The Time Has Come

I spent yesterday sorting out insurances, finances and all the other stuff which those of my generation still refer to as paperwork but which involves relatively little paperwork these days.  This day and age it means spending the day on the computer setting up, altering, and generally juggling with websites and then ringing help lines to confirm things (usually your identity).  I've also discovered that having set up various accounts for various things one then has to print off forms, complete them and then post them off "so that we have a real signature".  Eh?  I thought the purpose of having to do it all on line was.....oh, never mind.  So I have a little pile of letters for the post this morning to show for a whole days spent on the computer and phone.  C'est la vie.  Ce qui est, je crois, meilleure que l'alternative.

However there was a real highlight to the day.

Earlier in the month I had a young male Sparrowhawk in the garden - The Hunter Hunted.  So  when I looked up from making a cup of coffee yesterday afternoon I was delighted to see a pair of raptors flying across the crofts between me and the sea.  The camera was two feet from my hand and within seconds was switched on and pointed through the kitchen window.  I managed three shots before they had flown out of range.  One of them was usable for identification:

I was puzzled, however, because my initial reaction  was they were Kestrels but I couldn't recall seeing a Kestrel here before.  So I consulted an expert, Steve Duffield of Western Isles Wildlife whom I'd previously in touch with about.........WHAT!!  (exclamation marks not ?s on purpose).  I'd been in touch with him about a Kestrel which I'd positively identified and blogged about in July in a post   pithily entitled Kestrel on Lewis.

I definitely need a rest.  Either that or.....no, I don't want to think about it.

Thankful Thursday

Jaz from Treacy Travels has been giving me food for thought for several years now and her post last Thursday Happiness, optimism and the Dalai Lama was no exception.  Jaz asked "Why do some find being happy so hard?" and concluded hard work was a requirement just as it was for a good marriage, a flourishing garden, a good friendship or a  fit healthy body.  She also quoted the Dalai Lama "It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come."

My immediate reaction when I read the post was that I didn't find being happy hard at all.  I'm lucky enough, I thought, to be very happy.  The more I thought about it though, the more I realised that Jaz had a very good point.  It isn't that simple.

Then along came Yvonne's post 'See Me' - the anti-stigma mental health campaign and I started to realise that not only was Jaz so right but that the degree of 'hardness' could be extreme for some people and not just because of their own illness but because of people's attitude towards it.  That was where the Dalai Lama's saying hit home for me .... develop a good attitude and heart and from this, happiness for both yourself and others will come.

So today if you are not happy think about just how much effort it will take to be happy and to make others happy too and then go and make that effort or take a tiny step along the road.

If, however, today you are happy or if you have made someone else happy with your positive attitude towards them join me in being thankful.

Belforte

I've never showed you the tiny town in which we stayed.  The village of Belforte belongs to the municipality of Radicondoli, in the province of Siena, region Toscana.  It is small.  It has a ristorante, post office and a small shop.  There is a church.

There is, however more to it than that.  Belforte has a long history.  It is the ancestral home of the powerful Belforti family of Volterra. The castle is first mentioned during the 12 C and in a document of 1208 it is cited in the will of Ildebrando Aldobrandesco where he bequeaths it to his son Ildebrandino together with other territory and castles. In 1221, Belforte numbered 260 heads of the family and, together with Radicondoli, swore fealty to the Republic of Sienna. Despite this, Sienna and the Aldobrandeschi continued to contend for possession of Belforte, but in 1301 it became definitively the property of Sienna. From then on, Belforte shared the destiny of Radicondoli and in 1555 it was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of the Medici . In 1676, the auditor Gherardini notes that Belforte had a main street paved partly in brick and partly in stone, running from one town gate to the other. Among the public buildings were the Palace of Justice, a reservoir, a fountain including a public washhouse and an animal trough, a kiln, the schoolmaster's house, a pilgrims' hospice, the parish church and the Church of Santa Croce.

So this is Belforte as we saw it:

The Main Street: Via Santa Croce 

Ristorante La Mura

A 'side street' leading from the Main Street to Villa Belforte

The southern end of Via Santa Croce

Villa Belforte

Just to show that The Nighthawk really was there

Via Santa Croce looking northwards by day

It's hard to tell which walls belong to which house much of the time.

A Gadget Too Far

I came across this gadget the other day.  It's to help you fold your shirts and the like.  I'm a gadget fan but even I really couldn't believe it:

While I'm on the subject of gadgets I was both taken aback and rather complimented this afternoon when someone referred to me a 'someone who is as young as you are'.  Perhaps this doesn't apply to me after all:

And for the Francesses and Adrians of this world I saw this advert the other day.  Ouch.

'Sall for now.