Diana

Dear Friends,

Very Best Wishes for a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year, sincerely meant.

Just days before Christmas my All-in-one printer/ copier/scanner and fax machine, which which jams occasionally persistently jammed.
As well as the sending of the usual Christmas card and letters I was also trying to send out a newsletter for CASIA, (www.casiaweb.com)and to make lined winter trousers for my daughter, nothing of which got done before Christmas.

I tried to send a blog late one night but must have pressed a key accidentally as I lost the lot and was too tired to re-type. I then forgot my password but was reluctant to change it but all is well now and I have my original password back.

That was the final end of the malevolent spirit of 2006, a year I was certainly glad to see the back of.

I have been too busy to spend much so I am slightly better off than I thought I was. The retired and very competent husband of a friend of mine likes being kept busy with odd jobs for pin money so he has been doing various jobs, replacing dripping taps, some tiling,which is very uplifting as the general air of neglect was very depressing.

B.T. has also refunded me over £180. They have been charging me for a second rented telephone which was actually sent back to them when it was replaced by the present one seven years ago. I thought something was wrong. The assumption was that my second (and third) telephones were also rented, they are not, and simply being asked how many telephones I had did not solve the problem.

My two best charity shop buys are a full bellied gallon jug layered with years of grime, £2, which turned out to be a truly beautiful jug of beaten brass and copper - the weight gave me hope that is was not simply tin sprayed with a finish, and a tall and heavy red glass vase bought for £8 with a sticker on the bottom saying Marks and Spencer £45!

Last but not least I got some legal information that I have been asking for since last September.

Good fortune attend you all,

Halliana

Recently I saw a programme about polar bears.  Bears forced to swim too long drown.  A polar bear was shown swimming and looking for land.  It took him five days before he found land.  He was desperately hungry but a colony of walrurses protected themselves so well with tusked males on the outside of the ring that he failed to make a kill and then colony took to the sea.   The bear was so weak and so injured that he could only  lie down on the ice and die.  It seemed such a sad end to all his efforts.

Every year I have a small firework party in the garden much to the delight of my adult autistic daughter who looks forward to it all the year. My daughter and the 2 or 3 child visitors take turns to choose a firework and all the lovely names are read out with all judging how well the firework matches it desciption. All the oohs and aahs, whistles, sparks shreiks and bangs are captured on a tape that my daughter can play again and again for endless pleasure.

This year my local paper ran a poll asking if the sale of fireworks to the public should be banned and 70% said they should.

I was rather miffed at this because bans are not the answer to controlling iiresponsible behaviour. They penalises those who do act responsibly.

I suspect that the majority of respondents are dog owners as every year at this time the local paper prints letters from dog owners about dogs being upset by fireworks. I suspect too that some owners are more hysterical than their pets and I am grateful for a few owners who accept the inevitable and write of the care and teaching they give their pets to help them to cope.

I suspect too the the letters are somewhat of a backlash as the majority of letters to the local paper are about dog fouling with the result that certain areas uncluding stretched of the beach have been closed to dogs. Banning is always easier and less expensive than control by good management so those calling so loudly now for a ban on fireworks need to realise that some job's worth, anxious to prove his thrifty manement, could call for a ban on the public owning dogs, informing thenm instead that their could be catered for in giant kennels which they would pay for alnong with the privilege of visitong them and taking them for walks inside the compound.

The world is not perfectand we are not going to get everything exactly to our liking and nor should we. The emphasis should be on our common humanity so everyone gets the best possible justice.

I have been delighted to receive acceptance to my invitations, especially as when I look at the bloggers on line I am the oldest with one exception. So to those who have accepted,thank you to you all.

Today is a small step for many but a big step for me.