A murder has been committed

Looking out of my back room window after tea yesterday evening I was very sad and very angry. Why? There on the grass (I can`t call it a lawn there`s more weeds than grass in it!) were a large scattering of grey feathers and at the top of the garden I glimpsed a cat.

I ran out, but the cat (as usual) must have heard me and had dived over the fence. The feathers obviously came from a pigeon, but there was no sign of the body. So whether the pigeon had managed to get away from the cat and these were just a few feathers from the struggle, or whether the cat had taken the bird, I don`t know. But it`s so sad. I think that`s why I don`t really like cats.

Now, sitting here, looking out of the same window, I`ve become aware of some starlings pecking around the grass where the feathers are. I thought they were looking for food, but no, they`re picking up beakfuls of the feathers and flying off with them. Their chicks are going to have nice soft nests!! I wonder if they realise they come from other birds?


Phone update.....As promised, a BT engineer rang me early yesterday afternoon to say he was coming to sort out my telephone fault.... and a quarter of an hour later....he did! and within minutes my phone was working again. So well done BT, but why did it have to take 3 days?!

Ring, ring ????

I`ve now got another problem!....
My internet connection had been cutting in and out all morning and went off completely. I was waiting for a phone call as I had a friend coming to stay for a few days and they were going to let me know about what time they`d be here. So as I hadn`t heard by dinner time, I picked the phone up to try it and and found no dialling tone.

I tried all the phones in the house incase one hadn`t been replaced correctly, but nothing. Looking at the Phone book for a number to ring BT I followed first their instructions to disconnect every phone from the socket and then replace them one by one starting with the main phone socket. Still nothing.

So I rang the number, got the message saying it was expensive to ring from a mobile - great help that, what else could one do if the landline phone wasn`t working! I hung on and then the automated voice said from a mobile ring a different number and gave the number, so I dutifully rang that. But that then repeated almost the same and gave yet another different number to ring if one was ringing from a mobile. I obediently did it.

Again it was answered by a machine and gave options, I pressed 1, then more options, 1 again, and again, and again, in the end it informed me that they were very busy and I was in a queue. I could either remain in the queue (and I thought it was going to say ring back later) but, to give them their due it said one could give them another number including a mobile number to ring me back on, within an hour. So I did that.

They rang fairly quickly, more questions and then they checked the line and found there is a fault on the network. They will get the engineers to work on it and it should be done by 3 working days!. That means Friday. But, to be helpful they could divert my calls to my mobile if I wished. I said yes please and gave them the relevant number.

I`ve just got my Mum to try it, as I`d had no calls, and.... it didn`t divert to my mobile! My home phone gave a couple of feeble dings and stopped and nothing else happened. So, I made another phone call to them, followed all the same automated steps, and fairly quickly a person rang me back, checked all the info they`d got, tried to set up the Call Divert and found that the type of problem with the line is preventing them being able to set it up! She`s going to try a different way in the morning and ring me then. I wait to see!

But, funny enough after the first phone call to them, the Broadband connection has come back and I`ve had a connection all the rest of the day and evening...

Plucking up courage

Well, I`ve plucked up the courage, and I`ve done it.

After weeks,

....no, after months

.......well, to be truthful after a couple of years really

I`ve done it!


Well, I`ve done really the easiest part, I`ve still got the most difficult part to come and I`m not looking forward to that.

What on earth am I talking about, you`re probably saying to yourselves.....


Actually probably nothing out of the ordinary to the majority of you, but to me a big thing.....

.... I`ve booked myself a holiday away for September! Oh, not abroad, I`ve no wish to go abroad, but up to Yorkshire.

I`ve not been away for a holiday for the last three years. We used to have a regular annual holiday, until my mother went into where she currently lives - but she is the big problem - she doesn`t like and doesn`t want me going anywhere. Doesn`t even like it when I go to the city just 26 miles away occasionally for work. Yet she`s perfectly well looked after where she is, with people on hand 24/7 to care for her.

So after all this time of agonising with feeling I wanted to go away and have a break, but knowing how she`d react I haven`t done anything about it. Now, I`ve decided enough is enough and I`m going this year. And, I`m going to do something we`ve never done, and that is go Self-catering, which I think will suit me better.

But..... I`ve yet to tell her, but I won`t do that until much nearer the time....and doing that is something I`m dreading.

Amazing perfume

My favourite flowers are now in flower in the garden - Lilies of the Valley.

I took my scissors and cut a small bunch of them to bring indoors to enjoy. It always amazes me the strength of perfume that comes from one very delicate stem of such beautiful tiny white flowers.

And one this small vase of them, - yes, ever since a child I`ve cut small bunches of them and put in this little green glass vase - fills the whole room with perfume, its quite amazing.
Another of the wonders of God`s world and creation.

Confused viewing

I wonder if anyone else experienced the same confusion as I did last night?...... I began to think I was going a bit strange and hearing things.

It was about 5.45 p.m. and whilst sitting eating my jacket potato with lashings of butter, I was idly watching the tv for company.  It had got to the break in the programme on ITV for adverts when suddenly I thought, those words and jingles seem strange with those pictures.   I watched more closely, yes, they were definitely advertising the delights of a certain slimming breakfast cereal, but the picture was showing a cat eating a bowl of cat food and then the tin with the brand name on.   (I`d better not advertise here, had I?).   I continued to watch and all through the adverts the sound was different to the pictures!  

Then it was back the last quarter of the programme I`d been watching, and the peoples mouths weren`t moving in time to the words they were speaking.    Was it me, was it my eyesight??

As the programme finished and before the next adverts I heard - at least I thought I heard them say, showing the Anglia news desk, `and next the news from `Calendar`.    Did I hear that right, I wondered.

The adverts did exactly the same as before totally different pictures to sound.  Quite amusing at times!!

The local news started - on the screen were the words of Anglia News and the presenters in the studio, but the commentary speaking just didn`t belong.   The voice was saying, "here I am standing on the docks at Grimsby", but the picture was showing a chap at a sports stadium.    

Yes, I was watching Anglia pictures and hearing Yorkshire news.   Was it my TV I wondered.    So, I rang my mother, a few miles away, she put her tv on and got exactly the same!    That was a relief, it wasn`t my set.   I then decided to try something else - tried the other channels they were all ok.  Then I switched it from the Analogue aerial to my Sky dish for the ITV..... and..... no problem! the sound and picture matched and were Anglia region. - switched back again to the other and the problem still went on.

Very odd.

It`s Easter

Happy Easter

A crab on the beach

Walking along the promenade in the sunshine yesterday afternoon, I suddenly came across the most enormous crab I`d ever seen on our beach.......

and there facing it, looking ready for action was an equally large lobster....

Yes, the stone artist had been at work again, piling up beach stones to make these wonderful sculptures using just the beach stones artistically gathered and stacked, with nothing else to hold them in place.   Just using the uniqueness of each stone`s shape and colour to form these art works.

Isn`t that a bit like how God, can use us? - all individual and different yet all having a place in his world for his purpose

A Cross in the Sky

Opening my curtains this morning, I looked up at the beautiful blue sky, and there saw a Cross.

It seemed to be saying to me, God is with you, he is all around you.

So I just had to grab up my camera, run out into the garden (yes still in my dressing gown - what any neighbours thought if they saw me I don`t know!) and take some pictures of it to share.

Horror!

I`ve just got out of the shower, and whilst I was towelling myself dry I noticed a black mark on the pink towel I was using. How did that get there I wondered and what was it.

At first glance it looked like an ink spot. But I`d not had ink or paint in the bathroom, I`d not used marker pens there for anything. What was it? Where had it come from? Looking closer, I discovered that it was a spider! It was nestling among the fluffy fibres of the towel. And I can`t bear spiders! To think that I`d had that towel wrapped all around me and been rubbing myself dry with it, with the spider that near to me...ugghhhhh.

Eeek!... still perhaps it`s dead I thought, but on a closer look from a distance I saw it`s legs move. What to do?.... I tried shaking the towel in the shower away from me to try and dislodge and get rid of it, but no it wouldn`t fall off. I couldn`t touch it.

In the end I dropped the towel into the shower tray and got the hand towel from the rail to finish drying on. The bath towel with spider will have to go in the washing machine as it is, and hopefully that will get rid of the beastie.

What a start to a Sunday morning!

Rock Band

Walking along the prom here in the sun this afternoon, I came across an unusual art form.

I`ve seen sand art before on the beach before,where characters and scenes are made totally of sand.  But I`d  not come across Stone Art, until today.  (Click on the pictures to see them larger)

There, on our beach is a rock band with audience, all made of beach pebbles.  They are not stuck or cemented together, but just cleverly stacked and their natural shapes, markings and colourings giving inspiration to the young man to build these works of art.

The drummer....

...the pianist...

;
Talking with the young man doing these, we discovered that he`s homeless, but has been walking all round the coast of the country doing these works of stone art, starting at Brighton, going up the West Coast of Englad, all round the coast of Scotland and is now coming down the East Coast. He is aiming to raise money from this and from writing a book about it, to help other homeless people.  To read more about this chap, click here 

It will certainly make me look more carefully at the pebbles when I walk on the beach and realise they are all individual - just like us!

The last farewell

 Yes, our shop closed for good last Sunday, and the last couple of days the staff have been empyting shelves, loading goods into huge cages, which now stand in the deserted shop awaiting transport to other branches.


I`ve just come back from a little farewell do that our "boss" kindly had for the staff,  including a fish & chip supper, gathered together in the middle of the stop.  Memories of times and people were laughinghly shared, and then.... it was all over and we left to go our separate ways.   Ok, I know that in a town like this we will still come across one another from time to time, but I`m feeling sad at the moment on having walked out of there for the last time, after over forty-one years, and more so in a sense the loss of a “family”,  we`ve always been there for each other, through good times and bad.

Rules for Hymn Singing

I`ve just discovered something I didn`t know.

No, I`m not saying that I know everything, far, far from it.

But, looking at details of the new hymn book to be produced for the Methodist Church later this year I was just surprised to find that John Wesley had written a set of rules for people for singing hymns.  

Rules that particularly caught my eye were: -

3. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a single degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing. 

4. Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, then when you sung the songs of Satan. 

5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound. 

7. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven. 



The full list of rules can be found and read here

I think it would be good if they printed the list in the hymn book when it`s published.   Wonder if they will?

Mystery parcel

On entering our Church on Friday morning, I found on the table there a smallish brown parcel box, and on the top of it was written my name.

Full of curiosity I opened it, and inside was a book.   I was mystified.   I hadn`t ordered any books.  Maybe it was meant for our church Christian Bookstall I thought.  So I looked again at the top of the outer box, no, it was clearly hand written addressed to me care of the church, I could see that the original postage label had been removed and my details written, so it must be for me.  

It wasn`t my birthday, nor any other occasion of link that I could think of.  I continued to puzzle over it.  Looking at the cover of the book I saw the words "World Book Night 2011".   I pondered, who had left this for me or had it been left for me to do something with.  I tried to recognise the writing on the box, but couldn`t pin point it to any for certain, and I couldn`t see anything else with it to give me a clue.

Taking the box and book "Half of a Yellow Sun" home with me, I took the book out again and opened it, and the mystery was solved! - there inside the first pages of the book was a note from the kind person who had left it for me.

I`d heard about World Book Day and World Book night, but had never imagained that living here in Norfolk I would be part of it to receive a book (big events and things seldom seem to happen outside of cities).  So it really "made my day", and especially as the person who had left it for me, is my blogger friend from Finland.

Thank you Lorna.

How to use bread crusts!!

I`m on holiday this week.  I`ve not gone away anywhere (lots of problems if I do that), but am having a week off of work at home and having time to do what I want to do.

Finding some spare bread crusts in the bread bin - Yes, I know I sould eat the end crusts of a loaf, but I don`t very often - I decided to take them for a ride with me along the coast to where there are some wildfowl on a stretch of water.

They enjoyed the crusts far more than I would have!!

Then along came these little furry creatures to eat the crumbs left......

.... I guess they are probably rats - but they had such cute sweet faces I just had to take a picture of them!

National Chip Week

This is National Chip Week.

I love chips and often cook them, so I thought I`d share some with you today.

 And, here`s the piece of haddock I battered and fried with them .......

Delicious!!

Single Difficulties

At times it`s difficult being single.  

For instance, the other evening on hearing that a colleague was going to be on his own at the weekend, I said to him, "would you like to have Sunday dinner with me as you`re on your own that day".  

He declined.

Thinking about it afterwards, I realised how it could have seemed - a single woman asking a married man to lunch when his wife was away!

In no way was it meant like that, it was just an automatic friendly gesture, to help.  And, although throroughly enjoying living on my own, it is nice sometimes to share a meal with someone and have someone to cook for.

It made me realise as I thought about things, just how much everything seems to be geared up for couples or families, and how difficult it is for a single person to make friends or socialise.

Closing Down

No, although I`ve got out of the habit of writing posts as regularly as I used to, it`s not the Blog which is closing down, its sadder than that.

I`ve got some sad news here,  it`s something I`ve know about since before Christmas but had to keep it to myself, but now it`s come out in a way that we didn`t want.  

Because of the way things have been going for the store where I`ve worked and we`ve been losing money for a long, long time, J (the owner,) reluctantly decided that he`d have to sell the store here.   He intended telling the staff once things were finalised and he could tell them definitely what was happening, as he was trying to find jobs for some of them in another store.   He`d got a buyer in the process of buying it (a totally different multiple store, not grocery), so all was going ok.   Then one day this week the staff found out through someone, we don`t know who, leaving purposely for the staff to find, one of the Estate agents business for sale leaflets on the premises early one morning.    It was the worst way for the news to have got out.  

I`m lucky in that it doesn`t affect my job, as I now do the office work for all his stores, but I feel so sorry for the girls as the shop, especially those who have been there many, many years, and I also feel very sorry for J, because he is so caring for his staff and he didn`t want them to find out like this, he wanted to tell them properly once things were certain.  

It`s also sad for the town, in that it`s always, as far back as I can remember as a child, been a grocery store in the middle of the town, and having worked for them 41 years it will be sad to see it no longer exist.

So its sadness here today.

Waiting for chips?

The sun shone the other afternoon, so, a ride along the coast brought me to this spot.  Normally there is a whole row of cars parked and lots of people walking about, but at this time of year, despite it being a nice day, we were the only ones there.    I think these seagulls were all sitting wondering where the people were as they areno doubt used to being fed with chips as people stand by the sea wall eating them.

It was just us and the birds, the sea was a beautiful shade of blue, it was quiet and calm and perfect.

Discover Norfolk

Well, I think it`s about time I started writing posts for this year!

Firstly, a belated Happy New Year to all.

Do you know Norfolk (UK)?  -  
I`ve just come across this interesting site, so click here to see it and take a tour round the museum.

It`s Christmas - Celebrate Jesus` birth

A Happy & Peaceful Christmas to You