LADY BANANA

I Did Something Scary! (For Me)

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:06:00 +0000

OK, so lot's of people wouldn't find this at all scary but to me it was quite a challenge as I am terrified of heights!

I went on the Emirates Air Line - better described as a cable car across the River Thames.

When we got in the car I was fine, but the moment it started moving and I looked up at the cable high above I started to get hot. I was feeling quite shaky but it was fantastic, I really loved it. The view was amazing and the feeling of doing something that scared me that much was exhilarating. (I know, I'm a chicken)

However, I wasn't too scared to move around and take some photos!

P1040389 [Flickr]

LadyBanana — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:47:06 PDT

LadyBanana posted a photo:

P1040388 [Flickr]

LadyBanana — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:46:38 PDT

LadyBanana posted a photo:

P1040387 [Flickr]

LadyBanana — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:46:05 PDT

LadyBanana posted a photo:

P1040386 [Flickr]

LadyBanana — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:45:28 PDT

LadyBanana posted a photo:

P1040385 [Flickr]

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No Hope For Me Then...

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:12:00 +0000

My Kind Of Busy

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:38:00 +0000

Jacobs "Selfie's"

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:33:00 +0000

Jacob loves my iPhone, in fact he loves anyones phone of any brand.

Today he took about 25 photos of himself, this is a small selection :)

I Made Some Cakes!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:06:00 +0000

I used to bake... a lot. But then I got really fat as it was all too yummy so I stopped.

Today I made some little cakes that were amazingly easy with only 3 ingredients, I had got the idea from Facebook:

Nutella - although I used Sainsburys own Chocolate Orange spread.
Flour
Eggs

They are really, really yummy, simple and soooooooo easy to make!

Silent Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:50:00 +0000

Naked Bike Ride - Do NOT Look If Easily Offended!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 20:48:00 +0000

Today we bumped into something rather unusual, something that made me laugh soooo much!

A Naked Bike Ride!

I was surprised so many were completely naked, I mean, how can they be so.. daring, crazy!

Now, do not scroll down if you are easily offended, the state of the man in the last picture should have got him arrested!

The Meaning Of "Taro" by Alt-J

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:21:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted about an Alt-J track that I particularly like called Taro.

It occured to me recently, that although I'd had the tune in my head for weeks, I had no idea what the words were so I looked for them and was somewhat intrigued as to the meaning...

Taro

Indochina, Capa jumps Jeep, two feet creep up the road

To photo, to record meat lumps and war

They advance as does his chance, very yellow white flash

A violent wrench grips mass, rips light, tears limbs like rags

Burst so high finally Capa lands

Mine is a watery pit Painless with immense distance

From medic from colleague, friend, enemy, foe

Him five yards from his leg, from you, Taro

Do not spray into eyes, I have sprayed you into my eyes

3:10 pm, Capa pends death, quivers, last rattles, last chokes

All colors and cares glaze to gray, shriveled and stricken to dots

Left hand grasps what the body grasps not, le photographe est mort

31415, alive no longer my amour, faded for home May of '54

Doors open like arms my love, painless with a great closeness

To Capa, to Capa, Capa dark after nothing, re-united with his leg

And with you, Taro

Do not spray into eyes, I have sprayed you into my eyes

Hey Taro

A little Googling soon found the answers..

Taro and Capa were real people:

And this is their story from The Guardian It's a bit long to read but is rather fascinating!

It begins with a photograph. In 1934 a struggling Hungarian photographer, André Friedmann, living in exile in Paris, is commissioned to take publicity pictures for a Swiss life insurance company's advertising brochure. On the lookout for potential models, he approaches a young Swiss refugee, Ruth Cerf, in a café on the Left Bank and convinces her to pose for him in a Montparnasse park.

Because she does not entirely trust the scruffy young charmer, Ruth brings along her friend Gerta Pohorylle, a petite redhead with a winning smile and a confident manner. So begins the most iconic relationship in the history of photography, and an intertwined and complex story of radical politics, bohemianism and bravery that, in the intervening years, has taken on the shadings of a modern myth.

Together, André Friedmann and Gerta Pohorylle would change their names and their destiny, becoming Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, the most celebrated visual chroniclers of the Spanish civil war. Together, too, they would change the nature of war photography, reinventing the form in a way that resonates to this day. Capa went on to become the most famous of the two, and arguably the most famous war photographer of the 20th century due to his visceral images of the D-day landings on Omaha Beach in Normandy. His most famous quote would become a dictum by which ensuing generations of war photographers worked: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

This brave, but cavalier, approach to getting pictures of the action from within the action would cost both Gerda Taro and Robert Capa their lives – the former killed on the frontline of the Spanish civil war in 1937; the latter blown up by a land mine in Indochina in 1954. The myth of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro continues apace today with the British publication of a novel called Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes, a Spanish novelist and teacher. The book won the coveted Premio Fernando Lara in Spain on its initial publication in 2009 and has since been translated into 20 languages; the film rights have been bought by Michael Mann, the award-winning director of Heat (1995), The Insider (1999) and Public Enemies (2009). Fortes's short novel is essentially a historical romance that concentrates on the relationship between Capa and Taro. While the historical settings are accurate, Fortes literally puts words into each of their mouths, imagining conversations, thoughts and debates as well as accentuating both the doomed romance and the reckless bohemianism of the times.

With the Spanish civil war as its main backdrop, the narrative is an uneasy, sometimes awkward, merging of fact and fiction, and will almost certainly offend the many guardians of both Capa and Taro's reputations just as it will no doubt entrance the mainstream cinema-going audience should it be made into a Hollywood film. "I tried to be very respectful of the facts – the biographical data, the locations etc," says Fortes when I contact her in Spain, where she is on a book publicity tour. "I went through everything I could find: letters, memories, biographies… But for a novel to breathe, you have to build souls for your characters. This is reflected in the dialogue, the literary tension, the humour, the fights, the passion, the sex, the mixed feelings. In other words, life. That's part of the novelist's job. One always writes with one foot on the ground and the other in the air. It is the only way to walk the path."

However, when I mention the book to Jimmy Fox – veteran photographic historian and erstwhile director of the famous Magnum agency, which Capa co-founded with Henri Cartier-Bresson – he says: "I was dismayed by the novel. It was so fluttery and sugary. I think it is wrong to elevate the romance in that way. Capa was a flamboyant guy, a great drinker and a womaniser who had so many lovers, including Ingrid Bergman. Taro found the love of her life in Ted Allan, the man who was with her when she was fatally wounded. But of course that does not fit the big simplified romantic version so neatly."

The independent filmmaker Trisha Ziff, who directed The Mexican Suitcase (2010) about the discovery of a hoard of unseen negatives by Capa, Taro and David "Chim" Seymour, concurs. "Waiting for Robert Capa is a fiction based on a romance, but it is also a romance based on a fiction. If it becomes a Hollywood film, the myth will no doubt take over."

If there is one thing all the experts agree on, it is that nothing was straightforward about Robert Capa and Gerda Taro's relationship. Shortly after their first meeting, the young André Friedmann was sent to Spain on an assignment for a Berlin-based photo magazine. He subsequently photographed the Holy Week procession in Seville and described the festivities to Gerta Pohorylle in a letter that also mentioned how much he was thinking about her. On his return, he spent the summer holidaying in the south of France with Gerta and her friends. According to Ruth Cerf, quoted in Alex Kershaw's book Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa, the pair "fell in love in the south of France" despite her suspicion that he was "a rogue and a womaniser". If the young Gerta was fascinated by his waywardness, he in turn was taken by her independent spirit. "Here was a woman," writes Kershaw, "who didn't suffocate him with affection, and who was as unashamed by her sexuality as she was conscious of her outsider status in Paris as a German Jew." This gets to the heart of the couple's mutual attraction: their shared radicalism and acute sense of exile. Friedmann had departed his native Hungary for Berlin in 1931 soon after his arrest by the secret police for leftist student activism. In February 1933, aged 19, he had fled Berlin when Hitler assumed power, travelling to Vienna, then back home to Budapest, before departing Hungary for good in September to live in penury in Paris, where he met Pohorylle on that fateful day in 1934.

By then, she too had experienced radical politics, arrest and flight. Born to bourgeois parents in Stuttgart in 1910, Pohorylle joined a young communist organisation and, around the time Friedmann was fleeing Berlin, was distributing anti-Nazi leaflets and putting up communist propaganda posters on walls under cover of darkness. She was arrested by the Nazis on 19 March 1933 and interrogated about a supposed Bolshevik plot to overthrow Hitler.

On her release, she used a fake passport to travel overland to Paris, where she was looked after by a communist network. Both André Friedmann and Gerta Pohorylle, though still young, were already seasoned activists and exiles when they met, intent on forging new lives for themselves while also staying loyal to their radical leftist roots.

Though Friedmann could seldom afford to buy film and often had to pawn his camera to survive in Paris, he schooled Pohorylle in the rudiments of photography and found her a job in the newly formed Alliance Photo picture agency. And she, it seemed, anchored him – at least for a while. "Without Gerta, André would not have made it," the late Eva Besnyö, another Hungarian photographer who mixed in the same bohemian circles in Berlin, told Kershaw. "She picked him up, gave him direction. He had never wanted an ordinary life, and so when things didn't go well, he drank and gambled. He was in a bad way when they met, and maybe without her it would have been the end for him."

As Friedmann's photographic career tentatively took off in Paris, his younger brother Cornell joined him, developing the photographs taken by André as well as those of his friends, Henri Cartier-Bresson and David "Chim" Seymour, in a darkened bathroom in a hotel that overlooked the famous Café du Dôme. It was there that the three photographers mingled with philosophers, writers and artists, drinking and dreaming of better times. It was around this time also that André Friedmann and Gerta Pohorylle became Robert Capa and Gerda Taro in a shared act of self-reinvention that still seems daring today.

The first anyone else heard of Robert Capa was when the couple turned up at the offices of Alliance Photo and announced they had discovered a famous American photographer of that name. The pair soon found they could sell photographs attributed to the fictitious Capa to French photographic agencies for three times the price of Friedmann's, such was the status accorded visiting American photographers. Their joint ruse was soon discovered, but the pseudonyms remained in place. In her essay for the exhibition catalogue Gerda Taro: Archive, published in 2007, Irme Schaber notes: "Taro and Capa were not merely reacting to their precarious economic situation. They were responding as well to the antisemitism of Germany and the increasing antipathy towards foreigners in France. And to elude the stigma attached to being refugees, they spurned every ethnic or religious label."

If their joint self-reinvention was the first significant factor in the dramatic trajectory of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, the second was their decision to go together to Spain in 1936 to cover the republican resistance to Franco's fascist rebels. Like many writers and artists, including George Orwell and André Malraux, they went there out of political conviction and scorned any notion of journalistic detachment. The fight against fascism was, in a very real and personal way, theirfight, given their history as exiles and refugees, and the Spanish civil war was the literal and metaphorical frontline of that battle.

It was an adventure, though, that almost ended as soon as it had begun, when the plane hired by the French magazine Vu to take them to Barcelona crash-landed in a field on the outskirts of the city. The pair limped into Barcelona to find scenes of ferment and disorder as anarchist forces took over the city. There, they photographed young republicans leaving Barcelona for the frontlines. Then in September they travelled together to the front themselves, arriving in the village of Cerro Muriano near Córdoba, where they found, and photographed, crowds of villagers fleeing their homes as the fascists rained shells down on the village. In one famous series of pictures, Capa captured Taro crouched, camera in hand, behind a wall beside a republican soldier. In another even more famous picture, perhaps the most well-known war photograph ever, Capa caught a militiaman at the very moment of his death from a sniper's bullet.

In that split second, the legend of Robert Capa, war photographer, was born, and decades later that same image would become the centre of a debate that still simmers over the ethics and veracity of war photography. In Waiting for Robert Capa, Fortes writes: "Death of a Loyalist Militiaman contained all the drama of Goya's Third of May 1808painting, all the rage that Guernica would later show… Its strength, like all symbols, didn't lie in just the image, but in what it was representing." Fortes also imagines Taro gently probing Capa for the story of what really happened that day, and him replying: "We were just fooling around, that's all. Perhaps I complained that everything was far too calm and that there wasn't anything interesting to photograph. Then some of the men started to run down the slope and I joined in as well. We went up and down the hill several times. We were all feeling good. Laughing. They shot in the air. I took several photographs…"

Though the context of the photograph is still contested, the imagined conversation does describe what probably happened that day just before a Francoist sniper returned fire from across the hills, killing the militiaman who was running down the hill for Capa's camera. "People want the truth from war photography more than they do from any other kind of photography," says Jimmy Fox, the Magnum picture editor who has worked with the likes of Don McCullin and Philip Jones Griffiths, "but a flat surface of an image is not the reality and never can be."

In Spain, Capa soon developed a reputation for taking photographs whatever the risk, setting the tone for war reportage as we now know it. Taro, too, was often seen running across the battle lines with her camera, her bravery matched by her recklessness. She travelled back and forth to the frontlines, shooting what she saw, often driven by a mixture of humanity, political commitment and a shrewd understanding of the power of the photograph to shape public opinion.

Throughout 1937, Taro visited several frontlines, either with Capa or on her own. They managed to return to Paris for a short vacation in July that year, celebrating Bastille Day by dancing in the streets below Sacre Coeur and, according to Schaber, hatching "great plans for the future". Taro then returned to Spain alone, despite the growing concerns of her friends who, having seen her recent photographs of the fighting, feared for her safety.

Defying a ban on journalists travelling to the front, she once again made her way to Brunete with the Canadian journalist Ted Allan, her close friend, travelling companion and soon-to-be lover. According to Allan's diaries, written later, they spent "mornings afternoons and evenings together chasing stories... For three or four weeks we were constant companions. And finally, one afternoon, we ended up in her hotel room." She told Allan: "Capa is my friend, my copain," and said she might be travelling to China with him. "Nothing was settled," wrote Allan. "Everything was possible."

On Sunday 25July, the pair found themselves trapped in a foxhole near Brunete as bombs fell around them relentlessly. Taro kept on photographing, often holding her camera high above her head to capture the carnage. Allan protected her with a film camera as shrapnel and rocks fell around them. Then, as republican troops began pulling out of the area, Taro and Allan ran out of the foxhole and hitched a ride on the running board of a car while the planes continued to strafe the retreating convoy. In the chaos, the car was then rammed by an out-of-control republican tank and the couple were thrown into the dirt. Transported to a nearby field hospital, Taro died from her injuries in the early hours of the following morning. She was 26. The injured Allan did not get to see her again. According to Irene Golden, the nurse who was on duty, her last words were: "Did they take care of my camera?"

Gerda Taro's funeral in Paris was attended by tens of thousands of mourners, including Capa, Chim and Ted Allan. Orchestrated by the French communist party, which claimed her as one of its own, it became, as Schaber puts it, "a spectacular manifestation of international solidarity with the Spanish republic". In death, Gerda Taro became a hero. Robert Capa went on to become the most celebrated and mythologised war photographer of the century until he, too, died in action in Indochina in 1954 at the age of 40. "He never talked about her," says the photographer Ata Kandó in The Mexican Suitcase.

Gerda Taro has now fully emerged from the shadow of Capa as an important photographer in her own right. Many photographs attributed to him – they initially shared the byline CAPA – have now been identified as hers. "She was a pioneering woman both as a photographer and a political activist," says Ziff. "She was very liberated for her time, putting her work before any more traditional female role. She had reinvented herself – but the Capa myth was so strong that, even when she died, some newspapers described her as Robert Capa's wife. Their lives were entwined, but she was very much her own woman, and he knew that. They both believed that their photographs could change the world and change the way people think. And their photographs did."

Who's Stolen My Electricity?

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:31:00 +0000

I had a nasty shock when I got home today - my electricity bill.

It's £300 more than for the same period last year, I know prices have risen, but not that much surely, and when I look at the amount of units used it's horrifyingly higher than before!

Now the question is why/how have we used so many units?

Nothing has changed really, we have been doing the same things, no major appliance changes apart from a new fridge/freezer which is supposed to use around 297kw a year.

(don't forget I am comparing the same period - not a summer to a winter period)

So who's used my extra 2215kw?

I am not a happy bunny that's for sure...

EDIT I have the answer! Got a friend to read the meter for me as I find it difficult to see (it's badly situated) - we then realised the meter reader man also must have had difficulty as he got the 6's muddled with 8's and therefore added on almost 2000 units we had not used! New updated bill will be with us in next few days! PHEW!!!!

My Little Visitor In Vertical Video

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Wed, 29 May 2013 20:04:00 +0000

A few days ago I had a special little man visit - Jacob, who is almost 17 months already, where does time go!!!??

Note to self: Stop taking vertical videos!

Duma Key by Stephen King

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Wed, 29 May 2013 17:09:00 +0000

Duma Key by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nicely spooky!

It's been a long time since I read a Stephen King book and I'm glad I did :)

When Edgar Freemantle moves to Duma Key to escape his past, he doesn't expect to find much there. But Duma Key and its mysteries have been waiting for him. The shells beneath his house are whispering to him, and something in the view from his window urges him to discover a talent he never knew he had. Edgar Freemantle begins to paint. Even though he has lost an arm. And the hand he uses is the one he lost ...From Amazon

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Bloglovin

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sat, 25 May 2013 11:24:00 +0000

Follow my blog with Bloglovin You know you want to :)

I have a feeling I must have signed up for this before as this blog is on there twice.. haha...

Scary, Spooky, Fascinating and Sad..

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:06:00 +0000

Scary, spooky, fascinating, sad, abandoned are just a few of the words that could be used to describe this photostream I came across on Flickr.

I's love to know where some of these crumbling buildings are as I'd love to visit, although I doubt that would be possible even if I did know the locations. This guy must have some special access rights I would think!

Below are just 3 of these sets, but to see them all go HERE

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Where Would I Rather Be?

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:49:00 +0000

Guess where would I rather be right now?

OR???

My eldest daughter has just gone to Morocco to celebrate her 30th birthday which is on Friday - I'm not jealous at all! (hahaha)

I Like!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

How To Medicate A Cat???

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sun, 19 May 2013 10:14:00 +0000

In my last post HERE I wrote about my cats and their 3rd eyelids showing. At that stage there had been no other symptoms. However for Freddie that changed in the week when he developed diarrhoea.

We took him to the vet yesterday where he was given antibiotics as it's probably an infection, he had a very high temperature (which was taken up his poor sore little bum)

The vet started him off with an injection and gave us pills to administer for the next 5 days. We were shown pill giving techniques and it looked so very easy - in the vets room where Freddie was sitting quietly terrified.

This morning we tried all methods of getting the first pill inside him - and no matter what the pill was spat out or flicked out.

We have since crushed it and put it in food and it's amazing how Fred delicately picks out the uncontaminated bits, leaving the medicated bits untouched.

So, what to do?

On searching for other ideas I came across this, which is extreme but nonetheless amusing:

1. Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for count of ten.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from the hearth and set to one side to repair later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbour's shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus jab. Apply whisky compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Ring fire brigade to retrieve the cat from tree across the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie the cat's front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.

14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to casualty, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnant from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.

15. Arrange for RSPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and ring local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

Found here

We have 9 more dose's to give, any ideas welcome!

Double Kitty Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sat, 11 May 2013 13:43:00 +0000

Remember about 2 weeks ago I posted Kitty Problems? Mabel with her 3rd eyelids constantly visible...

Well now I have double kitty problems with Freddie having developed the same thing in the last couple of days.

Mabel's have improved a little but it's all a bit odd.

A Twitter friend suggested it might be Haws Syndrome and they do fit the description, if it is that, it doesn't need any treatment and should go by itself in time.

Clacton-On-Sea

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:23:00 +0000

Movie Disappointment - Mama

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Mon, 06 May 2013 18:05:00 +0000

Why are most films so disappointing these days? Particularly horror films like this one. I watched this a couple of days ago with high expectations after seeing the trailer, but to be honest I found it quite ridiculous.

Maybe it's just me..

Hello!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:45:00 +0000

Freddie

A Day In The Countryside

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Sun, 05 May 2013 19:34:00 +0000

Had a lovely day in the countryside today, not too far from London but far enough to enjoy the single track roads (haha), bright yellow fields of rapeseed, sheep and lots of trees!

One thing I do miss though out in the middle of nowhere is 3G on my phone - sad it's come to that eh!

The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:03:00 +0000

The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A really good read, plenty of twists and turns!

'I don't know how to tell you what I did.' The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind Noelle's suicide.

Everything they knew about Noelle - her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her family - described a woman who embraced life.

But they didn't know everything.

Because the unaddressed letter reveals a terrible secret...and a legacy of guilt that changes everything they thought they knew about the woman who delivered their children.

A legacy that will irrevocably change their own lives - and the life of a desperate stranger - forever. Diane Chamberlain gets to the heart of the story. FROM AMAZON

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Kitty Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:29:00 +0000

Took Mabel to the vet this evening as her 3rd eyelids have been visible for the last couple of days.

There was no positive diagnosis, vet thinks it might be due to intestinal upset and we are to keep her in to see if she has diarrhoea. He also gave her a worm treatment just in case. It was a very fast way of spending £70!

She's eating ok, not too unlike her normal self generally but it's a bit worrying... Just have to wait and see.

John Frieda Saved My Hair!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 05:55:00 +0000

If you look in my bathroom cupboard you'd probably be shocked to see how many different shampoos and conditioners I have!

Since colouring my hair for many years, using the dryer and the straighteners my hair has become much dryer and strawlike so I'm constantly looking for the "perfect" products.

I was recently asked to try Full Repair by John Frieda. It was one of the products I hadn't yet tried so I was more than happy although not particularly hopeful considering all I have already tried.

Obviously I used the shampoo first and was very impressed by the luxurious lather and the very pleasant gentle perfume. On rinsing the shampoo out my hair felt really nice and smooth even before using the conditioner - that's a first, my hair usually feels quite rough and sort of hard before conditioning.

The conditioner has much the same gentle perfume and felt lovely to smooth through my hair. I left it on for about 3 minutes or so (it recommends 2-5 minutes) before rinsing.

The first time I used it I blow dried my hair and it felt amazingly smooth and looked really shiny, so much that I actually had comments about it at work!

The second time I was too busy to blow dry it so I left it to dry naturally and although it wasn't as smooth it was much smoother than it used to be, none of the dry strawlike appearance that often happened when I didn't blow dry.

I'm very impressed with these products and would definitely recommend them to others. Yes they are not cheap but I didn't really have to use a huge amount so I feel in the long run they are well worth it especially if you are doing as I do, colouring and causing heat damage!

If you have a different hair type or problem take a look at John Frieda and have a look at the other products available.

There are also lots of hairstyling tips on the John Frieda YouTube Channel which might be useful.. I'm off to have a browse now!

Supermarket Snobbery

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Banana) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:01:00 +0000

Where I live there are 3 big Sainsburys within a short drive and 1 smaller one a short walk, so for years I've been a total Sainsbury shopper.

On occasions I've been to Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose and for various reasons not been converted.

Just a few weeks ago we got a new local supermarket - an Aldi. My immediate reaction was "cheap and nasty".

I, like everyone else likes a good deal but I'd rather have less and better quality than a big cheap poor quality item.

But as this Aldi is on my daily route I thought I'd give it a go and I must say I've been pleasantly surprised! The items I have tried so far have been very nice indeed, good quality and good price!

I'll never give up entirely on Sainsburys (I don't think) but Aldi will definitely be getting some of my custom!