A day out at the Show

I`ve had a great day out today!
I`ve been to somewhere, or should I say something, that I`d never been to before.
The weather was perfect, not too hot and with some clouds to stop the sun from being too overpowering, even a welcome light shower of rain for a few minutes.

Probably having lived in Norfolk all my life, it’s a bad admission to say that I`d never been to the Royal Norfolk Show before. But until today I hadn`t.
I can see now what I`ve been missing – a very enjoyable day out. Looking at beautiful flowers, plants and flower arrangements, animals, birds of prey and evene seeing a falcon splashing about having a bath in a shallow dish of water, seeing the skill of various crafts people, standing listening to a pipe and drum band. So many varied sights and sounds.

But I think what made the day so enjoyable was having a friend to go with, to share it with and to chat with.

It`s half gone

Where do the hours and days go to? Tomorrow will be the last day of June and half way through 2005 already. We`ve passed the longest day, so now the nights will start to get darker earlier, yet where have all those long summer evenings gone which we used to have? They used to seem to last for weeks.

Is it because now-a-days we`re always planning ahead so much, not living each day as it comes? I`m always thinking of what I`ve to do tomorrow, the next day, next week…. At times the lists of jobs, either mentally or written down (in my case mostly written down, so as not to forget them!) seems to get longer and longer, but the time to do them gets shorter and shorter. But, no doubt, as always, things will get done in time. I`m not saying I`ve too much to do, but just musing on how the time seems to run on quicker. For instance, I always intend to write my blog earlier in the day, but somehow it always gets to late evening before I actually sit down to do it.

Engage Brain before Speaking

Someone I knew used to say that he had those words written beside the telephone.

Maybe I should have written beside my computer…. Engage brain before writing !
I had no intention of offending or being insensitive to my readers in what I wrote in my Blog yesterday. Apologies if I did.

I suppose it goes to show how people interpret things in different ways, what I took to be an inanimate object could be read by someone else in a different way.

Is that where and how a lot of misunderstandings in our world happen today?

Saints galore!

I was just looking up something about St. Christopher, and discovered that there are saints for almost everything under the sun!.....
there`s saints for toothache...., pencil makers...., shoe shiners...., sheds..., florists..., button makers..., telephones..., television..., fireworks..., kidney stones..., needle-workers..., zoos (which of course turns out to be St. Francis).
Why do sheds need a saint? Or kidney stones? Or telephones and televisions? Or fireworks?
But from the lists of hundreds and hundreds of them, I don`t see one for shop-workers, factory workers or office works ! - why not??
Wonder if there will be one day??

Seen today

I found this beautiful window in a small country church this afternoon. The sun was shining through it, making the colours really glow.

It`s lovely the `treasures` you can come across in these small country churches.

Is it up or is it down?

Isn`t it strange how we use the words up or down to relate to going anywhere? Instead of just saying “going to”
From where I live I`ve always used the expression “going up the town”. Yet from a different road and direction I find myself saying “going down the town”. No, the town isn`t at the top or bottom of a hill, and I don`t live at the top or bottom of a hill, so why do I use that expression. And others like “down to the beach”, “up the city”, “up to the church”. I don`t know!.
I can remember writing in an essay when I was at primary school (and we`d had to write what we`d done at the weekend or something), writing about going up the town. And when my work came back marked, it had been crossed through as incorrect and a ladder drawn beside that expression. At that age, I couldn`t understand why teacher had drawn a ladder or what was wrong with it, because it was normal language to me to say that. It puzzled me for ages. But, it`s about the only thing I can remember about any primary school essays…. That`s odd too, isn`t it?

Which tea to choose?

Having written a Blog on coffee, (which I don`t drink), I thought I`d look up Tea, which I do drink. And I found in the Rainbow of Tea, that there`s far more varieties of tea without counting all the various blends than there are of coffee. And then of course there`s flavoured teas, According to the article flavouring tea has been done for centuries with onions, orange peel, peach leaves, berries, jasmine, orchid, rose, and magnolia. And even some manufacturer has even produced flavours from banana to toffee pudding! I wonder who drinks them? especially the onion tea? Can`t say I fancy it. I`m not adventurous with food or beverages. Think I`ll stick to plain tea. Might venture to try Earl Gray one day though!
But, to go back to my first blog on tea & coffee, as there`s far more varieties of teas than coffees why do people offer coffee first?

Numerous varieties

I`ve just been looking something up, and am surprised to discover that there are over 3,000 varieties of it worldwide, roughly classified into six basic categories which are white, green, oolong, black (also called red), pu-erh and flavoured.

What is it?

Bats and Balls

Through the winter I usually play table tennis once a week, and I`m missing it. But I`ve just found a great way to play table tennis at this time of year! I definitely need more practice though, I think I do better with the sound on as it makes it more realistic. I`ve played some single games and tried the tournament but I can`t at the moment get past beating the purple bat! But I`ll keep trying.

Only thing is, I`m not actually getting the exercise from running around, like I do with the winter game!

Coffee aroma and taste

Coffee seems a strange thing in a way, because having expressed my dislike of drinking it, I suppose I should say that I do like the smell of it ! The aroma from ground coffee or even a cup of good instant coffee is good. So, why doesn`t it taste like it smells?!
I`ll happily eat coffee cream sweets, or coffee cake too, and enjoy the flavour of them, so why doesn`t a cup of coffee have the same type of coffee flavour? What have they done different to it?

I knew there are many different kinds of coffee beans but I`ve just discovered there`s more than I thought! In the coffee encyclopedia, it says there`s over 60 of them, and over 900 volatile aromas! Wonder who identified and counted all those smells?!

It still won`t get me drinking it though.
I`ll stick to tea.

Coffee or tea?

Reading again through the piece I reproduced for my blog yesterday, a question came to me from the last line of it….
Why is it people always think of having a cup of coffee?
What is it about coffee that makes people always offer that to visitors or friends?
Why not a cup of tea? Or even a glass of juice, or even water?
Surely I can`t be the only person who doesn`t like or drink coffee, can I?
Or am I, as I`ve said before an `odd one out` !

Filling a jar

The following was given to me the other day, and at the bottom of the page, it said please share it - so here it is on my blog today......

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if it was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognise that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things – God ,your family, your health, your friend,s and your favourite passions – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like – your job, your house, and your car.

The sand is everything else – the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first”, he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are really important to you.

Pay attention to things that are critical to your happiness. Take care of the golf balls first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled “I`m glad you asked that. It just goes to show that no matter how full your life may seem, there`s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

More food handling

Following on from yesterday.....
With all the rules and regulations they keep bringing in on handling food, I`m wondering when the day will come when they say, it`s not hygienic and will ban the way bread is distributed in Communion services!
Just think about it, the bread is first cut up into pieces by someone in their kitchen, then transported to the church, put on an open plate and then picked up as individual pieces and given into people`s hands. How many hands handle that one little piece of bread?! I often wonder too, why the pieces are so small, if it’s a taste of the banquet prepared for us! But that`s getting side tracked.
Only on one occasion, years ago, have I reluctantly accepted the bread… on that occasion the hands of the person who was giving it looked very grubby with black nails. It later transpired that he`d come on a bike and his chain had come off on the way, so he`d had to fix it. But, I survived the bread!
But how long I wonder before some “wise health official” decides it should only be given out with protective gloves on or using tongs!!?

[No, before anyone thinks it, I`m not saying there should be regulations on it, far from it…. But with all the petty things they come up with, it`s a thought isn`t it?]

Food rules

Now-a-days, there seem to be more and more rules governing the handling of food, what with all the sell by dates, use by dates, the way fresh meat mustn`t be in a counter next to bacon, or bacon next to cooked meat. That food should be handled with tongs and not hands. Obviously some of these are very necessary, but it makes me wonder two things.
Firstly how did all our ancestors survive to their 80`s and 90`s without all these rules and regulations!? In their days, butchers had an old wooden chopping block, which they scrubbed down, (now not allowed) and sawdust on the floor (yes, I`m old enough to remember going in one regularly like that!) There were no "dates" on food, one used one`s common sense as to whether something was good to eat, or if it was past its best. Good food didn`t get thrown out because it was “past the date”, even though there`s nothing wrong with it.

The second thing?.... I`ll tell you tomorrow.

Sad birds?

I`ve just come back from doing some shopping, and driving along the road, I saw ahead of me something fluttering on the road in the breeze. As I came to it I saw that it was the black feathers of a blackbird. The poor thing had been hit by a car or something and was lying dead in the road. Was it on its way to its nest with some food for its young, I wondered. Were there a family of chicks waiting for it to return, wondering what had happened to it? Would they survive? Would the other parent bird survive to look after them, or would it too have some misfortune come to it. I do hope not.
We so often see birds and other creatures lying in the road, particularly in the country lanes, where they have been hit by vehicles, I always hate to see it, it`s so sad. But I`d not thought until today of the knock-on effect it could have, that others could die because that had died. So, I urge all drivers, please consider the wild-life when you`re driving.

Here`s a favourite view of mine

Weaving, stitching and knitting

Writing about weaving yesterday, it could so easily apply too to tapestry and cross stitch, which I enjoy doing. Looking at the back of my stitch work, seeing the way the threads overlap and the colours intertwine with one another, the dark and brighter ones, patches of each. That there is a purpose to them all and a place in the pattern of it for them all makes me realise that in life it must be the same too.

Today I`ve just come across a ministry of knitting. It`s something I`ve not heard about before, but what an inspirational way to spend ones time knitting. It makes me feel that I`d like to start doing something like that here.

The Weaver

Thinking about the dark glass I wrote about yesterday, and the way my thoughts have gone over the past few days reminded me of another item in a similar vein.

The Weaver:
My life is but a weaving
between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colours
he worketh steadily.

Oftentimes he weaveth sorrow
and I,in foolish pride
Forget that he sees the upper,
and I the under side.

Not till the loom is silent
and the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas
and explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
in the weaver`s skilful hand
as the threads of gold and silver
in the pattern he has planned.

Dark glass

Looking at a stained glass window again today – yes, the sermon was very long! – I found that the window said something else to me…….

I saw in it several dark brown pieces of glass and other dark colours, I`d never noticed them before, I don`t know why I hadn`t because they must have always been there, but the more I looked at it, it made me realised that those dark colours were very important in making up the whole picture, the whole pattern.

That set me thinking, that maybe these `dark times` that we all have from time to time are also important in making us the whole person that we are.

Insight

It came to me today, that this is my life, that I`ve got to make the best of what I`ve got, where I am, and not keep hankering after what I`ve not got. It must be where God wants me to be, and I`ve got to accept that.
I think it`s helped me think, by writing what I have this week.
I also remembered today a prayer I`d come across some time ago in a book of Norfolk Prayers,
to quote part of it:

Lord, help me to accept
where I am
at this moment.
It may not be where I want to be,
but the beginning of my healing
is in the acceptance
of where I am.

And if I don`t know
where I am,
or what is happening,
or what may happen,
then help me to live with
`not knowing`,
if that`s where I am!

Lord, you know exactly
where I am,
In your love,
you are with me,
here, in this place.
Thank you, Lord.

I`m not rushing!

I`ve had a day off work today, and had the house to myself most of the afternoon and evening, and its been lovely. I can get so much more done too when I`m on my own. I`ve had time to do both housework and some of my craft work. I know mother can`t help being slow, but doesn`t she realise that when she was my age she did things as quickly as I now do. All I keep getting told by her is “you`re always rushing doing everything , slow down”. I`m not rushing, I don`t want to slow down, I`m not old, (yet!!) It`s so frustrating.
I suppose that`s why I keep writing things like this here, because it’s the only safe way I can have of releasing the frustration, or trying to.

Mixing Ingredients

I was saying the other day about how most baking has four identical ingredients, yet can make so many varied items from them. The four I was referring to were:- flour, sugar, eggs and margarine. There are so many ways to blend and mix them and each gives a different result. Even if different people mix the same ingredients in the same way for a sponge cake when you look at the results all together they are all different.

I wonder who it was that first tried mixing those ingredients and baking them to make cakes, buns, scones, puddings? What made them first try? Who had the idea?

Baking is something we take for granted doing, yet someone first thought of doing it….. when? and where? and who??

Done it!

Well, I eventually plucked up my courage today and went. I knew I had to do it, and no doubt the majority of people would go without a second thought about it. But I`m a coward. As I sat there waiting, my number was the next one, but the clock kept going round, no-one went in or out, I got to the stage of telling myself that if I wasn`t called in another 10 minutes I was going home. But just as that ten minutes were nearly up, the number changed and I had to go in. It was all over in a couple of minutes, it didn`t hurt, and I asked myself afterwards what was I so scared about….. but I know I`ll be exactly the same the next time I have to go.
Where did I go?... yes to have that blood test that I was told I had to have. I`m sure that 99.99% of you reading this, will probably think what a stupid creature, but as I said in yesterdays writing I am an odd one out!

Discontented

A bit of thinking aloud today……Why can`t I be contented with life?

Looking back to school days, I couldn`t wait to leave and get a job. School days, so they say are the happiest days of ones life, I didn`t find that. Now I`ve got a job (and had it for a good number of years) I can`t wait to retire? I`m discontented at work, with the way things are there now-a days and the hassle of not enough staff, and the unrest among so many of us.

I want a life of my own, before it`s too late. I look at others of my age, they`ve got their own partners, children, homes etc., (I don`t mean I`m jealous, but it just brings make me realise what I haven`t got), they`re doing what they want to do. Me, I`m stuck still at home having never moved out. I`m an odd one out, and with the elderly parent, what chance have I got of finding anyone. My time`s not my own, my life doesn`t seem my own with an elderly parent to live with. I`d love to walk out, get a place of my own, but I can`t.

I know I`ve got a lot I should be thankful for, but I`m discontented with how everything is. Yet, what can I do about it, without hurting anyone.

Word Pictures

I wonder how many people, like me, get amusing “pictures” from various words and expressions?......
Whenever I see along the road the sign “Large plant crossing” – I expect to see a tree get up and walk across the road.
“Cats eyes removed” – sounds as if one should keep ones pussy well away from there, or it could be painful.
“remanded in custody” – have they put them in a jug of custard!
"drawing pins" - what pictures are the pins painting?!

Window thoughts

I`ve been looking at a stained glass window again today.
The more I looked at it the more different shapes and pieces I saw in it. Some were very large, some smaller and some very tiny, yet all were so important to the design. Each one was different but each really mattered. Some had hard corners and edges, others were curved and gentler shapes, yet all fitted together. But without the strength of the lead frames holding and uniting the pieces they would just be a pile of glass fragments, not able to make a thing of beauty and of use.

It made me think, how we could be thought of as those pieces of glass, each of us different, yet God has a place for each of us and its his strength that holds and supports us.

Bird Nest

Birds choose the oddest places to nest don`t they?
Going down the alley beside where I work earlier this week I head a lot to twittering and bird calls that sounded like a nest of young chicks, but I couldn`t see where it was coming from. Then the next day I spotted a starling dart quickly across in front of me and disappear, and I could again hear all the tweeting going on. As I looked up an adult bird sat by a metal grid in the wall. Looking closer at the place the next day I could see that the top corner of the grid was broken making an entrance hole and poking through the lower part of the grid were a few bits of twigs or straw, so I`m fairly certain now that we`ve got a nest of starling in the wall of where I work! Yet, it`s quite a busy alleyway with people always up and down.
I wonder how many other people who have walked up and down there have spotted it?

Flying time

Where does the time go? Every day I think tomorrow I`ll write my Blog earlier in the day than this, yet, here I am again and its past my bed-time and I`m now getting down to writing it. Perhaps tomorrow I`ll do it earlier.
But then, as the saying goes “tomorrow never comes”.
I wonder if other people have the same problem?
I`ve not even been at work today, yet I`ve filled up every hour doing something…. alright, yes I sat outside in the summer house for a while this afternoon, but I didn`t sit doing nothing. I can`t sit doing nothing (or at least not for very long). I took some craft work out there to do. Pity I can`t take the computer out there!
Is time going quicker? It certainly seems like it to me.

Can`t think what to write today, so here`s something I saw whilst on holiday, which I found interesing, both in the way it was made and the number of things contained within it. The more you look at it, the more you can see in it.

If you want to see the other side of the circle, and find out where it is look here

Think before you speak

I`ve just realised, I must be mellowing! I took my Mum and her man friend out to visit a flower festival the other day, and someone, seeing them together automatically assumed they were husband and wife, as they said to me something about my Mum and dad, and, for once I didn`t bite back ! I`ve normally quickly said very sharply “he`s not my dad”, but this time I didn`t. I wondered afterwards why didn`t I?, I suppose to save the other person (who was a complete stranger) embarrassment. And perhaps because it seemed pointless as we`d probably never see them again.

Having said that, it`s not to say that anyone local and making that slip, won`t be told firmly that they`re wrong!

It also goes to show, that one shouldn`t assume relationships between people they see together, doesn`t it. Wonder how many times we all do that and jump to the wrong conclusions. It can be very hurtful, as I know from experience.