More cheerfulness

Just a quick post to let you know I have added some more photos to the "Wendy's Cheerfulness" gallery on my photo website. Click here to go straight to this gallery. The new additions include some pictures of the beautiful bluebells in the woods, sadly now over (though the pink campion was just as pretty the last time I visited).

More of Wendy's wisdom

I thought I'd add this as a new post, rather than add to the previous one on this topic. Here are some more thoughts and sayings that have come to my mind.

• On a walk, she used to call the contents of her pack (extra clothes, gloves, hat, food and drink, etc) her comforts. She was the only one who regularly brought a hot water bottle to a camping barn. We used to joke that she ought to take that on walks too.
• For years, she argued restaurants should have a sleep room, where guests could snooze after a meal. Wendy could sleep anywhere at the drop of a hat, so, though not her joke, we used to encourage her to write The Good Sleep Guide. She never ever saw The Big Sleep all the way through...
  
• She always wanted her porridge to be Baby Bear porridge. That went along with her insistence that any coffee I made for her had to be a nice cup of coffee.
  
• She once talked tactfully about my need to apply suncream to "that bit of your face that goes over the top of your head"
  
• She once said "I sing just like a bird - unfortunately that bird is a crow!"
  
• Wendy loved to watch birds come to the little fountain by our living room patio door for an upside down shower - especially the way blackbirds like to wash under their wingpits.
  
• She complained how boring the wildlife near our garden was. One morning last summer she went into the garden very early to hear a pigeon announce over and over again: "I'm a pigeon..." - yes, I know you are! Then the crows joined in: "Crow, crow" - yes, yes, I know what you are too!
  
• She was annoyed by the irresponsibility of the sandwich-scrounging sheep on Kinder Scout. She told one with a lamb: "You're setting a very bad example to your lamb - you should be teaching it to eat grass!"
  
• In the same vein, she discouraged me from putting out food for the wild birds in summer: "They should be finding their own food, not coming here for free handouts!"
  

3 Peaks Challenge

As you can see, I'm doing some serious walking to raise more money for LOROS. To save you chasing down the link, I'll explain a bit more here: on 12/13 July, I'll be climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in 24 hours (if all goes well!). Tim is coming too, and there are about another 5 or 6 volunteers in the group. We're currently in training, and I'm determined to complete the challenge. LOROS have set the target at £750 per walker, because that is the miminum they need to make a reasonable profit on their costs of supporting us (transport and so on). I want to beat that by as big a margin as I can - please help!
You can go direct to my Justgiving page by clicking on the DONATE button above. Please be generous!