A pinch and a punch...

...for the first of the month, and no returns of any kind!

As kids we always had to add the last bit or the person we were pinching would reply, "A punch and a kick for being so quick."

As today is the first of the month I'm allowed to turn over the page on the calendar. We keep one hanging in the kitchen and this is used to note all appointments etc. It shows one month at a view and I'm not allowed to turn the next month to the front even on the last day of the month. It's supposed to be unlucky or something. Which is a bit strange - not the being unlucky, but me not being allowed to turn the page before the new month starts. The OB claims not to be superstitious. I don't think she is really - not like my old granny.

My paternal grandmother would never wear green because she thought it an unlucky colour (just as well she wasn't Irish!), and would never bring lilac blooms into the house. Again, that would bring bad luck. I've never heard of anybody else who claimed that wearing green or bringing lilac into the house was unlucky. Maybe it was just my grandmother. Another thing that would guarantee bad luck was seeing the new moon for the first time through glass. Even when she was almost blind she would have to be taken out into the garden on the first clear night of a new moon - without her spectacles - to peer into the sky. Whether or not she could actually see the moon was open to question.

My mother was not superstitious, but could never bear to see knives crossed! Actually, if I see knives on the table which are crossed, I always straighten them - not because I'm worried about bad luck but simply because it's a 'thing' of mine and they look tidier uncrossed. Which is odd, because I'm not naturally a tidy person.

++++ (natural break) ++++

I usually get round to reading the morning paper just before going to bed and yesterday was no exception. I was astonished (alarmed? horrified?) to read that police had confiscated the walking stick of a 79-year-old man as they deemed it an offensive weapon. Apparently he was walking to a seminar and his route took him past a demonstration against something or other. He was nothing to do with the demo, merely walking along the street, but the fuzz got worried. They gave him a receipt for the stick and told him he could claim it back later. (If it was an offensive weapon then, would it not still be an offensive weapon later?) Trouble is, they've lost it.