The Four Candles

Touch Me

TOUCH ME

If I am your child . . . please touch me.
Persist; find ways to meet my needs.
Your goodnight hug helps sweeten my dreams.
Your daytime touching tells me how you really feel.

If I am your teenager . . . please touch me.
Don't think because I'm almost grown,
I don't need to know that you still care.
I need your loving arms; I need a tender voice.

If I am your friend . . . please touch me.
Nothing lets me know you care like a warm embrace.
A healing touch when I'm depressed assures me I am loved,
And reassures me that I'm not alone.
Yours may be the only comforting touch I get.





If I am your life's partner . . . please touch me.
You may think that your passion is enough,
But only your arms hold back my fears.
I need your tender reassuring touch,
to remind me I am loved just because I am me.






If I am your grown-up child . . . please touch me.
Though I may have a family of my own to hold,
I still need mum and dad’s arms when I hurt.
As a parent the view is different; I appreciate you more.

If I am your ageing parent . . . please touch me.
Hold my hand, sit close to me, give me strength;
And warm my tired body with your nearness.
Although my skin is worn and wrinkled,
It loves to be stroked,
Don't be afraid.

Author Unknown

Unless

UNLESS

Unless we can hear each other singing and crying, unless we can comfort each other's failures and cheer each other's victories,we are missing out on the best that life has to offer. The only real action takes place on the bridge between people ~ Anon.

(Picture:Michelangelo's the Creation of Man depicting God reaching out to Adam)

Autumn in Pembrokeshire

CALDEY ISLAND from Lydstep

LYDSTEP CLIFFS

MANORBIER

Towards SAUNDERSFOOT from AMROTH

'Wotcha looking at?' by Huw

MANORBIER CASTLE

SAUNDERSFOOT HARBOUR

SAUNDERSFOOT BEACH

Huw at Amroth

AMROTH BEACH

PEBBLES - Manorbier

St. CATHERINE'S ISLAND, TENBY at High Tide

SAUNDERSFOOT HARBOUR by Huw

Pride before the Fall

Of course when we talk of Paradise, there's always a Fall of Man scenario. In this case it was the Fall of MSer. This pic was taken bout 10 secs. before I had one of those 'tripping over thin air' experiences. I performed a Skydive from an altitude of a mere 5ft (my height) onto hard tarmac- SPLATTT!

Thankfully no damage was done except for a broken nail ...but you don't half feel a right tit at times, talking of which,I swear that those attributes of mine are what saved my specs, nose and head being smashed.

The Age of Aquarius

You'd think that DavidBaileyHuw would have the decency to 'dress' his model before flashing, or at least tell her that bra straps and vest straps are not in alignment, a typical Venus and Mars scenario eh? or is it another dawning of the age of Aquarius when it’s Jupiter which is aligned with Mars? ......and that her shorts look more akin to something out of Kylie's wardrobe than that of an ageing MSer?

This was one Friday evening July 2006 at a place called Cefn Bryn on The Gower. It is scattered with Neolithic/Bronze-age burial chambers, and other such stony pre-historic mounds, as if it had rained boulders nearly 3000 yrs BC; one in particular being the most well known, a cromlech (cairn) called King Arthur's Stone.

I suspect that the earth must have moved since we last went there or possibly Dr. Who and his sonic screwdriver had dropped in from the thundery purple sky because it certainly looks different to your typical cromlech these days-we have an old photo of a 6yr old Steff standing under it pretending to hold up the 25 ton capstone. It now looks like a heap of rubble scattered with Ronald MacDonald type detritus.

This photo is called Spot the Husband-can you see him trying to take a shot under that capstone?

This is it......

We also have a tale about that 6yr old Steff when we visited there one hot summer. There had been fires all over Gower because most of its acreage is peaty moor land and Cefn Bryn itself had been smouldering away for about two months, a bit like the late Ron Perkins with his pipe.

When we got there it was very dry but no fires i.e. until we started walking over to Arthur's Stone and someone walking ahead of us threw a cigarette butt on the peaty grass. Could the smoker have caused the path to smoke in passing? therefore could this even be the derivation of the phrase ‘passive’ smoking?

The next thing we knew was the familiar voice of a 6yr old boy crying out those all too familiar words, 'Maaammmyyyyyyyy!!! I want to wee-weeeeee!' Huw said, 'Go wee over there and put that fire out!" So he did - a bladderful, and succeeded in extinguishing the smouldering peat.

So Steff's claim to fame, for everybody has at least one, is that he prevented the whole of the Gower Peninsula from smoking itself into oblivion just by aiming his congenital genitalia and shooting!

Happy days, eh?

1st &3rd photos courtesy of Huw. Other photos courtesy of explore-gower

Just for today

Text © Alice Bergin AngelBooks Photo © Eiona Roberts

This Momentous Day

This Momentous Day

Each smallest act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of time,affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo,
because kindness is passed on and grows each time it's passed,
until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil.

by H.R.White

Autumn on Planet Paradise

LLANSTEFFAN

RIVER TOWY outside CARMARTHEN

WRECK at FERRYSIDE

LOWER LLIW VALLEY RESERVOIR

From MYNYDD GELLIWASTAD (above our 'ouse)


CAT'S EYES- Bank of the RIVER TAWE

LLIW VALLEY

GLYNCOLLEN WOODS very near home

A Bit of Frivolity

Leading on from the Laughter is the Best Medicine tome earlier in this Blog......it really does the soul a bit of good to engage in frivolous conversations such as you get in the Humour Forum on the Web. It never ceases to amaze me how a one liner of a joke can lead to the following:-

MY CUCKOO CLOCK IS BROKEN

My cuckoo clock is broken,
All it does is weakly shrug.
I must have wound it far too often
Or it may have caught a bug.

I really hope ‘snot woodworm,
Or I must phone Rentokil!
Oh my poor old cuckoo
Let’s hope you’re not too ill!

Until I find what ails thee,
I might stay too long in bed,
So I’m afraid my dearest cuckoo,
I’ve bought a digital clock instead!

Even more astounding is this was subsequently Published in MS Talent v 1 Pub Jasmine Books 2007 (C) Eiona Roberts.

The 9 Choices Happy People Make

1. INTENTION - the active desire and commitment to be happy and the fully conscious decision to choose happiness over un-happiness.

2. ACCOUNTABILITY – the choice to create the life you want to live, to assume personal responsibility for your actions, thoughts and feelings and the emphatic refusal to blame others for your un-happiness.

3. IDENTIFCATION – the ongoing process of looking deeply within yourself to assess what makes you uniquely happy, apart from what you're told by others should make you happy.

4. CENTRALITY – the non-negotiable insistence on making that which creates happiness central in your life.

5. RECASTING – the choice to convert problems into opportunities and challenges and to transform trauma into something meaningful, important and a source of emotional energy.

6. OPTIONS – the decision to approach life by creating multiple scenarios, to be open to new possibilities and to adopt a flexible approach to life's journeys.

7. APPRECIATION – the choice to deeply appreciate your life and the people in it and to stay in the present by turning each experience into something precious.

8. GIVING – the choice to share yourself with friends and community and to give to the world at large without the expectation of a “return”

9. TRUTHFULNESS – the choice to be honest with yourself and others in an accountable manner by not allowing societal, corporate or family demands to violate your internal contract.

Home thoughts from a broad

To Huw

Pour your love over me
like a cascading waterfall
in a South American jungle
and I will bathe in the
warmth of its calm pool.

Pour your love over me
Like the molten lava
of an Icelandic volcano
and I will feel the hot
breath of your powerful body.

Wrap yourself around me
like the lianas of the
Amazonian rainforest
and I will let myself
melt into your being.

© Eiona Roberts

FGS Goes to France

Well here I am celebrating our 29th Wedding Anniversary last July in Dinan, Brittany and about to eat the most sumptuous meal imaginable. It’s fortunate that I have photos to remind me of the occasion, because after that head- blowing Kir as an apperitif, I have little recollection of the end of the meal…......

……..and the following is my starter for ten, meaning €10 (!!!!!). At that price you just have to eat it despite the fact that it had rather a lot of raw fish as well as cooked (I hope) shell fish such as the odd clam….. and when I say I hoped it was cooked, it’s because I swear that I was bitten by a lobster claw-or had that Kir already hit the spot no other Ribena ever hit?

I actually wanted frogs legs but the man from De Valley say ‘No! It’s the first day of the hols – I don’t want you ill for the rest of it!” And to be fair to him, he’s always right about these things. Dammit!!!!

This was it…...

This is the riverside where we ate that anniversary lunch on the only searingly hot and sunny day we had on our holiday. We’d left a rare Swansea heatwave behind us to find typical Swansea Valley weather after that first day; damp’n drizzly, yes, damp ‘n drizzly getting into every sinew and bone inside this ageing ex-lump of lard…can you hear me rheumatically croak the damp ‘n drizzly blues?

A jerky, joint-jolting road-train journey back up to the centre of Dinan saw us mingling with touristy types and street vendors. I bought a homemade, handcrafted necklace and matching bracelet at an extortionate price merely to spite Huw the Rock for not allowing me the teeniest weeniest temporary tattoo somewhere discreet Ah! But I hear you mutter disapprovingly, "Hear! Hear! You are too OLD for such things," well I beg to differ because I’m only as old as the man that I feel. Mon Dieu! That makes me 56, almost an OAP, so I retract that statement NOW !

Huw always did have an eye for the absurd which I guess must be the reason why he ended up with me, so when I saw this photo he took of a street musician, the mind begs the question just what IS that in between Sioni Wynwns legs…????? They like it up 'em, Capt'n Mainwairing!!!???

The following day…. back to where we were staying in Rennes……we went a-wandering, or should I say a-wheelie-ing through the old town. Just what is it about the French and their dogs? They roam everywhere leaving their doo doos for every wheelie user and pedestrian type person to pick up the muck, though I think the following is quite cute …..the house, not the dog…..

I don’t know what it is about the French and their bitches either, because upstairs in one of those buildings we heard the most venomous caterwaul of a tantrum emanating from a French female’s mouth, directed at who or what we’d no idea because it spat forth at such a rate of knots we'd no chance of getting the drift.

That may have been a good thing because it sounded as if a murder was about to be committed, so if we were to be questioned by the Gendarmerie at a future date then at least we could innocently protest, ‘I know naaathing!’ pretending to be from Baaathelona!

Next….one of me in Rennes Centre Villes…
It’s the usual scenario of Huw dumping me in a convenient location whilst he took shopping back to the hotel. I sat and dreamed with eyes wide open behind those shades. My reverie was broken by a line of official looking cars pulling up solemnly in front of me, each one doing a graceful right turn then a slight reverse movement until I was surrounded by an army of French gendarmarie and quite high-ranking looking ones at that.

Worse still, each one on emerging from his (and her) car had a pistol tucked in their belt and stood in a semi circle around the area I was sitting. I sat there for a whole hour surrounded by these guys, too tired to self propel like a bat out of hell and too scared to flinch. H came back beaming and teasing about me having a magnetic personality. As soon as he arrived they disappeared as regally as they’d appeared leaving me feeling very unregal despite my initials (E.R.)

Now there really IS something about the French isn’t there? For example, every city or town in France just has to have a water feature or fountains.Mon Dieu! -does it put strain on the bladder at times, and is it my filthy mind or do these even look phallic ? -or possibly you cannot tell in a still shot because I can tell you that those columns of water were pulsating up and down in the most rhythmically suggestive way.

I can’t let this opportunity pass without showing the world one of the things I really, really enjoy doing. I just love flashing in public places. I don’t pretend to be a good photographer because I tend to point and shoot in the hope that my very old digital camera can cope with the handshake and provide me with a half decent shot……

Of course every picture tells a story but the story in this case is what happened afterwards. We were driving towards Carnac in pouring rain when we crossed a bridge with a view so I shouted out, “Stop the car – there’s a view to be shot!” I almost got shot myself at that point……shot down in flames, because I made it quite clear that I wasn’t getting out of the car in that rain.

We crossed the bridge and parked at the side of the road, a few hundred yards away. Huw got out and ran asthmatically back over the bridge leaving me in a hot stuffy car. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the heat and…...well they fine people for locking hot bitches in cars don’t they? so I moved over to the driving seat to open the door in a safe place and sat there with door open and rain dripping in.

I’d committed a heinous crime, or so it seemed when Huw got back to the car because I’d had not only the audacity to sit in his driving seat but I’d also allowed the rain in.

Just one of the pix he took…..

I could bore the knickerbocker glories off everyone at this rate so here’s one last shot taken on the journey home of Pont Normandie as we crossed it just gone 8 am on a sunny morning.18 deg.C it says on that sign. Yes! The sun shone as we returned to the British heatwave.

Au Revoir!