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It was early when we started out on Tuesday, the sun only just rising as I took a shot of “bad haircut hill”.
That’s what Grant calls it. I rather like being able to see the contour beneath the naked trees.
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It’s always good to know what lies beneath.
It wasn’t until I had the benefit time to consider it, that I noticed and came to love the colour of a winter sky.
It allows for nice silhouettes.
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We drove past here two weeks ago and were astounded to see a building going up where there had been an empty field only a fortnight before.
Condos, perhaps. That area is being developed at an alarming rate.
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Since Covid, many people have apparently continued working remotely and there has been an exodus from New York City.
So it seems.
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Massive construction was largely what drove me back from the Seattle area.
Trees being felled indiscriminately to be replaced by block after block of boxy, characterless condos.
It was depressing.
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The West Coast had always been magical to me.
Being there reminded me of the way I used to feel as a child on Christmas morning. It was special.
Looking back, I see my transfer out there as having been my first step out of depression and I did love it at first.
But rampant construction and a growing concern about volcanoes and earthquakes finally propelled me back.
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Eighteen years is a sizeable chunk of one’s life and yet it seems to have flashed by in a moment.
A moment in which I acquired a rather large number of cats as well as two bunnies that I shall always remember with great fondness.
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Joely (on the left) needed a home. I knew nothing about bunnies, but I thought I’d figure it out and once I had, I took him to a shelter for a bunny date, to see who he might accept as a partner.
Little Macy had been a long time in the shelter and Joely said she would do, so that’s who came home with us.
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By then, I’d moved to a large house in order to take in foster cats, so the bunnies had an entire upstairs room to themselves.
When Joely passed on, I moved Macy into my living quarters where she enjoyed frequent visits from the cats. She was an endearing friend.
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How much I would have missed if I had not gone to Washington.
It was an instantaneous decision that seemed mad at the time, but it was one of those occasions where all crucial factors lined up at the right moment.
You really have to listen to your heart.
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Not long after moving to Seattle, I had another impulse. I had been obliged to put my retirement savings into funds and being cautious, I’d distributed them carefully leaving a small percentage in a more risky fund to earn decent interest.
Without any particular reason, I moved my money out of the risky fund a week before the stock market crashed.
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There have been plenty of times when I wanted to do, or not do certain things, so how does one know the difference?
Maybe it’s a matter of heart over head. When it has felt right I never had to think about it.
The Hudson River is running very low.
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With all the warnings about fire, we didn’t really want to see smoke, but Grant was right in saying that black smoke generally means a house fire.
Not good news for the owner, but at least it was contained.
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When I was very little, my grandma’s house caught fire. We were many miles away at the time, but I must have heard my parents talk about it and I remember being sad that the budgie Snowy had died in the smoke.
Over the years, there have been a number of such fires in my periphery, including a couple that were seriously nasty, though not to me personally.
Fire is an element I have a healthy regard for.
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Not all that long ago, the Hudson was up lapping around the base of those trees and in basements even further up the bank.
“Floods and fires and all kinds of disasters…”
Words from an “ode” I once wrote about the terminal where I worked…I’ll spare you that!
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The geese were having a fine time.
“Why fly south?” they asked.
Many don’t for which I’m very glad.
That’s an amazing sky colour and, as you say, great for silhouettes.
I have lived in Beetley for 12 years and nine months now. It feels more like five years, and I still struggle to completely accept that I will live here until I die. Sixty years in London is very hard to shake off. Those housing developments creep up on you. Taking the bus into Norwich recently, I was made aware of some less than six miles east of Beetley. One day they will all join up and there will be no countryside left.
Best wishes, Pete.
Having moved so often, I too feel strange at the idea of this being my final home but I hope it is as I most certainly do not want to end my days in a nursing home.
An exodus from the cities after the pandemic – that’s what happened here in South Africa too. Our once peaceful village, Langebaan, has now turned into a bustling town – with its pros and cons. Even though the Hudson is so low right now, your reflection photos of the bridge are beautiful. Oh, and the bunnies are just too cute for words!