One afternoon Mary decided to visit Jean in the nursing home. Jean could not walk and she had severe dementia and was an angry woman but nevertheless there was something about her that Mary liked enough

Can I come along as well cried her cat Emile peevishly,,,?

No Jean doesn’t like cats and she’s a very determined woman so I’m not going to set her off by taking you in there and don’t say you can stay my handbag because it’s hot were and I don’t want you to suffocate silently.

Would it be alright if I suffocated while mewing?

?

Emile I cannot risk you suffocating because I love you that’s why I’m leaving you at home by yourself. You can always go in the garden and meet some other cats

Emile stalked away like a woman with injured pride

When Mary got there, Jean was having a bad day

I want to die she screamed. Will you kill me? Please do please do,,,

It’s illegal for me to kill you Mary told her rudely

Oh you’re such a coward Mary: be brave and kill me. I’d be really grateful

Well it’s very difficult to kill someone like you because you are naturally strong and strangling you  would be extremely tough probably impossible and how could you be grateful to me when you were dead?

If you believe  there’s an afterlife then you cannot kill yourself or be killed by me it’s murder in either case.

You’re a chuckling print, Jean shouted.

I understand what you mean but I think you’ve got the wrong word! I have seen this written down but I’ve never heard anyone so it out loud that is, c*nt.

Why what’s wrong with it?

Nothing in itself but when it’s combined with another word like f*cking it becomes unspeakably unpleasant and anyway you should not use that name as a curse word. It’s where new life is born. It’s like a flower like a rose or a carnation

Mary thought to herself  I think I’m going to write a poem!

I never said it  answered Jean but there’s got to be some way of expressing my frustration

Talking about the afterlife Mary said politely you jave been married twice. When you go to heaven which of your husbands do you want to be with you for all eternity?

Thinking about it very carefully Jean sat silent for quite some time. Then she gave a most intelligent response.

I loved them both the same

In that case you are a very fortunate woman although I know it’s very hard for you now. Would you like me to bring my cat next time I come? He is called Emile and he is very very interesting and can speak good English. Or I have a friend who’s a paramedic called Dave and he makes very good cakes and biscuits and likes to wear dresses in the summer

Triumphantly Jean announced that she would like to see both the cat and the paramedic as she was very bored in the nursing home and she loved to talk to people or even to animals

And so do most of us

https://www.thetimes.com/article/335e06ce-1466-11eb-bca5-e85774a5f3b9?shareToken=dd935bc9c401ec9cdfd2000f115d5a39

Please play before parking your car Don’t go home without your dripping

Please use a different credit marred

Please be police to other passengers on this plane

Do as you would be stunned by Don’t be anti-specific in this Motel

Keep Britain Pernicious

Are you a Fascist? Free tuition in the UK

Please drive your car to the Brexit gate before decaying

Keep your seat polished in Church

Don’t leave the IOU today Johnson said, “what EU” to my cat

The Sermon on our doubts

Are you racist about God?

What a Gnostic! It’s Greek to me.Gnow,gnow. The Church of England is praying in Europe this week

Leave the memories be kind My sister likes to pray on her piano every day .

What’s on the TV? Just the cat I’m afraid.

Income Tax goes out

You can’t fool glee.

One litre is Equal to How many Glasses of Water? [Solved] https://share.google/hHd6FVq4TYD4g2lM0

The sun lay on the leaves like molten gold

I had to shield my eyes, it blinded me

I gazed with joy on the red maple tree.

The sky was violet blue,the air was cold.

The birds  this fall don’t emigrate, they flee.

They’re foreign birds,the Sun has told

The sunlight on the leaves was molten gold

I had to shield my eyes, it blinded me.

All that’s foreign like the sun is told

We don’t want you here, depart our trees. 

We want no alien folk within our fold

The headlines scream, the people are aggrieved

The sun lay on the leaves like molten gold

https://www.flippinpain.co.uk/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/learning/word-of-the-day-sheaf.html

I do not like advent calendars with beauty products on each day.

Is you know what advent is and you want to celebrate it or to prepare yourself for the birth of Christ assuming that you are a believer then how can you possibly want the advent calendar to have beauty products daily I don’t know whether you get them in packages or whether you are just told the name but it’s in bad taste to my mind

If you’ve no idea what advent is then fine you must wonder sometimes about advent and lent etc etc etc

 

 

 

Do you rinse the soap suds off your face
And wash  your hair with eggs and lemonade?
Do you go to bed  in purple tights
And silken tops that shine in sweet moonlight?
Do you have a dagger in your bag?
And wash your hair with Lucian’s  paint rag?

Would you like to live your life again?
Would you live through  every single pain?
Would you have a mattress on your bed
Made of memory foam and heavy lead?
Would you  let a  pixie cut your hair?
Would you go to Yorkshire for the Fair?

 Would you go on Cruises with a man?
Would you put a tax on  copper pans?
Would you go to Edgware when deceased?
Would you tell me you were very pleased?
Would you  give up dreaming if  betrayed
By people who you knew were  sick, depraved?

Write a letter,send me with the post
Put me in your pocket  if I  boast
Tell me  nuts are good for  breaking teeth
Send me daisies in a funeral wreath
Ask my other if he will come home
Send me to the doctor wrapped in foam

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/24/a-mind-of-my-own-by-kathy-burke-review-a-brilliant-blunt-and-beautiful-memoir

I saw my level path turn steep and dark

I saw a tunnel black without a light

I hesitated wondering how to stop.

But seemed intent on death or sudden flight.

No human being held out a warm hand

They left me all alone in anguished pain Yet how should I in that state right decide

What was best for me, what made a claim?

The golden warmth like clouds from rising sun

Wrapped me all around till we were one.

There was no speech ,no person and no blame

No demand, no order, love remained.

Beyond despair I found this unknown care.

A sheet of tears ran down my poor face bare.

Each of us  likes  our  own quiddity;

As it makes us unique,don’t you know?

And if we are felled by liquidity

We must be sure not to  get drink   up the snow.

 

Our fingerprints, our eyes and our shadows

Are not shared with anyone else.

So as we lie in the butter-cupped meadow

We must ensure we will never be  false.

 

Quiddity’s a word that the toffs use

Anglo-Saxon  is   thought  non de trop.

O Temper O Celtic  O Flores.

Norman said he told me so.

 

Per ardua ad astra  perggun tree

Eton men all speak in Greek.

So tell them to eff  of if  flumshee

The English sure know how to speak.

 

 

At dinner with  folk from the Gunnament

Be sure to say ,eclectic’s inchoate.

But when you’re at home with your fundament..

Do keep your self esteem well afloat.

 

Why  is the tongue of the Bible

Not something the rich like to speak?

Maybe the eye of   that needle

Has made them more fluent in Greek.

 

Even the poor can have chutzpa

As they fry up a bagel in  lard.

Oy vey, the Messiah is out there.

So give away on your  new debit card.

 

 

Good Lord,God must speak Aramaic

Or Hebrew  and/or HTML

For the commandments may be  somewhat archaic;

But their translation  has given us  all hell.

 

On the shelf I found a prize I won

I came out first in an old school exam

They rewarded me with this book I revered

Catholic prayers, a manual of fear.

Its pages edged in gold, it’s very swish.

Maybe I should stand this in a dish.

I would put it on the table when I ate

And read a prayer to keep me out of date

I look inside and see the latin verse.

It moves my heart remembering, rehearsed.

I liked the latin ritual and the hymns

But not the constant emphasis on sin

I thought it was my fault that daddy died.

The weight of all the world was multiplied

I think I’ll put the prayer book in a drawer

I don’t want to see it anymore

Latin is no longer used in church

Once  it was the way we kept in touch.

Now everything’s in turmoil nothing lasts.

I wish the past would stay right in the past.

This is a phrase that is commonly used. Like many of these phrases it’s got a lot of wisdom in it.

But it sounds a little bit like yourvself is a bog that you can start sinking into. And then it’s hard to get out of it

So we can get too deep ruminating and thinking about ourselves and  not look at the world around us.

I suppose a good book might do that but it might be also better to go outside if possible

Meeting someone friendly and having a conversation about something other than yourself could be good

Of course sometimes we have to think about problems and ideas and things that we have in our heads to sort them out but if we get overwhelmed then obviously it’s not going to be very good for us

Lots of the time we’re doing things we have to do like our job or looking after family members cooking meals etc. so our minds are distracted.

When I was young I remember distraction was regarded as a bad thing but it’s now regarded as good if you are suffering from chronic pain for example and no doubt for mental health problem is although I don’t really like the term mental health

I’d rather say we’re all struggling with difficulties in our human life in this world some of us are more than others somehow than worse than others but basically it’s just a question of degree. So

When I was in hospital and I was delirious I was convinced that one of the nurses was going to kill me. I thought it might not be true but it seemed very convincing

I didn’t know then that paranoia is very common in hospital patients but it’s horrible nevertheless it’s not so far removed from everyday life

You must remember going to the cinema seeing the film lasting for two or three hours and then coming outside and feeling very weird as if you weren’t related to the environment there anymore but fortunately you would return to normal after a little while.

Everything is a question of degree I think. But when things get to a certain point we might need external help or we might need to do something to get us out of ourselves and into the world.

I’m not sure why but gossip becomes into my mind because that’s what a lot of people do perhaps women more than men sharing information about the neighbors possibly with the idea of being helpful but also it’s a distraction and it’s natural to want to know about other people and what they might be doing or what they have done why they are now imprisoned etc etc

Even having a hot bath could get you out of yourself.

It was raining at Annie went round to Mary’s house next door. How quickly we forget the hot summer she thought to herself privately without telling anybody at all.

Mary was making some tea

Go and sit down Annie I’m just putting the washing machine on before I bring the tea through

The two women sat down in Mary’s drawing room next to her sketch pads paper and her drawing board

So any gossip to share she queried

No I went to the clinic and at my ear syringes and now my hearing is much better but it’s hard to find anywhere that will do it now.

They have referred me to ENT Mary told her mellifluously. They said I need hearing aids but it will be a year before I can

get them because there’s a long waiting list adult suppose the government wants us all to go deaf. I told the audiologist that I can hear music all the time and at first I thought it was coming from somewhere outside but then I realized it’s actually self-generated

Yes you have mentioned it before  said Annie.

Does it really bother you?

Not always but my tinnitus is really bad this morning I can hear a very strange noise now.

It’s the washing machine said Annie humorously I can hear this as well.

What a relief that is because sometimes I hear a sound like thunder and lightning.

Lightning ia not a sound!

UB surprised what happened when you’ve got tinnitus and the senses may get confused sometimes

Oh maybe this thunder sounds louder actually is louder when there’s lightning as well.

I don’t know how we can check that without some scientific instruments and there to expensive for ordinary People to buy but it’s possible if we look on Google or duck duck go that there may be reports of experiments carried out in universities or other places I’m sure there’s a lot of research on storms. Why when I was teaching I met someone who had been the first person in Britain to do flood research.

I wonder what sort of noise you would hear if you actually in a flood in your area like your street or your town?

I think we were too worried about safety to worry about the noise.

Emil was so fed up with the conversation that he scratched there is ankle with one of his claws

I’d rather talk about sex and love and romancem

Wouldn’t we all asked Annie plaintively.

And so say all of us

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/sep/10/creativity-unconscious-process-incubation

Whether you are learning something new or trying to switch on a computer that you’ve not used for a long time when should you stop if you don’t succeed immediately?

Well when the adrenaline starts to run through your body you should stop what you’re doing and put it away if possible.

If you must continue wait till you don’t mind stopping and then you can start again but you should repeat this if you get the same problem.

There’s no point killing yourself because your computer won’t start so it’s better to ask for help then if possible

If you’re short  of money, I hope you’ve got friends because getting help from people you know is really nice

Paying someone if you can afford it is also good because people have to make a living so don’t be too keen to do everything yourself especially it’s making you a nervous wreck

Mary had been reading a new book called,” The Path” by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh.To her surprise, she saw it reviewed on her phone where she read the guardian news

.She had decided to get out of bed on the other side
When she awoke the next day, she remembered her vow.Unfortunately, she forgot she was inside a fleece sleeping bag with a zip on one side only.Should she get some scissors and cut her way out on the other side?Or was that a foolish idea since nobody but she would know she had failed her to keep her first new promise.
She heard a noise and them her friend Annie came in wearing a long satin nightgown and a green velvet trench coat.
How do you like this, she asked Mary?
Mary was very red yet silent
What is wrong, with you Mary?
I need to pee but I can’t get out of bed on the wrong side.
You have no choice, said Annie.You must not wet the bed or die from a burst bladder. Get out on the right side

But I feel a failure on my first day.
Maybe that is your lesson.Accept you can’t do it and get on with your day.
Mary ran to the bathroom.What a relief passing water can be to poor ladies who suffer afflictions in these regions.
Annie went down to the bijou yet complex kitchen and began to make some toast and boil some eggs.She gazed at the peach walls and melon cupboard doors unable to decide if she liked them.Maybe kingfisher blue might have been better.Too late now.Mary could not afford a new kitchen even if this one was really old.At least it was not orange as was common in the 70’s.
Mary came in with her golden hair standing up on end like candlesticks from the Synagogue.
I just got a shock, she said
I can see your hair is standing on end.Was it the electric socket?
No, there was a man looking into the window and I was naked in the bath.
Perhaps it was King David, Annie joked.Why don’t you have frosted glass?
Stan said it would frost itself in the winter.He was the least practical man in the world.
Maybe we could glue artificial frost onto it?
Who was the man, asked Annie her cheeks pinker than her perky pink lipstick by Licumb ; those lips which were so thick and sensual with a lovely curve.
Mary tore her eyes away from these lips.I didn’t have my glasses on, she said.Maybe it was a man from a hot air balloon?
Maybe someone fancies you at last,saidAnnie.
Do you think I’d go out with a man who does things like that?
No, you could stay in with him, Annie joked, as tears of mirth made her green eyeshadow and red mascara stream down her cheeks like rain after a nuclear explosion.No wonder men ran after her in the street.
You could succumb to his charms,Annie whispered.
I think I’d like a man more sensitive than that, Mary screeched.
Well, Mary, you are so lacking in knowledge the art of flirting you only notice men when they do something really wild or unusual
Like what, asked Emile who had just munched up a bowl of dried cat food and was full of energy.
Well, Stan kept pretending he loved reading Newton’s original writings which he bought from some unusual website thinking it would impress Mary. However as he failed O leve; maths 5 times he could not understand it.He sobbed and cried in the public library and Mary was moved by his grief.Later on, though, he became angry at her intellectual talent and took me as his mistress to get back at her.She never even noticed!
I don’t see how having a mistress is a revenge on poor woman who was given her genes by God, said Emile.
Don’t be daft, she buys her jeans from TK Maxx, Annie answered.
And so do all of us.

I can’t write any more right now!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/aug/31/michael-rosen-guide-to-having-a-happier-day-in-bleak-times?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

BBC News – The little-known Welsh writer who was a Nobel nominee https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62n4n1r4ngo

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/18/are-we-living-in-a-golden-age-of-stupidity-technology

When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind
And certainty seems but a demon dream,
When the faith to love is what no-one can find
For even when asleep, the mind still schemes

When darkness and defeat seem close at hand
And lights dim even as we pray for peace
when wrecks and ruins rile the native sands
When in this life we feel we've lost our place...

Then at the saddest depth we see the light
Surrounding with such warmth,with love adorned.
The path that seemed so wrong now leads us right
And in our hearts, warm feelings are new born

Within each storm there is a calm still eye
From there we see the fiercest clouds blown by

Little plants that grow near to the earth

By storm and tempest rarely are destroyed

They hold themselves to be of little worth

They do not wish to bully or annoy

These little plants will flower and make their seeds

As beautiful as any garden rose

Every living thing is made to breed

The wisdom of the humble we must know.

Walking on the paths across the hills

We trample on these flowers but don’t destroy

These wild flowers revive they are not killed

By walking boots that still this earth annoy.

These little flowers are holy and they say 

The proud may be in error in their way

https://www.etymonline.com/word/wry

I took my temperature yesterday morning and it was rather low that is it was about 35.4 centigrade so I thought I’d better take it again in the evening

I looked at the thermometer and it was 41.1 so I talked to myself oh my god I’ve got sepsis!

I was too tired bother ringing anybody like 111.

I took it earlier today and it seemed to give the same reading but when I examined it closely I realized that somehow I had converted the scale into Fahrenheit.

The reading was 97.1 Fahrenheit so beware. I do find it difficult to read certain types of instrument or on various sorts of surface