cosy – willowdot21

Comfort – Tranquil Thursday #8

Maggie at from cave walls is off to Florida to spend a week with family and she’s been thinking about the things that bring us comfort. Maggie says, ” We draw comfort from various things whether it be an action, a person, a pet, a favorite food, or perhaps a piece of memorabilia.”

Luckily for us she has left some questions to answer on comfort.

How would you define comfort?

To be at peace with my lot. To have no fear or stress.

Within my own mind
Great peace I can find
Leaving all my troubles at the door
My comfort finds me as before.
Cosy and hidden from the world
I close my eyes and my dreams are unfurled.

Under what circumstances do you seek and/or give comfort?

I give comfort when I can. Usually a phone call or what’s app often one of the lads will ring about ” nothing that really is something”.
Hubby and I comfort eachother often talking for hours…often I just listen an ear to hear or a shoulder to rest on can be of great comfort.

I often seek comfort in a friend or sister. As I said hubby is a great comforter too.

The sound of my father’s voice always brought me comfort. Is there a voice that beings you comfort?

My mother’s voice was always a great comfort over the phone… Or if I was lucky in person…. When I was young the sight of my mum was always a comfort my dad too so calm and calming always ready to talk or read to me.

Do you have a favorite comfort food?

A jacket potato with baked beans and cheese…. treacle pudding and custard and stew and dumplings always remind me of home and family.

What person, animal, place, or thing makes you feel comforted?

Our dog Ruby, always brings great comfort.

My husband is always a great friend and stalwart.
My friend always there for me.. and I am for her too.
My grandsons when they hug me. My home .

Music, writing and walking also bring me great comfort.

So my family and friends are my great comfort but there is one more thing that is a great comfort to me. That is Vlad my immortal Vampire Bear. He has traveled the world, been in hospital, weddings and been to bloggers bashes with me he’s a great source of comfort to me.

Vampire the light side.© willowdot21.

Many years ago my sister returned from New York where she had been working . When she opened her case she found Vlad! There he sat master of all he surveyed,immortal and invincible he was laid in between the wash bag and the dirty laundry!!

Long story made short Vlad is an immortal Vampire Bear older than the universe and has traversed it may a time . For some reason never explained he moved in with us and since then our lives have never been the same. He has also moved in his best friend Grim, now he is not easy to ignore, tall guy about eight foot tall dressed in black hooded robe and carrying a scythe.

Well you all probably think I totally mad now but that’s my comfort zone!

Daily Prompt – JusJoJan the 10th, 2022

Hello! Linda is here with our daily prompt. It’s January 10th, so this is the 10th prompt for Just Jot it January 2022, and it’s brought to us by Ritu. Thanks, Ritu! Please be sure to visit her blog to read her post and say hello. And follow her while you’re there, if you’re not already.

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 10th, 2022, is “chocolate.” Use the word “chocolate” any way you’d like. Have fun!

Chocolate Acrostic Poem

Cosily sip from favourite cup
Hot chocolate warms the cockles
Of your heart and toes and fingers
Comfy, luxuriate
Open fire gives out
Lots of safe heat
All aglow
To rest
Easy.

If We Were Having Coffee – Nov.23/2014 Guest Post

A Personal Rant and Missing Trees.

Welcome to Willow’s weekly coffee and tea garden. My name is Paul and I’m happy to be here once again inside Willow’s home where it is nice and toasty, tending to your needs for a cuppa, and sweets. We’ve moved inside to beat the winter cold in the garden. I’d be pleased to bring a pot of whatever beverage you prefer – we have a wide range of teas and coffees to satisfy our world-wide readership. We can relax with a cuppa and calorie free electronic sweets while we discuss the affairs of the week both personal and/or worldwide. How has your week been?

On the news front, it appears to have been a rather slow week in general – a few hotspots in the world to concern locals, but no large issues. I get a lot of my news from Canada’s national newspaper – The Globe and Mail – and two of today’s articles on the first page of the e-edition are: “The cold hard facts about seven winter driving myths” and “Tedium, kids? It’s all in a day’s work.” Mind you, these are two small articles, but still they seem to point to a slow news cycle. Which, I would argue, is a good thing. Anything of interest happening in your part of the world? Local or national news that affects you?

On a personal front Friday night’s dialysis went poorly, very poorly. I upset one of the nurses; numerous attempts at inserting the dialysis needles failed; at which point the hospital RAN OUT of the type of needles I have used for 6 years. I threatened to leave; they scrambled and found two needles of which they only successfully inserted one; they tried to do the dialysis with one needle only partially working. This lead to successively poorer and poorer dialysis until after part way through, it failed completely (line pressures went out of range). They then insisted that they wanted to use a different type of needle. I’ve tried these before and because my fistula (the vein constructed just for needling inside my upper arm) is very mobile, they inevitably fail causing haematoma and a great deal of pain and swelling. I basically told them to stick it where the sun don’t shine (in a nice way) and expressed my disbelief and pissed-offedness (made up word there) that they had run out of the correct needles.

Steel dialysis needle – approx size

http://www.jmss.com.sg/images/product_portfolio/hemodialysis/hemodialysis_needle_protector_sysloc_safety_02.jpg

There was no real choice at that point but to stop the dialysis and go home. The nurses explained that this was my fault because I refused to use the steel needles (mine are angios which are flexible, once inserted, allowing the tips to move with my fistula). I told them that it was hardly my fault that they ran out of needles that I had used successfully for 6 years. Anyway, they removed me from the machine having completed only about 1.5 hours of a 4.25 hour treatment. And the part we did complete was very, very low quality, leaving me tired and sore. The way the treatment is structured, saline is used for starting and finishing – and there is a break-even point in the treatment such that it is only successful if that point is passed. We did not get past that point, meaning I actually came off worse than I went on. Not a good thing. There will be no more angios available until next week, so I couldn’t go back and re-dialyze over the weekend to make up for Friday’s fiasco. If it was life threatening, I could get treated at another local hospital but it is just painful and annoying, not life threatening. Have hospitals or medical facilities ever pissed you off? Any stories that have left you upset or angry? Or perhaps a funny or cheerful story to cheer us all up?

Well, that was quite a rant – I feel much better now, thank you. Would you like a cuppa refill and a sweet? You’ll need a piece of cake or a biscuit with your coffee in order to make it through the next topic, one of my regulars: The Squirrel Report. For some reason squirrels seem to make it into each post – not sure why.

So, Friday I arrive at the hospital and walk over to sit on one of the outside benches for a minute before heading into the building. On Wednesday I had noticed a construction fence had been erected along the walkway and behind the benches as far as the entrance driveway. I hadn’t thought much of it as there is always construction of some sort going on around the hospital. Friday it was dark when I arrived and I hadn’t noticed much detail. As I approached the benches, I realized that something looked different, not quite sure what yet. And then I stood facing the benches and the woods behind. The woods were GONE. There were a few trees left to shade the benches in good weather, but the forest was missing. From the building to the main street entrance, it was about 1⁄4 mile of woods and green space. That area is now completely lifeless, without a sign of a growing thing. It has been levelled, gravelled, covered with compacted sand and readied for paving. The whole front of the hospital property next to the main building has only a handful of trees left. This is the area where the squirrels had been gamboling all summer long; where they chased each other for our amusement; begged food from passers-by; where they raised their families; where they gathered their nuts and where they hid their nuts for the winter. All gone now. I hope the squirrels got out OK and that they manage to make it through the winter with the food they can find. Has your community lost any green space to development lately? How do you feel about sacrificing trees (and all their inhabitants) for pavement and buildings?

Winter has finally arrived to stay here – early this year. It has snowed and then turned to ice on the ground and stayed for a full week. Walking is a nightmare because of the ice. Next week appears to have only one relatively warm day and then more cold. Would you like another cuppa? Willow and I are honored that you dropped by today to visit. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself and the conversation and please feel free to look around at Willow’s other posts while you’re here. Have a great week. We look forward to seeing you here for tea again next week.

Slightly Stronger Coffee After a Hard Week

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would ask you if you would like another cuppa, or another cake . ! If we were having Coffee Original idea from http://parttimemonster.wordpress.com/

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: HOT GOSSIP

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Welcome , welcome to you all, how are you and what have you been up to this last week. Things are still not letting up for me as far as being busy is concerned ! I just do not have a lot of time to even turn round or even smell the coffee. 🙂

Now where are my manners come on in and get comfortable as you can see Paul has done a great job with the place , we even have a fantastic set of cushions to match the marquee and rugs!

http://housetohome.media.ipcdigital.co.uk/96/00000dbb6/2beb_orh550w550/attic-living-room-country-Country-Homes–Interiors.jpg

This is just one end and we have different themes in different parts of the marquee, we shall be decorating for Halloween, fireworks night, Thanks Giving and Christmas so if anyone wants to suggest an interior or some decorations do please send me and Paul a link so we can incorporate your ideas in to our space . By our I mean yours, Paul’s and my space!

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would be so pleased to see you and very pleased for the chance to sit down and have a cuppa with you.

I do try not to be too controversial here but I do think that I should say something about the latest murder of an innocent man by Isil . So far two Americans James Foley and Steven Sotloff and two British men David Haines Alan Henning have been beheaded by a nameless faceless shadow. I am truly stunned by the barbarity and ugliness of the way these men’s lives has been taken. Not only were they beheaded but also videoed and shown on youtube. Apparently another American medic has been named as their next victim. I pray for him but I ear those who hold him and hide their faces appear to be without mercy.

All this is very sad well actually sad does not quite cover it, it is sad, dreadful evil even. I will not say any more because I do not want to politicize our coffee space but I would like to pray for all these killings to end . Maybe whatever your faith or creed you could join me.

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would say okay that is all I wanted to say on that sad matter. Lets move on . We have had what is called an Indian Summer, this usually means beautiful sunny and hot weather in late September and early October. This

last week has been amazing and so this morning it was a disappointment to awake to a drop of 5 degrees in temperature and pouring rain! But hey I am not complaining the gardens really do need the rain !

Over on the left is a photo I took on Wednesday when the husband and I took an afternoon walk by the river it was so like the hight of summer, hot, sunny and such a treat!

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would regale you with the great day I had on Thursday my friend and I had a another day trip into London. I had as I always do enjoyed Tangental’s blog and I had been enamoured by his post My kinda town part 2 I do urge you to pop over to Geoff’s blog I can really recommend it!

Well, armed with Geoff’s blog on my phone and a map and suggestions from the husband, who also worked in the Fleet Street and Inns of Court areas for many years, probably overlapping and passing each other on occasion! Well we had a wonderful day full of sun, fun and barristers, lawyers, students and cats !

We had a wonderful time. We had lunch at the Ye old Cheshire Cheese and walked miles. We had a very nice young man, a lawyer, maybe a barrister take our photo, he told us we looked like Kate Moss we told him he needed glasses! We saw barristers running around carrying robes, wigs and brief cases.

We even saw one young lady dressed to the nines, slip off her comfy shoes and put on her killer heels before she entered one of the chambers! We smiled at her and said time for your big girl’s job shoes! she laughed and nodded in agreement !

Hodge, Samuel Johnson's Cat — Hodge, Samuel Johnson’s Cat

Hodge's explanation — Hodge’s explanation

Huge flowers in one of the Garden's in the Inns of Court — Huge flowers in one of the Garden’s in the Inns of Court

Plaque on Samuel Johnson's House — Plaque on Samuel Johnson’s House

The Entrance behind those gates — The Entrance behind these gates

A Panda Scooter outside the Inns of Court

a dragon with a St George's shield — a dragon with a St George’s shield

We set off for home after a lovely day and in the evening we went out with our husbands to celebrate our joint birthdays, a fortnight apart so we had chosen a date in between! Thanks Geoff for the post that gave us such a great day and thanks hubby for the extra information

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would say okay Saturday has been a total wash out, gym in the morning then shopping in the afternoon, near row with hubby managed to avoid it by just ignoring him until he stopped moaning! Today Sunday we are off out for a hog roast with really good friends, so I am happy about that.

So come on would you like some more cake, of tea/ coffee, have you been over to Paul’s amazing part of the Marquee he certainly is worth a visit!

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IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: I would ask you if you would like another cuppa, or another cake . I’d tell you I have really come to enjoy these chats and I’d love to hear what you would tell me. Please feel free to stay as long as you like and don’t forget to visit Paul’s post now while you are here! If we were having Coffee Original idea from http://parttimemonster.wordpress.com/