Cornflakes and Feet

I don't know what you do at breakfast time.


I guess like us it much depends on how bleary eyed you are and how much time you have as to whether you have a leisurely breakfast or a hurried affair.

Hubby insists on sitting in an easy chair away from the table each morning while he drinks that first cup of tea and eats his cereal.

This morning to complete the picture he was slipper-less, and I was captivated by the shape of his feet.

No, no! not in any erotic sense you understand.
More in a "Oh my goodness they are just such a lovely shape to draw!" kind of way.

It has been such a long time since I've felt the urge to draw I take it as a sign I'm really getting better. Anyway I grabbed the nearest ball point pen and an envelope containing some of the morning post and quickly captured his elegant tooties.

Isn't there something very vulnerable about bare feet? They are such odd looking appendages when seen un-peeled of their coverings. (Especially other peoples feet ! Ugh! Hope hubby's don't have this effect on you!)

Anyway I'm posting my scribbles to proclaim that there's life in the old girl yet, and I'm afraid to say, that left to ourselves our breakfast routine is rather less elegant than hubby's feet.

Holly Berries and Remembered Friendship

The holly at the back of the house is already loaded with clusters of ripening green berries. This morning I watched the blue tits diving one after the other into the trees to swoop onto the berries and then shoot out from amongst the leaves, for all the world like shuttlecocks emerging at all angles from some mad game of badminton. I have no idea what they were doing as the berries are not yet ready to eat, so it was hard to believe that they weren't simply having fun.

The old saying is that when the holly is loaded with berries we are in for a hard winter. In fact there has never been a year when these trees haven't borne a bumper crop, but our winters have rarely been bad ones, so another old wives tale bites the dust.

Each time I see the berries ripen I remember a dear friend of mine who usually wanted sprigs of berry-laden holly to decorate the house for Christmas. We quickly learned that if she was to have them we had to pick the choice branches at the latest by three weeks before Christmas because if left any later the berries would be gone. For some reason it is these weeks when the berries attract the birds most and they quickly disappear, leaving the trees de-nuded of their glowing fruits.

Sadly my friend Fran is no longer with us, but the trees, the berries, and the birds, are all wonderful living memorials that remind me of our friendship and the happy times we shared.

Looking up from the top of our garden I can see the windows of the house where Fran and Paddy used to live.

One day, our own lawnmower being out of commission, I set out to mow the grass with a petrol mower we had been loaned. It was a big old fashioned thing with a clutch lever which was apt to stick and then suddenly release itself, so that it was practically impossible for me to let the clutch out smoothly and regulate the speed of the mower. The result was that the thing kept leaping forward at a rate of knots and I was forced to run to keep up as it careered up and down the garden.

When I at last switched off the wretched machine and all was again quiet after the racket it had made, I was left with only the stink of the petrol it had burned, and the sound of somebody laughing their socks off.

The laughter came from Fran who, leaning out of her bedroom window, shouted over that I had given her the best laugh she'd had for a long time as I'd hared up and down the garden trying to hang on to the mower and keep up with it's rocket-like progress over the grass.

Naturally that called for a cup of tea together, just a few biscuits, and a bit more laughter.

Presents That Fit the Bill

Still more or less idling my time away with another infection,but in the mean time I've been on-line shopping for hubby's birthday present. Oh, the wonders of technology when what you order comes on the day you want it to, and what you ordered fits! By these means hubby (yes, his name is Bill), is now the owner of some smart new grey bowling trousers.

I'm glad to say that unlike when you're a youngster, he's at the age where clothes are a welcome present, and it has benefits for the giver of the gift as well.

Firstly I don't have to nag, cajole, and plead to get him into a shop, I just present him with the item of clothing.

Secondly, he doesn't have the option of saying,"HOW much...?" at the sight of a price tag, and quickly vacating the shop empty handed.

Finally, for a little while he will look really good in a new pair of trousers that he has not yet managed to wear into his usual "just slept in these for a week" shape.

Bowling being his passion, he is doubly pleased that among the other gifts from our daughter was a white leather belt for his new bowling whites. The fact that it is exactly the right length means he won't resort to hacking a few inches off it as he has been known to do in the past, so again it's a double whammy, because I'm pleased about that too!

Younger granddaughter presented him with a white base ball cap emblazoned with the motto," I'd Rather be Bowling", which we all agreed he can wear at any moment of the day or night and it remain true.

As I sit and write he is sitting opposite me in a lovely deep purple shirt which really suits him, and came with a twin in a lovely shade of blue, from our older granddaughter, so he's not always the old traditionalist after all. Good choice!

There were other small gifts as well of course, and a couple of celebration meals together, but all this had to be fitted around the current bowls matches that abound now we are in the middle of the outdoor season.

The only thing he didn't completely fit in was blowing the candles out on his cake. Our young great grandson beat him to it !

God Bless