A-Z Challenge ~ R for River

 ⚠ Warning! This post contains the answer to today's Wordle ⚠
⚠ Proceed at your own risk ⚠

This year again I choose an easy way out. Each day I'm going to solve the Wordle of the day, using as starter a word beginning with the letter of the day. I plan to post the A-Z post around noon every day of April.

As the alternative badges, as supplied by Lissa suggest travel I'll prefer travel-related words as starter words, and if at all possible, I'll avoid words containing the same letter more than once.

I'll maybe add a few words about my chosen starter word if fancy takes me and I have time and energy for it, else I'll just post the solution - or not in the case that I did not solve it.

Today my starting word is River.
The average today is 4,5 or moderately challenging - I am well above average today even with a lucky guess.

Wordle 1.767 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Under B for Beach, I promised more of me, tides, and not learning from experience. I also hinted at it in my Bucket list part two - the have done-list:

I've worked at an assembly line,
And nearly drowned in tidal brine.
I drove a bus down hairpin bends,
so sharp that sparks flew from both ends.
I've swam at night into the sea
Been baked in sunshine, drenched in rain.
I've baked a bread from newcut grain
And pilfered mango from a tree. 

... "And nearly drowned in tidal brine" is the clue here.  Some days before the beach incident, we wanted to visit the desert across the river. We could of course have gone the long way around, up to the road, down the road to the "forbidden village", where the smugglers lived, and then further on along the coast to the desert, but this was a giant detour, as the desert lay just across the river from where we stayed. We decided to wade across. We stripped apart from underwear, and bundled our clothes in a nice bundle which could be held in one arm.
    The river was broad here, hip deep in the deepest spots, this we knew from earlier swims here.  There was a nasty spot in the middle, where it was at its deepest, and where the current was fast. We put our bundles up on our heads, and held onto one another with our free hand while crossing this stretch. But just as we all were there, in the deepest spot, the tide turned and all the water from up the river came tearing down, making the waters reach our chins and the current even more violent, We held onto one another and mashed our toes down into the stony bottom of the river bed, holding on for dear life and just hoping that we would be able to hold out until the worst was over. The river mouth was beset with jagged cliffs and boulders, so a slip would most certainly mean death.
     Just as we felt we were unable to hold on any more, and me and one of the boys were about to give up, we felt a lessening in the current, and we began carefully, only one person moving a any one time, to inch back to the bank we had left. The waters reached to our chin almost all the way to the bank, but soon we were out of the middle, and out of the current. We threw ourselves upon the grassy bank and just lay for a long time before moving again.

And now for today's Wordle:

Poetry Monday :: Superheroes

Hello! If you're here for my A-Z post for Q, please go back one post.

Poetry Monday is a blogging game invented long ago. Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings and I are keeping it alive until Diane @ On the Border returns home from her break of health and relaxation, travelling the world with her husband as far as we can tell.

We just hope she's going to take back over once she returns home.

The prompts now come from 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts group. This is a Facebook group with a prompt for each day of the year, but no worries, the prompts will still be here and at Mimi's blog.

Today's prompt is: Superheroes

I have written before of my dreamt-up negative Superheroes. Here, here, here, and here.

It is not that they themselves are negative, far from, they're really good superheroes. But their superpower is that everything not belonging toi the place it is in now, lights up in negative colours. This is quite a superpower if you think of it.

But they are a sad bunch in these modern times. I give you

The Superheroes' Lament:
We are the Superheroes, we
We see much more than you do see
And everything that should not be
Light up in colours gaudily

A beer can glows in neon pink
A lost receipt in magic ink
A waste of powers you'll agree
Now think of all that cannot be:

We'd find the keys you lost today
We'd find the kittens gone astray.
But our powers locked stay
on all the crap you throw away.



- - - - - - - - - - Coming Themes  - - - - - -

taken from the 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts group.

Apr 27 Plaid
May 4 Back pack
May 11 Futuristic Landscape
May 18 Balcony
May 25 Scooter
June 1 Blue
June 8 2 minute Sketch
June 15 Cobweb with Dewdrops

A-Z Challenge ~ Q for Queue

This year again I choose an easy way out. Each day I'm going to solve the Wordle of the day, using as starter a word beginning with the letter of the day. I plan to post the A-Z post around noon every day of April.

As the alternative badges, as supplied by Lissa suggest travel I'll prefer travel-related words as starter words, and if at all possible, I'll avoid words containing the same letter more than once.

I'll maybe add a few words about my chosen starter word if fancy takes me and I have time and energy for it, else I'll just post the solution - or not in the case that I did not solve it.

Today my starting word is Queue.
The average today is 4,8 or moderately challenging - I am average today.

Wordle 1.766 5/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Queue ... During my travels in the countries behind the Iron Curtain, I have seen my share of queues.
The first few times we saw a queue, we simply queued up as did everybody around, because we supposed something valuable was to be had at the end of the queue. But after standing in line for a long time in inclement autumn weather for umbrellas and fake wool suits, we learnt to send a person up to the the head of the line to espy what exactly we were queueing for.

We had been told that that there was no unemployment behind the Iron Curtain, that people ate well and that children and young ones were well educated and everybody worked for a brighter future.
    I had a hard time reconciling this to what I saw and heard. When we went shopping for instance, we saw shops that were more often than not half empty and it was a time consuming endeavour to go shopping. Once inside the store, we queued up more times. First we stood in one line to place our order, often asking for several things not in stock until we hit on a compromise item. We got a note with the price, then waited in another line to pay and get a receipt to go with the note, and then in a final one where we handed in the note and got the now carefully wrapped item. Guaranteed full employment, sure, but what a glorious waste of time.

And now for today's Wordle:

A-Z Challenge ~ P for Palms

This year again I choose an easy way out. Each day I'm going to solve the Wordle of the day, using as starter a word beginning with the letter of the day. I hope to post every day until the end of April.

As the alternative badges, as supplied by Lissa suggest travel I'll prefer travel-related words as starter words, and if at all possible, I'll avoid words containing the same letter more than once.

I'll maybe add a few words about my chosen starter word if fancy takes me and I have time and energy for it, else I'll just post the solution - or not in the case that I did not solve it.

Today my starting word is Palms.
The average today is 4,3 or moderately challenging - I am well below average today with a lucky guess.

Wordle 1.764 3/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Palms ... We saw lots of palm trees on our journey through Egypt and Sudan. I'd like to re-tell a bit from earlier, as it contains palm leaves. We - seven of us - were staying in a small village some hours' walk from Loa - which is fairly close to Nimule on the Uganda border:

  The women in the village amused themselves by putting us to all sorts of jobs we couldn't manage, like washing clothes and grindin sesame seeds. Then when we were messing around with a tub and a washboard, the women, laughing and teasing, pushed us away and, gesticulating and talking loudly, showed how to do it. The boys experienced the same thing, being set to weave cages from palm leaf stems. It looked easy when one of the men did it. With a knife, he split the stem into four, drilled a few holes here and there, split another stem, folded and bent, and poof, he had made a small box with a lid that could be opened able hold 3-4 kg of tomatoes. The boys' first attempt was not good, to put it mildly, and there was much laughter.

And now for today's Wordle:

A-Z Challenge ~ O for Ocean

This year again I choose an easy way out. Each day I'm going to solve the Wordle of the day, using as starter a word beginning with the letter of the day. I hope to post every day until the end of April.

As the alternative badges, as supplied by Lissa suggest travel I'll prefer travel-related words as starter words, and if at all possible, I'll avoid words containing the same letter more than once.

I'll maybe add a few words about my chosen starter word if fancy takes me and I have time and energy for it, else I'll just post the solution - or not in the case that I did not solve it.

Today my starting word is Ocean.
The average today is 4,5 or moderately challenging - I am still at or just above average.

Wordle 1.763 5/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩


Ocean ... Have I ever actually sailed an ocean?

I do not think so. It depends largely on your definition of an ocean. I sailed the Mediterranean sea - which according to some sources is a part of the Atlantic ocean, but I think it's not. Anyhow this trip was quite dramatic. We're still back in time, travelling to Aftica in old buses. We left the buses behind in Latakia, Syria and went to Egypt and Sudan.
 
We boarded a Russian passenger ship in Latakia bound for Alexandria, Egypt late one Thursday evening in September ... but the ship did not set sail until next morning.

We had a storm, a humongous one. The trip, that should have taken us only one day, took three. One morning the sun rose, at the starboard side of the ship, and later set in the very same spot. After the first morning we had our meals handed to us in vomit bags - and nothing to drink. The crew on the Russian ship was of the conviction that drinking made you sick. Of course we raided the bar for Russian Pepsi-cola, and drank it down. When we could get any, that is, because the sales persons were sea sick, and the bar was closed most of the time. One of the boys was big and brawny, and not afraid of anything. He went and spoke to the captain, and from then on one of the ship's crew manned the bar, and we bought and drank until the bar ran out. It was well stocked with drinkables for a one-day trip, but this one lasted three.
I do not remember what we did then, but I had one of those Russian Pepsi bottles with me on the whole journey and for long after - until it broke, actually. It was closed with a flip-top. Don't ask me why I brought one along for the journey, but I did.

Even if a lot of us strangely did not become sea-sick (we slept out in the open on the deck instead of down below in the stuffy cabins, I do not know if this helped) it was tiring to be thrown around all the time. And the noises were incredible. The propeller of the ship often went above sea and turned round with a whining sound, shaking the ship,  until it again submerged. Me and a few others went to look at it, and were chased away by the crew, the big waves washed over the deck and it was dangerous.

When finally we made it to port, we were not in Alexandria at all, but in Port Said. Still Egypt, but far off the mark.

And now for today's Wordle:

Knowing now what I answered Mimi: Wordle has 12,966 valid five-letter words. Out of which, 2,309 words are official answers. 10,657 are available to use as guess-only words. I think that there's quite a lot obscure words among the solutions.