Fruit and Nuts

 

A monthly trip to M&S for the quick collection

Of toilet rolls, muesli and a fruit and nut selection

Very like my friends and family is my detection

Mostly I view them with all with deep affection

Though some may not take too close an inspection

They are made up of a serious human cross section

Of sharp minded folk with a skill for circumspection

Antique furniture dealers with a skilful predilection

Others play the saxophone in the local band section

Sometimes advice is needed to make the right connection

But then the advised go off in the opposite direction

In their youth one once used an intravenous injection

And of course one with extrasensory perception

All in all they present such a varied collection

The fruit and nuts of life are indeed a strange confection

Yet we cannot go through life expecting sheer perfection

Some suggestions made raise the occasional objection

Rarely things will show up a differing complexion

Spirits must be boosted to cope with a rare rejection

And others need regular discreet correction


 

The Tenth Circle by Jody Picoult

Ok I admit that I am a bit of a fan of Jodi Picoult’s. She is something else as writers go and I like a writer who treats their reader with a degree of respect. This tale meets my requirements nicely, always surprising and educational and very often seriously worrying. This book made me glad that my own daughter is a grown up married woman with her own businesses that keep her challenged and busy. I am also glad that I grew up in a different time when the world was not full of the pressures that teenagers have to cope with these days.

 

The book that I have just finished reading was The Tenth Circle. It has what appears on the surface to be a fairly normal family but the waves riding underneath each of them are a little bit hair-raising. What it made me feel was that we so rarely know anybody in our own circle down to the very bone and into their darkest depths. Every body lives in their own world and each world varies so much and in so many complicated inexplicable ways. We all pass warning signs and some of us pass them with less consideration than others, some come out unscathed and others are damaged forever.

 

Apart from the story; about a date rape that is questioned by everybody who hears about it, there are plots and sub plots and windows into unknown worlds. I found out a little about the Yup’ik region and people something I only had a surface knowledge of from romantic tales about those people and their lives. I had thought that there were very few of these folk and I suppose, having looked it up that 34,000 roughly, is just a few in world terms. We do take our modern soft living for granted don’t we? I enjoyed the character of the father in this story, who is a fantasy comic book artist and who had a harsh childhood brought up with the Yup’ik and still has a fairly wild thinker managed only just under the surface of his life with a college professor wife who is also no goody-goody. Essential to the story, there is also a heavy helping of Dante throughout. It’s complicated and unsweetened.

 

Much of this book was read in the middle of the night because I could not leave it for the next day if I woke up and thought about what I had already read. Earlier this year I read House Rules which was equally worrying and just as informative as this story. Last December Steve and I listened to Leaving Time, together on the long car journey to our holiday and I can say for sure that you will learn everything left that you did not know about Elephants with that book! All by Jodi Picoult. 

I do love a good book.

 

Strictly Saturday Night

Goodbye Ed and thanks for the entertainment

 

We are big ‘Strictly’ fans in our house and during this best ever series this autumn it has got so that we have to have something very easy to prepare for dinner on Saturday night so that we can be seated in front to the box by the time the dancing starts.

 

 Danny and Oti to win for me

Like a lot of other people we had started to think that Ed Balls could not last much longer and we were sad to see him pushed out this weekend. Ed has been the most entertaining worse dancer ever in the history of the programme. Last night we did not agree with the judges because we thought that Ed and Katya were much better than Judge Rinder who they quite amazingly saved after the dance off. Steve and I were not impressed with Judge Rinder’s dancing the first time we watched his dance with the lovely Oksana Platero. It seemed to us the he did very little actual dancing and an overdose of arm waving and poor side to side hip movements whilst his beautiful partner did all the dancing for both of them and obviously magnetising everybody’s eyes to her skills to cover up for Rinder’s lack of any pure dance ability.

 

 

We admit that Ed has never had much in the way of a professional quality ‘Top Line’ that they are always banging on about but he has worked as hard as anybody since the very beginning of this series. We both thought that he genuinely deserved one more week before there was not any longer a chance of him surviving. So yes, as we sat and watched the result programme last night we were shouting with dissatisfaction at the telly after the judging. Apart from Judge Rinder, we are very happy with the remaining couples that got through to the quarter finals next week.

 

 Ore and Joanne

Danny Mac has been my tip to win from week one. That young man is a worker and has head firmly on as straight as can be. He is obviously taking in every tip his superb dance teacher, Oti Mabuse passes on to him and works and works and works until they have perfection. Over the last few weeks we have thought that he is the only male celebrity ever, ever, ever to have worked so hard that if you did not know, you might ask which one of them is the professional because he is so polished and does not have a part of his body that he is not in total command of. Everything moves, and brilliantly. In addition to that he is an actor and plays each part so well. He has to win.

 

 Ed's Tango that cost him his place 

We also love Ore Oduba and Joanne Clifton who are also giving excellent performances every week. My own favourite professional is Kevin Clifton and I think he has done a wonderful job bringing out the best in Louise Redknapp but I don’t think they can win. Neither do I think Claudia Fragapane can stay the full course as hard as A.J. Pritchard works her unless he can coax a lot more personality out of her very quickly, that is an area that she has not been able to show as yet. In addition to that it as been very difficult for AJ with her being such a tiny dot because it is so hard to make her look any more graceful because of the height difference, sadly for her they cannot make the shape perfection required. She again has worked her socks off all throughout and improved astonishingly.

 

 

 

 

 

Walking the Sunday 10km Run

 

We are going to call this morning a step forward, even though it might not be considered so by some more demanding souls. Certainly it is the biggest step I have taken in twelve days. 

My equally mad husband dropped me at the normal start point for our Sunday 10km run route at Blakehurst. That is two miles north of our home, as the crow flies. What was different about today was that it was thirty five minutes earlier than the accepted start time. The plan today was that since the cough still persists, and even in the light of me feeling more human again, that I could take a shot at the full 10 km but only at my brisk walk pace. Steve reckoned that it would take me two hours to walk the full course, which is hilly. 

 

 

Once he had dropped me off, he called in at our warehouse to pick up some boxes to drop off at a cousins home whose son, our second cousin and his family are planning to move home soon and packing must start. That would fill the thirty five minute time he had given me before he started his run and another five minutes until another club member Birgit, started her run.

 

My mode of dress was not run kit but comfy country walk kit. I also had my camera and my phone. After a couple of weeks with loads of wind and rain it was exceptionally still and quiet when I started my walk. Even just a little bit earlier than usual there were very few other people about and in fact in the first hour I saw just one mountain biker and one runner. I only took nine photos on the whole route and three of those in one spot where there is a huge fallen tree that is the most amazing shape. The wind got up as I got to the highest point and I pulled the hood of my coat up for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the wildlife front there was little of note apart from the hundreds of pheasants noisily pointing out exactly where they were to anybody who was interested. Don’t think that I am exaggerating by saying that there are hundreds of the pretty but dopey little things; hundreds is a massive under estimation, there are thousands of pheasants. Born and raised in chicken run type conditions and then used for the amusement of the idle rich and released in huge batches for the shooting season. They have no sense at all (the pheasants that is, not the idle rich) because have not had to learn how to live in the wild. They run along the roads and paths in groups of 20-50 like headless chickens. They are everywhere and rather than enhance the woodland, I feel they spoil it because it is so unnatural. It seems to me that it would be more honest to release them from traps directly into the line of fire because that is all they breed them for. This pre release into the woods as if they are wild birds makes no sense what so ever to me. So why not just make it all like a fair ground shooting gallery. Or here’s a new idea; why not offer a new, even more expensive fun day out to even richer and even more idle people and let them hunt the less rich people for whom this lark is presently conducted. Yes you’re right, I am just being silly now.

 

 

Back to my walk of the 10 km run….. So. Not a deer in sight, not a rabbit, not a squirrel. It was not until I was past the 6 km mark that a huge Kite spotted me and came swooping down to investigate. He looked at me in my hugely oversized, bright chequered coat, as it to say “Now there is a rare bird”. He did several gradually expanding circles around me before getting bored and flying off. There is no evidence of the incident, because it is very hard to stand on one spot with your head turned skyward, trying to focus your ancient camera on an object moving around at speed above you head. 

 

It was when I decided that I was not fast enough to get that shot, that I spotted Steve running on the ridge above the point upon which I stood. Better move on because he was catching up and would soon be starting on the downhill section. He caught me at the bottom of the gallops, half a mile from the finish. Well planned. I took 1 hour 54 minutes including photos and bird watching. Birgit arrived as I got back to the car.

 

 

 

Next stop Arundel and today’s choice of tea shop was Belinda’s for tea and cakes and putting the world to rights with our chatter.

 

 

 

 

Winter bugs running their course

My husband Steve was held in the grip of the current coughing bug that is most efficiently doing the rounds of my friends and relatives, for almost four weeks and is still not totally clear of it. Having thought that by some strange fluke that I had escaped its grip, I started to feel the first signs a week ago last Wednesday and seem to be in for the long haul with it. When he started up coughing and spluttering he did take a variety of over the counter medication that did nothing but relieve the symptoms he was suffering only slightly.

Taking to opposite tack I have taken nothing as far at cold cures are concerned. On the advice of the Asthma nurse at the surgery, I have, according to the Asthma plan that gets put into your hand whenever you have an annual check, increased the dosage of my inhalers. I don’t think that has made any difference either. My peak flow is normal and I do not have a temperature. The most effective thing that I have been doing regularly is splashing some Pine Oil on a hankie and breathing that in when I have a coughing fit. That does have a temporary calming effect. Or Olbas Oil is readily available at the pharmacy to use in the same way except it make my eyes water. Apart from that, I have just had plenty of drinks and tried to keep warm. A hot drink made with freshly squeezed lemon and a couple of spoonfuls of honey are the most soothing.

At least six people in my circle of friends have been to their doctors and asked for Anti-Biotics. Two of my friends have had repeat courses because the first course was ineffective. The second course was equally ineffective.  Both of those two are now taking steroids.

Some of these winter bugs just have to run their course and seem to go on their own in the end. It is a thorough pain in the back side not being able to do my normal training sessions, I have to say that a short rest from my training may even be a good thing in the long run. All I have felt up to doing is a half decent walk now and again and not avoiding going up and down the stairs, in fact when I do the ironing (I am a bit of a washing and ironing freak) I take each item that is ironed immediately upstairs and put it away, giving myself far more climbs of those stairs since that is about as much effort as I can manage without making myself start to cough again.

There is a poster at the surgery that we attend, that states that no amount of anti-biotics will get rid of a cold. Add to that the sure advice that too many courses of them will lower your resistance and make them less effective when you really need them.

A little of the abundance of NHS advice to be found on the internet on this subject can be found below.

*********************************************************************************

Antibiotics are used to treat or prevent some types of bacterial infection. They work by killing bacteria or preventing them from reproducing and spreading.

Antibiotics aren't effective against viral infections, such as the common cold, flu, most coughs and sore throats.

Many mild bacterial infections can also be cleared by your immune system without using antibiotics, so they aren't routinely prescribed.

It's important that antibiotics are prescribed and taken correctly to help prevent the progression of antibiotic resistance. This is when a strain of bacteria no longer responds to treatment with one or more types of antibiotics.

When antibiotics are used

Antibiotics may be used to treat bacterial infections that:

• are unlikely to clear up without antibiotics
• could infect others unless treated
• could take too long to clear without treatment
• carry a risk of more serious complications

People at a high risk of infection may also be given antibiotics as a precaution, known as antibiotic prophylaxis.

Read more about when antibiotics are used.

How do I take antibiotics?

Take antibiotics as directed on the packet or the patient information leaflet that comes with the medication, or as instructed by your GP or pharmacist.

Doses of antibiotics can be provided in several ways:

• oral antibiotics – tablets, capsules or a liquid that you drink, which can be used to treat most types of mild to moderate infections in the body
• topical antibiotics – creams, lotions, sprays or drops, which are often used to treat skin infections
• injections of antibiotics – these can be given as an injection or infusion through a drip directly into the blood or muscle, and are usually reserved for more serious infections

It's essential to finish taking a prescribed course of antibiotics, even if you feel better, unless a healthcare professional tells you otherwise. If you stop taking an antibiotic part way through a course, the bacteria can become resistant to the antibiotic.

 

Gathering Winter Fuuu-uuuuu-el

Trying to stay calm when you have to wait in for a delivery of some sort or other is not easy. What I am waiting in for today cannot simply be taken in by a neighbour, as happens sometimes without too much difficulty. This is a truck coming to delivery enough smokeless fuel for the rest of the winter. If you don’t wait in for the delivery it will just be unloaded on a pallet and left outside at the bottom of the driveway and may be a few bags short by the time you get home. It is hard to understand why delivery people cannot give you a rough time of arrival because it is unreasonably to expect anybody to wait in all day. Later on this evening I have a delivery from the supermarket and they have a one hour time slot of your choosing and so far I have never had one of these deliveries turn up late. 

Acknowledging our order, the email informed us that they would be delivering the fuel between 8am and 6 pm today. That is not very good for something that has cost nearly £500. 

When we drive around the country making collections for our clients after one of their buying trips the shops that we are picking up from will want to know roughly what time we are coming to them and most will want to know more than between 8am and 6pm! For a start, most antique dealers do not open their stores before 10am and the very minimum idea of time will be morning or afternoon, very few will come in early and will need us cleared well before closing time so that they do not get delayed. 

Steve has rung me at home several times to see if I have heard from Dawson Fuels because he will need to leave work to come home and bring it all in before we find that we have made a charitable donation to supply warmth to another family. 

Still, since I am feeling a little more life like today and I have kept busy doing lots of little jobs that have been left whilst I was poorly, although I would have liked to have got out for a while for some fresh air because it is such a lovely day today, blue sky and sunshine.

My dear husband Stephen who is spookily psychic turned up at home five minutes before the truck arrived without them calling with the requested thirty minutes notice prior to arrival. Ten minutes to three. 

It could have been worse.

 

Fantastic Beasts and where to find them

    The Niffler who escapes from the suitcase; I thought a better name would be Tealeaf!

 

On the day when all our American friends are gathered with their families for Thanks Giving, it is still a work day for us lot in the UK and I spent most of the morning with office work on the computer before Steve had to go and get some more physical work done.

My Favourite Beast: The Bowruckle, every child should have one.

I still have this stupid bug that will not let me stop coughing and apart from not feeling brilliant when I first get up and then again in the late evening, I am giving thanks that I do not feel that bad; plenty of people are much worst off than me with just a little winter bug to contend with. 

I did manage to get out and go to see ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’, yesterday afternoon. Steve dropped me down there for the 1.30pm show and picked me up for the 3.50pm turnout. It is quite a long film, 2 hours 13 mins, considering that I would think it would mainly attracted children.

 

 

There were not any children for this matinee showing, in fact there were very few people there at all, I did a quick head count and thought we were fourteen people who did not like each other much from their choice of seating. I had at least the back three or four rows to myself and that I was coughing now and again did not really notice because quite a lot of the film has plenty of noise. I took cough sweets, a bottle of water and a hankie with Pine Oil sprinkled on it to keep me as quiet as possible. 

I loved it to bits from the beginning to the end; it was quite delightful, though maybe not scary enough for older children. Eddie Redmayne was utterly charming as Newt Scamander who seemed to know all about where to find the Fantastic Beasts and how to care for and protect them.

 

The old chestnut in the plot about mistakenly getting hold of the wrong suitcase will be forgiven I am sure. As usual with The Harry Potter collection of books and the movies they end up as, it was full of stars. Colin Farrell was wonderfully slick and menacing as Percival Graves complete with flowing silk lined coat, stuck-back hair cut and maybe he had had the usually bushy eyebrow, heavily pruned.

 

 

Dan Fogler was adorable as baker with the wrong case, Jacob Kowalski. Several other great stars were happy to play small parts very seriously. Jon Voight and Ron Perling too (from Sons of Anarchy) and who turns up in the end as the super international baddie Gellert Grindelwald, but the lovely Johnny Depp heavily hidden beneath a mountain of makeup. Super special effects throughout and all the Fantastic Beasts were indeed just that. It will be one of those films that kids watch over and over again and never tire of as good prevails and evil is defeated as we all hope it always will be.

 

 

This is not a piece of modern art but, looking down into the chalky water from the centre of the bridge near Arundel Castle Dairy. I thought it was pretty

 

 

Latest Hurdle Passed

 

Last Monday I wrote that I was going to the local cinema to catch a matinee show of a film that Steve did not want to see. You couldn’t pay him to go. It is Fantastic Beasts, the Harry Potter prequel with Eddie Redmayne. That did not happen, because with the best laid plans……I had done all my work, written and posted my diary blog, got my self ready, done my hair half tidily and thrown a bit of slap on my face, because with a bug in fairly full flow I looked it bit wan. I had put a small bottle of water in my bag, as a precaution and I had taken an inhaler with me too. All set then. I locked the back door and went through the garage having opened the automatic garage door. 

No Car! 

I came back in and rang Steve just to check that he had taken it and it had not been stolen. He said he was sorry and that he had completely forgotten that I wanted the car. It was too late for him to come back, and anyway I knew that he was far too busy to stop work just to drive me down to the cinema. It was also too late to walk in the time even if it was not raining, which it was, it was blowing a gale. It was just as well because I was coughing quite badly and would just be a pain to who ever else was in the cinema. So that left me at home for the afternoon anyway. 

 

Plan B. I will go this afternoon; it is an hour earlier that it was on Monday 1.30 pm. Again I have completed all tasks. This morning I missed the third swim session since I went down with this bug. I have also missed three runs and other stuff on the list. For four days I have not left the house and needed to get some fresh air, so when Steve got back from his swim session this morning, I was ready to go with him to Arundel for him to do the 5km run on our schedule. I planned just to walk the 5km route in Arundel Park, take some photos, and make some notes, I always carry a notebook. 

Steve would be finished his run and driven five minutes to Vicky Vickery to have a sports massage session. With all the photo stops and notes, I would finish my walk and get to the coffee house, where I could work on the notes I had taken, order and drink a pot of Darjeeling before Steve met me there after his pummelling. 




 

I still coughed a bit on the walk but felt ok apart from that and not tired so I was pleased with the outing. Steve had coffee when he came to meet me and then we went home to do the office work needed for the next load of collections in the truck tomorrow which also involved writing our a pile of cheques to pay for the clients goods on collection. Steve needs me to write those out because his hand writing is total rubbish and so I have to write anything that people actually are expected to be able to read.  

 

 I will have to take Steve to work so that I can have the car for the afternoon and he can come home later in our van. 

This evening I will not be going to the ‘Write Night’; coughing whilst reading is not great. Next time I hope to make it.

Celebrations USA and UK style

Steve and I would like to send our best wishes to all of our friends in the USA. It is a just little early for their thanksgiving celebration, but from what we see on TV, we in the UK understand that it is a time for families to gather together and give thanks for all the things that they consider are blessings in their lives.

Those of us who still go to church in the UK will have already seen Harvest Festival a while back, which although it is still about giving thanks it is more connected to having a good harvest and is a much more humble or simple celebration I feel.

TV and movie coverage of American celebrations have caused many people in our country to grab hold of anything that they think might lighten our winter darkness and make a bit of fun. Any good excuse for a party, or a barbeque. The supermarkets are all full of Halloween costumes from September on and parent encourage their children to go and play trick of treat on the neighbour’s. Halloween is also on the UK church time table  but again is a more quiet thing, when we think of our dear departed and all hallowed souls.

 I wonder why the population of the USA, don’t bother to pick up on our special times. Like Guy Fawkes Night!? Because in our area there is nothing that matches the Bonfire Night in Lewes, in East Sussex, we hold our Bonfire Night in Littlehampton weeks before.

There is a fun fair on the sea front and a BIG bonfire on the green there’s a big parade, where they choose a bonfire Queen who is paraded on the back of a truck sitting on a throne with her ladies in waiting the Bonfire Princesses.

 

 

 

 

Of course I should explain to our friends across the sea that this is because good old Guy Fawkes, Britain’s most notorious traitor, who tried to blow up Parliament in the infamous Gunpowder Plot. I wouldn’t mind betting though, that if you asked any of the young lads enjoying themselves throwing bangers at the girls, if they know what they are commemorating; Is it the failure of the Gunpowder Plot or is it the attempt to destroy the houses of parliament. Bet you tuppence they don’t know…. Haven’t got a clue. Then what about Mayday? This is at its base a pagan thing isn’t it and just a bit worrying that they select a young virgin for May Queen…., A child actually. These days some of the more proper thinking groups will also pick a May Prince to try to make it more fair. It is about fertility at its root.

The Stores and internet sites are trying to inflict Black Friday on the UK as well. UHHH? Jump on the bandwagon money grabbers of the world.

Anyway.

The information below I have just found on Google is in case anybody in the UK is still in the dark about Thanksgiving or who cares.

I give thanks every day and every night before I go to sleep. I Am Blessed.

Thanksgiving in the United States is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated the second Monday in October.

Year	U.S. Thanksgiving	Canadian Thanksgiving
2016	Thursday, November 24	Monday, October 10

In a 1789 proclamation, President George Washington called on the people of the United States to acknowledge God for affording them “an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness” by observing a day of thanksgiving. Devoting a day to “public thanksgiving and prayer,” as Washington called it, became a yearly tradition in many communities.

Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863. In that year, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. He asked his fellow citizens to “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise …”
It was not until 1941 that Congress finally designated the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, thus creating a federal holiday.

Of course, Thanksgiving is not born of presidential proclamations. Native American harvest festivals had been celebrated for centuries, and colonial services dated back to the late 16th century. Thanksgiving Day, as we know it today, began in the early 1600s when settlers in both Massachusetts and Virginia came together to give thanks for their survival, for the fertility of their fields, and for their faith. The most widely known early Thanksgiving is that of the Pilgrims in Plimoth, Massachusetts, who feasted for 3 days with the Wampanoag people in 1621.

Note that Thanksgiving Day in Canada is celebrated on the second Monday in October and has different origins. The first Canadian Thanksgiving Day was observed on April 15, 1872, to celebrate the recovery of the prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness.

Dream No.27 Serpent Coat

This morning, I was flipping through my poetry files looking for something different to read at the next ‘Right Night’ this coming Wednesday. I had already selected one out of the Dreams and Wanderings file and printed it off in a fairly big font, as I usually do to read aloud. Then I noticed this one that I don’t think I have read before, so I printed it off also to maybe read another time.  Steve will be out all day today because he is packing a container and I had thought that I might slope off to the cinema down by the beach this afternoon and catch a movie that Steve most firmly refuse to go  and see.  So being the horribly honest soul I am, I am posting this to give me the time to skive off for the 2. 30pm show! 

Dream No.27 Serpent Coat 

I was putting away a small sports clothes wash

Having taken them out of the dryer

These are my most used most useful

Light weight sports coats

One is bright blue

The other though pretty similar

Is luminous visi-pink

The both have hoods

I am smoothing them

Ready to fold them in three in the usual way

To them put them away in the cupboard to stay

With other sports kit ready for the next wearing

As I smooth it in my hand toward to hood

It changes as is lies in my hands

And becomes a snake

A very large snake

This is not good

The two colours have blended now

Day glo pink down the centre of its back

And bright blue all along the sides

It grows exponentially as I hold it

Although I am an older lady

I have no fear that it will attack

I still manage to hold this enormous creature

Though it looks like something

That David Attenborough would show

As needing ten strong men to hold

I realise that this is impossible

And that it must be a dream

Not just from the obvious weight

But because I am not in the least phased by it

Holding the writhing monster I feel quite bold

And actually find the texture of it pleasant.

I look around wondering where to put it down

And find, just by my side

A crystal stopper the size of a chair

As broad, as wide

As I pull out the stopper

I know that this also would in reality

Be far too heavy for me to hold

Still I lay the stopper to one side

Still holding the head end of the serpent

Firmly and comfortably under my free arm

The opening leads into a fantastic crystal compartment

And I lead the snakes head into this space

And it goes in willingly

As is slithers and slides into this place

I see just how enormous the creature now is

Since the crystal container is the size of a large room

And is oval shaped

About ten metres long and five metres wide

But only just high enough for the snake

This brightly coloured behemoth

Seems perfectly happy moving slowly around

Passing and re-passing

Its own great length and girth

Over and over again

I replace the stopper and go downstairs

Though previously there were no stairs

They are but newly found

Now as I enter the room

I see that the crystal container is the ceiling now

And the serpent gazes benignly down at me

Through the glass don’t ask me how

I wonder how it can be content

Contained as it is

Even in beautiful crystal surroundings

I tear my fascinated gaze away

From the writhing effect on the ceiling sent

And see that I am in a beautifully furnished

Spacious thickly carpeted oval room

An oval office

 

The Oval Office!

 

I recognise it from TV

The huge carved desk

The bronze statue of a cowboy on a bucking horse

The portrait of George Washington on the wall I see

The two sumptuous settees’ facing each other

The flags at the bay windows behind the desk

And other fine antiques of course

The POTUS is not present

Nobody is there but me

I walk around the desk

Trailing my hand over the surface

I feel some of the fine carving

That was hand chiselled

By a craftsman on the cupboard doors of the desk

I am absolutely certain

That it is the Oval Office

But then

I see my very own

Marble Art Deco clock

It is standing on a sideboard

My examination has quickly shown this

I am totally certain that it is

MY clock

My brow furrows trying to work out

Why my heavy marble clock

Is on the sideboard

In the office of the President of the United States

Why am I in the office of Barack Obama

And not arrested!

Alarms ring!

My husband puts his hand gently on my shoulder and say’s

“Time to get up darling”.