On this last day of December ...

I want to share a few things that have amazed, intrigued and amused me today.

DH went to the gym this morning, so I took the opportunity to take a stroll into town and on my way there, I was amazed to see a cherry tree that already had beautiful pink blossoms adorning it’s boughs. Cherry blossom in December? You better believe it! I even took a photo to prove it ...


It really has been particularly mild this month, with average temperatures rarely dropping below 10oC ... it's such a contrast to last December when we had several inches of snow that lasted a couple of weeks and the temperatures stayed in the minus figures for almost the entire month, bbbrrrrrrr!!!

Anyway, back to today ... as I carried on walking towards town, I passed a house that had a banner hung between the first floor windows ...


The banner read “WELCOME HOME TOM” and it got me wondering, who’s Tom? Where has he been? Perhaps he’s home for the holidays after finishing his first term at university. Or maybe he’s finished his degree and returned home after a gap year of travelling around the world. Or perhaps Tom’s in the armed forces and has returned home safely and back to the arms of his loving family after spending 6 months on deployment somewhere in the world. I’ll never know, but I’m intrigued none-the-less.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of what it was that amused me today and perhaps it’s a little cruel of me to laugh, but I think you would’ve too if you’d been there. Let me explain ... as I was walking home, I passed a little old man. He was on the opposite side of the road to me, but I could hear him muttering under his breath as he shuffled along the pavement. I’ve no idea how old he was, but I’d guess he was in his 80’s and he used a walking stick to aid him as he walked along. As I drew level with him, he stopped, took aim with his stick and made a wild swipe at some litter on the pavement in front of him! It was really quite comical. It took him 3 or 4 attempts to hit it (“it” being an empty plastic bottle carelessly dropped by someone with no respect for their environment!) but when he connected with it, it went flying into the road gutter. Score!!! After I’d got over my initial surprise, I wondered what good it had been with him swiping the bottle into the gutter like that? Surely it didn’t solve anything, it just moved the litter from the pavement to the roadside, but it was still litter. All became clear a short while after; as I carried on my route home, I was passed by one of those little road sweeper vehicles, with the rotating bristle brushes that scoop up all the litter caught in the roadside gutter. It appears he was a clever cantankerous old geezer after all!

Well there you have it folks, that was my last post of 2011. If you’re partying tonight I hope you have fun, enjoy the celebrations and stay safe. As for me? Well, I’ll be staying at home this evening, I’ll share a bottle of bubbly with DH and we’ll probably be tucked up in bed by 11pm (only to be rudely awoken by the fireworks as the clock strikes midnight!) … that is the sad truth of being 40 and relishing sleep over partying, no matter what day of the year it is!!!