum is very urban in its orientation. It's geared mainly toward workplace safety, and assumes a quick response from emergency personnel. By contrast, the WFA course is geared toward guides and outdoors enthusiasts on short trips away from civilization. So while the Heartsaver course emphasizes how to perform CPR (some of which recently changed) and how to staunch bleeding while waiting for emergency personnel to arrive, the WFA teaches participants how to evaluate and stabilize a victim far from help.

The course was not without its surreal moments. It is taught with the help of a slick video featuring workplace and urban scenarios that are then repeated in a studio by sweatsuit-clad actors.

Gloves, projector, action!

Even the mannequins seemed sleepy after a full day in a small room.

Zzzzzzzzz.

There's no question that staying current on First Aid is valuable, and we especially appreciated the additional outdoor content John provided. (His reading list alone was worth the price of admission!) But taking this course motivated us even more to get additional training in Wilderness First Aid, because most of the incidents we encounter happen outdoors.

Bison Country

Here is a shot from Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. After spending almost 3 days in Nebraska photographing the Sandhill Crane migration in unusually hot temperatures for spring (each day the temp almost hit 90 degrees!), it was nice to drive up to the Black Hills and have the weather change along the way. On this day the temp never got above 45 and in the higher elevations of the hills it was about 36 degrees and sleet was falling from the sky.



This photo was taken along the "Wildlife Loop Road" in Custer State Park. This state park is a great one for wildlife. I saw lots of other critters as well, but the Bison stole the show. I saw probably close to 200 Bison. While I enjoy a good close-up shot of an animal, I also like to compose shots that show them and their surrounding environment. I think (in most cases) that photos such as this tell more of a story than a close-up does. At any rate, I hope you like it!

Reaching skywards

These tall chimneys need a ladder attached to them for ease of maintenance. I love the spiked finials - or whatever they're called! Everything about this roof seemed to be reaching up into the cloudless morning sky.

This Could Happen To You

This is what happens when you spend a Friday night alone with an eleven-year-old girl with too much time on her hands. I have one hand painted with ladybugs and the other painted neon yellow with black tic-tac-toe designs. I think I'll shake things up a bit and go to church tomorrow morning like this.
Sorry for the blurry pics. It was hard to hold the camera with one hand and get close enough to see the details.

If It's Thanksgiving It's At Mom and Dad's

Thanksgiving >
The word instantly puts a chill down the spine of my side of the family. Yes, there will be turkey, great food, and a swell party - especially for the blissfully unaware fifteen kids running amok in my parents' basement, but with the joy comes the quiet dread of getting ready. It starts in August when my mother pulls her notes from last year, and starts worrying. It ends about five minutes before five, when the first guest arrives and my Dad is harnessed to his leaf blower diligently chasing that last leaf off the premises. When car lights sweep up the driveway, the leaves will NOT be seen. (Never mind that the house is sitting on almost three wooded acres, and it'’s pitch dark by party time.)
You will find my mother sighing in the Kitchen- she has been up since dawn cooking, completely dressed and ready since mid afternoon, but there is always something- like Dad killing himself outside, buzzing around the patio, or the little incident last year when there was no hot water at zero hour because Dad forgot to over ride the timer. (He keeps Mom on a very strict schedule water wise.) My mother, the model of self control, grits her teeth and accepts that she has done all that she can do. She and my sister set the tables the Sunday before, strategizing over the one in the family room which could block the football game, and how many kids will actually sit in a chair. She started cooking in September and finishes just before six- dinner time.
Thanksgiving is one of three major family gatherings. My poor mother is down to one rather distant first cousin on her side, but my father's side is up to about thirty, not even counting our branch which is almost thirty by itself. Back in the dawn of time, like the early sixties, my grandparents had the whole family over to their house on Upton Street. When they got older, their three children took over. My Aunt Catherine got Greek Easter, my Uncle Nick took Christmas and my dad ended up with Thanksgiving. Back then the clan topped out at around twenty five; now we are approaching sixty. New babies and people keep coming. Last year we had twins, and this year my niece is getting married.
At this point, my mother would give her eyeteeth, her turkey collection and all her VCRS NOT to do this. (OK- maybe not the VCRS) But my Dad has laid down the law- if he's still breathing, we're still doing it. My cousin, John brings the cheesecake that his mother used to bring. My cousin, Anne, who is from Louisiana, brings a pecan pie. My brother, Peter arrives from Michigan and bartends. Uncle Nick brings the rum cake. My sister and I mash the potatoes. My brother, Roger started making Greek chicken soup one year, and now he can't stop. That's only a few of the many hands that get it done. It's over when my sister corrals her sons to take all the chairs and tables back downstairs until next year. It's usually around 8:00, but it feels like midnight.
So we go on, and despite all the holiday angst, I know we have a lot to be thankful for: our ever expanding family and my parents who keep us glued together-a basement full of children-all excited that they are cousins, turkey on the table, and hopefully -plenty of hot water. I know we are lucky, and at least this year, it's raining...no leaf blower.

Tooth rot and the Elephant

I opened one eye, peered down, and found that I had lost the five pounds which I had gained over the holiday season - and I didn't even have to slightly move to one side (a cheat, but it gives an instant weight loss) to achieve it!





Modern thinking is that if we lose weight quickly we are more likely to regain it. So surely five pounds in a couple of days must be too much, too quickly?





Perfect excuse to make something I haven't had for probably more than forty-five years. A lovely suet pudding, with golden syrup!

I blame it onDom at Belleau Kitchenhe set the ball rolling before Christmas when he posted his brilliant Layered Mushroom and Caramelised Onion Suet Pudding. It was totally delicious, simple, yet spectacular. So it is his fault.





I set to and made this golden syrup (vegetarian) suet pudding...

...it may look vile, but it smelt fabulous, instantly transporting us both back to our childhood days and stick to the rib puddings. However, this version was light as a feather and totally yummy.





I had a very small slice and some custard. Heavenly.

Okay, so I now have to go and jog for an extra half an hour - but oh my goodness was it worth it. I don't even object to having to clean my teeth straight away, lest tooth rot set in.





George had two big helpings, with lashings of custard. I think he liked it.





Thank youDominic - you may make a cook out of me yet.





* * *





Notes from home for Jonny, and thanks for the message





Swimming with elephants eh? Lucky you! (The only elephant you are likely to find around here is your old Ma, especially after that suet pudding.) Please tell me that someone took photographs of your swim - and that you'll send me one.





The bridge over the river Kwai, plus a visit to Cambodia - no, can't compete with that either! Again, photographs please!





When will you be returning to Shanghai? Enjoy the rest of your holiday and let me know if there is anything we can send you.





Still no baby news.





Everyone keeps asking after you - we had lunch (I had soup and half a roll - in anticipation of the syrup pudding this evening) at the pub with Davina and Harry today; what a shame we hadn't heard all these exciting things before we went. Never mind, it will be a great excuse to pop in again!





Your bed has become Bennie's bed, she spends a couple of hours on it every afternoon, doing what cats do best, snooooozing. As you can see the Christmas decorations are on there too, waiting to be put back into the loft.





Thinking of you,

Lots of love,

Mum

xxx