Clare, you bunked in front of me, now my little sentence doesn’t make any sense - lol!
Awe Jacq, do you not like my babies LOL
You always make sense Jacq - unlike me who mutters on in a very random fashion.
Love Clare X
Lol, Jane, I couldn’t make out what it was - got wrong specs on!
On the photos there is a problem - if you click on a person’s profile you get to see the previous/earlier picture. Val I can still see you for example…
Wondering if it is just me or blip on BCC site/caching issue? Moderators if you are reading could you check please.
Victoria xx
Victoria, you took the words right out of my mouth, was just about to type that!
You’re all in Take A Break next week - lol!
I wish the photos were bigger so we could see them better.
jjane123 is that Llaso Apso dogs you have ?
My picture is of a huge foxglove. One of many I had in my tiny garden last summer…it seems a long long time ago now…
I meant to add…jacknotinthebox…very clever name…your photo has a mischievious look in your eyes…
Victoria I keep wanting to tap you on the shoulder to get you to turn round so that I can see your face…
Tut Val, too clever for you, you got it wrong - lol!
Hi all
Well I’ve been to the gym and then read that thread. Reminds me of that what not to say thread on here (a really early posting) about a woman in America who had a pink ribbon tattoo to show solidarity with her friend. Thing was her friend had not asked her to and had not wanted her to do that. I would hope one of my friends would ask me before wearing a badge like that. I would tell them if they want real solidarity why not go the whole hog and have their breast chopped off too… And if i wanted people to know i only had one tit, i would go out without my prosthesis in. To be honest it has made me laugh that anything so absurd can happen. I think the TAB womans comment about intolerance was offensive as it implies that because you disagree you are depressing. But I do love a bit of healthy debate so has made half an hour go quickly.
Tempted to photo my prosthesis and put it on.
Anyway catch you all later, going to have a look for this fb group now.
Linda
Wow - miss a day, and there’s all sorts of intrigue - going to have to go and look at that thread now!
Well, I’ve been in 2 newspapers this week - so that’s enough media for me! Obviously - not heard anything about the rugs, didn’t really expect to. The news ones have come, and all on - poor ponies need them now for the rain - it hasn’t stopped all day!
Teaching tomorrow - 1st tine for a few weeks we’ve been able to - the down to Birmingham for a 2 day meeting Mon/Tues. Working Wednesday - then train to Edinburgh Thursday! Busy old week…
Catch y’all later!
Lizzie xx
Linda -your post really cheered me up. I am pleased that you can have a better outlook.
Just made Scotch Eggs for OH after seeing them on hairy bikers. We bought some good sausages and I baked them rather than fried them. I only had the end off one: somehow cottage pie ready meal looked less appetising! Just trying to tell myself that it will be worth it on the scales.
V xx
Hi all
i am seriously thinking of taking part in a fundraising event in aid of our local hospice. I have to pay a deposit of £250 and then raise £3650 through local events. By doing this I get to go to Colorado to a ranch where they ride round horses movin cows etc. It’s a week long and takes place in sept. We get to live in the farmhouse and be real cowboys and cowgirls. It is something I have always wanted to do and I am seriously am thinking of signing up. My only worry is if I would be fit enough for it. I have to ask my surgeon when I see him. Is there any of you horsey ladies who would like to join me. I don’t mind going on my own. It’s just too good an experience to miss. Anyway I will keep you all up to date. Wot do you think?
Martins
Morning everyone…
Martina - hope your doctor gives the go ahead i’m sure that you will have a brilliant time…
Theresa x
Martina - I’d love to be able to do it, one problem though - me and horses don’t seem to go together…maybe I could come and do the grits or clean the bunkhouse or sort the chickens etc??? mary x
Whoooeeeeee! Skiiiiiddoooo, whap, bang, thud, wallop. OOWW!!
Steel slides in across the saloon floor, boots iced up, whangeroos into the bar, over the top, and smasherami, into the champagne case!
Well, she thinks, how fortunate, and helps herself to a bottle.
Here I am again. Back later with hopefully the whole of the rest of the story, but first, it’s free ebaying listing night tonight, so taking advantage.
Oh, and obviously we all think we’re the ones to get this dang thing back again, so clearly, we’ll be fine. And if not, what the hell, live life now, worry about the rest later! (oh, and just for anybody that doesn’t know me yet, the Storm Riders know I’m not being insensitively, just frivolently, glib… ;D).
And, if that journalist is reading, you do not have my permission to use any part of anything that I write, or my photo, unless you get in touch first and agree it with me, even if this is a public forum. Ignore me at your peril, but get in touch, and you don’t have a problem.
Martina, I’ll give your ranch hand idea a serious think. Email me the details. I’m rubbish at fund raising, but my best friend is a fund raiser!!!
See you shortly guys.
He watched himself as he turned away from her.
“Oh no,” he sighed, “don’t do it. I cannot watch this.” And he turned away from them, not really knowing where he was going to go as this was all a dream. Was it? He had no idea what was happening to him. His shoulders slumped and he walked away.
“HEY!”
“What!, Ow!, Let me go! Lemme go!” He was dangling feet above the ground in front of a pair of steely grey eyes. He twisted and turned, trying to shake himself free, but to no avail.
“Ok, let me down, I’m not going anywhere, you win.” He sighed again, even more so, and his feet hit the ground. “Was there really any reason for that?” he asked Yarrow and Casey. They shrugged from their 6ft heights and pushed him towards Steel.
“You know us right?” said Calypso from his left.
“Yes, yes, I know you. What I don’t know is how you can be in my dream. My nightmares, yes, my dreams, why?!”
“Hah!” and Blackjack chortled. “You think this is a dream, you little stoat? This is no more a dream than that sorry dish of bread and cheese you had last night.” And she poked him hard in the stomach making him gasp and feel more than a little heavy in the gut department
“Ok, enough,” said Steel, and she turned to Wilson.
“Wilson, you will turn around and you will watch, and you will learn. And if you flinch, I will throw you over that cliff before you can do it yourself, and you will not come back.” Her eyes bored into him, into his very soul.
In a very small voice he asked, “Can I ask a question?”
“Yes.”
“Where would I go?”
Steel snorted, turned to the others and shrugged. “Dang, this guy is thick! Take him up closer.”
“What, hey, no, lemme go, lemme go, now, pleeeeeaaase!” begged Wilson, but really there was not point in struggling, so he found himself carried right up to Sylvia’s shoulder.
They dropped him, and if he could have fallen right through the ground to hell itself he would have preferred it to seeing the tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched him walk away. He took a breath and turned to watch himself go. Never a backward glance. He remembered this moment, and he had regretted it all his life since. He had walked away from her, putting her behind him with every step. A wife? A child? No, it was not in his plan. He needed to be free to move with the job, he needed the money to make his moves. He couldn’t finance a family and become what he knew he could be. No. He had loved her, but she was not his future. He strode away, never a backward glance.
Wilson watched himself go, and inside he died all over again just as he had tomorrow. Tomorrow, Christmas Day, when they would find her limp body on the shore. Tomorrow! But it hasn’t happened yet! Suddenly he knew what he was there for.
“I can stop this!” he yelled to the sky, “That’s what this is, I can be redeemed! I can save her!”
His heart swelled fit to burst as it all became clear to him.
“I wish I had stayed,” he sobbed, “I was wrong, I was so wrong. I never stopped loving you Sylvia, not for one moment.” He swung round to her and she looked straight into his eyes.
“I love you Wilson,” she said gently. “You are a good man. I know that, even although you do not. I will love you forever.”
He reached his hand out to touch her cheek, but she turned away from him.
“Watch.” Came a voice behind him. “Learn.”
She took three steps towards the cliff edge, looked back towards him, then stepped over.
“NOOOOOOO!” he screamed, and leapt to towards crumbling stones. He tottered on the edge, his shoes scrabbling for purchase, then felt hands grab his coat tails.
“We can pull you back, or you can go after her.”
His arms flailed in the air as he tried to stay upright and turn round to see them.
“Why are you here?” he cried. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“You do this to yourself Wilson,” said Riviera, strolling in from behind the others. “Our lives are ours to live as we see fit. How do you see yours? It is time to decide.” She glanced at Red and Booby. “Let him go.”
For a moment he hovered on the cliff edge, and bizarrely he knew he could right himself and walk away, or he could let himself fall. In a moment frozen in time he saw his life as it was, and he saw Sylvia and the life that could be.
And he fell after her. Sylvia, I will come to you, I will find you.
__________________________________________________________________
“What in the cess pit of hell is he doing!” Jez spat in the dust and pushed into the shop. “Get up, you pathetic piece of meat!” And he grabbed Wilson by arms and pulled him up.
“Eh, what’s the matter with him?” said Harry somewhat disconcerted by the sobbing, heaving wreck in from of him.
“Darned if I know. Let’s get him over to Joe’s and get a drink in him. We’ve got work to do, and I for one want to get it done by this afternoon and get back to the Boss’s place in time for the party!” He winked over at Harry in a seriously lewd way. “If his niece isn’t up for a piece of me by the time the night’s over, then I’m not, um, not worth my, er…”
“What Jez?”
“Oh, grab his arms, in tarnations sake, and quit your babbling! Grab his stupid ledger while your at it”
Wilson knew nothing in his grief except that his boot toes scuffed off the boardwalk steps as they dragged him to the saloon. Except that as theyplonked him on a bar stool, the walls started to melt, the floor gave way, and he found himself on Main Street.
He blinked hard. This was now, was it? Did they leave him in the street and go into the saloon? He puffed out a breath and climbed back up onto the boardwalk and pushed open the saloon doors.
“This is way past weird” he thought to himself as he watched himself slug back a whisky that Harry shoved towards him.
“Now I’m here, in Determination, twice?”
“Of course you are,” said a voice behind him.
He whirled round. “Ok, enough now, I can’t see you. You took me there. You brought me here. Stop!”
“No Wilson, not until you have found what you need to find.”
Wilson clenched his fists, whooffed out his breath, and stared at whatever it was he couldn’t see.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you just told me!” He growled, exasperated.
“Listen to my voice Wilson. Do you not know me? You must find the key to your future, and I can only lead you to those places in time that may help you. Your life is in your hands. I hope with all my heart that you will find what you need. Now look.”
And he felt a hand on his shoulder turning him back towards the saloon bar.
He was slumped over the bar, a wretched image of a man. How many words can we use to describe him: alone, lonely, loathed, despised. Enough. Joe looked at him with sorry pity, Jez and Harry with disdain. Tallulah looked away from him, through the saloon windows and straight into his eyes.
He looked into those deep dark lashes and heard her singing. For him. Her song sent him out into Determination, out into this Christmas Present.
If he felt himself chained to this strange turn of events, now he knew it. He heard the clank and clatter of leg irons, the scratching scraping sound of keys in locks, and he felt the weight as they fastened themselves round his ankles and wrists. He stood there and waited for his gaoler to take him.
“Merry Christmas Wilson!” shouted Sheriff Dan from up the street a ways.
Wilson’s eyes opened, startled, and focussed on the snow covered street ahead. Sheriff Dan and two of his deputies were escorting a very drunken couple of gents from Uncertainty Row, and a rather scantily clad female employee of a certain bar that will go unmentioned, into their festively decorated office and well appointed cells for the night, heavily clad in chains.
“Um, Merry Christmas Dan, “ said Wilson, not sure that Dan had heard him, but on looking around Main Street he didn’t see his immediate past self there, so he guessed it must be him. He raised a hand, and Dan raised one back, and winked.
“Don’t want to be seeing you in here this next year,” he said in a slightly conspiratorial voice. “Watch where you’re going Wilson.”
Wilson watched Sheriff Dan take his latest visitors inside, then he raised his eyebrows, looked up to his left, then to his right, whooo-ed out his cheeks, swallowed hard, blinked a couple of times, and decided it was probably best if he moved, somewhere.
Wow Carole, you are excelling yourself with this story !
Sorry, can’t help re the boiling beef as I don’t make scotch broth,just ask the butcher to recommend a bone with a bit of meat on it or whatever he recommends,they usually pretty good like that.
Go for it Martina,what a great opportunity,too good to miss,you really will be a real Storm Rider out there.Am sure you will be well up to fitness by then . I’ve just heard from a friend and she has invited the family out to stay for a hol.She is in Washington DC and hubs thinks we may fit in a coule of days in New York so that will be my trip to the states this year,whoop,whoop ! We stayed with her a couple of years back whaen she was in Boston and did New England in the Fall,was lovely. Hmm maybe she will get a move to the West Coast in a few years ! Anybody else got hols planned for this year ?
Hope you have all had a good weekend and hopefully we will have some lovely sunshine this week.
Sandra x