Mixed Emotion Day

I have a mixture of emotions as I write this blog this evening. I have returned home having spent a delightful and convivial (a lovely word) two hours with my blogger friend and ex colleague Middle Aged Gapper in a local Italian restaurant/cafe in Hessle in East Yorkshire. It was great to see him and catch up with his busy life although things have taken a sad turn with the death of his father recently.

The second emotion today I experienced today was upon hearing the dreadful news of the police officer killed in Cumbria whilst on duty helping the public cope with the awful weather that has devastated the north west of England and the south west of Scotland and parts of Ireland and Wales. My thoughts go the family and colleagues of Constable Bill Barker who died whilst acting in the best traditions of the British Police Service, helping the public in a dangerous situation, leading a stranded motorist off a bridge which then collapsed with him on it.

I was able to smile again at the delightful story of Auntie Gwen in her blog which made me laugh out loud. If you want to have a giggle at her descriptions of her family's visit to the dentists, you have to read this.

Tonight is Children in Need on the BBC and although I will only watch parts of it here and there, I enjoyed the concert on the BBC last night (Thursday) which had a multiplicity of talent to entertain us all organised by the great Gary Barlow.

I don't feel it's appropriate to post a story today, I'll let Auntie Gwen brighten your day with her true life story and you can feel good that Children in Need is helping those in our society that really need help.

I'll leave you with a quote instead from William James, an American philosopher and psychologist about emotion. "Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.”

How true. Have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.

Mixed bag...

Hi bloggers to this new week with some good news and less good news. Firstly, I would like you to do me a favour please. I would like you to read this blog by one of my regular blogging correspondents Magnumlady (Val) in Sligo who is experiencing a lot of frustration through the ineffectiveness of their local health service and the plight of her son Jonathan as a consequence. Let her know what you think by leaving her family a message of support. Thanks.

The diet is going on apace and today was 'weigh day'. The treadmill has been a big help I must admit and my other half has been very supportive of its use and indeed has started to use it herself. The sweat has been pouring off (yuk) in this warmer season - note I didn't say 'hotter'. In the last four weeks, I have lost over 12 pounds (5.6Kg). In her efforts to support me, my wife has been eating the same food and exercising herself, although she does have a job which involves a lot of walking and lifting and therefore is reasonably fit already. She got weighed herself and she has lost 19 pounds (8.6Kg).

In total then, since the end of February - I've lost 76.78 pounds, or 34.9 Kg, roughly five and a half stones.

Ironically, the picture above is my great grandmother who had this'fun' picture taken whilst on a trip to the seaside, just over seventy years ago (July 1939) - she looks a bundle of laughs!

My good friend Middleagedgapper will return in the next couple of days from his exciting adventure holiday in Turkey and I look forward to reading his blog with all the news and pictures. I am meeting him for a spot of tiffin on Friday this week. Welcome back. I wish I had the guts to do something like that, but it'll take me ages to get fit and I can't afford it (that's my excuse)! I would like to go and visit my ancestors First World War grave in Belgium one day and that might be a short break we'll take in the late autumn - in the car and across the North Sea ferry.

You may recall Ive been doing my family history for about thirty years now and I keep getting correspondence from all round the globe enquiring about the family and rarely are they connected - the enquiries are little more than a shot in the dark usually. I have however in the last day or so been corresponding with a lady in Kent - Janis who may well be connected to a great, great, great, great, great grandmother of mine, born back in 1769 in the sleepy hollows of Lincolnshire. Good to meet people from around the globe - like visitors to our blogs.

My story today concerns our favourite profession, bankers.

Two women were walking through the woods one morning when they nearly stepped on a frog on the path. "Help me, help me," croaked the frog. "I'm a banker, but a witch put a curse on me and turned me into a frog. If one of you gorgeous ladies would like to kiss me, I'll turn back into a handsome hunky banker."

One of the ladies picked him up and put him in her handbag. "Didn't you hear what he said?" Enquired the friend, "Kiss him and he'll turn into a handsome banker."

"Listen," her friend replied, "These days, he's worth more as a talking frog than a banker!"

Chat soon

Ta-ra

Touch wood...

Did you say 'white rabbit' three times this morning before you uttered your first words on this first day of the month? I was in bed late on Tuesday night so at five minutes past midnight I cheated and said it then just before I nodded off.

I got into a (friendly) argument with a friend Linda who I take to the psychic circle on Tuesday. We had entered Shirley Ann's house where the circle is held by the back door. We enjoyed a productive and successful night with some quality messages for each other from the 'other side' and it was time to leave. My friend wanted to leave by the FRONT door, much to my dismay but she argued that as we had sat down after entering the house, it didn't matter, it wouldn't be bad luck to leave through a different door from one that we had originally entered.

I bowed to her confidence that we had negated the superstition by sitting and I left, not without a little trepidation (and after touching wood) and to make it worse the fog had come in from the North Sea with a vengeance on the drive home. All was well however and I am now happy that the three 'white rabbits' have rescued me.

My work colleague and friend Middle Aged Gapper is on his last working day on Friday before he retires and starts his new life of adventure and discovery. I am hopeful that when he can find time, he will update his blog with his adventures and his rather small companion Wainwright who you should really meet because this little guy will become famous, mark my words.

There aren't many rabbit stories (other than them being prolific breeders) so I thought I would relate a story about a rabbit in tribute to my lucky three 'white rabbits.'

A man found his dog in his back garden with a dead rabbit in his mouth. The dreadful realisation came to him that this was the neighbours daughter's pet rabbit. In a panic, he washed the rabbit and in the dead of night he slipped it back into the cage in his neighbour's garden hoping perhaps that his neighbour would think it had died of natural causes. The next day, the man spotted his neighbour digging in the garden. He looked over the fence and said, "Hello Bill, what you up to?"

"I'm burying my rabbit," replied the neighbour. "There are some sick people about. It died on Monday, I buried it on Tuesday and yesterday, some bastard dug it up, washed it and stuck it back in its cage."

Whoops!

Chat soon

Ta-ra.