HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JW!

Hello JW!

And A HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !!

I`m singing it, but Clare`s version is the most Joyous:

I tried commenting this on your blog but Without Success  (Have I Learnt Technically Nothing?!)
So this is My Last Hope, just in case you float by here...

Have a Fabulous Day

Love & kisses
Dolores
xx

Wow! - Surely you`ve been working out...

Well, yes I have – does it show?

Indeed it does – when I got home from my first session George thought I`d been mugged.

But Pchaw to Beginners` Pain - it won`t always feel like this (they insist) so just Keep Going!

Why did I start going, though - I`ve never liked exercise and have hung grimly on to my figure with simple determination...

But these days it`s not enough to be Fab – you have to be FIT too, specially if you want to fend off the maladies of agedness.  (Aeons away though they may be).

Beach Ready, for example, doesn`t just mean squeezing into your cossie, it means running into the sea with a lilo round your neck ready to save someone...

With such thoughts in mind, I had a very encouraging chat with a young woman in the nearby sports outlet store, after which I bought mat, weights and tracksuit and found a gym for the fun and super-toning of Pole Dance.

I don`t know where this person did hers, but everyone else in my class was twenty-two and wearing teeny-pants.

However, they were very kind and helpful, and generous with their pole-sharing.  And after an hour I knew I`d cracked it!

Strangely, they urged me instead towards Starter-Pilates, which I must admit was enjoyable and educational (I mean – do You know how to find your Core Strength?); and also Flexi-Punch (loved this, and now I`m floating very like a butterfly).

I`ve been training for Four Weeks now, am at the pinnacle of my physical prowess and feel weirdly at one with the Rio Olympians. 

For this New Me I`d like to thank my inspirational gym, my lovely husband, and whoever invented SweatBeGone leggings.

But what next?  How can I satisfy this sudden Need for a new challenge?

Ah Hah...

POWER BAKING!

We are Curious Purple

Do You like decorating?  George and I do, possibly because it`s extremely rare for us.

One such attempt followed the recent departure of beloved SpartaCat - we commemorated this agonising event by chucking out the settees he`d ravaged for years, buying ones with all their own filling, and starting to paint the whole neglected house.  

So far we`ve done the living room walls and half a bookcase - the undercoat half.


It turned out to be ridiculously fiddly:
the SuperFab roller we`d bought for drip-free painting didn`t fit between the shelves, and our Bumper Pack of Budget Brushes!! needed constantly extracting from glutinous paint, bristle by bristle.

The original colour of bookcase - determinedly Brown - required multi-coating, much of which then had to be sanded off to force the shelves back in.

When we reached the never-used cupboard, its contents burst forth in a cloud of potent mildew:  CD`s, box sets, several years` Christmas cards, photos, a shoe-stretch spray (that I really could have done with the other day), agents` details of every house we`ve ever viewed and a startled family of hamsters...

We persevered, remembering previous results had sometimes been gratifying.  But we`d forgotten all the collateral devastation - the sticky, mangled brushes and paint splattered surfaces and piles of tester pots that we hate now...

And the recriminations - Look – you`ve painted over the handles again and that`s obviously your drip on the carpet - it won`t come out, you know!  And Whose idea was 
Echo of Tree - it`ll never match walls that have been Deeply Truffled...

Suddenly you`re addicted - no time to stop for lunch, just put a few more sugars in your tea.  Of course the house is a Mess - it`s not worth tidying and we certainly can`t invite people over the threshold till we Finish, but this isn`t quite the look we wanted (what was the look...?).  

Maybe if we tried that other shade…  maybe if we just painted one wall and then we could try-

Oh Sob - it`s Just No Uuuuuuse!!

Grow your own Microbes

IS there Life on Mars?

Well Nasa`s rovers, orbiters and various pokey things have found underground ice and water, plus soil and rocks that can only have formed in lakes or rivers. (So creatures with watery leanings might be OK up there). 

And Mars once had a magnetic field to protect it from the sun`s radiation… rather like the Earth today. (Encouraging for combustible specimens).

So space scientists Who Know reckon that around the time Mars formed, it was highly suitable for life. 

That was (of course!) 4.6  billion years ago, and these days there doesn`t seem to be anything alive up there - at least, not on the surface... but what if it`s all happening underground?

To answer this Very question, the European Space Agency has just launched a probe headed for Mars, to be followed in two years by a robotic rover able to drill 7ft into the surface. 

For, Something up there is continuing to produce methane - what could it be? 

Actually, they think it`s Microbes… 

How do Martian microbes behave when visited - will scientists find them wrapped round the end of the drill, waving? (Or Snarling).

Some experts are concerned about Bringing Back such finds (I know I am) – unknown organisms could wreak Absolute Havoc with Earthly flora and specially fauna - we`ve all seen the films…

Nevertheless ESA boldly sent some of their own microbes out into space last August 2015 (disguised as health food) to help in the search.

Kombucha is a fizzy and Very Healthy Fermented Tea bursting with bacteria and yeasts, and some of it is now clinging to the outside of the International Space Station. 

How will it survive unprotected in space, an exceeding-cold vacuum of cosmic radiation and unfiltered sunlight? 

Can it even survive? Finding out will help assess the survival abilities of microorganisms on Mars - highly relevant in the Search for Life.

(Those more interested in how Kombucha battles against nasty oxidants and infections of the Bacterial kind should know that Starter Kits are available).

In Conclusion, surely there must be Life of some ilk on other planets - how could we possibly be the only one Chosen? 

(Though I don`t-want-them-to-visit-yet thank you)!

Not since...
 

The Warminster Thing!!

 

(Don`t Have Nightmares)!

Consider the Worm...

 

This worm is a resident of the UK and yet just Look at the Size of it!  That person`s hand can hardly contain its folded-up Enormity - at 15in (40cm), it is three times the size of a common-or-garden specimen.

How can this be?  Global Warming… Aliens… No! – this worm lives on the beauteous Inner-Hebridean Isle of Rum where, abundant in wildlife though it be, the island has no moles, frogs, badgers… in fact hardly any evil-worm-eaters at all.

In this blissful otherworldly place, worms simply live long and prosper, becoming not only the biggest earthworms in the UK, but also the longest-living - up to ten years instead of two! 

Worms are modest creatures and yet Charles Darwin wrote, "Of all animals, few have contributed so much to the development of the world as we know it, as these lowly creatures." (Surely food for deep thought).

It doesn`t seem much of a life though… incessant chomping on any old soil and casting it out as Something Beautiful  (healthy and fertile); It has been estimated that nearly every particle of healthy top soil on earth has passed through earthworms at one stage or another. (earthwormsinfo.com). 
So tread delicately out there.

One (perhaps the?) benefit of being an earthworm is that they don`t catch any diseases, teeming as they are with good and Mighty bacteria. Sadly, they`re also protein-packed and toothless, hence their countless predators.

Agonised by such thoughts, I always reinter worms unearthed in my gardening efforts, but it only takes the patter of rain to bring them hurtling back out to Breathe. 

Or of a Fiendish Cunning seagull pretending...

(I thought he was just Happy when we first spotted him). 

One Day, Seagull, all worms will be Anaconda-Sized.

Up and AwAAAaaaaay!

 

Well it`s all gone – the cards, the tree, the Chocolate called Tonka (not made of dump-truck, but of exotic South American Tonka Bean). And delectable. I`m hoping it`ll soon be found to be a Super-Food.

Anyway, this is that grim, grey, grotty period (I like it), when we splodge around thinking oh hell – we really have to get the roof mended now.  

And then of course, we must Make a Resolution.  As urged by magazines, TV programmes and you-can-do-better books.

So I`m taking up Wingwalking.

People often ask, "Where can I WingWalk?", say the professionals of Wingwalk Displays.

I think we can all relate to that…  and next time I can tell them!

For not long ago there was talk of this very thing on the radio – recently graduated Nikita Salmon answered a Wingwalkers Wanted ad in the local paper and was soon whizzing round the heavens in Formation Display! 
 

She described her job as the most exciting in the world; as quite an Adventurer myself, I could not forget her words and Now is the Time! 

Though not quite as youngfitandbeautiful as Nikita, I certainly meet the criteria for the Individual No-Dancing version (over 16, under 12 stone) and I`m well under the age of doctor`s certificate required (65). 
 
Might need a leg-up to the top wing, perhaps…

But once wedged into the rig, you`ll be taken on a palpitating series of aerobatic manoeuvres - could be low-level flypasts, zoom climbs, 500ft dives…

It`s DAZZLING, HEART-POUNDING and SPECTACULAR!!

Tempted?  And for this unforgettable experience, you can even have a video camera on the end of the wing!

Come on down!