Getting angry with the world, or angry with me?

Why, as I get older, am I turning into a cynic who is starting to believe that there are fewer people out there who care about improving the world than there are who are inherently selfish and self serving - at the cost of others?  Or, should I really be asking why did I believe, for so long, that there were more people than there seem to be who care about the world, but just don't know how to go about changing it?  What I am asking myself, I suppose, is why aren't there more people out there like myself?  But then that leads me to ask if I really care about the world as much as I think I do, or am I really fooling myself?

I once wrote a poem with the closing line: "Why do I ask so many bloody questions?"

Mr Snuffles

We've been adopted by a mangy moggy we have named Mr Snuffles.  He arrived starving, very thin, full of fleas, sniffing and snuffling with cat flu.  Poor mite couldn't smell anything and was either a stray or totally lost because his sense of smell had disappeared. 

He's made himself right at home and after a few visits to the vet's he is well on the mend and putting on weight rapidly. The vet has advised us to have him neutered, poor thing, and that will happen in two weeks time, after his vaccinations are done.

His sense of smell has returned and we thought he might make his way home, if he had a home, but he keeps returning for food and affection. We'd be totally gutted to lose him now as he has stolen our hearts totally!

This is his favourite place to sleep, which is good as it gives me a good excuse to lounge around occasionally!

Sadly, Mr Snuffles passed away this year (2018).  He brought us lots of love and happiness.  We will miss him very much 😢

Wasting Time

Wrote this in 2010. How things have changed in the world since then... 

Well, that's the school holidays finished and did I do anything I'd planned to do? No!  As usual...  I began a new Creative Writing course, did the first two hours of the thirty hour course then stopped.  I Studied A Level Philosophy curriculum to help some lovely people at school, but not in as much depth as I'd intended.  The weather stopped me doing as much in the garden as I'd wanted, but I could have done more.  I never got to County Sligo to unearth some family history, nor did I visit Wellington in Shropshire to do the same.

We did take Sarah and Ethan to Scarborough for a few days but never made Blackpool or Southport and didn't get to Diggerland!  Got to go to Diggerland before Ethan's obsessiveness ends!

Nice day in the garden for Ethan's birthday while his mum spent her birthday in London.  Tim's extending our back garden to help keep out weeds coming from the back field, hence the uplifted fence panel, but there's a steep drop down to the bank of the stream.  He's built me a staircase to heaven using old railway sleepers.  Bit tricky getting down there even with them!

I also had a great time with two old band mates Martin and Bill.  We are all proud owners of Martin guitars and I decided we should be called "The Three Martineers".  Wish I could play as well as they do, or sing as well as Martin does.  I can't even claim to be the beauty of the bunch :-)  A rose between two thorns I certainly am not. What do you think?  Please don't answer if you're not going to be kind.

The Three Martineers:

Mine's more shapely than the dreadnoughts owned by the boys. And mine is "diminished" by being an electro acoustic, something Martin believes should never have been produced by the great guitar brand!

And yes one of my intentions was to improve my playing by beginning to play every day for at least an hour - did I do it?  What do you think!

What I did do, which was not really on the planned agenda that failed, was to spend more time investigating the new atheism that is being attacked by many Americans. I listened to many of the debates on YouTube and have decided that I am a humanist.  But I don't want this to turn into another form of religion - more research to do on the topic I think.  Science has caused many problems albeit not as many as religion; but why do we always have to set things in opposition to each other?  The debate shouldn't be science versus religion, there are good and bad sides to both.  I hate fundamentalism in all forms and I believe it should be down to personal choice, not tradition, if one is to join a religion. 

Must stop getting on that soapbox!

In 2017 I now believe I should have got on it much sooner... 

Roy and Beattie cutting the cake

My mum and dad in September 1955 - a beautiful woman, sadly I look more like my dad 🤗

For Tim

Emotion stirs deep within my breast,
Engulfing my entire being until,
Taking me in your arms,
You drain my mind of all knowledge
And fill my body with the beauty of your
Love.

Sue Tonge, written 1988

Sunset in Blackpool

A beautiful evening in Blackpool.  The couple on the beach watching the sunset - how romantic...

And probably the best photograph I've ever taken!

Philosophical discussion about identity...

Meet Freud - putting the world to rights

Tim's new psychoanalyst?

Those were the days...

There aren't many photos of me when I was young, I was a bit camera shy. My brother sent me this one and I couldn't believe it was me!

My favourite Acer

Early summer and the leaves on my favourite Acer are just pinking at the edges... A beautiful plant that I keep on the top patio in a pot.

Catsitting

We're catsitting for a fortnight and this is The Cat - Indie, a pedigree Bengali kitten. He's a little vicious and has managed to make me bleed a few times.

As I write he's trying to eat the interface cable of my iphone and scratching my leg. He's made himself right at home here.

He's really a delightfully playful little animal who's persuading us to buy one of his relatives. Or, we could train him to scratch and bite even more so my sister Sandra decides to leave him with us... hmmm!

Writing Politics - we need a new Engels

Watching the chancellors debate on Channel 4 made me angry, especially as I watched the Secret Millionaire program following it. We need a new Friedrich Engels who will look at the society we live in from a different perspective and tell it like it is!

Rant over, should really try writing something myself... :-)

The Little Rock Star

Poetry - the monster

Poetry!
That monster that seems to scare
We feared it at school, now it baffles our brains,
Yet we loved it when we were small!

It’s only words. Written in a different way
That adds extra meaning somehow.
But at school it’s destroyed.
Here there’s no time to play
With words, with rhyme, with meter, with time.
No fun with puns, no gleanings.
No meanings self discovered.
It becomes work, a chore, a pain, a nightmare, a bind.

Forget all the rules for a moment and write
A song that tells a story, or fights a battle or,
Tells of love or makes wrong a right
Or describes a peanut, or a sherbet lemon -
The smell, the taste, the feel, the sight.
Just play
With words:
Alliterate, similise, neologise;
Break the rules; make up new rules.
Read your words out loud and wonder
At the power of words.

That’s poetry.

Sue Fewster - 2009

Still failing to write

Problems, problems, problems - excuses really.

Promise myself I will start to write again, decided to retry the creative writing course I failed to finish last time. Must try harder, story of my life!