One last stand

I should have taken a picture. I wanted to, but the moment passed before I could, or did. It didn't happen suddenly, I had days, maybe even a couple of weeks when I kept saying, each time I came home, "I must take a picture of that." But I didn't and now it's too late. The rain is belting down and it's rained off the last of them. They're blending into the mud below, twirling around blades of grass, becoming mulch, indecipherable from the mud.

Hundreds of little deep purple flowers from the Potato Bush, pale blue Plumbago, yellow ones from the Bush with Yellow Flowers (name unknown) and bright pink bougainvillea, all pushing out over the fence of The House in the Middle of the Street, unruly and sticking their tongues out at the impending Winter.

It's a brave little garden my beloved mother has created here at my house. My fingers are not green, hers are an astounding shade of it. Her garden needs to be seen to be believed, it's gorgeous. I'm a lucky girl that she was kind enough to do mine for me too and she filled it with wild, unruly bushes that have entwined themselves around the palings and push their way out to trail their petals along passersby's arms when they walk past. It's a riot of colour and green.

And I love that, like me, my little garden always makes one last stand in late Autumn. It produces flowers profusely and throws its petals about boldly in the face of Winter.

I wish I'd taken that photo but, as seasons are wont to do, they'll happen again and maybe, just maybe, next year I'll take it in time.

The unwatched TV

There is a distinctly different sound made by a TV being watched and one sitting alone in a room. It's one of my pet hates, a TV left on in a room where nobody is, talking away to itself, lonely. A psychoanalyst would probably put this down to my innate fear of loneliness and give me all sorts of exercises to overcome this fear but, luckily, this is my (self-indulgent) blog, so I have no need to be scared of psychoanalysis and its resultant exercises that I'd hate doing. Besides, I'm perfectly aware of my fear of lonileness, as has just been made obvious here. I don't mind being alone, in fact I like it sometimes. But loneliness - ugh, shudder.

I stray. Watched TVs, be their audience one or a crowd, seem to have a confidently calm kind of sound, like people talking to friends they know are listening. The minute the audience leaves the room, though, leaving the TV on its own in a room, the volume goes up slightly, as if the characters on screen have raised their voices and are peering expectantly around the side of the screen, waiting for someone to come back in and watch, allowing them to carry on with whatever scene was playing out.
Sunday morning ramblings on a Wintery long weekend, getting my writing juices flowing. Again. And I'm a little lazy about writing for a couple of weeks, then come back, and someone's moved all the furniture? This new format? It took me ten minutes (admittedly in a very lazy I'm-still-in-my-pyjamas-at-12 o'clock way) to find what to press to make a new post. Hell man, what's with the symbols for everything? Can't we just use lovely, old-fashioned, words? I can't imagine that anybody illiterate is wanting to write a new blog post, so why the need for little pictures?

Trivial Pursuit and such

There’s a lot to be said about playing Trivial Pursuit with old friends. I suppose there’s a lot to be said about doing anything with old friends, really. It’s just that little bit easier, more comfortable, when people know all the good bits and gory bits of your history.

In Trivial Pursuit though, I realised on Saturday afternoon while sitting next to our first fire of winter, that, when playing with old friends, very often you know which answers they’ll get right, and it feels lovely.

Winter arrived over the weekend, bringing with it bucketing-down rain, great grey skies, a distinct drop in the mercury, and six new leaks in the lounge roof. Also, fires in the hearth, game-playing, red wine and cosy old friend time. I’m going to focus on that, as opposed to Grumpy Shiny that the cold and dark brings out of the shadows.