It's To Be Expected

This week we have had some beautiful weather....until yesterday and, particularly, today. For your information the mainland is about 40 miles (60 kilometres) across The Minch from the Isle of Lewis where the photos were taken. The photos were taken throughout the week with the last one taken this morning.

Sunrise over the Mainland with Lower Bayble in foreground

Late morning

 Late afternoon

Sunset over the hills of Lewis

But sometimes it was also cold and frosty

Today we had 70mph winds and all the ferries were cancelled.

Most will recognise Bayble Bay down from my house.

An Envelope

I sometimes receive unusual mail. No one, though, can surely ever have received a letter in an envelope like tihs work of art which I received from my brother a little while ago:

Snail Mail

On 2 January I decided not to turn on my laptop until the evening. Given that it's usually the first thing I do after I've had my shower in the morning that was quite a big decision for me. Of course for WhatsApp etc I still had my iPhone but I tried to keep away from emails etc. What was the reason for this decision? I wanted a whole day to write letters, cards and billydos. Well perhaps not really billydos as that term comes from billet doux (literally, in French, sweet or soft ticket but translated as  a mild love letter) but you probably get my drift.

In fact I did spend a most enjoyable day with a fountain pen in hand writing to friends in various parts of the world. 

I have become a devotee of Moo who, amongst many other things, will custom print greeting cards, post cards and books of stickers. They featured amongst many 'ordinary' letters.

PS.  If you want to use Moo please let me know and I'll recommend you to our mutual benefit (Love MOO? Refer your friends and you’ll get a £10 Referral Gift Card when they place their first orders. And they’ll get 20% off, too! High fives all round.)

Thankful Thursday....'I am!'.

I was chatting to a dear friend in New Zealand this morning. We were talking, amongst many other things about being alive. She made the point that we are so astonishingly lucky to get a life. "How," she asked rhetorically, "do a bunch of molecules come together...against all the rules of entropy? And call themselves ‘I Am’?"

She keeps a book in which she writes down things for which she is grateful. Tonight she will write ‘I am glad that today I am still alive’.

Over breakfast I kept thinking about that and how I, and probably most of the society in which I live, take for life granted. In fact we take so much for granted. 

Of course my friend was talking on a much higher level about life itself rather than 'our lives'. 

On the 'our lives' level though a very large percentage of the world's population can't take life for granted at all even at the most basic level. We have become aware of that because of television and, ironically, have also become inured to to it. A million or so Rohingya Muslims added to the millions of other war-torn and starving nations hardly makes us even bat an eyelid. Shame on us.

It made me feel very sheepish about feeling irritated that I have had this stinking cold that has kept me from seeing my new Grandchild and about the water in my oil tank that had caused my central heating to fail and the boiler to need new parts. My cold will get better and Bob has just repaired the boiler and my heating is working again. I have my health and I have the money to pay Bob's bill. 

Today I am very thankful for my life (at every level) and for the lives of my friends too.