Something good
This morning, that song from The Sound of Music is going through my brain. You know, that song about “somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good”.
It’s Sunday morning here and we woke to further distressing news about events in the Middle East, realising that this is not going to reach a conclusion any time soon. We’ve had a fun weekend here at home so far, enjoying the company of our good friend Ilja overnight on Friday and, with no further plans for the weekend, plenty of time to play.
No, that isn’t our bathroom but an image someone shared on FB, asking “what colour towels should I buy?” My immediate thought was that before taking the photo, they might have filled the bath with clean water! But I had a second thought as well and that was to share that question with the group of students I’m working with right now, who are currently learning about colour theory and exploring effective use of colour in displays and exhibits. I emailed them the photo as a bit of fun and was impressed by the response. In the meantime, I’d wondered about simple ways of changing the colour of those towels digitally and Ilja’s conversation, clever use and extensive experience with AI left both of us thinking of immediate ways of making good use of Gemini, Co-Pilot or similar. This morning, I spent ten minutes (yes…ten minutes!) playing with Gemini and came up with this. Ok, it might take a few more goes to achieve a good result but the speed with which such things can be done makes playing about with colour really fun.
It’s St David’s Day, March 1st, of course and the first day of the meteorological Spring. As I wandered around the (wet) garden taking a few photos, I found plenty of pockets of Spring flowers even if it felt far from Springlike out there.
In some cases, something - someone - else had taken a bite already (probably one of the deer that seem to find too much of our garden, especially our roses, worth a taste).
But as I looked out over the valley, there was nowhere I’d rather have been this morning. Sure, the weather is miserable and wet and we are more than ready for a blast of sunshine and dry weather. (Please!) However, during the last couple of weeks we’ve been considering where we might have been right now, for you may recall we had travel plans. I actually removed all trace from my paper diary, covering those entries with unused pages from last year’s diary thinking that perhaps I’d feel disappointed by regular reminders. After all, it was my ill health that resulted in that cancellation of the cruise to somewhere that had been on our wishlist for some time: Madagascar. It had been on our calendar for a couple of years, well before the Antarctica trip which attracted our attention as a last minute bargain. We very much looked forward to seeing the amazing natural world we’d read about and seen on TV. Lemurs! Baobab trees! Not only that, but the cruise ended in Cape Town, from where we planned a three day “wine and dine” extension before flying home.
But it wasn’t to be. As I spent quiet days at home recovering, I hoped to read reports from the ship, to see photos of the exciting places they visited and to read of the fabulous food and drink experiences on board one of our favourite ships. I looked in all the usual places to find such things and found nothing more than a single photo of a lemur posted by someone on FB. I did, however, read of a cyclone that had disrupted the cruise before ours, resulting in the cancellation of one or two Madagascar ports. Oh no, we thought, imagine, so near and yet so far. How every disappointing! (Hopefully, the weather would improve before “our” cruise).
Then, we read about gastro-intestinal infections on board. Oh no! There’s nothing worse than being on board a ship where that becomes a concern. It’s not always noro virus, but more often a simple GI problem brought on board from a local destination, where perhaps hygiene procedures have not been followed as rigorously as they should have been. But in any enclosed community, such things spread like wildfire and precautions need to be taken to prevent that. I’ve written here before about what that’s like. If we’d been on board these last couple of weeks, we’d have managed, of course, but the on board experience would have been somewhat diminished.
Hmm. Whilst we didn’t want to read about such situations, I have to say that I did think that perhaps it was for the best that we’d had to cancel. After all, it was such a short time since I had been taken seriously ill with an infection, to put myself at risk of another one, however different, seemed foolhardy.
If we needed any further consolation for our “lost” adventure, then the events of this weekend have, unfortunately, provided them. Our plan was to fly home from Cape Town via Dubai, on board an Emirates flight the day after tomorrow. As we read about travel disruption and cancelled flights and I opened the Emirates website, noting that all flights were cancelled until tomorrow at least, the idea of trying to make our way home on Tuesday was not a comfortable one.
And yes, that song was going through my mind all morning. Wandering around the wet garden made me all the more grateful to be here at home, safe, comfortable and well.
Even though I am so frightened of birds, especially small ones like this, I caught sight of this busy little chap outside our kitchen window and snapped a quick photo through the glass. Having done that, I was curious about what sort of bird it is and opened the bird app on my phone that I usually use to identify their song. Frustrated by online adverts, though, I gave up and put my phone down, returning to my desk and starting to put this post together.
There was a window open on my PC however that prompted my next move…
Well, of course I did!! 🤣
