Feeling Fly And Positive

#Feelingfly is feeling fine , tickety boo , Mr Blue bird sitting on your shoulder , sounds kind of twee . It is twee but good twee and I adore that depth of feeling, and it makes me feel core right down to my core. Think of it as if you were hugging a radiator , I love the internal warm of glow from within it translates to your persona outwardly.

A few weeks backs I adventured into the woods and took a drink with me , the drink was from Firefly Tonics and the woods were a fitting place to drink it as it embraces what Firefly and what they are all about natural and how fitting a place.

Now they did didn't  stand me in a darkened room and tickled with a fluffy cat till I agreed to write about them . Neither did buy me a voucher from one of those voucher sites to go walk a mad tempered llama in need of a hug and a cup of tea.

Disclosure : I was sent a case of their drinks but they like my pictures which are jolly good * blows own trumpet moment .

Taste update : This flavour Pomegranate & Elderflower  was like Richard Gere doing the Samba on your tongue. If you don't like Richard Gere please imagine an actor of your choosing . Please note that scene from Officer and a Gentleman is not included.

Defining Friends Part 1

Thinking on friends and how I started blogging ~ I started blogging through my cat oddly enough ,Rollie is an angst ridden evil silver and the sheer determination to try and kill me. You can lose your way in blogging , bunny in the headlights but then you realise that you need to shake off pick that bunny up cook it and blog about it unless you're a vegetarian then create a salad.

I am certainly more relaxed than I used to be , I need to know and remember how and why I started blogging when I see what it has brought me , the answer isn't material goods it is friends. Before the blogging was the comping and this is where the core of my hardcore friends come from, we all love the thrill of the chase but comping has brought us experiences and life changing prizes. One of the prizes I had the joy to be part of was to be invited to stay at the Landmark hotel London with Bobby , her husband and Emily. I shared a room with Emily , bearing in mind I'd never met this people before! a risk you might think meeting strangers but I'd talked so much to these people on line , it was more family.

  

Sadly Bobby died last year and I miss her very much , yes we only met once but such a lady left a lasting impact upon my life. I'm still in touch with Emily and again we've only met once but we talk regularly and for myself I only have to meet someone once to get the measure of them.

Finding your Jigsaw Fit

Your personality should never limit you and you should never feel inferior to anyone else. For a long time until recently I didn't think I fitted in the world ( not in a morbid or sad way)

In a way where I felt I was part of a jigsaw but I didn't seem to fit into this jigsaw the edges of my personality weren't allowing me to fit , the jigsaw seemed to be the one I though I should fit into but I think it was faux. I am feeling more at ease with the world now and I do have friends however when people talk to me I have a niggling feeling on occasion that I wonder why !


Up shot of it I am looking forward more and more and not looking back ,  I am part of a new jigsaw of life now and for the most part I fit though sometimes I fall down the back of the sofa or get scooted round the front room by the cat.

Through social media I have found good friends who share my love of photography, tea ( I measure myself in levels of tea , this morning I was running on tea empty and have just about topped up my levels ), gin & win occasionally ( I talk it more than I drink it , nothing beats a virtual gin) Some friends I don't talk to everyday but I know they are there like a great painting to be admired and to go to , some friends I talk to everyday it might something I say that has ticked their funny bone , or we are just so similar you would have thought that we were twins.

I am random as I have said before and my randomness helps me get through life  , I have suffered and still suffer on and off from mental illness and have had people not understanding this and then turning the other cheek whilst understanding other people. I can not fathom why folk are like this in lacking empathy and I have come to the conclusion it is because their brains are starved of tea.

"I am the one and only" ( this comment has powered slide in from the 80's curtesy of Chesney Hawkes

"I still be doing the way I do "

As Chesney says "I am the one and only only and you can't take that away from me "


It has taken me a long time for me to hold my head with dignity and pride , and I won't let anyone ver tell me again that I should take tablets as once was told to me suggesting if I did I would be 3/4 to being better.

That was the most abhorrent thing I think that has ever been said to me , but then again some people say the wrong thing.

I've made mistakes no doubt and I have compromised to get where I am today there are good compromises the bad compromise has reared its head and this has made me caught between friends but on reflections friends with a knife behind their back.

I am happy to be a jigsaw piece in a new set and not this time through rose tinted glasses though the other day I has to wear my sunglasses as I put down my glasses and couldn't find them.

The Dangers Of Shopping

Do you want to know what the most dangerous activity in the world is ? One that could stop your heart beating in a second or you seeing your life flashing before you.

You'd possibly think being surrounded by sharks , granted this is not going to happen to you when you are shopping in Morrisons but then again the reduced aisle is fraught with danger.

Shopping is dangerous alright not in a supermarket perhaps not unless you are doing battle with the blessed self service till. Those things are are a blog post in themselves: true story I used one once and after I had grey hair.

I'm taking about online auction sites saviours and frustrating at the same time, I only wanted a brown Zatchel not much to ask. I had been following one and it was within my clutches it was but a knats whisper away until, tragedy struck.

Some one sniped me , I immediately cursed the unknown sniper on Twitter for a woe shared by one halved.

Here is the curse which I really think I'll be trademarking.

@needaphone "Curses being foiled in an ebay bid ... May a panda sit on your head” 

Then I thought right I'll try again my budget was to pay no more that £24.99 so I duly found another Zatchel and placed another bid.

What could possibly go wrong?!

Well instead of entering £24.99 I entered 

£2449

I tell you it was a hairy fairy moment, luckily I managed to cancel my bid!

Can you imagine me explaining that to my husband ?

So I Claire do hereby promise to leave auction shopping alone for a bit, anyway I must go my 5 ft free railway sleeper is here from of those free sites where people give stuff away or ask for stuff.

Luxor The Jewel of The Magical Nile

I have always had the spirit of adventure , wishing to visit as much of the world as I can with my family , I quite happily be a roving travel reporter. There is a romance about travelling and long are the associations with love and where you travel to, how I would love to be in India with the colour , vibrancy and the mystery of the mystery . Hot Indian summers with a nod to colonial pasts and the melting pots of religion , I would love to see the Taj Mahal the ultimate act of devotion to the one that you love. I would in a heat beat go back to Luxor and stop along side the Nile you can not have failed to have been captured by Levison Woods programme where he walked the entire length of the Nile, if you haven't see this then it is a must to see this monumental achievement. I am pretty confident that you can still get it on Iplayer and I am sure the DVD will be out if it isn't already and must certainly the book is out.

Too adventure is to live , that is just how I am wired and I always wanted to be an Egyptologist or an archaeologist , I remember once going to a heroes and rogues book party at the local and I was made encouraged to go as a pirate , I would have gone as the never fearing ( except of snakes ) Indiana Jones. I did ditch my eye patch once I go to the party and quickly made my self into a archaeological superhero  well I have to safe to my adventuring.

Luxor the heat , the dusty sand haze the hot melting colours that dance upon the Nile , it is no wonder that Agatha Christie came to Egypt to write Death on the Nile , that is one thing I haven't experienced (a trip won the Nile) The hotel at wish we stayed in Luxor was the Sonnesta St George and it was smack bang on the Nile and you could see the Nile cruises coming in and out.

The Sonesta St. George was an ideal base for us to as the Nile was just a whisper away , the hotel was tripping in Opulent polished marble and you felt in its presence both luxurious and sophisticated. Every amenity is available for the discerning traveller and what I found quirky was at breakfast an egg station was available ! It does spoil oneself as when you get to the UK as you breathe a little sigh of the luxury you had on your Egyptian holiday. The temples of Luxor and Karnak are preserved in time but some of the pictures may leave you blushing, to experience a city of fascinating antiquity and indulgence of the senses then you need the splendour of Luxor.

Karnak was built over thirteen hundred years and there is so much to see in the temples I think it would take all my lifetime to see it and then some, the Temple of Karnak is known as Ipet-Isut (Most Perfect of Places) And when I say it would take my lifetime to explore I am not joking as the site covers some 100 acres. For well over 1,500 years it was the most religious and intellectual catalyst in Egypt.

For us Luxor was at the end of holiday after the chaos of Cairo it was soothing which is a strange thing to say for Egypt as it is full of hustle , bustle and haggling ( ooh the haggling may well sent you  round the pyramids as a firm polite no just won't suffice , in the end on one occasion I just dropped the stuff they gave me on the desert floor and walked off , they got the message that way)

Oh to watch the Egyptian feluccas sailing down the Nile on a warm , hot summers evening kicking back with a cocktail in one hand while the glow of the sun melts down from the Egytian sky.