SWEET SCENTED LILIES

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 44, 22 February 1936, Page 16

SWEET SCENTED LILIES

Ohakea. Dear Hub,—My first letter after the holidays. I hope you enjoyed your holidays as much as I did. We did not go away but enjoyed ourselves all the same. During the past few days our michealmas daisies have started to blossom again. They make a change, too, I think. We have some boautifui lilies out and the sweet scent fills the room as they are growing outside tho kitcheu window. Some young birds have taken their first flight into the world to-day; I wonder what they think of it. They are chirping merrily enough anyway. They picked a lovely day for their flight, I consider. Out liens are not laying at all well at present, but I suppose they will soon start again. I have lately been doing fancy work. I like it very much. Ring Dove. The young birds learn to fly very quickly, don’t they, Ring Dove. J think your hens are being lazy. Fancywork is an interesting pastime. NOW! NOW! MR. PUZ. Feilding. Dear Hub, —Ralph tho Rover calling here! Well, here I am onco again. I liopo you and Cogs like reading “Timothy’s Diary-.” Mr. Puz. has one on Cogs first this year. Perhaps one of his New Year resolutions is to try earnestly to catch many as many times as he can. This week’s Skilltest is rather hard, too. Now, Mr. Puzzlemau don’t be too hard on Cogs. Titania’s Palace must be wonderful, Hub, anti the proceeds are going to a worthy cause. There has been some very hot days in Feilding this week. Ralph the Rover.

Yes! we must talk severely to Mr. Puz, Ralph the Rover. Titania’s Palace is certainly magnificent.

MOUNTAIN LILT AND THE SHARK. Dear Hub, —It’s about time I wrote, isn’t it? Anyway, I have plenty of news—enough to fill the Cogs’ Page if I told it all, but I will try not to do that. I know the gale must be a hackneyed subject by now, but I must tell you about our share of it! Por one item —about half Uncle John’s woolshed was unroofed; for another, a few hundred trees or so were blown over (not exaggeration); and for another still, the whole stable, loft, roof, wails and all, bounced out into the paddock and collapsed! Things about here are still in a dreadful state; our washhouse was squashed and trees blocked us .in everywhere. Luckily the house escaped injury, but a large macrocarpa narrowly missed the porch, and of course, wherever we look now, there are gaps and fallen pines or macrocarpas. The road below here was blocked completely by fallen pines from one of Uncle John’s plantations, and of course nearly all his other plantations have suffered too, though not so badly. Although the gale, oi cyclonic storm I should say, was bad enough, it was not as frightening as a really lively earthquake, was it? An earthquake has such a horrid way of taking one utterly by surprise—besides, one never knows, when a ’quake has stopped, whether it will be followed by another worse one or not. If t were given a choice as to which 1 would rather experience, gale or ’quake, I believe I would choose in favour of the gale, because if there’s one thing I dislike to hear, it's the - rumble of an approaching earthquake. However I have written over a page about gales and earthquakes —I’ll have to stop! We had a week’s holiday at Tangimoana at Year. The weather was-won-derful and if we did get sunburnt, we had a good time any way, except for one unenviable experience—we met , a shark while wo were bathing in the sea.-Black-handed Pete, Tiger Tim (they were there too), Bag and I, with two friends, were all having a glorious time swimming up and down when suddenly a piece of “driftwood” coming in one a wave showed itself to be a shark. Wasn’t, there a. rush! We never thought we’d be so eager to end our sport, but when Mr Shark came along we let him have the surf to himself. He went swimming off down to the Bangitikei Heads after that and was seen several days running too. That settled sea-bathing; we stuck to the river afterwards. Wo suppose the shark was after mullet which were very plentiful about there just then. There must have