For months now, grandson Sam and his cousin Lucas have been “playing out” up the top of the garden, making and improving their den. It’s great to see kids in the age of the computer and the i-pod getting their hands dirty and having the same fun that we used to do as kids “playing out” in the 1940s. This weekend, they decided to dig a hole in their den at the top of the garden and bury a “Time Capsule”. I found them a small bottle with a screw top which I hope was not biodegradable. They then made up a document on the computer, with ‘photos, which they put into the bottle and duly buried before filling in the hole, which, by the way, was some hole ! (Made a mental note to keep a closer eye on them when they were up the garden armed with spades !!) Pics below show Luc and then Sam taking a last turn in the hole before filling it in. Since this picture of Luc was taken by Sam with a little too much flash, Luc is now known as “the guy with no face!”
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Picked up a few Brownie points from Madge this weekend. Finally fixed the outlet hose for the tumbler drier, cleaned and adjusted the previously noisy kitchen extractor fan, repaired the wireless house alarm system , repaired the faulty veg. steamer and given the hall and kitchen a “spring clean”.
Now I’m going to have a lie down in a quiet darkened room and picture myself relaxing by the pool at the Red Sea. (see pic below taken last April).
We are due to go again in March. Can’t wait !
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Just got back from our “Winter Warmer” break at Bodelwyddan Castle in Wales. This is a mock Castle built by a wealthy Victorian family which contains the official North Wales Museum and is run by Warners as a luxury adults-only holiday complex.
The family also erected a church a few hundred yards away across the main road know as the Marble Church because of its varied types of internal marble pillars.
The churchyard contains many graves of Canadian airmen killed during the Second World War. The amazing thing is that this ornately carved church was “thrown up” by a Victorian building contractor from London in just a couple of years.
We spent our time walking, playing table tennis, pool, dancing, playing cards, being entertained in the evening and partaking of the free booze (all drinks including coffee and wines and spirits were free!).
This break was just what we needed after the Christmas festivities; time to indulge ourselves and no Grandkids, bless ‘em !
Pics below show Madge all wrapped up against the cold outside the castle building, the exterior of the Marble Church, the tops of the intricately carved choir stalls (how did a 19th century building contractor build an ornately carved stone church filled with this kind of stuff in just two years ?), and our lovely Geordie waiter Neil with Madge at our table.
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How about this for effortless “giving” to charity; all you are required to give is a few seconds of your time whilst online, and you can feed up to 3 hungry people per day FOR FREE :- http://www.thehungersite.comI found this on the UK based Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert site:-This is a brilliant site which shows regularly updated ways of minimizing your regular expenditure as well as saving on capital expenditure.He publicises this charity site every Christmas, but hopes people will continue to click all year round. On the site there are also breast cancer, rainforest, child health and animal rescue links which work in the same way.Visit http://www.thehungersite.com to give food to the hungry with just a click–every day and at no cost to you.HOW IT WORKSWhen you click the “Give Free Food” button (once a day per person) at http://www.thehungersite.com, this simple action gives over a cup of fortified food to a hungry person.It costs you nothing. Funding is paid by site sponsors and food is distributed by two leading non-profit hunger relief organizations: Mercy Corps and America’s Second Harvest.The number of people who click each day determines the amount of food that goes to the hungry, so please click each day and forward this message along.WHY CLICK?There is enough food in the world for every man, woman and child. Yet an estimated one billion of the world’s people live in poverty and face chronic hunger. 24,000 die daily. 75% of them are children under age five.A “click to give” costs nothing but a few seconds of your time, and gives help and hope to a person in desperate need.P.S. If, as I do, you click on the left-hand site on “Remember to Click” and just fill in your e-mail address and name only, You’ll get an e-mail reminder to click each day and send an extra 2 cups of food each time you click.Click here to give free food:
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Las Vegas Churches—
Las Vegas Churches
THIS MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO THOSE OF YOU NOT LIVING IN LAS VEGAS, BUT THERE ARE MORE CATHOLIC CHURCHES THAN CASINOS.
NOT SURPRISINGLY, SOME WORSHIPPERS AT SUNDAY SERVICES WILL GIVE CASINO CHIPS RATHER THAN CASH WHEN THE BASKET IS PASSED.
SINCE THEY GET CHIPS FROM MANY DIFFERENT CASINOS, THE CHURCHES HAVE DEVISED A METHOD TO COLLECT THE OFFERINGS.
THE CHURCHES SEND ALL THEIR COLLECTED CHIPS TO A NEARBY FRANCISCAN MONASTERY FOR SORTING AND THEN THE CHIPS ARE TAKEN TO THE CASINOS OF ORIGIN AND CASHED IN.
THIS IS DONE BY THE CHIP MONKS…!
YOU DIDN’T EVEN SEE IT COMING DID YOU ?
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Here’s a gem I came across the other day:-
Calmness in our LivesI am passing this on to you because it definitely works. We could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice I heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too, can find inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, “The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you’ve started and never finished.”
So, I looked around my house to see all the things I’d started and hadn’t finished. And before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, Haagen Daaz coffee ice cream, the remainder of my old Prozac, prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolate truffles from Trader Joe’s.
You have no idea how freaking good I feel.
Please pass this on to those you feel might be in need of inner peace.
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Here’s an interesting article on smoking which I
read in my daily paper today.
It relates to the recent slow death in hospital of
the Russian intelligence officer Alexander
Litvinenko, who was reported to have been murdered
here in the U.K. by being fed drinks or food
containing Polonium, a substance with a short-range
radioactivity which can be lethal if it is introduced
into the body:-
A Secret Killer
IN THE Alexander Litvinenko coverage, polonium-210 is described
as a rare isotope. Sadly, it isn’t rare at all and is even available at a
discount from most international airports. Litvinenko’s death
appears to have alerted us to an exotic new poison, but
polonium-210 already kills tens ofthousands of Britons
annually.
In 1990. American Surgeon General C.Everett Koop declared
that radioactivity, not tar, accounts for 90 per cent of
smoking-related lung cancers. Cigarettes are in fact lightly
radioactive.
Most of that radiation comes from the rock-mineral fertiliser
Apatite that subsidised American farmers must use.
This contains radon, which decays to deposit polonium-2lO
in the fine hairs of tobacco leaves. This collects in smokers’
Iungs, and beams out alpha radiation for years. Increasing use
of radon-rich fertilisers accompanied an l8-fold increase in the
per capita incidence of lung cancer between 1930 and 1980
in the U.S.
During this time, although smoking decreased by 20 per cent,
tobacco’s polonium-2 l0 content tripled.
It was estimated in The New England Journal Of Medicine
in 1982 that the lungs of someone who smokes 30 cigarettes
a day accumulate radiation equivalent to 300 chest X-rays
a year.
Of 33,000 UK deaths a year from Iung cancer, 90
per cent would equate to 30,000 caused by radiation.
Litvinenko’s death fascinates us, but it’s surely sobering
to realise that 575 Britons die every week from gradually
ingesting the same substance that poisoned him. It is not in the
interests of the Government or the tobacco industry to
publicise the radiation situation. Nor do anti-smoking campaigners
wish to give attention to data which might show that smoking is not,
of itself, the killer.
But they’re all aware of the situation. We must all be saddened by
the tragic loss of one Russian spy, but his end will have been for
the greater good if, through raising this issue, the lives of millions
of future smokers may be saved.
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Here we are back in the rain at 5 celsius in the UK after a fortnight in the sun at 32c on the Red Sea.
Son Paul, wife Silvia and kids Jake, Lauren and Dan arrived for their week’s break on the Saturday before we left for home on the Monday, so we finished our holiday in family mode for a couple of days before they waved us off home on the airport ‘bus.
First two pics below show the views front and rear from our corner detached apartment balcony, next two show myself and Madge at the table tennis table, and the last one shows Dan, Jake and myself during a trip to the local shop.
As you can see, a good time was had by all !
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