AFTER THE SNOW .......... THE RAIN !!!!

I'm not one to moan about the weather ..... having lived in merry old England all of my life, we are used to seeing all sorts of weather at different times of the year BUT .....

..... Spring is really taking a long time to arrive. After the sleet and snow of last month, we now have rain !!!! Not so much April showers but RAIN rain !!

Still ...... there is nothing that can be done about it so I guess we shall have to make the best of it ..... we have scarified and aerated the lawn and fertilised it so, a bit of rain is going to benefit all of those processes.

.....and, perhaps a day under a few blankets with a good book { ..... I'm reading ' Miss Garnet's Angel " by Salley Vickers at the moment. Have any of you out there read it ? I'm really enjoying it as it's set in my favourite Venice }

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I must be one of those typical British people who are always talking about the weather, when I look back on some of my posts !

But, I shall embrace it and enjoy it just like Gene Kelly !!

Although, I couldn''t believe it when we were told the other day that, even after the wettest summer ever recorded, the snow, the sleet and rain that we have had so far this year :

That we will probably have a hosepipe ban !

Explain that if you can !!

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BY INVITATION ..... OUR GREATEST CHALLENGE ..........

Our By Invitation subject for the month of April is " Our Greatest Challenge !!

Well, we all face small challenges on a daily basis which makes us what we are in life. I'm not one who needs to challenge myself in a major way so, there have not been any great chosen challenges in my life, so far, that I can tell you about. There haven't even been any thrust upon me really ..... well, no one thing ..... nothing of any significance that will excite you all ! I guess that I don't consider the difficult things that we face in life as challenges ..... I just get on with them. I think that has something to do with the way that I was brought up ..... to face things head on and to deal with them.

I suppose that I could tell you about finding a breast lump and having it investigated, which was a bit of a challenge but, it was benign, thank goodness, so, that pales into insignificance when I think of what others have to deal with when they get a negative result.

I could tell you that I woke up one morning about 20 years ago and only had pin point vision in one eye and the full sight in it has never returned but then, how lucky am I that I'm not blind ..... SO .....

" Cassie fumbled helplessly beneath the shade of the ancient oak, still searching for her second shoe. The first had been easy to find, having landed close to where she had kicked it off : and when her hand finally encountered it, she clutched it to her breast in a gesture of smug triumph. For one brief moment, she felt a twinge of sympathy for the sighted people who would never experience such sweet victory from a task as simple as finding a shoe."

MELINDA CROSS

 ..... no great challenge for me there. 

I have dealt with everything that comes with having children , as millions of us have, but, they never posed any difficult challenges for me. Our children had the usual childhood illnesses with only one drama when our daughter was complaining of a terrible stomach ache and I told her that it ached because she had been sick all day but by the middle of the night I finally called the doctor who rushed her into hospital for an emergency appendectomy !!!! She never misses an opportunity to tell people about her wicked mother !!!! 

There have been the odd little things to deal with but, our children were never really a difficult challenge.

Working in the centre of London in the 1970's was a bit of a challenge . The IRA's London Bombing Campaign's during the '70's caused considerable destruction and left many dead and injured in their wake. I worked above Scott's restaurant in the centre of Mayfair. That restaurant and one opposite were the target of two of those bombs, the one in Scott's restaurant being the beginning of the Balcombe Street Siege ! so, my working life was a bit of a challenge........ you never knew where or when they were going to strike next. But then, this affected so many people not only in London but throughout the British Isles ......... I'm sure that my parents and their generation found it even harder during WW11.  

SO ..... I shall tell you of a little challenge that was thrust upon me one summer when visiting friends in Wales. My husband and his friend were off out on said friends boat, to do some deep sea diving and I tagged along for the ride. We were way out to sea and, diving done and lobsters, crabs and spider crabs caught for dinner, we set back for the harbour. 

Suddenly, a vicious storm blew up and it was going to be very tricky to get the boat back into the harbour so, for safety ..... 

..... I donned a wetsuit and flippers and had to swim to shore through the stormy waters ..... that was a bit of a challenge ...... we were quite a way out to sea. It's a good job that I'm a good swimmer !! I ended up in a sandy bay and sat on the beach for a minute to get my breath back. There was no one around ..... the beach was deserted. 

After climbing the cliff steps, still in wetsuit and flippers, I saw a bus waiting at the top, going back to the town that my husband was battling the elements to get back to. 

I cannot imagine what the bus driver and other passengers  thought of me, getting on a bus in full wet suit, flippers and no money to pay my fare !! He kindly let me travel free after he heard my story.

I felt a right twit, sitting on that bus !!

Here I am, after the event, none the worse for wear !!!!

That was over 35 years ago but, I managed to find the photograph.

Having been given this subject to talk about this month, it has made me realise that I'm not a very challenged person and that, so far { fingers crossed }, I have been very lucky not to have had major challenges forced upon me. 

Please pop over to Marsha to see some much more interesting challenges than mine !!

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