Everything Changes...

Molly's best friend in the whole world has moved away. She has looked out of the window at their meeting times, gone up the road to their meeting place everyday since he went, it is really sad to see! But nothing lasts forever everything changes it is the one thing you can count on. Toby and Molly have been friends since day one an odd combination to be sure with him so very large and white and her so small and black but they rough and tumbled round the pear tree without a hiss or growl everyday for the last two and a half years. How strange it is to watch cats make such attachments, you would think it not possible and only meant for us but I can assure anyone that they truly have big hearts and true loyalties to each other. I hope Molly will find another really good friend soon because despite the cold now, summer will arrive and there will be hours of play coming for her and she does love a good game of hide and seek with a buddy. We have a new gardener on the estate and her cat comes with her perhaps, 'Sophie' will fit the fit bill or perhaps she will rediscover her friendships with Will and Elle C when they come out of hibernation. Henry and Ferret visit us everyday still for a wee smackerel so meantime they will just have to do. In fact as I write this Henry is banging on the catflap - it must be lunchtime, Ferret comes for the afternoon matinee. I hate change...

A Breath of Fresh Air

After two days of playing hunt the thimble with Molly, who had us worried to death in case she had swallowed it and watching her looking under almost every piece of furniture we own we were demented and ready for a breath of fresh air. Today seemed just right for a trip down the lottie. We have dug a bed and half over and spread it with a good layer of muck, ready. We chatted to Reg who has offered us some onions to plant. We gave him some of our very large parsnips and we brought the rest of the row home to make soup and roast. We caught up with Julie who has already got seedlings in her greenhouse, good stuff Julie! We came home, stiff and rosy cheeked but happy with our outing and ready for the next one. Molly I am glad to say has her beloved thimble back - it was upstairs under our bed, who'd have thought of looking there? Obviously not us... My good ol' brother bought her a new one yesterday which she has now abandoned for her old one, but it was so kind of him and we now have a spare just in case.

and what happened next...

I love a good book, and finding myself a new author has always been an adventure to me. This time I reckon I have hit the jackpot. ‘Where the Heart Is’ by Billie Letts has had me not wanting to put it down, wanting to read faster, but most of all worrying about the characters until I can get back to them. Now that is what I call a good read. Perhaps it's because Billie Letts herself has had such a colourful life as a roller skating waitress, a dish washer, a dance instructor and now teaching creative writing. I hope to goodness the ending is a great one! I have now been reckless enough to send for another of hers, 'The Honk and Holler Opening Soon' from Amazon and the dvd of the one I am reading so I can compare book and movie. I haven’t been using the library as much as I used to but in future I shall use it as a testing ground when I find ‘a new to me writer’. Just give me a cuppa, a good book, a blanket and I’m a happy bunny, I always told Bri I was a cheap date!

January Made Me Shiver...

....and today the weather man said that this January was officially the coldest for twenty years. When I woke up on Thursday morning, I found out why I was so cold on Wednesday and couldn't work when I went down the plot. I had succumbed to the dreaded lurgie, eyes running, sneezing, aching and all that went with it. Now I could either waste my time and wallow while I had to stay in to keep my germs to myself, or, use the energy I had got to plan this years crops, get on with my quilt big time, read a new author I had got from the library, cook comfort food, so I chose all of the latter and ended up having a very productive week. When I am fully recovered, I am now full of enthusiasm from my weeks planning to get down to our dear plot, give it a good digging over and start fresh. First up will be checking on all our seeds left from last year so that we don't waste any of them. Second will be to check our compost bin, after two years we should have a good haul. Oooh look at me, I'm ready to go, the flu must have done me good!

The Little Blue Bag

With my lunch today, I had a packet of Walkers ready salted crisps. This reminded me of when I was growing up and there was no such thing as ready salted crisps. Oh no, there weren't scores of different flavours either, the choice was plain or cheese and onion. The other thing about them was that they were do it yourself in the salt department. By that I mean that each packet had in it a little twist of blue waxed paper which contained the salt which you then had to sprinkle on and then give the bag a good shake to distribute the salt evenly over all of them. This was even more fun if you were sitting in the pictures and all the kids were shaking their bags so you could hardly hear what was going on on the screen. You may think that this was a lot of trouble to go to but you would be wrong. Firstly, there was no guarantee that there would be a little blue bag in the packet, peculiarly, whenever my Dad had a packet, he never had a blue bag in it and would go off ranting about it and secondly, sometimes there were two or even more blue bags as the machinery at the crisp factory had obviously not done its job properly. Some years ago, Smiths tried to reintroduce the little blue bag but it didn't catch on which is a pity because it added an element of excitement to opening a packet not knowing if the little blue bag would or would'nt be in there.