Chargers

Not horses but the things for charging appliances. I am no techie but I do have a laptop, a smart phone, a Kindle and a Nintendo (for Solitaire) - maybe I am a bit techie after all! I keep their chargers, all different and none interchangeable, in separate plastic bags within a canvas carrier with compartments. In the night, they are overtaken by feeding or breeding frenzy and climb out to intermingle their wires with knots that would baffle the most advanced Boy Scout. Back in they go to defeat me with their double thingumabobs when I have vital blogging work to do. So far - and I am crossing all fingers - they have not succeeded in reproducing but I just know that, one morning, I am going to find hundreds more of them, all inextricably entwined and silently laughing at me.

Aquilegia

This lovely flower is one of my favourites. Sometimes called Granny's Bonnets, it springs up every year from apparently dead soil and bursts like a delicate firework all over my borders.  I have purple and mauve but my neighbour has a lovely deep pink colour.  I am so envious that I may just pop out one dark night when they are in pod and ... Next year I shall also have super reddish rockets!!!

My wireless mouse

I love - loved - my wireless mouse. He was black and fitted my hand perfectly with a feel of suede to the touch.  In his tummy was a neat slot for the widget that goes into the side of the laptop, so useful! There was also a red light which flickered violently when you picked him up as though his little heart was panicking at being off the gound.  So why the past tense? I have lost his widget and he doesn't work. I have ordered another similar but it won't be the same and I feel as if I am in mourning. Ah - maybe I left the widget in the laptop when I took it to the computer doctor for a health check?  Do you think I am becoming too anthropomorphic about these items? Or even mousomorphic!

The simple life

"Love but few and simple things;
Simple life much comfort brings." Thomas a Kempis
I love this quotation and the philosophy it expresses. A good night's sleep, a walk on the beach followed by a Mocha and a chocolate truffle and, a little later, a gin and tonic by the fire ... Possibly not quite what he had in mind but quite simple and such a comfort!

My right ear

I have a particular liking for my right ear. I nearly said that I am very attached to it except that seems the wrong way round as it is, I hope, strongly attached to me.  It sticks out prominently and even disturbs my sleek, glossy, bobbed hair.  In the nursing home where I was born, they swaddled the new babies and laid them on a table on their right sides for the loving parents to come and cuddle, but they forgot to check that the ears were flat against the heads.  Consequently we all have right ears almost at 90 degrees but I love this relic of a bit of ancient history. Imagine a world of perfect ears - how dull and bland!

While you're on your feet ...

My extreme dislike of this expression dates from my childhood when, as an only child, I lived in a non-centrally heated house with my parents.  On a winter's evening we would be sitting round the fire, dreading having to go out into the icy rooms beyond. If a call of nature happened and the unfortunate victim (usually me!) stood up to go to the bathroom, my mother or father would say: "While you're on your feet, could you make a pot of tea, bring some coal in, stoke the fire, lay the table for breakfast tomorrow and put hot water bottles in all the beds?" Consequently we sat there, crossing our legs with increasing rigidity, until one of us gave in and dashed out shouting, "I can't wait!"  This was merely a temporary remission as, on return, there would be the lugubrious refrain: "While you're ..."

Voice recognition sub-titles

I do not know whether to love or hate those strips of text that cross the TV screen attempting to translate what someone is saying. They are both inept and hilarious. The best was an account of someone with a shotgun firing "pellets indiscriminately." First it said that it fired "pets indiscriminately" and then corrected itself, claiming that the gun fired "poets indiscriminately." Now we poets are a feisty lot and yet we do nothing without discrimination. We object to this implication.