Blow me down

Apologies if that doesn't quite translate in some parts of the world. For me, it was a saying I heard almost every day from my grandfather (every day I was with him that is!). In fact, to quote his saying accurately and in full, he would say :

"well blow me down up a bubble gum tree!"

As you can imagine, this was said when something amazed him, or took him by surprise. We still hear certain members of the family say it now and again, notably my dad. Should I say naturally. I myself use the phrase but mostly to myself. Best not to embarrass myself! (well at least I don't mumble his other favourite which was "hoffins de goffins!" - god only knows what that meant, but kids loved it!)

Anyway, back to blow me down. All will become clear.

So there I was this morning, sat at the garden table enjoying my morning coffee in relative silence. B was working. Popz was at the gym. Joe was still tucked up in his duvet grabbing what shut-eye he could before he's off to Uni next week and Gus had gone off job hunting. I could hear some birds and a not too near neighbour cutting his lawn.

I thought I had better think up of a decent blip for today, as I've clearly tweaked the sensitivities of Blipland yesterday, because despite a reasonable number of views quite early on, there were only 2 comments when I sat down to my caffeine fix. How dare I criticise the world of Blip! Fellow blippers have voted with their feet and walked away!

So there I was gaumlessly staring into space allowing the caffeine to seep into my veins when into view - top right - my eye caught an object slowly descending down towards me. On several occasions, it slowed progress to check me out as a suitable resting place, swaying from side to side and twisting on it's axis as if to see which part of would fit best on my person.

Then as I cupped my hands ready to receive this 'stranger', for I knew not where he came from, I think he spied my coffee, for he abruptly changed direction and headed toward my cup as if a sudden gust of wind had recommended an alternative destination. As he approached landing, he seemed to put up his flaps and gently, he touched down like a butterfly with broken legs, hanging on the side of my cup for safety.

I figured I could have thrown a whole garden full of swept leaves at my cup and not one would have grabbed onto the edge and stayed there. it was at that moment that my dear old Pa came out of my mouth (there was after all no-one there to hear it)....

"well blow me down up a bubble gum tree!"

Maybe because it was a leaf, I found myself looking around to see if I could figure out exactly which bubble gum tree it had fallen from! I guess it's what our American cousins would call 'Fall'!?

(Oh, and BTW - it took me only 2 goes to post this tonight!!)