Fun, Feisty & Fabulous...

The colour is my garden will not say die! It is forcing itself through in leaves and plants that haven't yet been gripped and frozen by Jack frost. I was so awestruck by the impact these small last life heartening blooms had on my eye, I grabbed my phone and took some last moments to share with you.
a last flush of geranium
a winter rose?
a beautiful acer
if anyone can tell me what this wonderful bush is, it did not flower in the summer, but the leaves have changed to this wonderful tones

leaves on fire on our roadside garden
japanese maple? changes from green to fire red to burgundy!

the last fuchsia bells hanging on...

Visit MamaGeek and Cecily, creators of Photo Story Friday.

Two poems l return to time and again...they are sustaining, their essence lives on...








Woman WorkI've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The can to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own


Still I RiseYou may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got …

...and l don't mean the dates by which we are told we must eat our food stuffs by, best before, consume before, eat by etc... I'm wondering if most things in our lives, relationships, blogs, friendships have a best before date wired into their psyche? (Isn't there a saying something about eggs and friends go off after a time?)

Acquaintances come and go and we don't fret or fear their passing through our lives, good friends sometimes hit a stumbling block, be it a point of principle or disagreement, or a case of being separated by the miles or continents. Even parents and children, brothers and sisters, the marrieds and the partners fall by the wayside, however sad we think it is. The trials and traumas, tribulations and feuds fuel petty resentments and serious issues. Most often I'll bet that the cause is forgotten, long before the bitterness wanes. In the scheme of things, the rights and wrongs, with the precariousness of life and death, it all seems trivial. Nonse…

Last night I went out in my vintage gladrags, a 1940s wool jacket and blonde mink collar, a LBD, and 100 weight of costume jewellery and my new hair cut and colour and...and this is a big one for me FALSE EYELASHES.
In the 60's when I was a young child I would find these little hairy creatures,like spiders under tables and on bathroom shelves. My mother always had hair pieces, wigs, and weird sausage like contraptions to enhance her latest cottage loaf hairdo! Stockings, eyelashes suspender belts were to be found and I was entranced by their glamour and femininity. My own world of 'MADMEN'.
I remember the first suspender belt I was given, black with orange daisies and a pair of stockings for best. I was 12 and they hung over my headboard and I kept touching them through the night. SO excited I could barely sleep. After a few days trying to come to terms with the trials of a young woman's under clothing, I surrendered and admitted my failure to cope. Mum bought me som…

I have just arrived home from work and whilst waiting for the kettle to boil I log on to blogger....I check my blog, then check out our Mad Manic Mama's blog and read Expat's Mum's post and then my mind starts a commentary and I have to type it out or lose it.....so please go read her post first then you'll get the gist of mine....
Ahhh, secretly l think they are still ours... that is my big girl and my tall boy. My man child, was (is still) sitting in my brand new (mine) armchair with his feet up on the brand new (mine) pooffe, sorry not very pc, my new er foot chair....and he's not budging....he smiled though, as I walked in the house, and that smile is so wide, so light up the room bright and just pure gold. I get the kettle on and walk over to him, 'Hello, how was your day?' I ask, he grunts... and l lean over him... I do not detect any deep sighing or tutting, I guess he is breathing gently in resignation. He is mine, on my chair, my captive... I lean i…

...over the summer I felt the heaviness from the shadows that hover behind, they tell the me within, that my old foe is furtively watching. I should know better, here is the signal whereby I should let myself relax out of hours and allow Larry and others to help me out. But admitting to my frailties only feeds the angst and guilt that I am not wonderwife and instead wimpywife. Yes! I know this is silly, an untruth, but this is what the menopausal head screams.
I fill myself up with errands, small projects and I tend never to say No! to anything. This only becomes a problem when it mounts up and then I find it more difficult than usual to juggle it all.
I have taken on 3 book reviews for a readers' magazine. I am also on the panel reading 6 books on the long list for a National Book Award. I have just started a computer course for work at college, 3 hours a week for 32 weeks, which all seem to fall on my days off, resulting in more juggling and stressing. I recently decided to no…

Please put your hands together now as I have some great news for you all! How fabulous is this!! Hilary & Eddie have generously taken up the popular and favoured Post spots recently vacated (temporarily one always hopes) by David Authorblog McMahon.
Hilary will host a weekly 'POST OF THE WEEK' spot on her blog A SMITTEN IMAGE
and Eddie will host the 'SUNDAY ROAST' interview every Sunday over on his wizard blog EDDIE BLUELIGHTS. (he also tells me that on Monday there will be a BIG announcement over on his blog - could Sir David be returning to this Land of Oz?)

and that's isn't all the Goddess Award is a weekly award to great bloggers from The Goddess herself at the blog OH MY GODDESS
Normal service has resumed... so set your pens and camera at the ready.... and ACTION!
Get busy you bloggers go blog yer socks off!

Since 2002 I have run my own small business, an online vintage clothing website. www.sarasattic.co.uk It has grown from strength to strength, mostly in footfall and in profile. It has received favourable reviews from The Sunday Times Culture, Country Living, RED, Daily Mail, webUser and the Independent's magazine voted it the best UK website and 3rd best vintage shop in 2005. I was thrilled. A business will only give back £'s relative to the amount of time one can contribute to it. So as I am stretched very thinly around my family, my employed work and other commitments, this has in recent months taken a back seat.
Therefore early last summer, I took down all the stock, recycled the majority in true vintage fashion and kept the best LBD's (little black dresses) and gems. During the self induced hiatus I mulled, cogitated and mumbled about the pro's and con's, the why's and wherefores and on my best list making stationary, I planned and plotted the future worth of…

HAPPINESS
Okay! Okay! I got it all wrong and didn't post this last night as I had stated... hope I didn't frustrate you all I'm here now...
Happiness. Contentment. Joy. Pleasure. These are words we throw around, but I wonder if rarely do we really think about them and mean them? Understand them? Feel them. Is it a matter of subjectivity or perspective. In part I think yes, but I also believe in general terms the measure is the same yardstick of feeling. Of emotion.
Moannie and I were recently talking about the value of these words. Of how we of course aspire and hope. To feel them. The real deal.
We dribble out these words about how happiness is all we want to feel. For ourselves. For our children. For mankind. Humanity. But it is I feel an elusive state . A state of mind that is transitory at best. Not available by request. It does not keep us alive. Though these states do nurture and nourish us. Keep us on track. A carrot to keep us on the road of hope.
I do not believe that ha…

I have had further thoughts on the state of happiness, perspective and sisterhood. In that we are what we are and we have to look inward if we are to be useful to anyone else I feel. Introspection is a good thing, self analysis though for me can border on the dangerous, because it lacks perspective. Unless led by a professional, but even then, they can bring their own context to bear.
I am at fault too, as I always strive to be nicer, to be smile-ier, to be everything to everyone and it just cannot be. Why are we not happy enough we to just BE!? Gosh are we bloody complicated. I think we are because we've been set up, mostly by the propoganda machine that echo's the media, and of the legacy of 60's liberation, pah!- to be mother earth and yet super sexy wife-hoare and also clever witty work slave...
All the posts are so similar recently and many have commented on the fact, (hence 'Let's talk about...' )
Is it the air pressure? Or that which school teachers blam…