Withywindle Wanderers

My good friend Karen and I are signed up for a short story class, beginning in October! I'm allowing a brainful of words and ideas to slowly steep, in preparation for writing a tale. With the help of my excellent, brilliant sister Serendipity Rose, and the benevolent librarian at our 'North East Library', I've accumulated the inviting pile of books sitting before me. Today has been one of those crazy fall days, which finds Bens and I each snuggled in an armchair by the crackling fire reading in the morning, and, rather suddenly, mid-afternoon, turns into a warm, sweet-smelling blue-sky day. So I'm sunbathing atop the warm hot-tub lid, with my tomes, as follows: Buckley, T & Gottlieb, A 1988 Blood Magic - The Antropology of Menstruation, University of California Press, Berkeley Coutinho, E & Segal, S 1999 Is Menstruation Obselete?, Oxford University Press, New York Grahn, Judy 1987 The Queen of Swords, Beacon Press, Boston Grahn, Judy 1993 Blood, Bread and Ro...

AAAAAAARGH!! It bein' talk like a pirate day in nigh on an hour, 'tis time for the return of Bilgewater Bessie! "Avast! Ahoy! I've cracked a hundred men's skulls between these here thighs... Would you like to be the 101st?" Ah, Bilgewater Bessie is indeed a fun character to play!!!!!!!!!!!! Here's to all ye pirates out there aroamin' the high seas! PS That's my good friend Jeannie in the first photo, next to me, wearing a blonde wig, and my good friend Mary, again next to me, in the second!!!

Today was Coco's first day of preschool! She and Eowyn rode the bus together. What big girls they are! I am delighted they are so happy at school. I cried, walking down the front stairs into school (I rode the bus in with Coco, and big sister Eowyn said "I'll take care of her. I'll look out for my sister Coco", and sat with her on the way home!) Eowyn's bus picks her up from our front door at 8am, Coco's at noon, and they're both delivered home safe and sound at 3.30pm!! Coco's special first-day-of-school brunch treat was pancakes, filled with huckleberries and blueberries Eowyn and I picked for her on our mountain hike. Last night, Bens and I celebrated BB King's 82nd birthday with him, and led by Etta James, sang "Happy birthday dear BB!" Bens' meal was a New York steak and mine Maine lobster! Bens drank a Mac 'n Jack's ale, whilst I indulged in a delicious Mandarin Drop! I'm almost finished Harry Potter #7, and reve...

1,500 feet climbing to the summit on the Pacific Crest Trail! Wahoooooo!!!!!! LOTS of delicious wild huckleberries and blueberries, singing 'The hills are alive with the sound of music', laughing at each other's remarkable wit and meeting people who'd been hiking the trail for 6 months all the way from Mexico!