Oddbox Soapbox...

I've noticed it's always quieter here in Blogland at weekends, mes amis...

People have lives to live, jobs to do, errands to run, chickens to choke (I'm jesting - I'm a vegetarian and we have kept pet chickies), and children to chastise...

I found this link on Friday when catching up with news on the BBC News Webpage...


It's a small collection of weird and wonderful news clippings, and there are a couple of laughs, oohs or wry smiles here, dependent upon your mien, moue or mood, methinks!

For those of you who were ever interested in my home-related window dilemma, you may be amazed, nay even astounded by the update...

Windows are now all in place, and sparkling bright - My living room is brighter and lighter than before, as the windows are larger for the frames are thinner, if that makes sense... We even struggled to hear the garden birds tweeting, and we're usually on first-name terms with the territorially chirping male blackbirds, and assorted finches. The lads were stars - They worked very hard, I did not even see them take a break! One of them even staggered up a ladder to repair my guttering, which clattered against the house cacophonously in anything other than a whisper of wind!

My letter boxes are restored and operational - I have even received some post - All of it of recyclable quality, but still I confess receiving it at all is a comfort...

Now I shall have to curb all of my usual slovenly, slatternly practices... You know, the ones I have fallen into while living this half-life with a home that, to be fair, saw better days when the Kaiser still lived...

I have a laundry room at the back of the house, at the Tradesman's Entrance to Crawford Mansions. Its three windows face directly on to the back lane behind our houses... This is where visitors and dwellers have sole access and egress to their homes...

Usually, this presents no probs - I scuttle into said laundry room... (Question: Why do we sometimes call this a 'Utility Room' in the UK - It sounds as if it belongs to war-time contingencies? Scriptor, Moannie, Jinksy, FF - I'll bet you know the answer to that one - You clever tykes you!) ...regularly to extract clean undies and tops from the dry laundry, straight out of the tumble drier, or even directly from the clothes horse, and change my vestments there and then... Voila, a transformation!

No-one but my family ever sees me en deshabille, for to hide the previous very shabby windows, I had hung some dark lilac, densely patterned voile curtains from my previous home... To see anything out of them was something of a Mister Magoo experience, to be fair!

Now, I have reached new levels of potential public exposure, I will have to behave myself... comport myself in a more ladylike fash', mes amis, at least until I have fitted some functioning and pretty blinds! Tant pis, I shall live!

Anyhoo, back to the cliplette... There you will see beautiful baby meerkats... Everybody: Ahhhh!


A hard rock loving pensioner... Some financial gurus in Frankfurt dressing down at work to bring levity to some very serious business...

(I love Frankfurt, such a cosmopolitan city, a great music scene and the birthplace of beloved Goethe...


Hardly imagine he would recognise the place these days, talk about Sturm und Drang! Golly gosh!)

And there's more - There are some models at Fashion Week, struggling with their high heels on the catwalk...




Why do designers do that, do you think ? I understand that they obtain shoes for their all models (just like the clothes) in one size only, regardless of how big the models' tootsies are...

Another form of body fascism, and torture for women, in my opinion...

I've seen Sticktoria Beckham do the same, cramming her size 5's, or whatever they are in reality, into a teensy pair of stilettoes with a point the like of which was last seen on the nose of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz - You know, the one that popped her clogs under the house!

And then, she has to hang onto her children just to keep herself tottering upright... I know you've noticed, and it's not just me going all byotchy on your bum... (That's a translation from the American, by the way...)



See?

The clip is only around 4 minutes long, about the time you would need to boil yourself an egg for breakfast - Always, free range and organic, j'espere...

And here's something just as exciting as a boiled egg!



I'm going to tootle off myself now, before I get accused of not being nice... My bad; I protect my reputation for niceness like the gleaming jewel that it is...

Nice, in my opinion, is a very underrated quality in folk, and that gives me such sadness...

One last tale to regale... The staples were swiftly despatched yesterday by one of the nurses of the practice, in the same room of doom in which my incident first was triggered... I was reluctant to go near the offending doctor's couch, and so was straddling a glass trolley on castors (probably just as dodgy, but the nurse was wielding a special instrument to remove the staples, which I had given her, as I'd been carrying it in my handbag since leaving hospital where I was given it by the nurses there specifically for this purpose...

I had been introduced to the nurse, who was about to use the staple remover, by a trainee nurse who had asked whether she could sit in on the spectacle, so she could learn... I was feeling a little nervous at this point, and proclaimed that I had no probs with her sitting in whatsoever, but I'd rather someone with more experience actually remove the clips!

I felt bad about this, but I have allowed many a fledgling practitioner to practice on me in the past... (A very vivid story, which I shall never write, now springs to mind, involving me, pre-Grizz's arrival on the scene, agreeing to a nurse at the Family Planning Clinic in Inverness, when she asked whether a student could observe the procedure, and I then found meself in an interesting position, under a strong light, while a veritable coachload of medical students paraded through the room!!!)

So I am now 100% less metal content than I was on Friday morning, and I am beginning to think I might get through all this...

Alors, salut mes amis; A demain! Mwah!



Now, Marilyn - There was a real beauty... with so little of the hoo-hah and hullaballoo of these days...

The End of Oracles and A Pep Blog!

Okay, so where were we? Can you even remember... Do you even care?!

Oh yes, the glass hadn't come on the right van for my big front windows, (Think of a sunroom-type of space - Big panes of glass - Nightmare!)... and so the Knights of the Round Wagon Wheel... (- Trust me, it's a biscuit in the UK, Australia and Canada, and Photobucket has not a photo of them for love nor money, although it does have pancake-wearing rabbits or guinea pigs, (whatever he was), to symbolise I Ching apparently, don't ask me why...) ...have to come back again today to finish their really hard-working job.

Honestly, they have been lovely...

Only thing was, at one point yesterday my front porch looked as if it had been built out of plasticene and cardboard when the windows came out, and before they were re-fitted anew... I observed the men, wrestling manfully with huge panes of glass, against the whirling and whistling wind that abounded yesterday... That, and they were dodging the low-flying military aircraft which whizz through the skies a couple of times a week, which terrify those not accustomed (as we now are) to their screams and death-defying stunts.

And... My front door had arrived, complete with a letter box (not as ordered), and my back door arrived without a letter box (not as ordered). The postie only delivers to the back of our houses, and never in a million years will I be able to persuade him to make special dispensation just to deliver my junk-mail, Disposable Contact Lenses and Assorted Final Demands...

Cue much intake of breath from the Knights, some whistling tunelessly through teeth, and one of the guys hauling a hacksaw out of his back jeans pocket and making me a letter box sized hole in the back door, (I couldn't watch, there was actual blood!), in fact just in time for the Postman's delivery, leaving me with a letter-sized hole in the front door - Albeit, I am assured, temporary...

Oh, and plaster has been falling down around my ears in chunks, now the windows are almost in... I am now awaiting the arrival of a hallowed bricklayer... He will attempt to put back some of the outside plaster render on the house (covering the 1900's bricks), that assorted Mensch have knocked off while putting in the windows... My garden is full of UPVC debris, the men are full of coffee, my house is full of decanted clutter in each and every room, and it's been like a scary extended visit to the dentist what with the drilling and hammering going on...

If I don't post much over the weekend, m'dears, it's because I have offed the lot of them, stashing them all under the space in the front garden allocated for a patio at some point...

That, and the fact that my staples supposedly come out later today at the doc's, and GJ works from home on a Friday mainly, which means I am left gnashing and whimpering for the laptop, as he needs it... "...FOR ACTUAL WORK, FHINA!"

And, back to Oracles, for La Wiki wasn't keen yesterday to be left so in the lurch, however, she did seem to enjoy the hearty sight of as many men in the house... I think she's been a little parched in the Temple for quite some time.


An oracle is a shrine, temple or sanctuary consecrated to the worship and consultation of a prophetic god. The person who transmits prophecies from a deity at such a shrine is also called an oracle, as is the prophecy or revelation itself.

Oracles are usually presented in the form of an enigmatic or ambiguous statement or allegory. E.g. "Socrates is the wisest of men." "A great king will achieve victory." Such statements can have several meanings, with a greater chance of being interpreted as accurate than if they were more precise, such as "Socrates has seven toes" or "Cyrus will defeat the Persians at Salamis on Tuesday."

A belief in oracles is linked to the common human desire to know the future.

"In the migration myth of the Mexitin, i.e. the early Aztecs (they were British biscuits too once, but again I digress!), a mummy-bundle (perhaps an effigy) carried by four priests directed the trek away from the cave of origins by giving oracles. An oracle led to the foundation of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. The Yucatec Mayas knew oracle priests or chilanes, literally 'mouthpieces' of the deity. The Books of Chilam Balam were ascribed to one famous oracle priest who correctly had predicted the coming of the Spaniards and its associated disasters".


"The Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria in Africa have a long tradition of using oracles. In Igbo villages, oracles were usually female priestesses to a particular deity, dwelling in a cave or other secluded location away from urban areas, and, just as the oracles of ancient Greece, they would deliver prophecies in an ecstatic state to visitors seeking advice. Though the vast majority of Igbos today are Christian, many in Nigeria today still use oracles.



And "In Norse mythology, Odin took the severed head of the mythical god Mimir to Asgard for consultation as an oracle. The Havamal and other sources relate the sacrifice of Odin for the oracular Runes whereby he lost an eye (external sight) and won wisdom (internal sight; insight).

"In Tibet, oracles have played, and continue to play, an important part in religion and government. The word "oracle" refers to the spirit that enters those men and women who act as media between the natural and the spiritual realms.


"The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, still consults an oracle known as the Nechung Oracle, which is considered the official state oracle of the government of Tibet. The Dalai Lama has according to custom, which has endured for centuries, consulted the Nechung Oracle during the new year festivites of Losar. Before fleeing from Tibet however he consulted the oracle of Dorje Shugden. Another oracle he consults is the Tenma oracle, for which a young Tibetan woman is the medium for the goddess. The Dalai Lama gives a complete description of the process of trance and spirit possession in his book Freedom in Exile".




So, there you have it, mes braves, the Oracle and the Oral Tradition, in a nutshell...

Oh yes, I said I was going to hold forth on "Schadenbloggen"..., didn't I?

Schadenbloggen is a term coined by moi to denote the tendency to believe that we are not worthy, we are not worthy! We toy with jacking it all in (blogging/breathing) and hiding back under the deep eiderdown from whence we came...

Or is that just me?!

We all do it - We look at those brilliant published authors, who still seem to have enough lead in their pencils and energies to blog - How do they do that? Do they pin their wayward children or teens to the walls with duct tape?!

We gawk at fantabulous pictures and paintings, fait a la main, bien sur - Beautiful - And we reserve nothing short of damning disdain for what we see as our own meagre and pitiful efforts.

We see a talented bloggerista's photographs, and wonder how anyone so super-human can breathe the same air as we mere mortals, and we cry over our own paw-stained and fading polaroids showing broken family ties, and even more hideous Christmases. Or frightful fashions (mainly mine!), and we cry, "Why not me?! Why can't I have a life as wonderful as theirs? Why am I not as funny as X, Y or Zee; Why can't I write as well as him, her or the Guinea Pig?!"

Basically, we don the hair shirt of our penitent, pious forebears and we flagellate our skin with lashes of cloth; We cover our heads with ashes, and we regard our images in the Mirror of Disney's Wicked Witch, asking our reflections why we aren't as good...as worthy...as fabulous...as rich...as lovely...as talented...


Schadenbloggen. Name it, and notice it, and please stop it... It's as simple as that, honestly...

There is room enough in all of Blogland for thee and me, and him and her, and it, and the dog (Henry The Dog, among other very esteemed woozles), and the cat (Protege's Batcat), and the She-Weasel...(La Belette Rouge), even the sainted Cochon de Guinea...



We all have something to offer, a voice demanding to be heard (on many days - It doesn't have to be every day, guys), and something worth saying...



I looked for the science for what many bloggers say they were and are feeling - If you look hard enough out and about, there's always someone there before you with the facts - Just as with the term, Schadenbloggen - I should have checked before I thought of that, but wasn't to know...

(Apparently Schaden Bloggen means when you follow someone's blog whom you do not like - )

There are some of us here who have trouble keeping up with people and blogs we know and love, never mind those we hate!

Anyhoo, I found someone who had 'been there, done that, got the Tee-Shirt, and the stains!' They had already posted something on t'Internet that had captured the Zeitgeist of what bloggeristas are feeling. Et voila!

"After a lot of soul searching, you realize it’s not a waste of time but it (blogging) can be a time waster. So (and this is where the you becomes I, except for the record, it always has been) you decide to join a revolution of sorts. A way of bringing it back to the beginning. You vow to blog for yourself, to post when you want to and to not feel guilt if you can not comment on others' sites.

Because let’s face it; There’s a good chance everyone else is thinking the same thing and that’s what a community is all about, right? Understanding? Reaching out? Moving forward?

So join this community and find others who understand. There’s life to live out there, y’all. One forgotten blog post at a time". (Source)

What I mean is keep on keeping on. You will always be good enough, even if the voices in our heads argue otherwise... If you want to take a break, a breather - Do so, and don't worry too much that your close followers and friends won't be here when you get back - We will... with all of our hearts.

Allez, mes dahlinks...





Finalement, in case you haven't met her yet, this is my sister, Epona... Well, she's strictly Wiki's sister, for she is/was also a Goddess.

I'll tell you about her some other time...

The Oracle and the Oral Tradition...

I just want to draw your attention to something that the delightful and delicious, Saz, at Fat, frumpy and fifty... said, but only a few moments ago...

"Are you ok, you haven't posted in 12 minutes...so I'm a little worried!!"

Such a cheeky, and yet winsome wench, she is!

I am being driven to madness and distraction by drills and hammers, and the bleaching cold of wind whistling through areas of my body gusts of wind should never have access to. It would seem that the like of my home has never before been encountered by my Knights With Shining Windows...


I have had more Inspectors through the place over these past two days than The Pink Panther!

I have had to deal with the damage which putting in new windows has caused to the plaster and fabric of my tumble-down home... I have just been at the portal, on the steps of Crawford Mansions, waving a fond farewell greeting to a lovely silver-haired and silver-tongued, Plasterer, who proceeded to tell me all about his back troubles... I almost resorted to showing him my staples and my fledgling scar... I did... nearly -


Only prudity, and the thought that Goddess Wiki would be looking on, saddened again by my bringing her into disrepute in such a way, stopped me in my tracks...

Suffice it to say that I am posting half of my piece today, if that's okay, mes darlings, and the remainder tomoz - For fear that I will never get my teeth to de-chatter, and my nerves to de-shatter... And the fact that some of my blogging gets kind of lengthy - I know... I know...

Some kind person (that is, other than Saz) said yesterday that I was a bit like an oracle... By which, I think they meant that I have a capacity to ramble on about anything and everything, (avoiding politics or other sensitive subjects, of course, at least at the moment, you might have noticed?)...

I love the thought of oracles; the mythology; the possibility; the potential... Time for me to slip in through the ancient portal of Goddess Wiki, methinks... SShhhhh, I knock softly... and she says:

"An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion; an infallible authority, usually spiritual in nature. It may also mean a revealed prediction or precognition of the future from deities, that is spoken through another object or life-form (e.g.: augury and auspice)". I just love those words: augury and auspice - I am always in the flow of saying, usually while at work, "Oh, that doesn't augur well...!", and,

"All right, we'll do that then, under the auspices of ......(something along the lines of) saving the public purse..." Okay, it's that boring! Meh!




Don't get me wrong, I'm not a naysayer, a purveyor, or a harbinger of doom, and yet I do like to have an opinion on everything!



In fact, you might have noticed, from the variety of comments I leave on your very own blogs, and then I worry about what I've said afterwards... You see, I am prone to worriting, and swithering... I have a tendency to vex and to brood, to cark and to dwell, to fret and to mope about anything, about everything... I know most of us have a propensity to mull on things...

Hey, ho... " In the ancient world many sites gained a reputation for the dispensing of oracular wisdom: They too became known as "oracles," and the oracular utterances, called khrēsmoi in Greek, were often referred to under the same name — a name derived from the Latin verb ōrāre, to speak". And speak, we do and must, except here we call it 'blogging'!



"In China, oracles were common in many civilizations of antiquity. The use of oracle bones dates as far back as the Shang Dynasty, (1600–1046 BC). The I Ching, or "Book of Changes", is a collection of linear signs used as oracles that are from that period...



The I Ching has had a major influence on the philosophy, literature and statecraft of China from the time of the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC – AD 256).





"In Egypt, the earliest known oracle was in the renowned temple of Per-Wadjet. The temple was dedicated to the worship of Wadjet and may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to Ancient Greece from Egypt. The later Greeks called both the goddess and the city Buto".



"The earliest tradition of oracular practice in Hellenic culture is from the archaic period shortly after arrival of the Hellenes in their current place of settlement c. 1300 BC. The oracle was associated with the cults of deities derived from the great goddess of nature and fertility, the pre-eminent ancient oracle—the Delphic Oracle—operated at the temple of Delphi". Now, that is the Oracle we might first think of, when there is mention of Oracles... in fact, that is where the English word comes from, and the apparently always-female priestess......



"The Delphic Oracle exerted considerable influence throughout Hellenic culture. The Greeks consulted her prior to all major undertakings, such as wars and the founding of colonies.
The semi-Hellenic countries around the Grecian world also respected her and came to Delphi as supplicants. Croesus of Lydia consulted Delphi before attacking Persia, and according to Herodotus was told, "If you cross the river, you will destroy a great empire. " Believing the response favorable, Croesus attacked, but it was his own empire that ultimately was destroyed by the Persians. She allegedly also proclaimed Socrates to be the wisest man in Greece, to which Socrates said that, if so, this was because he alone was aware of his own ignorance. After this confrontation, Socrates dedicated his life to a search for knowledge that was one of the founding events of western philosophy.



"This Oracle's last recorded response was given in 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I ordered pagan temples to cease operation". So, it's he at whose feet I must lay blame for the all but loss of our ancient Pagan beliefs and leanings...?





"In ancient India, the oracle was known as Akashwani, literally meaning "voice from the sky" and was related to the message of God. Oracles played key roles in many of the major incidents of the epics Mahabharat and Ramayana. In South Indian language Kannada, "Oracle" is mentioned as "Ashareeravani". In Tamil it is mentioned as "Asareeree". In Telugu, it is called "Deva Vaakku" or "Daiva Vaakku". It literally means 'Words of God'.



I am going to leave you champing at the bit for more at this point, mes chums in Blogland (I live in hope!) - 'Love you, and leave you...' as they say... I will witter more tomorrow, and hopefully make a little more sense, as I have something to say not only to round off on the subject of Oracles, but also to add some opinions about blogging guilt and 'Schadenbloggen', as I will name it... That is, the fear that everyone is better at blogging than l'il ol you... Or l'il ol' me... as it happens.

Such thoughts are is freezing us, and terrifying us, and there's no place for Schadenbloggen in Blogland... IMHO, of course, and you know that, around hereabouts, that counts for nowt!

Toodle-oo!

New Light Through Old Windows

Well, after yesterday's many hues of fracas, and after all that hoo-hah about Google/Booger farting about with missing and not missing followers of our blogs, which really set the cat amongst the pigeons to be fair, I am in a more reflective mood today...

Can I just quickly share with you one of the many bold and wise comments left for me yesterday? This by the literary Beth Kephart:

"Beth Kephart said...

I so believe that this is about finding what is real, finding the people who would be your friends if they were standing right there beside you.

Clearly you have about you some wonderful friends. And they'll stay true.

A Woman Of No Importance said...

Beth Kephart: You are very right, my friend - Have I said already that I love all of them? All of them - Even the dastardly clever, cunning, and curmudgeonly ones...

And I do not give my love lightly... xxx"

This is honestly very true - And for those of you who would like a small token of my fondest thoughts about you, at the bottom of this page is a lovely Friends Award which came via the most beautiful, La Belette Rouge, to all her loved followers -

Can you see the sweet Peanuts cartoon - Snoopy and Woodstock, the little bird? Please feel free to take it and know that you are never, never far from my thoughts... (Often addled as they are, it is true - Thank you, Diane for mentioning that!)


Men have arrived this morning, to rend the very windows of my house to scrap and dust, shard and fragment...

I am taking the opportunity, being still at home recuperating from the op, to have the doors and windows of my house refreshed. We have lived with them for almost seven years, (and they were already at least 20 years old then), and to be honest, they are ready to be be pushed out of their own accord, with scarcely a jemmy/jimmy required!

You know by now. if you drop by from time to time. that I am a lover of glass, and not only the kind that delicious wine comes in...

I love the art of stained glass, and although my own windows will be plastic and modern, without many redeeming features, other than serving to comfort us against the cold winds that tend to blow up here around our turret overlooking the Simonside Hills; We hope they will also buffer us against the howls of a neighbour's noisy hunting dog - My doors, front and back, will each have a touch of glass magic... The front door will have an etched diamond-cut pattern surrounded by an arch of vermillion glass, while the back door has a raised Rennie Mackintosh-style rose in clear glass, again couched within a frame of vermillion*** glass.

My most favourite glass is that made famous by Tiffany. I had a chance to call in to leave a sprig from yesterday's flowers for favoured followers for La Wiki, and she whispered to me thusly:

"Tiffany glass is the generic name used to describe the many and varied types of glass developed and produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany, (1848-1933), one of the most famous stained glass artists of the United States and remembered not only for his windows but for decorative glass objects, in particular so-called Tiffany lamps.

"In 1865 Tiffany travelled to Europe and in London he visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, whose extensive collection of Roman and Syrian glass made a deep impression on him. (And there you have it - The inspiration for his wonders came from this side of the pond - Amazing, non?!)...

"He admired the colouration of mediaeval glass and was convinced that the quality of contemporary glass could be improved upon. In his own words, the "Rich tones are due in part to the use of pot metal full of impurities, and in part to the uneven thickness of the glass, but still more because the glass maker of that day abstained from the use of paint".

"Tiffany was an interior designer, and in 1878 his interest turned towards the creation of stained glass, when he opened his own studio and glass foundry because he was unable to find the types of glass that he desired in interior decoration. His inventiveness both as a designer of windows and as a" manufacturer of glass " with which to create them was to become renowned.

"Tiffany wanted the glass itself to transmit texture and rich colors and he developed a type of glass he called Favrile. Tiffany patented Favrile glass in 1880. The trade name "Favrile" was derived from the French word, fabrile, meaning handcrafted.

"Favrile glass often has a distinctive characteristic that is common in some glass from Classical antiquity: it possesses a superficial iridescence. This iridescence causes the surface to shimmer, but also causes a degree of opacity. This effect was obtained by mixing different colors of glass together while hot.

According to Tiffany:

"Favrile glass is distinguished by brilliant or deeply toned colors, usually iridescent like the wings of certain American butterflies, the necks of pigeons and peacocks, the wing covers of various beetles."

That's ma petite lecon on glass over for today, mes chums.

*** A little footnote: "Vermilion, sometimes spelled vermillion, when found naturally occurring, is an opaque orange red pigment, used since antiquity, originally derived from the powdered mineral cinnabar. Chemically, the pigment is mercuric sulfide, HgS, and like all mercury compounds it is toxic. (Yikes, as Scooby would say!). Its name is derived from the French vermeil which was used to mean any red dye, and which itself comes from vermiculum, a red dye made from the insect Kermes vermilio. The words for the color red in Portuguese (vermelho) and Catalan (vermell) derive from this term".

Moving along, I know that many of you are going through considerable upheaval and trials at the moment, so I thought I would send a few little whispered wishes through the incense-scented, Moorish blue and brown tiled hallways of Goddess Wiki's chambers.

I wish for you patience to deal with whatever situations you find yourself in, while you grapple with finding a way through from where you are...



I wish for you courage to deal with what life and fate chooses to throw at us - "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and consequence, to quote the noble Bard himself...



I send you, for all that it is worth, thoughts of love and grace...



I wish for you great strength, and I know you will cope with what lies before you, just as well as you have handled all the nuts and bolts of what you have encountered in the past...



Some of you have faith from whatever source... I hope that that which sustains you continues to bring you comfort and joy...



I know that those of you who trot alongside my portal occasionally are light-filled souls replete with goodness... I know it because you share your wit, wisdom and experience with me every day, and I know you are blessed with it... I hope you can feel it, glowing within you now.



I also know you have such generosity of spirit and love... I know that because you demonstrate it every day through your words, deeds and energies...



I know some of you think I am certifiable, and I can live with that, so I ask that angels continue to watch over your every step in life, and may you feel their fine feathers brush your skin occasionally to cool and comfort you...




Finally, will the last of you here, please switch off the light, as I am keen to conserve the earth's resources, after all... (And keep the 'leccy bill down after all, I am not made of money!)... I shall be otherwise engaged, you see - Busy making builders' tea for my Window Knights In Shining Armour! A tout a l'heure dahlinks!