Accountability

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When did the concept of accountability disappear? Once there was a time when local and national government bodies were accountable to the people who elected them. That's the whole idea behind democracy after all. That's how it works. Now it looks more and more that once they're in office, the government officials no longer take any notice of what their electorate think. They just forge ahead with their own plans regardless of protests. The most obvious example was the Iraq war where there was a fairly massive protest in the UK and no notice was taken of it at all. The attack went ahead on the basis of what turned out to be extremely shaky evidence about weapons of mass destruction. More locally, Cornwall County Council totally ignored the results of a referendum which went against the formation of a unitary Cornwall authority and abolishing district councils. As of April this year we have a Cornish unitary authority the majority of the public apparently didn't want. So what use is democracy if the officials who are elected take no notice of the wishes of their constituents? What other form of government would work better? Perhaps we need to ask this question? We do after all pay their salaries in one form of another so surely it's time something changed? Something which served the majority of the population better.

Rain

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We've been having a lot of rain in Cornwall recently. St Ives was flooded a couple of days ago and there are big puddles in the road outside. The sort of rain we get down here tends to come with a lot of wind so umbrellas are fairly useless most of the time and often get turned inside out if you try to use them in the wind. Sometimes it's necessary to put on full wet weather gear to go anywhere. The benefit of all this rain however is that the grass is practically always a lovely shade of green and plants blossom all year round. For instance, during this last winter we had primroses flowering in the back garden for a while.

Relief

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Today the family is greatly relieved as Plymouth Argyle are now no longer under threat of relegation from the Championship. There's only one more game to this season and then it all starts again in August.

Memory

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It occurred to me today that we need to be more reliant on our memories today, probably, than at any point in our history. We need to remember passwords and email addresses as well as PIN numbers. All of this is just to ensure that we can communicate and operate in quite a normal electronic and business environment. Whilst everything is now much more instantaneous and we can buy so much over the internet all over the world, the flip side is that we need to be able to remember all of this information fairly reliably all of the time. It can be so embarrassing forgetting a PIN number in the middle of the supermarket with all of your shopping loaded in your trolley or having a mismatch between the card that you're using to pay and the PIN number which goes with it if you use more than one card, which has happened to me a few times when I've been fairly stressed.

If I find it stressful to cope with all of this at times I wonder how people who are totally unfamiliar with the technology manage at all.

Fun

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Do we lose the ability to have fun as we grow older? I wonder if there is something inherent in adult behaviour which limits our ability to fool around and have fun as spontaneously as we did when we were children. Then there is all the busyness that surrounds us as well as the adult responsibilities of looking after ourselves and others, earning a living and paying the bills. Where does fun fit into all of this? It's particularly easy to forget to have fun when there is so much concern about the economy and environment all around us. But fun doesn't have to be expensive or damaging to the environment. We just have to find the best way to go about it.

News

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I'm finding it harder and harder to look at or read the news these days as there seems to be so much doom and gloom. I thought it was bad when it had to do with just the global recession but today I had a look at the BBC website and on the front page was an article about criminal gangs as well as a possible new pandemic. Now I know that it's important to report what is happening in the world but I could surely do with something cheerful turning up on the front page every so often. I think that most of us could do with some cheery news amongst all the doom and gloom.

Music

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I love music. Mostly I do it in some form or other, either playing or singing as I find this more fulfilling than just listening although this can work well too. I feel that the musical system with the notations and time variations is very clever and economical in the amount of space it uses. Not that it is an easy system to learn, especially if you come to it as an older student which I did. I played a recorder at school but had basically forgotten all that information before I started to learn the flute and singing again. Now I'm also learning the keyboard where you have to pay attention to two musical staves! But I really enjoy all this music and feel that it helps to define me in some kind of spiritual way. I can really recommend it as a leisure pursuit; plus if you join groups of other musicians it's a great way to make friends. I have also read on the internet recently that learning music is good both for your health and your brain function.

Gardens

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I love visiting other people's and public gardens. I'm sadly not so good about mine. The problem often seems to be the weather and that it is wet and cold when it is the best time to reorganise it for the coming season. Especially down here in Cornwall when primroses often bloom in December. Now, of course, in April nature seems to be going wild again and brambles can grow oh so fast. I just hope that I can find the time and energy to sort things out this year.

Gaia Earth Day

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I didn't realise until I went online this afternoon that it was Gaia Earth Day today. With all that is happening to the Earth with global warming and pollution issues I wonder if we need a Gaia Earth Week where people discuss both global ecology and economics as they often seem to be going in different directions. It would be wonderful if we could have an economic system which worked for everyone and was also healthy for the planet.

Vets

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Today we took our cat for his annual check-up and immunisation appointment to the local vet. She really cares for the animals and it's lovely to see her rapport with the cat. In turn, the cat purrs so much that she can hardly hear his heartbeat - until that is she examines his ears, which he very much dislikes. Anyway he got a full bill of health except for a minor ear infection. We heard about it from the cat on both the journey to and from the vet. He isn't an enthusiast of car travel and just to make his point he gave us a little present at the end!

Long April Days

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This is the time of the year that I love, when all the flowers come out and the days are getting longer. Already it is getting lighter again in the morning after the clocks went back and I find that so encouraging. But the best thing of all is the longer, lighter evenings especially when the weather is sunny and warm.

Books

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I love reading books. Often it's better than watching TV or films because you can build your own images of the pictures and places portrayed in the story. If I ever travel anywhere you can be sure that I will take a pile of books with me to read in the evening if I'm stranded in a hotel and there's nothing good on TV (which happens quite frequently when I'm away). Equally I find that travel time passes so much quicker if I have a good book with me as does most forms of appointment waiting. I think that reading is a much undervalued form of entertainment especially as there is such a variety of reading material available.

Blackbird

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As I sit here composing today's blog, I'm listening to the beautiful song of a blackbird outside my window. There is something so evocative about a blackbird's song, the deep throaty notes rising to the melodic top notes and trills. Today the blackbird is sitting on a blooming gorse bush, singing its little heart out.

Health

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When I was younger I had an almost arrogant attitude to health, needless to say, because it wasn't a problem. As I have 'matured', I have learnt some humility regarding health issues due in part to my own experiences. I have realised also that the understanding of health issues and experiences is an important lesson in the development of compassion, both for oneself and for others. When all is well, no-one looks below the surface. It is when things are not so well that the appreciation of what may have been lost, if only temporarily, gives rise to the experience of gratitude in oneself for what is good in life and compassion towards others where there is an appreciation of the suffering that is being experienced.

Swallows

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On Tuesday, when I was driving to pick up some friends in the evening, I saw my first swallow of the year. I always feel happier when they arrive each year and sadder when they leave in September. I have noticed, however, that they seem to be arriving later each year and sometimes leaving earlier on their migration back to Africa. I wonder if that is a reflection on the recent summers we have been experiencing?

Time

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Another strange experience and not totally dissimilar to reality. Some days it seems to pass in a flick of an eye and others seem to drag by. I don't think the differences in these phenomena can be totally explained by the enjoyment factor although it is probably true that time does pass quicker in these circumstances. Waiting rooms seem to have the opposite effect especially if it's a doctor or dentist you're waiting to see. But ordinary days also seem to behave in these different ways even when there is nothing obviously that would cause this. All very strange!

Reality

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This is a fascinating concept. Do we all share the same reality all of the time (consensual reality) and how do dreams fit in with our perceptions of reality? At the time that we dream they seem real enough to us and yet there is nobody else to validate our experience of that world. Also, what about other realities brought about by religious and drug induced experiences? Perception in itself is a strange enough phemonemon where different people can look at the same situation and yet see different things so how does this relate to our experiences of reality, whatever that is?

Cycling

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When I was out driving this morning I saw lots of cyclists on the road. Here in West Penwith, cycling is not an easy option because of the hills and fairly narrow winding roads. Along the A30 there are cycle paths which I think is an excellent idea. I used to cycle when I lived in London and it can be fairly nerve wrecking cycling amongst all that traffic, but my aunt used to cycle for most of her life in London and maintained that it's the most efficient way to get around the capital which it probably is if you're fit enough.

I admire all those people cycling along the roads and wish I could do likewise; at the same time I feel nervous about negotiating my way around them whilst driving along narrow windy roads with possible oncoming traffic (particularly at this time of year).

Football

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Football arouses many different feelings, often extreme. If you had asked me 5 years ago what my views on football were you would have received a very different answer to my current feelings, thanks to my son who's a Plymouth Argyle fan, who took me to many matches and taught me about the game. Now it's too expensive for me to go to games but I keep in touch with the team info. on my mobile. The down side of all of this is that I really care when the club does badly and let's face it they haven't had a good season so far. At the other extreme I'm delighted when they do well like they did today by winning 4-0. Let's hope they can keep it up

Good Friday Drive

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As it was my Significant Others birthday and a nice day we decided to go for a drive to Porthleven, which was teaming with people and a full car park, and up to Looe Bar where we managed to park the car and go for a little walk. The sea was at high tide and a beautiful green colour. It was sunny with a fresh wind. The gorse was out and we first saw a kestrel and later, on out way home, a buzzard. A really nice afternoon out.

Cuckoos

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Sometime in the next few weeks, in Europe, we'll be hearing the unique call of the cuckoo. I didn't realise until I watched a documentary recently that cuckoos migrate from Africa each year. Their domestic setup and chick-rearing arrangements are also particularly unusual as it takes perfect timing for a cuckoo to lay it's egg in a target species bird's nest. Too early and the host bird will eject it. Too late and the cuckoo chick will not hatch early enough to evict the host bird's chicks from the nest. Apparently the amount of time and effort that it takes to arrange this is almost equal to that of any other bird's nestbuilding and rearing practices. The great trade-off is that cuckoos can lay more eggs in a season once they become expert at getting the timing right.

Social Media

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The social media (e.g Twitter and Facebook) are very much in the news these days. Just today I read how demonstrations have been organised more or less spontaneously using these media and there is much research being conducted on how these forms of communication affect our cognitive functioning. That this form of communication is here to stay seems incontravertible.

Less well documented is what the long term effect will be of the use of such technology. It certainly fills a much needed space but what does it do to our social interaction skills and ability to communicate with people in a normal social setting? Reading body language and picking up on emotional and vocal patterns are important skills. Will these be adversely affected if we actually meet each other less and use the social media more?

Easter Eggs

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I know that it's the time of year for Easter eggs but it seems hardly possible to go into any shop without there being an excess of them. Now I like chocolate, sometimes a lot, so I can understand the interest. It just seems that this year there are more eggs than usual if that's possible.

Personally I think my most memorable Easter present was an 18" (no, I can't quite get into metric measurements which definitely shows my age) chocolate Easter bunny. It was so beautiful I didn't have the heart to eat it until my dad took a hammer to it before it went off.

Clouds

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Clouds are fascinating. When I was a child ill in bed I used to spend hours watching the passing clouds and making out pictures in them. There are so many colours and textures often in the sky at the same time, from the light feathery types to the heavy thunderclouds. One time when my Significant Other and I were walking home from shopping we saw 'if' written in the clouds. Have never seen anything like that before or since.

Palm Sunday

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I believe, that in the church calendar, the Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday. When I was at school we used to make little palm crosses on the day and then keep them until Ash Wednesday when they would be burned. I wonder whether this still happens in some schools.

Sudoku

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Yes, I have to admit it I'm a Sudoko addict. I like to do one puzzle per day and this was very much helped by my son giving me The Times calendar and Sudoku puzzle kit for Christmas. Some of these can be quite or even super-fiendish. There are occasions when I wonder why I'm doing it but on the whole I enjoy the mental stimulation that the game brings. Much better than crossword puzzles in my opinion.