I Am Not Embarrassed To Admit I Owned A Baby-Doll

I suppose I am rather embarrassed to admit that I had not been able to bring myself to let go of her at the age of twenty-four!

Worse still is the story of what happened when my future brother-in-law and one of his best friends found my baby doll (they were nineteen) and what they did to it.

It is totally normal for a little girl to be given a baby-doll by her parents.  Mine came as a hand-me-down from one of my Dad’s customers.  I named her Tanya.  She had a reversible dress that made her either poor little Cinders, or like a princess as the stunning Cinderella.

Like any other little girl, I loved my baby-doll Tanya and she was my companion on lots of days out with my family and friends when I was growing up.  I used to wash and style her hair and  her clothes and iron her little dress.  I was proud of punch of feeling like a mum to my own little baby.

I was also very much the tom-boy. climbing trees, playing football, riding my bike…climbing all over the scaffolding on abandoned construction sites, coming home covered with mud and scratches.  Yet…I still loved my baby-doll Tanya.  I am not ashamed of that!

Have you seen the movie “Toy Story 2“?  It really tapped into my sentiments of not wanting to let go of my childhood toys.  I just did not have it in me to part with Tanya as I grew older.  Once I started high school Tanya became just an ornament, high up on the top shelf.  But I could see her from my bed.  She stayed up there for years, in a way neglected, but at least she was there and I had not discarded her.

Now Mum, Milly, Mandy and I were away one weekend – I think we had gone to Belgium for the weekend.  Dad invited my brother-in-law who had been courting my sister for about six months to stay over for the weekend so he could get to know him better.  He brought a great friend of his whom he had grown up with.

The two boys stayed in the bedroom that Milly and I shared.  And those cheeky boys – do you know what they did?!!!  They rooted through our belongings!  They found my baby-doll Tanya.

And do you know what those two boys did when the found Tanya???  I mean can you imagine two nineteen year old boys with my baby-doll?  I can’t talk about it!

When I came home with Milly and we found Tanya…I was half in hysterics laughing and half shocked they could be so cruel!  We told everyone what they did…the rascals!

Poor Tanya…I should have hidden her when I knew they were going to be staying in our room.  I guess that will teach me for still having a baby-doll at the age of twenty-four! The only way I can explain it – when you are a little girl and your mum gives you a doll – you treasure it and care for it like it’s your little baby. It never occurred to me that I should part with her!

Now my brother-in-law has a gorgeous daughter of his own, and as is totally normal, he has given her a little baby doll which she adores…I hope he feels ashamed at what he and his friend did to my Tanya!

 

Eleven Years Old And Painfully Awkward

The first party I was invited to when I started high school was awful…mainly because I was so awkward and shy!  It was so weird…I still remember how embarrassed I was throughout every moment.  What did not help…is that I didn’t even know I was going to be at a party, it was a surprise to me and to my friend.

Secondary school (aged 11-16 years of age) was so very different from primary school (aged 4-11).  Painfully different.  I was one of three children from my primary school who moved on to a high school that was in another town because, apparently, it was a “better” school.

I dreaded moving on up to the big school.  I did not want to be a teenager.  I didn’t understand the change in attitude and behaviour.  I didn’t know many people.  The two boys from my primary school were assigned to different forms than me, in the other half of the year, which meant we didn’t see much of each other at all.  I was all on my own with a class of complete strangers.  The level of shyness I felt was almost debilitating.

However, on my second day at school, a girl at the front of the queue on the way into our form room turned around and counted, “one, two, three, four, five, six…we are going to be friends.  We are all going to sit together and we will be gang.”  There we go….it was as easy as that apparently.  From then on I was attached to the other five girls throughout my entire school life.

My first day in Year Seven was a Thursday, early on in the September.  I was at school for two days and then…at the weekend, Milly, who must have been six years of age, came from a party with some left-over cupcakes.  My Dad and I ate a cupcake and then both of us were unable to keep any food down for a whole week. The worst food poisoning I have ever experienced.  Debilitated by a cupcake!

So, I missed the following week at school.   When I was back at school, my five new little friends were very sweet and all said they had missed me.  Three of them had come from the same primary school as each other, which was in the village I had been born in. They were all talented musicians and could drawer and had the most beautiful hand-writing. The other two came from a primary school that was very close to the high school we now attended.  They were very good at sports.  All six of us were generally cheery and fun-loving and friendly.  For some reason they seemed very fond of me.

I am sure it helped me to have been adopted into a little group of friends so early on. After about three or four weeks, one of the girls came up to me early in the morning just after I had arrived and told me that one of the other girls had a question she wanted to ask me but was a bit nervous.  I asked what was the question.  Her answer surprised me, “she wants to know if you will be her best friend.”  I was amazed really.  And that was that…I had a best friend throughout the rest of high school.  She was a great best friend…so creative and imaginative and full of ideas.  She gave me a confidence I didn’t have before.  I would support her and help her carry out all her plans.

It was around November when my best friend invited me over to her family’s home for tea (that’s what we called dinner) after school one night.  She said I could sleep-over too but I was so shy that I asked my parents if they could pick me up instead.

My best friend told me to take some clothes to change into when I arrived at her home.  I asked her what kind of clothes.  I wore green shorts and a scruffy red T-shirt or, denim shorts and a sweater that said “I love California” on the front…but all my play clothes has tears and holes in.  I whinged at my parents that I needed new clothes if I was going to go to my friend’s home.  I ended up with the most hideous pair of leggings with a rose pattern on them.  My friend thought they were so odd she teased me about them for the rest of our school years.

I remember the evening that we finally went to her home after school and her mum told us that she had arranged a surprise and she was actually taking us bowling…American ten-pin bowling.  My new best friend was delighted.  I was scared.  This was a new experience for me and I didn’t like new experiences without one of my family with me.  When we arrived, there were a group of her friends, who were all strangers to me, waiting for us to arrive.  I lingered in the background shyly whilst these faces I had never seen were giving wrapped up packages to my best friend.  I was terrified.  I had never been bowling before.  It was quite noisy inside and there were lots of people cheering and laughing.

I had no idea that we had to exchange our shoes for bowling shoes…how I wish I had taken some socks.  Bear feet into communal shoes – eeeuw!

I was so nervous…I didn’t know what to do…I could not believe how heavy the bowling balls were.  My first turn was disastrous and just went straight into the gully…or whatever it is called.  I did not know what to say to all these other eleven year old kids I had only just met.  I felt so awkward, so embarrassed and so self-conscious in those ridiculous leggings that everyone was teasing me about.

My best friend’s parents had arranged for drinks and snacks for all of us and then from nowhere a cake appeared.  It was a pretty fantastic cake.  Because I was vegetarian, I had missed out on the beef burgers everyone else was tucking into, so as soon as I noticed the cake had arrived, I wandered over to it and began hacking into it with a plastic knife and helped myself to a large slice.

A moment later my best friend’s mum appeared with a cake knife and stared at the cake in horror.  She immediately spotted me munching away, and gave me an angry frown.  She showed the other adults and they whispered about it, and I could see them trying to tidy up the mess I had made of the cake.  Moments later they picked the cake up and started walking toward my friend and singing “Happy Birthday”.  I had no idea it was my best friend’s birthday.  I bolted…there I was with cake all over my hands and face…I could not believe what I had done!

Honestly….I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me up.  I was so deeply embarrassed.  When my parents came to pick me up later I told them I never ever wanted to go to a school friend’s house for tea after school ever again.

Goodness….that first year of high school at eleven years of age was so painfully awkward…I kept on making a fool of myself because I was with a bunch of kids I did not know, who were introducing me to new experiences that I had never known before. Still, for some reason my friends loved me.

There were other bowling nights…I became quite a dab hand at bowling and always remembered to take socks.  I never let my parents buy any clothes for me again…the rose leggings were abandoned.  I am kind of glad I survived eleven…even though I learnt that my face had the potential to turn every shade of crimson.

Could The Whole World Just Halt For Five Minutes And Let Goldfinch And Me Get Off At This Stop Please?

Had to say au revoir to Goldfinch and climb on the train…and now I am back in London sulking.  Partly sulking because today was a perfect day and I didn’t want it to end.  But partly for another reason which I will enlarge upon.

Photo credit: pasja1000 @ pixabay.com

The second reason I am sulky is that everywhere we went today there were people.  It is summer after all, and now that the World Cup is over and Wimbledon Tennis Championships and everything else that kept people on the sofa or at the pub seems to have evaporated…people are out at National Trust properties again – in large groups.  In addition Goldfinch has two housemates who we have to be considerate of and Goldfinch confessed he had not done any tidying up.  So I was not allowed anywhere near the man-cave today.

We did have a lovely day…we went to a beautiful location and had a lovely meal and afterwards ate triple chocolate cheesecake.  Goldfinch was just as wonderful and gorgeous as ever.  But there just seemed to be always someone there, spoiling every “moment” between us.

There was one brief moment inside the little music-room adjoining Florence Nightingale’s bedroom (at her sister’s house in Claydon, Buckinghamshire) where there was finally just he and I.  But it did not last for long.

I just wanted to curl up in a hammock holding tight to Goldfinch and listen to his voice all afternoon, rather than be squeezed into corners by large groups of National Trust visitors.  I wanted to have him all to myself and gaze into his eyes rather than being asked to move out of the way while somebody else took a photo.

So for these reasons, I have come back a tiny bit sulky (which is also probably because it is past midnight and I have been awake since 4.30am).  I saw this photo from from   The Haunted Wordsmith and I thought…that’s where I would like to have been with Goldfinch – and please forgive me for being anti-social, but I would just want it to be he and I with no one else.

Could the whole world just halt for five minutes and let Goldfinch and me get off at this stop please?  This location would be just perfect for us.  You don’t have to be an esthete to appreciate why I would want to be at this stunning location on my own with Goldfinch…although we would need a larger hammock – is that a hammock?  Teresa Grabs I have no idea what is hanging from the tree, I am only guessing from something I picked up on in your post that it might be some kind of hammock, but please forgive me if I am totally wrong.

Goldfinch is a self-proclaimed hedonist and an esthete.  I have been a bit scared of these aspects to his character because they are absent from my own personality.  But today I finally understood…and tomorrow when I am not fighting to keep my eyes open, I will explain what it was that made me understand him better than ever today.

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/worth-a-thousand-words-6/

via Esthete — Word of the Day Challenge

Rainbow Fields Forever

I don’t know what has got into me…I am feeling overly romantic – must be missing Goldfinch way too much!  I very rarely attempt poetry because I am pathetic at it.  But as soon as I saw this picture prompt from   The Haunted Wordsmith, it started to play on my mind…and here I have something that could loosely be described as a poem because there are rhyming elements and it is all mushy and vague.

Sorry to all true poets who will surely be horrified by my definition of poetry.  Here is my offering in response to Worth A Thousand Words #2.

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/worth-a-thousand-words-2/

 

Photo Credit: DeltaWorks @ Pixabay.com

Rainbow Fields Forever

Big bright blue intense

I’m lost in his gaze

Eye to eye contact

Has me in a daze

I am looking deep into his eyes

And all I see is rainbow fields forever

 

Warm mellow rhythmic

His comforting sound

Hearing his whisper

Has me quite spell-bound

I am listening to his voice

And all I hear is rainbow fields forever

 

Honeyed pine manly

I breathe in his scent

Scarf, pillow, sheet and

Wherever he went

I am craving his aroma

And all I smell is rainbow fields forever

 

Tender, gentle, kind

Wrapped in him I stand

My joy’s overflowing

Walking hand in hand

I cling to my loved one

And all I feel is rainbow fields forever

 

His lips meet my own

I’ve longed for his kiss

Lingering tingle

Leaves me in sheer bliss

His embraces make me breathless

And all I taste is rainbow fields forever

 

 

Romantic Railways

Even though I am rather tired of travelling after these last couple of weeks…I am on the verge of booking yet another train ticket so that I can go and see my lovely Goldfinch on Sunday.

Photo Credit: ejaugsburg @ pixabay.com

I miss him so much!!!  He was working in the North East of England today and because he could not speak on the phone, we sent a string of texts to each other about the weekend – our plans are not concrete yet, as we both have a lot we need to do.  I have to work Saturday and I am supposed to be spending time with some friends here in London who I have not seen for a long while.  But, I am longing to be with Goldfinch again.  It is much too long!

But in a very romantic moment, one of my text messages to Goldfinch was rather mushy:

YOU KNOW ME…IF YOU WANT ME TO BE WITH YOU, I WILL DROP ANYTHING AND ANYONE, I WILL REARRANGE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE.  TRAIN, COACH, PLANE, BICYCLE…I WILL GET TO YOU WHENEVER YOU TELL ME TO.  MISS YOU SO MUCH IT ACHES.  CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU AND SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I HAVE NEEDED YOU.

I mean, goodness, I had no idea I had it in me to be so very soppy.  In reality, it would be a train that would take me to him.  There is no way I am cycling 102 miles – I would have one majorly sore behind if I did.

Missing Goldfinch, feeling overly romantic, inspired by the photo prompt from   The Haunted Wordsmith…I am going to throw in one of my favourite train scenes.  How incredibly romantic a railway setting can be!  We watched “North and South” when I went to see a very dear friend up north who has cancer.  Her husband arranged an afternoon tea-party for us, and then he disappeared to watch football with some friends so we could watch chick flicks together.  He is a good one.

 

 

Posted in Worth A Thousand Words

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/worth-a-thousand-words-1/comment-page-1/#comment-2371

Supporting The Best Bloggers Out There

I think it’s safe to say that we all enjoy blogging, because if we did not, we would have long since popped our blog clogs – would we have not? For those of us who are still blogging and enjoying it – are there any bloggers that wonder if it might one day be possible to go on to publish a book? Or several books? If we did – would we hope that perhaps our blogging buddies might extend their support by forking out and buying our book?

It seems fairly obvious that we may have all had different reasons to start blogging. Some of us have been surprised that there seems a real nice crowd of bloggers out there who either inspire us with challenges and writing prompts, or give to us a big dollop of daily encouragement which helps us to flourish in the blogging world.

I have been blogging since the very end of April – almost seven months now and one of the first bloggers I came across, and received great advice and encouragement from right from the start, is Teresa Grabs the creator of the site The Haunted Wordsmith.

Many of you will already know Teresa. She is a true writer. I have said this before about her – PROLIFIC!!! Boy can she write! She clearly has a remarkable mind that just keeps on creating perfect flash fiction and full length novels. But it’s not just the sheer amount of stories she comes up with. She is a clever writer. She is an expert at endings with an unexpected twist. Or she writes stories with an almost fable-like quality, which make you think again about the world we live in and motivations of people.

Now, I would have thought for any bloggers who are true writers with a creative talent, that compiling your work into the form of a book and publishing it, would be the icing on the cake of all the hours you have put in to producing great stories. As far as I know, Teresa has published three books (correct me if I am wrong please Teresa!) and I have bought all three, including Teresa’s recently released novel, in paperback form from Amazon.

My initial reason for buying the first of her books “Tales From the Haunted Wordsmith” was that after all the support and encouragement and inspiration from Teresa’s stories, writing challenges and her comments on my work – I figured that it was the least I could do to support her writing career by buying one of her books. Surely, the best way to support a blogger you think is superb is to buy their book and tell all your friends about it!

I loved it! I put it straight into my work bag and it was at work that I read it during my break times. The book is perfect for those who read in short bursts during travel or breaks. The stories vary in length, from a page to several pages.

I will be honest, because I don’t like ghost stories, I was a bit hesitant about ordering Teresa’s book because with a title including the word “haunted” that is what I thought it would be. But the book is exactly what it says on the cover “multi-genre”. Which I love. Every story has a fresh feel from the one before. But time and again the way she finished a story made me smile – so many unexpected endings. This is typical Teresa Grabs style. She is a clever woman! I also loved the stories which make you think again about “things” – why people do what they do, or think the way they think.

I have my favourites. I started to fold the corners down on each of my favourites (my grandfather would be shocked – he never allowed us to fold corners, books were sacred to him). But looking at my copy of Teresa’s book now…I think the first page of almost half of the stories have their corners folded down.

Anyway…I am very grateful for all of Teresa’s support since I have been blogging. I am thrilled that she is publishing her work. It feels great to be able to support a great blogger by buying her book.

In order to obtain a copy of one of Teresa’s books for yourself, you need to travel all the way to Brazil and trek through the Amazon rain-forest, wading through the jungle in the hope that no poisonous snakes or scorpions find you first.

No!!! It’s so much easier than that! I just clicked onto the Amazon website and typed in “Teresa Grabs” and her books appeared. Or you could type in the specific title of the book you think will interest you most.

I have included a link below to Amazon.uk for us Brits:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tales-Haunted-Wordsmith-Multi-genre-Collection/dp/1983008486/ref=sr_1_5?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1542924577&sr=8-5&keywords=teresa+grabs

These are the other two of Teresa’s books I have bought recently and I would highly recommend to you.

I would certainly recommend Teresa’s books, her blogging, and her writing challenges to all other bloggers.

For bloggers who are talented creative writers and publish their work as a book, we as members of the blogging community can be a superb support in promoting and advertising the books of our favourites. We can become a fantastic marketing team and help promote the books of other bloggers, by means of social media, and by our enthusiasm when we tell people what we have been reading recently.

I have been showing Teresa’s books to friends and  workmates, and will take them up to Wales when I see my family at the end of December. There is a local book club that meet in the restaurant round the corner from my little nest and since a couple of my friends attend (to be honest I am terrified of them because it’s more of a wealthy wives club, and I normally try to make sure I am not on their gossip radar), my next mission is to introduce Teresa Grabs’ books to them. There is a newspaper journalist who lives a few doors down from here. I keep wondering if during one of our morning chats, I might slip in how much I enjoyed Teresa’s book.

Well…

…all of us play an important role in the blogging community. By reading each other’s posts, liking and commenting, we provide enormous encouragement to other bloggers. I am sure that like me, you have found that bloggers notice your support and they seek out your posts to encourage you also.

For those amongst the blogging community who are publishing their work, I think it would be a very fine thing for as many as possible of us to extend our support to not just their blogs, but their books. By all means buy one for yourself. But…even better, talk about it, show your friends and if you are bold like me, invade the local book club too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/random-quotes/

 

 

 

Where Do You Go?

Where do you go?

When I can’t find you and can’t reach you –

Where do you go?

Why shouldn’t I be worried about you?

Thank you to    The Haunted Wordsmith for another picture prompt.  When I first saw it, I thought of the late nights I have had recently, walking back home through London streets after finishing at 1am in the morning.  Then I thought about the anxiety someone might feel for a loved one who is out in the wee hours of the morning and does not account for their movements.  But I have to start work soon, and it is going to be another marathon day.

For the past two weeks, I have felt as if I was constantly chasing my tail and due to my spare time being so limited, my blog posts became shorter and had less “interesting” content.  In addition, I missed out on several word and picture prompts.  Nevermind hey!  Not many of us can afford the time to produce something worth readiing for every single writing prompt that appears.

This week, I have tried to be clever by preparing a few posts well in advance and scheduling them to be published during the week to come.  I felt it was my only option because I was doing extra shifts to cover the holidays of colleagues at work. Being able to schedule the publishing of posts is great, but it does mean missing out on a lot of the fantastic prompts out there.  Shame hey!

Some of the other branches I’m working at to cover holidays are eerily quiet at times.  I have realized it is quite acceptable to spend the quiet times reading a book or writing in a notepad.  So, it turns out I have been able to be fairly productive this week.  I’ll just have to type up my scrawlings at some point.

What I am really struggling with though is keeping up with other bloggers’ posts.  I am sorry.  If you think I am being rude and not checking out your posts despite the fact you continually support me, please please do send me a comment along the lines of:

“Oy! Caramel – you have not stopped by for a while!”

I promise you I will make your site my priority in my long catch-up list.  I am sorry if I have neglected supporting other bloggers.  My time has been evaporating at an alarming rate these past two weeks!  So please do shout out if I have been overlooking your posts.

Well we all have lives to lead…so I am sure you will understand this predicament only too well, and relate to how it feels to know you are not keeping up with other bloggers as much as you would like to.  I look forward to my schedule settling down a bit, so I get back into a routine that allows me to be a better blogger and support other bloggers more.

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/worth-a-thousand-words-29/

It’s Usually The Male Of The Species Who Make The Effort

When I first saw this picture prompt from    The Haunted Wordsmith I was bowled over by how  pretty spectacular this little chappy is – I am sure you would agree.

I had in my head a little short story…basically along the lines of how the males of many species are the more colourful and go to the most effort to win a mate…whereas, it often seems the other way around with humans!

I had this story in my mind, but to tell the story I thought I needed to mention what kind of creature he actually is.  I sent a message to Teresa (aka The Haunted Wordsmith) to ask what kind of creature it is.  She said it is a peacock mantis shrimp.  Google helped me find two fascinating articles on the peacock mantis shrimp.  The first was from National Geographic and the second was from Awake!

“This otherworldly creature, a mantis shrimp, was photographed in the waters of Indonesia’s Lembeh Strait. The shrimp feeds by smashing open its prey with a force that can break a pane of glass, and its darting bulbous eyes are thought to be the most complex in nature.”

– NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The Eye of the Peacock Mantis Shrimp

 The peacock mantis shrimp, found on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, is equipped with the most complex eyesight in the animal kingdom. “It really is exceptional,” says Dr. Nicholas Roberts, “outperforming anything we humans have so far been able to create.”

Consider: The peacock mantis shrimp can perceive polarized light and process it in ways that humans cannot do. Polarized light waves may travel along a straight line or rotate in a corkscrew motion. Unlike other creatures, this mantis shrimp not only sees polarized light in both its straight-line and corkscrew forms but is also able to convert the light from the one form to the other. This gives the shrimp enhanced vision.

DVD players work in a similar way. To process information, the DVD player must convert polarized light aimed at a disc into a corkscrew motion and then change it back into a straight-line format. But the peacock mantis shrimp goes a step further. While a standard DVD player only converts red light​—or in higher-resolution players, blue light—​the shrimp’s eye can convert light in all colours of the visible spectrum.

Researchers believe that using the peacock mantis shrimp’s eye as a model, engineers could develop a DVD player that plays discs with far more information than today’s DVDs. “What’s particularly exciting is how beautifully simple it is,” says Roberts. “It works much, much better than any attempts that we’ve made to construct a device.”

-AWAKE!

And…thinking back to the story I had in mind originally…I wouldn’t mind if more men put a bit more effort into finding a mate – a bit like the spectacular peacock mantis shrimp!  Let’s allow Sir David Attenburough to talk us through it.

Typical…my story has vanished, because I am distracted by something amazing I have learnt about a creature I never knew about before.  I am sure my story would not have done any justice to this incredible and quite marvellous creature.  Thanks Teresa…for a picture prompt that has opened my eyes to something rather awe-inspiring!

 

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/worth-a-thousand-words-28/

It Will Never Stand Up In Court

Today’s picture prompt from    The Haunted Wordsmith:

The prosecution’s case depended on the testimony of an eye-witness to 483 individual acts of piracy, kidnapping and theft, as well as an array of other allegations.

The defense lawyer smiled, he knew the witness would not even be allowed in court, let alone be asked to raise his wing and swear on the holy scriptures that he was telling the whole truth…

His client Captain Black Beard had nothing to fear from his turncoat parrot.  The defence lawyer could only guess what kind of bonus he would receive from his client after the trial was over.

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/08/28/worth-a-thousand-words-27/

Riding The Storm

My Mumma and Dadda used to prepare us in advance for challenges…and I am glad they did.  Even now we all have “grab-bags” with everything we may need for an emergency.  They made sure we knew life would not be all plain sailing, and we could not be sure what to expect from one day to the next, one year to the next.

It was prolonged times of adversity they warned us might come at any stage. They said unexpected events can occur at any stage and they asked us what would we do if there was an accident or illness that meant we were on our own at any stage.  If tragedy took our parents away, who would we trust?  where would we go? how would we behave? That might sound a bit morbid, but it has certainly helped us to be stable when tragedy has struck at various times over the years.

https://pixabay.com/en/users/Comfreak-51581/

At the same time they made sure we developed a sunny hopeful disposition so that we were never overcome by challenges.  They said let hope be like an anchor that keeps you stable when you face a storm.  They said sometimes you just have to cling tight to all that you know is good and right and trust that the storm will ease off at some point.  When the storm clouds roll away and the boisterous sea settles down…that was the time to unfurl your sails and let the changing winds impel you forward.  Then you could continue your voyage through life full of joy and satisfaction that you have weathered a storm and are ready for what life may throw at you.  Perhaps with a little bit of storm damage but your integrity intact.

Today’s picture prompt from    The Haunted Wordsmith instantly reminded me of their sage advice.  For ships way back in the day, an anchor would have been a powerful safety device, indispensable for holding a ship in place and preventing it from drifting. No mariner would venture out of port without an anchor.  For centuries, ships had no engine to enable the captain to maneuver as he wished. Except for oar-driven warships, vessels depended primarily on the wind for movement. If their ship was in danger of being driven onto rocks, a captain’s only recourse was to drop anchor and ride out the storm, trusting that the anchor would not lose its grip on the seabed.

But then storm over…anchors up…up the sails…and we are off…impelled by the force that drives us humans along, eager for life and happy times ahead!

I think one or two readers who have read isolated posts I have published, have not been sure what this site is really about.  One reader thought I was just writing about a teenage crush I had on someone once.  I don’t like to spell out what happened too graphically as this is a child-friendly site.  But in case you missed it, here is a little synopsis:

Protaganist: Caramel

Brought up by wonderful parents and taught invaluable lessons for life.

Chooses an incredible career as an international volunteer and is involved with amazing projects.

Another volunteer (who is also a celebrity) crosses Caramel’s path leading to two years of emotional turmoil, and a challenge she has not weathered before, intense interest from friends, co-workers and the fans of the celebrity – gossip and social media rumours.

Caramel decides she needs to remove herself from the close proximity of sharing a flat with him.  He turns nasty.  A campaign seems to be launched to blacken Caramel’s name.

Caramel goes to a park one evening when she is feeling overwhelmed by the challenges she is dealing with and there falls victim to a serious crime.  She is found the next day by a security guard who calls an ambulance immediately.

Caramel…is rebuilding her life and preparing herself to go back to her chosen career and life.  But she has to be patient.  She has many blessings though including the very lovely Goldfinch.

That is the basic outline…some may have picked up on what the crime was, and some of the other isolated incidents that interweave within this basic outline.  But, I assure you, this situation was a storm unlike any I have ever faced…it was not at all simple to deal with.  A bit of storm damage, but I clung on with all my might to what I knew was good, and right and true and I can hold my head up because I did not retaliate.  I have the blessing of knowing I conducted myself honourably.

Lots more to come…and perhaps at some stage I will rearrange the posts so that they appear in a more logical order.  But for now…it is sails up and away…we are catching the fresh breezes and voyaging ever onwards through an ocean of uncertainty…but keeping our eyes set on the glorious destination ahead!

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Seems like a great excuse to attach a song that I have been singing since primary school (goodness I have to tell you about our wonderful Headmaster who played the guitar and taught us all sorts of songs – that is another one for the drafts folder).

 

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/worth-a-thousand-words-24/

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/your-daily-word-prompt-expect-august-9th-2018/