While I was killing time waiting to go to work this morning I was watching the latest incarnation of Doctor Who on BBC America. I know this is a complete mystery to the majority of you who read my blog but Doctor Who is a TV show that has been going since 1963, it is the longest running TV show on the planet, with the most episodes (even outdoing Star Trek if you can believe that). It is set around a mysterious Doctor who travels around in a "tardis" which resembles an old fashioned "police box" (in other words a box where a telephone was located for the police to call the station) the marvellous thing about the "tardis" is that it looks about the size of a standard bathroom on the outside but is in fact huge on the inside. This to me is the greatest thing, because, on a daily basis I am confronted with people who say to me "wow this place is alot bigger than it looks" at which point I just wish I could say "yes it is a little like the tardis is it not". Our office has a small frontage, but the office goes backwards for a long way and then there is the upstairs, so it is actually huge. Every day clients say to me "gosh I didn't know this place was so big" I just wish, every day that they had seen Doctor Who growing up so I could say "yes it is like the tardis" and they would know what I was talking about. Even despite that this morning I knew I had to leave half way through, when I was watching Doctor Who I revelled in the familiar things, to begin with the theme music, then the crashingly familiar sound of the tardis taking off.... wow did that send me crashing back into my childhood. You can believe that I am going to be seeking out the new episodes of Doctor Who, and just drowning myself in the nostalgia of watching them. I am looking forward to this.

A day when one gives thanks. I suppose we all should sit down once a year and consider what we are thankful for. It is only right. Myself there are many, many things that I am thankful for. My family of course, my husband, my mum, my sister and her family. My animals, without whom I am sure I would have lost my marbles many moons ago, it is they who keep me grounded in reality, their needs being such that I must stay strong for them and I am thankful for the sheer joy they give me. I am thankful for having a great job with a great boss, even though the entire thing stresses me out to no end sometimes. I am thankful for my home and garden, and for the wonderful trusting critters that inhabit that space. I am thankful for my ability to write, an ability which I inherited from my natural father (as opposed to my step dad). I am thankful for my love of photography, and that I have finally found an outlet for my artistic leanings. In photography I have found a hobby which calms my soul and which forces me to stop and look at the world in a totally different light even while doing such mundane chores as hanging out laundry. I am thankful for my health, despite all my minor aches and pains, merely symptoms of getting older. I am thankful that I can still rejoice in the smallest of things, the scent of a flower, the sight of a butterfly, the beauty of autumn leaves. I am thankful that I have not become so jaded with the world that I cannot see the wonders that surround me, the sheer beauty of it all. Finally I am thankful for my ability to learn, to try new things, to look at something one way and then envision it another way.

The Cueball monster has a date with destiny next week, he is in for his "snip" on Wednesday. Between now and then I shall have to have a very detailed talk with him so that he understands the situation. I do this with all my animals when they are scheduled for surgery, I do it for a very good reason. Years ago, when I was still in the Navy my Admin Commander had a dog that he adored, he and his wife treated her like their child, and she was cherished. At the appointed time as all good pet owners do, they took her to the vets to be fixed. As horrible fate would have it while she was under anesthesia her heart began racing and they lost her. I shall never forget my boss when he found out, a 20 odd year veteran of the Royal Navy, probably having seen everything you could see, sobbing like a baby, "I never told her Dawn" he sobbed "I never told her why she was going to the vets, for all she knows we took her there to die" he sobbed again "I never got a chance to tell her how much I loved her". That vision has stayed with me throughout my life since and before my babies go in "to have their status in society changed" (as my vet so glibly puts it), I explain to them in great detail why they are going to the vets and what is going to happen to them. I explain that they are not being punished, I explain that the surgery is needed to make their lives better, I explain that we love them very, very much and if, for some awful reason, something goes wrong it is not because they were bad and we love them all the same. Despite all this next Wednesday I shall be on pins and needles all day until the vet tells me that big boy has come out of the surgery okay. Of course that is the easy bit, the difficult bit, I am absolutely certain knowing my boy, is going to be stopping him removing his stitches. My co-worker said to me today "oh aren't you going to let him create one litter of puppies, he is so beautiful" and I thought about it for about a nano second, but then thought better of it. As beautiful as he is I am not sure that Cueball's genes need to be passed on, if you know what I mean.

It was chilly today, well chilly for North Carolina that is. As is normal for this time of year the lizards have begun moving indoors. They begin with the kitchen window, where they wander between the screen and the window patrolling for insects that have become trapped. When the weak fall sun is no longer enough to warm their bodies they slip in through the crack at the top of the kitchen window and move in for the winter. I don't mind of course, but then you know me, I wouldn't.



My precious garden spider died, but I am not sad, up there by the very edge of the window she left an egg case. I do not know why it took her so long but eventually things were as they were supposed to be and she laid the egg case and died. I shall miss her of course, as I did this morning as I made my tea, but I am content in the knowledge that she achieved her life's worth, she did what she was born to do, live, grow, eat, lay eggs and then die. I know she died happy and her offspring will be there to greet me in the spring.

The birds were very busy today, and I was delighted to get some nice shots of birds that have been difficult before. The tufted titmouse is a "swoop and snatch" bird (like the chickadees and nuthatches) they swoop in take a seed (or a peanut) and then fly off into the surrounding trees to eat it.



The White Breasted Nuthatch is another "swoop and snatch" bird, and I have so far failed to get a decent shot of one, thankfully today that changed.



A couple of birds landed on the shepard's crook that holds my platform feeder and had behind them the most wonderful fall colour... I liked the shots, but I liked them more for the backgrounds....





It was a good day, my birds were happy, my lizards were happy and I was happy.

What kind of an idiot takes a knife into a courthouse? This week we had two idiots, on one day the bailiffs hauled a guy out of courtroom number 1 cause he was wearing a knife and the next day a steak knife was found in courtroom number 2 causing a mass searching of people. (one of our precious "retired" visiting judges said "never mind the steak knife did they find a steak?")

Why do people (oh okay men) who drive big trucks think that they own the road (and or parking lot)? I almost got creamed today by such a person who had no regard for me in my little car whatsoever. Would have been a hell of a thing, killed getting a slurpee.

Why is it that men (okay my husband) lust after exercise equipment with the promise "if you buy me that I will work out" whereupon you buy said exercise equipment which then gathers dust in a corner of a room and is mainly used as a clothes hanger? So far we have thrown in various dumpsters 1) a ski machine b) a rowing machine c) an exercise bike d) a recumbent bike. Today we went to Dick's Sporting Goods (just to look around as it has just opened) whereupon my husband stood longingly by the exercise bikes. "No" I said, seeing his expression. "But if you bought me that I would work out" he said. All of a sudden I was transported back several years and several miles to K-Mart where he was lusting over the recumbent bike "if you bought me that I would work out" he said. Said recumbent bike is now languishing in the Onslow County Landfill.

Emma Thompson is one of the most brilliant actresses on the planet, if not the most brilliant. She can convey with a mere "hmmmm" a wealth of emotions. In fact in "Love Actually" she gave the most powerful, emotionally draining, brilliant performance ever without speaking a word (the scene in the bedroom with Joni Mitchell playing in the background). We watched Nanny McPhee last night and her "hmmm" moments were pure brilliance. Her "If I were a man" speech in "Much Ado About Nothing" is, to my mind, one of the top ten performances of an actor (male or female) ever.

This week my boss told a client "she has worked for me a hundred years, she is the best paralegal in town, she is a workaholic, she is the best employee I have ever known" yah know you can give me all the paychecks and bonuses you want but there is nothing more satisfying than hearing that.

Autumn leaves are a gift sent by Mother Nature to remind us that despite the lack of flowers at this time of year there is no shortage of beauty in the world. If you look at the colors of an autumn leaf it is like a painting created by the most skillful of artists. I suppose that is the point, whereas in spring and summer you look to flowers for beauty, in the autumn you look to leaves, in the winter you look to frost. Beauty is all around all all seasons of the year, if only you choose to look.