Do you remember Rocky? I doubt that you could forget Rocky – that is, assuming you have read my book. If you haven’t, well, Rocky was the tall handsome American I met at Heathrow Airport and sat next to on the plane going to Dubai (the first leg of my journey to Brisbane) nearly three years ago. To be honest, it was my gorgeous travelling companion who inspired my first book, “The Innocent Flirt Down Under” (now available in paperback from Amazon.com or amazon.co.uk  – as you may be aware after all my recent plugs). Those of you who are familiar with the Rocky character (and how lucky you would be if you were!) might have wondered if he was pure fantasy or a flight of fancy? Rocky was certainly real and very fanciable but flirtations on planes are perhaps best left up in the air, sadly, especially when one is happily married already. Hence, we kept in touch occasionally by email and became “if only” friends.

Just before Christmas last year I sent Rocky a virtual “JibJab” Christmas card depicting me and family members as a rock group (well, it would have to be a rock group!) playing and singing “Happy Christmas” (Granny Porch looked great as a heavy metal drummer!). The funny thing was that the JibJab account is in Chris’s name so it looked as though the card came from  my husband, and not me. Rocky was so touched by Chris’s kindness that he wrote back thanking Chris. Chris brought in Rocky’s nice email with my morning cup of tea – and was still laughing in the shower half an hour later. I emailed Rocky to tell him about the confusion… and the good laugh we had over it. Rocky didn’t see it as funny, he was just “embarrassed”. Chris felt so sorry for Rock that he wrote back with warm and hearty wishes; Rocky was so overcome by Chris’s good-heartedness that he wrote back that Chris was, “a bigger man” than he was (bearing in mind our romantic history); Chris replied that the only reason he was “a bigger man” was down to all the mince pies he had eaten in the build-up to Christmas!

By Christmas Day the guys were best mates and looking forward to meeting each other when Rocky next comes to England! I don’t mind telling you that I felt a bit sidelined. In fact it has never been quite the same since. Rocky has included his best wishes to Chris in all his emails… and some of the magic has disappeared. The “if only” aspect of our emails now refers only to Rocky’s lack of time for a holiday in Devon. I use the word, “now”, but actually I haven’t heard anything for a few weeks (if only he would write).

About six weeks ago Rocky wrote that he was seeing his first ex-wife (he has three) from 1986. A week later he had got to the kissing stage (nothing more – he didn’t want to rush things), and within a fortnight he wrote again to tell me that he was going to get remarried… Now don’t go thinking there are any sour grapes on my part, he is a lovely man who deserves a good woman and I wish them every happiness.

A couple of weeks ago another handsome admirer/friend, this time in Australia, was introduced to a nice lady and, although it is early days, something is definitely in the air – “I can feel it all around…” Honestly, I’m really happy for them. If only… if only… well… what can I say? Fancy that!

Following the peaceful scene depicted in my blog last night I think I might set your pulses racing with these photos of the waves crashing against our much buffeted seawall on the other side of our property. The unknown (to me) gentleman was at first oblivious of me capturing him on camera from the bottom of our garden on the other side of the railway line, then he heard the tell-tale bleep of my focuser and thereafter posed very stoically as the waves crashed and the water rose up in front of him. I hope he is a reader of my blog… or perhaps, if you happen to recognise him, you could tell him he is the star of my blog today?

Incidentally, I must tell you about a funny little typo I make almost every time I type the word, “today” (as I did a moment ago) – it nearly always appears as “toady” and I laugh to myself because I have another story up my sleeve involving the exploits of a handsome toad based on a real conversation between a couple of toads (but you will have to wait until I write it!).

It was seven-twenty this evening – only ten minutes to get ready – and I thought to myself, “aquacise or a walk by the sea?”

“Want to come for a walk to Coryton Cove with me?” I asked Chris. (His answer would help me make the decision.)

“How lovely! What a good idea!”

That is why, ten minutes later, we were to be seen walking hand-in-hand down past Coastguard Cottages to the seawall, and not up at the Leisure Centre.

What a beautiful evening it was; barely a breeze and not cold at all (we both wore sleeves); the tide was in and the sea was calm and flat; and the moon was full though it wasn’t dark yet. Two fisherman were silhouetted against the sky and I wished I had brought our rod (we have only one between us and I don’t know where it is, but I love the thought of fishing). I wished also that I had brought my mobile phone, which I use mostly as a handy camera. We walked along to the station, where the wooden railway platform juts out overhead and acts as shelter in poor weather; as we did so the flat sea surged forwards and pushed a ton of water into the air. We didn’t get wet but it was close enough to laugh, especially as Chris was on the outside. We passed two girls, laughing themselves, as they took photos of the moon on the water. They smelt of soap, perfume and cigarettes, and I was reminded of being fifteen again.

We passed another fisherman – he had caught twelve fish – who said that the mackerel were right in shore in great numbers. (If only I knew where that little rod was.) The farther on we walked, the more fisherfolk there were, and the darker it got, and suddenly we were aware of the lights from cars and trains and houses; and everything looked so pretty and welcoming.

At the end of our seawall, at Coryton Cove, a solitary black man took photographs of the moon on the sea, just where the reflections were interrupted very artistically by a rock shaped like a whale’s back. I told him that I wished I had brought my camera and the man commiserated with me, but not too much because he could see we were in love with the evening anyway. Some more fisherfolk fished off the beach.

It seemed that we all  all drifted back towards Dawlish together – a fisherman and his wife who were looking forward to eating their fresh mackerel tomorrow, the photographer who spoke in soft tones, perhaps to his wife or girlfriend, on his mobile phone, and Chris and me. We held hands, and every so often, we stopped to kiss (just a peck) and hug because it was that kind of perfect evening, and I guess that we felt like the holiday-makers do when they come to Dawlish for the first time and think how beautiful it is. The wonderful thing was that there were not too many people about, enough to feel the pleasantness of company and few enough to feel that the night was ours almost exclusively.

Imagine my surprise when I jumped on the scales this morning and found that I had lost nearly a pound. I was so thrilled that I’ve been thinking about it all day. What was it? How can it be? After all, I didn’t do any exercise at all yesterday – the bad weather prevented me from stepping outside the front door – therefore the miraculous loss (well, it is so hard to lose anything!) must be down to diet…

Yesterday morning I had half a bowl of own-brand bran flakes for breakfast, nothing too different there then because I always have bran flakes or porridge when I’m being good… For lunch I had that nasty dry tuna – in fake mayonnaise – with lettuce and watercress that I told you about in my blog (and very vile it was , which was why I told you about it). Could my weightloss be down to that awful tuna and watercress salad? I hope not. I was going to have some of the leftovers for lunch today but I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it when I opened the lid of the container in the fridge, and I made a prawn and crab stick salad instead. Oh, please God that it wasn’t the tuna that did the trick… But I digress…

No, I believe the secret to my overnight success was down to half a portion of fish and chips for dinner (chris and I shared it – we both want to lose weight). I could cope with a diet of fish and chips -what a pleasant way to lose weight!  Tonight we’re having a healthy stir fry and if the scales are not kind in the morning I shall know for sure that the secret is small fish and chips… or horrible tuna and watercress. If the latter turns out to be the secret I’m happy to share it with you, and I wish you every success, but I will wait until I’ve gained more weight before I resort to such desperate measures.

I

This morning Chris and I took advantage of the sunshine and went for a cycle ride (as you do on good days); nothing unusual about that, you might think and you would be right. The unusual thing was seeing a horse coming along our cycle-track – well, why not?  All and sundry have taken to using our purpose-built cycle-track, so, by all means, bring on the horses. It’s so English here – very “fair play”.

Chris was still thinking like a car driver so he pulled in to the edge of the path by the fence, in order to let the horse pass by (without being scared out of his wits by a bicycle – the horse, not Chris, naturally). I stopped to take a photo of the rare sight of a horse on the cycle-track, and I sent it to Facebook, little realising that my niece’s husband, Zoli (in Australia) would see the funny side of it and turn Chris into the star of scene. So here it is, the odd sight of Chris on a motorbike going into a fence while a horse, as calm as you like, advances towards us… Thank you Zoltan. You are a true artist, which is why I shall not be offering to pay for the right to use your work on my blog!

Do you think I’m wasting my time by making personalised birthday cards? You wouldn’t believe how long it takes and I’m too embarrassed to tell you; suffice to say I couldn’t spare the time if I was working for somebody else. But I do love doing it. What price happiness?

I thought I would make my task easier today by using an existing digitally toyed image of our Bobbie, disguised as a Berber granny and sat beside an authentic Berber fire. Bobbie loved that image and found it very amusing because she is very beautiful and model-like in appearance in real life (I can say this because I didn’t actually give birth to Bobbie, though I could not love her more if I had). Anyway, I thought I would revitalise the image as a birthday card for her. Of course, when I looked at it again I thought how lonely she looked in the Berber kitchen, with only a black and white cat for company; in went another cat, a ginger tabby this time, and a poodle, and Willy wonka (an Aussie dog – sadly now in heaven), and a hot koala having a cold bath. Even Andy and Flea wanted get in on the act… And it all takes so much time…

But it was all worthwhile because of the smile on Bobbie’s face when she opened it!

It is our youngest daughter’s birthday today. Happy birthday Bobbie! But don’t come for dinner. Well, she could come… You could come too… Anyone could come. All I can say is that you wouldn’t want to come to dinner. Why not? You haven’t looked in my fridge – if you had you would see why – everything is so darned healthy and uninviting!

Having put on a little weight mysteriously recently (in spite of being on the Dukan diet again – permanently) I have done such a thorough job of not having any nice food in the house that I can’t find anything to eat, or rather, anything I would want to eat. I have been to the refrigerator several times already this morning and had to walk away empty-handed. I’m fed up with cold meats and salad. It’s nearly winter for goodness sake!

Eventually, I became so overcome with hunger that I had to extend my search to the cupboards too. I rejected all manner of dried things like pasta (fed up with Italian food after the full on Italian fare all last week), noodles and rice, not only because of the naughty carbohydrates but also because I would have had to resort to cooking. For my quick-fix I settled for tuna in a little low-calorie mayonnaise (how vile!), on a bed of finely cut lettuce mixed with baby spinach leaves, beetroot leaves (pretty but horrible) and watercress. It looked quite nice. It wasn’t very nice or unctuous (not at all actually) because the tuna was in brine, not oil, and the mayonnaise was kind of gummy, not oily, and all I could taste was the overwhelming flavour of watercress, which I thought I liked…but I don’t. I thought I liked tuna too – not any more, I don’t. It was quite as unpalatable on a cold day as it sounds.

Irked, but still hungry, I looked for something relatively sweet. Yesterday both Chris and I had sneered at an inferior apple strudel with cardboard-like, fat-free pastry and hard pieces of apple (not of the cooking variety) without sugar…. today I eyed it up anew and popped it in the microwave. It wasn’t too bad with a dollop of fake, non-dairy cream, and a sprinkle of castor sugar. But now it has all gone and there is absolutely nothing remotely nice in the refrigerator.

There is nothing for it, I’m going to have to make a cake for Bobbie’s birthday. So if you want to come for dinner please be prepared because there will not be any dinner as such, I shall be like Marie Antoinette and say, “Let them eat cake”. However, it will be an exceedingly delicious cake.

A forward like this simply has to shared.

Subject: Fw: What’s In a Name

A good looking man walked into an agent’s office in Hollywood and said,
“I want to be a movie star.”
Tall, handsome, and with experience on Broadway, he had the right credentials.
The agent asked, “What’s your name?”
The guy said, “My name is Penis van Lesbian.”
The agent said, “Sir, I hate to tell you, but in order to get into Hollywood, you are
going to have to change your name.”
“I will NOT change my name! The van Lesbian name is centuries old, I will not
disrespect my grandfather by changing my name. Not ever.”

The agent said, “Sir, I have worked in Hollywood for years…you will NEVER go far
in Hollywood with a name like Penis van Lesbian! I’m telling you, you will HAVE
TO change your name or I will not be able to represent you.”

“So be it! I guess we will not do business together,” the guy said and he left the
agent’s office.

FIVE YEARS LATER……The agent opens an envelope sent to his office. Inside the
envelope is a letter and a
check for $50,000. The agent is awe-struck, who would possibly send him $50,000?
He reads the letter enclosed…

Dear Sir,

Five years ago, I came into your office wanting to become an actor in Hollywood,
you told me I needed to change my name. Determined to make it with my God-
given birth name, I refused.
You told me I would never make it in Hollywood with a name like Penis van Lesbian.
After I left your office, I thought about what you said. I decided you were right.
I had to change my name. I had too much pride to return to your office, so I signed
with another agent. I would never have made it without changing my name, so the
enclosed check is a token of my appreciation.

Thank you for your advice.

Sincerely,

Dick van Dyke

.

…..I’m happy again!

And it’s true, I feel a whole lot better for braving it and cycling in the rain. Of course it wasn’t raining when we set out, but it looked as if it was going to rain this morning so we dressed prepared. I’m afraid I didn’t look very pretty in my rainy day outfit… I hardly know where to start describing it, perhaps from the bottom up? I wore my favourite old gladiator sandals (with the silver studs around the ankles – quite slimming actually) and my all-time favourite black and white polka dot shorts (so far so good, although my legs are not as tanned as they were); the peach top was a bit old yet okay for cycling in; no, it was definitely the bright pink waterproof jacket (supposedly) with hood that was weird – weird worn over polka dot shorts, anyway! The pink sunglasses didn’t look the best either…I was going to include a photo in my blog but I’ve changed my mind – don’t want to draw attention as I’m rather hoping that nobody will have recognised me in my Little Pink Riding-Hood disguise.

Naturally, it rained, and the North Wind did blow – right up my polka dot shorts – and I had to hang onto my hood as we fought our way forwards into the wind.

“It will be agin us all the way,” Chris said like a soothsayer.

“What? Even coming back too?” I always tend to query Chris (soothsayer that he is).

“Yep, I reckon so. That there wind keeps changing direction,” he said in his old cowboy accent (that he hasn’t been able to shake off for some days, seeing as how it amuses me so much).

Before we reached the cycle track at Dawlish Warren we had a lovely surprise; Harvey, the 85 year old (or more) cycle-aholic from Exeter (whom we haven’t seen for some time, and we suspected might have been ill…or worse…) came riding along in his weatherproof latex professional standard garb. We were thrilled to see that he was still alive and well, if even thinner than when we last saw him. Cycling really does keep you trim – just not me because I’m obviously not cycling enough.

Another old-timer called Fred once told us that his mate Harvey cycled at least 300 miles per week  “and he’s a married man!” He hadn’t met his wife but “that could explain it”, he laughed. Harvey has never stopped to speak to us, nor have we ever seen him rest – he is always on a mission. Nevertheless, we had it on good authority, from Fred, that Harvey’s secret to longevity, based on his ability to cycle 300 miles plus per week, is the gel pads that are built into the bottom of his cycle-shorts in order “to stop the callouses on his bottom from getting any worse!” Goodness! You have to wonder if it is ever worth it.

I was still marvelling over the fact that Harvey was still alive, which led onto pondering about the famed callouses on his bottom (and wondering, yet again, whether or not it was worth it), when the skinny old chap whizzed by us in a masterful show of speed and strength (especially considering the size of him), for he had reached his destination already – Dawlish Warren carpark – and come back again in about a minute. Harvey continued to follow the road rather than the cycle path (cycle tracks are for kids and amateurs!) while we were grateful to get off the road, even though we have to share our purpose-built cycle track with deaf pedestrians and sometimes stroppy dog-walkers.

I suspect that Harvey was home in Exeter (eleven miles away) forty minutes later, when we carried our bikes down our steps after a 6 mile round trip. I guess I’ll never get as thin as Harvey… not that I would ever want to be as thin as Harvey, and he’ll never have a nice, naturally padded, bottom like mine… How callous of me to say so! No hard feelings about being the butt of the joke… I hope. Just for that I shall show penitence by letting you see a ghastly photo of Little Pink Riding-Hood! It’s not me…

Firstly, I must tell you that I had an excellent response to the free promotion of my book and I look forward to having some good reviews soon, which should help encourage interest in the paperback version. Thank you in advance for your nice reviews!

In truth, it hasn’t been the most interesting of days here. It’s getting colder, noticeably colder and autumnal (or wintery, to be more exact), and drizzly.This morning I fully intended to go out for a good walk “no matter what the weather” but after spending two hours or so on household chores it seemed to me that I had had a fair amount of exercise for the day, and when I poked my nose outside the door I was sure of it!  I ask you, what joy is there to be had in walking in the rain on a cold day?

I hear it is 30c in Brisbane at the moment – hot enough to not mind getting caught in the rain. When I was a little girl there were many times, perhaps when we hadn’t had rain for a long time or because it was so hot, that we children used to squeal with delight and run out in the rain to get wet. I didn’t feel like doing that today. It is days like these that I miss Australia the most – I miss the out-of-doors lifestyle.

“What shall we do?” I asked Chris, who seemed quite grateful that I’d abandoned the idea of walking in the rain.

“I expect you want to play some games?” Chris guessed right.

“Shall we play ‘Truth and Triumph’ again considering it’s a Sunday?” (You may remember from a previous blog post that that particular game is a sort of religious version of ‘Trivial Pursuit’ invented by a Reverend Paulson in Canada.)

“If you like,” answered Chris.

What a surprise! I didn’t think he would go for it – he must have been awfully grateful not to have to go out walking with me in the rain, or else he must have been incredibly bored!

Two hours later, after a lot of ‘helping’ each other, we somehow reached the conclusion – we concluded that “Truth and Triumph” is the worst game we have ever played! The combined years of our Sunday school education, plus the fact that Chris’s grandfather was a minister, was to no avail for such trivial, and often tricky, questions (one of the -answers was a ‘famous’ quote from the Reverend Paulson himself). I was hoping to get good at the game in order to one day astound my devoutly religious youngest brother with my broad knowledge of religious trivia but, after this afternoon… I really don’t think it’s worth it.

We rounded off our lazy afternoon with several games of Chinese Chequers – our own, and more challenging version in which we play two triangles each (better than three because the board gets cluttered) – and now I’m looking outside at the fading light and wishing that I’d stuck to my guns and gone out walking in the rain. Tomorrow I am going to get up early and go for a walk no matter what!