Knife Angel

Currently visiting Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent on Trent. A sculpture called the Knife Angel. Its there for the rest of April and its made of over 100,000 knives handed in across the country in a UK wide knife amnesty. It makes you realise how many young people think they need to carry knives to stay safe. Where the USA and other countries have problems with gun crime we have young people, particularly young men and youths, dying and injured by knives. This sculpture is trying to persuade them that the use of knives is dangerous and foolish and the organisers are raising funds to educate people to say no to using knives. I hope they succeed.

HS2 (high speed two) railway

Felled ancient Oak

From Facebook. I decided to share this here to show what stupid ideas our government have. This and many other ancient trees are being cut down because we (our government) wants to build a railway between London and Birmingham and then on to Manchester and Leeds. But the lines won’t go into the city centres, so you will have to travel to the new hub stations. They say it will cut twenty minutes off the journey time between Manchester and London! Wow. And to do this they need straight tracks because fast trains don’t like curves. Well, of course chopping down trees for that MUST be justified! Not that we can actually afford it or have people working in cities anymore.

The Hunningham Oak which is one of the ancient trees nominated for Tree of the Year now felled by HS2!

Thank you to all tree protectors who tried to save this once magnificent tree!

Some of the campaigns include these if you want to get involved….

STOP HS2
Save Cubbington Woods – Stop HS2
The Woodland Trust
Save Roald Dahl Woods from HS2

STOPPINGHS2

Anti HS2 – SOC (Save our Countryside)
Save the Colne Valley
Xandra Gilchrist

Watching an old black and white film.

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Watching an old film from 1964. I can’t remember the title, it’s what they used to call a ‘kitchen sink’ drama. They were much more slow paced than modern films, but with a lot more content and thought. They make you question the reality of how people used to live.

As I watch I can see that it will probably end in tragedy. Callous men and downtrodden women. Emotions and complications. Sadness and worry….

Bad weather

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The lake was quiet on that day in November. The little ferry was only open one day a week so people could get supplies from the local village. It had been raining all morning. Grey clouds full of grey rain. The lake remained calm, placid, but the weather threatened to grow worse and the pressure was dropping.

They had caught the ferry earlier on in the afternoon and now they were making the trip back. Suddenly the wind whipped up. The water started to get choppy and white tops grew on the waves that were building up. Instead of the calm trip they were used to, the little boat was rising and falling over the crest of the waves, tipping and twisting. The internal lights came on and the ships captain announced that they were taking in a little water and that all passengers must remain calm, but they should all go to their muster points at the front and back of the ferry.

It was not far from shore when the propeller caught an old floating tree trunk. The forward motion stopped and the ferry lurched up and down. Waves were crashing over the prow, and the rain seemed to intensify.

When the squall passed the boat was gone. Only floating life rafts could be seen from shore. Of the twenty people on the boat 18 survived. The only two that were missing were an older man and woman. They were still holding hands when their bodies were found on the shingle beach in the morning.