a relaxing day and impossible things!!!!!

It feels like forever since I have been here!

I have so much catching up to do

that it now seems an impossible task

Today we went out to lunch

and I have fallen in love with this building

it is what I would like our

next home to look like 

on a much slightly smaller scale

the alfresco dining is just beautiful 

and the different areas

make it hard to choose a place to sit

so I tried them all!!!!!!

This turned out to be my favourite and

over coffee we discussed other

impossible things

 like ipods and iphones

do I get one or both???

and what is the difference anyway? 

But the reason we went to lunch

 was to celebrate the fact

that, today,

 I am a whole year younger 

than I thought I was!!!!!

( so I am just going to pick up that missing year

 and there I intend to stay for the next ten years

until people say...

poor thing, she hasn't aged at all  well has she!!)

truly, old age can be really quite exciting sometimes!

Goodnight

explanations....!

For those of you who think

I am totally mad.

my unwillingness to cut flowers

                                                                                                                         from here

began with a tree, twice the size of this

and a chain like this

hanging from the branches

and a gentle old lady

The tree was an almond tree and it was covered in fruit.

The wonderfully gentle elderly woman reached up

and picked a handful of the dried fruit and

showed me how to discover the nut inside.

Twice, I hit my head on the chains that were hanging

from one of the branches

(rather nasty, rusty old chain with three heavy strands

attached to a ring large enough to put your hand into)

Being the curious type I asked why it was hanging there

"Oh, dear, that's the tree beater"

"The what?"

"The tree beater,

 when we first came here, 50 years ago,

 the tree didn't bear fruit

so after a few years 

my Jack put this chain together for me and each year

I beat the tree, every day for a week, around the trunk,

and it has never failed to produce a crop like this."

Well I did have to ask why,  didn't I?!

The answer was that apparently almond trees

bear more fruit if they are stressed

and beating the trunk with a heavy chain rope

stresses the tree

Now the problem is that I have never forgotten that

and I figure if someone beat me with a chain

I would be stressed to

because

it would hurt!!!!!!

So

the question is

do you think it is possible that plant life might feel pain?

Just in case the answer is yes I no longer 

go on the attack with the secateurs!!!!!

What do you think?

Goodnight