STORMY WEATHER

I went down to the beach again this afternoon to watch the weather. The skies were spectacular and there were bands of heavy showers that kept passing over. I was there for two hours.




































Then towards sunset the sky brightened, but there were still plenty of rain clouds to the south, and coming our way.





















The pelicans were flying south all afternoon -- lots of them. And then this evening after dark we had more heavy rain. Some trees down in San Diego. Winds were strong for us --maybe 30mph. But the temperature was still 61 degrees most of the afternoon so I didn't freeze.

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Gail said she would like to see the whole of Michael's quilt, so here it is, back and front. Not too well photographed I'm afraid but I think you can get the idea.

SATURDAY WEATHER

It's been months since I went to the beach. But with all this talk about the 'terrible' storm that's coming, I had to go down and see if there was anything spectacular to look at.


Hey, Dude! What's up?
















Surf's Up!















Storm's coming.














Well so they say. (That isn't blue sky there. It's dark blue rain clouds.)

Two inches of rain at the coast 6-8inches on west slopes of mountains. I don't know...this is the third time they've promised a big storm since Christmas, and they've just fizzled to nothing. They're even saying possible small tornadoes and water spouts, thunder and lightning. Hmmm. I would like that, as long as no-one gets hurt. Something happens to weather once it gets south of Los Angeles. It just disappears. So I'll wait and see before I get excited

Rainy Days and Wednesdays...

This fellow has visited the last two days. He is 'way too shy , so I don't think I'll ever get a photo of him -- unless I'm on the patio in the summer and he visits the waterfall. So I took this picture out of a book Barry bought me just before he went away, "Birds of San Diego". I did take a couple of photos through the window but nobody but me would know what it was. It seems he likes the suet hanger. As does the scrub jay who is now a regular visitor.

It's going to rain! It was a beautiful morning and then I saw dark clouds on the horizon. So I just ran down to the pharmacy and posted a letter. Twenty minutes later the clouds were overhead and the wind had picked up. In fact it is now raining as I speak,(write).

So it's by the fire-place for me -- drawing, reading or watching TV .





















Oh puhleese turn that TV off! I can't bear to look!

















The Cat's Whiskers!

Michael's Quilt

When I retired almost five years ago, one of my eighth grade students, Michael, and his Mom made a beautiful mini quilt for me. It depicted the Ten Commandments, each in a square with stars, moon, rainbows, angels etc decorating each square. Then around the border of the quilt they put a beautiful floral hem about four inches wide.

The photo above shows a part of the hem. I have been looking at this quilt every morning before I get up. The hem especially fascinated me because of its beautiful colors and intricate pattern. Finally I decided I wanted to try to copy it. At first I was going to draw one about 11 inches long. Then I realized how long it was going to take me and how hard it was on my eyes, so I decided to make it into an ATC. I have been working on this for the last five days. Once the drawing was done the coloring was not too difficult. My Prisma color pencils could not reproduce the vividness of color and I made a few adjustments here and there to accommodate my drawing skills, but all in all I thought the end result was worth the hard work! Thank you Michael and Linda!

While We're on the Subject of Cats...

This cat tree has been in our house for over a year now and Bailey never went on it, even though we tried to coax him. So finally we gave it to Glyn for his two cats. He hadn't got it in the door 30 seconds and his cats were on it. That was a week ago. Here you see, they have taken possession!. Top cat is Josie and the lower one is Cleo. Their position on the tree is definitely their pecking order.

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Speaking of pecking order, the scrub jay is visiting every day. He's really quite a sharp looking bird. His blue is definitely blue. But he always announces his entrance with that awful
harsh squawk. So I can be at work on my computer and still hear him coming. But today I was out on the patio reading when he announced his coming.....(Whisper...Dare I say it... the temperature was 75 degrees and yesterday.it was 80 degrees!!!)

CUTE!

Sweet little nose on neat little toes.
Snoring up a storm.












There is nothing so cute as a sleeping cat. So soft and snuggly and totally relaxed ...except perhaps TWO sleeping cats.






Happier times when Levi was still with us.

AN EXCITING WEEK!

On Monday I received an e-mail from the editor of my home town newspaper, The Bridlington Free Press. Bridlington is the nearest town to my village of Flamborough on the East Coast of Yorkshire. It is from my village's name that my blog "Flamblog" was derived. When I set up this blog a year ago, I also set up one through the Bridlington newspaper called "Homesick For Flamborough". This latter blog was to cover my memories and feelings for that tiny community. I've been writing it for a year and received very few comments to the point that I wondered if anyone was reading it. But I soldiered on.

So when the editor wrote last Monday (5 days ago), and asked me for information and photographs as to who I was and how I got here in San Diego and what were my connections with Flamborough, I was happy to tell him. In his e-mail he said that they put out out a quarterly magazine called "Quite Simply...Flamborough" and they were thinking of featuring me (ME!) in their next magazine. I wrote back and asked how soon they needed the information and photos. The reply was SATURDAY!

My computer was humming for the next few days! I got the article finished and also sent a couple of old photos of where I used to live.

Tonight I received another e-mail from the editor. They are going to use three of my pictures and "half of the copy" I sent, across two pages of the magazine with a "to be continued" at the end, using the other half in the next issue. Then he said he thinks my articles and pics will be a great regular addition to the magazine. "Regular addition..."? Does he really mean that? I can't tell you how excited I am! The magazine will be out in a few weeks.














This was where we lived all those years ago. The first photo shows Flamborough Lighthouse, the Old Lighthouse, and our black and green home on the cliff top.






The second photo shows what is left of where we lived, as it is today -- a large patch of brambles bordered by the white cliff top path to the left....sorry: to the right. Never did know left from right!


The Free Press which also covers the small communities around Bridlington contacted me when we had all the fires down here in North County (the fires made world headlines at the time). Consequently they published a piece in the newspaper using quite a lot of my observations in their resulting article. I was quite honored that they would do so! Check my blog posts on October 23 and November 4th for these details.

So at 70 years of age I start out on a brand new career --well almost -- but it's fun and exciting.

PRETTY TO LOOK AT, BUT...

Snow in Toronto.

My sister sent me these beautiful photos this week after the latest snowstorm in Toronto.
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They are beautiful, even spectacular, but do I dare tell her I've just come in from sitting on the patio and taking these photos...?





















The Jade Bush in full bloom...blooms in winter. In the front, is a small cactus flower.





















The scrub jay who came to torment Henrietta by eating the bird seed.



























She flew after him wherever he went -- and look at that tail! She's beautiful again.

QUICK NOTE

If you are interested in ATC's, I have finally posted a few more on my Chris J Prismera Blog . Go to the link on the side panel of this page (it's after the cats) and find the the link there.

You Haven't Forgotten Herietta, Have You?

Where does Henrietta go when it rains?
Under the bush with the berries.
(There are plenty of other bushes, thicker and would give more shelter, but she chooses to stay near the food in case the birds should get it all.)























She ignored the little tent I gave her. So, the bushes it is!


You've heard of cat naps, haven't you? Well, here is a chicken nap...























Fat enough for a chicken dinner, I think.



Whoops! Look out, Henrietta, they're here!

My Monthly Planners

Our electrical problems were quickly and easily fixed, so I'm back sooner than I expected.

Wondering what to write about, I read Wanda's post about her planners and that made me think of mine. We have a family one for appointments which we keep on the kitchen counter. We have to do this because with only one car, we don't want to clash over appointments. I used to keep diaries when I was in my teens, but I recently shredded them!! Don't want them to fall into the wrong hands!! Nothing serious, but all silly teenage stuff.

The photo above is of my monthly planners since 1986, one per year. The year is stamped on the front, in 'gold'. The open one at the bottom of the page is this month's. It has one dr.'s appointment so far, but I have other dates to transfer yet. The one that is open with all the writing is last year's and it is open at the back cover. That's because in recent years I have started listing 'major' events that happen during the year on the back cover. I'm always asking things like "How long ago is it since we had the carpets cleaned?".... "When did we last visit Jean in Palm Springs?"..."When did we buy that reading lamp?" etc. etc. So instead of having to go through every month of every year, I just have to flip to the back cover of each year and scan down the page. Very nifty I thought. Since it is always in my purse, (nice and slim and light weight), I make the back page notations when I am waiting at the doctor's office or some such thing and that way it doesn't become a chore. I transfer all the other information such as phone numbers and addresses etc. on New Year's Eve, because we old fogey's never go out partying!

Inside the front cover, I keep a list of my medications, their exact amount and frequency, also my doctors (three of them), and their phone numbers. Once, when I was in Hawaii, I had an allergic reaction to nuts, and found it difficult to talk or think. All I had to do was take my planner to the emergency room with me and all the necessary information was there.

BUT I never put my social security number or driver's license number in my planner. I try to memorize them because I lose things too easily.

Incidentally, these planners are made by Day-Timer, but this isn't supposed to be a commercial for them.

Looking at the two pages of small writing on last year's back pages, 2007 was a notable year! And look who's waiting patiently for his dinner... lower right hand corner.

Technical Problems

We are having electrical problems at our house, so I may not be able to post for a couple of days, but stay tuned...hope it doesn't turn out to be something major, but since the lights have gone out in one half of the house three times in the past month, we need to do something to fix it. I have the computer hooked up across the hall and into the other side of the house at the moment. The house is 40 years old so who knows what might be the problem!! If all goes well I should be up and running by the weekend.

However, there is a major winter storm heading our way --HAH! That means maybe an inch of rain or so by Monday. North of us will get the brunt of it. (Look out Wanda!). We get one full day of rain (Saturday -- with showers Friday and Sunday) and the sky is falling! We had about 7 inches of rain last year all told. Normal is 10 inches.

Whatever will Henrietta do? Yes, she is still here. She has made a kind of nest in the ivy by the patio and her dining room is the little garden outside the den. I believe she still roosts in the olive tree. She'll be fine with all the other birds.


Just in case you think I'm the only one in our house who talks to animals, take a look at this........



















Oh, and I am coming up to my 1,000 visit since October 17th! WOW!

See you soon.