Surprise!

I heard on the radio that a couple in England, who are trying to sell their house by selling lottery tickets, have come up against a legal problem because a "game of chance" legally requires some sort of question that is not too easy to answer i.e. some degree of skill must be demanded.

According to the couple internet search engines now make it pretty much impossible to pose a question that people can't answer and thus ANY question could be considered too easy.

Obviously this leads me to think about the nature of surprise in this digital age.

I have been experiencing a run of surprises recently, the most recent being this morning when woken suddenly and obscenely early by my daughter screaming my name in pain; a combination it seems of food poisoning and menstruation.

That’s a weird word isn’t it, wouldn’t womenstruation be better?

The other night I took a moment to sit under the full moon and look at the starts and I was surprised by the midnight sound of acorns falling invisibly from the oak trees across the meadow.

And I was surprised last night by a late evening knock on the door. It was Antoine the sheep-smelling shepherd who is using our meadow for autumnal grazing. He had a present of freshly prepared Merguez sausages (mutton) for me and asked if I liked them.

I remember being told never to look a gift horse in the mouth so my first thought was “yes”, my second thought was “did I meet the sheep last sunday?, my third was “Minnie has become vegetarian and has stuck at it for three months so far” and my fourth was “Loui will love them”.

So I said yes.

Apparently the sheep love the acorns and go a little crazy when they are around.