Where's the Map?

We’re a weird family at times, with weird word-usage within our ranks. For example, whenever as a family we received a box of chocolates, or one of those collections of assorted biscuits you often get around Christmas time, a common question when offered to choose from the box would be ‘Where’s the map?’.

I do appreciate people usually associate maps with complex roads and other topographical features showing distances and directions between one place and another but in our family a map, when reduced to its simplest form, is basically a piece of paper that shows you the way to something. Road map, treasure map, food map…

So for example in a box of chocolates, if you want to avoid the random Forrest Gump approach (‘Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’) to know exactly where the scrumptious coffee cream or silky dairy fudge nestles within, you consult the map provided within the box to find out.

Or alternatively, you may wish to take pot-luck with your choice apart from the nutty ones (me), or the soft-centres (my husband) so you would need to be aware of those particular chocolates to which to give a wide berth to avoid confectionary disappointment. Mind you, if you do happen to choose one you don’t like, it’s always a good excuse to have another ‘just to take the bad taste away…!’

PS Hmmm… Having just finished writing this post a quote has sprung to mind from TV programme ‘Endeavour’ – in my head I can clearly hear the voice of Oxford City policeman Detective Inspector Fred Thursday say dryly of rival police force Oxford County ‘County couldn’t find their arse with two hands and a map’ – ha ha ha ha… the imagery still makes me smile! 😀

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Map

To-Do Lists

It feels so good to tick completed items off a to-do list, however long the list may be. It reassures me that however many tasks remain undone to date, I am achieving something worthwhile! 🙂

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Task

Inflicting my Affliction

All my life I’ve struggled on and off with depression. My first blog was, in fact, an exercise in giving myself a voice, a way of talking openly about it, and to begin with it felt truly liberating. But all too soon feeling obliged to voice my pain so regularly became nothing more than a stressful chore and I yearned to choose silence again, so once my blog became a millstone around my neck I quietly withdrew, and that was that.

My second blog was an attempt to move beyond a depression-based narrative, but still I found I focused too much on my misery, so that blog, too, soon hit the buffers. So here I am on my third blog, trying hard not to inflict my affliction on you all in my virtual world. Here I try to keep my creative channels open as far as possible and avoid posting the worst of my laments and dirges, however low and down I feel.

Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t, so thank you all for sticking by me through my successes and my silences, it’s very much appreciated 🙂

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Inflict

Because You Never Know…

I’m sitting here in my comfortable living room in my quiet little bungalow in Inverness, watching the news unfold of yet another possible terrorist attack in Central London – London Bridge again. One man, it seems, wearing a fake suicide vest and shot dead by police at the scene…

This is one of the things I definitely don’t miss about living in London, the threat of such potential incidents unfolding around you while you are simply getting on with your everyday life. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it to avoid it, you simply have to remain vigilant of disturbances and be prepared to react as necessary when things happen, because you never know what you may find yourself in the middle of… 😦

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Because

Poetry to Die For: Christina Rossetti

One of my favourite poems of all time is ‘When I am dead, my dearest’ by Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. I realise it’s a morbid thought, but I’d love to record myself reading it out loud, and have it played at my funeral… For me it truly is poetry to die for…

'When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.'

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Plant

Smudged Circle

I decided to give my gel pens a whirl today, but got so engrossed in colouring in my chosen design I forgot to be careful to leave each coloured ink to dry off completely before starting on the next colour – oops! Oh well, using a little bit of artistic licence I’ve called my final masterpiece ‘Smudged Circle’! 🙂

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Licence

Escapist Colouring Club

Tripping Over My Own Shadow

Honest to God, I can trip over my own shadow and be flat on my face before I know what’s happening. To be fair I do have one leg slightly longer than the other, so I find that with my longer leg if I don’t pick my foot up properly it can catch on the ground and I’ll far too easily stumble and fall. The older I get, the worse it’s getting – probably because with older, stiffer joints, it seems my mental reaction time and the inevitable delay in associated physical reaction is far enough apart to cause me to fall before I can counter my imbalance…

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Trip