[n. the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. C.18: coined by Horace Walpole, from the Persian fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip, in which the heroes possess this gift.] I wish I could draw. I attribute to artists ungodly and supernatural powers, and strongly suspect they all dabble in the black arts. Even as a child, my own skill with pencil and paintbrush was always considered to be ten degrees worse than incompetent. It has deteriorated since then. In an earlier age, my pathetic attempts at realism would have made me the father of cubism. Digital photography has given me the opportunity of at least pretending I can make a pretty picture. I don’t kid myself that it is anything more than a talent for occasionally pressing the right buttons on a photo-editing screen. With the help of Photoshop and PhotoPlus I have built up a scrapbook of pictures I wish I could have painted. But even these have usually been achieved more by chance than by skill. That doesn’t stop me signing them and claiming them as artwork.

The story we heard on the bus (see yesterday’s post) left Emma feeling sad, and wondering how the woman’s brother had become involved with the young girl from Thailand. A few moments later, I showed her one of many websites with pictures of beautiful young Thai woman seeking husbands to bring them to the West, from where they could support their families back home. Moments later a similar site showed images of attractive Russian women also seeking husbands. (The picture on the right is one of them, chosen at random.) It begs the question how could a Welsh hill-farmer think he would be the ideal partner for a sophisticated Muscovite? Welsh hill-farmers lead isolated lives, their only social contact being with other bachelor farmers when they bring their ewes to market for auction. (Their loneliness often leads to suicide.) It’s easy to see how one of them might be tempted into a marriage of convenience. The Welsh lady’s brother-in-law, a fifty-seven-year-old bachelor living with his mother, also fell victim, despite knowing she had been divorced three time already. What fools we men are when cunt-struck. Incidentally, it won’t be so easy for Emma to find a mail-order replace for Alfie. I’ve checked.

A woman on the bus home from Wrexham last week poured her heart out to Emma and me. This, much abridged, was her story: “Two months ago my brother, who was like a twin to me, phoned me and said he was going to kill himself. His girlfriend from Thailand, twenty-seven years his junior and his first ‘real’ girlfriend, had left him, after telling him she was already married to a man in England. I really thought I had talked him out of it. But a week later he did commit suicide … I’m now on my way back to Aberystwyth, where my hubby is caring for his brother, who is dying of cancer. The brother-in-law is determined to marry a young Russian woman, recently divorced from her third husband, a Welsh farmer. He has already made his will in her favour and has only weeks to live. Olga has already made the arrangements to marry him on his deathbed.” The poor woman had been home to Mold for a few days to settle her brother’s estate. She was now on her way back to the nightmare in Aberystwyth - a six-hour journey involving three buses. We could say nothing to comfort her, but were glad to have been there when she needed to share her story, even if it was with total strangers.

It's the fourth Thursday in November. And we have so much to be thankful for.

[26th November, 1958] Went to Blackpool last night with the chapel youth club to see the lights - or not, as the case may be. Sat uninvited next to Sylvia J. She is fifteen, very shy, very pretty - very Emma-like. Started to kiss her as soon as the coach set off, and we snogged all the way to Blackpool. Two and a half hours without coming up for air. Sweet innocent kisses at first, but by the time we got there, she was kissing open-mouthed and I was drinking her saliva. Definitely no groping, but God I was conscious of her beautiful little tits! I let her take a breather and enjoy the illuminations along the Golden Mile, - as excited as a six-year-old, all oohs and aahs. We shared a bottle of Coke and a cake she’d brought, warm and squashed where she’d sat on it. We snogged all the way back, till my lips were numb. Thought I might get a bit of tit walking her home, but her mother was waiting for her outside the chapel. Damn! Will see her next Tuesday at the senior youth club.

I downloaded a short video from yuvutu recently, and I am mesmerised by it. It depicts a man sharing his wife with friends in a very homely setting. In theatrical terms, it is true kitchen-sink drama, complete with a half-eaten pizza on the breakfast bar. The clip begins with pictures of the wife which would make her instantly recognisable - perhaps intentionally, given the lifestyle the video portrays. (You can watch it here if you want to and have time.) What intrigues me most about the clip (apart from the obvious) is the casual, laid-back approach of the woman and the men who enjoy her. Despite myself, I have to admit that I would love to see Emma being fucked by another man - to watch the bounce of her tits, to see the sweet agony on her face, to hear her cries. But before you volunteer, I also have to say it will never happen. Even had I been able to share her, she would never even have considered it. So I’ll have to be content with seeing pictures of myself doing it to her. A home movie would be nice someday.

In the early years of our marriage, Emma and I lived next door to her parents - well, in reality it was next door to her mother, as her father was mostly away at sea, sensible chap. It was not an ideal situation by any means, but Emma’s parents had sold us the house at a time when we had little choice but to buy it. With tact and diplomacy, we eventually established some ground rules which made the arrangement at least workable. And Emma’s ,other came to accept me as the honest, hard-working, mild-mannered citizen I was. Why else would Emma have chosen me? But after five years we decided to move away. We both found jobs in another county and bought a neat little house on a new estate in Cheshire. Two weeks after moving into a new home (where this picture was taken) we invited Emma’s parents to Sunday lunch, to prove that we hadn’t broken off relations altogether. Emma was serving the sweet when her mother, with a beaming smile, dramatically announced: “We called at the show-house on the way here and spoke to the agent. Guess who’ll be moving in next door?” Aaaaaaagh!

Yesterday Mr and Mrs C returned from their trip and prepared to move into their grand new home above the village. It is a very desirable residence indeed, with fantastic open views across the valley to the mountains beyond. The house is palatial and the rooms spacious and airy. Glamour and/or soft-porn photography would be a doddle if Mr C were into that sort of thing (which he isn’t so far as I know). I could be quite jealous, but I’m not. I appreciate the attraction of a large house, having had a couple. But now I enjoy my mortgage-free, car-free, carefree existence here in the village. Emma too prefers our bijoux pied-de-terre, with its lower running-costs and its proximity to the village shops - even if we have no room to swing a cat and we have to poke our head out of the door to see the mountains. As for me, this (with the usual warning!) is the sort of open view I like best.

Mr and Mrs C, our friendly next -door neighbours took themselves off for a week, giving Emma and me a foretaste of the freedom (from interruption) we will enjoy when they move out of the village for good later this month. Accordingly, we spent a couple of days getting some more photographs to illustrate future posts. At last, we had the opportunity to take some in the living-room again. The intention was to take some shots of Emma, and then for me to join in the action. So far so good. This is one of the pictures I took of Emma in preparation. However, by the time I had set up the camera for the planned one-on-one shots - tripod, remote shutter-release, etc. - my ardour had cooled somewhat. It can happen to anyone! The result, as you can see here if you wish, is an obviously posed shot. Sod’s law being what it is, as soon as the camera was put aside, my virility returned with a vengeance, and I was splashing about in there for real.

I’m not sure who’s in control here, me or the Blog. Ever since I started posting on a daily basis, I don’t feel the day has gone well unless and until I have published yet another piece of trivia, or at least a picture of Emma. I’ve see this condition described elsewhere as blogorrhoea, but in my case I prefer to think of it as CBD - Compulsive Blogging Disorder. I’m a martyr to it. I even have a reserve of posts to publish in case I am away from my desktop for a day or so, or if the Black Cloud of apathy descends upon me. How sad is that? I’m sure there will be a cure out there - some sort of aversion therapy, probably involving electrodes attached to ones genitals. (Or is that Guantanamo Bay?) But like all addictions, you have to want to be cured. And I’m not sure I want to be. For one thing, it gives me the opportunity to see what my Blogging friends have been up to on a daily basis. For another, it gives me a reason/excuse to continue taking and posting photographs of Emma.

I’m with Emelda Marcos on this one. A woman can’t have too many shoes. The ever-frugal Emma doesn’t agree, and has to be persuaded to buy them - but I know her size and, if I see a sexy pair I can afford, I buy them. I’m not sure if it is a full-blown fetish, but I can get quite aroused seeing Emma in sling-back stilettos. Perhaps it goes back to our teenage years. When we first met, Emma Jane was wearing her standard issue school uniform, which included sensible, flat-heeled, lace-up shoes, which squeaked when she walked. And that’s how I saw her for two years, for as long as she was at school and dependent upon her mother to buy her clothes. Then one memorable day, a week after she had left college and started work (as a dressmaker) Emma turned up for our date transformed. She was suddenly a woman. And what I noticed most was her high-heeled sling-backs. Those shoes did wonderful things to the shape of her legs and to the way she walked. An instant and powerful erection was the result. Then, as now.

I told you I would come up with an acceptable Christmas present for Emma - since she refused to accept the tumble drier as a suitable gift. We spent a long weekend at Eva’s place last week with only a visit to an Outlet Village to relieve the monotony. I quickly discovered that outlet village, is a euphemism for a hundred shops selling cut-price expensive clothing - still expensive despite the alleged cuts. We have no sex when staying at Eva’s, by long-established tradition. However, Emma was so kind as to let me buy her a designer coat for the winter, which has earned me a million Brownie Points to be cashed in for sexual favours on our return home. I think I’ll be cashing them in a few at a time. I’m not sure my aging heart would stand the strain of a million BPs worth of sex in one session. Given the present economic situation, I’m not sure what the going rate is for a blowjob but - if you dare to look - here I am on a previous occasion, having cashed in a few Brownie Points earned for changing a light-bulb.

I was quite surprised one day last week, after our photo-session, when Emma said to me, “I’m a bit more relaxed in front of the camera lately, for some reason.” Comfortable in front of the camera? I hadn’t noticed her being particularly camera-shy over recent decades. Pressed for an explanation, she admitted that she no longer frets about what images I post on the Blog and she doesn’t insist that her face is pixilated out of existence. The fact is she quietly enjoys the thought that other men might still lust after her. So thanks, guys, for those appreciative comments. I’m sure one reason for Emma’s changed attitude is the content warning recently imposed on us by Blogger. No-one can now chance upon the Blog without knowing what to expect. Although I’m equally sure she would prefer not to be “outed”, it is no longer the worry it was. In principal, Emma now agrees with me - if people find shots like this offensive, that’s their problem.

One of the disadvantages of living in a cottage is that the rooms are so small compared with other houses we have lived in. When taking photographs indoors, it is difficult to get enough distance between camera and subject. To take a full-length picture of Emma, she has to stand too close to the opposite wall to avoid harsh shadows on the background. You can see it clearly here though it is not a full-length. Few of our walls are uncluttered with radiators, pictures, light-switches, etc. - distractions which often need to be edited out. One-on-one pictures are even more of a problem. We simply can’t get far enough from the camera, which often has to be placed too close to the wall to see the viewfinder. I’ve lost count of the number of times heads have been cut off. Mostly, they have to be discarded. Occasionally however, there is enough going on in the picture to make it worth while keeping, like this one. Nice tits if nothing else.

I hesitated to put Wrexham on the list of places we like. For one thing, it is almost completely anglicised - almost as unWelsh as Liverpool. Emm and I go there frequently, but as often as not it is to one of its quieter suburbs, where we are periodically required to live celibate lives, while looking after a delinquent dog and an antisocial cat. However, Wrexham itself is a thriving town, with a wide range of shops and department stores to cater for all pockets and tastes. It even has a sex-shop, which I visited once. It was the seediest, most dismal shop I have ever been in, and was reason in itself for shopping online. But the town is also blessed with a wealth of fashion shops. When Emm tires of shopping we head for the Elihu Yale for a drink. (Elihu Yale is considered Wrexham’s most famous son, though he was actually born in Boston, Massachusetts. His family moved to Wales when he was only four, and he never returned to America. However, having made his fortune, he sent a large donation to a newly established college in Connecticut, which was renamed in his honour. This was to become Yale University.)

It turned out that my all-in-one and my negative scanner were “not worth repairing”. Labour charges being what they are, it will be cheaper to replace them. What a way to run a planet! So today I sent away for the replacements, and for a new camera. This will apparently be my combined birthday and Christmas present. As a child I was invariably conned by “combined” birthday and Christmas presents - the curse of being born in mid-December. My parents would always ask if I wanted separate minor presents, or one major one. I fell for it every time. My “major” present at Christmas never amounted to anything more than my brothers received. They had the sense to be born in April, March and August. Incidentally, I tried to say that the tumble-drier we bought last month was my Christmas present to Emma, but she wasn’t at all happy with the suggestion. I’m sure I’ll come up with something more personal.

It is interesting to know that most mammals have a penis bone, known as the baculum or os penis. The only primates not to have a bone in the penis are humans and - you’ve guessed it - spider monkeys. It has been speculated that Eve was made out of Adam’s penis bone, rather than his rib. This would explain why men and women have the same number of ribs, but men do not have a penis bone. It would also explain (if you believe in such fairy stories) why there is a scar running down the underside of the penis and scrotum, where the flesh would have been closed up. What happened to the spider monkey’s penis bone is anybody’s guess, but I really miss my baculum. And if I were to be granted an extra bone, I would certainly elect to have it in my penis. What a boon it would be on those occasions when the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. At least I now know what to say to Emma when I fail to rise to the occasion: If I still had a penis bone, you wouldn’t be here to enjoy it.

This Blog, in case you hadn’t noticed, is to a large extent an essay in praise of the older woman - more specifically, mine. It’s considered rude to ask (or to divulge) a lady’s age, which precludes me from boasting “Emma isn’t bad for ---, is she?” Not that Emma herself has ever been precious about such things. She readily admits to her age when asked directly, and is amused - and I suspect secretly pleased - by the invariable answer: “You can’t be!” Asking for concessionary fares and other pensioners’ perks, often leads to suspicious looks. What sort of skinflint tries to get a cheap meal by pretending to be older than she is? Bus-drivers roll their eyes and shake their heads in similar disbelief when she flashes her bus-pass. Despite enjoying the flattery, Emma never explains why she looks younger than she is. It’s not a portrait hidden in the attic like Dorian Gray’s. It is, she insists, the by-product of being in love (with me, thank God) and of enjoying regular sex (with me, thank God).

I’ve not noticed anyone on my Blog-list refer to the credit crunch and the global economic crisis. It’s good to know that Emma and I are not the only ones to care more about loving than about high finance. In the present climate, we feel almost guilty for not having any financial worries, despite not being wealthy - or perhaps because we are not. We feel deeply sorry for those who may lose their jobs or even their homes through no fault of their own. And you may be sure of this: those most responsible for the mess will suffer the least hardship. Until recently, every other advert on television was offering loans to people with poor credit ratings, who had been turned down by other loan companies. Banks were falling over each other to offer mortgages to people who hadn’t even managed to save a minimal deposit. Countless credit cards were freely available, no questions asked. And no-one saw the dangers? Don’t make me laugh. They were well aware of the dangers of providing poorly-secured loans. They simply sold the loans on, playing a bizarre game of musical chairs and hoping to be the sole survivor. Bankers? *ankers!

Today is Remembrance Sunday. Emma and I will join many others at the local cenotaph to pay our respects to those who died in wars to end all wars. Eight of my uncles saw active service in World War II - six in the army, fighting in France and Egypt, and two in Bomber Command. They all survived. My extended family all lived in a heavily industrialised square mile which lay between a busy airfield and the docks. Despite incessant air-raids, we all escaped the bombs. As a large family we were indeed fortunate. My grandfather fought in the trenches in World War I and lived to try to forget. Emma’s family, smaller in number, also came through the wars unscathed. So who do we think of to make our vigil personal? William Jenkins is the first name carved on the local cenotaph. All we know of him is that he was killed in action in the First World War - and that he lived in the cottage where Emma and I now live. I wonder what heart-ache lies behind that inscription? And a million others.

If Emma had known these things, it would have saved us both awkward moments in the first few weeks of our married life (when she looked like this):
1. Don’t give your mother a house-key. She might let herself in when Alfie is fucking you in front of the fire.
2. Don’t tell friends in the pub that Alfie gave you a pearl necklace for Christmas. Just say “a necklace” or perhaps “a string of pearls”.
3. Don’t take the expression “blow-job” too literally. Sucking is usually considered preferable.
4. Don’t leave your crotchless panties where you mother will find them and tell you they need mending.
5. Don’t expect Alfie to come as copiously the third time as he did the first - at least not before breakfast.
6. Don’t use Alfie’s safety-razor to de-fluff a sweater and then leave it for him to shave his pubes with.
7. Don’t hang a fortnight’s boxer-shorts out to dry at the same time. Your mother will ask if Alfie is incontinent.
8. Don’t shout “Come and get me while I’m hot!” from the bedroom until you’re quite sure Alfie hasn’t brought his boss home to meet you.

Officially, Emma and I live in a bilingual country. To the occasional consternation of visitors to our beautiful little country, our road signs appear in both English and Welsh. Swansea and Abertawe, for example, are one and the same place. As a Welsh speaker, I often notice incorrectly translated signs in shops and other public buildings - a petty annoyance. This sign however, erected in Abertawe, attracted the attention of the media. The Swansea highways department had sent an email to a translation agency, asking them to translate the words “No entry for heavy vehicles. Residential site only.” They were pleasantly surprised at the speedy response by email, and had the sign made and erected. Unfortunately, the email response had said: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send in any work to be translated.”

Remember, remember, the fifth of November -
Gunpowder treason and plot;
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot. [Anon]

And I see no reason why I should take the trouble of creating another collage to mark the occasion. It’s been twelve months since I posted this one, and the chances are that you missed it first time round. For those of you unfamiliar with British traditions, Guy Fawkes Day celebrates the attempt to blow up James I and Parliament at Westminster on 5th November, 1605. Unfortunately for Guy, the attempt was unsuccessful. James, described by the King of France, as “the wisest fool in Christendom”, reigned for another twenty years, and fathered Charles I - the one who lost his head.

What happens in the U.S. affects US all. For that reason I am still awake - just about - having stayed up all night to await the election result. We share in the celebration of Obama's victory and pray that he will succeed in uniting the nation. God bless America. [And now to catch up on some sleep.]

It was a recent post on Cuckold Husband’s Blog tagged Panty-Flashing that prompted me to post this picture. Any excuse! In my youth I remember Worms Eye View was a regular feature in one of the girlie mags. It was devoted to the habit of looking up ladies’ skirts. Odd that an illicit glimpse of a girl’s panties could be as much of a turn-on as more explicit images in the same magazine. On my very first date with my schoolgirl sweetheart Emma, I couldn’t avoid looking up her skirt as she climbed the stairs on the bus. The contrast of her slender brown legs and pristine white knickers blew my adolescent mind. Political Correctness tells me I should have stricken the image from my mind by now, but the memory refuses to fade. The legs are not as spindly now, but it’s still a view to stir the loins of this ancient pervert. We still go everywhere by bus but, as befits a woman of her age, Emma no longer wears skirts short enough to flash her panties. More’s the pity.

I am indebted to my vade mecum A Miscellany of Sex for this little gem. Apparently, when a woman in Cali, Colombia, has sex for the first time with her husband, her mother must also be present. As the sites Google referred me to simply repeat this assertion almost verbatim with no additional details, I am not taking it as gospel. On the same page, my little book alleges that shop-girls in Liverpool are forbidden to go topless unless they work in shops selling tropical fish. Now I have been in both tropical-fish shops in central Liverpool, and none of the girls offered to get her tits out for the customers. But to return to the Cali bye-law. I’m not sure that I could have risen to the occasion with the old battle-axe in attendance. We’re talking straight-laced, kill-joy Puritanism here. I can just imagine her snarling, “You’re not going near my daughter with that, you animal!”

….. are sent to try us. We all know bad things come in threes. A couple of weeks ago I had to reboot my laptop from the recovery disk following a disastrous crash. Three hours wasted. A week ago, the said laptop suddenly announced it could not communicate with the scanner. The guys at Epson advised me to uninstall and reinstall their software. Two hours wasted - no joy. They suggested disenabling everything on my start-up menu, and re-enabling the items one item at a time. Another hour wasted - still no joy. Get the scanner checked, they said. No problem - apart from the five-hour round trip to the nearest computer store! In the meantime, I thought, I can use the scanner of the all-in-one connected to my desktop. Today an ominous grinding noise came from the all-in-one’s printer, and now it keeps telling me there’s a paper-jam when their isn’t. Never mind, I can take it to the store when I go to collect my scanner. Another five-hour trip. And yet another when I collect the all-in-one. At least my other equipment seems to be in working order.

No sun - no moon - no morn - no noon -

No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member -

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -

November!

[Thomas Hood , 1799-1845]
Hood doesn’t say in which member there is “no comfortable feel”. Perhaps it’s one that
From its ice shall be released
And soothed by [Emm’s] reviving hand
In former warmth and vigour stand.
[John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 1647-1680]