Early Afternoon

I had all sorts of good ideas about what I was going to do today but when push came to shove, I decided I didn’t really want to go to the Big Box Stores on a Saturday morning. We have been saying forever that we need a new battery in our portable telephone since it has now taken to beeping at us if we have any conversation longer than a few minutes, so I opened the book and found out what kind of battery I was going to go to Walmarts to get. {I figured since we had bought it there, we should be able to get the battery there, right?}  But then I realized that the company has a web site. And on the website, they sell batteries. So, since I didn’t want to tackle Walmarts on the weekend, I ordered on line. Mind you. I am a bit irritated by the fact that they charged me $8.00 for postage! But then my time and not having to deal with traffic on a hot Saturday is definitely worth that much money!

I have spent most of the day  on the bed in the cool air conditioned bedroom watching "How Green Was My Valley." What a great  movie! It was made in 1941 and is in black and white. It stars Roddy McDowall as a boy and Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O’Hara. As an added bonus, there are lots and lots of Welsh male voices singing in Welsh. I had seen it before but it was a long time ago and I had forgotten much of it. I think I must have seen it with my father because I can remember him telling me lots of things about working down the mines. He was not Welsh and his coal mines were not in Wales, but he told us that his father died when he was 13. He was very tall for his age and he left school at that point and went to work with his three brothers down the Nottinghamshire coal mines. I remember him telling us how if the mine whistle went off at an unexpected time, everyone came out of their houses and rushed up to the mines to see who  had been killed or injured this time… Because of this stint in the coal mines, he was a big supporter of unions for the working man. At quite an early age I knew what a black-leg or scab was and why I should despise them.

I {obviously} didn’t go to the oils demonstration. This was partly because I came back from my walk at about 10:30 and the demonstration was at 11. However, if I had really wanted to go, I would have gotten there albeit a little late. But I wasn’t really interested enough to hustle out there.

Fred just came into the bedroom and handed me a cup of cold and juicy watermelon chunks!

Until later…