Last evening view across the Guadalhorce vally.. 

Taken to drinking colacoa of a night time, was adding a shake cinnamon powder and ginger into the brew...

Now it's a broken cinnamon stick and Star Anis! Beautiful; and Star Anise is very good for numerous things, although it seems a different Star Anise can get mixed up or purposely mixed up and it's a poisonous type! 

We worked on the second, stock taking! 

And I was sort of expecting, but not wanting, a phone call from the hospital with my results from the biopsies taken, not, because I had in my head that the second would be the latest I'd hear, and then relax until hospital appointment February 7th.

So counting away in work, and telephone rang! Hospital!! Panic, but she had the wrong name?!? So now not entirely sure whether it was wrong number right name, or right number wrong name?? 

No call back so have to hope it was the first option and not the latter.

We've had some rain! And not before time, but nothing worth writing about, drizzle and sparse at that.. nothing that will change our empty embalses, reservoirs.. 

Says 18.9° out on the street and it's 10° in doors.. I'll be lighting the fire soon! 

I've roasted veggies for dinner for tonight and leftovers for tomorrow! 

M.

A poem to end

Part and parcel of wishes and dreams

Often thought and sometimes lost

Excitement, adventure and treasure 

Memories return, memories made

A poem to end where we begin

©MB

Okay, one more try before this hits the deck!

I have been meaning to upload these details.. of my travels this May and so far this year for distance.. 

53 miles walked in May! The majority in Bewdley! That's an amazing amount of walking and will be interesting to see the amount for June in comparison.

And I've made it half way around the world so far this year in the amount of air travel...

I will have to complete that after July.. my mission should I choose to accept it! I do!

And some poetry ~ I have decided to use poems from the book I am writing in... Poems purloined from the internet, and written in purple ink in a beautiful book. How they would have been written, in a different lifetime.

In the end
When our eyelids find their infinite darkness
You will know that our bodies were tiny universes
And that I loved you with a thousand seas

Christopher Poindexter

TTFN
Marian

A fallen apple... heart shaped... I should fill the centre with cinnamon sugar, wrap it up in sweet pastry, brush with melted butter and bake!

If I were at home!

It is difficult sometimes to write whilst on placements, I cannot say how my day really is, or nights... I can't give location details of pretty villages, quintessential English locations...

Snippets and random thoughts only... And very random I am too with some of my thoughts of course... So much I could say and can't! Now I feel I'm being cryptic and I really having nothing to say!

Maybe a poem? I stopped writing them here didn't I... Let me go steal... erm.. no purloin I mean!

Well that was weird the first poem that came up was in the LA Times! And now I haven't bothered looking for another I have written my own.

Take me away... Bring me home
To leave a life of knowing to choose a life of unexplored unknown
Time to reconnect my feet on home home ground
To live a life anew and another way around...
©MarianBonelli

The plaque above, by the way, is in St Mary's Church Northchurch... it reads...

In grateful memory of
James Randall aged 85
For twenty years Sexton of this church
and Ann his wife, aged 78
This tablet is placed by their sons
Willaim, Henry, George.
"Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good."
1894

These are my ancestors....

Above the Gape and Olive in Swansea marina...

Tunnel nearby to here...

NYC as seen from the Island cruise...

Self explanatory above!

The massive Colgate clock over looking the Hudson River...

Franco and I, and Eric and Debbie... cool how my camera self made this little action movie! You have gotta love technology!

View from the Lighthouse on Fire Island....

Now to business again! Have you missed me peoples! I am so sorry... Been working, and working... and a little more working!  My first shift with the new company was twenty one days long, my hour a day off I combined and had seven of the fifteen hours off in one hit on each Sunday I was away... allowing me time to unwind and visit friends and family in the area, I have been pulled towards Berkhamsted each time so far... and now back in Neath I feel a stranger again!  Even in the supermarket on Tuesday I had to ask the poor woman three times what she was saying! Couldn't understand her strong accent!

I started a new job then! LISW, (that's live in support worker) lol.... and thats what I do now, its very much the same but different from my last job, can't go into details except to say I jump onto the M4 motorway and travel up to Slough and jump off again, I am then about 20 minutes from where I live for the two weeks I am working!  Its a nice area, in a nice town, and I feel I did okay in my first three weeks, one of shadowing, two of being the lead support... There is no down time, waking up there early and going to bed there immediately after night support come in, so Sunday time off is real good... And coming back this Monday, late afternoon I slept like a log and both yesterday and Tuesday had long day time naps!! Trying not to today though, don't want to sleep all the way through my time off!!

I lost a bit of weight during my first shift too, not much just a few pounds I think, which I will probably put back on in these few days!!  I am eating okay while away, but no grazing in between or evenings! I have left my work clothes there too, so will just bring back and forth with me my personal bits and pieces...

Coming back into the house Pippa went crazy happy to see me, my poor baby dog, Franco knows where I am but she didn't! So good to see her furry little doggy body jumping about yapping and nipping at me! lol The garden and grown with weeds and brambles, the flowers come and gone on some plants, blackberries out already and lovely orange flowers in the woods where I threw seeds last year!!! Cool I thought!  A butterfly tree cut down to nowt near the back yard... Franco wanted light, obviously the butterflies will have to find their flowers elsewhere this year then! Although before I went I noticed some flowers coming out on another tree I must have cut down for the last two years, not realizing it was a plant (Ooops sorry!!)  So we have some beautiful hydrangea flowers this year!

I opened my Birthday cards too!!! Thank you everyone!! Kind of feel I missed out on my Birthday this year... does it mean I am a year younger now then! lol... Okay, well worth the try I guess!

Purloining this poem... from Poetry Foundation Web site...

"Time does not bring relief: you all have lied"
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, - so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

TTFN
Marian

Fathers Day

Fathers day poem

You never said I'm leaving
You never said goodbye
You were gone before I knew it
And only God knew why
A million times I needed you
A million times I cried
If Love alone could have saved you
You never would have died
In life I loved you dearly
In death I love you still
In my heart you hold a place
That no one could ever fill
It broke my heart to lose you
But you didn't go alone
For part of me went with you
The day God took you home...

I say Fathers day poem, but this goes for all of those I have loved and lost along life's highway...

TTFN
Marian

Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Birthday to my Mom today.... she may be out of sight, but never out of mind, like a priest once said at another funeral, "when a ship sails away, out of sight, it is only out of sight by us, and on another land, sails into view, and we know the ship still sails...."

Mom and I in Rome, what a great vacation... two weeks of flying around Italy in a coach with a bunch of strangers who became friends, mom won a bread Frascati lady with three breasts, one for white wine, one for red, and one for... milk!

1928 was a leap year....

New York 1928 and the Brooklyn Bridge...

Mom was born in a bad storm, and similarly in March when she passed away the storm came again and took her...

Missing Mom

By Claudia Lee

I awake each morning to start a new day
But the pain of losing you never goes away.
I go about the things I have to do
And as the hours pass I think again of you.
I want to call you and just hear your voice
Then I remember that I have no choice
For you are not there and now my heart cries
Just to see you again to tell you goodbye
To say Mom I love you and I always will
And hope that much of you, in me you’ve instilled.
The day that you left I just didn’t know
That you were going where I couldn’t go.
And now all my memories of you are so dear
But gosh, how I miss you and wish you were here.
Who now can hear me when I need to cry?
It so hard to tell you “Mom goodbye.”
Someday I know all will be well
And I’ll see you again with stories to tell
Of how you were missed and how we have grown
And how good it is to finally be home.
Until then my memories of you I’ll keep near
And I’ll pass them on to those who are dear.
I miss you Mom...

Well, here it is the most expected 2013!  Happy New Year everyone.... Glad you can't hear me saying this, still trying to get over my negativity over Christmas!

Still the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and and at last the fireworks are over, "they better be!!", started about 6pm last night, for some people they didn't seem to know it wasn't midnight yet?? Or they were celebrating New Years Eve in a different country!!  So poor ol Pip had to put up with random rockets from then until about 2am!

This isn't a very good way to start the year is it, I'm sorry folks, other things on my mind, which will be revealed in due course, or course!

So, I wish you all, good health primarily, wealth, and much much happiness in this coming year, we will ride it out together, the highs the lows, and the adventures ...


New Year’s Reflections   Looking back on the months gone by,
As a new year starts and an old one ends,
We contemplate what brought us joy,
And we think of our loved ones and our friends. Recalling all the happy times,
Remembering how they enriched our lives,
We reflect upon who really counts,
As the fresh and bright new year arrives. And when I ponder those who do,
I immediately think of you. Thanks for being one of the reasons I'll have a Happy New Year!   By Joanna Fuchs  

TTFN

Marian