THE SONGS OF A NIGHTINGAIL

  The first sort of desk I remember sitting at – from first through 6th grades. In 1967 my desk at work was being moved to a new location.  From the looks of things my in-basket and my out-basket were about the same size so I guess I was keeping up with things well enough. I used my closed up sewing machine as a small desk after I married and lived in a little 4-room log cabin. I found this neat little number in a second-hand furniture store after we moved into a 2-room schoolhouse renovated into a 5 bedroom home with a large family room and room for more furniture. This pine roll-top desk was a thrift shop find for $50.  New, in catalogs, the desk retailed for $200.  The only thing wrong with it were a couple of insignificant scratches and one drawer knob missing and I did eventually find a replacement.  The ladder-back chair was also a thrift shop acquisition. This French style desk came from a second-hand furniture shop.  It usually sat under the window,...

  Clovelly (pronounced Clove-ily as in happily or merrily) Harbor. The light-colored building on the left is the Red Lion Hotel.   Clovelly is an historic, car-free village nestled on a cliff known for its cobbled traffic-free streets and working port. Visitors can park their vehicles at the visitor center up top and either walk down or take a Land Rover service, which operates from Easter to October, to the harbor for a small charge. The Land Rover service is a convenient way to get around the village, especially for those with mobility issues or who prefer not to walk the steep streets. Donkeys traditionally carried goods up the hill (they no longer do, but are stabled nearby for visitors to visit with), while sledges bring things down, which is a unique feature of Clovelly.’   The village itself is best explored on foot on a cobbled street leading down to the harbor with a few narrow dead-end side streets.  There are 83 houses in Clovelly and all of them...

  Within my extended family are several shutterbugs and especially at our Lake Tahoe summer reunions the cameras quickly come out and start clicking away! My cousin George and I accidentally started a fun thing one year that continued through many summers.  It began quite innocently.  He was taking a picture of our crowd at a camp potluck from one direction at exactly the same time I was taking a picture of the group from the opposite direction and we wound up taking a picture of each other taking a picture.  We laughed. The next year we did it deliberately, and the year after that, and the year after that until after a while others decided to get in on the fun and it became a sort of family tradition to be involved. J      1999 – My cousin Marian has her camera ready, my brother is shooting from the door of the RV, and George is snapping away straight at me. On the other end of that, yours truly & cousin, Ro, are shooting back! 1999 – my young...