The expression, ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, is perfect for Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream.
Occasionally I try something different, but I always come back to this beauty classic.

This wonder product has been around for many years, and despite the hype I never tried it ……. until a bout of impulse purchasing came over me at Heathrow airport.
This was a few years ago now, and at the time I think Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream cost about £22, and I just happened to notice that at the airport it was only £11.
So as it was half price I thought I’d try it.

I had often read that this product is a favourite of supermodels who fly frequently and want protect their skin from the drying effects of flying.
I’d read so many good things about this ‘miracle’ cream, but I didn’t expect to resemble a supermodel, or even a regular model, after applying this stuff.
But I was very pleasantly surprised. I looked great, well my skin looked great.
I always get horribly dry skin when I fly, and at this time Richard and I were flying a lot.
We both used this cream, and despite the unpleasant texture, colour and scent, we liked it.
Our flight was delayed, we sat on the runway for a couple of hours, but when we finally landed in the Turks and Caicos Islands; Provo, our skin was lovely and fresh and moisturised, and happy.
There wasn’t a dry patch anywhere. Sheer bliss.

Ever since then I have tried many other products of this ilk and none of them are as good, at least not for my skin.
The only down side to using Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream is that if it touches my lips it brings me out in a cold sore - nasty.
So I keep it well away from my mouth, and apart from that, I love it.
It is quite thick and sticky, so sometimes I mix a few drops of pure Vitamin E oil into it, to loosen the consistency, and it seems to help it sink into my skin easier.
Depending where you purchase this cream it costs about £20 for 50ml.

Ingredients ~ Petrolatum 56.8%, Lanolin, Mineral Oil, Fragrance, Salicylic Acid, Propylparaben, Castor Oil, Corn Oil, Tocopherol, BHT, Iron Oxides.

Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream is a skin-care classic that was originally created in 1930.
It can be used to on practically every part of the body.

Elizabeth Arden describe it as ~
A classic that protects and helps heal chapped, cracked dry skin.
An all-purpose balm.
A beautiful gloss for lips.
For symptoms of chapped or peeling due to sunburn or windburn.
Special smoothing for rough spots on feet or anywhere on body.
Soothes and comforts minor weather burns, scrapes or abrasions.
Soothes and comforts minor weather burns, scrapes or abrasions.
Dermatologist, allergy and clinically tested.
Helps protect, soothe and moisturize skin.
Soothes dry skin and provides anti-inflammatory benefits.
Protects the skin against environmental damage and fights free radicals.

TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS

Gold vessels of fine wines,
thousands a gallon,
Jade dishes of rare meats,
costing more thousands,

I lay my chopsticks down,
no more can banquet,
I draw my sword and stare
wildly about me:

Ice bars my way to cross
the Yellow River,
Snows from dark skies to climb
the T’ai-hang mountains!
At peace I drop a hook
into a brooklet,

At once I’m in a boat
but sailing sunward…

(Hard is the journey,
Hard is the journey,
So many turnings,
And now where am I?)

So when a breeze breaks waves,
bringing fair weather,
I set a cloud for sails,
cross the blue oceans!

by Li Po 701-762

ITALY

I’m not sure it would be particularly comfortable, but on looks alone, this chair made from books is pretty cool.

DUBAI

Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know, -
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea
And give my rage a brother -! Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved - and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

by Oscar Wilde

EGYPT

I saw this necklace online today and I like it.
The heart and arrow are sterling silver, with black onyx donut and beads.
Price €148.

INDIA

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

by Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892

Belgium

I spent a few hours this morning/lunchtime gardening.
I say gardening, but as we haven’t actually got a garden I obviously wasn’t gardening?

We may not have a garden but we have got a lot of plants.
I say plants, but what we actually have are a lot of weeds.
Although weeds are only plants where you don’t want them …….

Anyway, the weather was quite cool, at least when I started ‘gardening’, so I thought it would be a good time to dig up all of the weeds; unwanted plants.

All along one side of our house, and at the back of the property, there is a border which used to be home to lots of lovely plants.
The border was protected by a low wall.
When we first purchased this house, it looked lovely surrounded by plants and flowers.
Then after a while one of the properties at the rear of our house underwent extensive building work, and most of our plants and flowers died.
The plants that initially survived being bashed by the scarily large construction vehicles that drove up the path at the side of our house, also ended up dead after a while, because the wall that kept them nice and safe; and more importantly kept them watered, had been bashed several times by the huge vehicles that it fell apart.
The workmen did repair the wall, sort of!
But even now the soil seems to be … crap, and with the repairs to our walls leaving a lot to be desired, when we did water the plants that grew along that area the water would run straight out of the various cracks. Hence the eventual dehydration and death of all of our beautiful plants.

We haven’t watered anything along the side of our house for a couple of years.
But as expected and despite the bone dry soil, some hardy weeds managed to take hold and grow.
The plant beds have looked really untidy for ages, and today I decided that I couldn’t leave it any longer.
Hence my efforts at weeding.

The plant borders are now clear of weeds, and they look a lot tidier.
Tidier, but very baron, and very dry.

I have taken some cuttings from a large flowering bush that has managed to survive the building work and my weeding, so hopefully the cuttings will thrive and I can plant them all along the side of our house.
I know it’s the wrong time of year, but I am not a gardener - I don’t even particularly like plants.
Well, I do like plants, they just don’t like me; I either sneeze or come out in a rash - or both, whenever I am in contact with them.

I think our neighbour, who lives in the property at the rear of our house, will appreciate the view from her front door a little more if my cuttings of the flowering bush survive and go on to be healthy plants.
I’m not sure what plants it is? It’s got very dark green leaves and small red flowers. I have also seen the same plant with white flowers growing in this village.
It seems quite a hardy plant, we haven’t watered it for a year or more and it’s very large, and by the looks of it very happy.

Apart from digging up weeds, I also chopped down lots of very tall plants whose flowers died a while ago.
The tall green leaves gave us extra privacy on our terrace, so we will no doubt feel very exposed when we sit outside, but after a few days I’m sure we will forget they were even there.

It was really hard work and although my back is aching a little from the bending over and trying to pull up the weeds from the dry soil, I am pleased that I did it.
It definitely looks a lot tidier.
Now we can sit outside and relax without feeling that we should be weeding.

JORDAN

I remember …
My mother loved me, her world.
My father loved me, his dream.
My home loved me, its ’supreme’.

I remember …
I prayed with the blooming dawn,
I played with the glowing sun.
My life, the nectar fun.

I remember …
I sang with the twinkling stars,
I danced with the floating moon.
All lost, alas, too soon.

I remember, I remember, I remember.

Excerpt from “My Flute” by Sri Chinmoy

LESOTHO

A video we made of the inside of the Cathedral of St Just and Saint Pasteur in Narbonne, France.

FRANCE

My heart has sealed its troth to Satyavan:
Its signature adverse Fate cannot efface,
Its seal not Fate nor Death nor Time dissolve.
Those who shall part who have grown one being within?
Death’s grip can break our bodies, not our souls;
If death take him, I too know how to die.
Let Fate do with me what she will or can;
I am stronger than death and greater than my fate;
My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me
Helpless against my immortality.
Fate’s law may change, but not my spirit’s will.”
An adamant will, she cast her speech like bronze.
But in the queen’s mind listening her words
Rang like the voice of a self-chosen Doom
Denying every issue of escape.
To her own despair answer the mother made;
As one she cried who in her heavy heart
Labours amid the sobbing of her hopes
To wake a note of help from sadder strings:
“O child, in the magnificence of thy soul
Dwelling on the border of a greater world
And dazzled by thy superhuman thoughts,
Thou lendst eternity to a mortal hope.
Here on this mutable and ignorant earth

by Sri Aurobindo
From: Savitri - The Book of Fate

GIBRALTAR