Another year nearly over…

So that’s 2015 almost done, dusted and packed away in our memories. We’re half way through a decade and I still can’t work out how to pronounce it. Was it twenty-fifteen or two thousand and fifteen? And does it matter?

As ever it’s been a year of ups and downs. I had a big birthday in June. I turned 65! I know how to pronounce that; it’s pronounced ‘old’! The best thing about my birthday was spending it in Jaffa and the best thing about Jaffa was watching the mix of cultures and religions, living shoulder by shoulder, with tolerant smiles. So much can change so quickly or was it an illusion created for me, the tourist?

This time last year I was tentatively thinking of getting myself fitter. Now I go swimming twice a week and I love it but I haven’t quite mastered the gym… yet.

This time this year I’m tentatively thinking of joining a choir. I’ve just signed up for a taster session with the National Rock Choir. I wonder if I’ll enjoy it. I won’t know until I try.

A few months ago I bought a new car… new, but the same make, the same colour; the only difference is the registration plate.

Yes, I’m a bit conservative. I don’t like change but I can’t stop the date from changing. It’ll take me a few weeks to get used to writing 2016 but I won’t be making New Year resolutions. I’m old enough to know that it’s not only with a new year that we can have new opportunities. They’re there at any time of the year. It’s up to us to grab them.  Right?

So let’s drink to a year of new opportunities, opportunities that we don’t let slip by, opportunities that we grab and run with.

Happy New Year

When the family came to visit

Mabel, the cat, writes a blog post

She (my mum) is busy washing bed linen… for some obscure reason. So I have taken it upon myself to write this week’s blog post. You’ve heard about me, I suspect. I’m the cat who likes to sleep in the fruit bowl, which I can assure you is more comfortable than it looks, but this is not the subject of my first ever blog post. The subject is visitors, scary, noisy ones.

It all began with the sound of feet stampeding through the house and voices ringing in my ears. I had no choice. I left home. That first night the temperature fell to minus 3. It was enough to freeze the pads from my paws. I heard them calling my name but I refused to return. My food was put in the greenhouse, the cold, icy greenhouse. Then a blanket appeared and for that I was grateful. I ate a little. I slept a little, but even from that distance, I could hear the shrieking of those wild creatures inside what had once been my lovely, safe home. 

The next day they were still there, still rampaging and shrieking in a manner that I find most distasteful. On the third morning I took a chance and peeped through my flap but one of them spotted me and I had to run like a cheetah. I could feel my heart pounding through my ribs by the time I reached the safety of the hawthorn hedge. 

It felt like an eternity before I heard car doors banging, an engine revving and then the best noise in the whole wide world... silence. I waited for over an hour just in case they might return but they didn’t. At last I have my home back but it was a worrying time, a worrying time indeed.

And now please excuse me while I have a nap, yes, a cat nap. What other kind of nap would you expect me to have? Oh, and I’ve been asked to wish you all a happy new year… for some obscure reason!

Busy, busy week

What a busy, busy week! We’ve been to Wales and now we’re back! We’ve been visiting my sister-in-law in her amazing cottage in the side of a mountain with its steep drive and terraced lawns, damp with dew and steep enough to whisk your feet from beneath you. I’m a city girl at heart.

Now it’s time for apple and honey and 

Happy New Year messages to everyone. 

Let’s hope it’s a sweet and healthy one.

And soon it’ll be time for our virtual Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morning. I hope you’re getting your Coffee Morning Fancy Dress Outfits ready. I’ve got mine all sorted and hanging in my virtual wardrobe. There’ll be awards for the most original outfits. You can describe them to me when you arrive any time between Friday 30th September and Sunday 2nd October... and don’t forget to bring your Coffee Morning Jokes with you.

Of course, there is a more serious side to the event. The MacMillan nurses were there for Mum in those last few weeks and that’s why we (me and my sister, Hilary) have set up a Frances Denning memorial page through JustGiving so that people can donate. You can find it at http://www.justgiving.com/Frances-Denning and all donations go directly to MacMillan Cancer Support. Friends have already started donating. You don’t have to wait.

...now to unpack the suitcases. What a busy, busy week!

Five Little Firsts

There’s something special about firsts and a new year means lots of firsts. This is my first blog post of 2011. I’ve just made the first entry into my crisp-paged 2011 diary. I’m about to write my first 2011 cheque... carefully! (It’s when you stop thinking about it that you get the year wrong.) And my first manuscript of the year will be submitted just as soon as the post office reopens.

I decided to do a ‘firsts brain-storm’. I scribbled firsts onto a sheet of A4 without stopping to think about it. When I read it back I was surprised to see that my list didn’t include any of the really big events in my life. They were all little firsts, so here are my top five little firsts:

1.  My first lipstick: The colour was baby pink. It was a soft lipstick and I suspect I put it on much too thickly.

2.  My first miniskirt: It was yellow and white striped and had a black patent belt. The belt was almost as wide as the skirt. *sigh* Those were the days!

3.  My first pop concert: I saw Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas billed with Gene Pitney at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall. I wore a trouser suit made of brown suede. I screamed a lot and thought I was really classy.

4.  My first car: An Austin A40 Farina with the registration DOL. I called her Dolly and loved her dearly.

5.  My first published story: Waiting to be Rescued was about a lady stuck on a high-up window ledge. It was published by Best Magazine in 1999. You can read the story on my website here.

I could have included major events like marriage, child birth, my first book, but I didn’t. I suspect that it’s the small things in life that really shape who we are... I loved that lipstick!

What's your favourite little first?