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Unexpected

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  Why did I not notice before? I have been walking down our road all week and now suddenly it is lit up. It started with lights in a window, then a shining tree appeared on a lawn and all at once the whole street is twinkling and flashing. Everyone’s garden is full of brightness, except ours. It never occurred to me to decorate outside as well as inside. When we lived at the cottage there was no one to see and we did what we pleased. But now we have moved house it is very different. We are dark and gloomy and letting the side down. To tell the truth we have been letting the side down indoors too, but no one sees this. I decided that I had better try a bit harder, so when I visited a local supermarket, I was on the lookout. It is not as if we have not got any decorations, we have a lot, but they are all packed up in boxes, not yet opened from our move. Much better to get a few bits and pieces from the shop I thought. I had success immediately. I saw a tub of fir cones and each c...
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Is it worth it?

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“It’s not worth bothering anymore.” This was a friend talking about curlews. She was one of those people who go out and count the bird population in defined areas. “There aren’t any to count, anymore.” The number of curlews has dropped drastically. They used to be a common sight on our farm when I was young. We learnt their bubbly ‘song’ as they flew over our farm fields in early spring. My dad called it ‘the dirty weather bird’ because he said they brought rain. They like the rain. Much later in my life we heard it over the fields in Shropshire and used to think of it as a sign of spring. Then its call became frighteningly rare until we did not hear it at all. But last weekend I was in a bird hide and I heard the once familiar noise then looking up saw the brown bird with its long, curved beak. There is still hope. I am not sure about my amaryllis though.  I bought two some weeks ago. One was from a garden centre and one was from a supermarket where they were selling lik...
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Whether the weather

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  ‘Turn left’ I heard. I was in a supermarket and concentrating on my shopping. I did not want distractions. I was in a hurry. ‘At the next junction turn left’. This time the voice seemed more insistent. I was irritated I do not need instructions on how to find my way around a shop. But soon I realised that the voice was coming from my pocket. It seemed to get louder and at the fish counter queue people started looking at me. Hastily I felt in my pocket. My Sat Nav was giving me the directions home. I did not know how to stop it. What should I do? Go out of the shop without my purchases, or stick it out and pretend the voice was nothing to do with me? I stuck it out. I am used to following instructions from my mobile or little connected pods at home, but are we getting too many warning of bad weather? If you get extreme weather, then it is important to know but my computer had been telling me for several days that a disaster was about to happen and the little pod is urgently fl...
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Who is lucky?

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    I have won £100. An email came yesterday to tell me the good news. I imagine myself wandering the stores for a much-needed new coat, I am thinking I will get one brighter than my usual safe navy. I read the rest of the email to find out that someone is ‘delighted to send me £100 gift card’. But all is not what it seemed and I must buy through a firm on the internet. There are words like ‘apply’, ‘fill in your details’ and ‘sign up’ that are ringing alarm bells.   I have not entered any competition or put my name in a raffle, nor have I had an advert telling me about a reward if I get a new product. My shopping spree is rapidly disappearing and when you next see me, I will still be wearing my old coat. I saw someone yesterday who was meeting me for the first time, but she knew me from this column in the Shropshire Star. I was at a Craft Fair selling my books. We talked of my teeth which I wrote about not being white enough. She said that they looked good, so I am...
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The importance of knowing

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  What date is it? Do you always know and does it matter? I remember when my mother was coming round from an operation the anaesthetist asked her the date. This was to check that her brain had not been affected. I do not always know the date myself because I am not at work and a quick check on my mobile soon tells me. I do not need to know the date, do I? But increasingly I am seeing ‘Road Closed’ advanced information signs as we drive along and at the bottom of the notice are the closure dates. If you do not know the date, you do not know if the closure is today or next week. I know there will be diversion signs but sometimes as I follow these along unknown roads, I wish that I had looked up another route myself or waited for another date for my journey. Another reason to check the date is for the bin collection. We start with our new ‘Green’ bin next week and as you get older like me these things take on a greater importance. I found myself wondering about the importance of...
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Some puzzles

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    “I remember a big rectangular room with no windows.” A man was telling me about his memories of growing up on a farm. Why would a room have no windows? And he remembered another thing – one of the buildings had pictures pinned on the wall that a little boy should not be looking at. “My friends were queueing up to have a look,” he confided. I was at a Craft Fair selling my books and telling (again) of how I was born on the day the war ended. He was born a few years later but had these strange memories of a room with no views and pin-up pictures on a wall. What had been going on? He told me that it was only years later that he realised that his father was farming on land with buildings that had previously been used by soldiers and that the room with no windows had lines on the floor and had been a squash court. The puzzle had been solved. I found myself unravelling a puzzle this week and I nearly came to the wrong conclusion. I had an email from a person I had not hear...
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Going green

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  “We are now discharging you from hospital…” I had a phone call last week. But how could this be? I had left hospital days ago. Well, the phone call went on, “We are discharging you from the virtual hospital ward.” You see, when I left hospital, I was not discharged in the usual way.   I was told that I was going onto an imaginary virtual hospital ward. I went home as usual but then a nurse came to talk me through what would happen on the virtual ward. It was not quite as imaginary as I thought at first. This was a way of me getting care at home but not taking up a bed in hospital. They kept in touch on the phone and by visits, in some cases they can even contact you by computer. I had a special phone number to ring and they would talk to me if I was worried. All was well and I know that Shropshire is working on other ways of safely cutting admissions for our busy hospital beds. Virtual wards could be an answer. Our mini woodland and orchard for our new garden are still v...
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