I do a yoga class

What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?

I’m not good at yoga, I’m not very flexible anymore. So I use a chair for most of the positions we do in class.

I have to use the chair for balances too, I just cannot manage to stand up and balance on one leg. But overall I think its slowly helping my mobility. I don’t feel like I will ever be able to do some of the poses, but at least I try.

I think yoga is about doing the best you can, and trying to get to a calm state of mind in the process. I have to admit I have not studied the teachings behind the practice, but if it lowers my blood pressure and helps me to gain some lost movement, even if only to a slight extent, then I’m all for it.

I ache after classes but I think as I have kept going I have been able to feel more comfortable physically, and it might be helping me mentally.

I don’t like the idea of ‘exercise’ style of yoga, where people force themselves into position and use heated rooms, I think there is more to it than that. What next? Boxing yoga? No thanks.

The return of Halleys comet!

What are you most excited about for the future?

See Wikipedia for information https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet.

I don’t know all the information about Halleys comet but I did see it in 1986 although it wasn’t as spectacular as expected. But I watched a TV programme that showed photos of it from a probe called Giotto that had been sent out to investigate the comet. The debris and ejecta from the out gassing of the comet meant that the view stopped before the comet nucleus was fully visible. The idea that a comet is a dirty snowball was suggested around then?

Halleys comet returns every 76 years. It is next due in our skies in 2061. I might just get to see it! That is because it is a short period comet as opposed to ones that have much longer orbits only entering the centre of the solar system again after hundreds or thousands of years.

The comet was named after Sir Edmond Halley who in 1705 worked out its orbit around the sun and calculated when it would return. I believe he was made astronomer royal because of it but I might be wrong!

One thing to also note is that a meteor shower happens each year, I think in March? This is caused by dust and debris blown off Halleys comet by the solar wind. The material is left behind and the Earth passes through this debris over a couple of days each year. The resulting meteor shower or shooting stars are basically tiny pieces of cometary dust and small specks of material burning up in the earth’s atmosphere as they enter it.

I’m interested in astronomy but I’m no expert, but Halleys comet has always excited me.

Rhododendrons are lovely

But they don’t last long. The huge clusters of blooms soon brown and fade. They are great at the right time of the year, but then they are just big green bushes and they need underplanting to make them look more interesting. Here there are wild buttercups and ferns which were just growing below the rhododendrons. Mostly they shade out other plants and in some places they are cut back and removed because they are not native to the UK and they can spread and can be invasive. The shade they cast stops native saplings growing.

What to give up?

What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

If I had to give up something it might be one of my trees at the bottom of the garden. Why? Because the neighbours don’t like it, it is a huge laurel bush/tree. It shades our garden and their garden too. I won’t be cutting any others back though. I like our little nature reserve. Laurel bushes are evergreen so they give shade and shelter to birds and squirrels all year round. But they do block out the sun. The trouble is ours is about forty feet high and thirty or so wide. It’s also right next to our fence line and about six feet away from theirs.

I know there have been huge legal battles over hedges and trees, and I don’t want to fall out completely with my neighbour, but I also cannot afford to have it pollarded or pruned. We will have to see what happens in the future. I hope it doesn’t get to legal action!

happier

I just sorted something out, and I feel a bit happier. It was just a simple repair, but I needed a hammer to fix the stair carpet in place. Could I find the hammer? I’d put it in a “safe” place. So no. It was lost. Then I moved a bag with one of hubbys remote control cars in it and it was there. I found a tack and fastened the carpet back in place. The cat has been sharpening her claws and pulled it loose. Tomorrow? I’m going to buy more tacks!

Bottles 2020

I like collecting them

Drawing from 28.6.2020, bottles, just came up on Facebook memories. The other photo was imported from the free images media here. I’d imported my drawing twice and can’t work how to delete the other one, only replace it. Of course I just realised how to delete it! So this post will probably end up with one photo, and a long rambling explanation why it had two…. Hang on. Sorted, I can see three pictures in the preview but only one in the post!