Blog for Thursday 20th August 2026

I woke up before my alarm began her noisy announcement that it was time for me to rise and shine!

I had my Quiet Time, uploaded my blog and was delighted to see in my emails that Hester had sent me two more chapters of the book she is busy writing.

 Hester, I loved what you have managed to do here in these few sentences - after all the noise of dogs barking hysterically and the humans chattering on in an unknown language– you have created with these words such a contrast – just beautiful!

“Meine silently stood his ground. His hindquarters trilled in spasms and saliva dripped from a fixed-in-anger grimace. He would defend his friend to the death. Adolf stood transfixed.

Then all became quiet.

Somewhere in the distance, the sound of running water spoke, giving the picture life.” (This sentence did it for me!)

Well done, my friend! Keep going as I am loving receiving the instalments of your book, but I am also happy to wait when you need a break!

I did all the washing today as the sun was really nice and warm – not this lukewarm wishy-washy winter-time sunshine that we have had for ages.

I can almost smell spring in the air now Hallelujah!

I have tried playing by using both my computer screens and it is still a little bit like rubbing my tummy and patting my head or vice versa! But I will get there.

Tonight, I think I will serve the Mexican mince on savory rice with peas. Seeing we still have enough mince for another meal.

Then at about midday I pulled my cross stitch out and allowed myself to do some more of it!

What control Gail Morgan!

Hah, but that did not last for long! Nah, the control was still there but I had to stop my cross stitching!

In the afternoon Paddy phoned Ken as he needed Ken to transfer the ute’s ownership from Ken into Paddy’s name and so we had to find a NSW Service office nearby. I discovered that there was one in Gosford and one even nearer to us in Erina.

So, off we set to find said NSW Services and we got mightily lost and were driving up and down roads and getting even more lost. So, I stopped, parked and took a deep breath and then slowly retraced our way ack to somewhere that we recognized! Again, we stopped and I spoke to a dear lady who said that we must just follow her, and she would indicate where I must turn off, which I did, and we got right there. God bless that lady - she has absolutely no idea how grateful I was to her.

She had prevented World War Three happening in our car!

Let me just say that there were a lot of instructions flying around inside my little car at full volume! Just saying, honestly, it is no wonder that I work up a sweat sometimes driving to places that I do not know!

If stress caused one to lose weight, I would be just skin and bone, I swear!

Once home I finished sorting out my emails again. Yoh! They just mount up in no time, and I brought the now dry washing in. I will do the ironing tomorrow.

I also got our supper ready for a little later on.

Tomorrow I will drive over to Paddy and Ren’s home and drop off his birthday gifts as it is a biggie for him this year – his sixtieth! And Ren’ and Tamryn are going up for the weekend and to be with him on his birthday on Monday

As Paddy hates any fuss and lots of people everywhere, so we are allowing him to celebrate his special birthday in a way that he really appreciates and not what we want to do for him. Just very low key.

What lesson did I learn today? Sometimes one has to just keep quiet and say nothing!

What am I grateful for today? A beautifully sunny and warm day.

My saying for today is …