Meg’s Diary

28/5/2025

We had another Bank Holiday weekend, and this one had nothing planned so we chilled at home. On the Sunday I was feeling lazy, and the view from upstairs showed the field next to the house was freshly mown, with no animals, and the sun was shining—so we thought, why not walk Meg there for a change? What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, lots could go wrong before we even left the driveway, so I was careful to ensure that Husband was happy to hold the lead the entire way—so if a car passed us Meg wouldn’t break my arm in her quest to chase it. Husband decided to also bring the extending lead, which I have now deemed as too dangerous given the speed that Meg reaches before the lock clicks in, and I am pulled after her at 45 mph. But he was convinced it would be fine, and off we set.

There is a large oak tree in the corner of the field, so when we passed I collected lots of fallen sticks, and Husband and Meg collected the largest logs they could carry, and off we went. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Meg was happily walking round the field with us, chasing sticks. At one point a car went down the lane, and Meg raced the length of the field trying to catch it, but she was safely behind the hedge, so I viewed it as good exercise.

But then it all went wrong (of course it did!) Husband threw his log, which bounced, and Meg zoomed after it, and as she caught it, she yelped. I wasn’t sure what had happened, and she looked unhurt as she ran back to us. But then I realised she had blood dripping from her mouth. I called her to me, and made her sit, and opened her mouth (she’s very good at letting me poke my fingers in her mouth, and the only times she has ever bitten me is when she’s snatching at a stick). But she wouldn’t let me look properly, so we took her home, trailing drips of blood behind us.

At home, I put some cider vinegar into her water bowl as a way to try and clean whatever was cut, but Meg sniffed it and walked to her bed, refusing to drink. We checked her a few times, and I decided that if she was no better the following day we would take her to the vet. In my experience, animals have a very fast metabolism, and most times (unless there is something obvious, like a cut or a splinter) they get better on their own.

Meg didn’t eat anything that night, but the next morning I wet her dried food so it was soft, and she ate it all. I tried to look in her mouth, but all I could see was that under her tongue was swollen. She didn’t let me move her tongue to see if there was a splinter. I decided to wait another couple of days, because I couldn’t see that the vet would be able to do anything without a general anaesthetic and I am unkeen to allow those unless strictly necessary. Gradually, Meg improved, she stopped being subdued (that didn’t last more than a few hours) and began to use her mouth normally.

***

On the Monday, we decided to walk to the pub for lunch, and as it was nice having Meg in the field for a change, we decided to take her. We last took her to the pub about a year ago, and she was very annoying, so I was hoping for an improvement.

Walking to the pub was mostly okay. We could do most of it in fields. Meg clearly remembered the route, even after all this time, and was often in the lead. We had to cross a stile, and Meg remembered where it was, and squeezed through the central gap without a problem. A few cars passed us on the lane, and Meg was terrible, and leapt at them—but we knew that she would, and Husband had her on a tight lead, and no one was injured.

In the pub I tied Meg to a wall, and pulled a ball from my pocket. At home she will concentrate on a ball for a long time, waiting until she is allowed to have it. It worked less well in the pub. Initially she lay down, with her paws either side, and her head above the ball—not touching (which was not allowed) but only millimetres away. When she thought I wasn’t looking, she nudged it forward. I then tried giving her the ball, thinking that the treat of being allowed the ball might keep her quiet for a while. But Meg wanted me to throw it, and when I didn’t, she did. She was fairly near some steps, and she managed to toss the ball towards them, and then lurched forward to get it, nearly pulling the hook out of the wall she was attached to. At one point a woman passed, and Meg barked her ‘big dog’ bark and I realised the woman was carrying a small dog. Everyone in the pub jumped, and then stared. I apologised, tried to get her to refocus on the ball. It was not a relaxing lunch. However, it was not completely terrible, so I might try it again.

The walk home was relaxed. Meg ran free most of the time, and we ignored her and enjoyed being in the sunshine. I love to watch her run around, and she probably made the walk more fun (if you don’t include the lurching at cars thing—I certainly could never take her on my own). It takes us about an hour to walk to the pub, and when I leave Meg at home, I then have to take her for a walk, so it’s much easier if she comes with us. We decided that taking Meg with us made it less relaxing, but it was not a complete failure. In Meg-world, that’s about as good as it gets.

I hope you have something relaxing this week. Thanks for reading.
Take care.
Love, Anne x

anneethompson.com
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Meg’s Diary: Up to 11 Months

Posted by anneethompson

15/7/24

I feel that Meg has changed. She is still challenging, but we have come to an understanding, and I feel she is slightly calmer. Very slightly. I am also trying to have her out of her crate for longer. This has mixed results. In the evening, we now watch telly in the lounge, while Meg chews a bone in the doorway. She knows she must not enter the room (or she gets sprayed with water!) and she is happy, watching us, and chewing her bone. During the day, if left for more than a minute, she will find her own entertainment. Today she was left for 5 minutes (washroom visit) and she found a newspaper and ripped it to shreds. That didn’t matter, but if it had been one of my plants, or a cushion, it would have been very annoying. We are getting to where I hope to be, but slowly.

Walking is easier because I don’t attempt to walk near roads. We go to the woods, and she stays near me, and comes when called (even if I do have to shout ‘Stick!’) so putting her back on the lead is reliably do-able. She will do anything for a stick.

10/8/24,

Meg is definitely calmer than she was. Not ‘calm’ but calmer than the completely hyper monster that she was a few months ago. I am also better at knowing what she can cope with.

In July, I went away for a week, and a son and his partner lived in the house with Meg. When I got home, I was greeted with a happy, calm dog. They had basically played with her for most of every day, and let her run free in the garden, and she had learnt to sleep on the kitchen floor when she was tired. The garden was a mess, with several pots shredded, but it seemed a good tactic. It was lovely to return home to a happy dog. I was however, disappointed by her reaction when she first saw me. There are some people who she is super-excited to see, so excited that she pees on the floor and does laps of the garden. Me, on the other hand, she wagged her tail for, and then went back to shredding the large log she had carried onto the lawn. She was sort-of pleased to see me, but definitely not super-excited. I am in charge of the home, so maybe that makes me more of an annoyance in her eyes than someone to have fun with–because if I wasn’t here, she would probably be in charge. I don’t know. It’s so different to Kia, who was part of me and would have died for me—whereas I have a sneaky suspicion that Meg might be secretly pleased if I disappeared because then she could do whatever she wanted.

On 31^st July, we went to meet someone at the airport. I brought Meg, thinking it would be excellent training to walk through a crowded airport. It didn’t quite go to plan, because although she walked into the lift happily, they were broken, so we had to use the stairs. When we entered the stairwell, Meg froze. Four paws on the ground, not going anywhere. We didn’t have time to teach her how to use stairs, so Husband went to the arrivals hall, and I walked round the car park with Meg. It was still good training, walking past lots of people with luggage and moving cars, and going in and out of the stairwell. But not as good as I had hoped. We will work on stairs, and spooky stairwells.

Meg now walks through the woods on the lead very nicely, and we go every morning. When she’s off the lead, she happily greets other dogs, but she tends to chase them, and other owners get anxious, so I mainly keep her on the lead. We have met deer a few times when she was free, and I grabbed a stick, and led her away, and she absolutely prefers a stick to chasing a deer. I have no idea why. I’m worried that with so many deer, there are probably ticks, so I’m careful about keeping her flea/tick drops up to date, and I use insect repellent. (Ticks carry Lyme disease, and that can be dangerous for people.)

Every evening, Meg chews her bone in the hall while we relax in the lounge. She is very good, knows the routine, and does not attempt to enter the room (well, not very far). This is nice, I like having her around.

I started tempting her up and down the stairs with her ball. She’s hesitant, but getting used to using stairs in the house. Mostly, she will do anything for a ball. I still try to hand-feed her most of her food, and practise calling her, and teaching her to walk to heel. It’s all great unless there’s a distraction, and then she is still terrible. I can get her to sit near the main road and concentrate on a treat rather than the cars, but not yet in our lane. She still hares up and down the garden fence if a car goes up the farm lane.

Next week we go to Rome, and for the first time, Meg will go into kennels. I think she’ll enjoy it, she is very sociable. I am so looking forward to the break.

11 Months

12/8/24

I have started to keep Meg on the lead for longer, because I am more relaxed and it makes the walk more enjoyable. She has lots of time to run free in the garden, and walks are more for mental stimulation. Today, in the brief time that she was free, we met 3 large black Labradors. I think they were all males. Meg bounced up to the first one—and I didn’t attempt to stop her because they were a similar size to her, so wouldn’t be bounced, and they were Labradors so must be friendly. Except they weren’t (friendly—that is, they were Labradors!) The first one raised his hackles, obviously not keen to be greeted by an impertinent young female. The other two surrounded her, and before I knew it, Meg was lying on the floor while the Labrador owner shouted at her dogs. Meg managed to get up, and started to run, so I called her, and she came near enough to grab. (Not, of course, running directly to me, but sort of in my general direction, which is usually the best I can hope for.) At no point had Meg yelped, and in my experience, dogs yelp at the smallest discomfort, so I’m pretty sure the encounter was about dominating her rather than attacking her. The owner was extremely apologetic, but I wasn’t sure it was necessarily a bad experience for Meg. It might be good for her to learn that racing up to a big dog is not always a good idea. And as I say, there didn’t seem to be any viciousness to it, the Labradors were just making sure she knew her place in the pack—which was at the bottom!

We continued our walk on the lead. It’s really hot, so the whole world was walking their dogs early, and we met lots of people. When they saw Meg on the lead, most people called their dogs, thinking she was unfriendly, so I started to call to them, explaining she was friendly but super-bouncy. They then relaxed, and I worked on training Meg to sit while the other dog approached her, and I had little chats with the owners and it was all very sociable. Meg was friendly to all the dogs that passed us, so the earlier encounter with the Labradors had obviously not affected her badly.

It’s hard to keep Meg cool in this weather, and she pants continually. I can’t wet her, because she hates the hose, but I have wet her bedding, so she can lie on cool damp towels. Not that she does of course, she picks them up and runs round the kitchen with cool damp towels! But I tried.

She is getting better at stairs already. Today I put her ball on increasingly higher steps, and she walked right to the top of the flight without a problem. Coming down is more precarious, because she tries to leap the last few steps—which would be dangerous if she was on the lead—so I will keep teaching her to go slowly up and down. (And is quite dangerous if anyone stands near, as they might get a flying German Shepherd land on their head.) She’s fun to teach, because she learns so quickly. Just as long as she doesn’t kill someone by mistake…

Thanks for reading. Have a safe week.
Love, Anne x

Global Christianity: What Does It Look Like?

Posted by anneethompson

One of my lectures this week was about Christianity around the world. It was only one lecture, and really it could be a whole course, but the little we covered was very interesting. We read various articles by author’s of different nationalities, and it was clear that their Christianity reflected the culture they lived in.

One example was the work of Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889—1929 ).[1] He lived in India, and you could hear chimes of the Indian culture in his writing—which was beautiful. He wrote that God is in everything, and unless we ‘see’ God in the natural world, we cannot fully appreciate what we have. God is reflected in creation. He wrote that prayer prepares the soul for God’s gifts, and we shouldn’t be praying in order to ‘get’ things. When we approach God in prayer, our thirst is quenched. He painted a picture of God using examples from nature.

At times, it was fairly close to pantheism (the idea that God is everything, and everything is God—which is roughly the teaching of the Hindu religion). But he didn’t actually say that, and instead gave an example of a sponge being filled with water—the sponge and the water are intrinsically different substances, but one is able to completely absorb the other.

His title of ‘Sadhu’ means ‘holy man,’ and he taught many people. There are stories that he left society and went to live in a cave, and he is still there now, waiting until the world is ready for him to emerge. Other reports (I suspect more reliable) are that he died in 1929.

We also read some of Richard Young’s work, about Christianity in Africa and Asia.[2] He writes about the role of ancestors in China. He suggests that the spirit of ancestors should be regarded as a force—either to help in the Christian journey or to flee from their influence—but they cannot simply be ignored. Chinese people cannot be expected to suddenly think ‘with a Western mind’ when they become Christians.

I’m not sure what I think about this. However, I do wonder if there is an example in the New Testament. If you read the Gospels, there were an awful lot of evil spirits/demon possession. And in today’s society, there seem to be less. I do not actually know anyone who has been possessed by evil spirits—do you? Yet we read of the disciples encountering such people regularly. Were they just unlucky? Or are we not noticing? Or, is it possible that those people were not possessed by spirits, they were simply ill, and erratic behaviour due to things like epilepsy was wrongly attributed to evil spirits? In which case, it is interesting that Jesus did not correct the wrong assumption. He met the people within the culture/thought-context of the time, and he knew that if he told the person they were healed, but ignored the ‘evil spirit’ then they would continue to suffer—because placebo is very strong, and a belief in an evil spirit would be enough for them to continue to suffer. Therefore, in kindness, Jesus did was what necessary, he appeared to ‘cast out’ spirits, so the person would be healed. If I am correct, then what Young suggests would fit with this example. Sometimes we expect people to change who they are before they can come to God, but this is a human requirement, not a Godly one. If God wants to change them, that’s his business, and that will happen later.

We also spoke to a Coptic Christian from Egypt—but I’ll tell you about that in my next blog. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day. Take care.
Love, Anne x

Thank you for reading.
anneethompson.com
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[1] Sudhu Sundar Singh, At the Master’s Feet, (Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1922).

[2] Richard Fox Young, ‘Christian Spirituality in Africa Asia, Latin America and Oceania’, in Author Holder (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011).

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These are a few of my favourite things….in case we have a thunder storm.

Posted by anneethompson

Christmas tends to involve a lot of stuff. Some of which is fun, and helps the general mood of celebration, and some just gets in the way. Sometimes I think we have too much stuff, and life would be much simpler without it. But there are some things which I really like, for a whole variety of reasons. Sometimes because of who or what it reminds me of, and sometimes just because it works really well. So, I thought I would share with you some of my favourite things (even though some are perhaps a bit odd.)

I shall begin with my iron. People have been very rude about my iron over the years, but I think it’s perfect. It’s small and heavy and doesn’t hiss steam in a scary manner. My brother gave it to me in 1988, and it still works just fine. I expect you are jealous.

Next is a more recent gift, a mug from my mum. It is chipped now (no one admitted responsibility, one of those mysterious damages that happen in families). It is now a pencil pot. During its brief life as a mug, it was a nice curvy shape to hold, with a thin rim, so nice to drink from, and it held more coffee than our other mugs. It was my morning coffee mug. Once chipped, it lost its attraction, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away, so it sits on my desk, reminding me of peaceful mornings and the joys of living in a family.

Next is my garden. I chose our house on the strength of our garden, and I still love it. It’s not very manicured, but it’s full of little corners and living things. You will find chickens wandering through the trees, and cats waiting to pounce on you, and ducks being noisy on the pond. Two of my best gifts from Husband were a large cage for a birthday (which he managed to put together with himself shut inside, but we won’t talk about that!) and some toadstools. The toadstools are surrounded by snowdrops in the spring, and they sit near the lawn where we buried my labrador, so it’s rather a special corner.

Next is my knife (these are not in any sort of order, in case you’re wondering). Okay, so it’s just a knife, but it’s red, so easy to see when I forget where I’ve left it (happens a lot) plus it works. I don’t particularly like cooking dinners, but I can whiz through a sack of potatoes with this knife in no time. It was bought from John Lewis, but when I tried to buy another one, they were gone, and they only had serrated ones. If you ever see them lurking in a shop, let me know. (Made by Kuhn.)

I can’t choose a favourite book, so I’ll have them as a bookshelf. Hours of learning and listening and being whisked into other lives.

My wellies have to be on the list, because I live in them, and they symbolise hours of pleasure, stomping across fields and hills and footpaths. My life would be less nice without wellies.

I will finish with some jewellery (just to prove I am a girl!) Actually, specifically my engagement ring, which is the most exciting piece of jewellery I own. It isn’t huge (we had no money) but we bought it soon after we were engaged, when we were still students. It was from a shop in London, and when it was fitted to the correct size, I had to collect it and take it to Bristol, where Husband was a student, so he could keep it until we were ‘officially’ engaged. I remember sitting on the National Express coach from Victoria, and staring at it on my finger, holding it in the light so the sapphire shone blue. Then Husband kept it, for ages, until we finally told everyone that we planned to get married. It was all wonderfully exciting.

I could go on, but you might lose interest if I go through my favourite shoes, and pen, and chair. So I’ll stop. What is your favourite thing?

Thanks for reading. Have a good week.
Take care,
Anne x

xxxxxx

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anneethompson.com

Facebook for the Over Fifties

Posted by anneethompson

I am relatively new to Facebook, first starting to use it in 2014. Since then, I have been amazed at the potential for error. Facebook has its own, unwritten rules, which everyone under the age of forty seems to be fully aware of, and everyone older struggles to grasp. I thought I would tell you what I have learned so far, but first, here is a post I wrote soon after starting:

A Facebook Lesson

I had cycled down to visit my mother. We sat on her sofa, slurping tea, when Mum said she could not see any of my photographs on Facebook. We spent some time looking at her computer (which is actually an ipad my brother lent her) but neither of us could work out what the problem was. Then she asked me why I never send her messages on Facebook. I explained that I would much rather use email, because I don’t really know what I’m doing and I might send them to the wrong place.

“Oh!” she said, “It’s easy, I’ll show you. Look, Ruth has posted a picture of chocolate, I’ll just send her the message ‘Ha,Ha,Ha’!” She did.

Then she realised that actually, she had not sent the message to Ruth. She had sent the message to somebody’s prayer request on one of her religious sites. All the other posts were things like, “I feel for you,” or, “God bless you in this time of need,” – then there was Mary Thompson: “Ha,Ha,Ha!” We couldn’t stop laughing. It was so funny and of course, neither of us had the first idea if it was possible to ‘unsend’ a message once it was sent. We laughed for ages, but it did rather illustrate my point…

***

Now, I have moved on a little from those early days. I do now use Facebook messenger. But there is much to learn along the way.

Such as: LOL does not stand for “Lots of Love.” It stands for “Laugh out Loud” and is therefore inappropriate to use as a comment when your daughter has shared bad news with you.

It is possible to change your privacy settings (which are found behind the little emblem that looks like a globe). If they are set to ‘only me’, then no one at all can see your posts/photos. So you might as well not bother, and write a diary instead.

People who send you a friendship request are not necessarily people who you once knew but seem to have forgotten. They are possibly complete strangers, collecting friends for a false identity, and should be avoided. Even people who are not your friends on Facebook can see everything you post on a public setting, so some things should be set for family or friends only. And be careful to notice if you are posting something on your timeline (which everyone can see) or in a private message. You can get into a lot of trouble if you get those in a muddle.

When your children post lots of photographs after a party/ holiday/event you didn’t attend; it is not polite to ‘like’ every single one. They find it annoying. In fact, if you weren’t at the event, they probably don’t mean for you to respond at all – and certainly writing a comment is very frowned upon. (Actually, writing comments on your children’s posts or their friends is usually the wrong thing to do. Even though you have changed Robbie’s nappies and watched him grow up; now he has a beard and a girlfriend, he does not necessarily want to be reminded of the time he spilt orange juice on your sofa. Best to just observe and keep quiet, I have found.)

Your children probably share things with their friends that we would’ve chatted about in our rooms, when our parents weren’t there. They are not necessarily things you want to see/hear, so it might be better to ask your child to change their settings so you have ‘restricted’ viewing. I find I really do not need to know everything tiny detail about my children – I like to pretend they are nice.

Humour on Facebook is a bit dangerous. It is possible to write something very funny, or slightly sarcastic, and people unexpectedly take offence. Or didn’t realise you were being ironic, and respond to your “as Doctor Who is now a woman, should we call her Nurse Who?” joke with worried comments about your attitude to women. Really, I have got this wrong so often, it’s just not worth posting. A joke gone wrong can attract a lot of hate mail. Sometimes I can’t resist, but it’s usually a disaster, and once it’s ‘out there’ there is no way to make people unsee it.

Then there are the angry Facebookers. People who are lovely, polite, calm people in real life, turn into rude protestors on social media. You mustn’t take their comments personally, and if you dislike what they say, it is possible to ‘unfollow’ them rather than lose their friendship.

As I learn more ‘rules’ I will let you know. Good luck! Oh, and do remember everyone can see what you post – someone I know (not me this time) said how disappointed she was when her niece got engaged because she preferred the old boyfriend. She didn’t realise that people other than her niece would see the comment. Oops!

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Anne E. Thompson is the author of several books. You can follow her blog at: anneethompson.com

Look out for her books on Amazon and in bookshops – who do you know that would like one for Christmas?

JOANNA – the story of a psychopath, an easy read gritty novel, that shows the reader how a psychopath thinks, and also how her actions impact her family. Because every psychopath has a mother – and how must that feel?

This Week

Posted by anneethompson

Hello, how was your week?

Mine has been a nice mix of work and other stuff.

It started with the Men’s Annual Croquet Cup, which is held every year in our garden. Husband is very keen on croquet, and I absolutely refuse to ever play, because it’s a horrid nasty game involving hand-eye co-ordination (which I don’t posses) and an evil temperament (which I do posses, but try to keep under control). When, in the past, I did play, it was always my ball that Husband sent spinning off into the bushes. So now he has to organise a church event, and get lots of blokes round to play. I think it went okay, I just had to provide drinks and snacks and keep out the way. The prize is a big ugly rubber-glove mould, which Husband found in a shop in NY. No-one wants to win it, so it is a game of skill, as they all try to be good enough to reach the last post, but then fluff those final shots so someone else has to take home the ugly prize.

I’ve also spent lots of time cooking fruit. Harvest is an extravagant season, and I feel uncomfortable leaving plums and apples to rot on the trees, but they do all ripen at the same time. So it takes hours of picking, and sorting, and preparing fruit, ready for the freezer. My fingers are now stained brown, and I don’t want to see another plum.

I’ve also had a few tomatoes, but my tomato plants haven’t done very well this year, because the cats like to sleep on them. (No idea why.)

I didn’t have my Chinese lesson this week, because we can’t find our teacher. Perhaps she’s done a runner to escape our terrible accents.

On Thursday I was invited to speak at the Cameo Club (an afternoon group run by one of the local churches for the over-sixties.) I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It was held in their church, and I had assumed everyone would sit round in a circle (which is usually what I find when I speak to small groups or book-groups). But I arrived to find them in rows, facing a lectern and microphone. A bit scary.

I also wasn’t quite sure what to talk about (I have three talks really, one about books, one about the slums of India, and one about me having a brain tumour and becoming an author.) I chose the me/brain/author one, as I thought it shows that God can use us, however much our body has gone to pot, which might be appropriate for an older audience.

I never manage to actually say what I’ve planned to say when I do these talks. I pray beforehand, asking God for a ‘message’ to say. Then I plan a talk, and write a few notes (which I usually can’t find when I arrive). Today, I did manage to arrive, on time, with notes, but then at the end, I glanced at them and I hadn’t said anything I had planned to say. I think this shows I’m not very good at listening to God. The day I manage to actually give the talk I feel he wants me to say, I will know I have got better at listening. However, I do think, because I try to listen, he might use me anyway. Perhaps (hopefully) someone there heard something helpful. I did have some nice chats afterwards, anyway.

I did have bit of a ‘spooky’ God experience this week (which shows he listens to me, even if I am a bad listener – because on the way to Lunch Club I had been thinking that sometimes, it’s hard to believe in God when life is just ticking away nicely) Anyway, when I arrived in the kitchen, the oven had been set to ‘automatic’, which means it won’t heat up. (Not sure if this was due to a power-cut earlier in the day, due to said oven being cleaned during summer break, or if some annoying individual had fiddled with it.) No one could remember how to ‘unset’ the automatic setting. I fiddled with various buttons for about 10 minutes. Then DP- who can usually mend anything tried. Then I tried again. Then we gave up, and decided dinner would have to fit into the other two cookers. We always have a prayer time, so when the team had arrived, we left the kitchen, and prayed – during which I mentioned unhelpful cooker (not expecting anything to change). We went straight from prayer back to kitchen, I pressed the same buttons on the oven I’d already pressed and – tada – oven came on! I have no idea if it had warmed up and dried out, so now worked, or if it has an intermittent fault which corrected itself, or if we witnessed a miracle. The cooker worked. And given the timing, the me saying I was feeling a bit like I never ‘saw’ God anymore, for me it is a miracle anyway.

The rest of my week, has been spent rewriting Clara. I left it for a few months after writing the first draft, and now am rereading it, and deciding what I need to change. When I’ve done that I will send it off to my editor (who usually makes me rewrite even more). So far, it’s going well. I think it’s the best book I’ve written so far – certainly it’s the most powerful. But it’s hard to judge your own work, so we’ll see. You can tell me next year, when it’s finally published.

So, a nice ordinary week for me. Hope your week went well too.

Take care,
Anne x

PS. I found another sunflower growing in the sweetcorn field.

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anneethompson.com

xxx

Picasso

Posted by anneethompson

Letter to a Daughter

Dear Bee,

How are you? I hope work is fun but you’re getting home at a decent time. So awful at the moment with no sun and dingy mornings, I am ready for Spring to arrive.

I thought about you yesterday. Partly because I was in London (I waved from the train when we passed near your flat. Got strange looks from everyone else in the carriage and the man sitting next to me moved to another seat.) The other reason was because I was going to a Picasso exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It reminded me of when I used to take you there when you were little.

We had a lecture first. There was a lot of information (too much to remember actually, but it wasn’t too warm, so I stayed awake.) The lecturer was very good, she obviously knew her stuff, and explained it nice and simply. I think Picasso can be summed up in three words: seedy, witty, clever. But I’ll give you a quick over view of his life, it might be useful if ever you have to look knowledgeable.

He was born in Malaga (I’m sure you remember this, from our holiday there when you were about 4 years old…) His father was an artist (painted mainly birds it seems – pigeons and doves – very realistically.) Picasso started to copy his father, and when he was just twelve he finished one of his Dad’s paintings and was told it was better than his father’s. We saw a self-portrait he did when he was 13 (to be honest, he did a LOT of self-portraits. Says something about the man, I think.) He was at an art college in Barcelona, and his work was pretty good actually. None of the weird stuff that appeared later.

When he was older, he lived in Paris, and was there during the war (when he used lots of dingy colours and contorted faces to show the unrest/cruelty of the times.) He tried out lots of different styles, copying other artists. There was a bit of cubism (painting weird geometric shapes across the canvas), things like that. He doodled a lot, and drew caricatures of his friends and family. He always refused to take commissions for ‘classical’ portraits, when the model is flattered and surrounded by lots of emblems to show their status. He wanted to paint their personality, their mood. Many of his portraits, even though the subject sat for many hours when posing, are barely even recognisable as human. (I expect some of them were rather cross.) However, lots of his work was given to friends, rather than for exhibition. These pieces tended to be smaller, and more realistic. I preferred them.

I was interested by his realistic portraits. He was undoubtedly talented. I don’t really like his later stuff at all – all those eyes at weird angles and mouths and noses not in sync. However, one thing was interesting. We were shown a cubist painting (which just looked a mess of shapes with a random eye plonked to one side) and were told to ‘fuzz’ our eyes. I took off my glasses (fuzzes the whole world!) and the portrait looked completely different – you could see the man, how he was sitting, holding his hands in front of him. That was clever.

I also went to the gift shop, while waiting for the people who I was having lunch with (who were all rather more interested in the paintings than I was). I managed to avoid the £800 etchings and £52 tray, and even the rather natty ‘Picasso’ tee-shirt and beret set. I was tempted by one of the books though. It was a children’s book, and I wished you were young again, so I could buy it for you. It was written about a little boy’s experiences, when Picasso visited him in England. It showed a glimpse of the man, the child-like, creative, story-telling old man, who was happy to make curiosities for a little boy. There was also a painting of the boy’s mother – all skew-wiffy, with nose and mouth and eyes in different directions. But when you compared it to a photograph of the mother, and drew a line around her profile, what Picasso had painted has exactly the same edge. Which is also clever.

But you’re not little any more, so I didn’t buy you a copy. I bought some postcards instead.
Better go. Try and pop down when you get time. Eat properly.

Lots of Love,
Mum xx

Portrait of his first wife, Olga (he had a lots of women, but only married two of them.) This one won a prize in the US (where Picasso never visited, but a friend entered it for him.) I like this painting (it’s less fuzzy in real life). She does look fed up in all of them though, so I think being painted must be boring. She was a Russian ballet dancer, so probs didn’t much like having to keep still for long periods of time.

2017 has begun…

Posted by anneethompson

Christmas has been tidied away for another year. So, what do you do with all the cards you received? ‘Regift’ the things you didn’t like? Hide them in a drawer? Force yourself to use them because whoever chose them for you hoped you would enjoy them? Happy to take everything off the Christmas tree and throw it in the garden? Or feel nostalgic as you remember where each bauble came from?

I could of course, say something religious here. I could talk about trying to not ‘pack away’ Jesus for another year. But I think I’ll let you think about that one on your own. I shall focus on cards.

My favourite card this year was from one of my friends who doesn’t speak any English. She’s a really close friend, we meet whenever we have time, and chat about our children and husbands and mother-in-laws. Even though Chinese people don’t really ‘do’ Christmas like we do, she knows it matters to me, and she always buys me a Christmas card. This year, the front of the card said, “Happy Christmas Grandad”. I was momentarily confused, then realised that she must have bought it on her own, when her children (who all speak excellent English) weren’t with her to translate. I love it. It has gone into my bedside cabinet with cards from my husband.

I always keep my cards from my husband. He also keeps mine. This was extremely useful the year when I forgot Valentine’s Day until late the night before. I was able to sneak into his bedside cabinet, pick a card I had sent him a previous year, put it into a fresh envelope, and give it to him with our morning tea, the same as every other year. Yes, I know, terrible. But he didn’t notice (he’d have been hurt if he knew I had forgotten.)

Sometimes cards go wrong of course. My brother taught the kids club at church for years, and when he stopped leading it, he was presented with a giant card during the service. He felt rather touched. Until he opened it, and it was blank! The person asked to buy it had thought someone else was going to write in it, and the person presenting it thought it was finished. (These things happen in churches. It teaches us forgiveness I guess.)

Then there was the year after my Dad died, when Mum received cards from friends saying they were sorry to hear that Dad had died – but the envelope was addressed to “Mr and Mrs”. I guess they went into ‘autopilot’ when writing the address bit. Mum didn’t mind, she thought it was funny.

Actually, Mum kept her sense of humour throughout the horrible trauma of Dad dying. I remember one incident, when he was very poorly (he had cancer, so nothing happened easily.) Mum was always very friendly to the children who lived in the road, and they wanted to cheer her up. So, one night, when they were going to a fancy dress party, they decided to knock on her door first, to show her their costumes. Dad was upstairs, very poorly. Mum heard a knock on the front door, and opened it to find – The Grim Reaper! Luckily, Mum just laughed. (I don’t think the children had really thought about what they were wearing, they just wanted to show her their costumes.)

Hope your year has started well. I recommend you keep a few cards hidden for emergencies.

Take care,
Anne x

Letter – microwaves and frogs

Posted by anneethompson

Hello, how was your week? Mine was a mixture of difficult and nice.

On Tuesday I had a check-up at the dentist. Mum had an appointment at the same time, so we went together, which was mostly nice (though I am a bit grumpy pre-dentist visits, so was possibly not as chatty as she was hoping.) Everything was fine, so I felt much happier coming out. I need to buy different toothpaste though. Apparently, Colgate causes teeth to become overly sensitive. He told me this last time, so I switched to Oral B toothpaste (which had rather strange shiny granules in – was a bit like cleaning my teeth with glittery sand). Apparently, he told me that both Colgate and OralB cause sensitivity, but I had forgotten half of what he said. I now need to find another toothpaste. Can life get more exciting?

On Friday, we held another Film Night at our church. You remember me writing about the last one? – The one which showed drug snorting, nudity and had lots of swearing? Well, this one was very well attended (word had obviously spread!) It was more suitable for church viewing though, so not sure if they’ll come back.

The next film is about Eddie the Eagle. I remember Dad raving about him at the time. I thought the film sounded rather boring, was planning to take a book. Then I discovered Hugh Jackman is a main character. Have put date in diary.

Chicks continue to survive, despite the fact it is not Spring. They fly around the cage like tiny multi-coloured sparrows. Cute.

I am not really someone who enjoys housework. This week we bought a new microwave. I was cleaning the old one (don’t ask) and I noticed that the shiny paint that covers the plate where the beams zap out from (technical terms) had worn away. It looked rather like it had burnt away. Plus the door had a big crack in it. Hence the beams, once zapped, could escape. I told husband about this and suggested we needed a new one. The microwave is in the utility room (I don’t trust microwaves in the kitchen – all that zapping cannot be healthy.) He asked what shape the cat is (who also lives in the utility room.) The cat has always been a funny shape, so the evidence was inconclusive, but I ordered a new microwave anyway.

My dislike of cleaning rather came to the fore this week when I dropped a grape. We were watching Homeland – yes, we have reached the age where we watch boxsets together – and I was eating grapes. One fell out of my mouth, as they do, and fell on the floor. It had disappeared, so I knelt down to try and find it. Still couldn’t see it, so husband paused DVD and came down to help look. He swept his hand under the sofa and out rolled the grape (excellent) and a dead frog (not so good.) A frog. Completely dehydrated. How does one get a frog under the sofa? I do not like to think of myself as having the sort of lounge where one finds dead frogs under the sofa. But clearly I do.

Husband has decided to work from home today. I am trying to be positive about this. The trouble is, when I am ‘being creative’ I sort of disappear inside myself, go to a different part of my mind and wander around while writing what I’m imagining. This is not especially enhanced by someone arriving for a chat about when the cat vaccines are due. I have suggested a system – when I am ‘disturb-able’, I will leave the door open, when I am ‘in the zone’ and would prefer to only be disturbed for emergencies, I will keep the door shut. Husband responded well to this suggestion. He then asked what system he should use for “I want a cup of coffee now”. Ah.

Thank you for reading.

Have you bought Hidden Faces yet? A Christmas gift for a friend perhaps?

Hidden Faces, is available from bookshops and Amazon.

Letter to a Sister – children, arms and cakes….

Posted by anneethompson

Hi, how was your week? I could’ve done with you here this week, I needed a bit of reassurance that I will see my boys again. They have left to travel around Europe. No money, no plans, way too much confidence. They left at 4am to get a coach from Gatwick to Stansted (because it was cheap) to fly to a forest near Warsaw (because it was cheap) and planned to stay in an establishment called (apparently) The Okey Dokey (because – yep, you guessed it – only £15 per night for two people including breakfast.)

So, please tell me that in two weeks time I will see them, unharmed, back in the UK. I did ask them to send me some sort of message each day, just so I know they’re alive. Yesterday I received a Facebook message from a Polish man claiming to have kidnapped them and asking for ransom (I replied it was way too high.) Today I was told they’d moved to a new hotel – which sounded eerily like the one in the Hostel film (if you haven’t seen it, don’t. It is awful, I only saw it by mistake and I still cannot lose the horrible images.) I am assuming all this means they are safe and well. And I know they will look after each other and have an amazing time and create some wonderful memories. But I will be SO happy to see them when they get home!

Mum also left this week. She had booked a cottage in Norfolk and set off with a suitcase as light as she could make it (she even removed photographs she was taking from the envelopes to save weight.) I took her up to Liverpool Street Station and put her on the train. She had been worrying about this – had even practised the week before so she knew where to go, so it was nice to be able to take her. It sounds like she is having a great time, lots of family are there too and she has friends there (she has friends everywhere). Even the weather is being kind for her.

I however, am quite content to be at home. Especially as I have hurt my arm. Very annoying. I fell over ages ago (was overtired and tend to get a bit unsteady, tired brain and all that.) I thought I would have a huge bruise, but nothing came up, and my fingers seemed to work okay, so I figured nothing was broken and carried on, as you do. Then while we were in Cyprus, it started to hurt a bit, and has been getting gradually worse. I can hardly use it at all now, even unscrewing a jar is impossible.

So, I was trying to ice a cake (for Bill, who is 98) and I couldn’t roll out the fondant icing. I have never used that before, so I watched a youtube clip, and it looked really easy, thought I would give it a go. Anyway, all was fine until I came to the rolling out bit. I was nervous about making a large cake (it needed to be shared with 40 people), I knew it would end up like a brick with a dip, so I used some bread tins and made 6 smaller cakes, then sandwiched them together with butter icing. I put it in the fridge for half an hour, like the woman on youtube did (though her cake had less crumbs on the surface than mine. And was smoother) then tried to roll the fondant icing. Impossible with one arm. I couldn’t apply enough pressure. So I called Nargis, who was in the house. (We pretend she’s my cleaner, but actually she is one of my best friends and practically family.) She came to help, and asked why I hadn’t had the arm checked.

I explained that I have no time. She asked what I was doing this afternoon, and I told her I had a dentist appointment. She asked if I had a problem with my teeth. I said no, it was just a check up. She pointed out that I had time to check my teeth, which are fine, but not my arm, which might be broken. It was a good point. I went to the local hospital. They were very nice, and agreed with my diagnosis, that it’s probably not broken, just a strained tendon but is not healing because I keep using it. They suggested physio. Absolutely no time for that!

The thing is, I’m sure the doctor who saw me is our postman. It looked exactly like him, even spoke the same. I kept wondering how I could ask, “Are you our postman?” But there was never the right moment. Very strange.

Hope all is well with you. My journey into authorship continues – the books are selling really well and are gradually being accepted into more bookshops. I will give you a full update next week.

Take care,
Anne x

Thank you for reading.

anneethompson.com

My sister’s blog is: http://ruthdalyauthor.blogspot.co.uk

xxxxxxx

If you enjoyed this, you will love my new book: The Sarcastic Mother’s Holiday Diary.
I have always written a diary on holiday, so last Christmas, I decided to find all my old diaries and blogs, and make a book for my children. However, several other people also asked for a copy, so I have written a public version – it’s available on Amazon and has been described as “The Durrells meet Bill Bryson”!

Why not buy a copy today? I think it will make you laugh.

The US link is here:

https://www.amazon.com/Sarcastic-Mothers-Holiday-Diary-ebook/dp/B07N95281F/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549015525&sr=8-1&keywords=the+sarcastic+mothers+holiday+diary

The India link is here:

https://www.amazon.in/Sarcastic-Mothers-Holiday-Diary-ebook/dp/B07N95281F/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549015429&sr=8-1&keywords=the+sarcastic+mothers+holiday+diary

The UK link is here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sarcastic-Mothers-Holiday-Diary-ebook/dp/B07N95281F/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1549014970&sr=8-2&keywords=the+sarcastic+mothers+holiday+diary

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