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Beren and Luthien has finally been released. I still do not know if I´ll purchase the book, the story is no favourite of mine. Today´s royal families have no qualms about marrying their heirs to the throne off to men or women not befitting their rank. Not always, but often enough...Tolkien has been a traditionalist. There´s good and evil, immortal elves and mortal mankind, there´s next to no mingling between social classes or different races, there´s the cliché of a father´s authority that threatens to tear apart lovers by asking the impossible from a future son in law. But that´s Tolkien all over, so odds are that the book will make it into my bookshelf. The good professor´s grew up at a time all these things aforementioned were practically law, and even marriage was a thing of importance and value, which, sad but true, has lost its meaning  these days. Tolkien held a lifelong deep affection for his wife and he wanted readers to partake in the wondrous love his characters share with each other. Good luck in times like these, where marriage is often considered a nuisance! Talking of marriage, one of the many oddities in the professor´s Silmarillion is that he sent most of the Valar paired up in marriage to Arda, another proof of the high esteem he held marriage in, but to me it feels more like Barbie marries Ken, Mitch marries Allen, who else do I want to marry off...I wish that Tolkien hadn´t paired them up in a relationship certainly unfamiliar to them. The Valar never got round to really figure the way the mind of their creations, be it elf or dwarf or man, works: There´s an unbridgeable gap of understanding on the part of the Valar in my opinion, so why would they get the concept of marriage?

Weather has turned rather cool again after a short period of summery temperatures, with heavy thunderstorms often twice a day. I do not rely on weather apps anymore. My body is some kind of a thunderstorm indicator. I often feel irritable before lightning and thunder start. It is entirely possible that my trepidation leads to a thunderstorm within the family. A few days ago I instructed hubby to pump out some of the pool water, or we´d have problems with a flooded garden at the impending thunderstorm. Hubby told me there´d be no thunderstorm. Weather app said the same. I went through the severe weather warnings, but no, no warnings for the day. One hour later all hell broke loose. Both pool and rain flooded the garden, and for the next hours we had to wipe the "drizzle" off the cellar floor.

Tuxedo cat is all skin and bones now, he comes twice a day to get fed and still brings me mice, but he´s almost 20 now and I´m pretty sure that this will be his last summer.  Daughter pampers him and often sits on the terrace, cat on her lap, the box with ham on the table in case Tux gets hungry, and textbooks strewn around the table, in case she feels like studying. I´d better take a picture of the two, because daughter will leave for Spain after her finals, at first for vacation, then for a job, and Tuxedo cat is on the way out. I fear it soon will get a bit lonely in our house!

Hubby and I were in stitches a few days ago. Daughter came down from her room, not wearing her glasses. She took one look at the newspaper on the breakfast table and noted “Whoa, the Wurst (Conchita, of course) has put on lots of weight!” Hubby and I looked at each other, then at the newspaper then screamed with laughter. This is what you get when your makeup artist messes up! And daughter was not the only one who fell for the remarkable resemblance!