The Horse-Caravan-Grandma-Orb story

Now, you know I’d never leave you with just one day of Chat because that would be cruel. Here’s the second installment of brilliance from our favourite magazine.

The story I’ve saved for today is going to blow your socks off.  Get ready for what I’m calling The Horse-Caravan-Grandma-Orb story. It’s epic. The story is as follows.

• Guy gives his yo-yo to a medium at a spiritualist church and she tells him he has The Gift then draws him a picture of a lady. He recognises the lady cause she ‘keeps him safe at night’.

• He becomes a medium when he is 18.

• Someone gives him a photo of his great grandma and it’s the lady from the drawing. They also give him a green crystal ball that used to belong to her. “I know she’d have wanted you to have it,” they say.

• He dreams about a caravan. Then he sees it. He asks the owner if he can buy it. The owner of the caravan actually says, according to him, “Lots of people have asked me that but I think I’ve been waiting for you.” He can’t explain why, apparently. It’s a feeling.

• Now I need a horse, he thinks. So he buys a horse. Obvious next step, right?

• Next, he’s helping his mum move house and gets a feeling that something has happened to the horse. When they finish everything, he sits down and suddenly “hundreds of orbs” are floating around.

• Gets home.  Note on the doormat from the farmer where the horse is being kept says, “Your mare’s dead.” He’s terribly eloquent, that farmer.  Don’t you think?

• Farmer acts shifty when questioned. Police are called but there’s no proof.

• He feels that the horse is living on a farm somewhere working hard and is safe and well.

• He misses the horse.

Now, I would just like to ask you, reader, if that is a story? Is it?

“A medium drew a picture of a woman. It was my great grandma. I bought a caravan and a horse. I think the horse was stolen. I miss the horse.” Wheres my beginning, middle and end? Where’s my restored equilibrium? Where’s the happy/unhappy ending? ‘I miss the horse’ is not, I fear, an ending.

We also need to look at the ‘evidence’ here. Below is the sketch and photo of the great grandma.

Now, that picture on the left is apparently a sketch done in a few minutes by a medium. Correct me if I’m wrong but she either took a long time with paint, or that’s a photo.  The straight lines of the shirt and the eyes were no way drawn in a few minutes by a woman with a pencil and pad.

Next bit of ‘evidence.’ His friend came to him with a photo after the horse went missing. He gasps. There is a ghostly image of a horse floating above her shoulder.  Check it out.

Ok, everybody looking at me. I need your attention for a minute. Right, I’d like you to raise your hand if you think a ghostly image of a horse is floating above her shoulder. And next I’d like you to raise your hand if you think it looks like a woman holding a photo up by her shoulder and tucking her fingers out of sight. It’s terribly square for a ghostly image, wouldn’t you say? Square like a photo?

Last but not least, I have a problem with his advert poster board thing.

I’m sorry, your name is “Omar”? Like that? Not Omar. Why is it “Omar”? Is your name a colloquialism? Like “Maccies” for McDonald’s or “totes” for totally. I think, “Omar”, that you should “learn” how to use “speech marks” before you start “tucking” them around things and making yourself look like an “uneducated fool.”

O wait, it didn’t take the speech marks to do that.

A new year of Chat

Ok, seeing as it’s a new year, I didn’t want to get too far into it before updating you all on Chat’s latest offerings. I know you miss it if I leave it too long.

The first thing to pop up on the Silly-o-meter is a photo of a woman wrapped in foil, reading Chat, and the caption, “All that foil didn’t stop my friend enjoying her favourite mag.”

Err…… Ok….

Next is the inevitable fat story. Lou, at 48st, was told she had a BMI of 93 and must have an operation to save her from her own fat. That’s right, a BMI of 93! It should be between 18 and 25. You’re counted as obese if you are over 30! There are the obligatory photos of her in clothes which look like duvet covers for double beds and then a photo of her at ‘just’ 38st. Fabulous.

I mean, I get confused by people who are so overweight they can’t stand up or walk. At some point, one day, you noticed that you had stopped being able to get out of bed. At some point, that realisation occurred. And some small part of you must have thought, ‘O god, this is bad. Maybe I should do something about it?’ And you then, after thinking that, decided to do nothing about it. Why would you decide to do nothing? The woman in this story has a daughter. Even if she didn’t like herself enough, surely she thought of her daughter when deciding not to do anything about her weight?

The next story is called ‘Tall, dark, handsome and dangerous’ and, even without reading it properly, I can see it’s going to be quite mental. “My obsessed ex slashed my horse… I logged onto my internet dating profile….. I’d been single a few months after an eight year relationship…. He was jealous of my love for my horse, Jessie.” Yeh…. I’m not going to linger too long on that page.

Next it’s the medical pages. The best letter, by far, is called ‘Big bum!’ and is from Sandy, 34, who wants to know if buttock firming exercises will work. That’s right. Instead of just trying the bum exercises because she hates her big bum so much, she has written to Chat about it, to check whether they will work. As if she’s not capable of carrying out the basic daily functions of life unless Chat has okay-ed them first.

There is also a letter from a woman called MeLisa. I’m sorry, what’s that? Do I say me, Lisa? Is it like a normal name with ‘me’ at the front? Should I change my name to MeLaura? Or is it just Melissa with a capital L in the middle of it?

And now it’s time for the finale. The ultimate Chat story – a woman who is in love with a bus. Yes. A bus. In fact, she’s not just in love with it, she’s in a relationship with it.

She married and had three children. When her marriage broke up she realised the Routemaster bus called Ronnie, that she’d seen many times at the London Transport Museum, was who she was meant to be with!

Yep. Now her and Ronnie are in a committed relationship. “How could I ever cheat on my Ronnie?.. Our love is real,” she says. “Ronnie and I are meant to be together. Christmas Cards from friends were written, To Ash and Ronnie.”

And that is all I have to say about that story. It speaks for itself really, doesn’t it?

Laura’s top tips

A few days ago, I was reading Chat and I came across some top tips that were madness. For example, eat your kiwi fruit out of an egg cup. That was it. That was the whole tip and it won £25. So I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, I can do this too.” So now, especially for you, I present Laura’s Top Tips! Enjoy.

Got short hair and want it longer? Stand next to a horse’s tail and drape it over your shoulder. Everyone will think it is your hair!

Running out of milk and bread at home? Take £3 and go to the shop and get some more!

Hair too curly all the time? Buy straighteners and straighten it.

Jumper got a hole in it? Fill it in with paper machier. No-one will be able to tell the difference.

Feeling ill? Take some medicine! You will be better in no time.

Got floorboards on your floor and fed up of hoovering all the time? Just sweep the dirt into a pile and brush it down the gaps in between the floorboards.

Getting cold in the evenings? Keep a Downstairs Duvet next to the sofa and snuggle under it when it starts getting chilly.

Worried about what to cook for dinner? Use a cookbook!

Ever wonder why your clothes take ages to dry when they’re in a pile on the ground? Put them over a clothes horse individually and wait until dry.

Bored? Read a book!

That’s it for today. I don’t want to overload your brain with my amazing tips so I’ll do some more another day. Good luck with the tips, I hope they help you.

Espresso, ice cream and truffles

…not all together!

We started yesterday morning by walking to the end of our road, where the Colossuem is. See it there at the bottom?

We picked up some fairly pricey, but tasty, breakfast over the road from the Colossuem and sat marvelling at it’s size. At the bottom of our road, before you cross the road to the Colossuem, is a gladiator training ground. There was an underground passage for the gladiators to go direct from their training ground, to the rooms and corridors under the floor of the Colossuem. The emperor also used this corridor to get into the Colossuem to avoid the crowds in the piazza.

We then pottered over to the Roman Forum area where there were once lots of temples and senate buildings. It's amazing to think, as you wander past the little kiosks with their bunches of fruit and slices of coconut for sale, that thousands of years ago, the men and women who would shape our world were swishing about (swishing? did the Romans 'swish'?) in their robes, discussing points of law and bathing.

The world of two thousand years ago and the world of today coexist surprisingly well in Rome. Sometimes you forget the gravity of what you are seeing, the magnitude of these ruins and their importance, because the local Italians are going about their business as usual. Buses and trams snake around the edge of the Colossuem and life goes on as usual for the policemen hanging out by their cars in the Piazza del Rotondo, which houses the Pantheon.

On our way to the Pantheon, we happened across the Campo Di Fiore, an amazing market, selling everything that you imagine to be quintessentially Italian.

I found a man doing tasters of white truffle butter with crackers and was transported back a few weeks ago to my amazing truffle experience in London. Danda turned up his nose at this heart-stoppingly beautiful truffle butter and located instead some humorous pasta shapes.

Shortly after this, we were in the Piazza Navona, admiring street painters and debating which of the many gelatarias to buy our ice cream from.

We decided on one and asked the guy behind the counter which flavour was the best. He pointed out an illuminous blue one and when I looked closely at the flavour on the label it said Viagra! Viagra flavoured ice cream! Hilarious. Surprisingly, I opted for something else. Pistachio. It was amazing.

The fountain in the Piazza Navona is huge and impressive. In fact, everything in Rome is huge and impressive. They seem to take the original plans of the building before they start it, zoom it by at least 200%, THEN build it.

Every time we came across a huge building front, we’d scramble for the map, to see what it was. It would usually turn out to just be a regular church or something. They’re all like that. If the Romans were trying to intimidate by showing off about how much power they had with the size of their buildings, then it has worked. I am intimidated.

Next we found the Pantheon and went inside for half an hour or so, soaking up the atmosphere.

It is a beautiful building, well preserved as it has been in use the entire time up to the present day. Often, buildings like the Colossuem were abandoned, ransacked, left to the elements, then given new life as a tourist attraction, which means a lot of work needs doing on them. The Pantheon is still pretty much as it was when it was built. I kept running my hands over the huge columns and thinking how thousands of years ago, someone else was probably running their hands over the same spot, admiring their size.

Next, we were on a mission to find coffee. I had read that the Tazza D’Oro did the best coffee in Rome and, as a non-coffee drinker, thought this might be the thing to change my mind. We dawdled about, trying to catch the barista’s eye, feeling a bit awkward and getting ignored. Danda suddenly remembered that you have to go to the till and pay, then get a receipt and bring your receipt to the barista and he makes your coffee. No wonder he was ignoring us, we didn’t have a receipt. Without further ado, we paid and got our coffees.

It was bitter… And strong…. And quite small. And I think it was tasty. I couldn’t say for certain. But I think it was tasty. This was a step in the right direction!

Soon after, we realised our legs were about to give out and we headed back to our apartment on the Gay Street of Rome. On our way, we stopped for dinner in one of the little family run restaurants which has seating on the pavement outside. I ordered a pasta dish with porcini mushrooms and a hint of tartufo. It was delicious. Simple and delicious.

On the way back, we visited the shop which provided us with the tasty wraps the night before and I got a cannolo almost the same size as myself.

With no shame at all, I scoffed it down and wondered aloud if there weren’t another to be found close by. Danda shook his head in disbelief and banned me from going and getting another one…..

A walk with mad dogs and Englishmen….

I’m handing over to the guest blogger today, for his last post about his holiday walks.

This was my 3rd and last holiday walk. It was overcast. I packed my rain gear. I began by heading north through the village. What I witnessed next seemed somewhat ominous.

It looked a bit like that scene from the Hitchcock film and I looked behind just in case I was going to turn into Tippi Hedren II. (Tippi, by the way, is Melanie Griffith’s mother.)
However just 15 mins later the sky began to clear a bit and I came across this.

As I was walking through the next village I saw this little chap

One of those horses with little legs. I didn’t have my tape measure with me to see if it qualified as a miniature horse but I thought it should be one. Apparently it would have to be 34-38ins (86-97cms) to the last hairs of the mane in order to be called a miniature horse.
A bit further on and I was down another one of those narrow pathways.

Through the gap in the trees in the distance, across a golf course and a bit further on I came to this

It was one of those things that there is always a waiting list for here in the UK – a beach hut! This one is about 15ft (4.57m) x 10ft (3.05m). The gentleman told me he’d bought his in the 1960s for a few hundred pounds and that recently one was sold for £22,000 ($34,500). Sounds a big increase but I suppose you have to bear in mind it’s probably a 50 year gap. Had he bought it from the council? No, from the LeStrange Estate which owns the land. The family can trace their ancestry back to around 1100AD when the first LeStrange, a Breton who emigrated from northern France, inherited the land through marriage. The name, not unsurprisingly, means ‘the foreigner’ or ‘the stranger’. There are no service facilities to the huts. Water is available via a tap nearby. When offered a cup of tea I was asked to fill the kettle. “The tap’s behind the hut near the path,” he said. Off I went. Unable to locate the tap I returned and he showed me where it was. Can you see it? It’s near the fence post in the grass!

A barrier of sand dunes means that this is the view from the hut.

The sea is over the other side and a long walk out. I didn’t.
I set off continuing my exploration and in a mile or so came to the local lifeboat station. Because of the nature of the coast, the sand dunes and the fact that the water could be a long way out a conventional “launch” down a slipway is not possible. The lifeboat is not really a lifeboat – it’s a “lifehovercraft” – Problem solved! I’ve never seen one of those before.

After an ice-cream stop it was time to return to the cottage and as with many routes around there it was off across the fields again for another couple of miles. Then through the Downs area and back along the road. As you can see by this pic the day which had begun overcast now had bright sunshine. Time to mop that brow again as the heat really rose. I was the Englishman out with the “mad dogs”!

Fancy having this as your walk home from the office each day? Summer yes! Winter, maybe not.
Just before arriving back at the cottage I passed the sign I mentioned a couple of weeks ago by the duck pond:

Walking into history

It’s Wednesday again and time for Rambler5319, my guest blogger, to take over….

Last week’s pics from my holiday were really mostly about signs. I did take some others (and a few more signs). These are from the walks I did in an area which is steeped in history. Parts of it go back to the time of the Romans and beyond.
As you approach the village from one direction, you see this magnificent hand-crafted sign. (It took over 8 months to make.)

Each element in the sign has some local significance and I was curious to find out what they all represented. Local village history gave me the answer:
The cross-keys representing St Peter’s Church (now ruined).
The white cross (blue background) represents the existing St Andrew’s Church.
The beige area represents the main cereal crop – barley.
The green area represents the other main crop – sugar beet.
The white pathway between them represents an old footpath called Peddars Way which passes through the village.
The black symbols on the left middle represent churches & chapel. To the right middle, the tree is Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Tree and the windmill is also local to the area. A lot of thought definitely went into this impressive creation.
As you approach from another side of the village you are greeted by this one

They definitely like you to feel welcome.
I found this next structure in a garden in the main street of the village. Talk about plush multi-storey avian apartments!! Ever seen one of these before?

 

WALK NO.1
This was about 6 miles round, mostly on paths away from the roads. The route I travelled, to the next village (Sedgeford), is a small part of what is a much longer (46 miles!) ancient path called Peddars Way. Some believe its existence actually pre-dates the Romans and that they just extended and improved it. So here I was walking on a path that Roman soldiers probably marched along almost 2,000 years ago! I’m glad I wasn’t wearing armour and carrying a heavy shield as the sun was very warm and my brow was wiped many times on this walk. Here’s a section of it but can you tell which direction my compass needle was pointing if I tell you it was about 11.00am?

I came across this notice just half a mile along the path.

In case text in pic too small to read, at the bottom it says: “This roadside verge is being positively managed to conserve wild plants and animals in a joint project between Norfolk County Council and Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Note it’s just the “verge”; it was only a metre or so wide.
Just before joining the main road, leading into Sedgeford, the path emerged from its agrarian setting into a narrow road called Magazine Lane; also nearby were Magazine Farm & Magazine Wood. Seemed to me like an odd name to find out in the countryside. The mystery was solved a bit further along when I found this building

It is called Magazine Cottage and is believed to have been used as a store for gunpowder during the Civil War. It was built by the LeStrange family who we will find out more about next week. As I walked past the village pub (King William IV), and down a side road, I saw a sign for a local archaeological project:

I was intrigued. I decided to visit. As well as the actual dig site there were a number of displays and talks about the finds and other general info about life in Anglo Saxon times. Volunteer diggers camp in the next field to the excavation site:

And some site facilities are what might be termed primitive. Note, in the pic below, only one tap can be used for drinking water:

Here are some of the displays, starting with the skulls:

And here are three Action Men but each item they are wearing has been hand made by a guy who is very interested in the period. He’d also made models of some of the “machines” (e.g. boulder launching catapults) the Romans used in sieges and attacks in battle.

Next was a display of what they believe may have been types of food from Anglo Saxon times. The front page of the booklet to the right of pic (sorry chopped off due to trying to get all the food dishes in) says “Dishes made on the day course – Cooking up an Anglo-Saxon feast”:

I also attended one of the 20 minute talks in a side tent. Time to put thinking cap on! Amongst other things, I learnt that an analysis of the chemicals in bones can suggest an area of the country where the individual lived. How? This is because the mix of certain elements in the water in different parts of the country can be quite specific to that area. Apparently, if you live in an area for 10 years or more, your bones will have levels of certain chemicals that have been absorbed from drinking the water in that area that will be the same as the water itself. The archaeologists compare the levels of two particular chemicals, strontium & oxygen, in the water, with the levels in the bones they find. They can then tell whether the people had lived in that area for about 10 years before their death or had moved to it from another part of the country.
Soon it was off to retrace the 3 miles back to the cottage and give my brain, as well as my legs, a rest; it had been a fascinating and very instructive time at the site. As I made my way across the field behind the site, to begin the trek home, I came across this unusual sight:

Starting with the standing white horse look left to the brown standing horse and then to, what seems to be, a brown “blob” on the floor. This “blob” really was a horse lying on its side. Every so often its tail would flick up and down but it remained in this position the whole time I was crossing the field. Was it tired or maybe sunbathing? Do horses lie down if they’re tired? Do horses sunbathe?
The following day I did a short walk, along the sea front, in the nearby town of Hunstanton. Apparently it is the only resort on the East Coast of England which actually faces west! (You’d have to look at a map to see why.) The town motto (in Latin of course) is Alios delectare iuvat, which translates to “It is our pleasure to please”. I was pleased after my visit so I suppose they succeeded. I sat down on a bench for a quick sandwich and drink. I found it was one of those which had been erected in memory of someone who’d died. Here’s the plaque:

Paul Richard Moore was not famous; I, you and lots of other people, will have never heard of him but clearly he was, and still is, VERY special to those who’d put the bench there in his memory. We don’t know how he died but look at his age – just under 30 years old. Now pause for a moment and think about that. Perhaps many readers of this post are younger or just coming up to it or some maybe past that age. Imagine if that was to be all time you would have. It’s always a great sadness when parents outlive their children as it’s one of those things, like this lad’s parents, you just don’t expect to happen. I spent a few minutes in quiet reflection: each moment we’re alive we’re making withdrawals from “The Bank of Time” but without knowing the balance left in our account! Of course, no deposits are possible and you can’t be overdrawn – but your account will be closed at some point! How we “spend” our time is important.
Walking just a short distance from the bench, I saw this. It was time to put that thinking cap on again.

Closer inspection of the info board revealed some interesting stuff.
The wall in the pic is what is left of a chapel built in 1272AD in memory of King Edmund. Apparently he’d landed, from Germany, in 855AD and, a few years later, was crowned King of East Anglia whilst still only a boy. There was peace for a while but then invaders came from Denmark. The king was captured and, when pressed, refused to give up his Christian faith. He was tied to a tree and shot by Danish archers in 870AD aged about 29. He was interred at a place called Beodericsworth which later became known as St Edmunds Bury and finally the town we know today as Bury St Edmunds. He became the first patron saint of England and remained so for about 400 years. The current patron saint (George) was not adopted until the end of the 14th cent. Not a lot of people know that!
I came across this (Latin) motto: Alis Aptar Scientis. It means “Ready for the wings of knowing”. Well are you?