Reality tree

I was walking back from the doctors earlier (gastroenteritis if you were wondering - not fun) and I was feeling a little sorry for myself.  Then I happened upon this tree and the colours and the perfect carpet of yellow the leaves had made, made me stop and stare and forget the rest of the world just for a moment. 

It started me thinking why was I feeling sorry for myself?  It's not a life threatening illness, here at least.  I have a roof over my head, clothes, a job, I don't live in a famine zone or the arctic ice where conditions make life infinitely harder than I've ever had to deal with.  We take so much for granted - easy access to the doctors being one when really; I'm very definitely not that badly off.  This therefore is my tree of wisdom today - stop and look at something beautiful and get a sense of perspective every once in a while.

Activity weekend

This weekend was a friends hen do. This involved Go Ape in the morning - for those of you unaware of this it's basically throwing yourself around an obstacle course in the treetops. Good fun with some slightly hairy moments given that you're 30-40 foot up most of the time! There's zip wires down from each section, something I'd not been on before but LOVED.

Then we had lunch and regained the use of our 'land legs' and moved on to the next section in Ashcombe Adventure Centre. First we did Archery followed by Clay Pigeon Shooting. Again I've never done either before but both were very enjoyable, my favourite being the shooting. The instructors there were top notch as well, I really want to go back for the quad biking.

After all this excitement it was back home for a quick change, don a pair of wings and a tiara and out for dinner then clubbing. You must forgive me for being somewhat knackered on the sunday! A top weekend all round. I was going to leave you with a video I took coming down one of the zipwires but Blogger seems to have other ideas. :-/ A couple of pics instead then; did I mention it was pretty high? :-D

What a difference a day makes

Wow - this morning the sun is shining and all seems right with the world. Now I know it won't last; the forecast is grim for later but after the stormy conditions of the last few days it's more than welcome.

A tree was down yesterday morning at the local college - straight through the outer wall. Unfortunately I was zipping past in the minibus on the last leg of my journey at the time so was unable to snatch a quick papparazzi style shot ["not the branches, not the branches"] at the time. By the time I took this they had cleared it away but you get an idea of the size. I know it was windy but I wouldn't have thought it was that bad!

Looks like typical English bank holiday weekend weather to come. We are a nation of weather pessimists aren't we? Bitter experience I reckon that is. :-D