The Little Things in Life

One of the things which never ceases to amaze me about TTWD is how far we have come with our communication skills.

Mostly it is how much better Dan has become at reading me. His antennae seem to have doubled their length, and  they've certainly increased their ability to interpret my often complex signals.

Mostly we've been coasting along reasonably in step, with just the occasional high and low to stem the slide into boredom and lethargy. 

I'm usually allowed to choose my own implements when Dan decides it's time to issue reminders, though for the sexier types of spankings I much prefer the Rose Paddle despite the fact that Dan does get a bit carried away when using it. He did remark that I have now managed to perfect my front crawl 

and that he almost sees my bottom pass from right to left across his lap whilst he is busy trying to hit the target. 

I tell him that he is so good at hitting the target these days, ie the same spot for about ten spanks, that it feels like someone has placed a magnifying glass between the sun and my bottom, making it feel as if that spot is about to spontaneously combust. But when I complain, he immediately peppers the entire area with the rapid fire. So now I tend to slither forwards more surreptitiously until his arm brings me to rapid halt.

I wonder if you all wake up in a good mood every morning? Sadly I do not. I have a tendency when feeling the pressure, to wake up around 2.30 in the morning and lie with multitudinous thoughts going through my head till around 4.00 when I either get up and go walk about, or finally manage to drop back off to sleep. 

Dan rarely wakes, and I try not to wake him, but sometimes when he is snoring loud enough to wake the dead, 

I feel obliged to toss and turn, reach for my glass and drink some water, press the little button on my bedside clock to check the time, 

get up to visit the loo, put my bedsocks on if my feet are cold, 

take my bedsocks off if my feet are too hot, get up and adjust the curtains to prevent any moonlight from lighting up the bedroom....you get the picture?

The other night was one such night. I was wakened at around 2.15 by a mouse in clogs galloping about in the wall to the right of our bed. It sounded as if it were moving concrete blocks. No little sounds of pittering and pattering from the mice in our part of the world - they're heavyweights!

So I lay around a bit hoping to drop back to sleep, but eventually, having completed the entire list above and then some, Dan woke up and asked me if I was okay. I snarled a bit, then suggested he go back to sleep and I promised to try to lie still. I was remembering someone (or maybe a couple of someones) who suggested one of you rubbed the other person, but at 3 in the morning I couldn't quite remember the rules, and luckily, just trying to remember sent me off to sleep.

But then comes the bit in the morning when your eyelids feel they have lead weights attached to them, and all you want to do is snuggle back in your pillow, pull the duvet up around your eyebrows, and slumber happily regardless of the day ahead.

This, of course, is the time I feel Dan breathing somewhere in the vicinity of my neck and patting my bottom encouragingly. I make the noise a sleepy squirrel makes 

and burrow down once again. Dan gets more persistent and tweaks a nipple. This time I give a low growl to try to put him off.

Dan is stubborn. He refuses to be put off anything, and before he was startled into becoming more familiar with my bottom, he was one heck of a boob man. Lying half hidden in my bosoms he gives a sigh of contentment and carries on tweaking - both nipples this time.

I do not rise to the bait. I am still trying to sleep. 

Even my body has gone into non-responsive mode. Dan raises his head and mutters something about not even being able to feel the smallest shiver of pleasure. I nod into my pillow in agreement.

But that man is nothing if not persistent, 

and will not be deterred. He grabs me around the middle and launches an all out assault on my person.

This time I squeak a little, so he ups the tempo. 

He spanks first one cheek then the other at a rapid rate - too high as usual - but I start to bounce on the bed like a kettle drum. I am now waking up and feeling rather like a squashed slug getting its bottom spanked.

He will keep spanking the same spot and his hand is so much harder these days. I count ten and shriek at him. He ignores me for a few more spanks then mercifully moves to the other cheek, where naturally, the action is repeated.

Then the strangest thing. My libido returns with a vengeance. The "Me Tarzan, You Jane" syndrome almost takes my cells apart and rebuilds them. 

I can't remember exactly what I was yelling, but I can relate that it led to an extremely vociferous and active session of love-making. 

At one point I thought that maybe at my age I shouldn't be making such a racket, but then I thought "Nah.These opportunities should not be ignored."

The bed was trashed and the whole area looked like a hurricane had hit. 

I was heartily glad that our grown offspring have no idea just how much in love and how energetic their parents still are. In my mind, I wish them equally long and happy marriages, and hope they are still as energetic when they get to our age. Snigger!

Dan went and got us hot drinks. I was lying stretched out face down when he went off downstairs, and I was still lying in the same position when he returned.

"Are you alive?" he enquired.

"Mmphm" I replied (in the manner of 'Outlander' - I am now on Book 3!)

"Drink your coffee before it gets cold." Ha! Now he knows how I feel!

I continued to lie there whilst we had a conversation. 

"That was so wonderful. I wish you would spank me more often like that. I would love you to spank more, and harder."

"Your trouble is that you've got the hide of an armadillo."

This makes me sit up in a hurry and I glare at him indignantly to see if he is serious or not. Luckily for him he's not.

"I don't mind, you know, if you grab me and administer a few more 'good  girl' spankings of this calibre."

Dan raises his eyebrows. "I don't want you to accuse me of being abusive."

"Oh for goodness sake. I thought we had laid this one to rest a long time ago."

"You know what I mean. And anyway, isn't this called 'trying to take control'?"

"Nah. Just giving you a few pointers. You know jolly well that you won't do anything you don't want to do."

"Very true." Dan gives me his practised 'evil grin'.

Then we are up and on our way down to have some breakfast before showering. 

As I walk ahead of him along the corridor he starts to stroke my bare bottom making me giggle. Dan knows exactly how to lure me out of my vegetative state of mind. 

(I couldn't find a picture of a man stroking a naked woman's bottom, so I substituted this picture - it's so sweet and it's how he makes me feel. He strokes my bottom every night when he comes to bed!)

It's the little things in life that are important.

Love Our Lurkers Day!

Once upon a time I was a lurker.

I enjoyed reading people's posts, but I was far too nervous to comment.

I remember the very first time I wrote a comment - I pressed 'cancel' about ten times.

Then, luckily for me, 'Love our Lurkers Day' came along 

and I discovered I wasn't alone!

Suddenly life was much more fun.

It's great having friends to play games with

and to get into trouble with

and even to share quiet moments with.

So don't be timid

I JUST LOVE MY LURKERS!

Where the Poppies Blow

We will remember them.

To commemorate the fallen, millions of ceramic poppies are being displayed in the moat around the Tower of London. 

The humble poppy is widely recognised as an international symbol of remembrance. Soldiers first associated the blood-coloured flower with war when they saw it in huge numbers, covering the battle-scarred fields of Flanders and growing on broken ground, which is, of course, where poppies grow best.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS
John McCrae (Inspired by the death of a Canadian officer close to the Advanced Dressing Station which was a concrete bunker on the battlefield.)

On May 2nd, 1915 news reached him that his friend and protege, Lieut Alexis Helmer, had been blasted to pieces by an eight-inch Howitzer shell. It was this experience that prompted McCrae to write these poignant words:

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields."

This simple poem was an almost overnight success after publication in Punch magazine in December 1915.

Towards the end of the war, an American lady called Moira Michael wrote a poem in response, entitled "We Shall Keep the Faith". She exhorted readers to wear a poppy in honour of the dead. The secretary of the French YMCA, Madame Guerin, grasped this idea; she began selling artificial poppies to raise funds for soldiers and their families.

In the UK the concept was taken on by the Earl Haig fund and adopted by the newly formed British Legion as a symbol of remembrance of the dead and the missing, and as a means of raising funds for wounded and hard-pressed soldiers after the war. The first poppy day was held on November 11, 1921.

PEACE
by Private Alexander McKee, Canadian Army B.L.A.

"Here on the slope of the hillside, lying
In the field here the corn waved, proud and free;
Here on the hill where manhood, dying,
Lost the sun, and the power to see,
They lost the years and the light and laughter,
And gained a peace we shall not know,
They lost the tears that shall come after,
And all the storms that yet shall blow.
And who shall say at the end of the day,
With the sunset shining clear,
That those who fell by the winding way,
In the peace and the quiet here,
Gained greater gifts than peace shall give,
Where only the soft winds blow,
And a better fate than those who live?
They have found peace where poppies grow."

THE SEND-OFF
Wilfred Owen 1893-1918

"Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.

Their breasts were struck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

Shall they return to beatings of great bells
In wild train-loads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads."

"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."

Communication Skills

Communicate: to make known; to give information unreservedly.

You would think after 37 years of marriage I would be an expert. That I would know every trick in the book.

Not so.

I think this last couple of weeks I have been spanked for my difficulties with communication skills more times than I would care to own up to. I most assuredly have been guilty of not making known or giving information unreservedly.

Nearly every spanking has resulted in tears, or very wet eyes, plus a searingly hot bottom.

I had previously been warned, and spanked, for my negativity. I had thought all was well. 

I tried and tried to keep it in, bottle it up, tamp it down - ignore ignore ignore.

After tossing and turning in bed for hours, I ended up retreating to the spare room where I read my Kindle for most of the night, and hence both looked and felt like something that had crawled out from under a stone the next morning. 

Dan was not amused. Even though I arrived first thing with a cup of tea and not one but two Gingernuts for him.

I was sent for the Rose paddle and severely spanked. Dan didn't say much at all until afterwards. Having narrowly avoided having his front teeth knocked out, he asked me if I had had enough. At that point I couldn't even breathe let alone reply. I was just yelping "Sorry" over and over again. Never have I been so glad that Dan did actually stop, and sat quietly stroking my hot cheeks. The word 'subspace' doesn't exist in my vocabulary.

When I eventually managed to control myself, Dan told me in no uncertain words that if I don't communicate my thoughts and worries to him, he cannot do anything to help. He asked me how I would feel if I knew something was worrying him and he wouldn't tell me what it was. He told me that in future he will be watching for signs of pressure building up, and will vigorously use every possible means to release that pressure. (Every possible means = as many of our implements as it takes.) Not a happy thought. 

When you are married to a man like my Dan, deception is not wise. I now know that for a fact. Far better to own up to my feelings of stress and knots in my neck, and brave the wolf's lair, than end up having my bottom massaged liberally with one or more implements. Where has the gentle, careful, consideration of my bottom gone?

His hand is now so hard and sure, that I twisted my neck around in horror thinking he was using the paddle from the start. These days I don't seem to get a warm-up so much as a sample of things to come.

Dan rarely spanks for long. He prefers the short, sharp, painful imparting of a principle to long drawn out conversations. Hence my bottom often feeling like a vibrating drum, but without the vibration. All I can say is that my skin is soft, clear and supple due to the changes in beat!

I would also like to impart that I have been out and purchased several brightly coloured cushions to dot along our pine settle and benches around our kitchen table, because most mornings I am no longer able to sit comfortably before midday! I am extremely grateful that Dan has not yet arrived at the point of issuing spankings out of the blue at all hours, as I really don't think I would be able to survive them. I applaud those of you who do.

And just to end on a more Ami-like note - on Friday morning at 8.30am I was downstairs vacuuming the drawing room carpet, minus knickers. I had previously laughed at a friend who admitted she found wearing her pretty, lacy knickers very uncomfortable after a spanking. Believe me, it was so much more soothing to let the air caress my burning backside, than to struggle into a previously snazzy little number.

A Birthday Spanking

The mornings are getting darker. This weekend the clocks go back for the winter, in England. So that means that tomorrow morning we get "an extra hour" in bed. Sadly we will soon get used to it and will lose the benefit. I also hate the fact that the nights will seem so much longer. 

This morning I got up quite early for a Friday. It was far too cold to dash downstairs without a robe. I stamped my feet whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. I noticed that Dan had bought in a supply of "luxury drinking chocolate" in readiness for the evenings ahead. 

It's strange how we both view drinking chocolate with on-coming colder weather.

I took Dan a "Gingernut" biscuit with his tea. Gingernuts are his favourite "everyday" biscuit. They are probably the only biscuits you can "dunk" in boiling hot drinks, that don't fall apart; they hold their shape beautifully. (Nothing better than dunking biscuits!)

I also dropped a heap of large envelopes containing cards on the bed between us, and started to sing, sotto voce, an old song by the Beatles before sidling up to Dan and rubbing his right foot with my left.

Dan finished his tea and put the mug down carefully on his bedside table, before pulling me over his lap. I sooooo love skin to skin spankings. They are the best, but I was soon sent to fetch the Little Nipper. I did protest at first that everyone else's husbands got the implements themselves, but Dan immediately lifted his eyebrows at me. 

"I like the Nipper. My arm doesn't get tired using it and I like the patterns I can make with it."

Ha!

I resettled myself and he began with a warm up that didn't seem nearly long enough. 

"Are we counting yet?" I enquired after he had planted at least eleven snappy swats on my chilly and tender flesh.

"No, you can start now," he replied.

"One, two, three, four...."

"....twenty three, twenty four, twenty five...."

"....Ow! Ow! Ow!....thirty seven, Ow! thirty eight, Ow! thirty nine..."

"Fifty...Dan, oh God, Dan!, Ow! fifty one...."

"Stop, stop, stop. I can't, ouch! stop! Ow!"

"Oh bugger!"

"Too high, too high!"

"And one to grow on." Splat! 

"Stupid custom! You really thought I would want a birthday spanking?!"

"Oh, ouch, it feels so hot to touch!" I gingerly rub my bottom and wriggle upwards to be pulled in for a long and loving birthday kiss.

"Happy Birthday, Dan," I tell him.

I really believe I may have taken submission to a new and higher level. After all, how many wives take their husbands birthday spankings for them?

"When it comes to a spanking in this house, you are going to be the only recipient," I am told in no uncertain terms.

The Life and Trials of Ami Starsong

Just when you think it's safe to sit down again....along comes Dan and moves the goalposts.

"Right, I need to get up and get on. The sun is shining and you are lounging around and looking far too comfortable."

I try to hide under the duvet and block my ears. For two pins I would start to sing 'La la la la la' as well.

I grumpily put out a hand and press the light-up button on the clock on my side of the bed. It informs me that it is 7 o'clock.

"Dan, it is Sunday morning, I have been awake since 6 tossing and turning and listening to you snore, and now you have woken up you think I should be awake as well. Why do you always do this?" 

I risk a quick glance and he is grinning at me in a very smug fashion.

"Tea?" he asks.

Humph! 

I flounce up and open the bedroom door meaning to weave my way (I am not yet properly awake) down the corridor. 

"You're not going downstairs like that are you?" Dan calls to my back. 

"Oh for goodness sake!"

I weave my way back and retrieve my robe, shrugging into it as I retrace my steps again along to the top of the stairs.

It's barely light and the sun is only just creeping above the tops of the cypresses that line the back boundary. I yawn as I am waiting for the kettle to boil.

I love this ritual of ours of sitting in bed chatting with each other and drinking hot morning drinks. Dan says it is good to be able to relax and communicate at the same time. It's just that when I am still sleepy I find the communication a bit tiresome as my eyelids will keep falling closed.

Dan is stroking my left thigh meditatively and I wonder whether it might be a prelude to something more. But not the 'more' I had in mind apparently.

As I start to snuggle more into him he gives me a couple of quick, slappy swats and says

"Time for a spanking I think. Just fetch me the Little Nipper."

I glare. "Can't you fetch it? Other husbands go fetch their own implements?"

Another swat.

"I am not other husbands." Swat. "Hurry up, I've got to get the leaf blower out."

"What? On a Sunday?

"Well, with S over the road already pressure-washing his horsebox, I don't think they will be worried about a bit of noise."

I reluctantly get up and fetch the wretched wooden spatula and hand it to him. Then as I am about to climb over his lap he says

"Oh no. Today you can lean over the footboard. I haven't got time for hanky panky this morning. We used to use the footboard a lot. Somehow it's escaped my notice that we no longer seem to use it."

"The wood isn't very comfortable to lean over" I remind him.

He folds the patchwork quilt in half and hands it to me. 

"Put this over the footboard."

This was not the type of Sunday morning I had hoped for.

Dan stands to one side and waits for me to lean over the end of the bed. He starts to raise the spatula and I leap up and go and collect a pillow which I place strategically - I place my hands under it and bury my face in it. Something tells me that I am going to need it, although fortunately Dan starts by rubbing my bottom, which feels quite soothing.

Then he starts to spank with his hand, not the spatula. It is not very hard and I lean into it feeling frissons of excitement. Hmmm. This isn't so bad.

SWAT!

SWAT! SWAT! SWAT! SWAT!

Okay! So that's not so soothing! He has changed to the spatula and the swats are coming fast and furious.

I am very glad my hands are under the pillow and I do my best to keep quiet, but it doesn't work. I go up on my toes, determined to keep my feet on the floor, but not very hopeful of succeeding.

"Do you realise that this is three times in a week?" Dan asks conversationally.

"Oh, shit, ow!" is my reply. "Dan!"

I crane my neck round and Dan grins evilly.

"I seem to remember you mentioning once or twice that you thought I was spanking too high?"

"Ye'ouch!" 

My feet are still on the floor - my toes at any rate, but my body hinges at the waist and I try to shoot upright.

"Oh no you don't" Dan pushes me back down, swatting for England.

"Can you feel it?"

"Of course I can bloody feel it!" I spring up again.

He pushes me down again.

"Is this low enough for you?"

I don't have very much padding on my behind, stomach yes, but behind no. 

SWAT! SWAT! SWAT! SWAT! SWAT!

It becomes a battle between me trying to stand up and Dan trying to keep me back down.

We are both exhausted, and my sit spots feel like they are getting ready to emigrate to safer climes.

In the end Dan is laughing too much to continue. I stand up warily and go to survey the damage in the full length mirror. 

This part of me isn't used to such energy being directed at it. My sit spots and the very tops of my thighs are a brilliant red and there are little dime (10p) sized spots that are much darker and look suspiciously like small bruises. 

I stand and rub vigorously and look at Dan accusingly.

"Do the other women you talk to on your blog act like Jack-in-a-boxes?" he asks. The evil grin is still there.

He exits the bedroom and I follow him with my robe still lifted where I am continuing to rub.

If anyone ever dares to mention chickens coming home to roost, I will have a tantrum on the spot!