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Memories are made of this
Daffodil Day, the annual fund-raising event for the Cancer Council, is a time to honour cancer survivors, those battling this insidious disease and to remember those who didn't make it.
Daffodil Day evokes memories of my mother, Dorothea, who died in England on September 21, 1989. She fought cervical cancer for four years then started to get a pain in her left hip. It was thought to be sciatica but eventually a shadow was picked up on her pelvis, denoting she was suffering from secondary bone cancer.
I went back to Nottingham in the February to support her during the radiotherapy treatment. She was in a lot of pain but uppermost in her mind was the fact that her precious roses, of which she had about 300, had not been pruned, a task she normally performed with relish in November/December.
As a child I had no interest in gardening so I protested at any request for help, much to her chagrin. Every year, reluctantly, I helped her to prune the thorny devils. My hands looked like raw meat when I'd finished but, according to my mother, you wore those wounds as a badge of honour.
And she was always thrilled with the results. Looking back at the skeletal remains, she'd say proudly: "They will look gorgeous next summer after all our hard work."
So her concern that the roses had not been pruned, despite her ill health, was understandable. And by now I was also a dedicated gardener so understood her anguish far more than when I was a little girl.
I foraged around in the cellar where she kept the gardening tools, found a pair of rose pruners and embarked on the Herculean task of cutting back her pride and joy. It was a cold day and I worked my way through methodically from the front garden to the back, determined to finish that day. Every now and then I'd look up and see my mother's pinched, white face at the window looking down at me. I'd wave and she'd reciprocate.
Eventually, after about five hours, I pruned the last rose. Just as my mother used to, I stretched my aching back, then stood back and admired my handiwork. They'll look gorgeous in summer, I thought. At the back of my mind was the thought that maybe she wouldn't be alive to see them.
When I went back inside, my mother gave me a hug, then took my face in her hands and said: "Thank you, darling. I feel so much better now." I still get a lump in my throat when I think about it.
Sadly, she had to go into a hospice for the last two months of her life so she didn't see her roses in all their summer glory.
When I went back to see her before she died, she was almost in a coma. I cut a big bunch of her favourite roses, and placed them on the bed. At the same time, I gave her a big kiss and said, "I've come to see you and I've bought you something gorgeous." She let out a big sigh. My mother knew I was there.
As well as roses, my mother also had a lilac tree which in spring was a picture with its purple perfumed racemes a glorious sight to behold. I also have a lilac tree which flowers beautifully in spring and oddly, throws off some strange ball-like flowers in late autumn.
Over the past couple of years the trunk and some major branches have split, which Peter Cundall told me was probably due to too much water or not enough. Either way it's still standing and has lots of buds.
A reader asked me about lilacs and they do need a fairly sharp winter to mature the wood sufficiently to produce flower buds. Anyone who put one in last year should be in for a treat come spring after the winter we've had.
The common lilac or English/European species Syringia vulgaris has many cultivars. During winter cut the tops off the more vigorous stems to produce side shoots as this new growth carries next season's flowers. Lilacs like a slightly limy, well drained soil.
Californian or wild lilac (Ceanothus) has many cultivars in blue, lavender and violet and comes in prostrate forms and tall shrubs. Plant in well drained soil and prune after flowering. Good for seaside planting.
And I have to make a decision about one of my standard 'Alphonse Anderson' azaleas (above). The one on the left has been getting sicker and sicker for about three months despite many attempts to revive it. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and let the healthy one flower, then pull them both out, give them a heavy prune, pot them up and see what happens. I will buy two more to replace them.
- Posted by bygadd at 4:08 PM
- Comments (3)
Cundall still a tour de force
Well the sun is still rising every morning (when we can see it) despite horticultural Trojan, Peter Cundall, retiring as host of Gardening Australia for the past 19 years. He realised about seven months ago that he'd rather do something else and instead he will concentrate on writing books, doing radio programs and continuing his fight again the Gunns pulp mill to be built in the Tamar Valley where Peter lives with his wife, Tina.
But we'll miss him. Peter, who describes himself as a "modest old geezer" has taught us how to plant, prune, sow and grow organic fruit and vegetables. He is passionate about growing your own saying they taste better and are far healthier than store-bought produce.
Anyway we look forward to his next endeavours which definitely won't include retiring. He doesn't want to turn into a boring old codger. As if!
The recent rains have been lovely and recently I moved an Echium candicans (the jury's still out on whether it will take given the droopiness of the leaves) but the soil was quite damp for a fair way down so that means the water is penetrating rather than just running off the top.
So here we are in the last month of winter and there are lots of things to be done in the garden either planting, weeding or planning for spring. Now's the time to start thinking about trees. Do you want something deciduous with autumn colour (make sure it's not precious in a drought situation) or maybe one of the smaller Australian species that are now available such as a dwarf eucalypt or a small but shapely mallee gum, an acacia or the Christmas bush which features shiny leaves and sprays of star-like flowers in spring. Then there's blueberry ash, banksias, hakeas, bottlebrushes, lilly-pillys, agonis, lemon-scented myrtle and many more.
On the vegie front plant seeds of pak choi, rhubarb, silverbeet, beetroot, broccoli, beans, celery and lettuce and think about what tomatoes you want for summer. There are so many varieties now I'll have to do a separate blog to list them all!
And to all you lovely gardeners who contacted me on my blog after my Sheba, a constant gardener, had to have the green cocktail. That was 16 months ago and I have bitten the bullet and adopted two ragdoll cats who are also constant gardeners. Monty and Bella love nothing better than exploring their new territory - a pot is Bella's favourite resting place - and Monty loves checking out the birdbath for any stray koi. They are enchanting and the garden is all the richer for their presence.
- Posted by bygadd at 3:36 PM
- Comments (5)


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When September rolls around, it is always interesting to see how local girls' volleyball players are doing as they extend their playing days in college.
Whether they play one season or all four years, it is a special time in their lives.
Newport Harbor's Maddy Brown and Corona del Mar's Megan Griffin are finding some playing time at TCU. Maddy is playing well as a back-up outside hitter, while Megan is the back-up setter behind Megan Munce. Munce, a former Newport star, was an All American two season ago, but suffered season-ending ACL injury early last season. She has recovered fully and leads her team in assists and service aces. Megan's toughness in her recovery is not a surprise to any of us who were lucky enough to coach her. That list includes Steve Conti (at Ensign), Dan Glenn (Newport) and Gary Nakamura and myself (club).
Prentice Perkins Lewis, who was a former All-CIF soccer and volleyball player at CdM in the late 1980s coaches the Horned Frogs. TCU is currently undefeated with two tournament championships. Munce was all-tournament in both events.

subset: commoncrawl


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Maureen Evans Arthurs '13, Gender and Women's Studies, serves on the National Student Advisory Council for the American Association of University Women.
"Why don't you show us what's underneath that towel, baby?"
I heard this shouted from a car of four young men, no older than 19, hanging out the window, being obnoxious. I had been walking home alone one summer afternoon after swim practice in my suburban neighborhood and immediately looked around to see if anyone else was walking near me when I realized I was alone, ashamed, and powerless. I'd like to think if I had been older, I would have been less afraid or maybe even shouted something back. But I was 13, relatively quiet, and awkwardly uncomfortable in most settings, let alone one I had just been harassed in. Back then, I never realized there was a term for what I had experienced (street harassment) nor that there was an impending movement to educate about it and eradicate it.
This was the start of a personal story I shared on the AAUW Community blog in recognition of Meet Us on the Street, an annual week of anti-street-harassment activism, held April 7–13 this year. The campaign serves as a platform for activism, discussions and demonstrations around the world, for women and men to advocate for safer spaces that are free of catcalling, groping and lewd gestures. At UMBC, the group WILL (Women Involved in Learning and Leadership) hosted Chalk Outs and conducted a survey to gauge students' perceptions of safety and street harassment on campus.
As I write in my AAUW post, I still experience street harassment today, but the difference between how I felt when harassed at 13 versus now is that I can calmly and confidently flip the power balance and confront my harassers. Taking a stand is the first step to educating and influencing the behavior of street-harassment perpetrators.
I welcome you to read my original blog post for details and to see more photos of WILL's Chalk Out campaign. Want to take a stand yourself? Come to UMBC's 1st Take Back the Night on April 30th.
Contact the author, Maureen Evans Arthurs, at email@example.com.


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Building a product that people want to use repeatedly is very hard. Unfortunately, we often see early stage technology startups that have yet to give serious thought to hiring a designated product manager. It's a collaborative role that brings together user experience, business and technology, and has evolved to include analytics, managing releases, but also writing agile stories and creating wireframes. All while keeping the eye on what's best for the product.
This November, Jam Conference will have it's second edition. If you want to learn about product management from some of the best stories in 2016 – Deliveroo, Monzo, Intercom, Facebook – and to find out how these companies go about building groundbreaking products, we encourage you attend this conference.
"These are the questions we asked ourselves two years ago when we were working together in an ad tech startup" explains Mathilde Leo, one of the co-founders of JAM. "We were building a complex product, and not being hugely experienced, we learned through trial and error. We also often wondered how the products we use every day get built and wanted to learn from others' experiences".
JAM is a 1-day event which will reveal the stories behind the products you know and love. Last year's inaugural conferencebrought together 200 people from the tech startup scene, a mix of founders, product and design people, developers and everything in between.
JAM 2016 will take place on Friday, 4 November at Oval Space, Bethnal Green. "We've secured an impressive lineup from top companies including Deliveroo, Monzo, Intercom, Lyst, Facebook to name just a few, and have received support from the event from Founders Factory, Deliveroo, Wizeline and Twilio."


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So My Ex Is Dating A Man
I've always assumed, as generalizations go, that not sleeping with someone helped determine whether the relationship had a future just as much as sleeping with someone helps determine that for others. Today, the focus is my ex and the fact that she's dating a guy now. Yes, that ex. The one you never imagined in a million years would cross over or back over to the other side. And neither did she. I figured around late last year she had been feeling very lonely, and needy for affection and attention after getting over an abusive ex, and tultumotous relationship. I always thought the affection would naturally come from another woman. So when she worked up the nerve to tell me all about him, you could imagine my surprise. Disbelief. Only after engaging in serious discourse did I begin to think a bit more critically about the situation. It's been over a week since she dropped the bomb on me and I'm over the initial emotional disconnect that set on immediately following, and now I'm in the "who, what, where, when and why" phase. It was like I instinctually recoiled from learning something that went against everything I knew to be true. I felt justified at first, but in reality my reaction was in stark contrast to the previous knowledge that she had been dating a woman and planned to become very serious with her just 2 years prior. I internalized that memory and pushed it to the forefront of my mind because I needed to be able to check myself down the road. It was bound to happen. I was being forced to reconsider a lot of things relating to sexuality all at once.
My ex had her own reservations about telling me. For that reason, she put it off for months. We'd chat like nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. For instance, she'd been asking a myriad of questions past and present relating to having children, maintaining a new relationship, and different relationship scenarios. I gladly advised her under with the premise that the questions had much to do with another woman. I was thrown for a loop. But I wouldn't have been completely thrown had she not hid the fact that she was serious about this guy, D, the whole time. I had a feeling prior to this that she was seeing someone she didn't want me to know about, but I thought it was an undesireable individual and she felt I'd unfairly judge her. As far as it being a guy, well I was never that forward thinking. You see, ex-girlfriends can be extra demanding if you allow them, especially when either one or both of you is already in a serious relationship. More time spent with the other person means less time spent whining to me about her lack of options, and I never insisted when we'd talk so she was able to allude telling me.
A little back story first. Their sexual relationship didn't begin on firm ground, and that's more his fault than hers, but both of theirs really. Male insecurity, jealousy, the whole nine was the reason he stopped talking to her. When they initially began a sexual relationship, she brought another woman into the mix, a femme lesbian who had no physical contact with D during sex, but she had plenty of it with my ex. D was okay with it being a femme lesbian, but when she brought a stud home just to hang out with, he copped an attitude and left without saying anything, and hadn't talked to her since that night. She was compelled to tell me about the situation with D because no one else's advice was working and she was at her wits end.
It annoyed me to know the reason behind his diss. Like he didn't know she was a lesbian all this time, but there he was just as confused as I, probably more so when his sexual advances started being received. He felt threatened, insecure, and all the usual male responses to bringing a stud or butch lesbian around. On the other hand my ex was hurting and I could tell she had developed feelings for him. A threesome already though?That isn't exactly a promising sign of relationship longevity, but you never know, right? Times have changed and it's apparent to me that both of them have genuine feelings for each other to varying degrees. For the moment, I brought my thoughts out of the twilight zone and stopped thinking about her sexing this guy to further avoid reacting with biased disdain. Plus, I was taking the shit personally. As if all of her relationships with women were so terrible, including ours, that she decided it was in her best interest to start dating men. Less hassle, less stress? A misconception if I ever heard one, hence the reason she needed my advice. I was determined to give her some damn good advice too, but not before letting her know how I really felt about everything. I asked if she considered herself bisexual or lesbian. I could tell she was offended by the question, but she said she still considered herself a lesbian. I couldn't understand how she was so certain about that considering the sexual relationship. I viewed the declaration as a threat to the sanctity of lesbian identity right down to the core of what makes us who we are.
Ultimately, my ex dating a man challenges a lot of my thinking about sexuality. The fluidity in sexuality we often hear of is true and that fluid identity is inherently natural in most people whether they believe it or not. Is it more mental than physical? I'm unaware, but what I do know is that she confirms her lesbianism by emphatically stating her attraction to women hasn't gone anywhere. She is simply open to the idea of emotional and physically loving a man. I have a fleeting suspicision it's far more than that. Does our need for sexual and/or emotional fulfillment implore that we look outside of ourselves when it comes right down to it? I do believe the need for arousal dictates that we can be discriminating in our tastes when it comes to being fulfilled while posessing the ability and mentality to make those reservations more or less so important depending on the circumstances. This has been proven time and time again. I wanted to be pissed off for a variety of reasons, but I narrowed it down to the fact that she played into a stereotype, and the oldest in the book as it relates to straight men and lesbians, without bothering to consider the consequences. I expressed my disappointment about it, and she agreed mainly because it led us to where we're at now. My ex is a lesbian and I have never once thought otherwise until now. I asked a ton of questions that day, but it ended with my support of her relationship regardless of who it's with, as long as it's healthy and free of abuse of any kind. I don't agree with her refusal to consider that she is quite possibly bisexual, but I respect the way she sees herself despite any reservations on my part.


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Spurred by renewed fears of the fabled "Big One" shattering the West Coast, the Obama administration on Tuesday promoted stronger earthquake-preparedness efforts as part of a first-of-its-kind White House summit. Private foundation grants will fund new research at universities in California and Washington state, the Forest Service will streamline the placement of seismic monitoring stations and a presidential order will tighten standards for new federal buildings.
"While no one can predict earthquakes, the study of natural hazards and their causes and impacts has put us on the path to creating more effective tools to prevent these hazards from becoming disasters," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said.
The Gods at War! What Makes Rain, Hail, Snow and Earthquakes?
Snow and Earthquakes." Seismic activity as we know it today with the moving of tectonic plates causing continental drifts and the breaking apart of land and sea actually began in the making of our moon 66 trillion years ago. In chapter one of "Message to the Blackman," by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we are given our fundamental study on the origin of the person of God with the question in Part I—"Who Is That Mystery God?" "For thousands of years, the people who did not have the knowledge of the person, or reality, of God worshipped their own ideas of God. He has been made like many things other than what He really is. … According to Allah, the origin of such teachings as a Mystery God is from the devils! It was taught to them by their father, Yakub, 6,000 years ago. They know today that God is not a mystery but will not teach it. He (devil), the god of evil, was made to rule the nations of earth for 6,000 years, and naturally he would not teach obedience to a God other than himself."


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Geronimo Stilton: Secret Agent by Geronimo Stilton and illustrations by Cleo Bianca and Christian Aliprandi
Geronimo Stilton's grandfather gave Geronimo a important document of the Rodent's Gazzette. But Geronimo accidentally lost the document.But with a little help from Geronimo's old elementary friend and secret agent friend,Kornelious Von Kickpaw comes to town, Geronimo can be safe. But Geronimo needed to find that document before 9:00 am.Can Geronimo fin the document before 9:00 am or will he lose the Rodent's Gazzete forever?
My favorite part of the book was when Geronimo found the document but the real document was with his grandfather.He wanted to know how much the rodent's gazette meant to him and it really did mention something to him.
If you like funny books,you'll like this book!
This book's genre is mystery. This book's story line is funny. This book left me feeling cheerful. On a scale of 1-5, I give this book a 5!
This review was written and submitted by 2nd grader Samantha.


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Professor Jean Paul STAHL
Professor of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, CHU of Grenoble,
Grenoble, France.
E-mail: JPSTahl(at)chu-grenoble.fr
Phone: +33476765291; Fax: +33476765838.
Dr. Davorka DUSEK
University Hospital for Infectious Diseases "Dr. Fran Mihaljevic"
Mirogojska 8
HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
EBID Chairperson/Vice President
Dr. Nicholas BEECHING
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, Liverpool, L3 5QA, United Kingdom
E-mail: beeching(at)liverpool.ac.uk
EBAID Chairperson
Professor Andrew ULLMANN
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine II
97080 Würzburg, Germany
E-mail: andrew.ullmann(at)uni-wuerzburg.de