Mid March Mutterings ('09)

Exciting news early this month came in the form of an announcement by Mrs Locket that she was organising a Bloggery Picnic Party for the Easter Holidays. Bloggers and their offspring (and other sundry friends and relations) are going to be meeting up for a few hours of picnic and chat. If you fancy the proposition, simply click on the button below to go to Mrs Locket's blog and find out all the details.

I'm hoping the Wrinklets and I will be in attendance; we're very much looking forward to meeting some of our real-imaginary (bloggy) friends in person.

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I have been tagged by both Ron and Malach on a meme. It's a 3 wishes meme and goes like this:

“Your ship has sunk. You have, of course, been stranded on a deserted island. You have salvaged a copy of the King James Version of the Bible and a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. Nothing else. “The very next day you find one of those Arabian Lamps in the sand. Of course, you rub it and, of course, a rather grumpy Genie appears. “‘Let’s get this straight - there is a recession going on. There are restrictions on the three wishes now. I don’t do water or air transport now so no boats, planes or magic carpets. As for electronics, forget it. There isn’t the infrastructure on this island. “‘I can let you have one book and I mean one VOLUME, one essential item and one luxury item. Now hurry up and make your choices, I have to get to those five other islands you are going nominate. ”

Hmmmm, well this took a lot of thinking about; I mean, I'm not a 'travelling light' kind of girl. At all.

• Wish No.1: The book would have to be The Encyclopaedia Britannica, so I can at least keep learning something new every day. The weight of it would be handy for squashing horrible critters, and lifting it every day might keep me in shape on the island? I could use pages about irrelevant things as firelighting aids.
• Wish No.2: One essential item. A water purifier of some sort, so there would be clean, hygienic water for me (and any gorgeous native chappies I might meet ;-)).
• Wish No.3: Luxury item. That grumpy old genie didn't rule out wishing for more wishes, did he? So my third 'luxury wish' would be to have a hundred more wishes, and with those I would be able to make a LOT of people very happy. Wishes for world peace, an end to disease, fires and famine; raised consciousness (particularly regarding how we treat one another) and no more poverty might be a huge cliché, but I am an old hippie at heart, and surely that is what most of us would wish for our world and the people living on it?

Thanks for tagging me guys - x - I like a meme that makes me sit and think about things for a while. As for tagging others, I know lots of people don't like being tagged, however those that might play along are Mal Intent, Troy, Dawn, Mr Dot and Bruce. No worries if you don't want to do it, chaps.

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I'm afraid I have some bad news. You remember Cyril my kitchen spider? Well very soon after publishing the post at the end of February in which I told you all about him, I came in from a school run, only to find this on the floor:

After some comments complaining of more spider pictures, I've made this one small - click on it to see poor Cyril large

Oh dear.

He doesn't look well, does he?

Poor Cyril. I'm afraid Georgie-cat took it upon herself to do a spot of tidying up, and the thing she mostly tidied up was Cyril. She looked incredibly proud of herself as she stood by the side of his poor crumpled self and showed me what she'd brought me. Of course now I feel terribly guilty; perhaps he'd have fared better out in the snow and the cold?

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I now have to say some thank yous. Firstly to Burby for this fantabulous 'This Blog has a Heart' Award. Thank you Burby - x - both for the award and for noticing the bloggy heart tucked away in the corner! I have found most bloggers to have pretty big hearts - the generosity and warmth of the Blogosphere is something to behold, I had no idea when I first started blogging that it would be this way. I'm really honoured to be a part of it.

Burby and I have 'stuff' in common. Lots of stuff. She's an all round good egg, and if you've never read her blog, I heartily recommend it.

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Now I need to thank Sas over at Gemini Miscellany for this 'Best Blog Comment' award. Thank you Sas - x. I've known Sas since 2005 when I first joined Digital Spy; we both used to post in a thread entitled WHATM. (There was a standing joke that newbies would wander in and say 'what does WHATM stand for?' ... It was 'What's Happening At The Moment' and was on the Big Brother forum. Yes, we were the sad gits who watched the live feed of BB and chatted about it on a forum). Anyway, like me she is interested in the rich symbolic language of astrology (Emma Pebble and Dottie Cookie close your ears! You scientific types won't be sympathetic!) and it was that which was our first reason for getting to know one another. Since then, she has proved a very good friend, and I'm sure I don't tell her often enough that I think she's a fab old bird. So there - I've said it.

I'd like to pass on this comment award to everyone who left a comment on my last post. I'm not going to link to you all, because I'd be here until Christmas, but consider yourselves awarded:

Blossom, Dotty Cookie, Clare (Clare's Craftroom), Jackie (Button Tree Crafts), Flossie & Tom, Tintocktap, Cherry Menlove, Mal Intent, Handmade, Silverpebble, Lucy Locket-Pocket, Purple & Paisley, Ramblin Mama, Moogsmum, Elaine (Feel My Felt), Country Bliss, Alex Mason, Tilly Tatas, Janet (no blog!), Elise, Bagladee, Jackie (Dogdaisychains), Thimbleanna, Lazylol, Dubgirl, Malach, The Mother of This Lot, Jane (Sew Create It), Raining Sheep, Indigo Blue, Picciolo, Ron, Chris (Prism Trail!), Angryman, Lily Wren, Burby, and Katie Twinkles.

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Proud Mother Moment (just so I have it on record): No.1 was picked as one of 40 students at her school who (according to the letter she brought home) had shown 'flair and enthusiasm' in a recent English project on the work of the poet and author Carol Ann Duffy. Those 40 students were then given the opportunity of meeting Ms Duffy and working with her for a morning workshop. In keeping with being an adolescent, No.1 didn't appreciate the experience as much as she might have, but said it was an interesting morning ... and it got her out of normal lessons. Tsk.

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I shall leave you with a photograph I took recently. The Wrinklets and I got in the car, picked our direction and drove, parking up in some nice scenery where we had a mini-picnic and took photos. (Actually we were heading for a youth hostel, but on account of my having some geography genes missing, I went the wrong way and we never did get there. Chatting the next day with No.2, he told me his favourite bit of the weekend was "when you got lost". Charming).

This is a stone memorial we found:

It was inscribed as having been constructed for a young man who died in action, in Gaza, Palestine, in April 1917. He was 29 years old. The memorial was erected in 1921, and since there was a wreath of poppies sat on one side, he'd obviously had a fairly recent visitor. I felt so sad as I read the words; I wonder what he'd make of the fact that over 90 years later, there is still fighting and death in exactly the same place?

So much for progress, eh?

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