'Indian Summer'

I think you could say that we've been experiencing a little bit of an 'Indian Summer' lately. Now although I know in general terms what people mean when they talk about an 'Indian Summer' I've never been quite sure whether they mean an 'Indian Summer' or an 'Indian Summer', if you see what I mean!

Well, what do you do when you want to find something out? As any 5 year old will tell you, 'you google it'! So that is what I did.

For any other 'sad' people like myself who are interested: First of all it refers to a period of warm weather lasting a few days and occurring at least a week after the vernal equinox (see my earlier post on the last day of summer, folks!)

Secondly it doesn't in fact refer to the weather of the sub continent pictured on the right above but to the North American Indians (sorry, Native Americans) and it was actually there that the saying originated in the late 18th century - so there!!

All right children, you may put away your books and go out to play now!!

The Devil's Punchbowl

We've just come back from a lovely walk around the Devil's Punch Bowl near Hindhead in Surrey. It's been another glorious day and a lovely dry, mild weekend again.

Everything looked so beautiful today I couldn't choose just one of the photos I took so I've chosen a few to hopefully give a flavour of the place.

It was very busy driving along the A3. It seemed as if the 'world and his wife' were out enjoying this spell of late sunshine - and why not!

Hindhead has always been a bit of a bottle-neck and there were signs of construction work going on for the major project of excavating a tunnel to by-pass this area. It will be a great achievement when it is finished (scheduled for August 2011!) but meanwhile of course means even more traffic jams at this point. I don't envy commuters who have to use this route daily.

The car park was chockablock as was the cafe with the young staff doing a grand job trying to cope with the endless queue for drinks and snack. Nevertheless it was a great day out. Lots of the chores were left undone but ironing and the like can be done any time, can't they?

Who's for ice cream?

Now, I'm sure you'll agree I just had to take a picture of this delicious-looking (and tasting, by the way) ice cream concoction! This is one of a selection of new treats on offer at our favourite stopping place on our usual little Sunday strolls. Now I expect you can understand how easy it is to persuade other members of the family to accompany me!

How anyone can walk anywhere after demolishing this single-handedly is beyond me but I can assure you for some people this presents absolutely no problem whatsoever.

Last Day of Summer ...

Today was officially the last day of summer, I was reminded by the radio announcer as I looked out of the window onto a glorious sunny day. After all the dreadful cold, wet weather we've suffered for ages we've been blessed with two lovely weekends of summer weather, just to remind us of what we've been missing!

As we went for our usual Sunday stroll today I noticed quite a few fallen leaves on the footpaths and this evening I'm going to enjoy curling up on the sofa and watching some good old-fashioned family entertainment on TV - I see there's a 'new' Poirot on so that's where I'll be for a couple of hours before bedtime with a long glass of something to help me relax. Now that really is the best way to spend an Autumn Sunday evening.

Cheers!

Guess who's been to the garden centre??

I've had a lovely day today. It started well with a little lie-in as it's my day off, then continued well as the weather was mild and dry and then I visited the Garden Centre!!

It's a bit like letting a child loose in a sweet shop. Knowing that I have several brand new empty flower beds to fill and a shop full of beautiful plants, it was a really enjoyable experience. As you can see I've not planted the new arrivals yet but have laid them out where I think I want them to be. I'll wait a few days in case I change my mind before planting.

All change ....

I feel a rant coming on so if you're of a nervous disposition please skip this post and come back when I've calmed down!!

Why oh why do some people think if a thing is working well, let's see if we can 'improve' it???

I know I'm not the only one to dislike the new Facebook profile. We all knew our way around the old style site and it felt like a comfortable old cardigan. It worked. I know we have to give these things time but I just find it intensely irritating.

Same thing with the new site meter. The old one was basic, did all that I needed it to - i.e. counted the number of visitors to my blog. Now I find not only am I having trouble sorting out the migration process to get to the new site; when I finally arrive the statistics are in the least user-friendly format possible. After searching all over the site for the total number of visitors I still haven't found the answer - I can see a pie chart or histogram of which page or how many pages or which countries visitors come from but a simple tally of daily visits - no, that's far too complicated!

Oh well, at least the rest of the day went well. We have a new manager in our local coffee shop near the pond and he has invested in a new ice-cream freezer with lots of yummy flavours. Between us we had strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, mint-chocolate, caramel and coffee liqueur. Are you feeling envious yet?

After a little walk I did another few hours of satisfying digging and weeding in the back garden, making the most of this unexpected spell of dry, mild weather after weeks of rain.

Is there anybody there???

I dozed off to sleep last night to the comforting (!!) words of the presenter of the late night chat show discussing the possibility that the end of the world might in fact occur at 8.31am tomorrow (now today!).

Of course the topic of the conversation was the so called 'Big Bang' experiment about to take place in the Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the Swiss Alps.

Once they start talking about protons, hadrons, ions etc. I'm afraid I'm hopelessly lost!

As far as I can make out they are trying to recreate the moment of the 'Big Bang' which scientists believe caused the creation of the universe.

In 'laywoman's' terms I think this involves putting some particles into a huge scientific-instrument-thingy called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and whizzing them round until they reach the speed of light and collide with one another. Of course I could have completely misunderstood this (more than likely I would think - Physics was never 'my thing'!) By doing this they are hoping to find the 'Higgs Boson particle' or the 'God particle' which is supposed to explain the beginning of the universe.

I can't help but get this image of a giant washing machine on super fast spin speed with those annoying minuscule bits of tissues that inevitably get left in trouser pockets by mistake, whizzing around in it.

Also, I'm afraid the whole idea leaves me rather cold but what I did find interesting was the possible spin-offs (pardon the pun) which would probably arise out of the research - new advances in medical science for instance.

I'm pleased to say that when I made it downstairs later than usual, today being my day off, I found I was still alive at 8.45am.

I hope there are a few of you still out there too!

"Where Echoes Meet"

I've just finished reading a most inspiring book by a young girl of just 18 years of age. Catherine Simon has written with great maturity the stories of nine pilgrims whose lives have been changed by Lourdes.

I was offered the book to read and I thought I'll just have a quick look through it and read a few paragraphs here and there to get a feel for it but after the first few pages, I was 'hooked'.

You'd think that a book which goes into great detail about the tragic life stories of each of its subjects with quite severe, physical, mental or emotional disabilities would be depressing beyond words, but I found it quite the opposite. The sense of hope and the deep faith of the Pilgrims leaped out at me from the page and I found it quite inspiring.

If you ever get a change to read this book, I heartily recommend it to you whether or not you're already a convinced Lourdes fan, or have in fact never visited the shrine in the French village in the Pyrenees. If you'd like to find out more please check out the website.

Friends ...

We spent a lovely evening with some friends we've known for over 20 years this evening. We were neighbours when we met and both families having young children spent a lot of time together, especially the mums and the children as the dads, as usual, were very busy at work.

As is the way of things, as the children got older and we moved a couple of miles away we found that we didn't see as much of each other. But the great thing about really good friends is that you can meet up with each other only occasionally and just take up where you left off!

We probably only see each other two or three times a year nowadays, especially since our children have grown up but we easily slip into that old familiar relationship we had years ago.

I think that's a good test of friendship and I reckon we passed that test this evening with flying colours!

My first 'Meme'

For those of you not familiar with blogs (apart from dipping into this one occasionally), you are probably wondering what on earth a 'meme' is.

I've seen several good descriptions on various blogs so I'll try and roll them all together in this explanation:

A meme is when someone challenges you to answer on your blog a list of given questions. They can be about all manner of subjects and are often a way of getting people to talk about their own views on a subject or their own likes and dislikes such as, name your favourite book, film, TV programme etc. or which fictional character would you most like to be? or which period in history would you have liked to have lived in? I hope you get the general idea.

The original author 'tags' a few friends to do the meme and then they in turn 'tag' other friends and so it is passed on.

Often I find the answers quite interesting or amusing. I saw this one on a blog I've started looking at recently and, as it was open to all, I thought I'd have a go myself.

This one is all about where you were when certain things happened:

Assassination of President Kennedy - November 1963

Now I would have been ten years old and still at primary school when this happened and although I have vague memory of it I can't honestly say that I remember it from 1963 or whether I think I remember it because of all the newsreels of the time that I've seen on numerous occasions since that day.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany - 4 July 1990
Again, I'm afraid I can't say I remember much about this either so I'm going to cheat on this one and comment on where I was when England WON the World Cup by beating Germany in 1966. I remember this well as I was on Guide camp and our Guide Captain had brought her husband along to help (they had only recently married I seem to remember) and I have a memory of him and the other adults clustered around a transistor radio listening to the match and the shouts of joy at the final result.

Margaret Thatcher's Resignation - 22nd November 1990
I don't remember where I was but I remember the sense of jubilation that surrounded the resignation from her opponents and the rather pathetic figure she made in her speech outside Number 10 - or am I just imagining that? So hard to tell, memories are strange things.

Princess Diana's death - 31st August 1997

I definitely remember this very well. We were in the car on the way to Mass. Adrian's sister Marie was visiting us at the time and we were all stunned when we heard the news announcement. First of all the news that there had been a serious accident and that Princess Diana was badly injured but the incredulity that she had actually died was palpable. We remained glued to the TV and radio for a large part of the day.

Attack on the Twin Towers - 11th September 2001

Again, I can remember exactly when I heard this. I was in the presbytery and we were in the middle of a meeting - grouped around the dining table. One of those present has received a text from her daughter saying that there'd been a terrible disaster in the USA and to turn the TV on. Another text message followed soon afterwards and after the meeting we went and switched on the TV to catch the news coverage.

The election of Pope Benedict XVI - 19th April 2005

I was sitting at home in the study watching the TV and remember that the election was over more quickly than the commentators expected it to be with the plumes of smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel and the announcement, 'Habemus Papam'. Frantic texting to friends who may not have caught the news and watching TV for the immediate reactions from around the world.

A good day ...

I had a good day today. We've been having a few minor hitches with the garden work and I've almost been dreading coming back each day to see what the latest problem is! Well, today I came home to find that at last it begins to make sense.

Here you can see the approach to the garden from the side passageway.

I must say it's all hugely thanks to Adrian and his skill in dealing with these 'little problems' and the workmen. I'm seeing his problem-solving skills at first-hand for a change!

In this photo I hope you can see how the different layers in the raised beds work and tie in with the new raised terrace.

I can't wait for the men to finish now and for the lighting to be installed so that I can get on with the planting.

I might just have to go along to the Garden Centre anyway - just to get a few ideas, you understand!

If the non-technical amongst you (and I include myself in that!) are wondering what the metal rods are for sticking up out of the flower beds, then I can tell you - they are our landscaper's cunning means of locating the electric cable that is buried under the flower beds so that the electrician can connect up a few spotlights in the new beds - simple but effective!