FIRST SILLY SATURDAY OF 2022 IN MEMORY OF ADMIRER

Hello Lovely Blippers,

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all the followers of our Gang - fancy seeing us three times in a week!  I hope you can see that some of us have new outfits - we were getting a bit fed up with all the red things we wore at Christmas, so asked Mrs. HCB if she could make us something different.  Tiny now has a new yellow jumpsuit and Snowy has a new hat and skirt - and I’m sure she will be knitting more over the next few weeks.  At least it keeps her out of mischief and now she has lots of books to read, we can see there will be even less housework done.

I think it’s fair to say we live with a family of Bookworms or Bibliophiles - and it doesn’t mean people who read Bibles, although Mr. and Mrs. HCB both do that - but the meaning is “An individual who loves and frequently reads books.”

These are some of the books Mr. and Mrs. HCB had for Christmas and you can tell they are very keen on anything to do with nature.  The large book entitled “Wild Life” celebrates the life of Richard Jefferies, who lived very near to the HCB’s, but many years ago, and in fact, the name of the road where they live is part of a book he wrote “Bevis, the Story of a Boy”.  How good is that?  

You can also see one called “The Hidden Life of Trees” which Mrs. HCB collected this morning from Waterstones in town together with another entitled “Be Still” which were gifts from her friend, Sue, for her birthday earlier this week.

Then there are several other books that will take them quite a while to read, a large garden book, which should give Mr. HCB some ideas, a small poetry book and several photography books, but perhaps these are more “dipping into” books - you know the sort, you pick it up when you sit down to have your morning cup of coffee and just have a little browse. There are also hundreds more books in the HCBs' home - one day we will count them all - now that would be a Silly Saturday job!

So this is not actually a Silly Saturday shot - but more “The Gang’s all here”, including Cousin Kasper, who wanted to be in the shot before he goes back home, and we’re sure that we will find some silly adventures to go on throughout the coming year, perhaps with even more cousins! 

Admirer was born in the same year as Mrs. HCB and we are sure she would approve of all these books because Mrs. HCB remembered that Admirer was also a Bibliophile and on her biography page it says:

“My father started a second-hand bookshop after the War. An ardent book lover myself, I joined his business when I turned 18. I had to close the shop in 2003. Forty years of books. An enormous quantity of books went through my hands.”

So we dedicate this first Silly Saturday shot of 2022 to the memory of dear Admirer, who may be gone, but will never be forgotten.  

With love to you all from,

JH Ted, Tiny, Snowy, Penny Penguin, Leyburn, Reeth, CC, LBB, Titch, Maurice and Kasper xxxxxxxxxx