Best wishes

Have a happy time……

Goal! Whistle stop

On our recent walk, before the local school had broken up for the Christmas hols, we were suddenly engulfed in high school kids in sports gear, walking along the same path to their sports field close by.

At the tail end of this enormous crocodile, came the PE teacher. With a whistle – a blue whistle, just like mine.

Bass the dog, was running loose. He’d already chased a squirrel into the wood. I have trained him to return to me from any distance away, by blowing on my blue plastic whistle. He comes to sit a my feet and expect his reward.

But now we were surrounded with boisterous adolescents playing silly buggers. I was not sure where the dog had got to amongst all the feet and legs.

Suddenly, the teacher at the back blew the whistle to restore order in the crowd, and Bass appeared from god-knows-where to receive his treat from ME!

On our way back, the teams were playing on the field as we passed. Every time the ref blew the whistle ( the ref and the teacher being the same person), Bass returned to me happy for his reward. Quite soon, the snacks in my pocket were finished.

I got the baleful stare we get when, we, his servants, fail to do the right thing.

Mummy and daddy

The first time I heard the term “Mummy and Daddy” for owners of dogs was when I passed a middle aged couple walking their Westie. As I approached, the Westie found a pile of dog poo and started eating it.

The woman raced forwards and cried out “No Suzie. NO! You KNOW Mummy and daddy don’t like that!”

I chuckled all the way home. I told Mr Furlong. We have had fun with it ever since. We called ourselves “Mummy and daddy”. We’ve owned dogs all our lives and we’ve never been “Mummy and daddy” to them before.

It’s a laugh.

We are not really Bass’s “Mummy and daddy”, we are his servants!

Mr Furlong installed a dog flap so His Highness could go out for a wee whenever he wishes.

But, in the early morning and the evening when it’s dark, His Highness summons us to switch the outside light on before he steps out, or the kitchen light on before he steps in.

“Mummy and daddy”? No.

We are the butler and the maid.

The fat ball visitors

Shssssss! Don’t tell the dog.

On the premise that if you build it, they will come, and we want bird visitors to really like our garden and nest here in the Spring, we have put out bird seed and fat balls.

We have had visitors! But we haven’t seen them.

There is bird seed scattered on the ground in the usual bird-like fashion. But it’s the fat balls that are being demolished fastest.

Trouble is, I suspect the fat balls are being consumed, not by sweet little birdies, but by something with clever hands and bigger mouths.

I hope the dog, Bass, doesn’t discover that. He’ll be sitting outside in all weather waiting to catch the squirrel who’s trashing our fat balls.

We’ll have to dig out the anti squirrel fat ball feeder.

That seams really mean, don’t you think?

Popcorn night!

Today is voting day in the UK.

I have always loved elections. When I was young, I was an election “helper”. For many different elections in Africa, I seeded leaflets, visited houses, drove voters to and from voting, and generally assisted “my” Party.

I was a political animal right from the very first time, I saw a dreadful injustice at the age of about ten.

When I asked the grownups around me, how you could stop such things happening. The reply was that people had to change who was ruling in the Government.

As a teenager, my friend, was very politically involved, and I got drawn in too. And as a young married woman, my father in law was the Mayor of the city we lived in for several terms. There were always elections.

My life has been full of memorable election days.

Tonight, I’m loading up with popcorn and crisps, and I will enjoy watching the results of weeks of bear baiting, slander, fake news, vicious hysterical speaking and bias on the BBC. Tonight is the night we will know if ordinary people can see through all the bullshit, and vote the way I did!

Tonight the BBC cannot fudge facts. The people will present the facts TO them. Your vote is a FACT.

Please vote!

It makes popcorn and crisp eating far more fun!

Which Pam and Jim is that?

Christmas cards are arriving.

Some them are a puzzlement.

“From, Pam and Jim” or “Sue and Frank”

Who are you? Which Pam and Jim? Which Sue and Frank?

We know three Pams and Jims and two Sues and Franks.

Hell, people, can’t you just write a surname somewhere?

As a clue!

Bird food – someday

The Furlongs haven’t bought bird food since the birds disappeared from our garden in 2018. The great bird sucking vortex in the sky.

But its cold and the Wood mice eat it too.

And maybe there’s a hungry bird out there……somewhere.

So we bought bird food seeds and fat balls.

Since then, the weather has been frightful, atrocious, appalling.

No human or bird, nor wood mice would ever go out in that weather.

But we promise to put it all out in the garden, some day soon believing that “if you build it, they will come.”

Fresh air

Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth on steep slopes and hills to keep the old legs moving and the energy peaking.

It increases the intake of oxygen,

they say.

Depends on the exhaust emissions, I say.

Away from the main road, I breathe as suggested.

But when you consider we are breathing in

• Nitrogen — 78 percent.
• Oxygen — 21 percent.
• Argon — 0.93 percent.
• Carbon dioxide — 0.04 percent.
• Trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton and hydrogen, as well as water vapor.

its amazing we are alive at all. Where does all the nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, krypton and hydrogen, go inside our lungs? How do we use these gasses?

I’m sure they can’t be good for you!

Especially when they are mixed with carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, benzene and soot…….from the main road I walk along every day.

– 4 feels like -7

My phone tells me it’s – 4 degrees but feels like – 7 degrees and its ‘sunny’.

Well, it’s not flipping sunny. It’s three o clock in the pitch dark morning and I’m blooming cold.

And hungry.

So while I’m chomping away at my snack, drinking coffee and vaping, I’m getting the job of the daily (sometimes) blog done.

I remember, once, in Africa, on a truly hot night, waking with the idea that the sun had fallen and the earth was in the process of burning up. Global warming so to speak.

But tonight I awoke with a cold head. I can’t remember when I ever felt that. Not in the night, when our central heating is off. I’ll get a wooley hat. I covered the dog with a blanket and another for Mr Furlong.

– 4?

No

– 7, and that’s inside, I think!

But, on the other hand, I could simply turn the central heating on…..