Theposekugler igen -- Tea Bag Baubles Revisited.

Once upon a time MotherOwl made tea bag baubles. And as she adheres to the spiral approach principle* things tend to come back. Now we are at tea bag baubles again. Let's have a small flashback:

The first ones:

Big small and medium

The Japanese-inspired one -  Morning Glory:

The one with a story:

and the crazy one:

Now dear old Leonardo (via Wikipedia) inspired MotherOwl:

18 squares! I can do this!

It has a size like a snowball. It's a perfect size. Love it. MotherOwl sees more baubles of this kind in the future. MotherOwl calls those da Vinci Baubles named after the inspirator.
Did you notice the teacups?

____________________________________
*spiral approach principle: Many times now MotherOwl has intended to write about this principle. It will happen eventually. In the meantime Wikipedia is you friend.

Freedom is Worth Fighting for.

Back to the Classics or what?

Now I've asked Karen K of Books and Chocolate to delete me from her list of participants in the challenge. It's a long story. I participated in 2018, and 2019. First year with happiness and gusto. Second year not so much, mostly because of the rather militant feminism displayed by her and some of the participants.
  Now in 2020 she did not want me to sign up for her challenge - she removed me from the entries (three times, no less) and deleted my questions and answers in the comment section of the entry-post (look further below for clarification)
  Then I modified her list to suit my preferences and entered under a new name. But it was not fun any more, every time I thought about this challenge, I felt demotivated, not angry but grumpy, bleak, depressed, irritated, and even kind of misused.
  I did not read any books, I did not write any reviews. I did not even have fun reading. Now, this morning I awoke angry. I wanted to have fun again. It's just plain ole not fun to have to censor what I say and mean because of a bunch of  American Literary SJWs. I wanted my freedom back and I have now stopped participating in Back to the Classics. My entries are going to stay on my blog, because it was fun once. 

About Karen K's deletion of my entry and comments:
This is a re-post from earlier. I can't remember if I ever pressed publish or not - probably not.

     It sure was not on my bucket list, but it is a thing I never have tried before. I've been censored, excluded or what to call it.
   In the beginning of January Karen K of Books and Chocolate removed my entry from the sign-up linky and deleted my questions and answers in the comment section. (Scroll to the bottom of this post for details)
  Even though I initially felt tempted to mis-quote Groucho and say: I don’t want to belong to any club that won't have me as a member, my stubborn streak soon surfaced.
  As a member of a minority in more ways than one in my community and a stay at home-mom to boot, I have experienced not being taken seriously, not being heard or picked and so on, but good old fashioned censorship is new to me. I have meanwhile grown a hard hide (or should that be thick or tough skin?), and I'm not going to be deterred from this special kind of fun.
  I have re-entered, but will refrain from commenting on her blog, apart from harmless comments and links to my reviews. In effect censoring myself - double standards or what?
  I might have to re-enter a couple more times, as I have been deleted again (January as well).
Then WHY am I fighting to stay on this list, stubbornly re-entering under a new name with each deletion?  Really because I hold freedom of speech for a greater good than my personal comfort. Even if Karen K do not like some of what I say, and I do not like some of what she says, we should still be able to talk together. As someone once said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

- - - - - - - - -

My comment:
  My crime was that I asked her why "# 3 - Classic by a Female author" was on the list again - and yes I asked that last year too, but still ... It was there for the 3rd year running. She said it was because female and non-white writers were under-represented in the Classics. And readers' appetites needed to be broadened. And I was free to not participate in the challenge if I choose to.
  I then wrote the following answer (in Word and copy-pasted, that's why I can quote myself here), whereupon my entry and comments were deleted:

  "Yes I asked last year too, I won't make this faux pas again, but I'd like to share my thoughts behind why I ask. As a disclaimer: Yes, I totally agree with you and NN (a Literature savvy reader also commenting, and deleted in the fracas. Name hidden by me) that white males dominate the Classic literature scene.
   Last year I was provoked by one of the participants, choosing only female authors, thinking that this participant ought to have her perspective broadened as well, but you all just applauded.
   This year it is the repetitiveness of it: There's so many minorities, religious, gender, racial, sexual, age, living place, economic and so on, so why do the gender-one make it to the list each year (I did not look how far back, but at least the 4 years I've been participating).
   I won't choose not to participate, as this challenge is far too much fun to me, but I might never make it to 12 books, as I choose books to read from whether they look exiting to me - I am not going to check up on the author's bio before reading - and sometimes it's hard to tell the gender on sight, especially for a non-English, as with Evelyn, Ngaio (to take 2 where at least I was surprised to learn the gender) and names like P.J. And the colour of an author can't be seen at all from a name.
  All the other categories are pertaining to the book, and that is - for me - fun, challenging and something I can see when holding the book in my hand. The two pertaining to the author (and this would be true even if the criterias were Jewish, Australian, younger than 18, etc.) I have to go play a detective in the Internet to check up on this, before borrowing or buying the book.
  Maybe this is my real problem. I can't just grab a book in the library meeting the criteria on sight."

  Possibly the better part of wisdom would have been to just shut up and sneakily avoid those two categories, but this kind of underhand behaviour is not really my style.

Words for Wednesday - October 28 - Exams

In October Messymimi at Messymimi's Meanderings is supplying the Words for Wednesday. Today she has given us two things.

  These words:
hostility
east
girlfriend
wall
hardware
bear

     and

a photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels (you have to manually type in: www.pexels.com to go there).

  While I did not use the bridge on the photo, a bridge was a part of last week's WfW, and I cannot use any more bridges ;)
  I did not use many of the words given, but then there's words for more chapters.

As they arrived at The Farm next morning you could almost feel the excitement in the air. Veronika's hair stood out from her head with statics, and everybody was terribly quiet. ML came in from the yard and asked them to follow her. They did, quietly and in small groups of three or four they entered the pale blue door to the east wing of the Unicorn Farm. She led them all to the corridor on second floor with the differently coloured doors. ML stopped outside the first door. It was blue with a white cauldron on it. She said: "Now, we're all ready for exams. The teachers are inside the rooms, you go in one at a time, do the task, answer their question, in short do what they ask you. When you're done, you continue to the next door, and place yourself at the end of the line. Is this clear?" As everybody nodded, she pulled a long list from a pocket and continued: We're doing this strictly after the alphabet. Fiona, Veronika , Bjørn, Heidi, Lis, Tage, and Monica you go here." They lined up outside the door and ML continued to the leaf green door: "Anna, Kalle, My, Bo, Britta, and Harald, you stay here." The next door was grey, one of the normal class rooms, that usually had a sign on it in either green, blue, red or yellow telling who had the use of that room for the day. Today all the grey and white doors were bare. ML called Lukas, Jan, Selma, David, Kirstin, Nata and Ingrid forth to be placed there. The next door was the sick bay, and at the white door with the red cross Susan was the last in line after Josta, Marja, Jouka, Terje and Helge Then at yet another another normal, grey door Sarah, Aamu, Astrid, Marit, Olav,  Sif and Elvin were placed. And the final group, composed of Rósa, Grani, Knud, Josh, Hilde and Finnbogi were lined up outside the biggest of the multicoloured library doors,
Then, with all the apprentices standing in neat lines, ML put back the list and drew her wand. "There'll be no talking, no cheating, no nothing in those lines. I'll put a silencing spell on this corridor, and I'll stay here to help, and watch over you until everybody is finished. When I have cast the spell, the first person in each line knock on the door in front of them to start the exams. Any questions before we start?" There wasn't any. ML cast her spell and as one Fiona, Anna, Lukas, Josta, Sarah and Rósa knocked at the doors in front of them. Susan saw Jon greet Rósa from inside the library and Thora and Sarah disappear behind the nondescript grey door. Of course Taavi was in the sick room, and Susan guessed that Täthi were examining the first group in Potion behind the blue door with the white cauldron. This left Martine, Birgitta, Gilvi and Torben. During her wait, while she came closer and closer to the sick bay, she saw that her guesses were mostly right. Tähti was indeed behind the blue cauldron-marked door, Gilvi was behind the leaf green door with the mouse symbol, surely examining the apprentices in the calling of animals.  Of course Martine was missing, they could not be examined in flying in a class room, but Birgitta's absence was more strange.
Then she was called into the sick bay. Taavi sat in a chair next to the couch, and bade Susan take a seat in the other chair. "Now," he said, "You're living in a small town in the country. People have come to the conclusion that you can cure their petty diseases and so on. Nobody knows you for a witch. You mean this situation to continue, but still you want to help. A mum is sitting in the chair in front of you and her son is playing with the toys in the basket. He's the problem. He's got warts, big ones, all over legs, arms and torso. What are you going to do? Think before you answer." Susan thought. She was a witch, she could remove those warts like this with a spell or a potion, but that would reveal her. Slow. That was it, that was the keyword. A potion then ... not a spell, but how? She thought a bit more, then she spoke up: "If I haven't got an anti-wart potion," she began, looking questioning at Taavi. He nodded, and said "You haven't."
"Then I'll ask them to return tomorrow, as I'm out of anti-wart band aids. Then I prepare a potion, put a little on some brightly coloured band aids and stick, oh the yellow ones at the arms, the blue ones at his legs, and the red ones on neck and torso. I tell him that these band aids have to sit there for as many days as he's years old - make that five, and then he'll have to put all the band aids into one bag and throw them out just before going to bed on the fifth day. That should work." Taavi wrote something in a small notebook, rose and followed her to the door. Susan was unable to guess whether he was satisfied or not.
The exams went fairly quickly actually, and after describing and naming plants for Täthi, Susan found herself entering the blue door where Gilvi set up a problem for her: "A young family, Mum, dad and a baby just moved into the neighbourhood. They have heard that you can sometimes help people with strange problems, and now the dad is at your door. The problem is squirrels. They pester the little family, eating their nuts, stealing the food away from the chicken feeders, scaring the baby. Imagine something like Donald Duck and the two chipmunks." Susan smiled. "Can you help them? You go with the dad to their house. Now you think, while I get a squirrel," Gilvi said and went to the cages in the back of the room.
Susan thought to herself. Squirrels are a pest generally, curious and inventive. Even if not really as bad as Chip and Dale, they still can drive a family nuts. Suddenly the terrible truth dawned on Susan. She did not know the Icelandic word for Squirrel. Then she thought back to the very first lesson in Icelandic. Pig Latin. Could she do it in pig Latin? She just had to try. Not to try was a sure fail. She composed a calling spell. ' Irrelsquay, irrelsquay. Omecay to emay, omecay to emay.' And later, if the squirrel reacted she could continue: 'Opstay opstay, do otnay esterpay histay ousehay, leasepay.'  She grasped some nuts from the plate at the table and was ready as Gilvi returned with the squirrel in a cage. Susan shook from sheer nerves, she drew big, shuddering  breath and began her incantation, very quietly and then a bit louder. Gilvi's head snapped up as he heard the words. But he did not speak. Slowly the squirrel turned to Susan, Gilvi opened the door and the small animal ran to Susan's hands. She offered him a nut and then she was one with the small animal. The nut was delicious, it was pure bliss eating it. Susan had an idea. She showed the squirrel the nuts in her hands, and spoke to it with the small voice inside her head: 'Squirrel, you're pestering this family. They do not like what you do to their chickens.' She showed the squirrel a hen to ensure its understanding. 'If you leave them alone, I'll give you more of these very good nuts.' The squirrel understood. It promised, but Susan sensed that its mischievous manners would not let it keep the promise for long. 'Squirrel,' she said earnestly. 'Every time, before I give you a nut, I'll go and ask the family if the chicken were really left alone You behave or no nuts.' Susan saw the little reddish animal hang its head. 'Promise.' it said clearly and Susan handed it another nut and released it from her spell.
"That was splendid," Gilvi said, "but why on earth did you jeopardize it all by speaking Pig Latin. You did not want to show off, now, did you?"
"No!" Susan said in an almost inaudible voice. "I had forgotten - or maybe never learnt - the Icelandic word for squirrel. I just had to do something. Not doing anything was not an option."
"No," Gilvi said, his face suddenly dark and sombre, "Not doing anything is never an option. Now you've better get on to the next place." 

The last exam for Susan was divination and fortune-telling with Torben. When this was over and done with she tried to escape via the blue door only to find a new line there. Only one of the waiting apprentices at a time were let through by ML. Susan's turn came soon, only Monica and Finnbogi waited before her. Behind the door and down a flight of stairs she went. Then, down on the landing Birgitta stood with a table filled with cards all showing only the backsides in front of her.
"This is the last test," she said. "You have to find the ace of Spades by sensing the cards."
"Yes," Susan said. "I understand."
"But can you do it?" Birgitta asked, her pretty face looking strangely twisted in the semi darkness of the staircase.
Susan extended her hands over the decks of cards. They all felt alike to her. Then one felt a bit hotter, and she flipped it. It was the ace of Hearts.
"Close, but not close enough," Birgitta said. "Try again." Susan tried some more, but it was not until she had turned over four more cards, that she suddenly was sure that this was it. and it was. With a heartfelt sigh she left the farmhouse behind her and ran out into the yard. Here she was met by Heidi and the twins.
"How did you do?" Heidi asked in an excited voice.
"I think I flunked chiromancy" Susan answered. "I said that Torben was going to have 8 children and die at the ripe, old age of 35. Which I think he has passed already. I might have mixed up the lines. 3-4 children and ripe old 80 sounds way better, don't you think?"
Heidi began laughing. "I had trouble with that one as well. But I transformed that old shoe no problems ... and I found the right card at first try. Heidi and Tage tried three times each."
"And I six," Susan smiled. "I wonder how many is still 'passed'."
"Oh all below ten is fine, I think" Tage said. "It was a lot of cards. Surely more than one deck."

Monica, Harald and Finnbogi also joined the apprentices in the yard and then the bell struck three times. "Wauw, it's three o'clock. No wonder I'm hungry!" Tage said. The professors all came down the stairs and out into the year as well. Martine came out from the Barn and spoke in a magically enhanced voice. "Dinner is served, Come in here everyone." It was a dinner fit for an examination day. Delicious soups, hot stews, still steaming bread of different kinds and forms, hot tea, coffee, cocoa and soda pops to drink. The tables were set in smaller groups, not the normal long table and while the professors all sat together at one table, the apprentices were free to seat themselves as they liked.

Remove Double Spacing!

Or: What I do every time, I have written a Blog Post.

Edit: I promise to soon stop agonizing over D... New Blogger, but here's another one.

  No matter how careful I am, I sometimes forget to press "shift + enter" and just hit "enter". Or I insert text from somewhere else. Or I insert a photo, or a link, or just plain write something. Any old how, my nemesis:  Double Line Spacing, is sure to occur.

I  do this. Every time ... when first writing and editing is done.

For "pase" in the last section, please read "paste"

Mission complete and hit Publish. Stupid New Blogger!

Poetry Monday :: Favourite Potables

Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings and Diane of On the Border are taking turns supplying us with a topic for this weekly endeavour. They also both write wonderful, funny, thought-provoking, ingenious or simply honestly well written verse. Go and read. Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is taking a break due to her husband's health issue. Let's continue to send warm thoughts, good energy and lots of prayers their way.

  I feel a bit like singing the same old song in new dresses. Because my favourite whatever is not one (Hubby is the exception to this rule), but dependant on temper, season, weather and company.

  I have something to ask of you: If you read this and the poetry of others, would you please leave a comment. Half - if not more - the fun of these challenges is receiveng the responses of others.

I love a glass of water on hot, bright summers day.
I'll take a mug of tea, dear, when skies are murky, grey.
And when the snow is falling, hot cocoa is a treat,
For every single season no drink meets every need.

At Summer's beaches swimming we love our lemonade,
Hot coffee from our thermos as Springtime's brook we wade.
A Winter's day of cold and grey for mulled wine do call.
In Autumn's clear those I hold dear like milkshakes great and small.

And for a birthday party our differences are a task
For some take tea, and cocoa some, and others even ask
Politély, but nonetheless for neighbour's bitter hops.
So we take this and coffee too and different soda pops.

And every day when darkness falls and evening comes around
With after dinner cuppas we surely will be found.
Dear hubby sips with eager lips his coffee strong and hot,
While MotherOwl with quiet howl takes tea from steaming pot.


The topic for next Monday is A High School Antic. Thank you Mimi.

Smart Farmers - Sunday Selection

We were on our way home from mass (last Sunday - I do not - unfortunately - own a time mashine). Suddenly I saw something in a field and snapped some photos.

Here we see it throught the bus window. Those strange dots in the top is some kind of anti-glare sun protection.

I made a closeup to see if I was right. And I was - what do you see behind and to the right of the horse?

  It's a lot of white flowers. Normally this kind of plants have bright yellow flowers ... and they are not really supposed to be flowering rigth now. Blame it on impatient farmers - or climate changes.

  It is rapeseed, or canola by another name. The white flowering variety is suposed to keep the pests away. The rape pollen beetle to be specific. It goes for yellow! and during summer you can find heaps of them on anything remotely the same yellow as canola:  Dandelions, table cloths, T-shirts and yellow barns (the old way of keeping at least some of them from the fields). And these pesky bugs are - at least in theory - unable to 'see' the white flowers of those rape seed fields.
  This is wery smart, I think.

An even closer closeup, not very good, but you can still see the that the flowers are white.

TAK - Thankful

   I dag er Uglemor glad, når hun kigger på vejrmeldingen fra Bedre Vejr. Ikke fordi det bliver regnvejr i morgen - det er hun mindre begejstret for faktisk - men på grund af den lille ekstra afstand mellem skyerne, som pilen ved den glade smiley peger på.
     For den betyder at sommertiden slutter i nat - og vi får normaltid og dermed vil det være lyst om morgenen igen fra på mandag når vækkeuret ringer! HURRA!

  Today I am happy when I look at the weather forecast from Bedre Vejr (means Better Weather). Not because it's going to rain tomorrow - I'm less excited about that actually - but because of the little extra space between the clouds that the arrow next to the happy Smiley is pointing at.
  Because it means thatDaylight Saving Time ends tonight - and we get Standard Time back and thus it will not be dark any more when the alarm goes off come Monday! HURRA!

Words for Wednesday - 21 10 part 2 - Journey to Unicorn Island

   From the words and phrases we were given for Wednesday I used the ones with a line through them in the list. (Psst, what's the correct English word for this Kkkkk?) Another way of saying that I still have Hypothesis, Calf and Goody two-shoes left over.
  I'm not sure what to do about Goody two-shoes, for even after googling, reading and thinking, I'm not sure, I understand the meaning well enough to use it.

thanks
preparation
hypothesis
gradual
island
calf
     and/or one or both of the following phrases:
short end of the stick
goody two-shoes

Susan enjoyed the train ride to Grandma's train station. It was a long ride, each half took more than an hour, and then she had to change trains at the Central station in Copenhagen. During the trip from Elsinore to Copenhagen Susan ate all her sandwiches, and drank the juice. Then she went out into the narrow corridor, pulled down the window and put her face into the wind. She felt the regular heart-beat like rhythm of the train beneath her feet, saw fields being harvested, cows grazing and followed the dizzying up and down of the power lines along the track.

The second train, was the one going to Germany. It was exciting, because at least today some of the rail cars were German. Only one of those was second class without reserved seats. Susan climbed aboard. The ivory and red coloured trains were quite different from the normal Danish red ones, looking a bit like a circus caravan in Susan's eyes. In the German train she pulled up all the tiny tables hidden in armrests and under the windows as she was all alone in the compartment in all she found six small tables hidden in the compartment. One for each seat. She had fun folding them out and back again. At the next station a family of three entered her compartment. She sat down at the window, ant pulled out the tiny table by her seat. Then she wrote and drew in her diary until she reached her destination. She carried her suitcase down the corridor, hustling and bustling with strangers all trying to get on and off the train. Finally she succeeded in getting off the train by following closely in the wake of a very fat man getting off there as well. She found the bus to the island, it was not departing quite yet, so she sat down her suitcase next to the post with plans for departure, and walked around for a bit.

The bus drove through the town, and doubled back after reaching the old paper mill, then it left the town, Shops and bigger houses gave way for farmhouses and smaller villages like the one Grandma lived in. Gradually all the other passengers got off and when they crossed the bridge to the Island, only Susan and two elder children, brother and sister were left in the bus. The two got off at the next stop after the bridge and Susan was all alone. The bus rode along over the dam, where Susan felt that the driver got very close to the water, driving another way than the one Dad normally chose. Susan felt a bit lost, but in the end the bus swung left into the known road, sand Susan recognized the place where she once brought a miniature grandfather clock for her home made doll house. Not much later the bus arrived at the last of the bus stops. Susan was happy, she was beginning to feel a bit green at the gills. The bus driver asked her if she was all right, as no-one was at the stop to pick her up. "Yes," Susan answered, "I've been here many times before. I know the way, but thanks a lot for asking."
She picked up her suitcase and began walking away from the bus stop towards The Magician's House. Where was Heidi? She had promised to be at the bus stop. True to her word Susan knew the way. and walked on in the balmy Autumn afternoon.
As she turned a corner in the road, she saw a small, dark moving figure at the end of the road. It quickly grew larger, split into three, and then Susan could recognize Heidi, Tage and Lis who came running towards her.
"I'm so sorry," Heidi gasped, "Aunt Jemima arrived, and she ... " Heidi had to stop and catch her breath. "She's intolerable," Tage continued, "going on about our family all the time. Her hypothesis is that the more ancestors you had, that were wizards or witches, the better you are."
"We're going to prove her wrong by having you call every mouse from two kilometres and more into her bed," Heidi said laughing so hard that she had to stop from lack of breath once again.
"I think it's hopeless!" Lis said. "Even if you called a calf right up to her in the middle of a big town she would still only see what she wanted to."
"And she kept us for so long. We had to dress properly, shoes and all for to pick you up at the bus stop," Heidi said indignantly. "We could not run around as peasants' children was her words. I don't give two hoots about my ancestors, or yours," she said, hugging Susan tightly. "Just you take care and do not let yourself be fazed by her attitudes."
"I won't," Susan promised. "But I won't take it lightly if I do not pass the exams given us the next days. Do you know any more about which subjects and when?"

... to be continued.

WfW - 21.10

In October Messymimi at Messymimi's Meanderings is supplying the Words for Wednesday. Today she has given us these two sets:

thanks
preparation
hypothesis
gradual
island
calf
     and/or one or both of the following phrases:
short end of the stick
goody two-shoes

It is now Friday before the first Autumn Holiday at Unicorn Farm. We all know how this ends, as I have told the story of the broom racing earlier on. But these in-between, Susan at home, or filler chapters have to be written as well, and the words today suited one of those.

Susan sat sulking in her room. Thinking to herself: "It's going to be the worst Autumn holiday ever! Why do I always get the short end of the stick? Linda has new clothes if she even bats her eyes at them, she goes riding once a week, and Dad drives a hundred miles or more to bring and fetch her from those silly parties. Well to be honest, he fetches me from parties as well, I just don't want to go to any. All I want is to spend my holiday at the Unicorn Farm. But no. Can't do. Heidi and her family even offered to put me up at their place. But no, and no, and more NO! I've got to stay at home, playing host to the terrible cousins, be friendly-looking when they invade my room and play with my stuff, even breaking it.  I can't even lock the door. I tried all the keys in Dad's big key ring from the cellar. None of them fits. Tomorrow they'll all be sitting exams and making preparations for the broom racing contest down at the Island and I'll just have to sit here, waiting for the invasion." Her anger gradually subsided, and gave way for a bout of crying. She felt lonely, unloved and lost.
She fell asleep, tucked into the corner, and awoke, disoriented when Mum called her down for lunch.
While they ate, Linda told that her friend Jeannet with whom she went riding each Wednesday, and who lived just around the corner, was going to a riding camp during the Autumn holidays. "And not long after she and her family will be moving far away. To Odense, or somewhere thereabout, I think." Linda said, surreptitiously drying her eyes. "Can I go to that riding camp as well. It'll be my last chance to be with Jeannet for a long time, maybe for ever." 
Susan secretly hoped, that Mum and Dad would say yes. Because then she might be able to go to Unicorn Farm as well.
"Well," Mum said, "I think we might be able to afford it, How much did you say it cost?"
"I did not," Linda said, "I'll go and ask Jeannet at once."
"No, don't." Mum said. "I'll 'phone her mum, maybe we can arrange for her dad to take you both, and Dad to drive you back here. Then we only have to drive one trip each."
Mum went to the telephone upstairs, and came back down smiling. "Yes it's a deal. Jeannets dad will pick you up at half past eight tomorrow morning, and Dad will fetch you both at the camp next Saturday."
"Oh," Susan said. "Can I go to Unicorn Farm then? It's not expensive, It'll only cost you the train ticket there and back again."
"Do you really think you can go there all alone?" Mum asked.
"Oh, Mum," Susan said with a tiny sigh. "You've sent me to the Central Station in Copenhagen to pick up Grandma a couple of times already, when she comes here for a stay. I think I can find the train going there just as easily as the one going back home bringing her with me. And when I phone Heidi's parents to tell I'm coming, I can ask them which bus to take to get out there. It's not as if I was going to a foreign country, If all else fails, people still speak Danish, and I can ask for help. I'll promise not to talk to strangers. only train crew, policemen and such. No-one else. I'll behave nicely, sit and read, wash my hands and eat my sandwiches. I can do it. I'm not a baby any longer."
"Yes, I can't see why not." Dad added. It would be kind of unfair to let Linda go to that riding camp, and then forcing Susan to stay at home with that boring old family of hers."
"Oh, Benny. Stop teasing. Yes, you can go, Susan. You've better both start packing,"she added.

Later Mum came into Susan's room. "I see that you've already packed. But why are you putting your books into the cupboard? And you still look sad. Aren't you happy?"
"Yes. I'm very happy, thank you," Susan said. "But I still have a problem. The terrible cousins will get into my things, and with me not being here, there's no telling what they'll do, break and ruin. You are not keeping a very good eye on them, and neither are their mum and dad. No, I'm not blaming you or anything. Those two are a handful, and I understand that you want to sit and talk rather than watching those two. They are rather spoiled, and ... well, you know them." 
Come and have some tea, then we can try to find a solution.
"Susan's been telling me that brother Frans' daughters are quite a pest." Mum said as she filled their cups. She turned to Susan: "Do they normally get into your things, Susan?" 
"Yes they do, or rather, they did," Susan answered. "Now, when you invite them I tie the door to the mullion in the window nearest the balcony. And then I climb from my window to the balcony and enter the house through your bedroom. And when they are gone again, I repeat the procedure, climbing from the balcony onto the cornice outside and in through the window. Then I untie the rope and everything is back to normal again. What a luck my door opens outwards." Susan smiled.
Mum did not smile. "But Susan. That's dangerous. What if you fell off the cornice. It's a long drop to the ground. Do you remember the boy at Linda's birthday party. He was lucky to break only an arm, when he fell from the balcony."
"I take care; of course I do. But I cannot leave my window open for a whole week. I need a key."
"There's a big ring of keys in the cellar, did you know?" Dad asked.
"Yes I know, And I've tried all of them. Some almost go in, but only almost. The key to my room must be missing. All the other doors have a key, and there's also some keys in that ring, that do not fit any doors."
"Is there a key for Linda's room as well.?" Mum asked, "she'll be away too, and as you said we're not keeping an eye on those two all the time."
"I sure hope there is a key to my room!" Linda said, "I'd hate to think of them trying to feed Snowwhite and her mate crumbs of birthday cake, or some such. They are quite a pain in the behind."
"Yes, of course there's a key to Linda's door," Susan said. "As I said. Once I was very bored I tried all keys and all locks in the whole house. All other doors than mine have a key, some share a key, some keys have no locks, but the only door I could not find a key for, was my own door."
"Now Susan," Dad said. "If you want to lock that door of yours, you have two choices. One with a great deal of fiddly work, one with not too much work, but it'll cost you some money. Option number one. You can take out the lock by unscrewing and pulling out the door handles. Then you can take the lock apart and make it fit one of the other keys by re-ordering the metal levers inside it. Option number two. Find out the number of the missing key and buy one."
"Thank you Dad," Susan said, "I'll try the one with buying a new key, I think. I tried making my wardrobe lock fit another key, and it was quite time-consuming and fiddly even with that simple lock." Privately Susan doubted that locks for Copenhagen keys worked the same way as the much simpler cupboard locks, but she saw no reason saying so and spoiling Dad's good tempers.
A quick perusal of the keys in the big key ring showed Susan that of the 64 keys in this series, Dad called Copenhagen keys, numbers 1 - 6, 11, 16, 31, 34 and 55 were missing.*
"That's maybe a bit many keys for you to buy," Dad said, as Susan told him the result. "You know, the number of the lock, and also the key to it is stamped into the lock. But of course it's hidden underneath a layer or four of old paint. Take this, and scrape off the paint. Then you'll know which key to buy." Susan hugged her Dad, ran upstairs clenching the tool and set to work. She prudently got an old newspaper to spread out to collect the flakes of paint. When the front of the lock was clear, she found a small, indented number "16" just beneath the latch.
She jumped on her bike and hurried down to the Mister Minit shop on the corner of the pedestrian street. The keys were not that expensive, so she bought more of the missing keys anyway after asking the man in the shop which were more common. When she returned home, she put her new key in the lock and tried to turn it. It went in smoothly, telling her it was indeed the right one, but try as she might, she could not make it turn.
Dad was still tinkering in the cellar, and as she described her problem, he extended a small red oil can. "Squirt a generous amount of oil into the lock - from both sides - and wait a bit. Wiggle the handle and the key now and then, The things inside the lock are all made of iron, and even if they're not rusted, they tend to grow together after so long a time."
  After dinner the key gave a bit, and later, just before bedtime it turned all the way. She locked and unlocked the door several times, and squirted some more oil in for good measure. The old oil, black and grimy, ran from the lock, and Susan had to clean the door. But the key turned more smoothly. She squirted in even more oil, wiping off the grimy oil as it ran out. After a bit, the oil was clearer and the key turned with ease. She wiped lock and surrounding thoroughly, put all the other keys in their place on the keyring and returned keyring and oil can to the basement. Then she found a key ring with a three coloured strand she had made at school, and put the key into it. She hung it just inside the door and went to bed.

Well, I did not use all the words, but we also still have to hear about the exams.
___________________________
*Susan's dad called these keys Copenhagener keys. Their real name is Danziger keys. Susan's cupboard key was a simple Rex key with only three teeth.

Bye bye Facebook - Updated - And Updated

That was one short lived pleasure. Now we're back to the new looks again. Poor us and poor Steve who worked all night to make it work.

Ja det var en kort fornøjelse. Facebook synes bare ikke, vi skal kunne bruge det gamle lay-out. Stakkels os og stakkesl Steve, der brugte hele natten på at gøre os glade.

--- o O o ---

Steve of FB Purity solved this problem. Visit revertsite.com for the solution. I hope it's a lasting one.

Heldigvis har Steve fra FB Purity løst problemet. Besøg revertsite.comfor at finde et program, der geninstallerer det gamle look - så længe det varer. 

English below. 

Samme meddelelse, som jeg har sat på min Facebook-profil:

Kære venner, bekendte og folk, som jeg deler interesser med i en eller flere grupper. Fra i dag bruger jeg ikke Facebook ret meget mere.
     Jeg sletter ikke min profil, men I kommer ikke til at se mig på hver dag, hvis overhovedet. Det nye look generer mig helt utroligt meget. Og en ekstension, der gav mig det gamle lay-out, virker nu ikke længere.

- De sagde, at det ville være lettere at bruge grupper, men alligevel er mine genveje halvt ulæselige, især hvis de fylder mere end en linje.

- De sagde, at det ville være lettere at læse, men det passer bare ikke.

Jeg har ikke lyst til at vade igennem et uendeligt hav af selvreklame og irrelevante ting for at komme til det, der betyder noget for mig.
     Det irriterer mig i dn grad at jeg nok engang skal lade andre menneskers stupiditet og pengegriskhed sætte grænser for hvad jeg gør, men som vi siger "So is life".
     Ydermere er jeg nødt til at have en ekstra browser installeret, åben og opdateret, for at gå på FB. Den, jeg ellers har brugt i mange år, kasserede ved en opdatering et par af de brugervenlige træk, jeg holdt allermest af. Og FBP (der i parentes bemærket gør FB udholdelig) kan ikke køre på min nye browser.
     Måske vil FBP engang blive opdateret ... Måske vender jeg tilbage, men lige nu er FB bare et irritationsmoment.
     Hvis du alligevel ser, at jeg er på, opdaterer jeg enten de grupper, jeg er administrator af, bruger Messenger til at få fat i nogen med eller spiller Pirate Treasure. . 😇


Bare lige et screendump af hver for at illustrere - der var nogen, der sagde, at det nye FB bare var som en forstørret mobil. Det synes jeg er enormt rammende.

Just a screenshot of each to show what I mean. Someone told me that the new FB was just the looks from the mobile device enlarged. Good description, I agree.

Gamle FB - så meget formindsket, som den nye er nedenunder - stadig mere indhold.
Classic FB diminished to the same size and New FB down below. Still more contents.

Løfter  --  Promises

Ny FB. Selv så formindsket er de gruppenavne, der fylder to linjer, svære at læse.
Jeg kan se hvornår, der er sket nyt, men ikke om jeg har læst det allerede.
New FB. Even  this diminshed, group names with two lines are hard to read.
I can see when a group was last updated, not whether I read it or not.

Cross-posting here from Facebook:

Dear friends, acquaintances, and people with whom I share a passion in one or more groups. As of today I won't be using Facebook much more. The new look is bothering me no end. And as an extension, giving me the old looks, does not work any more, it's bye bye.

- They said that using Groups would be easier, yet the Shortcuts are impractical and half illegible.

- They said it would be easier to read, but this is just not so.

I do not want to wade through an endless ocean of self-advertisement and irrelevant stuff to get to what matters to me.
   And furthermore I have to keep open and updated another browser just for FB; after yet another update, I had to change browser, and my new browser of choice do not support FBP (Which is the one thing that makes FB barely acceptable).
  Maybe in time FBP will update, maybe I will return, but as is, it's just too much of a nuisance. I'm pi**ed that I once again have to limit my life because of the stupidity of others, but as we say in Danglish so is life.
  If you see me online, I'm either updating the groups I'm an administrator of, using Messenger to reach somebody, or playing Pirate Treasure. 😇

Og i 2024 ser det sådan her ud - And in 2024 it looks like this.
Jeg bruger kun grupper - I only use Groups       

    og Messenger - and Messenger

Ja FB er på engelsk, fordi FBpurity virker bedre sådan. Og jeg tager mig ikke længere af grupperne, men man kan ikke slette dem heller.

Poetry Monday :: 19.10

Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings and Diane of On the Border  are taking turns supplying us with a topic for this weekly endeavour. 
  They also both write wonderful, funny, thought-provoking, ingenious or simply honestly well written verse. Go and read.
   Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is taking a break due to her husband's health issue. Let's continue  to send warm thoughts, good energy and lots of prayers their way.  

  This week Diane has given us: Diet Craze. And like everybody else I heard about this or that new diet fad. But I do not follow up on it. This time it's three poems for the price of one, no diets here.

DNB has acted up again not posting this a bit after midniigth today Grrr...


I've heard of diets quite a lot
Potato, water, cold and hot.
But never did I use them
There's always a birthday coming up
a Saint's day, holiday, oh stop,
With Muffins, Crumbles, Baba au Rhum ...
That's why I never can forsake,
The candy and the tea and cake.

But them something happened ... repeat post from long ago:

Source

I ate something
     I should not have eaten.
Now my brain is fogged
     And my innards feel beaten.
My bowels are burning,
     My eyes oh so heavy.
Oh why, MotherOwl,
     Did you taste that darned gravy?


So now I follow the FODMAPdiet. It is a strange diet. And hard to rhyme with, but I'll give it a try. Bear with me if there's a bit folk song army over some of the lines once again 😉 

Apples and pears? No and no.
Bananas, pineapples? Yes and go!
No wheat, no beans,
No chards, no greens,
And worst of all -
No mushrooms small.

No onions, garlic. Artichoke,
shall never more my stomach stoke.
Of milk and cream
I can but dream.
And cauliflower
Just makes me sour.

To prunes and plums I bade farewell
Yes, it is hard, as you can tell.
No figs, no peas.
Nor apricot
Or quince or cot-
tage cheese.

And if for unknown food I thirst,
I have to check their standing first.
All meat is fine,
So we can dine
Eat BBQ
Or feast on winters' stew.

But in exchange I had my life
Returned to me with fork and knife.
And if I eat what I ought not to,
All night sit swearing at the potty.
I mend my ways.
And Shepherd* praise.


Next Mondays topic from Mimi: Favourite Potables.
_______________________

* Sue Shepherd from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia is the inventor of the FODMAPdiet.
I think she's a candidate for the Nobel prize!

Show and Tell - Sunday selection

 Elephant's Child tells about Sunday Selections:

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim at Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.

The meme was then continued by River at Drifting through life.  Sadly she has now stepped aside (though she will join us some weeks), and Elephant's Child have accepted the mantle.

  The week that just ended was Autumn holidays in Denmark, and the weather has been mostly fine Clear, sunny and cold.
  We've relaxed, sat a lot in front of our computers playing catch up, writing, playing ...
  We've been to the woods hunting for mushrooms and wood monsters (no photos - they're rather elusive). We've eaten cakes and apples and fresh walnuts. Here's a little look into what happened.

On our way to the woods we got our bikes from the shed
This Marigold grew in front of it.
I hope it will propagate.

Morning sunlight over a paddock in our village.
It looks like there's a secret place in that sunlit corner.

And as usual the first frost arrived with the holidays.
GardenOwl is not amused!

We found this mushroom in the woods.
Beautiful, but inedible - even poisonous.
We also found a very small harvest of edible ones.

And one greyish day I spent revisiting, collecting and editing
the chapters of Unicorn Farm
and all my Poetry Monday poems.
This is a sketch for Awakening.

PS. D... New Blogger is acting up again - now adding empty lines between frame and photo and between photo and caption. I cannot find out how to eliminate them. not even in HTML, so they just stay. BOTHER THEM!

WfW 14.10 - On the way to Unicorn Island - 2

I wrote that I did not know where in the Unicorn Farm timeline this was fitting in, and that I was going  to wait with the archaic words until Susan has arrived at the Farm. But now both issues have been resolved. Here we go:

God’s acre -a churchyard
Larcener -thief
Weed - garment or outfit worn during mourning


In the morning, Mum said that today they would have no time for the pancakes. Grandma had invited them for a reunion.
  "But I have to be at Unicorn Farm at three!" Susan said.
  "You can make it," Ma said, "we'll be at Grandma's at 11 then Dad, Elin or Kurt can drive you to the Farm. Is it really that important?"
  "Oh yes," Susan said emphatically. "Today is the Grand Opening of the Easter holidays. I have to be there!"
  "Now get dressed," Mum said, "and you as well," she added looking sternly at Linda who still lay in her bed with only half an eye open.

At Grandma's place everybody had already arrived when finally Mum, Dad, Linda and Susan got there. Mum hugged her brother and three sisters, said hello to their spouses and her father, Granddad, who as usual sat in the big armchair by the desk, then she went into the kitchen to help Grandma set the table.  Linda was soon involved in a discussion about the latest fashion and music with Auntie G.s three girls, Susan felt left out. The two oldest cousins, two dour men, one long and thin, one squat and fat, sat discussing something monetary with Mum's brother, Frans, and the two smallest cousins, his daughters, were too young to really be any fun just yet, and clung to their mum's skirts. Granny came in, carrying a huge basket of bread. "Susan, have you ever seen my Autograph Album?"
  "No," Susan answered, "I did not even know you had one."
  "Oh yes, it was a total craze when I was young. These things seem to come and go. But I've misplaced it. Could you search for it, please?"
  "Of course, Grandma!" Susan said and got up. Grandma did not have very many books, a smallish bookcase in the best room, where they were to eat, had ample space for all of them. The topmost shelf contained cookbooks, books on herbs and spices and illnesses in animals. Susan put them in order, after subject, and continued. The middle shelf held assorted books, penny dreadfuls, romances and novels, all badly printed and on cheap paper. The names in the books were those of Mum and her siblings, and the dates from their youth. Susan also placed them nicely in their shelf. The bottom shelf held newspapers, photo albums and a big, old Bible, Susan looked inside. The first page was filled up with names and dates, Susan could not read more than a letter here and there. She turned to the printed text. It looked strange as well. "Have I forgotten how to read, or did somebody cast a spell on this book?" Susan thought to herself. She glanced at the newspaper, It was readable as usual. "Phew, I have not forgotten how to read." Auntie G cam in, carrying a tray. "Oh you've found the old Bible. Unfortunately it's not our family's names written there. It was given to Granny by an old friend."
  "Can you read this?" Susan asked. "Because I can't."
  "Oh, yes I can. But I see why you can't. This is the way everybody wrote before the turn of the century, but some places people continued to write like this. In rural communities in particular the change to Latin was slow. You see that last line there and the date 1918, it's still written like that. It's called Deutshce Schrift or Current, It's not that hard when you know the letters. Wait a sec. I'll get a book from my place."

As Auntie G lived in a modern house on the same plot, it was only a matter of minutes before she returned. But in the meantime Susan had stacked the newspapers neatly and found the Album. It had slid down the newspapers, and wedged itself between shelf and backing. It was a slim, rose-coloured book, with slightly indented multi-coloured roses and forget-me-nots in the corners, and the word "Poesibog" printed in gold in the middle of the page, in big flowing letters, also indented to protect the gold. Susan was reminded of Laura Ingalls and her book in Little Town on the Prairie. It must have looked something like this. And it proved to Susan, that Grandma's dad, a merchant on an island not far from where Grandma now lived, had been rather well off. But the book was a huge disappointment for Susan when she opened it. It was written in that very same scribble as the names in the Bible.

Auntie G returned, holding a slim, worn schoolbook. "This is the original book," she said, "You can borrow it for today, but later on you'll have to buy your own, modern copy. These can - thanks to the rampant genealogy craze - be had very cheap in any book-store. It's called Hanebogen. (The Rooster Book) for the picture on the front page." She opened the book at the marker. "Here's the alphabet in Current and the printed version too, it's called Blackletters, Fraktur or normally Gothic. Earlier two different types of letters existed side by side. Gothic and what we now think of as normal letters, called Antiqua, or Latin type. And they fought for supremacy. In the end Antiqua won everywhere, last of all in Germany, where some old people even today use Deutshce Schrift. Now you can study the letters, and after dinner, I'll help you read some of the poems in that Album."
  Susan sat down outside in the sunshine and copied the strange-looking letters from the book into her diary-cum-notebook, that she always carried with her. When Grandma called them all in to eat, she could read several of the learning verses in the schoolbook.

A page from Hanebogen

Dinner was nice, but Susan could not really enjoy it. She wanted to read Grandma's Album, and she wanted to be at Unicorn Farm in time for the opening.
  Auntie G sensed her discomfiture, and rose and came over to her. "Let's get started on the reading," she said. And to Grandma: "Would you please excuse us. We have some learning to do!"
  "Off you go!" Grandma said. I'll send someone for you when the coffee is ready."
Auntie G and Susan sat down at a bench in the garden in the sunny nook, Auntie G and her girls had built with all the stones from the garden. It was a lovely place on a cool spring day.

Susan and Auntie G slowly read the faded letters and found these poems on the first page of the album.

                Saturday 12 October 1918.
When widow's weed once you'll wear,
and in God's Acre sit and cry
Remember that I am not there
I wait for you in heaven's sky
        Peter, forever yours

                Monday 14 October 1918
When Death, ultimate larcener
Has taken all that you hold dear.
Remember we'll in Heaven meet
Though death is bitter, life is sweet.
            Olrik, your friend forever

  "Those two are rather morbid," Susan said.
  "Look at the dates," Auntie G said. "Grandma was 14 years old, and they were written during WWI and the Spanish Flu. Those two boys maybe died.  Grandma has told me of classmates and beaus, who never made it."

  "What's the time?" Susan asked suddenly.
  "Half past one." Auntie G answered.
  "Oh!"  Susan exclaimed. "I got to run. I wonder if I really can make dad take me there."
  "Take you where?" Auntie G asked.
  Susan told of the Unicorn Farm, the official part, that is, and of the festive opening planned for today.
  "Know what, Susan?" Auntie G said. I'll drive you. I've borrowed a car from a friend of mine this week, because I'm working night shift at the hospital during the holidays. Go in and say your goodbyes while I get the keys."

Continued in Unicorn Farm - Easter Holidays from June 2019

WfW 14.10 - On the way to Unicorn Island.

In October Messymimi at Messymimi's Meanderings is supplying the Words for Wednesday. Today she has exceeded our (at least my) expectations with these sets:

implicit
grass
spring
accident
ankle
start
     and/or the following somewhat archaic words
God’s acre - a churchyard
Larcener - thief
Weed - garment or outfit worn during mourning

I don't know quite where in the Unicorn Farm timeline this is going to fit in. There's almost no magic in it, as it recounts a typical trip from Susan's home to Unicorn Island.
I used all the ordinary words, the archaic ones, which I (and Susan) love, will have to wait until Susan has arrived at the Farm, as Dad in particular disapproves of  fancy words.

  Spring was in the air as Susan returned to Unicorn Island. She had rolled down the windows in daddy's car and sat with the head into the wind. It was almost dark, at it almost always was when they arrived at the island. Mom worked in a bank, and as it closed at 3 pm she was almost always free to leave at 4 pm, after balancing her till. Dad was an electrician, and more or less his own master, so he had been at home at half past three. But Mum did not show up. Actually she did not arrive until half past five, almost running, and out of breath.
  "Some money was missing all the time," she said as soon as she had closed the door. "One of the ladies behind the counter had an accident, she fell down the stairs and broke her ankle. And of course the money and so on from her till did not balance. And not by a small amount either. Not until we found the  wad of money she had held in her hands while slipping on the stairs did we get anywhere. And after those were counted, we still missed a 50 kroner note. We guessed it had flown off to somewhere and in the end we each paid a fiver to get home, and here I am. Give me half an hour and a cup of coffee, then we'll be off."
   "We can stop somewhere on the road and pick up something to eat," Dad said. " We won't make it there until too late for dinner anyway."
  "Oh, fine with me," Mum said, "I'll call Dina and tell her of our delay."

  They had stopped at an hot dog stand at the market square in a sleepy provincial town a bit more than two thirds of the way there. Susan had ordered Croque Monsieur with cocoa milk, and Linda had a coke and a cowboy toast, essentially the same as  Croque Monsieur, but with a hamburger instead of slices of ham. They each had two, while Mum and Dad ate big hot-dogs with lots of mustard and onions. Dad and Mum also had a beer each as well. The smell of mustard and onions in the car made Susan and Linda want to open their windows, But their parents complained of the draught, and in the end - after some fighting, scuffing and scolding - they took turns having their windows open for five minutes. And Susan was lucky. As they crossed the bridge to the island, her five minutes period was just about to start.
  Ergo she was able to sit with her head into the wind, sniffing the new mown grass from the many summer houses being opened for Easter holidays, the salt spray from the sea, and an occasional whiff of coffee drifting in.
  As they turned into the dirt road leading to the summer house, Dad stopped the car. A rabbit was caught in the headlights. It sat in the middle of the road, immobile, only its nose twitching. When they had all admired the little creature, Dad turned off the lights, and Susan could feel the rabbit's relief at being released as it jumped off in the dark. Then Dad ignited the car and drove the small distance to the summerhouse.
 Over coffee and soft drinks Mum recounted the story of the cashier's accident. Mum never said so in plain words, but it was implicit from her telling, that she was the one to foster the idea of looking for the missing money in the stairwell.

... to be continued

Poetry Monday :: Someone we have met

Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings and Diane of On the Border  are taking turns supplying us with a topic for this weekly endeavour. 
  They also both write wonderful, funny, thought-provoking, ingenious or simply honestly well written verse. Go and read.
   Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey is taking a break due to her husband's health issue. Let's continue  to send warm thoughts, good energy and lots of prayers their way.  

  This week Diane has given us Someone we have met. I have, as have we all, I suppose, met many people i n my life, I have even met many worth writing of, but when it comes to writing poetry, there's only one I can think of.  
  It is not the first time I have told about this poet on my blog. The impression he left on me is disproportionate to the time we spent together. Yes we spent - not many exactly, but far more than a few -  afternoons sitting at a table with a view to a pond. He with his beer, me with my chocolate milk. But he has had a big impact on my life, on my love of language and of writing poetry and stories. I still feel there's a debt to repay. 
I think I'll just have to repeat what I said in an old blog post: 

"... he was the poet of my youth. He was dubbed The Light Poet in his youth, but when I knew him in the years before his untimely death, he was a dark and - not bitter - but wronged man whit a big, red beard, gone wild and white. He drank too much, but talked more. I loved to listen to him, and only found out that he was a famous poet after he died and our local paper wrote an obituary praising him. Yes I was young and naïve, and he was a personality. I have the wan hope, that my unrequited admiration and my ignorance of his fame, may have been as much a consolation to him in these dark years as his company and poems were for me ..."

I once knew a poet, I thought he was old,
In his youth he was famous, I later was told.
 But now - as I said - he felt old as a tree,
His beard was all greying, so ... easy to see.
We met many times in the humble café
at the library, dark afternoons around three.
He drank lots of beer, and he talked quite a heap
I just sat and listened. confused and spellbound
He wrote me some poems, only later I found
They were not his own, yet their words were not cheap.
  
They spoke of nostalgia, heaven and hell
Why he wrote them for me is not easy to tell.
Well, somehow, I think we were partners in crime,
He at the end of his journey, I at the start of mine
He gave of his love of both rhythm and rhyme
I gave him my ears and a part of my time.
He did not live long, and I cried when he died.
Now I'm older by some than he was when we met.
I try to repay him, I'm still in his debt.
I'll never write poems as good ... but I tried! 


Next Mondays topic: Diet Craze.

Sunday Selection - Sushi Edition

 Elephant's Child tells about Sunday Selections:

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim at Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.

The meme was then continued by River at Drifting through life.  Sadly she has now stepped aside (though she will join us some weeks), and Elephant's Child have accepted the mantle.

  Last Sunday after mass we all - all the Owlets, MotherOwl, The Writer and BigSis' boyfriend and children - went out to eat sushi, which we all like. It was an unusual experience, not least because of the waitress. 

The whole array of unusual sushis.

Inari-sushi

"Red Dragon" sushi

Gunkan-Sushi

Sticks for the smallest ones

And our waitress!

Open Letter to New Blogger - Is single spacing a project for programmers? - Updated with an abstract in English.

Thanks to WWW for telling me that not everybody "speaks" HTML. The beef of the issue is that if you just press Enter, you'll have double line spacing. Shift + Enter gives the normal single line spacing in an easy way. A new trick to learn. I'm ranting a bit here about how irksome DNB can be.

-- 🖋️ original post ✎ --

  Hello Blogger! I need a feature to make single line spacing consistently and without having to re-choose "Normal" every time I go to HTML and back, or indeed every time I add a photo or ... (fill in your own experiences here).

  When I open a new post, it looks promising Yes! "Normal" is pre-selected!

But when I click the 'paper' to begin writing ...
all of a sudden it says "Paragraph" (Afsnit in Danish - I can't make Blogger speak English either).
  And even worse:  a  < p > (spaces necessary to show the code - don't see them) is inserted at the very beginning, making my post begin with two empty lines - but why?
  And this small piece of code is re-inserted every single time I switch between HTML and Write. 
 

Well re-selecting "Normal" once again, insert photo, press enter twice to insert new photo ... but now Paragraph is chosen once again! I select HTML to see what's happening here:
and all this was happening! All the code after "either)." was created by Blogger when I re-selected Normal. It should have looked like this: 

Nice and simple, two new lines (carriage returns) for oldies old enough to remember a typewriter. Do I have to open HTML and clean for five minutes every time I write a Blog post to make it look like I want it to?

Anybody out there tech-savvy enough to tell me how to circumvent this?

WfW - 7.10 - A Lesson in Cryptozoology

Today, as all Wednesdays in October, Mimi at Messymimi's Meanderings is posting the prompts - she actually did so yesterday my time, much appreciated. Today we are given:

genuine
dominate
moving
gold
embark
classroom
     and/or
bleed
absent
separate
affair
steep
beginning

   And as I had premade a lot of posts, I actually have 100 drafts at the ready DNB will not deter me this time even if the double line spacing from just pressing Enter is totally awkward and unnecessary.
  Here's another story from The Unicorn Farm:

The green team was gathered in the larger of the downstairs classrooms. On the centre table stood a huge aquarium, or terrarium maybe as it was only one half water, the other part was sand and firm ground with small branches and plants.
"Are those genuine Toad kings?" Kalle asked, his tow-haired head almost touching the glass pane to the aquarium, where a giant toad and a much smaller one sat looking back at him. They were alike, if you did not look at their size, flattish, wart filled bodies in mottled green and brown colours, green heads with silver and gold markings, that could look like crowns if you knew they were supposed to. Their eyes were liquid gold with dark brown slits. The big one, the lady toad, Susan supposed, opened her mouth, snatched a single woodlice from a piece of bark with her sticky tongue, pulling it in with something resembling a grin.
"Oh yes they are," Taavi answered, "And their eggs are about to hatch." Your homework for the coming week or two will be to keep a tadpole alive and thriving. You'll have to have at least one live tadpole each by the end of the second week."
"Will they have those golden eyes as well?" Anna asked. She was as blond as her brother, and also used to magical animals. They lived in a tenement in the suburbs of of Stockholm, but their grandparents had a farm, where magical creatures was known to be seen.
"Yes," Taavi answered. "Golden eyes tend to dominate, but now and then a tadpole with silver eyes hatches. They should be special, but if it's true or superstition I don't know. Maybe we'll find out in the coming weeks."
"Look at the eggs! They're moving!" Anna said, jumping from one leg to another.

Taavi distributed small nets on poles, and told the apprentices to fill small containers with water.
As the tadpoles began hatching, Taavi showed them how to scoop up the tiny creatures with the net, and transfer them to a water-filled container. "I want you to catch a couple or three each. You'll probably need a spare or two."
As Susan caught three of the tiny, comma-shaped things, their mother looked at her with her eyes of pure gold. "I promise to try and take good care of your babies." Susan muttered.

"For a first, you can feed them with a pinch of the fish-feed from the jar over at my table," Taavi said, "but after that you'll have to embark upon a research on King Toad tadpole's diet in your school books and those at the library. And," he added, "you'll have to bring the tadpoles with you, because we'll be using this classroom for something else in the weeks to come."

Terje dropped his container while trying to put the third tadpole in it. Of course he cut his finger on one of the shards, as he tried to pick them up.
Hilde looked at him with disdain, and picked up the tadpoles and shards with a sweep of her wand: "Don't bleed on the carpet, she said with an absent look in his direction. Go to the sink. And let Taavi mend that cut!"  She put the tadpoles in another container and placed it on the table. "They'll survive." she said. 
Taavi sent a surprised look in Hilde's direction, but he quietly mended Terje's bleeding thumb with an adept move of his wand and a short command in Finnish.

Half an hour later Susan, Terje, Knud, Rósa, Kalle and Anna sat round one of the tables in the library. Each with a container filled with water and lustily swimming tadpoles and a book or two in front of them. Veronika
Veronika, Kirstin, Hilde and the two Birch sisters, Josta and Marja were likewise occupied at one of the other tables.
"Hey, listen to this," Knud said reading  aloud from the book in his right hand: "When the King Toad tadpoles get older, they turn cannibalistic, the larger eating all weaker or lesser individuals, so that only a few, select individuals eventually reach maturity."
"Ouch, that was a good-to-know information," Kalle said. "We must have all of them in separate bowls, before they get eaten. Who knows if one of them smaller ones is not the silver-eyed variety. Too bad to have such a prize eaten."
Kalle and Anna ran for containers. Luckily the cupboards in the Stables were filled to the brim with receptacles in all sizes and materials. Among those a large shelf of miniature fish bowls. Perfect for this project. Susan got a jar of water and some mud from the pond just outside the Farm. They decided on natural water, but Anna fetched some pure water a the pump as well. Mixing it should be OK, after what Kalle had found in one of his books.

It was a delicate affair, and the handling of Toad King tadpoles had a steep learning curve, but before the day was over, they all had at least the beginning of a plan about how to care for their tadpoles.