Leaving

 Dear Reader,

I feel much better today with the cough nearly gone. Although I have had cancer twice and other operations I didn't realize just how horrid it was feeling ill, unable to think or sleep or breathe.

Enough said.  Thank you all for your good wishes.

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A short piece of news today which I thought worth recording.  

 

A female king penguin in Britain's only breeding colony for the species is actually a male.  Keepers discovered this rather vital piece of information after EIGHT years.  

The true sex of Maggie, now renamed Magnus, was uncovered after staff at Birdland Park saw the bird attempt to mate with a male penguin.  Keepers sent one of the penguin's feathers for DNA testing and the results revealed that Maggie was in fact a male.

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From Nathaniel Hawthorne   December 11th  1855 in Lancashire

'This had been a foggy morning and forenoon, snowing a little now and then, and disagreeably cold....At about twelve there is a faint glow of sunlight, like the gleaming reflection from a not highly polished copper kettle.'

 

From Gilbert White   December 13th  1774 in Hampshire

'Ice bears: boys slide.'

    

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Leaving

 

The day she left

her heart hammered

tears streamed down her cheeks

 

the rain beat against the car windows

an east wind blew

the road was black ribbons.

 

She took a small suitcase.

It held a red skirt, two shirts, underclothes,

two cardigans,  a duffle coat

and three favourite books.

 

After twenty years of marriage

that was her spoils.

 

Oh, and the kettle.

 

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With very best wishes, Patricia

 

 

 

 

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