Bits and pieces

It's been a very cold couple of days here, I've hardly stirred from the house except to get groceries and flea treatment for Thomas. We're going to try a new one, hopefully that will not make him crazy with the smell as did Frontline and Advantage. So tomorrow is the big day and I'm bracing myself for the heart-rending behaviour that will no doubt follow. Poor Thom, it's tough having fleas, even tougher getting rid of them.
     I did go out and pick some violets, that's them in the little glass vase in the picture. I also picked some hellebores which promptly drooped. The trick to stopping this is (as I found from the Internet) to re-cut them under water. Apparently an air-bubble forms when you cut them off the plant, so the water in the vase can't get up to the flower. They are nice and perky now.
    The decluttering is going on apace. The spare room is full of stuff that must now be delivered to the Sallies or taken to recycling. Finally getting rid of stuff of Mum's that I've felt too guilty to dispose of, even some really old stuff like the ex-husband's presents to me (two books, the very rare times he bothered to give me a birthday present at all, apart from a punching-bag (?) and a perfume that he ended up wearing himself!!!!), and a book of mine that he had re-bound and ruined. I don't know why I kept them, probably because I was afraid of being "over-sensitive" about material objects, (he always accused me of being over-sensitive, classic bullying behaviour) but these things still cause me pain when I look at them, so out they go.
   Painful stuff going on at work at the moment, too. Someone has written an anonymous letter to the Big Boss complaining about the Little Bosses, so now there's a witch-hunt on to discover the miscreant. I wish the writer hadn't done this, because now we're all under suspicion. (No, it wasn't me, even though I am a potty-mouthed underachiever; just between you and me, I don't care enough to give myself the trouble of writing an anonymous letter and creating all the fallout therefrom among my colleagues, all of whom I like and don't wish to distress. And I still need the job, because I need the money). Sigh.
  Next post, I'll take you back to Sansepolcro, then on to Arezzo to a wonderful couple on an organic B&B (my favourite stay). Then I'll finish my trip with a visit to the Franciscan sanctuary of La Verna, a very beautiful and special place. (I've just had an on-line argument with someone about St. Francis, my opponent castigated Francis for being a "self-indulgent madman", and the contemplative life as a complete waste of time. One of those bloody extroverts, no doubt, a "don't just sit there, do something, even if it is quite useless, at least you can say you're busy" types.) I never thought I'd be sticking up for a Catholic saint, but there I am, and no one is more surprised than me!