The next book is getting restless …

The next book is getting restless – I need to start writing it!

I know, I know… the book I have finished isn’t out yet … and I’m talking about writing the next one.  You see, it isn’t as simple as finishing one altogether; writing, editing, checking and getting it ready for publishing before I start thinking about the next one.

The next one has been brewing for a long, long time, but recently it is as if the stars have become aligned and the book is asking to be written.

When I am not doing anything else (that requires my verbal brain) the words start coming in – I watch the pictures – like watching a movie, and describe it to  myself. Tuesday, as I drove over to Milton Abbot to the climbing centre, a whole scene was revealed… and this keeps happening – too many times – I have to start writing some of it down in case I forget it.

In the meantime I have two projects I must finish before I complete A Respectable Life. One is preparing another person’s book for publishing – and as such is my job so has priority – and the other is preparing the first volume of my father’s autobiography for printing in time for his 90th birthday this summer. So those of you who are waiting for A Respectable Life – I apologise for the delay – but it should be out this summer some time … and I’ll carry on catching the new one as it arrives 🙂

Writing a book is just the beginning … here’s Fascinating Aida’s take on writing a best seller.

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Welcome to (funny) Cornwall

As March the 5th is St. Piran’s Day – I thought I’d go with a Cornish  theme for this blog!

st piran's flagHere’s St. Piran’s flag – flying briskly today – but it isn’t St Piran I’m focussing on for a bit of fun – it is the ‘Welcome to Cornwall’ sign that greets you as you cross the border!

It obviously starts with the proper sign – with the Cornish for Welcome to Cornwall underneath the English .

cornwall kernow

Then the wags get going  and it becomes Welcome to Cornwall … with advice for the traveller

cornwall moblie

cornwall wide carcornwall safeAnd the visitorscornwall bodyand a heartfelt plea (or prayer?) cornwall christmasbut my favourite – and it is not a funny – it’s simply …

cornwall heaven

I’m sure you have seen these – scattered over the internet –  funny Welcome to Cornwall signs.  I wondered if they were out there for every county (country) in the British Isles? I have looked – a bit – but they do not appear for other places!

What is special about Cornwall that people have taken this sign to their hearts and amended it to make others smile? Strange that the counties I tried (at random) didn’t have any)

(Note: I’ve seen a few others – but some are a bit rude – so I’ll not share those with you)

I also liked the real one I saw photographed where it said Welcome to Seaton –  Please drive carefully – but someone have carefully covered the word ‘Drive’ with masking tape and written ‘SURF’ instead.

Have you seen any better ones – or ones for elsewhere? Do share!

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Lego-lego fun for Saturday!

I love Lego! (though I have to admit there are too many specialist-kits now – much better when things did not look quite so accurately like the the real thing – but the pieces could be used in so many other ways. Ships used to be built with blocks, so the hulls were ‘staggered’ and would only look smooth enough to move through water with squinted-up eyes. I blame the roof-tiles – they were the first bits to look ‘proper’!)

Anyway – I still love the creativity possible with lego (or legos as the Americans seem to call them !?) … and as a cultural part of life lego has acquired it own jokes – two of which drifted across my consciousness the past week.

This! made me laugh out loud!

lego pshychiaristThen there was this …

We have a living-room carpet that is multi-couloured and highly patterned – great for hiding lego on – no matter how well they were picked up at the end of the day! So This – for PARENTS everywhere 🙂

lego bare feet

And finally – an article I saw back in January in The Telegraph online – so cool 🙂 FUN video too 🙂

“British-based company is offering customers the chance to get themselves recreated in miniature form – as Lego superhero figures. Funky 3D Faces, a subsidiary of Lincoln-based 3D printing firm ELAT3D, uses facial recognition software to convert photos into miniature 3D models of people’s heads. For £30, the company uses two photos of your face (one taken from the front, one from the side), and uses them to create a small 3D print-out of your face, which it will then send to you fitted to a Lego figure of your choice. It can take up to two weeks to make your head.The firm is based at Sparkhouse, a business innovation centre with links to the University of Lincoln.”

LEGO – love it or hate it?

Any funny lego experiences out there?

Do share – we all need a smile 🙂

 

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Saturday smile – dogs!

My grandsons love telling ‘knock-knock’ jokes … except they do not quite understand how they work … so the punch-line doesn’t happen as it should. This is a laugh in itself – so when I saw this I thought of them too 🙂

dog cartoonAnd then Snoopy had me chuckling along too …

and This REAL dog too …

 

and my own dog ALWAYS makes me smile …

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Anything made YOU smile this week?

Do share – we can all do with a smile to lighten our day  🙂

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One for the ladies only – Saturday Smile

I’d love to acknowledge where this originally came from – so if you know – let me … a friend sent it to me after my blog about men not being (actually and physically) able to find things – hope it makes you smile as it did me 🙂

wicoe day onewicoe day two

 I know we love our menfolk really – but do any of these ring a bell for you??

Do share – you know I love to hear from you 🙂

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Tune up your body ;)

… so this doctor said, to the woman on the Radio 4 programme, ‘I recommend that as you get older you change the radio station you listen to – choose a music station with music you like to dance to … that way you can exercise whenever you are working around the house – just dance!’

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me … in my youth 🙂

OH YES!

I grew up with Radio 4 on in the background (Home Service in my youth – if I am truthful) and though as a teenager I listened to Radio Luxembourg / Pirate radio and eventually Radio One (when they gave up fighting it and made pop-music mainstream) on my radio in my room while doing homework or reading in bed – Radio 4 was the sound-track to my home life.

After my parents moved in with us down here in Cornwall, Radio 4 was once again the default on the radio – and always on. When, because of her developing dementia, Mum couldn’t follow what they were saying and she began to get annoyed with Radio 4, I found that music stations were better for her … and for me. Radio 2 now became the default and, though I missed the thinking pieces, the reports and studies, and some of the humour from Radio 4 – I found I really liked the music played on Radio 2 as so much was ‘my era’.

Music of your own era is hard-wired into your brain. It is a fact that memories associated with music are extremely evocative and form some of the strongest memories. There have been various pieces of research that indicate that the emotional response that music can create may have something to do with this. Dementia patients, who respond to very little else, will suddenly join in with songs and music from their youth – singing along with Old Music Hall songs (as my Mum would) or be-bop-a-lula – if that bit younger.

As for me – hard-wired is the operative term – and it is both brain and body. There are some pieces of music that I just cannot sit still and listen to – I have to get up and dance around (or at the very least tap my foot enthusiastically) 

So – I listened to the doctor – and dance as I go about my everyday life. And it works – okay – so it may look strange to see me pirouette and shimmy across the kitchen, utilising all my favourite belly dance moves – or mosh to heavy-metal in the dining room – but it keeps this old gal limber (love that word!) and if another lovely memory 😉 happens along with the song – it puts an extra smile on my face.

Now for your Saturday Smile – enjoy this video – and go on, GO ON! Why not?  Have a dance around 🙂

What is your favourite music to dance to?

Do your have music-linked memories that return every-time you hear a tune?

do share – I’d love to hear from you

Ann

 

Find me on Facebook and Twitter @Ann Foweraker

 

 

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Have you looked? Really?

Hey ladies – how many times do you have this scenario.

Him ‘Where’s the tweezers?’ (or any other smallish item – particularly one that lives in THE DRAWER. You know the one where all the odds and ends go, the one where the useful items are to be found, the ‘clutter’ drawer.)
Her: ‘In the drawer under the microwave.’
Him: *sighs* goes to draw – sound of rummaging.  ‘It isn’t there!’
Her: ‘I’m sure it is.’
Him: ‘I’ve LOOKED and it ISN’T there!’
Her: Giving in and leaving whatever she is doing to go and look. Looks. Moves one item. ‘Here it is!’
Him: ‘Huh!’ Takes it and goes off.

drawer man looked

Familiar?

Now don’t get annoyed – they can’t help it.

Research has proved that men and women (in general) really do SEE differently … and as such WE are far more likely to find things in a drawer full of many items – THEY are much more likely to spot something travelling at speed, or in the distance.

The theory is that we developed these different ways of seeing when we were still hunter-gatherers. The facts are that the higher levels of testosterone in the developing male baby change the number of neurons in the visual cortex – giving them 25% more neurons – helping with seeing distant and fast moving objects. The colour wave-lengths that men and women perceive are different too – with the majority of females being able to distinguish far more shades of colour that the average male. Plus, it is known that there are separate neural pathways for processing information seen in near and in distant space – it was found that women were much better at processing and pin-pointing in near-space and men were better at distant-space.

So it may not be their fault that they can’t find things that are right in front of them – albeit ‘disguised’ by having something else partially covering it … annoying as it is.

Anyway – this made me smile 🙂 so I’m sharing it with you …

Any other annoying traits we can put down to the real differences between men and women?

What is your pet peeve?

Do share – I love to hear from you … and you can always use an alias  😉

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It’s not really funny … time flies

It’s not really funny … I was wondering why the tax man kept sending me these little reminders to fill in my tax return. I mean, I distinctly remember filling it in back in September. I’m sure I did.

Eventually I go and look at my tax folders – where I put all the receipts, the bank record, the mileage notebook. Where, I wonder, is the print-out of the result of my filling in the tax form?? Hmm, maybe  I better check in with the tax-man on-line.

OH! HOW TIME FLIES! My clear memory of doing my tax was nearly 16 months ago – and now I was in a PANIC. PANIC

You see, I am not good with numbers. See this blog here about dyscalculia. So all my number stuff takes me twice as long as average – as I check, and re check, that I have entered the numbers in the right way round.

It took me all day! To do the task that took my husband half an hour! (okay, so I have an extra section to fill in – but still!)

And I know I probably put it off in September because the thought of these forms just gives me the shudders – but I then TOTALLY forgot!

Now to Chill – here’s a nice little bit of calypso / reggae music called Time Really Flies —  🙂

There – that’s better 🙂 Smiling now.

How are you with numbers?

Does filling in a ‘number-based’ form fill you with dread?

Do share – I can’t be the only one – Ann

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Eat, Drink, & be Merry ‘cos tomorrow we DIET

The papers are full of it!

The magazines heaving! (I’ll say that again – the Magazines are Heaving with it!)

“Now you are fat and blown-up like a barrage balloon having eaten all that STUFF we suggested to you in glossy, gorgeous, gourmet piles BEFORE Christmas … we suggest you might want to … DIET!”

Even the TV is in on the act with adverts for Gyms and Slimming World or WeightWatchers somehow timed to be shown in January.diet 1

Well, if you’ve been with this blog from early on – at least from Jan 2012 – you will know I do not believe in ‘diets’. A diet is ‘what you eat’ – not a weight-loss regimen per se.

And you will have followed my trek down two and a half stones over that year. How?  By sensible {nothing banned, nothing glorified, moderate portions, low (not no) carb} food consumption PLUS a set of exercises designed to combat the muscles-loss caused by menopause.

You see, I hadn’t realised that the Menopause cuts back on the very thing that burns-up energy – muscles. So, even eating sensibly (as above) the weight had still crept on … and on … and on! You can find this epic tale all in the blogs under ‘losing weight’ in the Topics menu and on the drop-down menu under About Ann if you missed it and want to know more.

Today is Saturday – so this is the light-hearted laugh of the week blog. Yes, it is. And I’m here to tell you that the weights exercises really work! Oh yes they do … because December just gone I carried out a month-long controlled experiment undertaken with no thought to personal consequences … ok, I stopped doing them for the month – for various excuses reasons – but mainly inconvenience – my usual exercising space (spare room where I also write) was occupied.  I didn’t go mad on the food either … but the result – 7lbs ON! 😮 *shocked face*

So here I am, along with the papers, the magazines and the adverts, telling myself to lose weight 🙂 now that is funny.

They say do not start these things on January the first – after all ‘there’s still a lot of ‘bad’ food around’. Well, you’ll also know that on my ‘nothing banned’ sort of eating this doesn’t matter – what matters is how / when I eat it. After all, if I deny myself something altogether I’m certain to get a craving for it!magnets [At least I don’t crave magnets 😉 ]

My best option is to give it away to someone who doesn’t put weight on easily (my OH for instance) – but if I really like it – I eat it sparingly – over time – as part of the overall foods I eat in a week – not extra to it.

So January the first it was back to my (previously) usual routine {less than 15 mins a day – at home – exercises} … and having had the first weigh-in at the end of a week, I can be happy in that 2lb has already left 🙂

Do you find it ironic the way that first they encourage us to eat like there is no tomorrow – then tomorrow they tell us to slim … for the summer holiday that is coming?

Did you miss out your usual exercise over the festive season?

Do share – you know you want to 🙂 and I love to hear from you!

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***Happy New Year*** Happy New Blog

Happy New Year, Happy New Blog
       – and the first of my Saturday Smiles

2016 is the year I intend to be positive!  Despite dark clouds on my personal horizons I intend to channel my inner pollyanna and subdue that grumpy old woman that has been grinding my teeth at the idiotic ways of the world lately.

So whether you are new to my blog or not, with any luck you will find a positive vibe about the everyday-things that I find a pleasure, provide excitement (of a kind at least) or even exhilaration! If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you will also have noticed that it now comes to you in a new livery – smart or what?

Which brings me to my Saturday Smiles. For a while now I have been finding something to smile about on the internet each morning to show my 89 year old father … so on a Saturday (at least I think it will be a Saturday thing) I’ll share some of these ‘smiles’ with you.

I have just got round to updating my computer to windows 10 (didn’t seem to find the time before now – that is time when I didn’t want to be using the computer but was around to deal with any pop-up boxes that needed ticking or whatever) and I suddenly had this awful sinking feeling – I should have done this while the boys were back for Christmas… then I saw this cartoon – it made me smile – hope it does you too.

children and computers

On the bright side (see what I’m doing 🙂 ) the installation seems to have gone well, no nasty glitches, no ‘where have they hidden that?’ so far – so I am feeling pleased with myself after all.

And on a similar theme – here’s a little poem you might like  😉

  Betrayed

It’s no use looking at me
like that
innocent
blank-eyed
staring back, unblinking.

Look at everything
you have wasted,
thrown away all I’ve given
you,
not caring for my feelings,
for the care I’ve taken,
my gentle caressing
pouring my life into yours,

and now,
and now,
damn you
you say – error
cannot open file.

Here’s wishing You and Yours a peaceful, creative, happy and thrilling 2016

What makes you smile?

Do you like to look on the bright side?

Do share – you know I love to hear from you!

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