Runnin' On

Another refreshing look at life by our regular correspondent

"Runnin' On

Does every family have jobs that are always shared out the same way? I ought to do one of those questionnaires that could find the percentages involved in shared living. We must have fallen into a routine over many years with each one of us having what we feel are our special jobs.

Obviously things that require a tall person get done by the family's tallest person, so that lets me off washing the car roof. Men tend to look after the lawns, well as I can't even get our mower started, our garden would rapidly become a meadow of high grass if I were in charge.

Women are more often in charge of borders etc. I have spent many happy hours encouraging pansies. Believe it or not I had a lorry driver stop to ask me how I managed to get our pansies to do so well. Within the week the fickle flowers had got what I call pansy rot, in no time at all every one was done for. That was it; I went for the bare earth look.

By the end of the season a few brave plants grew only to fight off the winter, still we had a few flowers left to remind us what hardy things pansies really are.

I have just finished my annual task of Christmas card writing; all the long distance ones have long gone and the more local mail will soon be posted. I like to think of our friends opening their cards, even though a Christmas greeting is all that we exchange every year with some of the overseas friends.

If I start early enough I'll get some of the blue airmail letters and write with what I hope is interesting pieces of news and gossip to old friends. Twice we have had friends over from Australia, we enjoyed meeting them all again and of course the chatter went way back over the years, right back to school days even. All the old photos come out and we try to remember whom everyone is.

Well, now I must admit that some of our Christmas present list still has the odd question mark against a few names. I suppose it is a sign of the times, most people have already got the things they want, no one uses a pen wiper any more do they? The number of wipers and calendars we used to make kept us out of trouble for weeks when we were children.

Now that January is here we can start to look forward to another wonderful summer. There that shows you what an optimist I am, thank you for reading Runnin' On, I hope you enjoyed it.

Janet Tilburn