Since the European Union’s general data protection regulation (GDPR) comes into force on May 25th, 2018, I have been making my website as compliant as I can.

My first step was reading up on the implications for small operators – the most valuable was on author Jami Gold’s site: The New EU Law: What All Authors Need to Know — Guest: Kharma Kelley

 I  needed a ‘Privacy Policy’ and I assessed what I could do with this The Duskweald landing pad. WPBeginner proved to have the best solution – check their advice on How to Add a Privacy Policy in WordPress.

As for the finished Privacy Policy, that is now live on this site –  I hope that I am now compliant and not heading for a 4 million Euro fine.

And if you wish to read the detail, there’s a link in the menu OR just go to Privacy Policy

Source: Fahrenheit 451 – a review

First of all let us take a moment to reflect on what took place on this day, September 11, 2001, and pay our respects to all of those who lost their lives and to give our thanks to the people who never gave up to find all the lost ones. It was truly a very sad day in America, something that I hope I will never see again in my lifetime.

Today is also a day that puts my forever love, Roland Clarke, and myself one day closer to our long journey, which has been in the works for over a year, across the Atlantic Ocean on the Queen Mary 2. She is a mighty Ocean Liner not a Cruise Ship, that was built to take the storms that occur on her journeys of which she has had many. Her construction started on July 4, 2002 and she was launched March 21, 2003, completed December 23, 2003, christened January 8, 2004, and made her maiden voyage January 12, 2004.

 

On September 15^th the movers will come and pack up the belongings we are taking with us and the next day September 16^th they will be here to move everything into a 20 foot container which will then be taken to Liverpool where it will begin its 8 week journey to either San Francisco, California or Seattle, Washington. We are not sure which port it will go into yet.

We will be leaving our home in Harlech on September 19^th bound for Southampton where we will spend the night at a Hotel then the next day September 20^th we will go to the Ocean Terminal to embark on the Liner. We have to be there no later than 1:30 pm and the Liner leaves the Terminal at approximately 4:30 pm. She will sail past the Isle of Wight where Roland spent most of his childhood standing on the shore and watching the ships come in. It will be a bitter-sweet moment for him and I am sure it will be an emotional one. We will be at sea for 6 days and on the 7^th day, September 27^th we will reach the Brooklyn Terminal in New York where we will disembark the ship, go through customs and immigration. Two of my sons, Jason and Ryan will meet us there after having driven from Boise, Idaho to meet us and then we will begin our cross country trip to our new home. We will be stopping in Roy, Utah to see my family there and then onwards to Boise. It will be an exciting adventure for Quetzal and Treeky as they are going with us.

I feel both excitement and sadness before this journey. Excitement to see my family again after 5 long years and sadness to leave a beautiful home that we thought would be our forever place. It seems that some higher power had a different idea about where we would be spending our Golden years. I have been living here in the UK for 6 years and it is time to go home……part of the reason is health. Both Roland and I are feeling the aches and pains of old age and Roland’s is compounded by his having MS. The damp cold weather here is not good for his illness and hoping that the dry heat of Boise will have a different effect on him and help him to feel better. But the best thing of all is the love that is felt by my kids and their families. After all love heals all!!!

We re-homed the 2 cats with a very nice American lady who live next to us and they have integrated into her home with no problems, other than hiding from her and making her frantic thinking they got outside and ran away. Poor Mary-Louise……I hope they bring her as much joy as they have given us in the time we had them. They are very good cats and seem to adapt well to new surroundings.

I will miss this country, it is very pretty and there are many places that I didn’t get to see, but maybe in another lifetime. The one thing I won’t miss is snooty people who think they are better than anyone else and people who can’t even call to see if you are okay…..I always thought that is what neighbours were all about but I guess in this day and age that is a forgotten art like so many other things that have been forgotten.

I really can’t think of anything else to write at this time, except that we will not have computers after the 15^th other than a very small one to keep up on emails and such. So think of us while we sail across the Atlantic in the lap of luxury aboard the QM2, we will definitely be thinking of all of you who matter to us and will be looking forward to our journeys end and seeing those we love the most. So till next time from the Duskweald……

Juanita

I don’t normally read books for teens, but the blurb for “Hunger” and a review made me buy this excellent as part of Pub Hub’s Buy Diverse Books offer in June. The mix of apocalypse and eating diso…

Source: Hunger – a review

We left home (Harlech) on Tuesday the 3rd of May at approximately 9:30 am and headed to Porthmadog to drop the fur babies off at the kennels.  After dropping them off we headed for London via the A5 which took us through places like Bala, Shrewsbury, Nuneaton, Towcester, Milton Keynes and into Kings Langley.  We arrived at the hotel at about 4:30 pm and after getting checked in called Jo and Steve to let them know we had arrived. The room was okay but there were several things that did not make it handicap accessible like we were told.  The bed was so low to the floor that when you sat on the side your knees were in your chest.  The bathroom did have several hand rails on the walls but Roland could not reach the sink, which was low but the taps were to far away for him to turn on.  It had a shower over a bathtub which he can’t use so he had to take a sponge bath with hand towels as the hotel does not have washclothes or flannels as they call them over here.  It had two emergency pull ropes, one in the bath and one next to the bed but no telephone so if you needed anything you had to walk to the reception desk.  There was also a big heavy sliding door on the bathroom and no room to turn the wheelchair around.  We then took a nap and waited for Jo and Steve to arrive.  After they arrived we went next door to the Toby’s Carvery and had a nice meal with them.  They then went home in London and we agreed upon a time for them to pick us up the next day, Wednesday the 4th, to take us to London for Roland’s medical for his immigrant visa.

 

Wednesday Jo and Steve came at noon to get us as due to traffic we had to start early.  His appointment was for 2:30 pm.  We were going to use their car but the wheelchair would not fit in the boot so we had to have Steve drive us in our car.  The traffic was really bad in London, but Steve did take us down Baker Street…..love that song!!!  We had reserved a parking spot in a car park but due to circumstances we didn’t get there.  Steve dropped us off and they left to find a place to wait for us.  I left Roland on the sidewalk and rang the bell to get into the building.  Once inside I told reception he was in a wheelchair and they bolted to action.  They got the ramps and headed out to help him inside the building.  There were 5 of them, including the guy who did the xrays who got Roland and the wheelchair up the stairs and into the office.  Once inside we were told to wait in the waiting room as we were a bit early.  When it was 5 minutes before his appointment I went to reception and got the paper to fill out and once that was done went back to the waiting area with Roland.  The waiting room was packed!!!!  They finally called him back for the chest xray aobut 30 minutes after we got there, then we waited for the doctor to call us back.  We waited another 30 minutes then went back to her office where she did a physical, took blood etc.  She asked loads of questions about the MS and was a bit concerned about his feet looking purple, but they always look like that and has never caused concern with the GP or any other doctors.  That part of the appointment took almost an hour.  When we were done with the doctor we were sent back to the waiting area and told that if he needed any jabs (shots) the nurse would talk to him…..but about 10 minutes later they called us to reception to pay and we were finally done…..he passed the medical!!!!

The staff jumped into action again and got the ramps and took him down to the sidewalk…..I called Jo and Steve and told them we were ready to go.  I think by this time it was close to 5:00 pm and rush hour traffic was in full force…..they came and picked us up, took us back to the hotel then left to go back to Norfolk as her mum had passed the day before and they needed to be with the family.  Even though they were going through a trying time they still took the time to help Roland and I …..now that is what I call true friends!!!!

We left Kings Langley this morning, Thursday the 5th to head back home to Harlech at 7:30am…..this time we took a different route and came through Welshpool…much better roads than when we went down for sure……Had a few wobblies along the way, like the arse who tried to run into me on the roundabout coming out of Kings Langley, then I had to get petrol for the car and was still upset over that guy and grabbed the wrong pumphose and pumped unleaded regular into a diesel only car…….only got 8 liters in before I realized what I did and stopped pumping, went into the pay station and paid for the wrong petrol then went out and pumped over 18 liters of diesel…….there was still 1/4 tank left in the tank anyway……it didn’t seem to do anything to the car, it still had power and ran well the rest of the way home, but I will have the garage take a look at it when I call them to fix the passenger side mirror again.  When we went to get the dogs the bushes at the side of their drive brushed the mirror and pushed it hard into the window, again and it fell out of the frame…..happened before so not to worried about it….if not I think duct tape will work well!!!! After we got home we were knackered so we went to bed and took a nap and it was so nice to have my fur babies with me…..I sure did miss the little critters, maybe I bit to much.

So we jumped this hurdle and did well, so one more to go and then it will be smooth sailing!!!! That is the end of our adventure so till next time take care!!!  From the Duskweald