A rainbow sky...

... but no rainbow as yet.  We are ringed by an ominous dark blue sky and some rain has spotted the windows.  But we are in sunshine and the English Channel is sparkling away.  It feels as if there ought to be a rainbow, but I can't see one yet.

Had a bad night - got up in the early hours to take painkillers with an early breakfast - then managed to sleep till about 9.00 when I found Captain B staring at me offering coffee. So i did not get to the field service group.  However, it has been quite a productive day so far.  I have cleared out my wardrobe and got three bagfuls of clothes and shoes for the charity shops.

I have admitted, finally, that i will only be wearing sturdy sensible shoes from now on, no matter what the occasion, so a lot of stuff can go.  I have scrubbed out the bathroom and Captain B has been vaccuming.

And my Watchtower study for tomorrow is done.  Its a lovely one, reminding us yet again that while "the world" may say "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me", the Inspired Scriptures say the exact opposite.   James likens one wrong word to the little spark that can start a forest fire.

"So, too, the tongue is a little member and yet makes great brags. Look! How little a fire it takes to set so great a woodland on fire!  Well, the tongue is a fire. The tongue is constituted a world of unrighteousness among our members, for it spots up all the body and sets the wheel of natural life aflame and it is set aflame by Ge‧hen′na.  For every species of wild beast as well as bird and creeping thing and sea creature is to be tamed and has been tamed by humankind.  But the tongue, not one of mankind can get it tamed. An unruly injurious thing, it is full of death-dealing poison.  With it we bless Jehovah, even [the] Father, and yet with it we curse men who have come into existence “in the likeness of God.” Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing."

We need to be so careful to keep "the law of loving-kindness" on our tongue.

Jacks is coming for supper tonight.

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Mice

A Captain Butterfly shaped mouse has been preying on my tray of marmalade muffins. There seem a lot less than there should be.

Had a lovely Wednesday evening with a young Ghanaian brother and the sister who is doing the demo with me, and her husband.  We had a cup of tea, prayed for help from Jehovah, and then we decided how we were going to do it. Hope to practise it on Captain B - if he can speak through the marmalade muffins, that is.

Ronald and I were talking about how we came into the truth (I gave him a lift there and back), and it turns out we were both very shy children who never said a word at school if possible. And now he is so active in the congregation - giving talks - organising Louise and me in our demo - and he is so young - AND he is doing it in a foreign language.

We agreed that Jehovah has done wonders with us and for us.

Its very rainy this morning. The Captain went swimming and I went shopping. And we both got very wet.  I woke him up in the fairly early hours by going through my demo talk in what I had thought was a low enough murmur.

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The Pig of Tilling

I have just read, and am now re-reading, "Miss Mapp" by E.F.Benson.  It is as funny as all the Mapp & Lucia books.  And EFB is so good on the charm of Tilling (Rye) and its marshy setting.

"There is not a town in all England so blatantly picturesque as Tilling, nor one, for the lover of level marsh land, of tall reedy dykes, of enormous sunsets and rims of blue sea on the horizon, with so fortunate an environment."

Yes, although I am a child of the Yorkshire moors and Derbyshire Dales, I love it all.  And that "blatantly" is very well deployed.   

There is a wonderful passage in Proverbs where Jesus, personified as wisdom, speaks to us of how he worked beside his Father:

“Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago.  From time indefinite I was installed, from the start, from times earlier than the earth.  When there were no watery deeps I was brought forth as with labour pains, when there were no springs heavily charged with water.  Before the mountains themselves had been settled down, ahead of the hills, I was brought forth as with labour pains,  when as yet he had not made the earth and the open spaces and the first part of the dust masses of the productive land.  When he prepared the heavens I was there; when he decreed a circle upon the face of the watery deep,  when he made firm the cloud masses above, when he caused the fountains of the watery deep to be strong,  when he set for the sea his decree that the waters themselves should not pass beyond his order, when he decreed the foundations of the earth,  then I came to be beside him as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time,  being glad at the productive land of his earth, and the things I was fond of were with the sons of men."

Jesus loved the earth and everything on it - especially us.  It is a damaged creation at the moment - the serpent is still in the garden - but we can see its beauty everywhere, and we can know that by the end of the Thousand years it will all be perfect again, as it was when it was created.

Then E.F.Benson is very funny about the Tilling tourist industry - obviously in full swing back then.   Of the
Tilling tourist he says:

"Few if any of them left without purchasing one of the famous Tilling money-boxes, made in the shape of a pottery pig, who bore on his back that remarkable legend of his authenticity which ran:

                                             I won't be druv

                                             Though I am willing,

                                             Good-morning, my love,

                                             Said the Pig of Tilling."

Brilliant!  I'd have bought one too.  And our own little seaside town could do with a Pig of Tilling.

Audrey and I were out for an hour yesterday - it started raining heavily just as we finished.  I did little else - so tired, can't sleep, steroids (whinge, whinge), did my study and some emails and got us dinner.

Jackie is back.  Hurray!   We will invite her round to test fly the Abel & Cole Steak and Ale pie at the weekend.  Talked to her on the phone today and caught up.  And made a tray of marmalade muffins for Captain B's portable lunches.

One of the ladies on my magazine route has died.  She has been very ill for a long time.  I hope she is sleeping safe in "the everlasting arms" and will wake up once again in the Paradise earth.  And she can continue to learn - as we all will - IF we are there.

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Rainy Days and Mondays

Its a rainy Monday here on the South Coast.  There are white horses on the sea and our Green is very green under the grey sky.   The balcony geraniums got a good battering in the recent storms but are still clashing away bravely.

If I were back in poem writing mode, I would be writing a poem about late Autumn and tiredness - perhaps all woven round a metaphor about the tired geraniums.  What rhymes with geranium?  Although poems do not have to rhyme nowadays. Half rhymes are nice though.   My steroids are working, but preventing me sleeping.

I would like to fall asleep over the computer, but I can't.

A quiet day ahead I hope.  Shopping.  Dropping off latest request for meds. Library. And posting the Butterfly Membership Packages.   The meeting yesterday was one I wished everybody I know could have attended.  Ronald got together with me and Louise and we are to go round to Louise's on Wednesday to practise a demo for the Thursday night.  This will be a first for me, to be part of a demo on the platform.

Captain Metal Detector found an amazing coin yesterday, which will be featuring on his blog.  We test flew the new Abel and Col chicken pie at the weekend - hot on Saturday, cold on Sunday. And we can say that it is very nice indeed.

Anne o'the Cape and i have been talking on Skype again, and she is going to see if she can get the book "The Bible, God's Word or Man's?" from her local Kingdom Hall.  She wants it to help a friend. People's faith in the Bible has been so weakened by "the world".

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Autumn

Grey squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis

The Backyard Squirrel
by me

The darting backyard squirrel
quickly covers peanuts with snow
and hurries back for more
She doesn't see me
watching at the door.

Squirrel,
do you have the sense to know
snow won't be here for ever
Before the thaw,
you must collect your treasure.


If  I have put this poem in before, sorry. I was inspired to do so again by some charming squirrel photos Captain B took yesterday.  The squirrel in the poem was a bungalow squirrel, many years ago.  It was a Yorkshire squirrel. The one in the Captain's photo is a Sussex squirrel, from yesterday.


Got back to the Saturday field service group this morning and Jean and I did some calls.  Tricky driving.  We got ourselves into one cul-de-sac, with no apparent way out. There were cars parked everywhere, on corners, at odd angles, making the little turning area a nightmare.  I drove into a narrow cul de sac with garages both sides and very little room. Jean and I both asked Jehovah for help, and I did a 30 (or so) point turn and we finally got out of there.

The next excitement of our day was a trip to the Clinic for our flu shots and then to the library.  And we pioneered the new Abel & Col chicken pie for lunch.  Very good it is too.

Strictly Come Dancing tonight!

The Butterfly paperwork has finally arrived and I must get that done so i can post the new membership packages on Monday.

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The Waves

Its overcast today, with heavy rain showers, off and on.  I am looking out over a very green Green to a turquoise Channel, surging with white horses and splashing up white foam just behind the hedge.  Its hard to stop watching it.  All that power and all that beauty - telling us over and over of the qualities of its Grand Creator, Jehovah of armies.

I hope so much my dear aged parents will wake up one day to see it all again.   They holidayed in Cornwall, as a young engaged couple, in another lifetime, and they loved the wild Cornish coast.

Yesterday Audrey and I managed about an hour on the doors, in a very swish part of town, with lovely Autumn gardens. We both placed some literature, so we must call back.  More driving on that big grown-up road with its big boy roundabouts...  Did shamefully little else - 55 minutes plodding slowly from door and door and I feel exhausted.  Its ridiculous.

Have done a little better today so far.  Shopped. And got two loads of washing done. Captain Coppice is on his way back from coppicing and clearing duties - so what I have to do now is to get a lamb casserole in the oven for tonight and do my day's studying.

Then a quiet night in in front of the telly.  At the moment, that is my absolute favourite way of spending the evening.  I think its the last episode of Mrs.Biggs tonight too.  Well written, well cast, and gripping.

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Free Lighting For our New Kingdom Hall?

It was a hospital day today and I have been x-rayed so much that I will probably glow in the dark - and I will light up the whole Hall on these darkening nights, thus saving on the electric bills.

Anyway, it all went as well as it can, and time will tell.

Oddly I feel quite a bit better - maybe a bit of my self-help is working?

Captain Butterfly ordered me the first part of the collected "Mapp and Lucia" from Amazon, and I have been keeping myself happy with "Miss Mapp".  The duels between her and Diva over the dresses - wonderful - and the duel between Colonel Benjie and Captain Puffin - SPOILER ALERT! - the nearly duel - the early train as they both try to escape from each other - wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

The book also has the Mapp and Lucia map of Rye, and IF I can get a bit better then the Captain and I hope to have a few days there next year, and we will tread the very streets that they trod.

There is a wonderful light on the Green as I am typing this. It is fluorescing two fat seagulls who are waddling across it.  There are a few children playing quietly in the playground, lit up by the low Autumn evening sun.

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