Beauty and the Beast

North Stoke Orange-tip on Cuckoo Flower

How did I know that if I ever got offered a role in Beauty and the Beast it would not be as the Beauty?    Because it turns out that I am the Beast who stopped Captain Butterfly seeing the Beauty (the Large Tortoiseshell) at North Stoke yesterday morning.

I was still crippled by this arthritis attack so I asked him if he could do a Waitrose shop before he went off.  He did, leaving early, but it took quite a time. He went to the bank too.  Then he hurtled off with his sandwiches, his cake, and a camera at every corner, but got there too late.  It had been seen earlier and he phoned to tell me gloomily but had now vanished.Two of them have been seen during the past week, a male and a female. Is there hope for a new colony?

So he has left very early this morning, with the usual accoutrements. Which reminds me - a job for next week is to restock the freezer with cake.   I think it will be back to Marmalade Muffins, made with the Captain's Home Made Marmalade, of which we have vatsful.

I hope hope hope the Beauty will turn up this morning. And I hope that one day Captain B and I will be beautiful and perfect in the restored earthly Paradise with life "to time indefinite" stretching ahead of us.

Obviously I have not been doing much.  Exhausted after severe pain. But yesterday I did manage to give the bedroom a bit of a slow spring clean, and get a couple of loads of washing done.  And I am keeping up to date with my studies. It is very important not to let them go.

Spoke to Bea on the phone - long chat, she even, so kindly, offered to come down and look after me.  And Jacks.  And Jennifer (my sister). And also Lilian who was my Bible student many years ago on Planet Expat.   She is back studying with her local JW congregation and will hopefully get to the Memorial on Tuesday night.

Like me, she is now older and less confident about going out in the evening. But they will arrange a lift for her, door to door, there and back.

I would have liked to offer a lift to one of my calls, but I feel so unreliable at the moment that I just can't.  I keep having these violent surges of arthritis that cripple me - and leave me exhausted in their wake.

Moan moan whinge whinge.   However, I keep sternly reminding myself to think how I would feel now if I did not know the truth - Christianity being called "the way of the truth".   And that reminds me to be very grateful and think about the happiness in store right here on the earth.