Fredagsfrustration ~ Store Bededag

I dag er det fredag i fjerde uge i påsken. Tidligere var det Store Bededag. Men det er det jo netop ikke længere. Suk. Jeg savner i den grad det åndehul i foråret den dag gav.
     I år er det igen en ganske almindelig hverdag. Ugleungerne og Skribenten er væk hjemmefra, arbejde og uddannelse kalder.

Jeg savner Store Bededag!

Store Bededag var en fridag, der betød meget for mig. Det var så at sige en "gratis" fridag. Butikkerne var lukkede, så vi kunne ikke tage på indkøb. Vi fik ikke gæster, vi skulle ikke i kirke. Kort sagt, vi havde bare fri, og der var ingen, der forventede noget af os, ingenting vi skulle.
Det savner jeg i den grad ... den her lette, boblende frie fornemmelse, når dagen ender af "Tænk, det er kun lørdag i morgen!"

Jeg bliver altså ikke mere produktiv af at savne den!

Today is Friday in the 4th week of  Easter. Until now it was a holiday, Common (or great) prayer day, but again this year it is just another Friday. The Owlets and the Writer are off to jobs and training.

I miss this holiday. It was a breathing space in the busy spring, the period for exams, digging, doing ...

It was so to say a "free" holiday. Nobody expected anything from us, the shops were closed, so no shopping, we were not having any guests, we were not supposed to go to church (this was a Protestant prayer day only 😉). Not a thing in the calendar, and when the day ended, I always have had this light, bubbly feeling: Tomorrow is only Saturday! This feeling - of a week with two Saturdays - I am sorely going to miss in years to come.

I really do not think that this feeling of frustration and loss will make me a better, more industrious citizen!



Men stadigvæk:
Når Store bededag nu falder på 1. maj er det rødbededag.

Derfor måtte jeg, der ellers ikke bryder mig særligt om rødbeder, bestemt så enrække eller to  af dem i dag. For at det hele ikke skulle blive for rødt, valgte jeg en bolchestribet sort.

God rødbededag.

- o O o -

A Danish pun, that led to MotherOwl sowing beetroots.
And yes the beetroots are supposed to be striped inside, like a candy cane. 

A-Z Challenge ~ Stats

I did it!

I posted an A-Z post every day of April except Sundays

This year again I choose an easy way out. Each day I solved the Wordle of the day, using as starter a word beginning with the letter of the day.

As the alternative badges, as supplied by Lissa suggest travel I chose travel-related words as starter words, and for most of the posts I succeeded in adding a few words pertaining to my chosen starter word and telling a tale from my many travels.

One of the funny things about Wordle is solving it - or not - and the number of guesses you use for this, it lend itself perfectly to statistics.

Stats ~ Wordling
Looking through my earlier Wordle stats tells me that out of  26 Wordles I typically solve it in:
4 guesses 9 times,
5 guesses 6 times,
6 guesses 5 times, 
3 guesses 3 times, 
and fail 3 times.
Or an average of 4.8 guesses. How was April 2026 compared to this?

I solved 25 of the 26 relevant Wordles at an average of 4,8 guesses. My distribution of guesses can be seen in this grid:

I had the same average number of guesses, but fewer fails and fours and more fives and sixes.
I do not know if this means anything other than starter words not belonging to my usual batch pushes the number of guesses upwards, and some luck led to fewer fails. Let's leave well alone.

Stats ~ Blogging and visiting
I know there'll be a dedicated reflections post for this later on, but I'll do a bit now, when my mind is still on the challenge.

Blogs visited:
I visited - or should I say tried to visit - all the 144 participating blogs on the master list. I did not comment on all of them. I repeat, again modified, from former years' Stats post:

In past year I spent far too much time trying to comment on blogs that required a log in, wading through posts not touching on the A-Z at all or where I had to "fight" to get to the posts ... to the detriment of my visiting blogs that were interesting or were following the guidelines. This year I was not going to revisit non-participants, those requiring a large amount of blogging gymnastics, or those where I did not like the graphics or contents.

Why did I then have such a tough time again this year?

Non-participants:
Again too many blogs were not participating. Of the 144 bloggers signed up 20 did either not exist, had supplied broken links, or did not participate. This is 13.8 % of the blog. Even worse than last year.

I do not know what, if anything, can be done about this. We sign a disclaimer where we agree to this:

Blog Link *
Please make sure the link works and leads to your blog, not a specific post or area where you create your posts. Thanks! It must go to a PUBLIC blog where anyone doing the challenge may COMMENT WITHOUT LOGGING IN, SIGNING UP, or SUBSCRIBING.

The team visits all blogs at least once I know. Could they maybe in some way mark those "defective" ones on the master list so as not to waste loads of time for all the rest of us?

Read and commented:
I expanded on the list I made after the theme-reveals. I visited all the blogs I had not yet visited during the theme reveal, and marked them using the same system either Green for interesting, Yellow for maybe interesting (or interesting with bad graphics), or Red for not interesting. 
After a few days I had:
   7 in  Green 
 26 in  Yellow  only a few because of bad graphics
111 in  Red  of these also the 20 with no A-Z, double entries, or broken links.

Of the Green and Yellow ones and a fe w Red ones too, I have commented on 35 or maybe some more as my comment would sometimes just disappear. I had this happening mostly on blogs on Substacks, WordPress, and some in an unknown format. Some blogs where I have commented more than once still only count once in my stats.

As STATS is actually a five letter word, I tried to solve today's Wordle with STATS as a starter - same as last year.

Wordle 1.777 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Earning me yet an unclaimed Greens Only badge

And the solution - with badge:

A-Z Challenge ~ Z for Zones

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 Zones.
The average today is 5.3 guesses out of 6, or very challenging. I am below average again today.

Wordle 1.776 4/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Zones - When travelling you tend to forget that borders are more than the international ones we normally know and have to show our passport when crossing. Many countries have intern borders, partitioning the country into zones. And you have to have permission to leave or enter these zones, just the same as borders. We ran across this in Sudan. We were seven of us staying in a small village some hours' walk from Loa - which is situated between Juba and Nimule (This is a partia re-tell).


    The people in the village had lots of fun putting us to all sorts of jobs we couldn't really manage, like cleaning grain, grinding sesame seeds, weaving baskets, making bricks, or washing clothes. Then, when we were messing around the women, laughing and teasing, pushed us away and, gesticulating and talking loudly, showed how to do it. Even though we did our best, the results were not good to put it mildly, and there was much laughter.

At 6 pm the sun set and it got dark in less than ten minutes. After eating everybody gathered in a big hut and shucked corn off the cobs while people sang, talked and laughed. There was alwaus laughter, and we were annoyed at not being able to understand anything.

One evening, while we were shucking corn, the police arrived. They said that white people were not allowed in the native zones after sunset, and drove us to a "town" nearby. There weren't many more houses than in the village, but they were square and two-storey, They dropped us off at a cheap hotel. We were told to report to the police the next morning. It seemed very deserted. There we had to sleep and stay for a few days before the transport could talke us back to Juba again. We probably should have just given them some money - aka. bribed them, but we weren't that clever.

And now for today's Wordle:

A-Z Challenge ~ Y for Youth

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 Youth.
The average today is 5.3 guesses out of 6, or very challenging.. I am sligthly below average today - and being below average is a good thing when solving a Wordle.

Wordle 1.775 5/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Youth - Just because I ravelled so much in my youth. I have visited many European countries, a bit of Africa and Asia, as I told of under L for Lands.I think that travelling extensively in your youth is one of the best thing you can do.

And now for today's Wordle:

Månedens farve ~ Maj ~ Colour of the Month

Hello! If you're here for my A-Z post for W, please scroll down a bit.

Månedens farve for maj er  ~  The Colour of the Month for May is

A-Z Challenge ~ X for Xerox

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 Xerox.
The average today is 4.8 guesses out of 6, or moderately challenging. But it was a fail for me.

Wordle 1.774 X/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩

Also today I have no story to tell. Only that our parents took our letters home from the journey to Africa, hid the personal parts, and then they were Xeroxed and shared with other parents.

And now for today's Wordle:

The solution was not a word that I imagined to be the solution, it did not enter my mind ... actually no words with U and A in these positions did ... so I did what I do when I have no idea, I just enter the as yet grey letters in the order I see them, This means Q -W E - R and so on. QUA surprisingly have many strange word before reaching the solution ;) And I ran out of guesses.That last one I did not even think was a word.

Poetry Monday :: Plaid

Hello! If you're here for my A-Z post for W, 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: Plaid.
As so often when my brain feels empty, I take my refugee to short form pems, Haiku or Elfje - which seems to have a rennaissance under its German name Elfchen. I even found its name in English to be Elevenie. It is a small, but fun thing to write. Read more here.

Plaid,
Woollen, cozy,
Keeping me warm.
Alas, why is it
Itchy!

And as has happened for me more times recently I forgot to hit Publish, I blame busy, sunny spring days and the A-Z Challenge.

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

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

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
Jun 22  Lily
Jun 29  Northern lights (Aurora)

A-Z Challenge ~ W for Wagon

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 Wagon.
The average today is 6 guesses out of 6, or very challenging. I am below average again today.

Wordle 1.773 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Wagon - One of the parts a train is composed of. In Egypt took a train along the Nile through desert and ferile lands down to the Aswan dam - that's the train journey with the Nomads from N.

We stayed in the train for a very long time. It was strange to be suddenly analphabetic. But as we did not read much Arabic, we were functionally analphabetics here. Every time the train stopped, we asked, along with quite a few Egyptians actually: "Where are we?" And some smart person looked at the name of the station and told us.

We also drowe through a sandstorm, not a bad one, but we had sand everywhere. Even in the inside bottom end of my sleeping bag, that had been rolled together during the trip. I did not sleep in the train, but many did, and as the train emptied, some of the smarter ones crawled up and laid down in the overhead luggage racks. We even made a song about this, on the tune of Jailhouse Rock which had been made in a Danish version only a few years earlier. We had much fun and sang much during this journey.

And now for today's Wordle, which at the beginning made me think that they did not use any letters. Well they almost did not:

Sunday Selection ~ Wordle 🙂

🙂

The only thing I've found with the colour of the month:

Are more Wordles. It's not the exact same green, but close enough. Today I'm not doing A-Z, my Wordle does not count for my stats, I was free to fool around. I did and that may be why I did not solve it today.  It should not be that hard, only 4.8 of 6.

Wordle 1.772 X/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩

And the Wordle - with an almost solution:

A-Z Challenge ~ V for Visas

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 Visas.
The average today is 5.3 guesses out of 6, or very challenging. I am a bit above average here - but I feel a bit cheated. While looking for "how many Wordle solutions" out of curiosity and cited in O for Ocean, I read that Wordle does NOT use plural forms! I see now, searching further, that this was a half truth. Wordle does indeed use plurals, but only irregular ones.

Wordle 1.771 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩🟨🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Visas - To travel like we did through the countries behind the Iron Curtain, we needed lots of visas.

We spent at least a week waiting at embassies, consulates and whatnots and speak to often stuffy bureaucrats, only reluctantly giving us the required stampings in our passports. Some of them were beautiful, in multicoloured ink or flourishing fonts often in other alphabets. Later on we also acquired some in Arabic one of these even came with a stamp. I think it was the Egypt one. 
No drama here, only quite a bit of train trips to Copenhagen, where all the embassies were - and a lot of time wasted waiting.

And now for today's Wordle:

A-Z Challenge ~ U for Urban

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 Urban.
The average today is 4.3 guesses out of 6, or moderately challenging. I am below average again today.

Wordle 1.770 3/6
🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Urban - U was an unexpectedly hard starting letter. I really could find no travel related words. Also today I have no story to tell. 

And now for today's Wordle:

Trunk was one of the words I considered for T, so of course it was still upmost in my brain. Lucky dip this was.

Service Announcement ~ Train Accident

If any of you have read about a train accident in Northern Zealand and wonder whether it touches me, the answer is that it does.

Fortunately neither me, nor any of my family members were in these exact trains.

One of the Owlets should have taken the next one, and had to take a replacement bus.

Because yes, this is our train, the one we travel with several time a week.


I feel sorry for the wounded train drivers, passengers and their family.

A-Z Challenge ~ T for Towel

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 Towel.
The average today is 3,8 or moderately easy - I am below average today.

Wordle 1.769 3/6
🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Towel - The connection between towel and travel is of course Always remember your towel. One of the best advices from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

A Towel is about the most useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth ... you can lie on it ... you can sleep under it ... and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost."

And now for today's Wordle:

A-Z Challenge ~ S for Shots ~ Updated

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 Shots.
The average today is 5 or very challenging - I am below average today - with some luck.

Wordle 1.768 3/6
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Shots - I cannot believe I never told this story, but search as I may, I find no trace of it. I hinted at this too in my Bucket list part two - the have done-list:

Seen forest fires and deserts grand.
I've been to many a foreign land.
How many? Well, I cannot count,
As many are no more around.
I've been shot at in Damascus once.
I've candied quince,
Dined with a prince,
And also stayed for days with nuns, 

... "I've been shot at in Damascus once." is the line here. 
As I vividly remember having told this tale in writing once before, I'm going to search some more.

I found it - maybe I posted it as a comment to a long ago post on shootings, anyway here it is:

I have been shot at in Damascus once ... Me and one other girl from the travelling school with buses were on our way to the harbour, walking down a street, talking, fooling around, trying to find our way, and totally only mending our own business. Then suddenly we heard some loud cracking noices. Firewroks, we thought, but then we heard a zing-like noise close to us, and saw a hole appear in a wall in front of us. They were shooting!
We looked back, a group of men stood there, guns (rifles I think) at the ready.We looked ahead, more men, more guns. Loud yells from one group was answered by yells, waving of guns and a single shot from the other end of the street. They were angry. Not at us, but at one another. We were just in the wrong place, and we wanted noting but out! The street was fairly broad, but the rows of houses went on unbroken on both sides, no byways, no door opnings to shelter us. But a telephone booth stood near by. Old, worn, some windows broken, but for us it was golden! The lower "windows" all the way round were made of metal. We dived in. Lay down half inclined on our backs. And then we waited, smoking cigarette after cigarette. We heard more shouting, more shots, some whizzing close by, one even hitting the top of "our" booth. When silence finally fell, we barely dared move. But looking out, we saw a clear street, no black clad, shouting men, no dead bodies, nobody in short. We walked off, hastily, but not running. And we never told of what happened, as we had been in the wrong.

And now for today's Wordle:

A-Z Challenge ~ R for River

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.

A-Z Challenge ~ N for Nomad

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 dayuntil 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 Nomad.
The average today is 5,5, or very challenging -- I am still at or just below average, and I could have done better, guess number four was not smart, as I knew this could not be the solution. But even after getting it, I was not sure of the meaning of today's solution and had to look it up after.

Wordle 1.762 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Nomad ... Yes we met nomads while travelling.

In Egypt, we took a train from Cairo to the Aswan dam - more I hope later.
As we rode the train through the desert, where we experienced a sandstorm, the train stopped in small towns or near villages. Once the train stopped in the middle of the desert. There was a building next to the track - more like a glorified bus stop, open to one side with an overhanging roof. I guess it was for shelter against sun and rain for waiting passengers. Three men, dressed in flowing robes got off here and started walking purposefully away over the endless sand. As far as we were able to see - and we looked at the men for a long time - there was nothing but sand and the ruler straight line of the train tracks with the stop, dwindling in the distance.
Our guess was that those were nomads, due for the nearest oasis.

And now for today's Wordle: