Words for Wednesday :: An Unforgettable Meeting.

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over as a moveable feast with many participants supplying the Words.
    When Delores closed her blog forever due to other problems, Elephant's Child (Sue) took over the role of coordinator.
    Now, after Sue's demise, River has taken the mantle of coordinator upon her shoulders.

No matter what, how, where or who the aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to our mind.

This month the words are to be found at Mimi's blog: Messymimi's Meanderings.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please leave a comment on River's blog, then we can come along and read it and add a few encouraging words.

 It is also a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true.

So Please, remember to follow the links, go back and read other peoples' stories. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction, feedback and encouragement. And we ALL need encouragement.

And for today we were given:
1.prefer  2.myth  3.common  4.category  5.store  6.image
    and/or:
1.flower  2.saintly  3.stormy  4.sheep  5.bank  6.face

Today I'll prefer a real experience to the myth I normally spin.

Today I was at a meeting in the room above the church, where we drink coffee after mass some Sunday. This is a common enough occurrence, but something happened to place this meeting in the "unforgettable" category.  I hope to store this image in my mind for a long time. We sat talking, almost done with the agenda, as the building suddenly shook. Not much, but enough to upset us. It was a strange feeling. We discussed what it could be, had the house been rammed by a car, or had something blown up? We went to the windows and looked out. I saw a car reversing out of the parking lot - totally unharmed. Nowhere was there any smoke or any signs of anything untoward happening. No ambulance or police sirens were heard. We joked with it being an earthquake, but then again earthquakes does not happen in Denmark.

We finished our meeting. Did the dishes, watered the flowers and lit a candle in front of the saintly looking picture of Our Lady in the church downstairs before parting ways.

It was rainy and somewhat stormy, not enjoyable, so I hurried to the train station, only just noticing some fun, knitted sheep in a shop window, but as there was no branch of my bank in this town, I just caught the next train home. In the train I saw a familiar face. My son was in the same train. I asked him if he had noticed any shaking or something. He had not.

Back home I sat down and read the news. An earthquake of magnitude 3.9 actually hit Denmark today at 4.15 pm. 

PS: I'm still haunted by "Bloogers" and still cannot always comment. I suspect many of you can't either, as there's even less than the usual number of comments on any post here.

Know that I read and enjoy still, and hope that you do the same.

Today's Wordle

Today the answer was one of my starter words. Unfortunately the last one, I chose, but it still looks fun:

Wordle 1.795 3/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Poetry Monday :: Balcony ~ Updated witrh a comment to Mimi!

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.

Dear Mimi. Stupid, stubborn Blogger simply refuses to let me leave any comments on your blog. I wrote:
Great poems on a balcony, the first was the best! I love that Little Annie is always wearing them blue boots ;)
- not big stuff, but I like to be able to comment now and then.

Today's prompt is: Balcony

I'm busy editing, the sun is shining, Blogger is still not updating or letting me comment ... lots of excuses, so I sat myself down and did what I do when the muses won't colaborate. I wrote an Elfje.

Balcony,
Romeo, Juliet.
The curtain rises,
the scene is set.
Tragedy.

May 25 Scooter
June 1 Blue
June 8 2 minute Sketch
June 15 Cobweb with Dewdrops
Jun 22  Lily
Jun 29  Northern light

Service Announcement Updated ~ Blogger! ~ Servicemeddelelse opdateret

Dear readers and co-bloggers, my blogrolls are not updating, and I am only sporadically allowed to post comments on Blogger-blogs. Strangely there's no problems commenting on WP or self-hosted blogs.

I'll try just visiting your blogs when I suspect something new has happened.

For instance: River has posted the prompts for Words for Wednesday, even if my blogroll still gives her former post.

--  @  --

Kære læsere og med-bloggere, mine læselister gider ikke opdatere, og jeg får kun af og til lov til at skrive en kommentar på jeres blog, hvis I også bruger Blogger. Der er ingen problemer med at kommentere hos WordPress eller self-hosted blogs.
    Jeg vil forsøge bare at besøge jeres blogs, når jeg tror der er noget nyt.
    For eksempel har River planmæssigt udgivet stikordene til Words for Wednesday, selv om hendes blog stadig viser det forrige opslag i min læseliste.

The no comments allowed looks like this. This is a screenshot from Messymimi's Meanderings, but it also affects many more blogs, among those Christine's Blog, Drifting Through Life (River), Strikkoman, and The Other Side of 80. Sometimes if I close down everything and reboot, I can post one comment, but that's not exactly a good solution. I hope Blogger will fix this soon.

Sådan her ser det ud, når jeg prøver at kommentere. Det er et skærmdump fra Mimis blog, men det sker også på Christine's Blog, River's blog, Strikkoman og en hel del andre.
Nogen gange går dagens første kommentar igennem, eller hvis jeg lukker og genstarter computeren. Men det er jo ikke en holdbar løsning. Jeg vente på Blogger.

New Wordle Badge ~ with Solution *⚠*

Today this solution:

Wordle 1.788 2/6
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

would have earned me this badge:

And the solution:

* *⚠* *

* * *

*⚠*

*

Poetry Monday :: Futuristic Landscape

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: Futuristic Landscape.


Walking in a futuristic landscape
The brook colours my feet yellow,
And from a tree I pick some grapes,
I find them sweet and mellow.

The rocks look molten, running, soft
Their shadows nice and furry
The bats fly from the pigeon's loft
In droves of velvet flurry.

At sunset, when the moon arises
and all the clouds go home
I see the birds in many sizes
Each carrying a tiny gnome.

The earth has holes beneath my feet
as good old Schweitzer cheese
The downs and feathers fall like sleet
And make me itch and sneeze.

The sneezing has made up my mind,
I'll leave this awful place
And for a land with sun and wind
I'll leave without a trace.


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

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

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 light

Sunday Selection ~ Søndagsbillede

Det bliver kun til et enkelt billede i dag. Jeg har haft for travlt i haven og glemt at tage billeder. Jeg håber på at få taget en masse billeder og vise frem i de kommende dage. Her er i hvert fald en hel plante fuld af guld.

 --  💛  --  🌼  --  💛  --

Only one photo today. I've been too busy digging, planting and sowing and have forgotten to photodokument anything. I'll have to remedy this later today.
    Here's at least one very golden, very vigorous plant.

Tillykke med de 100 år ~ Happy 100th Birthday

Link

And Ellen told me of King Charles' birthday greeting.
Here's a link to BBC: King Charles sends Attenborough a birthday message with help from 'friends'.

Effervescent Water ~ Part 3

Still there's the second batch of six words left over from yesterday. Those are:
Zero 
Simple 
Clockwork 
Brain 
Study 
Size

I continue the strange story about the effervescent water. Using the words in order, only not Clockwork - I could not make it fir at all.

"I don't know anything," Hilde said. "Thora took the water and things with a curt thank you. And she closed the door very securely - or maybe she even used a soundproofing spell, because I could not hear a word from in there. Nothing, zilch, zero!"

The green team went to their normal classroom and sat down. Nobody said anything, Terje was sniffing at regular intervals due to hay fever until Hilde lost her patience with the sound and in a subdued voice cast a small healing spell on him. He smiled, but did not speak.
Susan could not stand the silence and heavy atmosphere, but she did not know what to do.

In the end Rósa broke the brooding silence: "We might as well compare notes on the lesson Thora was teaching us today. What ingredient did you write down as the wrong one? I had sea weeds as the odd man out form the list, but I think it's wrong. I could find no reason for it, and neither did I have a better suggestion."

Sanne, the girl from the Faroe Islands said: "I am sure stink beetles were wrong, but I don't know why, some stinky mushroom that I only know in Faroese is the right one."
"You forget that the language spell is still doing it's magic," Knud said with a lopsided smile. "Just say it, we'll hear it in our own languages."
"Stinkhorn," Sanne said.
"Of course," Knud said, "that's the one."
"I agree with you as well," Susan said."Only I was in doubt that the solution could be this simple."

"But it is," Hilde said. "I know Stinkbugs are wrong because it is the stinking cloud recipe, and it calls for stinkhorn, not stinkbugs.  But I do not know why it should be wrong, only that it is wrong."
"Maybe because it was the only animal thing in the list?" Susan said. "All the others were plants or inanimates. At least that's what I wrote on my slip of paper."
"That's a good guess," Veronika said. "I think it's right."
"I think so too," Kirstin said. "I admit I had the wrong one, Sulphur, but after listening to you smart ones I think you're right."
"I had the same idea," Knud added, "only I never got to writing it down. I sort of forgot, but now I remember."
"Did you sit next to Marja?" Hilde had a cunning gleam in her watery blue eyes, and her plain face was almost beautiful from the excitement. When Knud nodded, she exclaimed: "I think I know why the Birch sisters were inattentive, and why Thora asked us to wash hands and mouths in the effervescent water."

"How do you know," Terje asked. "I only knew Stinkbugs were not right."

"I have been taught to use my brain, and I have studied hard even before I came here. Let's go to the library. I need to look in one of the books there. It is a big book, that's why I do not have it in my bag. Its size makes it very impractical."

In the library Hilde found a long, slim book. It would not fit into any school-bag. She quickly consulted the index, and found one of the dark yellow pages: "Listen here: 'Effervescent water, while normally not used for potions or philtres due to its bubbly, reactive nature, is an easy to use and efficient antidote to the effects of Dream Drops.' There we go. The Birch sisters have probably been using Dream Drops, and the effect had spread to at least Knud. That's why she asked us all to go and wash in the water."

"Erm, sorry." Knud said "what the bugger are Dream Drops?"

And the explanation for this, and Thora's lecture on the use of those
and teaching and learning at The Unicorn Farm will have to wait.

Words for Wednesday ~ Updated & IWSG ~ May 6

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over as a moveable feast with many participants supplying the Words.
    When Delores closed her blog forever due to other problems, Elephant's Child (Sue) took over the role of coordinator.
    Now, after Sue's demise, River has taken the mantle of coordinator upon her shoulders.

No matter what, how, where or who the aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to our mind.

This month the words are to be found at Mimi's blog: Messymimi's Meanderings.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please leave a comment on River's blog, then we can come along and read it and add a few encouraging words.

 It is also a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true.

So Please, remember to follow the links, go back and read other peoples' stories. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction, feedback and encouragement. And we ALL need encouragement.

And for today we were given:
Inane
Trees
Wind  
Effervescent  
Landmark  
Method
    And/Or:
Zero  
Simple  
Clockwork  
Brain  
Study  
Size

These words will probably lend themselves to a story. But not today. I only just returned home, and have to helpcooking, and after we'll have visitors. Hopefully tomorrow ...

I got to sit down for a little while and writing happened. This continues from here, using the first six words, and as usual in the order they were given.

Marja, the youngest of the birch sisters, looked at the entangling vines with an inane look in her green eyes.
"Where did they come from?" she asked her sister in a loud stage whisper. Paula woke from her own reverie and noticed the vines tying her to the chair. "Danged if I know!" she replied a tad too loudly.
Thora turned to the two sisters, and they turned as white as the tree they were called after.
"You did this!" Paula said, belligerently.
"Yes and no," Thore replied calmly, but with an undertone as cold as the howling wind  in a snowstorm. "You were both inattentive - again. The kind of inattentive that comes from disrespect and laziness. You never heard my questions, you never even tried to answer. You were both so deeply ensconced in your reveries that you did not even notice the creeping vines." They were not used to seeing Thora this angry, and everybody in the room sat quiet as mice.
"But," Marja said, "I just wanted to ..." her voice died off in mutterings.
"You just wanted to what?" Thora asked. Marja stammered and spluttered and grinded to a halt.
"What about you, Paula?" Thora asked.
"I was thinking," Paula replied, still with some spite in her voice.
"You were thinking," Thora said, "and in such deep thoughts that the vines bound you without you even noticing. Now, spill it!"
Thora turned around: "Green team! You are dismissed! You'll all go and wash out your hands and mouths in the effervescent water in the big, blue tub in the stable. And Hilde after you've done this, you'll bring me two litres of said water, two mugs and a pair of scissors."
"Yes, Thora, will do!" Hilde said, every line in her being showing the same confusion they all felt.
They did as ordered. In the stable, where all the cages and other paraphernalia for zoological and botanical lessons were kept, they found a big, blue tub filled to the brim with effervescent water, bubbling, foaming and dancing, and a nearby table held green mugs.  They rinsed their mouths in the water, spitting the sweet tasting concoction into the long white sink along the back wall, where they normally washed vases and containers. Then they poured water for one another washing their hands with the same water. Their hands and mouths felt clean and faintly tingling. None of them dared disobey Thora's orders, but there were many questions asked, and no answers given.
Hilde filled a two litre jar from the tub, grabbed two mugs and a pair of scissors from the drawers and left.
The rest of the green team, stayed in the stable, looking fascinated at the bubbling waters in the tub.
"I do not understand," Terje said slowly. "Where did those vines come from. And what was the answer to Thora's questions?"
"Dear Terje,"  Knud said, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we do not understand anything either. We're travelling unknown land with no landmarks here."
"I agree," Nicklas said quietly. "Something strange is happening. That's not like Thora to behave like that over a bit of bickering and inattention. There must be some method to this madness."
"Must be," Veronika agreed, "Even if I see no connection between a botched potions recipe, animated pincers, vines and a big, blue tub of bubbling waters, there must be."
Hilde returned and everybody stopped talking and looked expectantly at her.

 . . . . . To be continued

- - A - - B - - C - -

May 6 question - What was the most inspiring feedback you received from readers, including agents, editors, and beta readers

My answer - This qustion makes me sad, because the best inspiring feedback was not one comment from anybody. It was something I still miss, namely the unvavering enthusiasm of Elephant's Child, also known as Sue @ myjustsostory. Now sadly deceased. 

I wrote this as part of a preamble to one of my short stories: 
Sometimes I felt like I wrote my stories for her alone, when time were tough and hot in Australia. ... I still miss her gentle presence in the blogosphere ...

Not that others are not enthusiastic or supportive, because you sure are! and much of the reason I'm still a somewhat sane person and blogger THANKS!
EC was just ... I don't know how to express this the way I want to ... but you felt like a very special person when she commented.

Here's two of her wonderful comments.

Tirsdagstaknemmelighed

Thankful Tuesday

Birketræerne taber deres rakler allerede. Det betyder snart ikke mere birkepollen. Atjuu-uuraaa!

The birch trees are already beginning to drop their catkins, spelling the end of pollen season Achoo-ooraay!

Also, back to my normal Wordle words, I get my usual 4 guesses solves:
Wordle 1.781 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

The Danish Wordle. I do worse in Danish!
Wørdle #1.578 5/6
⬛🟦⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟦⬛⬛⬛
🟦⬛⬛⬛🟦
🟩🟦⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Og dagens bonus-skønhed ~ And today's bonus-beauty

Kvæde ~ Quince

Poetry Monday :: Back Pack

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: Back pack.
An ode to my old friend it is then.

We've travelled the world, me and my back pack
We walked down roads and off beaten track.
I carried you, you carried my stuff - and a snack
A bottle of water and my sleeping bag.

You met with an accident bitter and black
The bus with us in it was hit with a smack
You bore the brunt of it and now you're a wrack
I have to find a new one that has my back.

Another true story form one of my many travels. The bus we sat in - and where the luggage was stored in compartments under us - ran into a wall or another solid object at a very low speed. Most important nobody was hurt, and almost nothing was broken apart from my poor backpack, the frame of which was twisted and bent beyond repair. It made it home with me, but not without chafing and trouble for me.

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

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

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 light

A-Z Challenge ~ Reflections Part 2

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

Today's Wordle says it for me - only the solution does not count:

This was my last year participating - at least the last year signing up. I like very much to force myself to blog almost every day for a whole month, I've found a hopefully entertaining and fun, but still easy to do challenge with the day's Wordle and some telling. I really find participating in the A-Z Challenge to be a fun thing to do.

Why then do I stop? I stop, because I find the downsides to be too many. Bear with me for some ranting.

The trouble with the master list:
When the sign-up had ended, I made my own copy of the spreadsheet. After a quick visit to most of the blogs, I had found double or triple signups, non-participants, broken links, and a blog or two where you had to sign up ... leaving me with 125 of the original 144 on the list. A bit worse than last year actually.

I still find that a wee bit of policing from The Crew would wastly improve the fun to be had from this challenge. But it's not that bad, I could totally live with it ... if the rest was fun.

The not-for-fun-any-more in Blogland.

This year the A-Z Challenge felt more like an extra job. Not the writing of the posts, even if this is a labour, it is a labour of love, as I do enjoy blogging.

As said more times already I find the challenge in itself fun, but the social media hype and the assertive and truculent challengers not so much. There's plain too many in it just to promote something, and too few in it just to tell a story, to goof around, or for plain fun.

Not taking into account the blogs I follow regularly, during the challenge in former years I've always found some blogs I looked forward to visiting every day.
    This year ... I found a couple that was really fun, and a few more that had me reading every day, but of the rest I felt that too many were promoting something, be it themselves, their books, thier products generally taken, or some spiritual well-being stuff.
    And if not, the subjects did not catch me, or the graphics were so messy that I could no read it. These two last are of course on me. 

I might just have grown old, disillusioned, bored, and bitter,

It might also be a clash of cultures. I do not know.

All I know is that I'm not going to sign up again next year

Wordle 1.780 6/6
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

A-Z Challenge Reflections ~ Part 1

'This is what the Team behind the A-C Challenge writes on the A-Z blog for the Reflection post.
My replies and comments will be in blue, like this text.

Our team theme this year was: A is for Aspirations: Blogging hopes, dreams, and goals

Do you feel like our team's posts from this month met your expectations for that theme?

First off a HUGE thanks to the Crew behind the A-Z Challenge. THANK YOU!

As far as I read the Crew's posts on the A-Z homepage, yes they fit the theme. But I feel a bit that it's work wasted, as I was too busy really reading them, and I felt that the most frequent use of these posts was self promotion from other participants.


While you reflect on your blog's April Challenge posts, please consider this:

How do you feel about the Theme Reveal? (Especially if this is not your first year doing the Challenge.)

I feel that having Theme-reveal AND Sign up is overkill. There's no extra value in the Theme reveal, as we're asked to add our themes in the sign-up spreadsheet as well.
As Lissa says in the comment, the Theme reveal list alone would do nicely, maybe prolonging the closing date until March 31 would be wise. I don't think the possibility of signing up should overlap with the Challenge proper.

In what ways does the reflection post help you?

I don't know. I always write them, hoping that it'll help improve next year's A-Z Challenge, but so far no luck.

What experiences have you had in the past, or hope to have this year, with the Road Trip?

I always promise to do it, but then life happens. Maybe this year.

    Does the HTML on the badges/ graphics page help you?
No.

    Did you meet your blogging goals in April?
Yes, I wrote all 26 posts.

    What were your top five favourite blogs from the challenge to visit in April this year?
I want to mention Whatever I Think of and the bookish scavenger hunt there. It was fun. Not that I did not find a few other good ones, but this year I found only a few I really looked forward to reading. Also I ran out of time. I would have loved to solve Jamie's crosswords @ Uniquely Maladjusted but Fun, I'd have loved to follow LindaMay Curry's journey with Cancer @ The lost Summer, (Curry Apple Orchard), or seen all of America's beauty with AM @ Ramblin' with AM, and so much more. But my eyes, never good, were especially uncooperative during May.

Did a co-host (J Lenni Dorner, Arlee Bird, Zalka Csenge Virág, John Holton, Jayden R Vincente, or Ronel Janse van Vuuren) comment on your blog during the challenge?

Yes, and thank you.

Is there a comment you received on your blog in April that is your favorite?

Yes there is - but I'll keep it to myself.

Who were your top comment-leavers this challenge, and did they do the challenge?

I don't know, as I don't keep track of comments. I suspect Mimi @ Messymimi's Meanderings or River @ Drifting through Life, but then we comment on one another's blogs throughout the year. Actually I just looked to my stats - and found a strange fact - I've had fewer visitors and comments during A-Z than I normally have. I wonder why. 

Is your blog open to comments from everyone, or only comments from those who "sign in" to the platform?

Yes, my blog is open to everyone, always. older posts are moderated, to avoid spamming, but never limited by log in or captchas or any such. 

    Do you feel this helps or hurts your blogging comment goals?

Erm, sorry. I do not understand. Other blogs having log in or Captchas surely prevents me from commenting, if this is what you mean.

Are there any other blog hops you regularly take part in?

Poetry Monday, Words for Wednesday, Sunday Selections and Colour of the Month (Colour26). All these have suffered because of the A-Z Challenge.

Did you discover anything interesting because of the Challenge?

Of course. Reading so many different blogs would make me discover something :)

Will you plan to do the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge in 2027, and why (or why not)?

No, I won't. Because ... please read my A-Z Challenge Reflections ~ Part 2 for an explanation. 

Will you recommend this blog hop to others?

Neither recommend nor the opposite.

If RoadTrippers only visit one of your Challenge posts, which would you suggest and why? (This question is also the prompt if you create a RoadTrip post.)
Do you plan to visit the A to Z site every month?
    The site gets many hits, even in the off-season!
What else could the team offer you to persuade you to encourage others to join the challenge?

I do not plan to visit, I do visit now and then, mostly to see if you're doing something like the Zip through Autumn Challenge from 2022.

To make me do the challenge again in 2027, and encourage others to do the challenge as well ... Good question. It's not the challenge as such that makes me say no to doing this again, but something has shifted, from fun and sharing to a hard seriousness and monetizing of a lot of things ...

I do not mean to disdain anybody's hard work, and I really admire the Crew for their dedication and all what they do, but still, I don't know ... It was way more fun some years ago, and I have no idea how to remedy this ...

Sunday Selections ~ Gold in the Garden

And once again I find I've forgotten to hit Publish.

I am happy the A-Z Challenge has now ended, and I solemnly swear not to participate again.

~ 💛  ~  ~  💛  ~  ~ 💛  ~  ~  💛  ~ 

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

All the gold I found, walking my garden in the overcast, early evening.

Her er alt det guld, jeg fandt i min have, da jeg gik en tur i det overskyede vejr først på aftenen.

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: