Tuesday 8 August 2006

Random Quote

Merlin's lengthy opening sentence in this post reminded me of this quote from a Winnie-the-Pooh story I read to my daughter a few nights ago:

You can imagine Piglet's joy when at last the ship came in sight of him. In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull's egg by mistake, and the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment, luckily, a sudden loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself back into safety and say, 'how interesting, and did she?' when - well you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, Brain of Pooh (Captain, C. Robin; 1st Mate, P. Bear) coming over the sea to rescue him...
And as that is really the end of the story, and I am very tired after that last sentence, I thnk I shall stop there.

from Surrounded by Water, from Winnie-the-Pooh, The Complete COllection of Stories, by A.A. Milne.

9 comments:

jkr2 said...

i wonder if he breaths much when talking irl?

:-)

jo

lusi said...

You are gorgeous!
Hey I started a lo about em and you today...almost finished it actually. Will upload it on my blog when I'm done (sometime before the end of the year ok!)
Love and hugs to everyone!
Lus x

Sumara said...

Well Jo, considering Milne died in 1956 I'd say he doesn't breathe all that much, no. LoL.

Thanks Lus! I spent a few minutes trying to think who "em" is and why you woudl have photos of she and I... then realised you probably meant to write 'me'. *chuckle*
I'll look out for it! Hope you're not using a daggy photo of me! xo

Merlin said...

Well, Well, Well ... I heard that :)
I was just checking out some of the tech stuff Pauli put on the site, something that tracks links and all.

The thing of course you could not have known (could you?)is that one of the favorite games of Martha, the 3 year old of mine and Pauli's friend Nathan, is where I do a piglet voice - she says "pretend you're piglet" and I say "but I am really am piglet!" in piglet voice and she says "no, you're not ... you're uncle Brett!"

Sumara said...

Cool, Merlin. :) But do you *prance* while you say it??? :)

Sumara said...

Oh by the way, sorry for talking about you behind your back! You caught me. Now that I know you can track links I'll have to be careful what I say. :)

Merlin said...

Ummmm ... I decidedly do NOT prance (and If I did I would never admit it anyway :) )... but I do get quite a bit of exercize with Nathan and Julies 7 kids: with the oldest 2 it is mainly winding up with one of them on my back out of nowhere, (Josh is 13, but a short 13, both parents are on the shorter side ... could be a lot worse if he were the size, or rather weight [both parents are overall on the smaller size], I was at 13 - Elizabeth, 11, is also not on the tall side [but a very beautiful girl and a voracious reader, has read each of the potter books like 6-8 times] and I did wind up recently in a "see if you can get me off your back" contest with her recently, which wound up with me standing upside down on my hands by running my feet up a closeline pole and then it was a "see who goes down first from blood rushing to the head" contest)- to Marie (5) and Martha (3) I am more like an all over jungle-gym and carry-all, Elijah (7) is kind of the brick-built one of the lot who will probably not be tall but will play football and work construction (very into building things)and he is into the "strong" contest, so he is usually hanging off of one extended arm (or being carried around hanging on the arm) and seeing who's muscles will give out first. John Paul (9) is pretty much the same thing as the older 2.

And I have occassionally done the "3 or 4 kids on your back at once" with various combos ... I think Julies mother may have even snapped a pictue last Thanksgiving of 6 at once (Monica just turned 1 last month and has just now learned to walk, so she was naturally not in on the deal : ).

Sumara said...

How lovely! Your friends' kids have beautiful names. :)

Elizabeth is on our list for our (potential future) next baby, and Monica was my saints' name when I was confirmed. (and I was baptised and confirmed at a St Monica's church)

All those kids sound great. :)

Merlin said...

ahhh, Saint Monica ... great saint for "dealing with pirates" given the stories you hear of Augustine's father. I think her prayers probably do a great deal for all of us Bootstrap Bills NOT going down with a canon tied to our bootstraps into the cruching black oblivion od Jones' Locker.