Sunday 23 June

Went to the 9.30 service this morning at Emmanuel.    The topic of conversation over the coffee and donuts before the service was the influx of snakes in gardens. Not that I've seen any - I am too nervous of the poison ivy to go out in the garden very much, the warnings about it in my pharmacy are DIRE.    
 
Apparently the heavy rain is bringing the snakes up out of the gophers' tunnels. I tell you, what with gophers, armadillos, snakes and poison ivy, gardening is a whole new challenge here.

When I asked how they got rid of the snakes I was told that hitting them over the head with a hoe doesn't work.  They shoot them.  But for someone not brought up here in the Wild West, and not in possession of a firearm, that is never going to be the answer.

I had lunch today at the China Buffet with Pattisue, who is still bravely battling her cancer.

This evening I saw a really lovely programme on OETA, the local Oklahoma Network,  I don't know if you have seen it in England.  It was Prince Charles paying a tribute to his mother.    The Queen and George VI were both very keen on photography, cine photography and still photographs.   He showed us some photos from her albums, but mostly he showed family cine films of the Queen and Prince Phillip, himself and Princess Anne before his younger brothers were born.   He was laughing and smiling and reminiscing, a side of him one doesn't often see.

As well as the family films he showed a few official ones of the Coronation, and talked about his memories of the day.  And this one of his Investiture as Prince of Wales..

He was laughing at this one, saying she was doing up his clothes like she did when he was a child, and with the same look on her face.

 As you know every Prime Minister gets to spend a weekend at Balmoral in August, joining in with whatever the family is doing, and this is Churchill who was PM when she became Queen, waving a piece of driftwood about, with Lady Churchill.