I wake up after 10am with my hubby telling off the kids for making so much noise that they will wake me. I feel rotten - the sinus is back, my ear is throbbing and my peak flow has almost halved. A quiet day ensues.
There are two high points to the day. The first is after I take the picture and go on toward the supermarket to pick up more cold and flu tablets. Playing on the grassy patch at the end of the road are two grey squirrels. One is close enough to the fence that if it were not there, I would be able to reach out and touch it. The squirrel holds its nerve until I am almost past it, then scurries back to the safety of a tree. Somehow these brief encounters with nature take me out of myself and make me feel better, if only temporarily in the case of this infernal cold.
The next is Martin Clunes' TV series on American islands. I catch it by chance. He is exploring Hawaii. This is where we honeymooned nearly 15 years ago and I can still taste the freshly-harvested pineapple and smell the sulfur as if it were yesterday. He then visits Alaska. The thing that resonates is that both set of islanders have not just a healthy respect for nature, but almost a reverence for it. The mother from Hawaii talks of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire, as both creating and destroying. And a pastor in Alaska, who has come from mainland America, speaks of city dwellers as having lost the connection with nature. But not here, he uses fishing as a medium to connect with the Alaskans and finds their conversations easily and naturally switch from fishing matters to spiritual ones.
Lying in bed, ready for sleep, I try to read a book on Qigong for women. I cannot keep my eyes open, but the last thing I read is how we and nature are all connected, and I go to sleep happy.
There are two high points to the day. The first is after I take the picture and go on toward the supermarket to pick up more cold and flu tablets. Playing on the grassy patch at the end of the road are two grey squirrels. One is close enough to the fence that if it were not there, I would be able to reach out and touch it. The squirrel holds its nerve until I am almost past it, then scurries back to the safety of a tree. Somehow these brief encounters with nature take me out of myself and make me feel better, if only temporarily in the case of this infernal cold.
The next is Martin Clunes' TV series on American islands. I catch it by chance. He is exploring Hawaii. This is where we honeymooned nearly 15 years ago and I can still taste the freshly-harvested pineapple and smell the sulfur as if it were yesterday. He then visits Alaska. The thing that resonates is that both set of islanders have not just a healthy respect for nature, but almost a reverence for it. The mother from Hawaii talks of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire, as both creating and destroying. And a pastor in Alaska, who has come from mainland America, speaks of city dwellers as having lost the connection with nature. But not here, he uses fishing as a medium to connect with the Alaskans and finds their conversations easily and naturally switch from fishing matters to spiritual ones.
Lying in bed, ready for sleep, I try to read a book on Qigong for women. I cannot keep my eyes open, but the last thing I read is how we and nature are all connected, and I go to sleep happy.
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