WELCOME TO JENRAY'S TIME OF LIFE

Hi to everybody...been an odd day today, got up late and it was foul weather and has been all day, and is now gusty and pouring so no improvement there....haven't been out for two days now because it's been either very cold and windy or raining cats and dogs...hmmm the wind's really howling outside now...spent most of the day responding to my first post of the day... Can't really say anything else about it now, it's said and have no regrets...
Saw a prog about living in Spain tonight...it was about the gypsies in Spain and their lives and concentrated on this amazing young woman who was lovely and vibrant with life...Although her parents were very poor, they worked really hard to send their children to school, and she got into one of the best Universities in Spain, and now works as a Social worker amongst the gypsies....very uplifting...one of the gypsy men said the one thing about life you know for sure, you're going to die and you're alone, so you have to live it passionately... Now, that's what I feel about it...better dead if you lose your passion...I'm not alone because I'm with my hubby but that's not the 'alone' he meant I'm sure, just the fact every human being is essentially an isolated unit...not in a depressing way, but just the way things are...anyway, it was an interesting prog made by a Spanish director and they interviewed people on the street about racism in Spain, and got some very interesting answers...and varied too...saw Cold Case as well before it...that's a good series, but really sad sometimes...it was tonight...Boston Legal on Thursday night was incredibly sad...made me cry...hmmm...
So, my friends, that's it for the end of this week, hope you had a good day, have a restful night, sweet dreams and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...woke up at 5.30 this morning with my head fucked...after an hour I had a bad stomach and hubby brought me a cup of tea when he came home at 6.30 again and twenty minutes later I had to go downstairs and take some Gaviscon to settle the pain down...it worked.
Why was my head fucked? Now, if I tell you, I'm going to be Mrs. Damned unpopular, but quite frankly, I don't mind.
Last night was Bloscar night, I was named in three sections and lost in all three, so not just one rejection, which would have been okay, but in all three was a bit bloody much...I didn't ask to be put in it, I didn't want to be in it, and I didn't ask to be humiliated at the end of it. Everybody who lost last night, if they were brutally honest, had to be disappointed in varying degrees, but all the bloggers who didn't even get a nomination at all must also be wondering what it is that so unacceptable or boring or unpopular about their blog...
My point is, and it's a harsh truth I think, everybody who blogs here is a loser in the ocean of the world outside...we're either lonely, damaged, disabled, depressed, disillusioned or an outsider who hasn't found acceptance anywhere else. There may also be a few who just like a wider public to air their views, but they're a rarity. Outside, the world is brutally competitive and most people are losers...that is they have little or not control over their lives and that is the general lot of most of us.
Blogging, for some of us, is a way of compensating for this helplessness and inability to compete in the world. In the relatively safe confines of blog world, we share ourselves in ways that we might not have done with anybody else. It's a puddle compared to the world and one which is worth not polluting with the very thing that drove us here...fucking competitiveness...but here it is and it seems everybody is cheering it on and saying well done for introducing and keeping it going. Well, here's one blogger who say, damn it, not here...keep bloody competitiveness out of this otherwise very pleasant area of blog land...no wonder people drift away if they think they're being judged constantly...and that's exactly what they are being now...until a month ago, I'd never heard of the damned Bloscars and I really, really wish I hadn't...it's just left a sour damned taste over the whole of this blog...so my profuse apologies for spoiling everybody's fun, but this is how I feel today...
In fact strongly enough to wonder why the hell I'm here if this is as competitive as the outside world...if it is, then all our friendships are equally shallow and that's bloody sad...
Big hugs to one and all in spite of being fucking angry today....

Hi to everybody...funny night last night...woke up a 2.40 and the bed was boiling...it was a very warm night suddenly...tossed and turned and had dreams about possible solutions to my current story I'm trying to write and, up till last night, had no idea what it might be all about or in which direction it might be going...now I think I know It did mean though that I didn't get much deep sleep and had my hubby bring me a cup of tea when he came in at 6.30 because still half asleep and half awake...went off to sleep eventually for a couple more hours but woke up not tired fortunately...
Hubby told me about a new site - well not so new, but I'd not heard of it yet...that publishes your stories for free and takes commission...reasonable commission too, so thought I'd have a go...now have two of my stories up there for purchase or download...the latter's cheaper... If any of you, lovely people, might be interested, check them out if you feel like it...certainly no compulsion to buy but would like to know whether they were easy to access if I give you the site address
http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?search_forum=-1&search_cat=2&show_results=topics&return_chars=200&search_keywords=&keys=&fSearch=Jennifer+Hunter&fSearchFamily=2&fSubmitSearch.x=334&fSubmitSearch.y=16
So, my friends, that's it for today...that's what I've been doing all morning and most of the afternoon as well Hope you have a good rest of the day, and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...last one before bed...tonight before Torchwood, I decided to play Solitaire..Two Card Spider, Pyramid, Casino, Royal Rendevous, and Belle Lucie...now I can play any of these time and time again and not win, or win one or two and constantly lose the others, tonight I won every one on my first or second try...I have no idea why suddenly the odds alter in my favour and the cards roll for me...I do know I would never make a gambler because I just loathe the way cards or any gambling game is so damned fickle...it can lift you up and make you feel invincible and then it drops you down and you just can't win a darned game all day long...LOL...and no, I don't play all day long, but if I have a spare quarter of an hour, I like playing 123 Free Solitaire...it's a good little set of games for free and have always had them since they first came out on my comps...
Good Torchwood tonight, and caught up with last night's Shameless as well shown on E4 after the C4 showing...it really is excellent..
So, my lovely friends, that's it for tonight, hope you had a good day, won't get shaken out of bed tonight by any more earthquakes so have a restful night, sweet dreams and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...this is borrowed from Kevin...quite a poser this one...
He writes that there's a theory that our whole lives are decided by six decisions...
I've had a think and these are my six....I think...LOL...I kept having to change my answers because I realised it was my decisions not what somebody else had done to me that changed the course of my life...so off we go

1. My decision to leave home at 18 and move back to London.
2. My decision to accept my husband's offer to take me to the Isle of Wight concert in 1969 as a first date.
3. My decision to leave the Ministry of Defence.
4. My decision to marry my husband and ignore the disapproval of my family and all my friends.
5. My decision to agree to move seven times in our lives together.
6. My decision to go into hospital in June of 1983.

That was really difficult...I'm not sure whether these are right or not...it seems I've made a huge number of decisions in my life, but these are pivotal I think...
Big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...another very nice morning, and slept right through last night for the first time for yonks...great! Been shopping in Lidl's and hubby walked round for the paper afterwards because they're in opposite directions...nice walk and it's not cold...just a pleasant late winter's day...now we're waiting for the window cleaners to arrive at 12.30 and going to have a go on the Wii at midday...good exercise, and I definitely need to get a bit fitter as my weight seems set to stay at this half a stone heavier since giving up smoking so need to turn it into muscle and not fat...LOL...
Bought the birds a new seed container that allows small birds to feed but keeps out the much larger birds...at the moment, it's scared off the sparrows, which is a real shame, so will keep an eye on it over the next couple of days and if they don't return, I'll put the old one back that they loved...only prob was they did tend to spray the seed everywhere as they ate and it was going down at a rate of knots each day, and proving rather costly...this lets the seed sit at the bottom of the tray so doesn't get wasted, mind you, the birds did eat it off the ground as well, including some very, very fat pigeons...LOL...just very messy...Ranfuch's said there were half price bird seed around so we checked, and Wilkinson's had it for half price so stocked up...thanks, Ranfuch's...very useful tip...our normal place hasn't changed their prices so glad you told us others were...
So, my lovely friends, that's it so far today...have a good one, and hope the weather is being kind to you, and that none of you live near Grimsby where an earthquake level 5 on the richter scale took place this morning... Big hugs to one and all for now....

Hi to everybody...lovely day here after an exceptionally warm night, which could account for why both of us had a strangely disturbed night...hubby made me a cup of tea and himself one at five because he couldn't sleep and I had been awake for an hour after dreaming over and over again about only 19% of the water we use is from other sources while the other 81% came from rainfall...HLOL...that's wrong but I couldn't correct it...what a weird dream...LOL..
Anyway, finally fell off to sleep again and got up at 9 and had breakfast, went for the paper, and then came home and our new bird seed containers arrived so sorted them out then played four games of bowls on the Wii, and we each won two so that was okay... After that we had lunch, and now hubby's sleeping until 5.30 before he has to go to work at 6.30...
Now, my friends, I'm catching up on my posts, and about to have a go at my story, then it's dinner time again..and so the days go round and round and round
Have a great rest of the day and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...had a pretty good day today...hubby and I had our talk last night, he sat on the bed grinning and saying what do you want to talk about, and I said we've got to get back to what we had before your hours changed and threw everything out...why do men when it comes to trying to sort something out that's gone a bit haywire always resemble a kid in trouble? HLOL...anyway, it was a brief talk because he couldn't stop laughing and saying yes to everything I suggested so I finally dismissed him and sent him back to play with his toys, and today was the first day we put my suggestions into practice...and they worked...
Have just read this out to him and he's laughing again...I can't win...
Anyway, he hoovered the house from top to bottom, while I cleaned the kitchen floor, the conservatory floor and the walls of the conservatory and the fridge in the conservatory, and now we have a lovely clean house and kitchen and conservatory...whoopee do...
So, my lovely friends, hope you have a good evening, a restful night, sweet dreams and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...lovely day today and we got up early well, 9 that's early for us...had a good night and have been for the paper and are now cleaning the house...I'm waiting for the kitchen floor to dry now and have read an article in the Independent which accounts for the loud scream in my title...note this...I already have a loathing of Malta and have already listed the reasons to Martin when he asked me recently why I loathed it so much, but there's an even bigger reason...and here it is...this is every year...not overall...every single frigging year...
In his book, Fatal Flight: The Maltese Obsession with Killing Birds which chronicles the history of Maltese hunting, Natalino Fenech described the annual death toll of three million finches, more than half a million thrushes, 500,000 swallows, 80,000 golden orioles, 18,000 shearwaters and 50,000 birds of prey.
The whole article is here...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/conservationists-mobilise-to-halt-mass-slaughter-of-birds-in-malta-786763.html
It says 90% of the population oppose it...great but do nothing to stop it??? They must really care if they allow 10% of their people to go out annually and slaughter vast numbers of migrating birds just for the hell of it...that's cruelty on a mind boggling level...if bird lovers around the world boycotted all travel to Malta, the apathetic 90% might get off their butts and do something to stop this carnage...unfortunately, the majority of holiday makers in Malta wouldn't give a toss either about the birds since they're only there for the booze and cheap cigs and nostalgia for a past that an intelligent human being would say frigging good riddance to but alas there are still people who long for its return.
As you can gather, my friends, this has made me bloody angry...but I'm off to finish the kitchen now and hope that anybody here thinking of visiting that tip of a country will think again...
Have a good day, and big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everybody...woke up to sun and blue sky this morning after a solid night's sleep... Sheer delight! Now, it's dull and overcast but it's a warm day. Have been for the paper, done the washing, given hubby his fortnightly massage, had a lovely soak in a bubble bath, answered a load of posts, most of which gave me lots of food for thought and we've had lunch, and hubby is catching up on Shameless, Boston Legal and Sarah Connors series which I recorded for him during the week to watch at the weekend...
Today, we're having lamb burghers with mint, and fried onions in a bread roll for dinner...sorry, Tom... but they're real yummy I'm afraid...and a glass of wine as I opened a bottle yesterday to make the sauce for the duck breasts and had a glass too of course ...I've discovered I've put on two more pounds in weight today...bad news. I know what it is...my nightly ten Maltesers and small plate of rice pudding at nine I've been having for the past two weeks...they've got to go alas if I'm to lose the extra ten pounds I've now put on since giving up smoking....deep sighs...no fun left in life any more...HLOL...Just bought as well some chocolate raisins and some Muller rice puddings...see I'm crying now...no more treats...groan...groan...
That's it for now, my lovely friends, have a great rest of the weekend and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...late today...had a foul night again...3.20 woke up with nagging dull ache down below and had a cup of tea and a painkiller at 4.30, then another at 5.30 because the first pill did nothing, and finally went to sleep around 6.30...hmmm...best forgotten I think...got up at 9 because we wanted to go shopping this morning as opposed to the afternoon. The bus was twenty minutes late!!! Bloody hell and I had to stand all the way into town, got all shaken up but was distracted by a chappie who got on a couple of stops after us and proceeded to tell us all about his five week's hol in Benidorm then mentioned he was off to Malta and my brain went into reverse as I loathe virulently that place Anyway, he was a distraction from the difficulty I had standing all the way, and very nice as well...also had an enjoyable chat with a lady at the bus stop while we waited for the darned bus to arrive...funny, at our own bus stop, we rarely have conversations with the people waiting with us, but at the next one down the road, which we sometimes go to because more choice of buses, we've had some really good chats with people there...hmmm...odd that...
Had a good shop, and came home in time for lunch of French bread, brie, coleslaw and grapes again...I can eat them all now again... But we're both so full! Think I cut too much bread, and then couldn't resist finishing it all up...HLOL...both our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs today...ah, well, got the afternoon to digest it...
Hubby says that a whole load of big wigs from Head Office descended on the PO yesterday, and one normally rude manager actually asked him politely whether he would do one of two jobs so gave him a choice for the first time...HLOL...might get a marked improvement in manners from now on...the injured manager is home already so no serious injury....
That's it for now, my friends, have a good rest of the day, hope the weekend is a restful, happy one for you, and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...here's three jokes for tonight...

Reaching the end of a job interview, the human resources person asked
a young engineer fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you
looking for?"

The engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending
on the benefits package."

The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of
5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company
matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased
every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?"

The Engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"

And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it."

________

And Jesus said unto his disciples, "Whom do men say
that I am?"

And His disciples answered unto Him, "Master,
thou art the supreme eschatological manifestation
of omnipotent ecclesiastical authority, the absolute,
divine, sacerdotal monarch."

And Jesus said, "What?"

________

First man: How'd you get that black eye?
Second man: I called some woman a two-bit whore.
First man: She punched you?
Second man: Nope. She hit me with her bag of quarters.

______

Have a good evening, have a restful night, sweet dreams, and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...I got tagged by Purple Dragon...thanks, Carol...LOL

I. You have to look up page 123 in the nearest book to you.
II. Look for the fifth sentence.
III. Then post the three sentences that follow the fifth sentence
IV. Tag five people to do the same.

From 'The Letters of Mrs. Gaskill'

'Oh, how I wish you were here. I have so much to say I don't know where to begin. Wm is in Birmingham preaching today.'

That's it...I tag Britsal, Franpal, Iwasbornin1973, Joebangles, and I_Am_Xenon...big hugs to you all...

Hi to everybody...at last my sleep patterns are back to what they were prior to going on the medication...it was definitely those darned pills that were getting me up seven or eight times every night for a month...now have a good eight hours with only one briefest of breaks...thank goodness, thought I might never see good nights again...
Warmer today and trying to sunshine when we walked round for the paper this morning...got up late because I listen to Melvin Bragg's In our Time every Thursday from 9 - 9.45...all about the scientists understanding of the Universe and multi-Universes and how far in knowledge we've come in such a relatively short time...very interesting discussion...oh, yes, and saw Torchwood (the second one on immediately after BBC2's showing on BBC3 I think) and it was good...won't say anything else in case others haven't seen it yet or wait until next week.
So, my friends, little else to add now so I wish you a very good rest of the day, and send you all big hugs...

Hi to everybody...ignore everything I put in my last post...HLOL...it's all about tomorrow... I've just gone downstairs and checked the TV and thought...hmmm...something's wrong here...and then realised it's bloody Wednesday not Thursday...oh, deary, deary me...I'm in trouble..I don't even know what day of the week it is now...and there's absolutely sweet FA on tonight so it's watching what I've recorded during the week to see when I can...HLOL...
Ah, so might be back at some point in the evening...big hugs to you all... that's me in old age...

Hi to everybody...I've got a night of TV Boston Legal, The Chronicles of Sarah Connelly, the new series of Cold Case and Men in Trees, the last one apparently of this series, but have put eight of nine on it...and it said it's the last of this series tonight...so guess it's a misprint...it's not on next week so must be.
Unfortunately...the first three are all on at the same time...10... on different channels so one I'll watch tomorrow...The Chronicles...because hubby wants to see it as well so needs taping as he likes the actress in it (and I tape Boston Legal as well for him)...she of the '300' LOL...wouldn't watch a single Terminator through but put an actress he likes in something and he's prepared to watch it...typical bloody male HLOL...Did see 'Moonlight' last night about the vampire detective that started yesterday on Living...hmmm...has prospects...seems to be really fashionable now...a vamp with a conscience...HLOL...yes, well the next one I come across I shall ask whether he's a baddie or goodie and hope to hell I get the latter... Can vamps have consciences? Thought they were the living dead...does a conscience survive death? I wonder...does anything survive death...oh, shut up, Jenray...this is supposed to be a quickie...LOL...
So, my lovely friends, have a great evening, have a restful night, sweet dreams and big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everybody...had a great night...slept really well with only one interruption at 5 then went straight back to sleep until 9.30... Dull today so been lazy and let hubby go for the paper because he had to pick up his prescription as well from the chemist a couple of miles away past the newsagents...have spent the rest of the morning answering the comments made on my posts...LOL...they certainly woke me up...
Want to find a way of dividing up my day more productively I think, because some things are being missed out like my having a practice on my keyboard regularly...recently I've missed days out and that's annoying, but the hours seem to fly by and something else consumes the time...hmmm...there have to be enough hours in the day...mind you, I have been getting up a lot later this winter...used to get up dead on 9 everyday now it's more like 10 and that puts the whole day out I've discovered...
So, that's it, my friends, nothing very thrilling, but life isn't always thrilling is it... have a good day and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...saw Horizon tonight and it was about longevity in certain places around the world. Okinawa, Sardinia and California have areas were people live well into their nineties and on into a century and more in a few cases....the two scientists studying the golden oldies in Okinawa bounced around like excitable school boys as they searched for an answer to why these men and women lived to such an old age and retained their health, which was the most important part...I wasn't wholly convinced that they weren't dreaming of getting the nobel prize for discovering the secrets of preventing ageing... They ate a lot of vegetables and tofu...in fact they ate more tofu than anywhere else in the world...so maybe it was suggested the diet had a lot to do with it. The next place was in Sardinia in a town where the people also lived to ripe old ages and seemed to come from a few families where a certain amount of intermarrying had taken place...these people ate lots of meat, drank and smoked and still lived a long time...the next place was an area in California where the old lived well into their nineties but had strict daily exercise regimes and generally watched what they ate...
In the end, there did not seem to be anything that linked all three of these communities together it was decided diet wise, exercise wise or genetics wise, but there was one thing they all had in common and that was a way of dealing with stress...the Japanese had a saying don't worry it will all work out in the end...the Sardinians were Catholics, and the Americans were Seventh Day Adventists...so the surprising conclusion was if you want to live a long time get a faith in something! Hmmm...It's odd after all I've been writing over the last month or so about how destructive stress is on the human body and now Horizon concludes you need a belief system to live a long time...I think you definitely need a system of dealing with stress, but I absolutely refuse to believe that you have to live deluding yourself in order to live for a very long time... Deep sighs...the most stressed out individuals I knew in my life were mostly believers in one religion or another so I can't agree with the prog's conclusions...Yes, I agree stress is the major killer of our time plus bad diet and no exercise, but not sure suggesting having a religious belief is the solution to our dying too young...at least I hope it isn't...one thing though I did notice, all the centenarians didn't seem to be that glad they had lived that long...I got the distinct impression that they felt they had hung around too long, and wished they could actually let go off their overly long lives...
So, my friends, I'm going to find out ways of de-stressing without having to abandon my brain and, in the meantime, I hope you have a restful night, sweet dreams and I send big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everybody...apart from I had a good night, my stomach hasn't played up today without any medication and it's another beautiful, cold winter's day, I've got nothing else to say....for a change perhaps I hear echoing back at me...
So, all that remains is for me to hope you have a good day, and I send big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...sorry...but showing you this as well in my own blog...it's the doggy one I put on Grin and bear it group, and this doggy will do anything to get outside...anything! Not sure if anybody saw it there, and I think it's just hilarious so here it is....

Big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...lovely morning again, but also very, very cold...had a weird night...actually got a lot of sleep but broken in the middle of the night between three and four when I decided the glitch in my brain was annoying the hell out of me and went downstairs, made a cup of tea and got two biscuits, and returned to bed with them. The glitch was a sort of lucid dream where I had a screen in front of me...not edged but the whole of my view was a screen and there was a question and answer program on it and one section I couldn't get to do what I wanted it to do...no matter what I tried, the program wouldn't work HLOL...now when my computer brain starts glitching for real, I consider it's time to wake myself up properly and switch off the machine, and go into sleep mode when it's off...which I did promptly after my tea and biscuits and woke again at eight thirty...:-)
Hubby succeeded yesterday in breaking the toaster so we walked round to Argos and got a replacement after breakfast plus I found a vase, and a slim belt, which I have been looking out for, in TKMax, which we went into to see whether by a slender chance, the cups we bought last week were still there...alas they were not...didn't think they would be because incredibly reduced in price from £18 to £3 each...just a lovely design and gorgeous to hold and look at...wanted to get a couple for our son...he'd appreciate a good design...
Now, we've had lunch and I've had my last pill today for my stomach problems, so really hoping I won't have any more trouble, but realise I have to be careful because get the odd twinge every now and then as a warning it's still tender in places...
Will try and do some more of my own work this afternoon after three days of not getting near it for other distractions...hope you all have a good rest of the day, and big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everybody...glorious day again but oh so cold...loads of frost on the sheds today...contemplating going out to do a quick shop in Lidl's after we've got the paper. Had a better night again and only one more day of my medication so really hoping I can start to eat again properly by the middle of the week...I miss my fruit and coleslaw especially...
Just had my Sunday morning oil from hubby...oh, does anybody else love having their feet in particular massaged?...we both think it's sheer bliss...I said to him that if he wasn't here, I really do think I would hire a masseur to do it once a week for me as I cannot think of anything more relaxing with some nice music playing in the background as well...hmmm...
Well, my friends, I hope you have a good Sunday, that the weather is being kind to you, and I send big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everybody...just to let you know that I've started a new group called Armchair Revolutionaries...HLOL...would love to invite anybody who enjoys a good old conflab about the world and it's wonderful, mad, terrible or scary aspects...no subject is barred, but no abusive comments is my only rule...
In the meantime, have a lovely evening, and big hugs to one and all...

Hi to everyone....here's three more...

The Pope took a philosophy professor (an atheist at that) out fishing on
a large lake. As they drifted on the still lake, the philosopher
accidentally dropped an oar and watched it float away. The pontiff
stepped out of the boat, walked across the water to the oar, grabbed it
and walked back to the boat. The next day at the university, a colleague
asked the philosopher if he had enjoyed fishing with the Pope. "It was
okay, but would you believe that guy can't swim?"

_______

A lawyer named Strange died, and his friend asked the tombstone maker
to inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies Strange, an honest man, and
a lawyer." The inscriber insisted that such an inscription would be
confusing, for passersby would tend to think that three men were buried
under the stone. However he suggested an alternative: He would inscribe,
"Here lies a man who was both honest and a lawyer. That way, whenever
anyone walked by the tombstone and read it, they would be certain to
remark: "That's Strange!"

_______

The Frenchman and the Italian were in the woods hunting
together when suddenly a voluptuous blonde girl raced across
their path, totally nude. "Would I love to eat that? Oui, oui!" the
Frenchman said, smacking his lips.

So the Italian shot her.

Big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everyone on this beautiful cloudless sunny day...cold but lovely...we're up late this morning after a lie in and I had a good night too We've just finished our breakfasts and we were watching the sparrows eating their seed from the container just outside the conservatory, and a thought struck me...well two actually...for a start...they seem to come down to eat as soon as my hubby and I sit down to eat as well...there can be very few or none around when we come downstairs to make a coffee or just pop into the kitchen for something, but, as I said, we only have to sit down and start eating, and they arrive in their flocks plus blackbirds and pigeons to clear up the dropped seed...very strange...BUT the second thought was more of a mystery...birds don't have long lives...I think maybe a couple of years or maybe five at the most, and there are thousands of birds around all the time. Going on that limited life span, surely we should be seeing a heck of a lot more dead birds throughout our lives, but we don't, or at least I haven't...the occasional one that's been hit by a car or flown into a window, or been got by a cat, but there must be birds dying all over the country on a daily basis with the numbers we have so where are they? And, does a bird just keel over and drop dead...I've never seen a bird drop from the sky dead, have you? So do they wait until they're on the ground?
Perhaps, my theory that we're a virtual world is correct...we create the world each day and that would explain why we see so few dead birds or animals as well...they don't live that long but we don't see loads of dead animals either...HLOL...food for thought, my lovely friends, or not as the case may be...
Make yourself a great weekend, may we continue to keep the gorgeous weather and big hugs to one and all....

Hi to everybody...just to send you off to bed with a smile hopefully...LOL....

It was many years ago since the embarrassing day when
a young woman, with a baby in her arms, entered his
butcher shop and confronted him with the news that the
baby was his and asked what was he going to do about
it?
Finally he offered to provide her with free meat until
the boy was 16. She agreed.
He had been counting the years off on his calendar,
and one day the teenager who had been collecting the
meat each week, came into the shop and said, "I'll be 16 tomorrow."
"I know," said the butcher with a smile, "I've been
counting too, tell your mother, when you take this
parcel of meat home, that it is the last free meat
she'll get, and watch the expression on her face."
When the boy arrived home he told his mother. The
woman nodded and said, "Son, go back to the butcher
and tell him I have also had free bread, free milk,
and free groceries for the last 16 years and watch the
expression on HIS face!"

_______

Mr. Greenberg was an illiterate immigrant, but he worked hard,
saved his pennies, and started a small business. It did well,
and soon he had enough money to send for the wife and
children. The work kept him very busy, so he never had time to
learn to write, but the bank was happy to do business with him,
even though his signature consisted of two X's.

He prospered, he opened more stores, the kids were transferred
to private schools, the family moved into a fancy house (with
one staircase going nowhere just for show)...you get the idea.
One day his banker, Mr. Smith, asked him to drop by.

"So vat's the problem?" Greenberg asked, a bit anxiously.

Smith waved a bunch of checks at him. "Perhaps nothing," he
said, "but I wanted to be on the safe side. These recent checks
of yours are all signed with 3 X's, but your signature of record
has just 2."

Greenberg looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry about making
trouble," he said, "but my vife said that since I'm now such a
high class rich guy, I should have a middle name!"

___________

On reaching his plane seat a man is surprised to see a parrot strapped
in next to him. He asks the stewardess for a coffee whereupon the
parrot squawks, "And get me a whisky you cow!"

The stewardess, flustered, brings back a whisky for the parrot and
forgets the coffee. When this omission is pointed out to