Animals and Nature

I have a personal link to poinsettia plants. I can look at this potted plant in very different ways.  I am delighted to have it as a living indoor plant that adds extra color and brightness to our decorations at a time when our Davis garden is quite bare. Its red canopy atop and the circles of deep green leaves excel in their role of displaying the traditional colors of Christmas: green and red.

I loved my job as a field officer for Animal Control in spite of the parts of the job that were heartbreaking and other parts that were unpleasant to different degrees. Most of my days were exciting, rewarding, entertaining and fun.

My Uncle Les owned a pub, called the Black Swan, in Casnewedd (Newport) just over the Welsh border from England. It was a plain, scrubbed and weathered city pub, but as a “free house” Uncle Les independently negotiated purchase of beer from those breweries he preferred at beneficial prices.

A horse had been on the top of every Christmas and birthday list since I was about four, when I first started to ride. I was now thirteen, and we had moved the last year from the busy village of Ixworth, with its small back garden, to Greenacre, a red brick house in the tiny, quiet village of Chevington where we had over an acre of garden and orchard.