A Very Painful Flare-up

This beastly cold has led to the worst arthritis flare-up I have had for some years, giving me a night and day of such intense pain. I remember how angry I feel at these times that we are not allowed effective pain killing.  Because the pain is severe and relentless. You are not able to sleep or eat - not that you want to eat - and there is no way to be comfortable.

I didn't even get to the Thursday meeting in Zoom.  I wasn't able to be at the computer chair.

A friend of my mother's actually killed herself during one of these intense and painful flare ups... so far I hang to the knowledge that Jehovah will help.  But if you don't have that knowledge, that help? 

So couldn't there be some effective pain killing made available.

My leg, left upper, is still very painful today but at least I can get about again.  I am exhausted though and will have to pace myself carefully.  I have to make the mushrooms into a soup, cook the chicken (the stuffing is done) and finish tidying up my paperwork. 

The mushroom soup gave me the idea for a photo for this blog, one of fungi in a field. For sure I would not risk eating them though.  Even expert mushroomers can make mistakes, and those mistakes can be fatal.

Though one of the things I picture myself doing in the paradise earth is wandering through Autumn woods, gathering mushrooms to make soup for supper.  In paradise there will be no lethal mistakes.

I am on the school next, as assistant. This is our brief:

(4 min.) INFORMAL WITNESSING. In a previous conversation, the person mentioned that he had recently lost a loved one in death. (lmd lesson 4 point 4)

There was a young lady

There was a (not so) young lady of Rye

who wished she had wings and could fly

her legs would not go

her zimmer was slow

and she envied the birds in the sky.

I am the star of this limerick, but I had to move my place of residence further down the coast for the sake of the rhyme.  No doubt Edward Lear could have done something wonderful with my real address, but I am not up to his standard.

I chose this photo Col took of a pelican in flight on a trip to Oz (many years ago) as I thought it was quite dramatic.  It is hard to remember the energy of youth, all that travel...   

Col has given me an amazing life really, as I was towed along in his wake.  And here is something else I didn't think about when we were young.  If you stay married, you end up with lots of running jokes, which seem to get funnier as the years go on.

On the less doubleplusgood side, we are very old now - and so have our running jokes run their course?

Well, not if we "inherit the earth" and live forever upon it, as Jesus promised.  So who knows?

It is still fairly cold but sunny - and the Green looks a bit more cheerful now after the rain on Saturday.  I had my usual two Zoom sessions on Monday morning, friends and family.  It is such a good way to keep in touch.

I am still full of this cold and had to cancel the lady of the flowers today.  Well, we did not cancel her, but I won't be going.  We have old friends visiting at the weekend so I do need to be over it by then.  So I rang her on Tuesday to explain that I would not be coming, but two other sisters who she knows would.  I hope it will go well.

Col is getting rid of a load of stuff, to Charity Shops and what have you.  Which we have badly needed to do for a while. I have donated a large pile of books, which are all good, but which I won't read again.

The situation in the Middle East continues to surge and spin dangerously causing suffering now -  with the promise of even more to come.  And of course it will have consequences for those who make their living in the holiday trade, as it seems that holiday travel will be somewhat limited due to the oil crisis - the difficulties at the Strait of Hormuz.

The Fly Orchid

 

We picked a rather scary orchid for May in our 2026 calendar. And I note from previous blogs that I have sometimes posted Karen Volkman's poem about May this time of year. It is a poem that is both beautiful and scary, rather like the orchid.  It begins:
  
In May’s gaud gown and ruby reckoning
the old saw wind repeats a colder thing...

But this May I thought I would post a poem from Ogden Nash:

A Caution To Everybody  

by Ogden Nash

Consider the auk;
Becoming extinct because he forgot how to fly, and could only walk.
Consider man, who may well become extinct
Because he forgot how to walk and learned how to fly before he thinked.

https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poems/short/may

May - with its blossom, its "gaud gown" - should be such a paradise month. But we are still living in the tragedy of the loss of Eden. However we have this promise from Jehovah - whose every purpose is fulfilled - that he will "bring to ruin those ruining the earth". (Revelation 11:18)

So the current state of things should tell us how close the end of the current wicked system of things on the earth is, as it hardly seems like an exaggeration to say that we are in the process of ruining the very planet we are living on.

I am still full of this beastly cold and had to pixel it to the meeting on Thursday.  And I had sad vivid dreams - not bad dreams and not sad at the time, but ones that left me with a feeling of sadness when I woke up.  But maybe that is because of my age, not because of the cold.

I dreamt I was visiting Lilac Tree Farm only they had moved.  Their house was down a winding country lane, lots of tall trees, so just as rural. And in my dream I said how lovely their new garden was, even though it was all straight ahead, long and running down to trees, rather than the interesting ramble of the Lilac Tree garden.  There were big lilies growing in the garden and a storm blowing everything about. It looked beautiful, but with an Autumnal sadness.   I knew I had to put off leaving until the weather improved.  It looked like they had just moved in - there was a bed in the lounge, with someone asleep and children running about.  I remember thinking now which one is Pen's - and picking out a small blonde lad who looked rather like my cousin Peter when he was a child.

I don't know why it left such a feeling of sadness. Part of it might be that my body and my brain know I will not be here much longer to see all this beauty, and so it showed me this beautiful garden in an Autumn gale.  Who knows?

We are supposed to be in for some rain this weekend. Badly needed  - our Green is starting to turn into a Brown.  And indeed it did rain on Saturday afternoon, and there may be more today.

Col left very early to join The Lads in The Field, with his sandwich lunch and his metal detectors.  The homemade cake this month is marmalade muffins.  He also took with him a long mysterious piece of plastic that has been lying in the hall for a couple of days. Something to do with the garage door apparently. And I am about to harness up my pixel pony and make it to the virtual Kingdom Hall for the morning meeting.

It will be an antidote for sadness.

The Holly Blue

There was a young Holly of Blue
it pupated, it hatched, and it flew

It landed nearby

Col's camera let fly

And now I can show it to you!

It seems I have become a Limerick addict - and so late in life too.

The Holly Blue is an exquisite butterfly, as is the Wood White - and... well, all of them I suppose.  The whole process from tiny egg, like a little pearl, to caterpillar - that little eating train - to pupa, to the flying flower that is the butterfly is a miracle in plain sight.  How could a process like that just evolve?!

Well that, I guess, is one of the many things us Jehovah's Witnesses are trying and trying to get across to everyone. The creation is telling us of its Grand Creator as clearly as if it spoke.

I must admit that the Limerick form is so much easier than the Haiku, which I have been trying out in various blogs with a great lack of success.  If I can get them short enough - IF, as I am not the best at counting - then they do not make their point; if I make the point, then they are too long...

How did the great Matsuo Basho do it?

Col was off on his first butterfly transect for a long time yesterday, trying to find Wood Whites in one of the local woods.  So I had to quickly whip up a box of sandwiches and cake for his lunch.  He did not find any to record, but that of course is a finding in itself - there were no Wood Whites in that specific area of Sussex on the 29th April 2026.

He left very early this morning, with his box of sandwiches, to goodness knows where to join the detectorists in The Field.  And I am down with a terrible cold - my first for ages, but it seems to be doing the rounds. Sore throat, coughing, the works. I  think I may just go back to bed and try to sleep.

I had quite a surprise this week. I have a fb friend in Oz. We have known each other for many years, but never met, who suddenly phoned me, and we were talking for the first time.  He is having his problems, in these "difficult times, hard to deal with".  I hope talking about it helped.

A Longhorn of Green

There once was a Longhorn of Green
And at Kithurst Hill it was seen
But Colin was there
with his camera set fair
So now it appears on your screen.

Sorry about this.  I can't seem to stop Limericking.  The Green Longhorn - a rather elegant moth - was one of the little creatures Col photographed at Kithurst Hill.

Col spent Friday and Saturday with the Detectorists at Petworth Park - nothing exciting found by him, but there were some interesting things found.  Saturday evening he collected and delivered some medicine to a sibling who has gone down with a very bad cold.  I am not able to help now.  A few years ago I could have walked to both the Pharmacy and her house - I used to do the same for Jacks.  And then, later, I could still have driven. But my driving days are over. I have decided to stop before I have the crash that tells me I should have stopped.  The eye problem has confirmed the decision.  I am seeing this screen through a sort of gauzy haze of dots.

We are now sitting out on the balcony of an evening, just before sunset, with a coffee for me and a glass of wine for Himself.  It's still not warm, but the evenings are light and long.

Old age is scary - for us both.  Though the Captain is braver than me. But we are so grateful to be together.  "Well, unless I could be with Rachel off Countdown" I seem to see in the Thought Bubble floating above the Captain's head, as we contemplate the sun beginning to set.  "You can't and that is all there is to it!" I bubble back.

The sun will still set and the moon will still rise when we are no longer here to see it, as it did for the millenia (billenia!) before we had the privilege of opening our eyes and seeing this beautiful planet.  But I do hope that we will be able to inherit the earth and live forever upon it, even if we have to come the long way round - via the resurrection.

As Ecclesiastes tells us, Jehovah has put eternity into our minds. We don't want to leave the people we love - or this beautiful and fascinating paradise home, with all its precious little creatures And with them in mind,  I hope the Green Longhorn moth above is having a life full of joy, and lots and lots of little egglets.

Three Limericks

Three Limericks

by me

There was a young lady from Hull
Who went for a ride on a gull

She swooped through the air

with brio and flair

that daring young lady from Hull

There was an old lady from Wick

who dined every day on a brick

followed by a roast stone

which she chewed like a bone

that sturdy old lady from Wick

There was a young man from Dhahran

Who drove through the dunes in a van

He was not very fast

so the camels rushed past

which upset that young man (and his van).

This outburst of limericks is because Col bought me a book on our half day out at the Birders Conference in Brighton.  It is a biography of Edward Lear by Jenny Uglow.  So I am enjoying meeting up with all his limericks again. And they have inspired me to have a go.

I feel there is going to be a lot of sadness in his life - but then somehow everyone's life seems sad in retrospect.  Even if it was perfect, and no lives are, at best it is so short.  The Threescore Years and Ten just vanish in our hands.

The photo is of a black headed gull from the Captain's photo gallery.  And my youngest grand-niece is the young lady from Hull.  Not that she has ridden on a gull, but knowing her, she would if she could.

We saw our Bible student Wednesday morning - the lady of the flowers.  We had a chat and a cup of coffee and then had a good study session.  Next week we hope to show her what the Bible says about why there is such suffering, so much injustice, on this beautiful earth, and show her what our Creator is going to do about it - what he is already doing about it.

Col started on his detecting work at Petworth Park on Thursday  - a rare opportunity for the detectorists.  And he spent Wednesday at Kithurst Hill, photographing butterfies, which inspired him to do a blog - and me to write a couple more limericks, which will turn up in my blog in time.

I must say they are easier than Haikus.

I am just about to brace myself to go off and look at the News headlines and see how bad the situation in the Middle East currently is.  Yet more talk of a ceasefire apparently - though I don't think it feels like fire is ceasing for all those in the vicinity.  Quite the reverse, it seems.

The fact that my cataract operation has left me with worse sight in one eye than before... there ought to be a limerick in that... but I am trying not to brood about about it, and not to forget that I am very fortunate to still be here, and still able to enjoy the gift of life.

Eye Eye

I decided on the heading for this blog with much apprehension on the Saturday morning  before we left for Brighton and before my afternoon appointment with the Optician.  I have no idea how this will continue  - or indeed if it will.

Well, it has continued and there is a glad thing and a sad thing.  Glad, very, that after an exhaustive eye examination, at Specsavers, Saturday afternoon, the kind young Optician assured me that my eyes were fine. It is perhaps rather horrid, but the manifestations are caused by the jelly in one of my eyes moving, as the artificial whatsit inserted when I had my Cataract operation is not as finely honed as the original one - as made by Jehovah! - and there is a bit more room. So this can happen. And it may well settle down and wear off. Though it also might not...

Very relieved, and very grateful, as I did pray about this.  And I will have to get used to looking through a sort of misty veil and having some odd and alarming black threads rush across my eyes every so often.  This is yet another reason why my driving days are over.

I chose an Ox-eye Daisy from Col's photo gallery to head this blog.  They are out too, I noted as we drove along through blossom-lined roads.

The sad thing was that maybe Saturday was another of the "lasts" of old age.  We went to the AGM of SOS - Sussex Ornithologists - a day of talks from people working in the field of Bird.  We used to go to lots of these Conservation Meeting days in our years with Butterfly Conservation.  It is always good to see how many people are volunteering their time, energy and money to try to care for the creation.

We were only there for the morning sadly, but it was interesting.  However, whether I will be able to make another of these days is the problem - the sad thing. Was that my last?  It is getting increasingly difficult.  All being well, and if the venue is the same - Brighton University - I might try again next year.  

But what a bleak place Brighton Uni is, building wise.  Such a bleak campus. And I wonder why.  Why not have made it beautiful?

The early Spring day was beautiful though - the creation still shines in spite of all the violence and the sadness in the world.  I hope it can reassure us of the truth - that Jehovah, the Creator of this loveliness has not abandoned us and will not abandon us.

And I thought I would post Emily Dickinson's poem again - as it is just right for this time of year, as the trees begin to put on the green bonnets of Spring.  I would love to have written it.

Not at Home to Callers 

 by Emily Dickinson

Not at Home to Callers 

Says the Naked Tree -- 

Bonnet due in April -- 

Wishing you Good Day --

https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poems/short/april