MONDAY MIRTH

No further instructions needed:

Hope a smile on your face today will stay with you all week long.

SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT

Still endeavouring to get my blog mojo back so, until I do, this Sunday it's the other little poem I learned when doing correspondence classes down on the farm.   There may have been others but the one last week and this one are the only ones I remember, apart from the usual nursery rhymes.

MR MOONFACE

Hullo Mr Moonface, up there in the sky
I love to see you shining whilst in bed I lie.
I'm not the least bit frightened, you only have to peep,
But don't go Mr Moonface until I'm fast asleep.

THINKING ALLOWED

Thinking about ads that appear on TV some of which I find completely ridiculous and most of which get muted very quickly.  I am usually crocheting when watching TV so concentrate on that while the ads are on.  Sometimes I feel there is a lot of false advertising and I remember years ago an ad that showed a child in a high chair eating an apple.  When her mother offered her some kind of 'health' bar the child threw the apple on the floor and grabbed the bar.  I reported that to the 'powers that be' who replied that the child could be seen eating a health bar which would be good for her.  I am sure that same health bar would be full of fat and sugar....but that's modern times for you.  I prefer an apple every time.

The one that really gets my goat these days is for Panadol Osteo.   Now I have suffered arthritis in one place or another since I was about 22 and it wasn't until it got really bad perhaps 10-15 years back that I even considered taking anything in the way of pain killers.   I can't use NSAIDs as not only do they upset my stomach, and I was told when I telephoned the manufacturers of Voltaren that, if possible, they should never be taken and, if they were, then never for more than a week (two at the most) at any one time.  The gentleman I spoke to also told me they can also cause heart problems.

Long story a little shorter.   Several years ago I decided I would take Panadol Osteo regularly. Recently I had seen health warnings about not taking too much paracetamol for adults or children so  I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to have a break from them which is what I did.  That was about 5 weeks ago and do you know I have no more pain now than when I was taking 6 tablets a day and, in fact, it's almost as though the pain is a little less!!   Except for my back!!!  This really does have me thinking. 

Strangely enough, should Phil need a pain killer, he can take my panadol and it works for him.  My only thought is my body had become so used to them they had become useless.

Fortunately our family all seem to be on the road to recovery.   K's dizzy turns are almost over and B has stopped flying all over the countryside so they are both a little more settled.  Granddaughter C has been home from hospital for a week and is on the mend and is thankful she has put that scary few days behind her.  Great for her that there will be no more gall bladder attacks.

Our weather is still on the coolish side which is fine by me.  I had to laugh the other day though.  Our rain gauge had fallen over a few years ago and was put to one side.  From time to time I mentioned to Phil it would be good to set it up again and the other day he said to come and look in the back garden and there it was....the rain gauge set up again.  Only took about 4 years but I feel he may have upset the weather gods as we've not had a drop of rain since and there is little on the horizon from what I can see on the forecast.  Oh dear!!  What has he done?

Hope your weekend goes well for you.  (*:*)

FRIDAY FAVOURITES

I had been scrolling through YouTube listen to some of Liberace's music when I found this one.  It quite delighted me and shows that the master showman can not only make the piano talk but is also capable of dancing the light fantastic.  I hope you will enjoy this pretty little film with me.

DID YOU KNOW?

STEPHEN 1135 - 1154  (More from the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland).

Born:  1097

Succeeded as King of England (not Duke of Normandy) 1 December, 1135, aged about 38.

Nephew of his predecessor Henry, being the third son (and not eldest surviving son) of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror.

Married:  Matilda of Boulogne, granddaughter of Malcolm III of Scotland.

Children:  Baldwin,  Matilda, Eustace Count of Boulounge (died 1153), Mary, William Count of Boulougne (died 1160).

Died:  Of dysentry, intestinal obstruction and haemorrhoids at Canterbury on 25 Ocober, 1154, aged about 57, having reigned 19 years.

Buried: At Faversham Abbey.

Stephen lunged for the throne on the death of Henry almost as purposefully as Henry had done on the death of Rufus, and he had himself crowned by Christmas, before the Empress Matilda could rally the many English nobles who supported her claim, or that of her two-year-old son Henry.  (Stephen had been the first to swear future allegiance to Matilda when Henry I demanded this of his barons).

Stephen's great prop  in the early years was his powerful and wealthy younger brother, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and Abbot of Glastonbury.  But Henry I had successfully weakened the power of the prelates, so that the authority of the Bishop of Winchester, even as Papal Legate, was not enough to fill the vacuum created by an incompetent king.  Stephen failed to measure up to the standards of strength and ruthlessness demanded of a twelfth-century monarch,  He reigned, but did not rule.  In his weakness he allowed barons and parvenus to increase their privileges and military power at the expense of the old royal prerogative - where comparative despotism at least spelt out basic law and order - but not to such an extent that an effective real sovereignty emerged.  The result was anarchy, and misery amid the collapse of central power in the land.

Stephen briefly reoccupied a recalcitrant Normandy in 1037, but abandoned it for ever when Empress Matilda's husband Count Geoffrey of Anjou, took it as his share of the intended partition of English territories.  At the same time Matilda invaded England itself.  With a safe base within the western strongholds of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, Henry I's able illegitimate son, Matilda skirmished around the country for nine years, during part of which she held Stephen himself a prisoner.  His episcopal brother said that the capture represented God's judgement that the king's cause was, after all, was not just, and Matilda was now the true sovereign.  But Matilda quarrelled with the bishop so tactlessly that he soon took a fresh consultation, and declared that God was backing Stephen after all.   In 1149 Empress Matilda's son, Henry, then 16, was handed the Dukedom of Normandy by his victorious father, and prepared to launch his third invasion of England.  At the height of the turmoil Stephen's heir, Eustace. died, and an agreement was reached that Henry should succeed to the throne on Stephen's death.  This occurred in the following year, and the likeable young man who had been miscast as king through 19 cold winters of English misery was buried in Faversham Abbey, which he had built to supplant his predecessor Henry's monastery at Reading.

Several years ago there was a documentary on TV about the lives of Stephen, Matilda etc and the all the intrigue really amazed me.  It was good to recall it all as I typed this.

WEDNESDAY WISDOM

I guess the majority of us have had big dreams and then the realisation hits that we were perhaps aiming a little too high.   We then learn to be content with what we do have rather than what may have been.

Did you notice the spelling error in this one?

MONDAY MIRTH

I'd never considered it from the birds' point of view.

"It is a bit freaky with this wireless technology"