Don’t take life too seriously

I love the photos my crazy husband took of me this morning during our run in the woods of Angmering Park Estate. Although the pictures are more of the Arachnid than of me. He stopped suddenly and got the phone out to take some shots of one of this world’s miracles; a spider busy at a work in progress but had chosen badly straddling and narrow trail with safety yarns to each side.

The one with the halo is my favourite, though in real life I never was ‘Our Lady of the Woods’ at all. The fact that I am unconcerned with the fact that I am virtually make-up less in the shot, show that  my looks no longer concern me. It may be impossible to believe by my younger self, since I was quite pretty and was told so many times, which can make a young girl more concerned with her beauty than her mindfulness of others. I was never confident unless I had put my face on for the day or the evening. Once one settles into older life, it is almost a relief not to feel pressed to look ones best 24-7.  As to my husband’s attitude, I often think he is blind to my appearance and only cares for the person I am inside.

As to spiders, they don’t frighten me as they seem to some people. The other day in our garden whilst picking almost the last of the French beans I had planted, I was conscious of a tickling on the side of my face and on lifting my hand I found a quite large spider. I turned to Stephen and said “Were you going to tell me that there was a huge spider on head?”  to which he replied “Why would I, knowing that they don’t bother you”. He is more likely to call me if there this a spider in the bath.

There are worse things in this world to worry about than spiders, mice, and bugs in general and more certain, is that there are far more things to fear, than innocent and harmless countryside residents and if only we were clever enough to make a magnificent home like the silken web of a spider what a wonderful world we would live in.

There was a quote put on the neighbourhood on line notice board that is called NEXTDOOR, there are often funny things written there that help to bring a smile to the face instead of a frown. This one was an old favourite. ‘Don’t take life too seriously, nobody gets out of it alive’.  The writer attributed it to Mark Twain but I don’t think it was him, but it doesn’t matter much anyway, whoever did say it is also dead now.

The photo below is over 40 years old and I still have that dress and it still fits as well, though the breasts are lower of course.