After the sudden loss of her five-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, Natalia Spencer felt she needed to do something to honor the little girl. That strong wish inspired Spencer to start what she calls a “Walk of Love”, a 6,000-mile trek(长途旅行) along the British coastline.
“Elizabeth particularly loved the beach and the sea and we visited the seaside a lot. After she passed away, I went to the seaside and it was the first time that I had felt some comfort,” Spencer said. “I knew this was what I had to do. It was something I could do and it would make life more bearable.”
On Valentine’s Day, Spencer began walking Durdle Door in Dorset, England, the last beach she took Elizabeth to before she became ill. So far, Spencer has journeyed about 1,500 miles, walking through Dorset , Cornwall, Devon and the entire coast of Wales. Every day, except Saturday, Spencer walks 20 miles. Often locals join her; many times they share stories about losing their own children.
Everything changed for Spencer on Nov. 22, 2015. Spencer noticed Elizabeth was ill with what she thought was a chest infection. But the girl’s health worsened rapidly. Doctors diagnosed her with a life-threatening immune condition where the immune cells damage the tissues and organs. This caused Elizabeth’s organs to shut down and stopped the blood supply to her arms and legs. She was moved to Bristol Children’s Hospital where she spent 18 days on life support before passing away on Dec. 10.
After Elizabeth died, Spencer struggled. In January, a friend encouraged Spencer to go for a walk and the two ended up at the Gower Peninsula in Wales. While walking provides Spencer with time to grieve(悲伤), she’s also using the trip to raise ￡100,000 for the Bristol Children’s Hospital.
Spencer expects to complete her walk next spring. She’d love to finish on Valentine’s Day, but doesn’t know if that is realistic.
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A five-legged lamb nicknamed “Fiver” was saved from the dinner table thanks to a one-in-a-million extra limb.
Fiver caused quite a sensation (轰动) when she was born on Andrew Bell’s farm near York. But shortly after she took her first unsteady steps — the lamb appeared destined for the knife.
Thankfully for Fiver it was the vet’s scalpel (手术刀) rather than the butcher’s knife.
Mr Bell’s vet daughter, Katy said neither she nor her father had ever seen a lamb like her before. She said, “We think the most likely reason for being born with an extra limb could be that she was trying to form a conjoined (连体的) twin but failed eventually.”
Ms Bell brought the family’s miracle lamb to her colleague Julian Norton, the star of Channel 5’s The Yorkshire Vet. Mr Norton cut off Fiver’s extra leg as it was making it hard for her to feed. She said, “We didn’t want her to look physically imperfect for too long, so we got the operation done within 20 minutes. It was very short but Fiver came through it and it was a success. Within a few hours she was back with her mum in the fields having fun like nothing had happened. We feel much honored to have experienced such a rare event.”
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this was certainly the case when Katy spotted Fiver. The animal lover could not bear the idea of the lamb being farmed out and offered up her home.
She said, “I immediately wanted to give her a forever home; she is such an amazing creature and I didn’t want her to end up on someone’s dinner plate.”
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Yesterday Matt was sick. I picked up Archie from the sitter and Eloise from school and decided to run to Target for a few things. I had hoped to be in and out quickly.
I found a line with just one person ahead of me and began organizing my items on the conveyor. After placing my items, I looked up to see that the person ahead of me was an elderly woman. She was paying for her items with change and wanted to purchase each separately. I was frustrated with this woman and the inconvenience she had placed on me.
But then I watched the young employee with this woman. I watched him help her count her change, ever so softly taking it from her shaking hands. When she asked if she had enough to buy a reusable bag, he told her she did and went two lines over to get one for her and then repackaged her items. Never once was this employee angry. He was nothing but patient and kind.
As I was watching him, I saw that Eloise was too. She was standing next to the woman, watching the employee count the change. I realized I hadn’t been inconvenienced at all. That my daughter was instead witnessing kindness and patience and being taught this valuable lesson by a complete stranger.
When the woman was finished, the employee began ringing up my items and thanked me for my patience. I then thanked him for teaching us patience and kindness by his treatment of that elderly woman. When he was finished, I pushed my cart through the store trying to find the manager. I wanted her to know of the employee’s kindness and patience and how much it meant to me. After tracking her down and sharing the story with her, we left Target with a cart full of consumable items, but what is more, a heart full of gratitude for such an invaluable lesson.
If you are ever in the Glendale Target, give Ishmael a smile and a nod. The world could use more people like him.
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My neighbor’s children love playing hide-and-seek as all children do, but no one imagine that a game they played last week would be reported in the local newspaper.
One afternoon, they were playing in the vacant lot down the corner. Young Paul, who is only five years old, found the perfect place to hide. His sister, Natalie, had shut her eyes and was counting to ten when Paul noticed the storage mail box at the corner and saw that the metal door was standing open. The mailman had just taken out several sacks of mail and had carried them to his truck which was standing at the curb a few feet away. Paul climbed into the storage box and pulled the door closed so hard that it locked. Soon realizing what he had done, he became frightened and started crying. Meanwhile, Natalie was looking for him everywhere but could not find him. It was lucky that she happened to pause at the corner for a minute and heard her brother’s cries.
She immediately ran to tell the mailman who hurried back from his truck to unlock the metal door. Paul was now free, but he had had such a bad scare that he could not stop crying. The mailman, however, soon found a way of making him laugh again. He told him that the next time he wanted to hide in a mail box, he should remember to put a stamp on himself!
Read the following passage and summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage with no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to provide their readers with unimportant facts and statistics. Last year a journalist had been instructed by a well-known magazine to write an article on the president's palace in a new African republic. When the article arrived, the editor read the first sentence and then refused to publish it. The article began: 'Hundreds of steps lead to the high wall which surrounds the president's palace.' The editor at once sent the journalist a fax instructing him to find out the exact number of steps and the height of the wall.
The journalist immediately set out to obtain these important facts, but he took a long time to send them. Meanwhile, the editor was getting impatient, for the magazine would soon go to press. He sent the journalist two urgent telegrams, but received no reply. He sent yet another telegram informing the journalist that if he did not reply soon he would be fired. When the journalist again failed to reply, the editor reluctantly published the article as it had originally been written. A week later, the editor at last received a telegram from the journalist. Not only had the poor man been arrested, but he had been sent to prison as well. However, he had at last been allowed to send a cable in which he informed the editor that he had been arrested while counting the 1084 steps leading to the 15-foot wall which surrounded the president's palace.
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