On Saturday we were getting ready to take my youngest son back to Southampton.

The phone rang and it was Annya ILOVEROSES. She is a Sparkie from Australia who is on holiday. She and her husband had just arrived at Southampton Friday and stayed overnight.
They were going on board ship for their cruise to Iceland and Norway in the afternoon and she wanted to arrange a meeting with me. I was very excited!

Great! We were going to Southampton anyway so it was perfect. i arranged to meet them at heir guest house as it was pouring with rain and there would not be much time.

The traffic was horrendous as there was a festival on and it took us nearly an hour to get from the outskirts. The car was oveheating in the queues and caused a problem.

We all met and got to know each other and Adrian took a photo! I have put on weight in the last few weeks, so its not me at my best. She gave me a cute and cuddly Koala bear hug! I gave her 2 roses and a piece of English lavender from my garden.



Annya is a lovely lady, very bouncy and beautiful. I enjoyed meeting her DH too. They come back from their cruise in 2 weeks time and we are going to spend some time with them showing them some of our sights. I am working on some places to go.

If there is anyone in our British teams or Hampshire teams who would like to come and meet, please mail me so we can arrange it. We are planning a trip to Winchester one day, Portsmouth another. It would be a great opportunity to get together and show some Spark support!

I love poetry and I found this poem. Its dedicated to ILOVEROSES:

The Rose
Above Joppa, in the pasture-land of Sharon,
God set, a Rose
It blossomed, even as the rod of Aaron;
The wild bee gathered honey from its cup . .
And then man .came, and took the flower up
And labored to improve it, year by year,
A petal there another petal here
A color deeper than the tubes of God
Had furnished, when He set it in the sod,
A leaf more rank, arid varnished thorn and stem
Until, at last, it was a perfect flower,
Fit to adorn even nature's diadem.
And God looked on, remembering
The hills, of Palestine above the plain
The flower lie set to mark the ages' dawn,
Root, brier and thorn; and Autumn's scarlet hip,
And said: '''Tis well! my work man carries on;
Behold the product of our partnership."
-FLORENCE Boucle DAMS

This poem is from this site where there are more lovely poems:

www.backyardgardener.com
/poem/index.htm

Ellen