TUTT (+1) - Guy Fawkes

Well, late again - just for a change.....I have also totally forgotten which week we are in....I just know it is more then 52, which I think is pretty good going - we (should that be I) may not always get my posting done on a Thursday and in fact sometimes, do not get my photo to my partners on time....;but to have kept on with the challenge (and still lovin' it) is a pretty good achievement, so here is a pat on the back for myself and my special "full time" partner, who has grown photographically and personally on this journey and also a big thank you and pat on the back to our two "extra" partners who have added a sparkle to the challenge in the past few months....
Our theme this week was suggested by Mariette....Guy Fawkes...every year Trev and Mariette and Maxine, buy some fireworks and have a little private fireworks display - Maxine gets very excited every year...This is Mariette's favourite photo: -

In Claire's corner of the world, they have an annual community fireworks display on the rugby field close to them...so she had lots of scope and she read up on fireworks photography prior to the event, so she set up her tripod and this is her favourite of the resulting pictures: -

For as long as I can remember, we have always been able to see some fireworks display from our own back garden, despite the fact that it has been illegal in SA for some years to set off fireworks in a residential area....every year we have had pets (mainly dogs) running away or jumping through glass windows in a terrified effort to get away from the noise...Anyway, I thought it would be easy to see some fireworks, and guess what on the night nothing, absolutely zilch/zero/neder.....so I had to improvise...My grandmother (my moms mom) was born on the 5th November - brilliant, here is a scanned picture of my mom's family, my granny, grandpa and my mom, my mom's youngest sister (my Aunt) and my mom's younger brother, (my Uncle)...My mom is the young girl with her hair in a upswept style...

Whilst I was going through, old family photos, I came across a letter, which I read without embaressment or guilt - it was not a love letter, it was thank you letter, (dated 1st August 1972) from one of my cousins to my mom and dad, thanking them for the birthday gift of $1 (Rhodesian dollar)....

what really made me chuckle and think was his comment "it came in very handy, believe me you"....First of all, I ask myself, what is considered "handy"...did it go towards paying rent in an otherwise tough month, how much petrol could he have put in his car or motorbike with it, how many groceries could he have bought with it....Considering that the Rhodesian currency no longer exists, if the dollar had kept in mint condition, what would it be worth today AND how much would a person need to recieve today, in order for it to be "very handy".....I guess like with so many things it is relative to the person and their needs at that moment in time...
That's my post for this week, next week should be challenging - Claire has suggested "DESK"....hmmmmm, thinking hard about this one....
Lots of love

A little bit of English fun...

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

 If Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop.???

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
What do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing..........

TUTT(+1) - October - Week 54

I chose the theme this week...October...
October is really a beautiful time of the year in South Africa...One of my favourite things in October is that it is when the Jacaranda trees, flower....The flowers are a beautiful mauve/blue colour and this beautiful canopy of blue is created when there are lots of trees together...When the flowers fall, the make a huge mess on the ground, but they are so beautiful, they are well worth the mess....Well to be honest, I have not ever had to clean up after a jacaranda tree, so I really should not comment...

I think Mariette struggled this week - she eventually turned to trusty old Mother Nature for her lovely picture: -

And Claire - Claire went Halloween on us: -

October is the last full month that my mom was still with us - Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of her passing - the last of our "firsts"...I keep thinking of what we were doing this time last year....or rather 52 weeks ago...Fifty two weeks ago, today she died...We had spent so much of this weekend last year at the hospital with her...Hoping and praying for a miraculous recovery, which was not hers to have, and at the same time trying to prepare for the worst....For me it was not a shock when she died, in some way I was relieved that her suffering was over, I am grateful that she did not linger on for months and weeks, hooked up to a ventilator and feeding tube, she would not have wanted to be like that, and she would not have wanted my dad (and the rest of us) to go through the agony of seeing her like that day in and day out for months on end.

When she died, my biggest concern was for my dad, what would he do without my mom...I think in focussing on trying to make sure that he was ok, made me stronger...I did however feel totally lost and alone in those first few months after she had passed away...Mike and the kids were amazing (and still are), but coming to terms with her going, was something I had to do on my own....I think of all the sad times in the last year, when I have thought of her at odd moments, when something reminded me of her, when we were doing something that the last time we had done, she had been with us, of all those moments, my birthday was the worst - I knew that she would not be phoning me, and that made me sob, my mom (and dad) had always been around for that day (more then any other day) - I mean, let's face it, without my mom, I would not be....all of that had a huge effect on me.

So here I am, a year later, carrying her in my heart (where she can never die), my dad is doing amazingly well - he has his sad moments, but he gets through them....I am proud of him and know that my mom is too....I love and miss you, mom, and always will....

Lots of love

My Top Ten Favourite Movies....

This is just a quick little bit of light hearted fun - bonus post...
I love movies, although if we watch movies at home, I generally fall asleep in them....and/or I cry in them....Mike gets a bit frustrated when I fall asleep and Brad and Kayla-Fern never cease to be amazed that I can watch the last fifteen minutes of a movie and end up crying...I cry if the movie is sad, happy, cute whatever...My mom always used to tell me, that when I was three, we watch "Born Free" together....and all through the movie - I cried....I cried because Elsa (the lioness) was going to be bitten by a snake and I cried at a whole lot of other things....Elsa did not die in this movie, but at the end my mom thought - "Thank goodness the movie is over, Linda-Maree will stop crying"...Well guess what, I burst into tears because it was finished...That is just me....
Anyway, my top ten movies are: - Only the first one is in order...the rest are just as I thought about them...
Pay It Forward - My all time favourite - (with Helen Hunt - I love her) I cry every time I watch it
I Am Sam - (With Sean Penn) - Beautiful story - I cry every time I watch it
Sotheby (with Richard Gere and Jodi Foster) - Fairly old movie and not one that was huge at the box office (I don't think)- but a really good story...I might have cried in it
A Perfect World - (with Kevin Costner) - also not a well known movie but a moving story - I think I cried
Dances with Wolves (Keven Costner) - a lovely classic
The Patriot (with Mel Gibson) - Mel Gibson is my favourite actor - This movie has lots of brutality in it, but shows, a man's conflicting beliefs and actions in a time of war - some humorous moments and very touching moment - one when his little daughter (who is autistic) says to him "I will say anything you want, just don't go" - Well - I cried....
What Women Want - (with Helen Hunt and Mel Gibson - again - very cute funny movie - I did not cry.
Indecent Proposal - (with Demi Moore and Robert Redford) - Thought provoking - made me think about what different people would do for money, why and the effect it has on them and the people around them...I did not cry
Ghost - (with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze) - Lovely movie
The Green Mile (with Tom Hanks) - Based on a novel by Stephen King - This is not a horror...It is a drama I guess, Stephen King has got to be one of the most talented authors of our time...I have no idea where he gets his ideas from, but it must be be very interested and sometimes frightening to have that much imagination.
There are of course many others, which I have loved...but these are the ones that I can watch over and over again....
Lots of love

TUTT(+1) - Vintage - Week ?????

Hello Blog....My name is Linda-Maree and I am your creator/writer, I feel that I had to re-introduce myself because you may have forgotten who I am, since I have not been around for so long....Anyway, now that the formalities are out of the way....Let's blog....

Our theme for the last week of October (I think, and I think it was Week 53, )....was Vintage suggested by Claire...She took a truely lovely photograph of her beautiful daughter Skyla....

Mariette took a photo of a 2005 "vintage, dessert wine..given to her a few years ago by a friend...I love that you took the picture in black and white - gives an authentic vintage effect....

I struggled a bit with the theme...I did think of wine like Mariette, but did not go there....On the Wednesday evening that the photos were due, I suddenly realised what an idiot I had been - Mike has a collection of model aircraft, his passion is bi planes....and he has.... yes, you guessed it - A VINTAGE Tiger Moth - It is hanging up in our lounge....Mike and Brad were out, and since the plane is fairly large, I could not take it down on my own, so I stood on a chair and tried to take pictures of it whilst hanging up - they were not successful, so on Thursday morning, when it was just about time for us all to leave for work and school, I decided it was worth it for me to be a bit late for work, so I asked Mike, who was not yet ready, if Brad (who was nearly ready) could help me take the plane down so I could take some quick photos....Anyway, to cut a long story short, Mike also helped, he insisted that the plane be cleaned as it was dusty and he insisted that the plane get carried outside - BACKGROUND IS SO IMPORTANT - and then for good measure Mike also took some photos....The result was, I did manage to take a lovely photo of a clean plane with a realistic background, AND we were all VERY late for work and school...

Anyway, that is my blog for another week....The next theme, suggested by me is October.
Lots of love