Week 11 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
First light on Saturday 19 March.
When I opened the study window to take this I was greeted by a chorus of birdsong, which was really lovely and slightly unexpected in mid-March. There was also a nice frosty chill.
The camera was on “sunset” mode.
![[10/52] Flowers](https://farm6.static.flickr.com/5095/5517570230_8c12a69a93.jpg)
Week 10 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Flowers on sale today in our local Waitrose supermarket.
Another weekly selection of esoterica …
Anyone who tells you that your body is anything other than the beautiful, glorious MIRACLE that it is is, as they say in “Princess Bride”, probably selling something.
[Emily Nagoski at ]
[E]ach of us has the job of finding the beliefs we’re not interested in carrying with us any more, uprooting them, and finding something new and healthier to take their place. This process is neither easy nor painless. But it is a path to the confidence and joy I advocate everyone bring to bed with them every night.
[Emily Nagoski at ]
Men always fall into the absurdity of endeavouring to develop the mind, to push it violently forward in this direction or in that. The mind should be receptive, a harp waiting to catch the winds, a pool ready to be ruffled, not a bustling busybody, for ever trotting about on the pavement looking for a new bun shop.
[Robert Hichens, The Green Carnation, 1894]
Sex ought to be a wholly satisfying link between two affectionate people from which they emerge unanxious, rewarded, and ready for more.
[Alex Comfort]
The debate [in 1907 American Medicine about the weight of the soul] went on from the May issue all the way through December, whereupon I lost the thread, my eye having strayed across the page to “A Few Points in the Ancient History of Medicine and Surgery,” by Harry H Grigg, MD. It is with thanks to Harry H Grigg that I can now hold forth at cocktail parties on the history of haemorrhoids, gonorrhoea, circumcision, and the speculum.
[Mary Roach; Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.
[Henry Miller]
A promiscuous person is someone who is getting more sex than you are.
[Victor Lownes]
We do not remember. A certain group of our little people do this for us. They live in that part of the brain which has become known as the ‘fold of Broca’ … There may be twelve or fifteen shifts that change about and are on duty at different times like men in a factory … Therefore it seems likely that remembering a thing is all a matter of getting in touch with the shift that was on duty when the recording was done.
[Thomas Edison; Diaries]
Number 3 in a monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things.
OK, just for fun … this is what you do …
Week 9 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
The Forsythia in our hedge has been in flower for several days now, although there isn’t much of it as the hedge gets too regularly trimmed. This piece is in the hedge archway over our front gate, so will hopefully delight passers by. This is a bit early as it really shouldn’t be in flower for another couple of weeks. Our Fuji Cherry (Prunus incisa ‘Kojo-no-mai’; the picture below is not our tree) has it’s first few flowers open as well, and that is also early. So despite that the weather has turned cold again, it looks as if Spring might well be on the way. Yipee!!
I blame Katyboo! She started this. And even a half answer as to what’s in my drawers is too long for a comment to Katy’s post. So here goes … What is in my drawers?
Well first of all I interpret this as meaning “desk drawers”. Drawers in dressing tables or the like are boring — they contain sox and knickers. Well and detritus (like old spectacles) too, but not so much, at least in my case.
My “desk drawers” tough are numerous and full. To start with “desk” is a misnomer: I have a piece of kitchen worktop the length of one wall (8-9 feet of it!). On it is the usual desk stuff: pot of pens etc., phone, desk lamps, filing trays, jotter, Post-Its, monocular; plus my PC, screen, keyboard, printer etc. And literary society binders/work in progress. And currently a sleeping cat!
The shelves over my “desk” have more desk and PC stuff (photo/label printers, speakers), a few teddy bears & friends, wifi router, postal scales and above that the most used reference books. Under the “desk” I have two “2-drawer” sized filing cabinets, each with one large drawer and three shallower ones. I also have a computer table (as a desk extension with another printer and scanner on it) and use the pull-out keyboard shelf as a desk drawer with A4 paper box lids as organisers. So …
Keyboard shelf
Contains standard office stationery like various sizes of envelope, compliments slips, business cards, postcards, rubber stamps, airmail stickers.
Left-hand Filing cabinet
Large bottom Drawer: various PC bits, spare wifi routers, spare analog phone, photo printer paper, multiple boxes of label sheets (a label size for everything!), PC cables.
Bottom shallow Drawer: More of the same: mostly boxes of adapters for PC and phones. And other PC odds and sods.
Middle Shallow Drawer: This is Anthony Powell Society drawer 2. Various AP Soc spares (till rolls for credit card terminal, coin bags, other banking spares). And the society’s “In Tray”.
Top Shallow Drawer: AP Soc drawer 1. Office stationery including compliments slips of various types, receipt book, supply of bookmarks, membership leaflets, postcards, etc.
Right-hand Filing Cabinet
Large Bottom Drawer: Household filing: bank statements, utility bills, tax, insurance, blah, blah, blah. Postcards and a few greetings cards. A supply of Trebor Extra Strong Mints. It’s so full that I can’t get any more in so there is a large overflow “awaiting filing” pile on th study floor along with more boxes of PC stuff, videos awaiting transcription etc.
Bottom Shallow Drawer: Pads of A4 paper, ring binder bags, coloured plastic files, odds & sods reusable envelopes.
Middle Shallow Drawer: Crammed with miscellaneous techie toot. Mobile phone chargers, camera battery chargers, earphones, dictaphone. Spare rechargeable batteries, camera spares, memory cards, memory sticks. Spare stocks of pencils, pencil leads, biros, marker pens. Several unused HP iPAQ and Palm handhelds. Spares for this and that. Boxes of business cards. Rolls of Dymo printer labels. Boxes of old keys. Spare wallet. Blah, blah, blah.
Top Shallow Drawer: Everyday desk stuff: pens, rulers, stapler, scissors, ball of elastic bands, ball of recycled string, lanyards, roller ruler, small screwdrivers and Allen keys, glue, sellotape. Spare batteries and fuses. Bank books etc. Odds and sods of foreign coinage and keys. Glasses cloth. Calculators.
And all that is without four printer paper boxes of stationery/office spares, and a lot more spare PC stuff in crates under my desk; and the old spare hifi stack; and boxes of printer paper, AP books for disposal/sale, paper recycling bin, shredder. No room for feet under the desk!!
OMG.
Dare you tell us what’s in your (desk) drawers?
Week 8 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Harry the Cat having some tanning therapy today under my sunlamp. Yes, of course he was in the way – definition of cat that is! But at 13 and having had the medical problems he has over the last few months I reckon he’s entitled to some R&R. 🙂
Week 7 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Our lawn and fruit border are full of crocuses, mostly in shades of purple. I know we’ve planted some, but they must be spreading as I’m sure (like these in the fruit border) they’re in places we wouldn’t have planted them. And they seem to be doing well despite the waterlogged clay soil of the lawn.
Week 6 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
These sails are “decoration” in the atrium waiting area at our local BMI (private) hospital (Clementine Churchill Hospital, Harrow). I’ve been meaning to photograph them for years and remembered to take my camera today! I suspect they’re a fancy way to try to provide some share for the reception desk which is underneath them and right below what is a huge “conservatory” roof. They must need some shade because it is over-heated in there at the best of times and unbearable in the summer.
