✒️Welcome to this week’s MG&O newsletter
I hope this week’s newsletter brings you as much happiness and well-being as it has brought me.
This week has been incredibly productive, as it always is, and has been filled with many observations. As the weekend approached, the weather turned 🌞wonderful and positively steamy🌡️.
However, something inside me has changed!
Probably the fact I now live in almost constant tropical sunshine for eight months of the year. Sunshine, warm enough to sit out in used to be a commodity. As a result, I used to spend as much time outside reading and writing in the UK sunshine as possible.
Now I prefer my shady office in which to work, and my larger 💻desktop computer screen to work upon.
I still sit outside and ✍️ read, or write when I’m generating ideas and outlines, and now write freehand. Squinting at the screen of my laptop and catching those vitamin D rays doesn’t seem to be such a priority anymore.
🐁Caught another one dad!
Slinky, (my black cat) is a mouse murderer, or perhaps I should say a vole killer? I’m surprised we have any rodents left in the vicinity because every day he brings a miniature vole back into the house.
The moment he walks into the house, he notifies us by making the most recognisable of 🐕 meows. Usually, the miniature creature has been frightened or mauled to death. Sometimes, though, it’s still alive and we return to the wild to be hunted again another day.
I give him a few feline treats, and he’s quite happy to make the trade. I ❤️love my cats dearly, but I hate them for catching little creatures, but that’s their nature.
🦷It went click!
I’m referring to my tooth, and I feared the worst. I had the same thing happened last year. So, I investigated my mauler by giving it a little exploratory shake to see if it was loose.
It was not a smart move!
My tooth instantly broke off at the gum line while I was holding it. Pooh, I hate dental treatment with a passion. The next morning found me sitting in the dental chair, and my 🙂 dentist humming tunelessly, but contentedly to himself.
I felt as if I had accompanied him on a fishing trip.
I really didn’t fancy having an extraction today. I have so much work at the moment that my tooth breaking off couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
I’m a complete wimp and have a low threshold for pain!
The dentist was examining my records and apparently the lady dentist in Cebu who remove my tooth last summer had added the proceedings to my dental records. I was really impressed!
“The tooth can’t be saved, but it seems Mrs Gonzales was considering giving you a bridge! As there is no pain, and as the tooth has been root filled, I suggest we leave her to decide on its fate! Good day.”
He abruptly stood up and left the room. This was another of his strange habits.
✔️It suited me.
Apparently, it would be okay for the next three months and I smiled broadly and felt I have been given a brief reprieve.
👀I got my eyes back!
Because eyesight deterioration is usually a slow process, you don’t realise the extent of deterioration until you try your new spectacles on.
I had two pairs, one close-up, which meant I now had to sit further away from the computer screens, but I quickly adapted. The other was for distances of six-foot and beyond, which in my case meant 📺 TV.
I watch only a little television, perhaps an hour or so a day, usually while I’m chatting with the Dragon Lady. I was interested to see how my new pair specs would improve things.
It was amazing as the picture instantly transformed from low to high definition!
SERIOUSLY, it was that good.
🐅Tiger woman returns
My daughter Lele, who my wife has recently been referring to as Tiger woman, came home this weekend.
Every one of my family are difficult, awkward and reclusive, including me, and certainly the Dragon Lady. My daughter is no different, and that’s why my wife has given her this new title.
Being a professional judo fighter, she is in final preparations for the big event happening in Paris next month.
Strangely, no one knows if sure they’ll actually be going. Not until the Olympic committee announced it at the end of this month. For that reason, everyone has been training flat out in the hope it will be them representing their weight.
😝They tasted dreadful!
I love soups; they are my favourite food. Without trying to boast, I’m also quite good at making them.
🥣“Can you make curried parsnip soup?” The Dragon Lady asked. I immediately found three or four recipes on the Internet, one that claimed, “this is the best soup you will ever taste!”
It got my full interest, and I read and re-read how it is made many times. It seemed a simple enough soup and with so many recommendations; I looked forward to tasting it.
The soup wasn’t difficult to prepare, and I under spice, rather than over spicing my soups. I can always add more ingredients, but taking them away is difficult.
I sipped at the finished product with interest.
It was definitely under seasoned, and I played around adding more ingredients, but it got no better. This was a complete disaster. I have never made one as bad as this before.
😝“Uhhhh, it’s horrible!” said the Dragon Lady. “let me have a go,” she said impatiently as is her way.
We still had some parsnips left and so she got her cauldron out and began brewing. Certainly there was a strong smell of curry in the kitchen, and then she invited me to try it.
Moments before the spoon touch my lips, the expression on my wife’s face told the story. It tasted as bad as mine.
I look forward to speaking with you next Thursday.
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