THE DUCK CALLED QUACK

There once was a duck called Quack
Who rolled over onto his back
He quite liked it there
Though many did stare
When he shouted out for a Big Mac

ROSE

Rose
Your scent
Filled my heart
With summer’s joy
Now a memory
In my mind’s eye I see
On your smooth silken petals
The blush of heavens kiss at dawn
I call to mind once again your scent
And know that one day summer will return

SADJE’S SUNDAY POSER Multitasking or Mindfulness

Sunday Poser # Multitasking or mindfulness?

I tend to be a bit of a contemplative and was so from being a child. I could stare at a single daisy for ages and think about it. The same with many things. It can be a bit of a problem being like this, but when I needed to multitask, then I was able to do that. Howadays I can’t multitask but I do spend a lot of time contemplating. I contemplate life whereas I used to contamplate nature and the heavens. Mind you, it is not very good when you are walking along contemplating the heavens and you suddenly bump into a lamp post.Sadje asks us whether we multitask or do things mindfully

I’VE BEEN MISSING REPLYING TO SOME PEOPLE – APOLOGIES

I am so sorry that I have been missing some replies to some people. I feel awful because you have all been so kind to me. It has just been one of those times and I am once again trying to catch up. May I please issue a big thankyou to you all. You are the best. You have all kept me going through this terrible trial that I am going through. I have attempted to kee happier posts or more palatable ones on my blog as well as telling you the horror of what is happening to me.

I am so grateful for all my blogging friends. I hope that all of you are alright. Sending love to everyone. X

RDP SUNDAY Praise

RDP Sunday: praise

With thanks for this word prompt

There are some people who thrive or perhaps feed on praise and adulation. They need it like we need air. I am sure we can think of many who are like this.

Also, however, there are those who need constant praise and yet no amount of praise given does any good at all. It is never enough. I have a sister like that and she is always saying

“They never praise me up.” Or “she never praises me up.”

Even in her job she speaks of them never praising her up. In fact, they do, but it does not good whatsoever. She has such an inferiority complex that nothing does any good. It is quite wearing to deal with and in all honesty I get sick of hearing those words.

She used to play the flute as a teenager and younger person, and when she played it, and she did actually excel at it, she expected our mother to praoise her up. I think that our mother had become so sick of it that she never did any more. An inferiority complex that bad can be so difficult to deal with. But also it must be hell for the person with the inferiority complex to cope. It isn’t a very pleasant way of living.

WOTD Fragrance

https://blindwilderness.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=55072&action=edit

Thankyou Alice for giving us this lovely word.

When I was going through chemo, the one thing that I longed for was the fragrance of nice soaps. Everything was so cold and clinical and it all felt so horrid that the frangrance of soaps lifted me from that horrid place to somewhere much more pleasant.

Although I am not still in chemo, I am still ill, and again, the frangrance of soap draws me. Not only soap, but other things too. Just lately I have wanted the fragrance of the roses out in our garden, but now, they have all gone, it being autumn. I did have our gardener pick the last rose of summer for me and I did smell that. I couldn’t see it but the smell meant a lot to me.

Now, I long for the smeall or fragrance of the earth. Have you ever thought how fragrant is the smell of damp earth? You don’t realise it until you can no longer go outside to smell it. I imagine myself down on my knees in the garden with my trowel turning over the ssoil and oh how delicious that thought is.

I suppose that most people think of the fragrance of perfumes but I am not at all keen on perfumes. So I avoid those, although those who come into our house wear it and I don’t like it but have to put up with it.

Thankyou Alice. I enjoyed writing this.

WILL YOU DANCE WITH ME

If I the singer
Can sing you a song of love
Will you dance with me

I FOLLOW THE STARS

I follow the stars
Holding onto their coat tails
To that place beyond

HANDS OVER WATER

Hands over water
Stretched out across ocean depths
But speaking of love

MURDER AT BOTTOMLY SPA

For those of you who were reading this Murder Mystery, I have just done a post telling the whole story and who the murderer was, as I am unable to type great amounts all at once and my brain can’t function enough to write something so complicated. I am spending all my time trying to keep myself calm amidst this horrific itch. It takes all of my mental energy.

I hope you enjoy reading all about the Mystery though. I will do a new one soon I hope. Or I may do a different type of story instead. Let’s see what happens. If you beleive in praying, please pray that my itch goes as it is making me so very ill and I can’t eat at all. If you don’t beleive in praying then please send good vibes to me. Thankyou fo very much. X

WHO WAS THE MURDERER AT BOTTOMLY SPA?

I am very loathe to do this but I think I need to tell you who the murderer was in my Murder Mystery, Murder at Bottomly Spa. I feel unable to write the pieces for it at the moment. I can’t concentrate enough.

So, the murderer was Ivor, the owner of the grand piano shop. Although he was a womaniser and had lots of affairs, which he didn’t try to hide, he actually hated women because he needed them and he hated that he needed them. He had access to all of the murder victins, including any related to Jessie.

It was kids who played the hymn tunes in the underground passages that run through Tugswell. This part of the story is based on truth in some ways, as the village of Tugswell is actually Tideswell in Derbyshire, where we used to live. It was a folklore tale but in the story, I have had the kids take it up and play on it for fun. Remember them running into the fish and chip shop with foam all around their mouths shouting,

“I’ve got rabies.” Well people in the village were used to them doing stupid things like that and didn’t turn a hair. In fact, that was a true incident that happened when I was standing in the fish shop queue one evening waiting to buy some fish and chips for our dinner.

At the end of everything, both Sue and Tom move to Lower Bottomly, along with Ivy, who sells her cottage and they remain wonderful friends together along with the dogs, Bessie and Nellie, and Jasper. Lower Bottomly is based upon the beautiful Hope Valley in Derbyshire, and we used to go there very often and it was pure magic.the story about the two lovers who are murdered on their way to be married is true. Some miners saw tham and murdered them and hid their bodies but they were found. Then the story arose that they were haunting the area especially around the Winnats Pass that goes up into the hills out of Castleton, which is Blue John Mine country. I think the miners were executed for their crime but I can’t quite remember.

The vicar was always a queer one, having been married once, but his wife went off and had an affair because of his temper. He was quite weird and she sought comfort in another man. She divorced him and he never forgave her. But it made him into a kind of pervert who wanted to get near women and scare them.

Ron and his wife in the end begin to relate to each other again following the murders. His wife had problems adjusting to him getting M.S. and she was afraid of getting too close to him and then him dying, like her first husand had done. Don’t get too close and then you won’t get hurt was her motto. And also as he had M.S. they were unable to have an intimate life, which didn’t help their relationship at all.

Mrs. Tingwell always seemed to be a bit of a battleaxe who kept herself to herself, but she was mor human than people thought, and Susie discovered that. She did have a very soft and vulnerable side. After Susie and Tom moved to Lower Bottomly, Susie still visited Mrs. Tingwell and they became good friends.

Vera lived in Lower Bottonly Spa too, and she often attended a very evangelical church where Jessie was prone to go and so she knew Jessie quite well. Vera loved that they danced in the Services at this church. She thought it was cool. The vicar hated that church though and looked down upon it.

The cottage in Tugswell of course, was the one that in truth, me and my husband lived in for eight months before moving to a larger one somewhere else in Derbyshire, and then eventually buying our own house in Chapel en le Frith. Oh, and when living there, I did go to a Writing Group at Buxton Library. There were many colourful characters there including Cecil. He was a newsagent and he knew everything and everybody but he was another strange character. He claimed to be able to levitate and produced a photograph of himself doing it. It really looked as if was doing. This was a true incident. He was a bit weird with women too and as the story went on I was going to make him looke like a suspect too.

In reality, I would loved to have really bought a house in the Hope Valley but of course we never managed it. I often used to take my dogs there though, especially up onto Mam Tor which is above Castleton.

Jeremy was a lovely man and is not based upon anybody at all. But susie and Tom remain fridns with him. He had a wife sho died too, but never married again. He is quite a lonely man and so values the friendship with Susie and Tom.

I hope I have covered everything. If not, please ask.

HOPE SAYS…..Magda came on wrong day again and didn’t take me out

Woof woof woof

Magda came today and it is the wrong day again. I think she’s losing her marbles so if you find any marbles could you send them back to her please. She forgot to take me out as well so she really must have lost her marbles.

It is raining heavy today again, and I had to go out in it. I hate it when I have to do what I don’t want to do.

Mum is crying a lot because of her itch and Dad told me that the iron tablets aren’t making it go away. I think I will need to take a walk out somewhere and look for some iron girders for her. It isn’t anything to do with Mr. Arthyr Itis who visits me. I’ve got some tablets for that but they aren’t iron girders. They are just little tablets that Magda puts n cheese for me.

I don’t really know who is visiting Mum. It isn’t the Tesco man or the Ocado man, although they seem a bit mixed up to me as well. They keep coming early. They keep their mix up downstairs though. They don’t go up to see Mum. So they can’t cause any trobule up there.

Dad did Round and Round the Garden with me today and I heard Mum crying because she used to do it with me and she can’t do it any more.

I don’t think Mum is very well at all and I am worried about her. I want to go upstairs and kiss her but Dad won’t let me because of Mr. Arthur. He says if I managed to get up the stairs I wouldn’t get down them again because of that horrid Mr. Arthur. And he says that he can’t carry me.

I wonder if I will ever see Mum again.

I had better shut up now and watch out for Mr. Arthur and if he comes I will bite him on the bum.

Woor woof woof

WOTD Centrepiece

Centerpiece

When I first met my husband he wanted me to go down to Birmingham in England to meet his parents and his family. It was a Sunday dinner time, and there eight of us round the table, as he had three brothers and a sister. They were all there as well. Sunday dinner was always eaten together, and was the only day of the week that all the family was round the table together. This used to be traditional in English families but it is not so so much now.

I was shocked when the centrepiece of the table was a large bowl into which everyone threw their chicken bones. I had never known that before and wouldn’t do it because I didn’t understand it and wasn’t brought up to do it. The meals was chicken casserole French style. His Mum had learned the recipe from my husband’s French pen friend’s parents when they had gone to stay with them in France. This was how it was done there too. So it was quite traditional for this to happen in some places.

At my grandparents’ farm the centrepiece at Sunday dinner was a huge joint of beef, which my grandfather woule take and carve. It was traditional there for the man, seen as the Head of the family to carve the Sunday joint.

Very different traditions, and I was to learn that in different parts of the world there were many more.

SOCS SATURDAY Crumb

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 29, 2025

With thanks to Linda G. Hill

I think my mind might wander a lot over this one. I think of crumbs in the bed, the one crumb that falls to the floor that my dog always sees, however miniscule, a crumb of comfort which sometimes seems not to be forthcoming, having only a single crumb to eat. I’m sure there are many more uses of this word. I rather like this word actually. At the moment I feel as if there is hardly a crumb of comfort in this world because various firms are not having any mercy on us. It is so hard dealing with them. But I most certainly do have crumbs in the bed. When you are in it all day, there are bound to be crumbs.

Have you ever noticed that some things make more crumbs than others? Have you seen the mess that flaky pastry makes? Try as you might, you can’t stop getting it all over the place.

I remember when I was doing Cookery at school. I was rubbing lard and flour together to make pastry and I dropped some on the floor and the Cookery teacher, called Miss Boughton, who was a reather large lady, came up behind me and smacked my bottom with her big hand, with such force that I almost jumped out of my skin. She had rather a penchant for doing this. She seemed to enjoy a good smack.

And why is it that as soon as you hoover up, your husband comes along and makes crumbs all over the floor and you have to do it again? It seems to be a scientific law. Do husbands have some inbuilt programming in them that says

“Make crumbs.”

I have never had kids, but I bet ther are the same as well. Still, we were all kids once and I’m sure we all had our inbuilt programmes that made us make crumbs. I don’t hink we all had Miss Boughtons though. I don’t think MIss Boughton had kids as she wasn’t married and in those days you didn’t have kids when you weren’t married. Except for one girl in my class and she came to school one fay telling the teacher that she had gingivitis and she opened her mouth to show him. Actually she was pregnant and it wasn’t gingivitis at all. I thought it was a bit funny because you can’t have a kid without doing something else first that was seen as naughty in those days and shye said she hadn’t been doing it. Someone told her she must be the Virgin Mary then. I wonder if she made crumbs too. She must have done because she was human although some would have us beleive that she wasn’t.

Anyway this has been a real mixed up lot and I am programmed to stop now. Over and out.

HOLDING ON

Two
As one
Holding on
In evening’s glow
While the poppies dance
In the joy of living
Through black clouds that come their way
They look to the poppies and sing
Life and light will always come through win
Though the skies may thunder and roar above

BLISS

Tender
Arms of the night
Holding me so gently
Safe on the breast of my Lover
Ah bliss

IN THESE SMOKEY SKIES

In these smokey skies
The scent of autumn’s glory
Tickles my nostrils

We are totally done in stair lift broke again and they won’t come

A few days ago, I posted about our stair lift braking down and my huusband being stranded halfway up the stairs for a very long time and needing the toilet and them just not coming.

Well, it was fixed but now, it is showing signs of braking down again. We have rung Oban again and they are refusing to send anyone out until it actually stops working halfway up the stairs.

My husband explained to them that he needed it because he is bringing me food and tablets and that it is quite complicated as two hours after the tablets I need to have food. They just will not listen. They are running the risk of it breaking down and us being in a terrible situation.

Also, last night late on, my husband got his electric wheelchair caught up but then it broke down and he can’t use it. It wasn’t him gegtting caught up that broke it. Something came out in the connections at the back of it. So now, he can’t get to the kitchen easily and once again, the firm where we bought it, which is Eden Mobility, will not come out until next Wednesday.

No one cares these days.

We have rung various people for help, including my awol brother who can’t come as he says he is ill. We have rung our priest and yes we don’t go there any more but we are technically still members. We have rung social services and they refuse to give help either.

We are completely stuck and very very very frightened.

The iron pills are making me ill and I can hardly do anything at all.

No one will help us.

I am feeling what the hell is wrong with society now?

We have no neighbours who will come to our aid. One side never talks to us and are in their thirties and the other side are elderly and keep themselves to themselves but they have family come

I am not coping. I am on my way out. I just can’t go on any ore.

I don’t know what I will post today other than this but I feel awful just posting this. I always like to balance it off with something happier.

I am so sorry

TAKE ME TO A PLACE

Take me to a place
Where soft sheets kiss my body
All sorrow be gone

THERE ONCE WAS A FLEA CALLED JIMMY

There once was a flea called Jimmy
Who wore a bright red pinny
Who said he was stupid
But along came cupid
With a nice new girl friend called Brinny

WHAT DO THE CLOUDS SAY

What do the clouds say
Though they have no voice to speak
Tell of time to come

HOPE SAYS….Magda made me some cheese cubes to put tablets into

Woof woof woof

Magda made me some cheese cubes today with a hole in to put my tablet to keep Mr. \Arthy away in. I don’t think Mr. Arthur will get into that hole. Anyway she mad me six of them for each day so that Dad could give me my tablet when she’s not here.

She took me out then or at least I took her out, and when we came back she got a phone call from Poland and we were ages standing at the end of our drive with Magda speaking in Polish. I thought she was never going to finish. I still can’t bark in Polish so I’m not sure she always understands what I am saying. Charlie the budgie doesn’t cheep in Polish either. He’s from Australia actually.

Anwyay I thought I’d just tell you about those cheese cubes.

Woof woof woof

TERRIBLE DAY AND SO FRIGHTENED

Today has been utterly awful. This morning I couldn’t wake up and I needed to, to take my pills. I kept on falling straight back to sleep again. It was frightening.

The itch is not abating yet and I am losing mental strength. I know it is up to me to keep on finding strength but the suffering is so great and also the struggle to eat. This is worse than the cancer.

I worry that even at the end of the first three week period of taking the iron ppills, my itch won’t go. I am so very very worried about that. Once this first course is over, the iron pills will carry on for about three or four months. They are terrible. Taking them and working out tmings and food especially when you can’t eat anyway is horrific. I just want to thrown in the towel.

How does one find the strength to keep going?

THE PILL

Orange juice
No dairy
Iron pill

Sack the cow
Don’t eat cheese
Or yoghurt

Will I live
Buy a bull
Eat red meat

THE LAST HIGH MOUNTAIN

The last high mountain
Calls me now to its summit
From there I will fly

AS I PANT FOR LIFE

As I pant for life
I feel the cooling waters
My soul is revived

PINNACLE OF LIGHT

Pinnacle of light
I make my way towards you
Will you consume me

ROBIN

Robin I see you
Red breast glows in the twilight
Oh look it’s snwoing

I CLIMB THE HARD ROCKS

I climb the hard rocks
Sometimes losing my footing
But I rise again

RDP WEDNESDAY House

RDP Wednesday: HOUSE

I don’t know about other countries, but in the U.K. many people aspire to own their own house. For most people they start small and then build up to the house that they really want. Well, that is kind of the usual way, although not everybody sticks to that.

I remember when me and my husband first got married, we lived in a flat with no carpets or anything on the floor, but jut bare floorboards. We had hardaly anything at all. We didn’t care though. After that we moved to a bit better flat and so it went on. Until eventually woul could manage to get our first house. What a day that was. In fact, it was a tiny bungalow, but to us it was beautiful. It had a huge garden that my husband struggled with because. It was full of buildr’s rubble. We didn’t stay in that bungalow too long, and we purchased a house that was a little larger, and we were so happy there. Things we looking up and geetting better and better.

Then came the day when we purchased our first detached house. It was on top of a huge hill and the garden had to be terraced because of the hill. We had furniture and carpets but not much else. We purchased our first vehicle which was one of those infamous reliant robins. Prior to that we had had bicycles and then a motor bike. My husband used to cycle quite a long way to work and this involved coming home up a huge hill. He had to negotiate this in all weathers and as the place where he worked was out in the countrusde it could be a bit dicey.

We eventually moved again, this time to a village as I never really liked towns and this was a chalet style house and it was amazing. Still not huge or anything like that, but just enough for us two.

I won’t go through all the houses we have lived in, but for a time we lived in a massive Victorian terraced house on the oustkirts of Londond. Complet at first with a colony of rats and dry rot underneath the stairs.

We now live in just an ordinary semi detatched house and I am not keen as it is in the town and I hate towns. Still, this will be the last house that we aill live in.

OUR STAIR LIFT BROKE DOWN AND MY HUSBAND WAS STRANDED HALFWAY UP ON IT

We had a terrible time last night. My husband was on the stair lift and halfway up it stopped and wouldn’t go any further. It was panic stations. It was about seven o’clock at night. He was bringing my dinner up and was then going to go back down to get his own.

He rang Oban who sold us the stair lift and with whom we have a Contract whereby they are meant to come out in an emergency. We pay so much a year for that. He rang them up and the man wouldn’t answer his mobile. We were in a terrible state. Anyway, eventually the man answered and he told my husband to go downstairs to look at some lights on it. He couldn’t go down because he can’t walk. The man kept on trying to get my husband to do things and only after a wrangle did he agree to come. He was ages coming. My husband was stranded. He needed to go to the toilet badly and he was petrified. Eventually the man got here and it took him a long time to fix it. Phew.

But the worst of it was that it was only serviced a fortnight ago. At the service they found that the rollers had gone and so a week ago they changed the rollers. The man said that it ws the engineers who did the rollers who broke it.

Can you imagine how we felt.

We now live in terror of the stair lift breaking down.

The dog was left in the kitchen all this time, and she weed and poohed because she normally goes outside at that time of night and it was so long that she couldn’t hold it.

I was meant to be starting my iron tablets last night but couldn’t because of all this. By the time it was all over it was too late as you have to have them on an empty tummy and then eat something two houirs later.

We are very jittery now and not feeling good at all. It is not easy to clean up dog mess when you are in a wheelchair. This was a disaster.

COLD FROSTY MORNINGS

Cold frosty mornings
Sun alights on silver streaks
Day begins to warm

COLD MORNINGS

Cold
Mornings
Grip me tight
With excitement
I hug the new day
We embrace each other
And slowly we both thaw out
Revealing the beauty of life
In fluidity and dancing hope
Breathing the clean fresh air of loveliness

HOMESICK

Homesick
I walk down paths
Looking to right and left
Peering to see light in windows
Glowing
With warmth
But all that I find are sharp stones,
Little do I know that
These stones are gems
Home calls

STATE OF THINGS AS OF TODAY

I reported yesterday that I do not have cancer but that my terrible itch was caused by very low feratin levels. Feratin is iron. Today, my doctor rang and it is more complicated than I aid. Yes, that is the diagnosis. However, he offered me a blood transfusion. I was in shock. I rejected it for lots of reasons and he was okay with that. So he is going to give me high doses of iron tablets. It will take at least three weeks for the horrific itch to go away. Then obviously they will have to watch my feratin levels.

I am hardly able to eat and this is worying me a lot. You have to take the tablets with food and food just makes me nauseous and I have problems swallowing it. It is a battle all of the time that is wearing me down.

As I have said before, often things are a mental battle as well as a physical one and this is one of. Them.

I am not very good with medical things and things being done to me, and tablets and such. I am terrified for some reason and always have been. I don’t know how I got through chemo but it was hard.

I just feel fed up that now, after all this time in remission, things like this should happen.

I need all the strenth that I can muster and I am very very weepy and feel so weak.

Once again, I will try to keep my blog going. Thankyou for bearing with me. More on the Murder Mystery soon.

HOPE SAYS. I’ve got a new rug

Woof woof woof

I’ve got a new rug

because of Mr. Arthur Itis. It’s in the middle of the kitchyen floor and I keep picking it up and dragging it round with me and then sitting on it. It’s dead good. I wouldn’t go on my orthopadic bed that Dad bought me but I like this rug.

I took Magda for a walk today and it was cold but I don’t mind really. Magda loves me ever so much. I cried and cried and cried until she took me out.

Anyway, I just thought I’d tell you about ther rug. It’s better than the carpet in Charlie the budige’s house. He’ll be jealous

Woof woof woof

THE ETERNAL LIGHT

Light shines
Eternal, dark
May be the night for us,
But never can the light be quenched,
Blinded
By pain,
We find not even a glimmer,
And then to our surprise,
The Eternal
Finds us.

THE WILDERNESS

Hard rocks, scorching by day, cold at night
The wilderness is where I dwell
The darkness comes, earth’s powers I fight

I stumble and fall, I have lost my sight
My story now I wish to tell
Hard rocks, scorching by day, cold at night

As I fall, desolation begins to bite
I hear once again the tolling bell
The darkness comes, earth’s powers I fight

Fiends force me down with such great might
They seem to know me oh so well
Hard rocks, scorching by day, cold at night

These were not angels clothed in light
They came so close as in grief I fell
The darkness comes, earth’s powers I fight

My song rises now, up to the height
My spirit fought now my heart does swell
Hard rocks scorching by day, cold at night
The darkness comes, earth’s powers I fight

I GOT MY BLOOD TEST RESULTS

For those of you who have been reading about my blood tests for possible cancer, I got my results today, via a round about route. The upshot is that NO I HAVE NOT GOT CANCER BAQCK. Thank goodness.

How it happened was that I got very ill this morning, and as things worsened, my husband rang the National Health Out of Hours G.P. Servvice which is based at our local hospital. The doctor there could get into my results, which was better than having to wiat while Monday with my actual G.P. Surgery.

What was doscovered was that my feratin levels are low, which is iron deficiency. Some possible anaemia and that plus my peripheral polynueropathy has caused the whole body itch. The remedy is iron tablets thank God. So in the morning we are hoping that my actual doctor will indeed prescribe the iron tablets. Also I need one more tablet and the right dosage for that has to be found.

All in all a brilliant result.

I am cock a hoop about the cancer but fed up about the itch because it won’t go immediately.

At least I don’t have to go for chemo again. Woooo hoooo. X

WHAT ARE MINUTES

What are minutes
Just human construction
To contain eternity

As midnightt strikes
What has changed
Maybe our hearts

Dawn will come
Just as before
So many times

HARD ROCKS

Hard rocks
Were your pillow
There were no softened words
Nor warm bed to take your body
So cold
The world
That wrapped its tentacles around
Your captured bleeding soul
But then you found
Honey

Flowers
Bloomed as you walked
Along that lonely path
Such beauty you had never seen
Before
And now
You knew the value of deep pain
That all could be redeemed
And blossomed red
Your joy

DAILY WRITING PROMPT

https://blindwilderness.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post&answer_prompt=2130

Mountains or the beach? Ah, the answer to this is easy. It has to be the mountain every time. There is something magical about the mountains.

If you had asked me this question when I was a child or very young adult, I would have said the beach any day. As I trudged up the steep hill to my grandparents’ farm from the village, I would flag and feel that I would never make it to the top. A mountain would have been anathema to me then.

When I married and we went to the English Lake District for the first time, I saw the mountains and for the first time ever in my life, I felt a kind of magic. Often they would be covered in mist so that you wouldn’t see the top of them. Sometimes it was grlorious sunshine and you could see the tops clearly. Many people would be walking around in mountaineering gear and my interest peaked along with plain curiosity. What was it about these mountains that drew people?

There was nothing for it. I had to find out.

Thus began my love affair with the mountains. We tackled the highest mountain in England and we were hooked. After that we tackled many more. It became my goal and my dream to climb Everest. I read every book possible about climbing Everest. In my mind I was at Base Camp many times.

Of course, I never did climb Everest, but when I got cancer I was sharing all of this with the ward sister, and her words to me were,

“You are climbing your Everest now.”

As I sit here in my bed typing, I am aiting to find out if my cancer has come back after elever years. I am terrified. Do I have another Everest to climb? I hope not. I don’t think I could do it again.

Take me back to the Lake District and I will climb the hills there.

RDP SATURDAY Variegated

RDP SATURDAY : VARIEGATED

This word brings a beautiful picture back to me. I once went to an embroidery class and it was a bit more advanced than the usual classes and we had to take something from nature and transfer it to some kind of modern form of embroidery. Not the usual stuff. It was autumn and we were taken out into the grounds of the college and there, climbing all over one of the walls, was a wisteria. Only with it being autumn the leaves were glorious. So many variegated colours. As the tutor said, wouldn’t it be nice if we could all just sit out here sketching the wisteria. I am no artist and I can’t draw for toffee but it certainly would have been nice just to spend some time contemplating this beautiful sight.

CRUNCH

Crunch, beneath my feet,
Splinters ,
Red and gold and brown,
Rich colours sharp as glass,
Now crushed with jagged points
Daggers drawing blood.
“Give me the Spring” I pleaded,
“Just the Spring,
And then do what you will.”

DARK NIGHTS

Dark nights
Of weeping leave
Us weak, our hearts open,
In our weakness we find our true strength

GUTTED – they have my blood test results but won’t let me have them

I am absolutely gutted. My doctors practice has received my blood test results today but they won’t let me have them because the doctor is not at work. They say no other doctor can read them and so I can’t have them. I can have them on Monday, which means getting right through the weekend not knowing.

I know that they call us patients but my patience is waning. My doctors wasted much time in the beginning messing around with silly creams that obviously were going to do no good and didn’t put in for urgent blood tests despite the fact that the doctor was telling me it might be the cancer back because when I did have cancer, which was Hodgkins Lymphoma, it started with a terrible itch that continued right through until the end of chemo. Obviously I am going to be terrifed.

When I had cancer last, we had a chemo wrd in our town and I would arrive at around eight o’clock in the morning and wait for the chemo to be deleivered to my bed and then given to me over four hours or sometimes five hourse. Then I was sent home. Now, you have to go to a city called Hull which is about 40 miles away and you have to go over the huge suspension bridge over the big River Humber and often it is closed if there are high winds, which is quite often. Our local chemo ward has been closed, although even before it closed, many of the experienced chemo nurses had left tto go to better hospitals because there was a culture of bullying there and they wanted out. Also they never had the equipment to do the job because the National Health Service was stripped for cash. They often didn’t even have pumps to deliver the chemo into my veins. So the nurses had to do it by hand. It was a chronic situation.

So I am dreading it being cancer again. My husband and I can’t travel any more and it is going to be a big task getting me there if it does turn out to be the cancer back. I just pray that it is not that.

Thanks for staying with me my dear blogging friends and thankyou for reading this. X

BOOTSTRAPS

Sometimes I think that I have no bootstraps left, or that they are just beyoned my reach. I don’t even try to reach them because I am too weak in body to reach them. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I long to be able to reach them, just as if they were stars, shining in the darkness. But I know that I can’t. My body is now so weak at times that I can hardly drag myelf to the bathroom. It was like that last night. My skin was in such a terrible state,itching and hurting and I didn’t even know where to put myelf. I prayed that at least I could fall asleep but I had had no sleep at all the previous night and so was terrified of the night. However, I took pain killers and surprisingly I got six hours sleep. I could hardly beleive it. When I woke, I didn’t want to wake up at all because I knew that the itch would start up straight away. I tried not to move, but of course in the end I had to. I groaned as I started to move, fearing the worst. And having no bootsrtaps that I could reach and pull up. I did get to the bathroom but in fear of the consequences. I can’t bear noise at all right now. I need silecne in order to deal with things. I have to concentrate on not scratching the itch.

I got back into bed and had a drink. The itch was there but manageable but fear was very strong in me. It never stays dormant for vry long. If I scratch it, it makes it worse. It is all over my body. There is nothing to be seen on the skin.

I have only just had my breakfast and it is gone one o’ clock. Now the itch is ramping up again. I am crying.

I managed to post this morning as I did find my bootsraps in the end and did pull them up. I posted about Hope the dog, and wonder of wonders managed to write a sonnet. I just don’t know how, but I did.

Now I have to face the afternoon with the itch getting progressively worse. I a so worried.

I am fearing the blood test results but they won’t come until next week. Is this the cancer back? Or a different one soming to assault me?

I am having a great deal of trouble finding any spiritual way through this at all. But ther is no physical way. I a lost. Totally lost. I am alone. And frightened.

SHALL I TRAVEL TODAY

Shall I travel today towards the light
That waits for me beyond the starry skies
My spirit now is giving up the fight
I seek release beyond these prison bars
The darkness now is suffocating me
I cry all night for peace and for relief
When is this time to come when will it be
Too many hours were stolen by this thief
I cry my tears to heaven once again
But no one hears me I am all alone
I’ve travelled oe’r each moor and oe’r each fen
Dreaming of days when I will find my home
Oh hear my plea release me from this hell
Give me a peaceful place where I can dwell

HOPE SAYS……Magda brushed me out in the wild

Woff woof woof

Magda gave me an out in the wild brush yesterday. I’ve never had one of those before. She took me for a wild walk in the wind and cold and she brushed me as we were going along. It was all brrrrrrr though because it was really really cold. I think there was ice outside yesterday morning and it was real bad.

Arthur Itis has been a real bad man and he keeps on visiting me and Dad bought me that bed but I wouldn’t go on it. It smelled funny and looked funny too. So now, Dad has told me that he has got some new rugs coming for me to lay on. I shan’t go on the if they smell or look funny. Dad says they are for my own good but only I know what is for my good.

I keep getting lots of Mum’s dinner because she isn’t eating much at the moment. I think she’s sily but Dad says she can’t eat. I get bits of fish finger and all sorts of fishy things because Mum usually likes fish. I got some beef quarter pounder the other day and it was yummy.

I wonder if it will soon be too cold for Arthur Itis to come out. He might leave me alone a bit soon. I don’t like the cold. But Dad lets me go in the dining room and today Kate is coming and she doesn’t like dogs so I will be in the dining room. Fancy not liking dogs. Everyone likes me. I wish Kate would let me get to know her. I could show her what fun I am. I think the Ocado man is coming soon so I will be able to help Dad put things away. He tells me to get out of his way but I tell him I am only helping. Dad says I am a nuisance. I’ll lick his ears for that. I like putting my toungue round peoples’ ears. Anywa I’d better go now and get ready to bark at the Ocado man. I think he likes me and I lick his ears.

Woof woof woof

SURRENDERING

Surrendering to the darkness I sit,
Letting its arms wrap around me, rock me,
For by no other is my dark life lit,
Only in the dark can I truly see,
Waves of peace wash over my aching soul,
Soothing, calming my ever raging storm,
For I have tried so long to reach a goal
Not of my own making, how I was torn,
I knew that in the dark there was more light,
For in the dark I see with different eyes,
The eyes that walk by faith and not by sight,
And in the darkness now my spirits rise,
The light deceives false comfort offers me,
Embracing dark I can be truly free

PLUMPNESS

Plumpness
To see them through
Dark days and raging storms
We too have a banquet prepared
Take, eat,
Savour
The delights there for the taking
Nourish
Your soul
And live through the darkest of nights
Sustained by Love offered
Freely, just take
And live

A DAY OUT IN HUTTON CONYERS, YORKSHIRE

When I was three years old I lived in Hutton Conyers with my parents, though my Dad kept disappearing. I don’t know where he went to lol.

Anyway, it was a really really small place with not many houses in it. We lived in a farm cottage and the village was next to the River Ure. It is not far from the town of Ripn, North Yorkshire. You can walk it to Ripon quite easily though there are buses if you need them but not many.

I made friends with some of the farmer’s children when we were living there. I don’t think we were there for very long but I remember my Mum sending me to a Sunday School with the farmer’s kids to get me out of the way on a Sunday afternoon.

When my husband and I went back for a day out, I could hardly recognise it. It was so tiny and I couldn’t locate the cottage where we lived.

I remember going for a welk with my father and coming across a dead bird. It had been run over and all its entrails were hanging out. I refused to walk past it and my father turned round and we walked back home. I hardly knew my father though and he didn’t take my hand or anything.

I remember there was no letter box in the door and my father made one out of wood and stood it at the end of the front path. It worked quite well.

Strange memories from so long ago

SCARED OF MY BLOOD TEST RESULTS

If you read my post yesterday you will see that a nice lady called Emily managed to get my bloods. But this is just AWFUL. I am NOT brave and I am terrified of the results. I had a terrible night last night where I didn’t sleep at all and the itch was horeendous.

I am losing my menatl stranth to deal with it all. I need my mental strength and don’t know where to get it any more. I am collapsing. I truly am not a brave person.

RDP THURSDAY Feast

Ragtag Daily Prompt Thursday: Feast

We have a phrase in England saying a bean feast. Well honestly, I have never seen beans feasting ever. I look in my freezer at the beans and they are frozen solid and certainly not feasting. Lol

PAIN

Oh darkness of pain
You consummated my life
My God where are You?

ICE OF WINTER

As the ice of winter breaks my heart
Releases its sadness encased for so long
Transformed it carries new life a new start
From joy I know I will never now part
In the warmth of summer my journey I’ll chart
As the ice of winter breaks my heart
Releases its sadness encased for so long

RDP WEDNESDAY Clump

Molly could hardly beleive what she was seeing. It was the 60s and in those days you either liked Elvis or Cliff. Meaning Elvis Presley or Cliff Richard. You were seen as a bit of a whimp if you liked Cliff, and most girls didn’t like to admit that they preferred Cliff.

It all came to a head one day in the playground at school. A group of about four girls were talking about who they preferred and one called Christine said that she preferred Elvis when she had always liked Cliff best. Suddenly all hell was let loose. Sandra yelled at her that she was a liar and that she liked Cliff best. Christine yelled back and soon both girls were at each other. They fought like cats. And then a clump of hair came out of Sandra’s head. It was unbeleivable. Molly thought how ridiculous this was. All over a singer. She never forgot that scene.

NOTE In fact Molly was me and the other two girls were my friends. I still wonder at it today.

HOPE SAYS……I’ve been to the groomers

Woof woof woof

I’ve just got back from the groomers and I smell. Not only that but it’s enough to freeze the thingys off a brass monkey. Only I’m not a monkey although Dad is always calling me a little monkey when I am norty. It’s going to snow here. It’s so cold. Good job I have a thick coat.

Last night I got part of a big quarter pounder that Mum couldn’t eat. It was yum yum.

A lady was been today, Dad told me and she got blood from Mum. I’m worried. Is she going to bleed away? Blood is meant to be on the inside not the outside. I hope Mum is alright.

I’ve got to go to the vets next week cos they told me that that horrid Arthur Itis is doing a lot of work on my back legs. It hurts me but I might have to have more injections now. I hopw not but I might have to.

That Charlie budgie is alright. He doesn’t have to bother about the weather or anything. He only has to wake up in the morning and start cheeping. He’s lucky. That’s his only job. I’ve got lots of jobs.

I’d better shut up now and get on with some of them

Woof woof woof

A LOVELY LADY CALLED EMILY

A lovely lady called Emily managed to get my bloods just now. Wow. No one has managed to get them for eleven years no matter how many times they tried. But my doctor needed them badly. And this lovely lady called Emily did it. I could hardly beleive it.

Will start to post again as soon as I can. Want to get back to posting a bit more. I am just thankful that this has happened.

WHO WILL CARRY ME

Who will carry me?
I will be the one to carry
There is no one else

SOFT DAYS

When soft days live on
Nothing inside me can die
Though darkness may fall

SANCTUARY LIGHT

Sanctuary light
You burn through the darknest night
We are not alone

RDP TUESDAY Grace

RDP Tuesday! Grace!

Fiona looked at her two twins with a sense of amusement but also of despair. She would never be able to do anything with them. Liam had a shock of fair curly hair and looked quite the angel, whilst Mary had similar hair and looks. It was always Liam who was getting into trouble. This time he had gone into the pantry were all the pots were kept and picked up one of the best china cups and run through the big farmhouse kitchen with it. Mary had run after him trying to get the cup off him, but he had thrown the cup onto the floor as he ran, just to stop her getting it.

“And who is going to clear that up? She inquire. Neither of them replied.

“You are not called The Terrible Twins for nothing, she said.

DAILY WRITING PROMPT

https://blindwilderness.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post&answer_prompt=2126

We are asked what is our favourite month of the year

My favourite month always used to be May. The weather was getting warmer and flowers were beginning to bloom as were the trees. Everything was coming to life again and it was a most colourful and beautiful time of the year. We often used to go camping at the end of May and it never failed to be glorious. We would go to the English Lake District and I always felt very excited. The fells were green and beautiful and there was an air of excitement about everybody. Another year of comping and walking the fells was beginning.

Another wonderful thing about May was that the ospreys were returning to England to their breeding grounds in Scotland, Rutland and the Lake District. I loved to watch them onn the webcam and see the eggs being laid and then the young hatching, and then learning to fly. Just so amazing.

However, now, I do not feel this same sense of wonder in May. I prefer autumn I think. Maybe this is due to my state of health. As I can no longer go out, I tend to feel better in the Autumn. So maybe September is my favourite now. I can imagine the glorious colours of the leaves as they fall off the trees but I no longer feel so bad about not being able to leave my bed. I know that soon, everyone else will be more indoors and it makes me feel a little bit better.

Maybe I should really try to key into May again. And dancing round the Maypole.

POSTING OLD POEMS

My husband has been posting a lot of old poems for me each night before we try to settle down to sleep. So some of you may recognised them. Sorry that they ar are not always new ones although I have managed to make up a few new ones. I want to try to keep my blog going for if I ever get better.

INFORMATION RE MY STATE – I don’t want to lose my blog

I am still very very ill. The phlebotomist came yesterday but could not get my bloods. She got the needle into the vein but it wouldn’tn give up the blood. Had three doctors ringin me and loads of different prescriptions but so far nothing works. The itch is utterly horrendous. I so want to do my blog but my mind can’t concentrate for ong. The itch is EVERYWHERE. I am frightened to death. Is this ever going to go away? I am afraid of having this for life. I cry out to any God that might be there. I make no apology for this. I have to cry out to SOMETHING. I have lost i mentally almost. The mental fight is too great and I have done it for so long but lose the battle. I am so scared of losing the battle.

If I can pull myself up by my bootstraps I will do the RDP Prompt or soething or Hope Saysa. I am feeling so ill but need to try to do something.

They Murder Mystery isn’t getting done so maybe I will just tell you who the murderer was an why and then start a new one if ever I get better.

If you pray, please pray for me. If you don’t please send good vibes. I don’t even know what I believe any more.

Sending love x

SEAGULLS

Screeching
Their shrieks filling
The salt sea air they watch
Us from
Sea wall
Then circling in the air screaming
They own the promenade
Or so it seems
Seagulls

SCREECHING SEAGULLS

Screeching seagulls swoop
Cacophony piercing air
Sea roaring below

WOTD Beauty

Beauty

“Look at that beauty,” said Joe, looking at his huge marrow.

“Bet mine is bigger than that,” said Fred.

“Oh and where is it then?” Replied Joe.

“I’m keeping for a surprise at the horticultural show,” said Fred.

Joe felt a little put out. How could Fred have grown a marrow bigger than his?

It was the weekend of the local horticcultural show and Joe was determined that Fred should not get the chance to show his marrow. Quietly he laid a line of wire across Fred’s path and waited. Soon he had the satisfaction of watching Fred fall to the ground holding his marrow, and the poor marrow was so smashed up that there was no way in which Fred would be able to show it.

Joe took his own marrow and got it set up on the table for the Judges, and he almost fainted when he saw that Frank from up the road had placed a marrow much larger than his on the table. He was hardly able to contain his fury. Needless to say, Frank won first prize with his marrow.

BIRDS OF THE AIR

Birds of the air fly
I wish that I too could fly
Please give me some wings

GOLDFISH

Goldfish in a bowl
Going round and round and round
I am following

RDP SUNDAY Snowflake

RDP Sunday: snowflake

What a pretty picture is raised by the word snowflake. Just one snowflake is the most beautiful thing in the world, with its many crystals, each snowflake having a different pattern of crystals. They look so beautiful coming down out of the sky. But therein lies a tale, for if you get too many of them, you are cut off from everybody by the snow. It can seem wonderful at first until you try living with it. It is quite frightening to be cut off by snow. So something that is beautiful can become quite dangerous.

LOVE REMINDED ME

In the garden love
Reminded me of your scent
Now that you are gone

ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN

Round and round the garden
Like a teddy bear
One step
Two steps

Splash
I didn’t know that was there

A CHICKEN WHO LOST HIS WING

A chicken who lost his wing
Cried Oh my God it’s Spring
I won’t get a mate
What a terrible fate
Then he heard his other wing go ping

A DUCK WHO PRACTISED HIS WADDLE

A duck who once practised his waddle
Had an accident in a big puddle
He cried out Oh my
I think I might die
Oh please save me from this big muddle

SAMMI COX WRITING PROMPT Keyboard

Weekend Writing Prompt #442 – Keyboard

With thanks to Sammi

My keyboard knows much more than I do. It can read my mind. It knows what I am going to say before I say it and it feels the thoughts coming through my fingers. My keyboard is my best friend. Without it I don’t know where I would be. It has a name too. Its name is Ethel.

58 words

HOPE SAYS…..I’m getting up to all sorts of tricks

Woof woof woof

Since I discovered that I coul scoot round Dad’s wheelchair and into the hall, I’ve been getting up to all sorts of tricks with him. It’s dead good fun. I stand by the cupboard where the meaty chews are and the sizzlers and keep on looking straight at Dad and eventually he gives me one. But then instead of eating them in the kitchen I scoot round him and into the hall and sit on the door thrshold eating them. It drives Dad mad because I then scoot in to see Charlie the budgie. Dad doesn’t like leaving me on my own with Charlie. He has to supervise me. At least he thinks he has to. Charlie just looks through his bars at me but he puts his head dead near to the bars so I can kiss him if I want to.

I’ve also learned how to run round Magda. She keeps shouting at me because I go places she doesn’t want me to go. I am getting real good at this.

It has been raining cats and dogs too, for a long time. Well I still haven’t seen any actual cats, but Magda has got three cats but they don’t fall out of the sky. They live in her house and they play tricks on her too. And now she’s got a hedgehog as well that comes visiting. It eats the cat’s dinner. I haven’t seen a hedgehog here but I bet we’ve got some somewhere. I think they’re all prickly so I’d better watch my nose. Anyway I so keep watching out for cats coming down out of the sky.

I,m a bit fed up because there are no fireworks any more. I know they made me tired of barking but now that they’ve stopped, I want to bark again. I keep barking at nothing now and Dad doesn’t like it.

Anyway it will soon be Christmas and Mum and Dad don’t like Christmas. Magda won’t be coming then and neither will Kate. So I’ll have no one to mess around with, only Dad. And he’ll shout at me.

Happy Christmas eveybody. Woof woof woof

RDP SATURDAY Terror

RDP SATURDAY: TERROR

The only way in which I can write about this word at the moment is in relation to what is happening to me. You se, I am living in terror every moment of every day. As some of my readers know, I have been plagued by a very bad itch that is almost driving me insane. It has been going on for a couple of weeks and at first my doctor mentioned that my cancer may have returned. That, of course, filled me with terror. However, we don’t think it is that because Hodgkins Lymphoma hardly ever returns after eleven years n remission. That is how long I have been in remission.

However, the doctor has no idea, according to him of what is causing this ferocious itch. I spend every momnet of every day trying to distract myself from it or quell it but without success. Last night I was tempted just to end it all as I couldn’t bear it any longer. I can’t eat or sleep. Although I am having blood tests done on Monday, I don’t hold out much hope of them finding out what is wrong. When I had cancer my GPs were good. I have since moved on and the GPs are far from good. They are uncaring and just don’t apply themselves in a compassionate manner to people.

What we do know is that the peripheral polyneuropathy that I was diagnosed with does produce bad itch but it has only just come on. So the doctor will not beleive that it is that causing it. There is a specific drug given to stop the itching of this disease which was caused by my cancer drugs, but the doctor is refusing to beleive me and will not give me the drug. So I am spending each day in agony.

I become terror struck many times during the day because I fear they will not find out what is wrong or will refuse to treat me and I will have this for life.

Sadly I do not have any faith at all in my doctors. I cry, I scream, and I wail. I pray. I have no idea in the end whether there is a God or not, even after having spent a lot of my life living spiritually, but I pray anyway, in desperation, hoping that there is SOMETHING or SOMEONE out there who will help me.

As I type I am suffering intolerably but I am doing this to try to keep my mind off it and live as normally asa possible.

Yes, the word terror is very real to me right now.

SOCS SATURDAY Pop

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 15, 2025

With thanks to Linda for the prompt

When I was a child and we lived in Blackpool, we used to have the pop lorriy come down our street once a week. It would stop in the street and kids would go out and buy loads of bottles of pop. They would then take the bottles home for the week. There were all kinds of fizzy drinks, like lemonade, cherryade, strawberryade, orangeade, tizer, and limeade. All the kids used to look forwards to this but we never bought any as none of us liked fizzy drinks. There was only me and my Mum and Dad anyway and no other kids in the household.

I often wondered why pop is called pop. We still call it that to this day. Is it due to the popping sound of the bubbles or what?

I don’t think we had such things as fridges in those days and so people didn’t pop the pop into the fridge to keep cool as we would do today. I think there were a few kids who would go off pop if their Mums and Dads restricted their drinking of the pop.

We used to call my grandfather Pop, but I don’t think it was because he would go off Pop. In fact he was very taciturn. A kindly old man but he hardly ever spoke. He would sit filling up his pipe all night long sitting in front of the big farmhouse fire. Often you could her the pop of the sticks as they were put onto the fire. The flames going up the chimney crackled and popped.

SLEEP TOOK ME AWAY

Sleep took me away
To a new place of darkness
Hell had its fury

OUTSIDE IT IS CALM

Outside it is calm
Here inside the wild winds blow
My body cries out

MY DAY TODAY

I need to pour out and there is no one to do it to and no place to go, so I can only do it here. I wish with all my heart that I had someone to ring but I haven’t.

We had to have the stair lift men here today to replace the rollers on it as they had gone. It was an urgent job because my husband can’t look after me without it. He is up and down the stairs all of the time and life is just so hard.

This meant that the stair lift was out of action whilst they did it. I had to attempt to control myself and my horrific itch whilst the men were here. Often I begin to cry and to wail in utter agony with my itch and it frightens me so much and I don’t know where to put myself.

We did manage to get our cleaner, Magda, to come for part of the day but she always has to leave to pick her children up from school. Once she left, we knew that we would talk to no one until mOnday at one o’clock.

I feel as if I have a big black blanket over me, suffocating me. I really do want to sink into oblivion.

I try to do my blog sometimes but it is really hard to type as it makes the itch much worse. But if I didn’t do that I would go mad.

This morning my doctor rang and she couldn’t offer any help until after the blood tests are done on Monday. How on earth can I bear this itch until then? The itch that I had with my cancer wasn’t as bad as this, and that itch was said to be the worst they had ever seen at Scunthorpe hospital from Hodgkins.

I do sometimes receive a phone call on a Sunday night, but that person is not ringing this Sunday night. I feel bereft.

I don’t know how we have ended up in this state with absolutely no family or friends. To think that I used to be so active and had many friends and to think that I myself used to be a Chaplain to three Nursing Homes and gave out all of the time, and now, here, in my own old age, I am just left with no one.

I can’t understand why the church has left me. Admittedly I don’t go any more and have reservations about a lot of things and just don’t know where I stand, but as I am still actually on their roll, I would have thought that they could still have at least been friends with me.

I am struggling so very very much. I am frightened for the future. What with my husband’s regular falls and his own disabilities and him having to look after me when really he can’t and with everything, I feel like just leaving this world.

I am trying so hard to pull myself up but can’t. I try to write. But can’t. I want to finish the Murder Mystery but if it can’t be done I will just have to tell those who have been reading it who the murderer was and lea e it at that. It is not what I wanted but what else can I do?

Yes, I am pouring it out. It’s my blog anyway and so it’s the only place that I have.

Forgive me for this.

RDP FRIDAY Raucous

RDP Friday! Raucous!

Wendy’s raucous voice could be heard all over the neighbourhood. You always knew where she was. With her bright red hair and violently clashing clothes, you couldn’t really miss her. It seemed that she couldn’t take anything seriously. She wasn’t exactly the person that you would go to with any personal problems.

One day it went very quiet. There was no raucous laughing and no signs of Wendy. Eventually it transpired that she had attempted to rescue a young boy from drowning in the river. Everyone got a complete shock, and realised that some things are only skin deep and that underneath appearances, there can be something quite altruistic and self giving.

DAILY WRITING PROMPT challenge

https://blindwilderness.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post&answer_prompt=2122

We are asked today where in the world we would live if we were given the choice.

That is a very hard question. At one point I thought it would be Bakewell in Derbyshire, but on thinking about it, it might be somewhere else. It certainly wouldn’t be anywher out of the U.K.

After some consideration I think it would be in a little hamlet called Coates by Stow in Lincolnshire. Although I was born and bred in Lincolnshire, I have no desire to leave it any more. Coates by Stow is about an hour’s drive away from where I actually live, and I found it quite by accident one day when I was taking a drive around Lincolnshire after we moved back here from Derbyshire. I was trying to acquaint myself with my home county again. I spied a signpost when I was driving along a little road some miles from Gainsborough, and I decided to follow it. I found myself driing along what seemed to be almost just a dirt track and yet it was a road. I had been driving for some time and thought I must have gone wrong somewhere, but then suddenly in the middle of nowhere, I came across a row of terraced cottages facing me. They were so tiny, but they were lovely. Old ones of course. The road then went to the right and I followed it and soon I found myself in what seemed lik a farmyard, and in a clearing on the right there was a little church. There was also an old Hall in large grounds, but there were farm implements everywhere. I went inside the little church and was so taken with the atmosphere of it and wanted to know more about it. It was very dark inside, but I did do a lot of research on it and wrote a book about the history of it. It eas fascinating. A fascninating history indeed. Including a priest who went mad, one who died in a fire, and a man from the Hall who went to lincoln one day where a rabid dog was on the loose. It bit some children and it was at the time when the first vaccine against rabies had just been produced at the Pasteur Institute in France. The owner of the Hall paid for and took all the children there for the vaccination and every one of them survived.

It is simply a beautiful place to be and although isolated, it is just the kind of place that I like. I love the different seasons and I would be able to live close to the seasons there. We would probably get cut off by snow in the winter, but the men from the farm would no doubt get us out.

I have dreamed many times of living in theis place and being buried in the churcyard there only there is no room oeft now, sadly.

Yes, it would have to be Coates by Stow.

RED DAWNING

In the red dawning

is the promise of new light

glowing with intent

THE BRIDGE IS OLD

The bridge is is old and waits for me
I too am old and we are one
Creaking joints from life so long
The bridge is old and waits for me
One day the healing mists will come
One day we both will be set free
The bridge is old and waits for me
I too am old and we are one

STONE

Digging
My spade hits stones
Shock assaults me I freeze
One day I too might turn to stone
So cold

RDP THURSDAY Parallel

RDP Thursday : Parallel

There was no one who could parallel her in outer beauty, but her personality left much to be disred. Men lusted after her, but soon found that her beauty was skin deep. Shona wondered what on earth was wrong. Wasn’t she the most beautiful girl in town? No on could come up to her. It was only when her best friend told her the truth that she began to understand, though she resisted at first. She had a choice. Wither she could remain the way that she was, or she could learn to cultivate inner beauty. She chose to cultivate inner beauty and her life changed for ever.

A DAY OUT IN BAKEWELL

Before we actually moved to Derbyshire in 2001, we often used to go for a Day Out in Bakewell. It is a beautiful small town, with an amazing market that sells all sorts of things. I remember vividly buying a pair of binoculars from there and they were wonderful quality. There were the inevitable fruit and vegetable stalls and stalls that sold home baked delicacies and stalls that sold things like wool

for knitting with, curtain material and actual ready made curtains. There were clothes and a pet stall where you could buy toys for your pet and various other things for pets too. There was even an Adopt a Dolg stall. You didn’t adopt a real dog but a man made one. You even registered it and treated it as if it was a real dog.

The town is on a river and the river is very beautiful just there. Often, herons can be seen on it, and all kinds of water birds. Some of the houses are on the side of the river just a few feet away from it. I don’t think I would feel very safe living there.

Not far from the centre of the town is a wonderful meadow. It is a magnificent place in the Spring and Summer as they leave it to just grow its wild flowers instead of cultivating it. There is the river running through part of it. Also there is a trail which you can walk or cycle along for many miles. Nearby there is an old railway station which is no longer used. Veery atmospheric with its platforms just as they used to be when it was a working railway.

I recall many very many happy trips to Bakewell and evry time we went, we would go home laden with all sorts of treasures. Often we would have fish and chops from the fish and chip shop which was near to the market. In the little shopping mall where the fish and chip shop was, there was an ethnic clothing shop and to this day I still own some beautiful ethnic clothes. Sadly I will never wer them again, but I cannot bring myself to part with them.

If you want a cup of tea or coffee or a hot chocolate there is a lovely little coffee shop above a wonderful china shop near to one of the poshest hotels in the town. The china is highly expensive, but oh so beautiful. Sighs.

All in all Bakewell is a wonderful place to visit and I certainly have not done it justice here. I am sure that I could have said much more about it, but this is enough just for now.

MY SMILE WENT AWAY

My smile went away
On a journey of its own
Bring me peace again

DECAY

Decay
Cold rotting flesh
Where will it all end now
I look to the heavens for help
Wailing

CRYING FOR MERCY

Crying for mercy
Rain patters on the window
Tears straight from heaven

STATE OF THINKGS REGARDING MY CANCER SCARE

It has been a difficult and scary week. I have tried to convince myself that the cancer could not rutrn after elevn years free. My particular cancer, which was Hodgkins Lymphoma rarely returns after the ten year mark so it would be odd if this did turn out to be the return of my cancer.

I have a different doctor to the one I used to have, in a completely different Practice. I am not too happy with the Practice for various reasons. Apart from that, the doctor is not good. He told me to take a strong drug before bed at night, knowing that I was already taking another one. We discovered quite by accident that those two drugs taken together is extremely dangerous, and we were alarmed when we discovered that the two taken together can cause death.

Obviously I don’t. Really want to carry on with this doctor and we are thinking what to do.

The blood tests will be done next week, as the phlebotomist is coming to my home to take my blood on MOnday next week.

In the meantime I am dealing with a hirrific itch that is all over my body. I am trying to distract myself but it is hard.

I keep trying to write but that tends to set the itch off even worse. However, I need to do something.

I just hope and pray that we can find out what is wrong with me very quickly.

HOPING TO RESUME MURDER MYSTERY

I am really hoping to resume the Murder Mystery soon and maybe might even start trying to do it after making this post. My mind wasn’t able to work on it but I want to try to do it anyway.

Sorry for the break in it.

RDP WEDNESDAY Gorgeous

RDP Wednesday: GORGEOUS

I well remember the gorgeous yellow orchid that I bought for my husband’s birthday on September 11 2001. We had just moved to a place called Tideswell in Derbyshire and I didn’t know the area at all. However, I found my way to the town of Buxton which was not too far away, in my car, not knowing what on earth to buy him. As I was entering the town, I spied a shop that sold flowers, and there in the window was this beautiful yellow orchid. It was an indoor plant but quite large. I knew instantly that he would love it, as he had always loved orchids. I took it home in my car and placed it on the tiny window sill of the tiny cottage and stood back and looked at it. It looked amazing even though it filled the window.

As I was standing there looking at the plant, the phone rang. It was my husband ringing from his car phone and he told me to put the television on immediately. He said that a plane had gone into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. I put it on immdeiately and watched in horror as a second plane went into the second tower.

When my husband got home his birthday plant was completely forgotten.

A day that I will never forget.

THE AUTUMN RAIN

The autumn rain falls
Accompanying the leaves
A squelching is heard

BE FILLED

Fullness
Nourishing souls
Invited to banquets
By bubbling streams in green pastures
Come now quickly
Sit here with me my friend
Eat and drink deep
Be filled

SLEEPY VILLAGE

The hill sighed
Or seemed to
So many feet

Bikes and cars
Skateboards all leaping
In afternoon sun

Teenagers stood necking
Horses passing by
A sleepy village

HOPE SAYS……I escaped

Woof woof I did. I really did. It was the Great Escape.

The Tesco man came and he was at his van unloading out stuff and Magda opened the kitchen dorr and then the front door and I slid under her legs. The Tesco man whistled me and I got excited and ran all round. I was a good girl though because I didn’t want to leave Magda because I like her and so I followed Magda and the Tesco man in.

Later on it was raining real bad and I couldn’t go out at all.

I was real mad because it was raining because Dad insisted that I COULD go out in the rain. So I was a fed up dog.

It’s not fair. Dad doesn’t respect me at all. Anyway I’m going to the groomers tomorrow and Sally is coming to take me. I like Sally too but I won’t go on the back seat of her car. I have to sit in the well of the front passenger seat. Well, I am a passenger after all. I’ve just got a bit more hair than most. I expect I’ll smell horrible again so then I’ll HAVE to go out in the rain to get all smelly like a real dog again.

I don’t think I’ll get any humans food tonight because Mum and Dad had all vegetables although there might be a bit of pasta for me. I like pasta.

I get to run in to see Charlie the budgie ever such a lot now because I have learned how to run underneath Magda’s legs. Everyone except me and Charlie is fed up about that. Maybe they should have a people line to ring rather than a dogline.

Anyway, I’d better go. Talk to you all again soon.

Woof woof woof