I’d never be tired to recommend all of you to appreciate and value good friends and good books.

Nowadays good books are not so many, nevertheless their number always exceeds the number of good friends.

But when a good book comes together with a good friend, then we might consider to be really rewarded by our lucky fate.

Today I found in my mailbox, here in my quiet and beloved Bearshire, an anonymous parcel...

You can understand me, I’m sure; there is always something distressing in anything anonymous we receive.

I turned the parcel in my paws, hesitating, then I looked at the postmark and the stamp and I find out the country of the sender.

The parcel stopped to be an anonymous item and suddenly become the silent, but deeply meaningful voice of a real dear friend.

What a wonderful, thoughtful and discreet present!

A way to tell me “I’m here with you, to keep you company, without disturbing your life rhythm, but adding an enjoyable note to it.”

Spring mood has suddenly come to Bearshire.

Now I have to leave you...I feel like reading!

Oh, you already know that I’m not very formal, but I hope you won’t consider me too cheeky if I write this page of my diary from my bathroom...

They tell me a revival is only temporary; so is a bath, but it does you good.

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why I recommend it daily.

Bathroom is a very important place at my home, I find it a suitable environment for relaxing and thinking over and when I have a little problem I often find a good solution for it while I’m taking my time in a fragrant bubble bath.

Anyway it is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners, but drowning would help...

As a very dear friend of mine, Ernest, an American writer, used to say

“I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently.”

Unluckily Ernest didn’t fully practise what he preached, but this is another story, not a very happy one, I’m afraid.

As for me, in spite of my elderly age, I have the intention to remain alive and kicking for a reasonably long time and I try to do my best to reach my goal.

I thank all the kind people who wrote to my personal email address asking if all was fine with me, since I had not added any new page to my diary for a while.

As you can see, I’m perfectly well and I’m still enjoying a kind of relaxing holiday break in a very peaceful and cosy resort.

I love to take things that are everyday and comforting and make them into the most luxurious things in the world.

Sipping a healthy fruit juice and meditating, what can be more luxurious for our well-being?

Anyway be sure I’m always present, even though you have not news from me for a while and you can always rely on me.

I’ll go back home very soon, maybe my dear nephew Frimpong will find the chance to pay me a visit before winter...

I think that in life it’s much better having a light dose of remorse than some heavy regrets.

Obviously it would be perfect to have none of them, but our nature is not perfect by definition, imperfection is the essence itself of our existence, so we have simply to cope with the fact that we might have committed some acts we have no reasons to be proud of or we have missed things we would have liked to do.

Remorse is defined in general as moral anguish arising from repentance for past misdeeds, but there are many different levels of importance in that.

If we have just some light feelings of remorse, mostly when we arrive at my age, then it’s not too heavy a burden to carry.

On the other hand, having regrets is feeling a sense of loss and longing for someone or something gone forever, or a sense of disappointment and almost distress about something that one wishes could be different.

I call “regrets” a catalogue of lost opportunities which might have given me a positive experience.

It sounds a commonplace statement, but it’s not too far from the truth.

It’s never too late!

I have often taken planes, as means of transport, mostly when I was much younger and I used to travel more often, but planes are just that, a means of transport, they have engines and they are quite noisy.

I had always dreamed to feel the rapture of a silent free flight...

The time has come for me to fulfil my wish.

I have bought an air balloon and I’m trying to learn how to drive it.

I’m already managing quite well.

So if you are in my beautiful Bearshire, look up and maybe you’ll see me flying over you!

Honoré de Balzac said once that there are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places on the same scale the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman's glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire.

I was thinking of that quote a few days ago, I don’t know exactly why, when I was trying desperately to find gloves that would match my dress perfectly (by the way finally I succeeded in finding the most suitable ones, as you can seen in the picture), because there are things which become quite obsolete with the changes of fashions, while in a former time they were considered nearly fundamental.

Nowadays gloves are mainly used in winter to keep one’s hands warm, but they have lost the refined role they had once, when they were necessary for an elegant lady.

Being invited by very dear friends ( whose identity I’m obliged not to reveal, and I apologize for that, but respecting friends’ privacy is fundamental for me) who are a bit formal, as befits their family traditions, I chose a specially accurate cocktail-dress and I paid a lot of attention to details.

A real lady must feel equally at ease wearing either a casual dress or a formal one. The secret is not to be a slave of fashions, but to wear what we really like in every different moment of our life.

As one of my dear Irish friends, George B.S., used to repeat,

“Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics.”

Nevertheless I must confess I’m rather satisfied with my own style.

Do you find me elegant?

Here in Bearshire (there is not any other place better than my good old Bearshire, my nephew Frimpong will realize that one day...) we are accustomed to enjoy all the simple joys of life, but in the most accurate way.

I have learnt in my long life never to show off just for the pleasure of it, but to treat oneself as well as possible.

So even a common a barbeque becomes a wonderful experience if we pay attention to add a little style to it.

I would never wear shabby clothes even though I’m alone in my garden.

I would never use paper glasses...

I think that we have to respect ourselves first of all, if we want to be respected by others.

My sausage seems to be perfectly grilled, so you’ll forgive me if I leave you now...