Change of address

I am likely to be very quiet for the next few days.  It will be only an apparent calm, not actual, because today we start moving out of the house we are in and the removal will finish on Friday.  Transfer into a new house will happen sometime soon, all being well, but not for a few weeks.

The pattern of house selling and buying in the UK has changed.  No more than two years ago, people would buy and sell more or less at the same time, even sometimes agreeing to buy before having sold when the market was especially buoyant.  Most now seem to wait until their house is sold before looking for somewhere to go and as a result, we can't move into the house we'd like until the owners have found somewhere to go.  A hiatus awaits until the chain starts moving.

In the meantime, I'd like to wish all my American readers a very happy Thanksgiving.  Some of you I know better than others, but I am grateful to number you among my many blogging friends.

Cockermouth and Wordsworth

Photo from Flickr/Ross-P

Photo from Flickr/morebyless

Cockermouth is, very unfortunately, in the news.  The town is so named because it lies at the point where the River Cocker joins the River Derwent.  What would normally be an attraction sadly leaves it liable to flooding.  The photos above are both from Flickr members, the first showing the floods in 2005 and the second group are the results of the flooding over this last weekend.

It is a beautiful place, Cockermouth, on the edge of the Lake District in the north of England.  The centre of town is much as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries.  The poet William Wordsworth was born there in 1770 and lived in the town until he was 9 years old.  He was always closely associated with the Lake District.

At school, we studied several of Wordsworth's poems and I found the words came back to me as I looked up information about the floods in Cockermouth.

Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparell'd in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the rose;

The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.

Resolution and independence

There was a roaring in the wind all night;

The rain came heavily and fell in floods;

But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

The birds are singing in the distant woods;

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;

The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

II

All things that love the sun are out of doors;

The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors

The hare is running races in her mirth;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth

Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

While I was having to study them, these words were less attractive. Now I find myself much more appreciative of the way they can conjure a scene so beautifully. I just hope the people of Cockermouth will soon be able to return to a normal life surrounded as they are by the beautiful area in which they live.

Photohunt: birds

I seem to have more than enough photos of birds, so I was spoilt for choice. I decided to go for example of both real birds, and sculptures.

This is a sculpture, Caged Eagle, in an exhibition organised to highlight endangered species, in this case Bonelli's Eagle, the most threatened species in France and declining in numbers throughout Europe. At the end of the exhibition in Monaco, the sculptures were auctioned off to raise money for conservation causes.

Another from the same exhibition, Unchain My Heart. I particularly love this one.  It's covered in what looks like chain mail.

Back to "real" birds, and certainly not an endangered species this - a solitary gull.

Flamingos in the south of France, and these could be in some danger. The photo makes me think of the children's game Simon Says - and at least four of the flamingos are "out", or maybe just a little slow. I believe there are versions of this game all over the world, though called by different names, no doubt. It was called O'Grady Says in my youth in Ireland.

If you'd like to join in and find other other players, pay a visit to TNchick's site where you can find out more.

A walk to the post office....

....and the things that you see if you take the trouble to look.

It was such a lovely morning today I decided to walk the long way around to post a letter.  I took my camera and was surprised by how much there was asking to be pictured.

A tree, one that had managed to hold on to its leaves through the last storms, glowing brightly in the sunlight.

Underneath it, a crop of I-don't-know-what-sort of fungi, encouraged no doubt by the recent downpours and mild weather, pushing through the cover of leaves and twigs.  I wouldn't dream of trying them, but they did look as though they were asking to be picked.   In France you can take them to the pharmacist to be identified.

Then, incongruously in the field opposite the church, I come across a different sort of memorial, to a hydraulic ram - a water pump that used only the power of the water itself.  It was invented in 1774 and manufactured nearby between 1883 and 1982.  Some of the pumps manufactured over 200 years ago are still functioning.  Although the foundry and engineering works closed down, the pump is still made in Somerset. I'm sure that memorial wasn't there last time I passed this way.  For further information, you can visit The Worthys website to read a pdf file about The Ram on the Green

Having seen the church in the background, I went in through the lychgate to the church, for a quick detour.

Until I looked around the churchyard and examined a few of the gravestones, I hadn't realised how old the church is.

In

memory of

the two infant sons

of Samuel and Sarah

Parrar

Thomas aged 16 months

Samuel aged one year

and eight months

died 16th April 1787

What tragedy can have happened that the two died on the same day?  There are so many stories hidden in graveyards.  Someone has been researching their family around here, I think, because a series of graves had the names scratched clear of lichen.

And then, finally, to the object of my walk, the letter box, a Royal mail lamp box designed (in 1896) to be mounted on a lamp post or other similar pole. They are the smallest of the letter boxes and have hardly changed over the years.

I didn't take the photo crookedly, it really does lean to one side even though it's a relatively "young" box!

Hurt feelings

Not true.  A different type of hurt undoubtedly, but it certainly can hurt.  Researchers in psychology have found that the pain hurt feelings last far longer than physical pain.  They think the ability we have developed as human beings to work in groups and live in communities also encourages us to relive and suffer from social pain.

The power of words is immense.  They don't have to be angry words, the words that hurt.  They can be  entirely innocent but still sear through to pierce your innermost being like nothing else will.  Sometimes it may not be words but the absence of words, or even something as simple as just not noticing.

What do you do when someone hurts your feelings without meaning to?  Do you say something or do you bottle it up inside?  Pretend nothing happened?  Perhaps nothing did happen.  Is it just a case of being over-sensitive?

As far as I can tell, there is no easy answer.  If you do explain that you were hurt you risk either upsetting or annoying the other person.  If you don't, the pain comes back again and again.  You need to find a middle way of explaining what hurt, and why, without laying any blame, of showing why you feel the way you do.

After the storm

We've had some terrible weather over the last day or two - heavy rain and gale force winds.  It has eased for the moment, but we're being threatened with a return soon.  I'm only glad we're not attempting to cross the Channel.  The Eurotunnel option is looking more and more attractive.