Atishoo and bless me, and my little cotton socks*…….I have a cold. A drippy nosed, vexatious, miserable cold. I haven’t had a cold for years, so I am feeling very sorry for myself and in need of lots of blessings. (Yes, all blessings gratefully received.) And, yes, you could bring me some soothing hot, lemon and honey tea, too. Thank you 🙂 That’s delicious.
One blessing that came my way this morning was a lovely photo (via Facebook) from fellow blogger Mike Howe. Followed, shortly thereafter, by another one of his soothing musical posts http://mikehowe.com/2013/06/30/music-for-one-of-the-greatest-nature-writers/.
Another blessing will arrive about 2 hours from now, in the form of Giles, the Dogfather. Giles, and his super, doggy assistant Diesil, take my very own little blessing, Jack, for regular, joyful exercise, training, and canine and human socialization. Jack is a much happier and calmer dog now that I am giving proper attention to his needs. Here is Jack on one of his outings; he was having fun, truly! His coat keeps him warm and dry and snug. ( He won’t need a coat today. The sun is shining beautifully.)
This photo is from Giles’ Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/thedogfathernz?fref=ts He has some fun photos of wonder dog Diesil and the other dogs he trains. Take a look, if you would like a ‘cheer me up’ blessing for your day.
Well, that’s about all my brain can cope with today. *Oh, but one more something that made me smile through the sniffles, snuffles and sneezles…. I wondered, when I was blessing my cotton socks, how this strange little blessing came about. Here is what I found; it is smile worthy: ‘George Edward Lynch Cotton, English clergyman and educator, assistant master at Rugby 1837-1852, the ‘young master’ in Thomas Hughes’s “Tom Brown’s School Days”. Bishop of Calcutta, 1858 where he did missionary work and established schools for Eurasian children. In requests to England he asked for donations of clothing, often emphasizing “warm socks” for the children. In fact he seems to have held the simplistic view that if the children had warm socks many of their problems, mal-nutrition, disease, racial prejudice etc. could be easily solved. Little old maiden ladies all over England spent their time knitting socks for Bishop Cotton and sending them off to India. He blessed all items used in his schools, and many shipments would arrive labeled ” Socks for Cotton’s blessing” and reportedly even “Cotton’s socks for blessing”. Cotton’s socks easily became corrupted to cotton socks,
silkannthreades 