Debbie
I am an Author, wife to one, mother to five and grandmother to six. I live in the English countryside in Hampshire, UK, with my husband and two dogs and am a non exec Director for Glow www.theglowstudio.com.
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From bad to worse and back again…
I can only blame myself and yet… It began like this. Charlie Brown was limping on Saturday. On Sunday he seemed better…then he began licking his paw and limping again. Nothing for it, a trip to the vet was in order. Monday morning… My 93-year-old (“I’m almost 94,”) mother is staying with us. Lovely to have her here but tiring as her memory is going and the day begins with question – answer, same question – same answers etc.. There was the incident in the Black Dog where she asked what “WIFFI” was when reading it on a card on the windowsill. We explained that it was wi-fi. There followed…
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Wine Country revisited
I watched the Netflix film, ‘Wine Country’ recently and seeing the women heading through Napa Valley, really brought back memories of my own trip to California, made back in 1997 and chronicled on this blog, under California Memories. Pasted below is the post about my trip with my eccentric companion, through Napa Valley. I thought it worth republishing (Was it really 22 years ago?) Wow! “One minute I was just a normal wife and mother of five, the next I was flying 5000 miles across the world to meet someone I knew only by virtue of an online writer’s club.” Did I really do that? Yes I did! The Silverado…
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Charlie Brown – My side of the story
Hi everyone – Charlie Brown speaking. Yes, I must say, it is a rare privilege to be allowed on here. Flossie normally guards her domain jealously. Today, I thought it about time I redressed the balance between good dog and bad dog. I managed to persuade the Boss to give me some air time. It seems to me, I get a raw deal when it comes to the ‘kiss and tell’ stories that Flossie goes in for. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Floss to bits, she is, after all, my mum. (What do you mean we look nothing alike?) Truth to tell, this fact has not escaped my…
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Follow that wasp – a mystery solved
If you recall our wasp invasion of 2016 and the post that accompanied it… Follow that Wasp! you will recall that we could find no sign of a nest, despite the hiring of more than one wasp expert and our own vigilance. I am pleased to say that the removal of the tree near our house meant that we were not inundated the following year with feeding swarms of yellow and black striped creatures. We still had not found any evidence of a wasp nest though. Over the following couple of years, we forgot about the nest and were just happy in the knowledge that the problem had gone away.…
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Nine years later…
It’s been a while since the Boss and I braved the common for our early morning walk. This morning, we decided to throw caution to the wind and head down there. Charlie, who is undoubtedly better on the lead than he used to be and especially good when out with the Dave man, was not invited. Apparently, the Boss is not yet quite as relaxed about taking him out as she professes to be. She says it is difficult to take both of us. I am not feeling too sorry for him. It was his fault I missed my walk yesterday. Yesterday morning, The Boss had decided that she would…
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Home is best…
Honestly, the Boss makes far too much fuss about the most ridiculous events. Take today for instance. All she has to do is take Charlie and me for our boosters oh, and I need another blood test. Ah, did she not tell you I have been ill? I can’t say I am surprised, she rarely seems to know which way is up these days. To cut a very long story short, let me just say that a slight stomach pain, that caused me to stretch and walk backwards (I got very good at navigating the entire living room and kitchen in this way) took a sinister turn when the Vet…
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It makes you laugh…
We love to laugh. Sometimes, humour comes from the most unexpected places. For instance, those overheard conversations between fractious couples in supermarkets, could be us, or the innocent comments of children and of course, the snippets gleaned when passing someone in the street that can make one giggle out loud. It was the latter type which had me giggling today. We had had a particularly delightful walk, despite the steady drizzle and the wind that whipped our faces. We strolled through the town, stopping for a browse in FatFace and then a mandatory coffee in the Coffee shop before walking up to the newly refurbished Fowey Harbour Hotel, where we…
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Having the Right Tools
Sometimes, just walking up Twynhams Hill, feels more like climbing Everest. At others it’s a breeze and I don’t even notice it. It struck me today, as I almost sauntered up the incline with one of the dogs, that life is a series of hills that we have to climb. Sometimes they are steep, sometimes gentle and the same slope you climbed effortlessly yesterday can seem more difficult to get over today. Today, I took our four and a half year-old border terrier, Charlie, for a walk. When on the lead, Charlie has issues when he meets another dog coming towards him. He goes into panic mode and begins growling…
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Christmas in Essex
Well, here it is, 2019…and a Happy New Year to all! Christmas 2018 was spent in Burnham on Crouch, Essex where we sampled the delights of Creeksea Place Barns (all 6 of them) joined by various members of our large family for the week. Feeling as though we were living in a time bubble, we collected my mother from her home ten miles away and brought her to join us. Lisa’s mother came too and as Dave’s Mother lives in the village, we were all very close for the first Christmas in years. Our ages spanned from 3 to 93 years. We did not drive ourselves the 125 miles from…
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Cotswold memories & 100 years later
When Dave and I first married, in November 1979, (not 100 years ago) we lived an idyllic life in the Cotswolds, in a two up, two down, cottage. We had no car, no TV and no furniture to speak of bar a bed, two dining chairs and an old, formica topped kitchen table. Nor did we have any form of heating except an open fire. One carpet remnant furnished the living room, cut offs were laid around the upstairs landing and two bedrooms providing a pathway on cold wooden boards. The cottage nestled near the end of a terrace on an unmade track. There were no street lights. At night…
