Lazing on a sunny afternoon……

A good friend sent me some pictures she took at her local zoo, I was particularly taken with one where a small girl, her hand touching the glass, gazed entranced by the hippopotamus swimming past. It reminded me of when I took a group of deaf students to the zoo last year as part of their end of course trip, I got roped in as I am a licensed minibus driver for our department, they really enjoyed it, some of them had never experienced a zoo before, which in turn invoked a memory of when I took a group of inner city students to the seaside a couple of years previously, they in turn had never seen the sea. A couple of the young men were horse-playing around in the surf and one of them slipped, all he kept saying afterwards, whilst he was standing there dripping wet, was ‘why was the water salty?’ I forget sometimes that not everyone had the same opportunities as a child, we think because we see all of these things on the TV or internet we look at them with the same intimate knowledge, but often we are viewing them through glass. I reflect on how our experiences are enhanced by the physical memory, we can appreciate them like looking at a photograph but the sounds, smell and touch brings an added dimension to the event. I wonder what the little girl will remember of her trip to the zoo, her hand pressed against the glass of the tank watching the hippo swim past.

Again this morning I awoke to blue skies and sunshine, birdsong and gentle breezes, sitting in the garden and listening to their song and feeling the warmth of the sun I took a moment just to breathe. The house is quiet today and as I sit here so still, the birds are being quite bold, a curious robin is eye-balling me or maybe it is my sandwich and a heron is standing at the edge of the pond head tilted on the look out for frogs, he will have no luck with any fish they have already had them all, as long as they leave the newts alone we will remain friends, because they use my ponds like a McDonalds drive through window, I have given up restocking them with fish. I can hear the hum of distant lawn mowers and the smell of fresh cut grass is in the breeze, my wind chimes are tinkling in the apple tree not as they are any deterrent for the squirrels who insist on scrumping my apples each Autumn. Isn’t wireless internet a wonderful thing, my home hub allows me the freedom to surf whilst taking in the beauty around me, but that is not why I am sitting out here, I need to prepare my lesson plans for next week so enough prevaricating and I better get to it. So to you all, whether you have wireless or a long extension lead, venture outside and experience the day, don’t let that glass dull your senses and just breathe.