Way back in June some friends gave me a beautiful orchid. As well as feeling gratitude I was filled with dread about how I would look after such a delicate and fragile plant. I imagined that as the days passed each flower in turn would drop off one after the other, leaving behind a bare… Read more

I recently saw an interesting show on television that covered various ways that some organisations and companies are having their computer systems hacked. Once the hackers are into the system, they can cause all sorts of chaos by encrypting, locking, removing, or corrupting files; they can block access by authorised people to areas of the… Read more

Every day the news is the same; Coronavirus statistics, world economies in trouble, graphs showing bad things going up and good things going down, rioting, extreme weather events, leaders lacking integrity – same old news. Remember when there was variety? But I have come to realise that same again is not always a bad or… Read more

I was reading a book on my iPad and quite enjoying the story. Although I usually have the iPad in its cover, this particular day I did not. Of course, that is the day I dropped it. At first, I was relieved, no cracked screen but there were a few lines displayed on the left… Read more

A puzzle ring is separate rings linked and woven together to make one larger ring. When I was a teenager (way back when…) I had a four-piece puzzle ring. I could separate the rings and put them back together in seconds flat with my eyes closed. I was thrilled to receive a similar ring earlier… Read more

We were having some painting done at our place and the undercoat of oil paint had a very distinct and strong smell. We did not have to put up with it though, we could have the windows open to get some fresh air in, but sadly it was freezing. The other option was to leave… Read more

I was vacuuming with a stick cleaner; it usually works really well but this particular day, the longer I vacuumed the more dust there appeared to be. I kept on vacuuming without seeming to make any progress. It did not take too long before I realised the canister that stores the vacuumed-up stuff was open…. Read more

I am not usually fussy about toothpaste and generally buy something within my preferred brands that is on special. The other day I bought a tube of super whitening paste but was rather shocked when instead of dazzling white paste on my brush it was very dark; off-putting to say the least. A closer look… Read more

I bought a beautiful lush maiden hair fern and put it in a prime spot in our living room. It was unhappy there, so it was moved and moved again trying to find a place, any place that it loved – or even liked. It has been sprayed with a fine mist, watered to the… Read more

Recently I baked and iced a cake for a morning tea that I was attending. It looked delicious and whilst half of my attention was admiring it the other half was putting away a jar of sugar. I accidentally struck the bottom of a jar against the bench. What a mess, shattered glass and sugar… Read more