Saturday 24 September 2011

A Bariatric / Weight Loss Surgery website you should look at

(Also a brief story and pictures at the end)

I occasionally write articles for Bariatric Surgery Source, and thus have been following the fortunes of this website for about a year now. It’s based in the United States and its location-related information encompasses Canada as well, but its base is an advantage to British, Australian and NZ readers. The US has by far the largest English-speaking market of overweight people reaching for a solution to their obesity, and comprehensive websites such as this one are there to provide it.

They certainly don’t pay me anything, so I’m free to say that I think it’s packed with essential information you need to know before, during and after weight loss surgery. In fact there is so much to see that if I was to pick fault with it I would say that the amount of information can at times be bewildering and it can take a few minutes to find your way round. It’s also not biased, because it will discuss very frankly the pros and cons of each procedure, with a lot of links to other websites.

People also write in with their problems, and Jeff Quinlan, who founded and runs the site, invites WLS  contributors if they would like to comment. One of these is Beth (Who Hid the Donuts), and this week we had a fascinating to and fro about the differences between gastric band and gastric bypass surgery. Beth's forthright manner has ensured that a very lively discussion has resulted.  I know that the lady in Florida asking the question will have a lot to think about after all the replies she got.

If any of you out there like the idea of writing the odd article (however long or short, it doesn’t matter), Jeff would love to hear from you. He also wants to hear from people who have read a WLS book and would be willing to review it.

His only request is that it can’t be copy and pasted from anywhere on the internet, i.e. your own blogs. The work has to be original to comply with the regulations to which he is subject, i.e., it mustn’t contain strings of words which when Googled bring up both your blog and his website. I would add that you have to submit it either by typing direct, or if you need to compose first, to do it in Notepad, because if you use Word you’ll find all your apostrophes etc fallen by the wayside.

These are the articles I’ve written so far:

1. If hunger is not the reason you eat then eating is not the solution.
(I’ve always liked this phrase, and I’ve discovered recently that I probably got it from the blog of LapBand Gal, and if it was hers, many apologies for 'borrowing' it inadvertently!)
.

2. Financing LapBand surgery & Follow-up Visits, in a lump sum.

3. My LapBand recovery.

4. Weight Loss Surgery Support Groups. Group therapy and how it can help you.

5. Getting stuck with the gastric band.

6. Keep your honey in the bathroom: The Gastric band and diabetes.

7. Weight loss surgery – plateaus, doldrums and being becalmed.

8. To Tell or not To Tell about your Weight Loss Surgery

All they want is to hear your story, how you got to where you are today and your thoughts about weight loss surgery, and the gastric band. There are all those readers out there who want to feel they aren’t alone, and you could help.  If you're trying to gather your scattered thoughts, there's a long list of topics to inspire you.


Jeff has always been supportive and friendly - and there are pictures of himself and his team up on the site to add a personal dimension and make contributors feel that they know them.

Good luck with Bariatric Surgery Source, Jeff!
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-oOo-
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From my Eavesdroppings & Stories blog.  253:  Soliloquy at the Petrol Station

Scene: I have filled my car with petrol and go in to pay. I hear the radio blaring as I make my way to the till, where the 20+ year old cashier has just finished serving a customer. As I step up to the till I hear the radio disc jockey mention that after the news he'll be playing the latest song of "the delectable Lady Gaga".

Cashier: Delectable? I tell you I'm sick and tired of hearing about her. Can't STAND her. She looks awful, dresses worse, dead artificial. People just talk about her, not about the music. She's supposed to be a singer...

Me: Mmm. Pump No. 14 please.

Cashier: Like that Madonna - all the rage in the 90's she was. Couldn't STAND her. Them pointy tits. Always had to be in the news about other stuff. She was supposed to be a singer...

Me: Mmm. Do I put my card in this way up?

Cashier: Yes love. I tell you, these women are there to sing, but all they want you to do is look at them, not listen to their voices. Can't STAND them.

Me: Mmm. Can I take my card out now?

Cashier: Yes love. I mean, look at footballers. We want to watch them play and all they want to do is screw around and appear in newspapers and demand a lot of money. Can't STAND that. I've read that they used to pay footballers £20 a week back in the fifties, and look at them now. Just for kicking a ball around...

Me: Mmm. I know, it's a scandal. Well, bye for now.

Cashier: Bye love. Nice talking to you.

-oOo-

Photo Finish -
from Lonicera's non-digital archive

Photo-stew...

A stream in the Blaise Castle grounds, Bristol


View of Bristol and Wills Memorial Building Tower,
the heart of the university


Rust can be beautiful too...


The windbreak:  the only way to sunbathe on a British beach


Dirty and busy windowsills - one of my
favourite subjects


One of the first pictures I ever took in the early 90s with
my Pentax SLR camera - a view of Clifton, Bristol, from the
Suspension Bridge, evening.




Japanese garden, in Wales

-oOo-

Saturday 17 September 2011

Tales from Elsewhere - The Culinary Disappointments of Frank Ebden

Frank Ebden was an unusual man simply because he had led a quiet and unremarkable life.  He was too young to have participated fully in World War II, and had never actually left British shores, being based at a training camp in Aldershot for the last few months of the war. 

After receiving his demob papers he went on to earn his living as a civil servant.  He married happily some years later and had a daughter.  He would watch the local cricket when he could, and the national test matches on television when they were on at a reasonable hour.  He enjoyed his garden and went to church every Sunday, the walk to which, along with his daily collection of a newspaper, was his sole form of exercise.  He never had to worry about gaining weight, which he ascribed to his excellent Ebden genes.

Sadly these were the very same genes which eventually let him down – or gave him an easy exit, and he died in his sleep at 75, a little earlier than he would have liked.  At the do after his funeral, Frank Ebden’s relatives remembered him fondly as a kind and devoted husband and father.  His children had seen to it that there was a magnificent spread, of which he would have thoroughly approved – he had liked his food. 

The congratulatory comments led naturally to various relatives telling culinary anecdotes about Frank, and in the end it was his eldest brother Tom, aged 85 and very spry, his curiosity piqued, who suggested that it would be a nice way to remember Frank if they could settle down in a circle and tell stories about him so they could all smile together on what would otherwise be a sad day.

What emerged is that Frank Ebden had had a passionate attachment to food, which had been thwarted on a regular basis.  The memories were not collective; the individual anecdotes contributed by various relatives and friends were news to all but the storyteller, and gradually the other visitors fell quiet, entertained by this string of stories which revealed a person previously known for his quiet common sense, now plainly a man yearning for the far shores of culinary expertise – his own and everybody else’s.

The earliest story came from Tom himself, who remembered a luscious bowl of plums on the sideboard, and Frank asking his mother if they were red or yellow inside (he preferred the red ones).  “I don’t know” she replied, “your Dad bought them.  You can have one after lunch”.  But the little boy wasn’t waiting that long.  He thought he'd just take a teeny weeny bite out of one to see what colour it was.

When lunch had concluded the bowl was placed on the table and all gazed at it with consternation.  Every plum had a small bite taken out of it, through which the golden pulp could be seen. Frank was nowhere to be found, and the rest of the children had turned away from them in disgust.

Their cousin Sybil described two serious miscalculations made by Frank when he was about ten.  At tea-time one hot afternoon he sneaked in before tea had been put on the table by their mother and grabbed a scone.  In the dim, unlit dining-room he cut it open, spread it with butter and looked around for jam or his mother’s famous bramble jelly.  Seeing none he made for the cupboard where these items were kept, saw a likely pot with a spoon and hurriedly, lest he be discovered, applied the jelly liberally to his scone.  He stuffed it in his mouth and ran out into the garden.  Sybil saw him as he exited the back door clearly with something to hide, then saw the look of surprise cross his face, deepening to horror as he spat out the remains of the scone, which he had spread with a large quantity of savoury mint jelly.  The fact that he saw it coming out of his mouth a bilious green, which he had not known when it was on its way in, horrified him still further.

The second instance came about as a result of his inexplicable fondness for raw vegetables, and pumpkin in particular.  Wild horses could not have induced the others to eat pumpkin unless under duress, and even then only when cooked, but where food was concerned, Frank could be a law unto himself.  He once saw what he thought was a slab of pumpkin lying on the kitchen worktop, and it had been a long time since breakfast.  He couldn’t resist, and as nobody was around picked it up and took as large a bite as he dared out of it. 

However, it wasn’t pumpkin, nor any other vegetable nor anything else edible – it was a piece of orange coloured Sunlight soap which had been left to dry after his mother had finished scrubbing some clothes.  Sybil reported that he frothed at the mouth for quite a while, having worsened the situation by drinking water instead of rinsing his mouth out with it.  One can’t help but question the judgment of a lad of ten who could not tell the difference, but at that stage he had not yet been bought his first pair of glasses.

He managed to stay out of harm’s way for a while, and in any case, when the war came along there was little choice of anything, and no opportunities to indulge.  Eddie, an old army buddy who had travelled a long way to come to the funeral, took up the story and told the now attentive audience that when Frank found himself in the army at Aldershot, his thoughts revolved around girls and food, and how to place himself in the position to come across both as often as possible. 

Activity for the former was confined to weekends, but for the latter the possibilities presented themselves several times a day.  He was usually first in the queue for lunch to see what cookie, a man in his sixties, had been preparing that morning, smacking his lips in anticipation.  He was finding  to his surprise that he was eating better than he had for years. 

He particularly loved the apple pie they got once a week, and when making chatty conversation with him on one occasion (you can never be too friendly to the person who feeds you) Frank asked him how he achieved the crimped design round the edges.  He was puzzled when cookie was evasive, and muttered something about not having time to stand around talking to the likes of him.  At first Frank was slightly offended because he thought it was a bit of a brush off, but as time went by he noticed that cookie was otherwise a very friendly man – it was just that he wasn’t forthcoming on the matter of the apple pie. 

His curiosity aroused, Frank determined to try and watch him make the famous pies.  He had noticed that there was a window  through which he would be able to watch proceedings if he was careful climbing the wall outside and kept out of the way of the brambles, and after a few false tries – cookie was either washing utensils or chopping kidneys for the steak and kidney pie – he finally struck lucky and saw him rolling out the pastry for the apple pies.  When the moment came to roll the pastry on the pie dish over the luscious fruit and brown sugar (a secret ingredient Frank hadn’t known about – he wondered where he had managed to obtain it in wartime), he finally got his answer.

With a deft movement, Cookie removed his false teeth and proceeded to use them to crimp all the pies before him, working quickly and with obvious experience, then popped them back in and moved them around to swallow the traces of raw pastry in this mouth.

Eddie said Bob lost interest in the apple pie after that.

When the ripple of laughter had died down, Frank’s widow clearly felt a little better.  Her eyes very bright, she explained that shortly after they had returned from their honeymoon he made it known that he was keen to help with the cooking.  One day she was away for the day and he had promised a surprise dinner which he would cook himself.  She was a bit doubtful because he had never tackled anything more ambitious than toast, but didn’t like to say anything.

When she returned that evening she smelled chicken cooking as soon as she walked through the door.  Frank emerged from the kitchen with a furrowed brow, an apron round his middle and a tea towel over his shoulder. 

“I’m a bit worried” he said “I’m not sure it’s looking the way it should.  I think the surprise element is going to have to be shelved because I may need your advice…” 

She followed him into the kitchen and became instantly aware of two unusual things – the room was steamed up, and on the gas stove was her largest stockpot – so big that it nearly took up two rings - with steam pouring out of it in copious quantities.  The contents were unrecognisable and remarkably similar to viewing the window of a washing machine in progress, as they were on a rolling boil.  She asked tentatively -

“Is that chicken in there?”

“The whole dinner actually.  I remembered my mother boiling most things so I put the chicken in and all the vegetables so that it would all be ready at the same time.  You said last week that when you cook a chicken it takes two hours, so in half an hour it should be done.  What I don’t understand is why it doesn’t look like a chicken any more.  I suppose it’ll taste alright…”

“Of course dear” she said soothingly, turning down the gas and opening a window. 

She was uncritical at this early stage of their marriage, and never remarked that their plates looked like bombsites even before they started eating.  They dined for days on the resultant soup.

“I wasn’t too keen on his improvisations after that”, she admitted, “particularly when it came to marmalade…”.

Eddie chipped in “Well that would explain why he delayed attemptin’ to make toffee caramel till he came to stay with me for a few days some years ago.  I live on my own and he was good company.  He had tasted banoffee pie at a restaurant and was so taken with the caramel filling that he was determined to try and make it himself.  The waiter at the restaurant had given him a quick easy recipe, but I don’t know, it had been a while, and I think he must forgotten part of the instructions.”

“And then there was a Test Match on the box and he certainly wasn’t going to miss that.  Anyhow, he puts my only decent saucepan on to boil with plenty of water in it, and then he drops a tin of condensed milk in it – unopened.  I asked him if he was sure he knew what he was doing and he assured me that that’s exactly what the waiter at the restaurant had told him to do.  ‘That’s it’ says Frank ‘you leave it for a couple of hours just like that.’  And off he goes to watch the cricket.”
How it should have looked...
He continued – “some time later I’m in the shed potterin’ and I hear this God-awful bang.  I go running into the kitchen, and you’ve never seen such a mess.  There’s condensed milk as far as the eye can see, a sticky, dripping cream-coloured goo in every nook and cranny of the kitchen.  Frank was dead worried I’d be cross ‘cos he had been so busy watching the cricket that he’d forgotten to keep adding water to the pan, so it exploded.  But me I laughed
till I cried – and anyway he had to clear up the mess himself.  Took him most of the day.  Mind you I didn’t laugh at the state of my favourite saucepan.  It had turned oval, the paper from the label on the tin had stuck fast to it, and I had to chuck it.”

Frank’s widow wiped her eyes and added “it was something like that with the marmalade he insisted on making a couple of times.  He said it was his mother’s recipe but it looked very complicated to me and the results looked more like a dipping sauce.  I tried to tell him that shop-bought marmalade was just as good but he wasn’t having any.  I couldn’t bear to be anywhere near the kitchen when it was on the final boil, because very hot sticky jam would spill on the cooker (and turn black), the floor, his clothes, and the carpet because his shoes were full of it too.  A nightmare.”

Some of his friends had tried to introduce him to Indian cuisine, but he became disenchanted after ordering Bombay Duck and finding it was fish, then being recommended a curry not realising it was in jest and as a total novice discovering how it felt when he put a forkful of Fal in his mouth, the hottest curry the restaurant could provide.  As perspiration and mucus poured out of him and he gasped like a fish, everybody laughed except Frank.

His daughter and grandson provided the last story.  She and her husband had him to stay for a week while her mother visited some old school friends in Scotland.  He seemed to enjoy the change from the cosy but rather monotonous existence he led in the little backwater where they lived.  They had a smart house in town, and he enjoyed going for walks and seeing people and shops. 

His daughter was a good cook too, and he thought she could rustle up something out of nothing.  She would tell him what it was and add an expression to give it her own little twist, which amused him.  Her “Chickending” with rice was delicious, and sometimes they had “Lambding” – but she would never tell him what the specific ingredients were.  His wife was a superb cook, and he was proud that his daughter obviously took after her.

Recently, a month before he died,  Frank and his wife were visited by their grandson, who was just back from university for the summer, and as they prepared to tuck into cheese on toast, he told them how he admired the boy’s mother’s cooking and her “Ding” recipes. 

The lad’s fork stopped half way to his mouth –

“Grandad, what are you on about?  That chicken of Mum’s is one of those ready made meals from the supermarket.”

“So what’s the ‘ding’ in the name then?”

“The sound the microwave makes when it’s cooked…”

This time it was Frank’s fork which stopped half way to his mouth.  “Aaah” he said thoughtfully.

The gentle laughter died down and in the ensuing brief silence the assembled funeral guests smiled fondly at the picture the stories had created.  Slowly and reluctantly they got to their feet and prepared to depart.  For a short while they had been united in the warm bath of remembrance of a person who had been unremarkable yet unique.

-oOo-

Photo Finish
from Lonicera's non-digital archive


Fairground
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Exmoor
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Selworthy
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St Ives
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Artists' ateliers, Bath
.



-oOo-

Saturday 10 September 2011

Tales from Argentina - The Wallet

My mother once told this story which she had heard from a friend during the nineteen seventies in Buenos Aires, when the trade unions were all-powerful and could call workers out on strike with minimal notice. 

As strike followed strike you never knew which aspect of your life would be disrupted next.  Should you stockpile toilet paper and basic groceries, or add to your collection of tinned foods?  Should you pump up your bicycle tyres to get you from A to B?  Or lay in stocks of candles for the inevitable blackout, and cook everything you had in the fridge just in case it went off?  Or if it was a general strike, you might as well stay home and read a book, that is after filling the bathtub and every big saucepan you had with water, in addition to all the above.

On this particular occasion it was a bus strike, and Roberto, a man in his thirties known to this friend of my mother’s, left for work in his car.  Some minutes later he saw an older man standing forlornly at a local bus stop; clearly he had been waiting for a long time in the hope that a bus would somehow miraculously appear.  Roberto stopped to tell him that he was wasting his time, and then on the spur of the moment, felt sorry for him and offered him a lift into town.

The man gratefully accepted, and got into the passenger seat.  He introduced himself as Marcos, and admitted that he was cold and stiff from waiting for so long.  He needed to head right into town, a long journey even by bus, and had been wondering what to do next.

They chatted amiably for a few minutes, then Roberto told him he was getting low on petrol, and if Marcos didn’t mind, he’d like to stop at the nearest petrol station.  They drew into the next one they saw, and as was the custom in these establishments in Buenos Aires, an attendant came to the driver’s window, took his order, filled the tank for him and told him how much he had to pay, without Roberto having had to leave his car. 

In those days petrol could only be paid for in cash, so he reached over into the back seat to take his wallet out of his jacket and found that it was missing.  With a sickening feeling he realised that the older man must have helped himself while he was busy talking to the attendant and his attention had been distracted. 

This was the era of danger and violence in Argentina, when the country was ruled by a military dictatorship and people disappeared from one day to the next with no explanations given.  For his own safety Roberto had always kept a small hand gun in the pocket of the driver’s door.  Without thinking twice, in a flash he pulled it out, pointed it at Marcos and hissed –

“Give me the wallet!”

Marcos hurriedly did as he was told.  “Now get out of my car!”

The man disappeared at a run, while the attendant looked on nervously from a distance.  Roberto put the gun back in the pocket, explained what had happened, paid for his petrol, flung the small change into a box in the car he kept for the purpose, and drove to work. 

He was disgusted that his kindness had been repaid with this attempted theft, and was relieved that he had stopped for petrol and thus noticed that his wallet was missing before the passenger got out.

When he arrived at the office, Roberto parked his car and made his way up to his desk, where the telephone was ringing.  It was his wife, who was calling to let him know that he had left his wallet behind on the hall table at home.  Disbelieving, he pulled the wallet out of his jacket and it was only now that he realised that though very similar to his own, this was not his wallet.

He sat down at his desk feeling weak at the knees and examined the contents of the wallet.  It contained a significant amount of cash, and documents giving Marcos’ full name and – thankfully - home telephone number. 

He rang the number straight away, and the woman who answered the phone told him that her husband was unable to take phone calls at the moment because he was in shock from a very disagreeable incident that had happened to him that morning.  He had been trying to go to the bank to deposit some savings not knowing the buses were on strike, when a man had offered him a lift and then robbed him.

The misunderstanding was eventually cleared up, and Roberto visited Marcos on the way back from the office to return the wallet plus the cost of the petrol and a big bunch of flowers for the wife, the money for which he had borrowed from an office colleague. 

In fact they became firm friends, and as they lived close by, socialised regularly from then on, taking it in turns to tell the story to other guests of the day the bus strike had brought them together.

With thanks to Sylvia.

-oOo-


Photo Finish -
from Lonicera's digital archives

Home Sweet Home

Just for a change I thought it might be interesting
to show you pictures of my home -

(Taken by Shane)
Front of the house


(Taken by Shane)
Back view, before we had the annexe built


Back view, after the annexe was built.  John gardening


Dining-room.  Tiffany (style) lighting much favoured...


Sitting-room,  it must have been birthday-time

Kitchen - I love Mediterranean pottery


...and fridge magnets... and mugs... 


"Caroline's Kitchen"
My father had these tiles made in Valencia, Spain,
an area famous for its pottery.  British visitors are
apt to pronounce the second word "cochina",
as if for Italian, which gives it a whole
new meaning in Spanish
(Caroline The Pig...) 


The walls in the corridor, not quite as bright as this. 
This Tiffany style lamp, which I adore, is quite dim,
and is the only light left on in the evenings there,
so that it'll all glow pinky red. 
The tapestry is a Guitian, from Argentina.


This is the view from the back garden, with cows in the field and the cranes of Portbury Dock in the background.  We've now planted hawthorns the other side of the fence which are quite high, so although we only see this view in winter, it does help protect us from the sounds of the motorway a mile away.


My beloved mimosa (wattle, aromo) which got killed off in the severe frosts last winter.  However there are lots of shoots which have sprung from the base, so I'm hoping it'll grow again.  It blooms in mid winter, and the perfume is incredibly sweet.

-oOo-

Saturday 3 September 2011

Tales from Elsewhere - The Adventures of Arabella

Arabella has been a friend to my partner John for many years.  She is tall, slim and willowy.  Rather than walk, she seems to glide gracefully from one point to another.  She favours shoulder-length hair, which is a mid brown with a shock of white starting from her forehead and streaking across her crown, which gives her a dramatic look.  Sometimes she wears it swept up which suits her very attractive face and the slightly theatrical clothes she wears - on smart occasions you never see her without a delicate looking shawl flung over one shoulder and her skirts are always worn long, just above the ankle.

Her temperament is also interesting.  She has a gentle and languid disposition but can be quite fey at times - she's had spontaneous and madcap plans for the day which take you to some far off place 'in search of treasure', and having joined in reluctantly you find at the end of the day that you've really enjoyed yourself.  She's a fun person, but these stories show a side to her I never knew.


Arabella the Good Samaritan

Arabella accompanied by her son Matthew aged eight were cruising slowly around a very busy multi-storey carpark searching in vain for somewhere to park. She finally saw a space and slowly drove slightly passed it, braked and got into reverse, ready to back into it. She waited for the flashy red car behind her to go past, but it didn't. 

Through her rear view mirror she watched in impotent fury as it quickly nipped forwards into her space in one manoeuvre, then as the driver briskly exited from his car and walked away, but not before she had seen the smug smirk on his face as he popped the keys into his pocket. She eventually found another spot on the same level, after having to wait for a few minutes while the person occupying it filled their boot with parcels and eventually backed out.

After his mother had locked the car, and alert to where the lifts were located from having been there before, Matthew said -

"Mummy, why are we walking that way? We have to go the other way for the lifts."

They had reached the bay where the flashy red car had parked, and Arabella said calmly "this won’t take a minute darling, I just need to look at that gentleman’s car a minute".

"But Mummy, what are you doing to the man’s car?"

She replied in her best soothing and reasonable voice "I noticed he had too much air in his tyres darling, so I’m just letting some out for him".


-oOo-


Arabella the Persecuted

As Arabella drove placidly down the narrow road she was thinking about something else entirely, and suddenly realised that the traffic lights ahead of her had tuned to amber. She put her foot down on the accelerator, at first thinking she might just squeak through, but realised at the last minute that she was mistaken and slammed on the brakes.

This caused the car behind to do likewise, which gave the driver a bit of a fright. In annoyance, he sat on his horn for a few seconds to make his point.  Arabella blithely ignored him.

They proceeded forward again as the lights turned green, and half a mile further on they approached a roundabout.  This gave the prickly driver behind her the opportunity he had been waiting for.  With a roar of his engine he attempted to overtake her, but in desultory fashion Arabella sailed on occupying the middle of the road, which stopped him from doing so.

Then came the next set of traffic lights - red - and she braked gradually, coming to a halt at the head of the queue, with the steaming driver still behind her.  

Unfortunately she hadn’t noticed that the road was now uphill. As she took her foot off the brake, and before the lights had turned to green, her car rolled back into the car behind with a gentle crunch. Arabella braked, and – belatedly – applied the handbrake. The driver of the car behind was clearly apoplectic.

He leaped out of his car as Arabella prudently (and apprehensively) closed the window and locked herself in; for some seconds he screamed abuse at her, shaking his fist, and in his frustration kicked her front tyre. Arabella was now truly alarmed, and cars started to pile up behind and toot.

At this precise moment, a policeman passing on the opposite side of the road in his patrol car saw a man screaming at a woman driver, who looked very scared and helpless. He switched on his siren and did a U-turn in the road, landing up in front of her car. He got out of his car and and went over to Arabella.

Taking out his notebook, he asked "Madam, is this man bothering you?"

Gasping, she replied "Oh sergeant I’m so glad you happened to come by. This man is mad...."

Trying to control his temper the driver pointed at his mangled front bumper and spluttered, "Why you..... Bloody woman, look at what she’s done to my car...!"

"Oh that’s so unfair!" trilled Arabella. "He’s been chasing me down the road from miles back, and I stopped for the red light and he just went into the back of me, and I didn’t know WHAT to do....."

Clearing his throat, the police sergeant growled "Just leave this to me madam"...

There was no damage to her car, and after taking her particulars, he sent her on her way. The last thing Arabella saw in her rear view mirror as she drove away was the driver this time furiously kicking the tyres on his own car.



-oOo-

Photo Finish -
from Lonicera's non-digital archive


Argentina

 From the Andes in Salta, via the provinces of Córdoba & Entre Ríos,
to Buenos Aires and La Boca
















-oOo-
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