Uh oh it's raining again..........

.....and it was, indeed it has, since Saturday. Especially Saturday, when after breakfast we discovered that the camper had a flat tyre. The camper had already been on adventure the previous day. Collecting it from the garage and driving it home I was concerned that it tended to pull to the right, was slow and lethargic, and, as I turned into our road, smelled of burnt toast. I’d driven at around twenty five to thirty miles an hour along a lane with a sixty mile speed limit, sort of knowing that I should turn back, but definitely knowing that it would be my ‘driving’ that would be blamed, so I continued home and told my better half when he arrived back from work. I saw the ‘it’s her driving’ flash across his face, but he is experienced in the ways of Mrs.T. and he didn’t say it. To humour me, he drove the camper a couple of hundred yards........ rang the garage, and very slowly set off back there. Our weekend away looked over before it had started. After much peering under the van and head shaking discussion, the brakes were discovered to be at 200 degrees and the cylinder thingy had been cracked when the discs were replaced. A new second hand one was quickly put in and we eventually set off for the Cotswolds . See, I may not know the names of thingies, but I know when they are going wrong.


Saturday morning and it was raining again... and we had a flat tyre. It’s tricky with a camper van finding a garage with a high enough roof to take it, but we did and the great guys at Malvern Tyres took good care of things. I waited in the shop/waiting area, thoroughly entertained by the comings and goings of mechanical men (now there’s a dream) and customers. A poster advertising tyres caught my attention:

‘ tyres epitomise style, trend awareness and individuality’

I want them and I want them bad. Because I’m SO worth it. A well dressed gent came in, leaned sort of confidentially over the counter and asked

‘Do you have any rubber exhaust hangers?’

Now even I know that exhausts are not made of rubber.

most folks are lovely

and then you get the ones, who, after smashing into my son's car a couple of weeks ago, go back to it and really give it a seeing to..... and steal the number plates. The car was carefully parked on a drive, tucked away almost out of view. Someone singled out my son's car. Well look out someone, I've singled you out for prayer. Something good might just happen to YOU and then you won't know what to do or feel will you?

'Get rid of all bitterness and anger.......' Ephesians 4.

The write way up

It seemed logical. I've been so busy working out how this blog thing works and fiddling with the pages, that actually posting anything took second place.
'Never mind' I thought 'I'm a clever girl, I can post in retrospect'.

So this is how it works..... you begin the post, check it through, click on 'publish post' and it appears. With a date on. Today's date. Not yesterday's, not the day before. Today.

'Not a problem' I reasoned. 'As I type, beginning with last Sunday, the new lines of type with push the old ones down the page and the text will end up beginning with the most recent thoughts and the oldest thoughts will be down the bottom of the page near the last date of posting'. The most recent date then will be nearest to the top. In blog order.

 I expect you have worked it out now  - it just doesn't happen does it? Took me a couple of hours though.

In the Cotswold's for the weekend, when all this amazing process of logic was taking place, I lay in the camper van bed listening to the pouring rain and trying to imagine how print happens when you type it in the the computer. Of course the letters you type go on top of the previous ones. That's soooo logical. Isn't it?

Remembering my first proper job and the old Remington Noiseless. Showing my age now. A splendid typewriter that I learned to use on the job - I was an advertisement clerk in the local newspaper. I had status then. Prestige.

'She works for the Mail' folks would say if I was spotted out; and if the spotter knew me already ..
'Hoo dus she think she is werking for the Mail?' (you have to know the vernacular to appreciate it.).

The Mail sold the wedding photographs that the photographers took each Saturday. People would come in and look at the display photos to choose the size and price range of their prints. After our wedding, His Nibs (my husband) and I were the 'model' photographs. Unwary customers would discuss the bride and groom, the wedding outfits, where the bride and groom ranked in the attractiveness stakes and so on, completely unaware that the bride was actually sitting behind the desk waiting to take their order.
'Wouldn't you think she'd take her glasses off?' asked one to her friend.
Why? Why would I take my glasses off? I needed them on in order to SEE. What if someone swapped His Nibs for an ugly model who I didn't recognise because I didn't have my glasses on and I accidentally married him? Anyway, there was nothing wrong with those bronzed aviator frames with the double bridge. Nothing.

The Remington Noiseless, I remembered, typed top down, not bottom up. The daisy wheel printer in the press room (oh those Saturdays doing the footy results with Jeff  (Geoff?) Stelling... it printed top down too.
'So why,' I thought, still listening to the rain, 'doesn't the computer?'. ... At some point I drifted off to sleep, awakened later by the sound of large drips on the camper van roof. Life somehow unscrambled itself again and the mystery of how the type appeared on screen unfolded as I remembered that the PC too, types from the top down and my method of blogging in retrospect was busted.

I remembered something else too. I remembered my dad telling me:
'Never camp under trees Les, never camp under trees, 'cos when it rains, it always rains twice.' And it did.

'Can't get you out of my head 'cos chihua - hua is all I think about....'

Yep, I've got an ear worm. A jingle in my brain that won't go away and it's all because I began playing on a dog - forum. Why can't I get chihuahuas out of my brain? I'm a sensible person. I have a sensible job and I do sensible things and I help people in a sort of sensible way. I'm a sensible person and I like terriers. My lovely Maxi was a Patterdale, my beloved Meggie was a Border cross, so why the infatuation with chihuahuas? I've never liked them. Short, stocky, snarly things with big foreheads and a defensive attitude. No, I'm not describing me, I'm describing the chihuahua.
Isn't there a saying that dogs are like their owners?
Maybe I've just discovered why I'm fascinated by the chihuahua.


The dog longing is all Nala's fault and she's a cat. Nala slipped quietly over the garden fence today and slinked around my feet whilst I was sneaking a bite of cake. Nala is black and kitten sized with the most beautiful bright green eyes. For the first time ever she let me stroke her and it was lovely. In an instant my hands remembered stroking my own pets and the instant de - stress effect that it has. As Nala went quietly back to her own garden I sent her a silent 'thank you', and somehow I didn't need the cake no more.

Big ideas, little talent

Now what? I've got this far. I've stepped along carefully guided by the mystery blog guide and google and I've set up a blog. I'm on the way!

Not quite sure what to do next though.

I would like to set up different pages... one for my love of beautiful places in Britain, such as the Shetland Islands, one my my love of the Lord, one for my love of my family,one for my ability to be a happy hooker and a chick with sticks (knitters you know what I mean!).

Yet more..... I'd like a page/link to dog rescue centres. I no longer have my own beloved dog, but there are plenty out there who need someone with a heart for them.

And more... for my work in adult education. How valuable my learners are and how I love to support them and help them grow their learning wings and fly.

There's so much! The internet is my oyster! The blog is too big, too daunting and I don't know where to start. Right now I have a sermon to think about. Pray that I can find my way back here and begin this new journey........... hopefully with YOU to hold my hand on the stepping stones and help me find the waymarkers!