Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

Namaste you wonderful, desirable and aspiring individual! This bijou blog is here to help you achieve your best ever ‘you’ in this new year. Here, I offer my help and assistance in reshaping your shape and doctoring your decor internally and externally, to bring your lifestyle into line with your aspirations.

Gestures

One of the very first things we all notice about an individual we meet will be their gestures. Do they forever make air quotes? Are they bracing their forehead with the back of their hand in times of stress?
We are what we do and gestures such as these both express our inner essence and shape it through repetition. What is within is always reflected without and what is without will be internalised in turn. So it goes without saying that the very best way to shape your inner essence can be through defining yourself externally by your gestures.
Firstly you need to choose what will be your hallmark ‘defining’ gesture. The one that all those who know you or come into contact with you in life will take away with them as being the essential expression of who you are. So you need to choose wisely and think carefully on both what this gesture is seeking to portray about you and reinforce within you.
Some suggestions:

Pointing with the little finger
Tucking your other fingers behind your thumb, use only the smallest digit on your hand to point and indicate with, thus demonstrating both your humility and your confidence. By using it you are saying to the world that you have no need to use the aggressive index finger to point with, you can do just as well with a little finger and that small is beautiful too.

Spread finger hand shake
Instead of presenting a sleek, attack line hand to be shaken, thumb up like the dorsal fin of a shark, offer your hand with the fingers wide apart to show you are not a greedy or grasping individual, but an open and easygoing person, with nothing to hide.

Scratching the third eye
When you are in need of inspiration, instead of scratching your head at random, always aim for the spot above the nose and between the eyes. This shows you are a profound and mystically inclined individual who all should respect. Rubbing it when perplexed is a variant on this theme.

You can come up with your own unique and inspiring gestures to ensure you leave an indelible impression on all those you encounter.

Namaste!
Lucida the Loquacious Lifestyle Coach

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

The door opened.
The line of light widened and Jacob’s heart beat a tattoo of terror.
It was too late to be dad, he had blundered up the stairs two hours ago shouting, yelling, drunk as always. Jacob had kept hidden under the duvet, cuddling Mr Tomkins.
No. Dad would be fast asleep and snoring now.
But the door still opened and a shadow fell over Jacob’s bed.
Then he saw who it was and the terror fled.
A few minutes later he was bundled up on the back seat of mum’s car, still clutching Mr. Tomkins.
They were escaping.

E.M. Swift-Hook

A selection of rhymes by Jane Jago, made age appropriate for those for whom their second childhood is just around the corner…

Grandma Muffet

Old Grandma Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
One sunny Saturday
There came a truck driver
Who sat down beside her
She groped him and he ran away.

You can find this, and other whimsical takes of life in On The Throne? a little book of contemplation from Jane Jago.

The queen of shadows
Clad in mist
As cool as malice
Never kissed
Moves like silence
Bleeding cold
Her icy fingers
Chill the soul

©️jj 2024

Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…

Half an hour later Jess was driving away, to somewhere. Anywhere. Just away. She stopped to eat the sandwich when it was starting to get dark and hunger bit, pulling off the road and into the carpark of what looked like a run-down, sea-side amusement park. Which was when she found it in the glove box. The gift from Roald. Part of her wanted to hurl it, unopened, away from the car. But instead she took it out of the colourful paper bag and lifted the lid. A necklace of silver beads, carved to resemble ammonite shells.
Throwing it out of the window, Jess swore violently and turned the key. Nothing happened. The car sat there. She tried several times, giving up only when she realised it was not going to happen. She picked up her phone to call roadside recovery, and was somehow not surprised to find there was no signal. With an odd sense of inevitability, she picked up her magnalight from the map pocket beside her. Its weight, as much as its light, gave her a sense of security, it could be a weapon at need. She pulled her walking coat on over her fleece jacket and left the car to see if there anyone around in the amusement park.
There was stiff sea breeze coming in from across the bleak scrub that lay between this place and the sea. A moon, nearly full, gave enough light that she did not need to turn on the torch, and slid it into the inside pocket of her coat. There were no other cars parked up outside what must once have been a bustling attraction. But who wanted a seaside holiday when you could go to Costa del Sunburn for not much more? There was a high wall which ran across the end of the car park and as Jess walked towards it, she could see it stretched away on either side. 
The entrance was through a turnstile gate, or should have been. Someone had broken the spokes of the turning part, so anyone could walk through, past the shattered and blinded glass eye of the pay booth, boarded-up on the inside. Jess did so and something moved beside the booth. She turned fast, her hand gripping the magnalight as a slapping sound send a sudden pulse of unwanted adrenaline into her system. She pulled the torch free and shone its powerful beam at the source of the sound.
A sign hung down, still half attached to the top of the pay-booth, its broken back clapping against the heavy door set in the side of the small brick cabin. The words were barely visible:

…COME TO ….HELL…

Somewhere an owl shrieked and, despite herself, Jess drew a sharp breath. She took a step towards the broken, flapping sign and played the torch beam over it from end to end:

WELCOME TO SHELLEY’S FUNPARK

The owl screeched again and Jess smiled. You had to love it when the atmospherics played up to the occasion. It would only take a sea mist rolling in to turn this place into something out of an old-school Hammer Horror production. The really chilling thing was not any kind of supernatural danger here, it was the realisation that this was indeed an abandoned and empty place, with no one around who might have a phone she could use to call the roadside recovery and this place was a very long walk from anywhere. Only a year ago that would have meant very little. She might even have enjoyed the bracing breeze and the countryside at night. But not now. Now she would not make it more than a mile before she was crippled with pain.
The laughter carried on the night air, coming from behind the low roofed building immediately in front of her. At a guess it had once been some kind of cafe, but now it was heavily boarded up, metal shutters pulled over the windows, like a creature retreated into its shell.
Shelley’s Funpark? Why did that sound so familiar? Jess would have given it some more thought but the laughter came again, masculine, plural and loud. It was not from someone with any thought of trying to avoid attention. Still gripping the magnalight, its beam dimmed, Jessica made her way past the cafe-building and into the open area beyond.
The shadowy figures moving vaguely on the far side, close by the enclosing wall, sprang suddenly into stark relief and were revealed, as as an orange glow flared behind them. Jess froze, hearing drunken cheers as the fire took hold and watched as, like the ritual of some strange coven of witches, the group of youths all started throwing things into the flames.

Part 4 of Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook will be here next week…

Things that make us go poop…

Granny and the ‘ladies’ darts team of The Dog and Trumpet alphabetically collate their collective contempt for the inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

K is for Kitchen Knives and this all started when Loopy Laura of the darts team started telling us about her in-laws’ collection of them.

How many kitchen knives does anyone actually need?

Hands up all you daft buggers who own sets of ‘chef’s knives’.

In wooden blocks or hanging on magnets.

Are you like Loopy Laura’s in-laws with twenty-three of them?

Twenty-three mild steel knives they have to sharpen if they so much as look at them…

Twenty-three silent testaments to their gullibility.

Twenty-three knives of which they use probably none.

My late unlamented was a chef by profession (his cooking being one of the reasons I put up with his presence for so long). He used three knives – and one of them was solely for threatening people who wandered into the kitchen.

You need a big knife and a little one.

That’s it.

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

Namaste you wonderful, desirable and aspiring individual! This bijou blog is here to help you achieve your best ever ‘you’ in this new year. Here, I offer my help and assistance in reshaping your shape and doctoring your decor internally and externally, to bring your lifestyle into line with your aspirations.

Eating

Eating is a profound experience. It is about bringing the nourishment from the outside world and drawing it deep within your own body to provide yourself with the nutrients and energy that enable you to live as your best ever you.
There will be many places you can read about what you should and should not eat and why, but this blog is not concerned with the basics of nutrition. it is not for me to tell you what you should and should not allow to pass down the sacred descent into the temple of your digestive system.
But there is much need to consider and very little ever spoken about the best way to consume your chosen food.
For most of us, any adventure away from the standard stainless steel cutlery sets of our youth, might begin by mastering – or failing to master – the use of chopsticks. This is, indeed, a step in the right direction.
Why?
Because you are not putting metal in your mouth.
Metal is a wonderful substance for making external items such as rings and pendants, anklets and bangles – but it is not something that should ever be introduced within the body except under extreme medical necessity. The healthy body should be, and remain, metal free at all times.
And that means avoiding metal in all your food preparation as well as the eating of it. The metal will not resonate well with the meal and can cause all kinds of issues.
The transition may be a difficult one for many and I would seriously consider a stage in which you resort to wooden spoons for eating before you achieve the final, fantastic, liberation of eating as natures always intended we should – with our fingers.
Please be aware that once you have adopted this lifestyle change you will notice the impact on your social life immediately. You will come to discern who are your true friends and who are simply lingering at your side in the hope of basking in a little of your glory. Cast aside those who cast you off and ignore their tweets about how disgusting you are to have as a dinner guest. You know you are living your best life and that is what matters.

Namaste!
Lucida the Lambent Lifestyle Coach

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

Susan had never really understood all this tech stuff – smart this and smart that. It was all too smart for her. So she was the only person in her town who didn’t have a fully connected house. She couldn’t even get emails except at the library.

But as time went on she began to wonder if she was indeed being old-fashioned and even stubborn about it.

Until the day every smart meter and speaker, smart fridge and smartphone was taken over by the aliens.

As her neighbours were all forced to obey their new overlords, Susan felt smugly justified.

E.M. Swift-Hook