A tour bus driver is driving with a bus load of pensioners down a highway when he is tapped on his shoulder by a little old lady. She offers him a handful of peanuts, which he gratefully munches up. After about 15 minutes, she taps him on his shoulder again and she hands him another handful of peanuts.
She repeats this gesture about five more times. When she is about to hand him another batch again he asks the little old lady, 'Why don't you eat the peanuts yourself?'.'We can't chew them because we've no teeth', she replied.The puzzled driver asks, 'Why do you buy them then?'

The old lady replied, 'We just love the chocolate around them.'

High wisped ribbons of solace girdled in secrets and drenched in rain float south-east like broken promises to complete summer’s journey to August. Snow white passers-by riding pillion up in the clear blue ether.

Monday night we had a brief respite from the incessant grey that seems to have cloaked us for what seems months now. It is a mantle of oppression but though it tries it cannot keep us down.

Tonight the grey returns and though the temperatures are cool and the sky dull still there is hope that August and September may prove to be the lighter months of the year and as the world ripens so shall we under a broad golden sun.

Download Photosynth here

http://photosynth.net/default.aspx

Got this spooky letter from Paypal...it's a bit creepy and totally in line with the cyber age....reading between the lines it basically says "we want you to think we care...yes right!!! Thanks Alvin and note the possibly in one sentence. No wonder I'm a grump!

Dear XXXXX XXXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting PayPal with your concerns. My name is Alvin and I am happy to assist you further.

Mr xxxxx, as I carefully review your account, I can see here that you have already completed the checklist to lift the restriction in your PayPal account. Since you have already done this, I have now made a request to the relevant department to review your account and for possible removal of the restriction in your account. Please allow enough time for the relevant department to complete their review and for them to make the necessary changes in your PayPal account.

I sincerely apologise for the delay that this might have caused you. Rest assured that the relevant department would immediately send you an update once the review has been done.

I hope I was able to address your concern and give you the best resolution that you deserve. It has been a pleasure to assist you. Again, my name is Alvin and please let me know if you need further assistance and please do not hesitate to contact us back.

Thank you for using PayPal.

Sincerely,

Alvin

Wednesday 22nd July 2009

Have neglected writing for some days now. Had a busy weekend because I went to a barbecue in Knebworth with Nick and met up with the ladies we go in holiday with each September and most of Nick's immediate family. I enjoyed that. I made a 360 degree sweep of Noreen’s garden with a programme called Photsynth and it’s great. Can’t wait to do some more of the garden and any interesting places I go to. Kind of a four hour drive each way though so leaving Saturday morning and coming home Sunday afternoon doesn’t leave that much time in-between. But at leat the weather was dry and at times sunny. Which is more than I can say for here at the minute? It is infernally wet and damp currently and there does not seem any respite form it in the next week or so. Rain for breakfast, dinner and tea! As ever all the plants that like the sun are not doing so well and all the weeds are reaching to the sky.

I sold my stuff on eBay but still waiting to offload the turntable. Funny how someone pays you £500 and then doesn’t seem in any rush to collect (or have the good sent.) I wrote to him a couple of time and he’s like “whenever.” Strange! Anyway despite having the money I cant touch it as Paypal have frozen my account on ‘money laundering’ legislation and couple that with the import tax wheeze the other week and it is no wonder I get annoyed. What’s the next wheeze to be dreamed up to screw money out of us? I mean already 33% of what I earn has disappeared from my pay packet each month before I even get my hands on any money. Its tax on tax on tax and some more tax. Oh and don’t get me started on the billions the government have borrowed trying to dig their way out of the hole they’ve thrown us all in. We live in a crazy country and it is getting dangerously crazier by the week.

I’m off to the NHS dentist again this week so more pain and money to shell out. Every time they ask, “do you pay for your treatment?” and it does annoy me, because if I lied I wouldn’t have to. It’s not like they check up or anything. In fact we have to pay the NHS charges in advance because so many people have done a runner after treatment. Of course if you’re on benefits you don’t have these worries but why do people on welfare benefit get everything for free? It doesn’t make any sense to me. They should pay something and it doesn’t have to be a big amount but the notion of ‘nothing comes for free’ doesn’t seem to apply to the people on benefits. I would go so far as to say that the people who contribute nothing to society (and by that I mean the able-bodied under the age of 60) seem to get the best service within the NHS because nothing has a notion of cost to them. They have free housing, free money, free medical treatment, free travel and leisure. But in the final analysis it has all got to be paid for and as half the country doesn’t work it appears the other half have to support them but how long can that last? Seriously sometimes I wonder whether it is actually worth working. No wonder the asylum and immigrant queues to get into Britain are enormous. It must seem a paradise of generosity once you get used to the rain. But not for us here trying to run a small business or earn a modest living. Ask Nick…who now has to open the shop on Saturdays to try and make enough to pay the bills.

Anyway enough moaning for now. It’s Thursday and the weather forecast says that we are to have one dry and sunny day on Saturday this weekend. So will charge up the chainsaw and I shall have a tidy up come the weekend. Hopefully the sodden geraniums will cheer up and the tomatoes will blush a little redder than they are at the minute. By the way the potatoes are ready, snow white and delicious with butter and black pepper. See something has gone well.

Have a look at the 360 view of the garden of Noreen paste this in your browser address bar or click above

http://www.photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=C3354840-906D-4AC3-A5BA-F8C31791D037

Sorry there's nothing to read as I left it at work...enjoy these pictures and the handsome dog is Harry (Jane's.) He's brilliant

Time is never so sweet as when it is stolen from moments unlooked for that stretch and become a lifetime along the length of a summer’s day. Time takes one day and weaves its trail through the aeons because magic is in the world still and it is the fruition of all time’s many journeys. I shall sleep now in all the days I have made and walk through century’s millennia apart and in hurried dreams do I rest under willowed copses with babbling brooks to chatter the nonsense of a lifetime birthed and culled in impatience. Forget the chatter and listen to forever and we will fall asleep at last among the stars before our ignoble return to the shadows to gnaw on doubt like a banquet.

Bought a used Lladro figurine of eBay (see picture below) and customs impounded it and slapped tax of $60 on the item. How crazy that we have to pay tax here in the UK on this type of second hand item? But that's the over taxed UK....and despite it all, I love the item. It is perfect and faultless. But boy am I mad about the tax.

If you look closely you can see the skull emblem...but it wasn't very large

I am on a great flight
That takes me up higher
Than breath in the mountain
Deeper than the riven valleys
Lying underneath vast oceans
I am swimming within your soul
Guided in love to safer shores

Amid the clamorous world
One clear voice is calling
My single bright evenstar
And its solaced aim is sure.
For my eyes are wide open
My heart laid bare to night
Like a bat in the sea of dusk

I am not blind, I feel and hear
Your comfort that ever flows
Beneath a tremorous doubt
That would sink me ere dawn
Find the strength it whispers
Till at last I walk on the land
And you are there and I am saved

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs wlel dnoe!

Found this on the underside of a Gunnera leaf

1887 Clouded Border Lomaspilis marginata
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Wingspan 30-38 mm.A delicate little moth, which can be disturbed from undergrowth during the day, but whose natural flight time is at night.The black and white markings show considerable variation in the wild.It is fairly commonly distributed over most of Britain, occupying woodland and moist localities, and flies between May and July.The larvae feed on sallow (Salix) and poplars (Populus), especially aspen (P. tremula).

Thanks to http://ukmoths.org.uk

Just been watching the Michael Jackson memorial from the Staples Centre in Los Angeles and boy those Americans could make anything seem like the end of the second coming. Well I am not sure what to think anymore, and I wonder am I a bad person? Or have I just been a victim of media distortions and hyperbole? I don’t know; but I do know he made some good records and I think I would have liked to have met him to see what kind of person he was. Because in my heart of hearts I would wish to believe he was a good person. For I look outside and the rain is teeming down and i think is is it such a bad thing to believe in sunshine!

Farewell moonwalker be now at peace
For I too have walked my share of starlight
To know that none of us are who we appear
Yet this much I come to know in my heart
I am good and I would wish only good to pass
So really we were alike and I will miss you because
We were one in spirit and one in being misunderstood

Take care and heal the world

I walked on the flowing wind tonight
Running in circles beneath my feet
As questions form on a knotted brow
Slowly deliberately I float gently across
Alluvial ancient grassland laid flat by rain
And take peace from the echoing sighs
That tell me I am as light as a wraith

Friday 3rd July 2009
Phew!!! We are finally coming to the end of all the sticky heat and it is being replaced with much fresher weather and lots of rain hopefully. The garden is pretty dry at the minute and we have to carry water up each night. All the rain from the water butts has now gone. So for next year shall either get some more or use one of the ponds as a reservoir...of course if I do that it will be the wettest year on record but that’s life.

Hope you’ve been watching the auctions...the amp has sold and been collected and the turntable ends tonight. Jelly for tea for me and thee!

Something special happened last night. A deer came into the garden as we were sitting watching the view up the hill. Quite a big old thing complete with small horns and even managed to take 2 pictures but look closely. Not very clear but will add them below this. Of course it soon became aware and ran up the hill into the trees and I thought that was that. But it stayed up there all the time we were there and maybe it is still there now. I shall have to look up what they like to eat...and make some food parcels. It took 25 years to attract one so I can wait a little longer. Now I know for sure what has been nibbling some of the bark on the trees.Have a great weekend

Incredible that we should be at the first day of July so early…what’s going on with the time? Haven’t a clue, but it is fleeting by at an incredible rate. The weather has been a little peculiar this week with sun and cloud and rumbles of thunder. It is stifling hot and sticky and the world feels tense as though we are all waiting on the rain. It threatens but never comes. It has been one hot day here and the night promises to be another long muggy one. No duvet required tonight for any of us I think.