October 20th

“There's a side of my personality that goes completely against the East Coast educated person and wants to be a pin-up girl in garages across America...there's a side that wants to wear the pink angora bikini!”
Mira Sorivona - American actress



A lot of people think I'm eccentric - personally I knnow that I'm totally normal. Eccentric would be a good thing to be but I still seem pretty normal to me.

The one thing that I would love to do is skydive - and yes I can understand why people think that's nuts. I've been once and it was without doubt the most amazing, fantastic, life-enhancing feeling ever! Leaving the plane and feeling the air rushing past my face, the noise of it, the exhileration... Then the sudden silence as the canopy opened and slowed me right down, leaving me time to spin around slowly and admire the panoramic view of the countryside. No other experience could come close.

If I ever have cash to spare I'll be straight down to Hinton to sign on for the accelerated freefall course there. Driving past there on the way to my Mother-in-law's is really hard. Especially on sunny blue days when you can see the canopies floating gently down to earth.

October 19th

"Tickled Pink"



Yes - even I laugh sometimes :D

October 18th

"In the PINK"



This was a very pink day! My Mum's wedding day earlier this year.

I've had fun this week looking through previous photos that I've posted here and realising that although I still cringe at some of them I now accept pictures of myself much more easily than I did six months ago,

Thanks Anna :)

October 17th

"I don't think I will ever get tired of wearing pink"
Emma Bunton



I hardly ever wear pink. I have one pink top (that's very comfortable and old) but that's about all.

Now if you take the white out and just leave red - I wear that MUCH more :)

October 16th

“Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose From out night's gray and cloudy sheath; Softly and still it grows and grows, Petal by petal, leaf by leaf”
Susan Coolidge



The promise of a new day. The promise of good things to come.
The hope that today might give you a chance to keep your promises to yourself, even if you didn't manage that yesterday.
The knowledge that no matter what, today will be spent (at least in part) with those whom you love. That there will be smiles and meals and time spent together. It might not be 'special' time but it will be time and if we are not too busy to notice them these moments will have a perfect charm - just for being the simple moments of our lives.

“Kiss your life. Accept it, just as it is. Today. Now. So that those moments of happiness you're waiting for don't pass you by.” Author unknown

Oh - in case anyone wondered - this is a photo of the last rose still blooming in my garden this year. I don't have many roses and they have been badly attacked by caterpillers this year but somehow this old rose just keeps getting stronger without any help for me.

October 15th

“The very pink of perfection”
Oliver Goldsmith



Too many people spend too much time striving for perfection. We cannot achieve it and still be human.

We worry about not living up to expectations, we worry about what others think of us, we worry about not being good enough. When, at the end of the day, we are who we are. The best we can do is to take time to notice the moments that we live in, to cherish the people that care for us and to leave gentle footprints on the spirit of this earth. Even the so-called perfect bloom of a flower has some small blemish on it - maybe a petal that is slightly smaller than it's neighbours, maybe a darkened spot where a raindrop dried. Perfection is not for any living being, but happiness in our human-ness is there for all if we can just learn to reach out and take hold of it.

'Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in'
Leonard Cohen

October 14th

“Almost all words do have color and nothing is more pleasant than to utter a pink word and see someone's eyes light up and know it is a pink word for him or her too”
Gladys Taber



I'm still struggling to keep up with posting - as I'm sure anyone who reads this blog will have noticed. I'm struggling to keep up with many things in my life right now but at the end all the things that don't get done will be forgotton and all the things that cannot be forgotton will be dealt with - somehow.

My life is changing a lot right now - it needed to for my own sanity, but unfortuantely that's not the easiest process to go through. It would be much easier if I lived alone and isolated from the difficulites of others but I don't - I live with five other people who all have needs and concerns of their own. I am a mother and a wife and, as such, my stability and care is so very needed every day to keep the spirits of these wonderful people buoyant and safe.

I'm borrowing a trick from Shirley this week - as it's inspirational week and I seem rather lacking in inspiration of my own...

Quote time:
'You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.' - Brian Tracy

October 10th

"Trouble and Strife"



I am a wife - and so very glad to be one. This guy makes my world safe and secure and happy. He gives it structure and meaning. He is the rock that grounds me and the sunshine that warms me. I would be totally lost without him.

October 9th

"Lets have a good cup o rosie lee"



Don't drink tea often but Starbucks is my treat every now and then. Sometimes on my own with a good book, sometimes with a friend or daughter. Extra shot latte always puts a smile on my face :)

October 8th

"A penny for your thoughts"



My thought have been splattered liberally across this blog for the last few months. Can't imagine anyone would ever want to pay for them, although it's been great reading some of the lovely comments from the other 365ers who read this.

And to day I get to be a queen for the day - yay!
What would I do if that could really happen? I'd love to think that I'd do something amazing and thoughtful that would benefit people in Britain but the truth of the matter is if I'd only got one single day as Queen I think I'd probably have a great time running madly through the corridors of Buckingham Palace, try on all her most glorious jewellery and pull faces at the Guards. Would they actually have to smile if the Queen ordered them to? That would be a fun thing to find out.

After all that serious work I'd just love to go to a huge posh banquet full of important elegant people who all had to be excruciatingly polite to me, no matter what I said or did. The potential for fun and mayhem is putting a grin on my face already...

October 7th

"Apples and Pears - Stairs"



These are our stairs!
They are the only way in and out of our boat right now. They are old and scruffy and desperately in need of painting but they were in Parbold when we first saw her, soggy and leaking and recently raised from the bottom of Bedfor Marina. They are pretty much the only thing we have that has been with her for longer than we have - and it's entirly possible that these steps were there when Parbold was still in use as a cargo boat.

One day I will build a proper, pretty staircase to get in and out of our home but until then these steps will do perfectly. Even after then I suspect these steps will still be in our boat by the back door, old and scruffy and much-loved by me, at least, as a symbol of how far Parbold has come.

October 1st (and one week ago)

Hold



You hold your children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.

My heart feels tied irrevocably to my girls no matter how near or far from me they are.
I pray that will never change.



September 24th

"What ever beauty may be, it has for its basis order, and for its essence unity”
Father Andre



The beauty of a flower always has the power to bring a smile, to take my breath away, to remind me of the strength and delicacy of nature. Passion flowers have the most amazing, most intricate design. If this flower had been designed by man it would seem unearthly in its beauty - noone would accept it as natural because its order and structure are so perfect and so inflexible from bloom to bloom.

Any accidental mutation of genetic material that can lead to the existance of such a fantastical flower has to the most unlikely and miraculous of accidents.