It is quite startling to look out a window at this time of year and see the hills painted orange.
Especially when the afternoon has been mostly overcast.
This is the joy of having an open sky with a good vista.
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AI confirms:
“What we see acts as an immediate, involuntary, and continuous input to the brain’s emotional systems, directly shaping our mood and emotional state. Visual inputs—ranging from natural scenes to cluttered, man-made environments—filter through the brain to influence our perception of safety, comfort, and, ultimately, our emotions.”
It makes me ask myself why it took me so long to escape to the country, but one does not always get the opportunities one needs. All the more reason to be thankful for it now.
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AI offers no reason for the fact that sometimes my daily puzzles are far more taxing.
These are not high-brow crosswords that you find in the Times or Telegraph compiled by actual individuals. The puzzles I do are, I am sure, run by computer programs.
Every morning at breakfast I run through a series of 4, 5 and 6 letter puzzles as well as tridle in which you must solve three 5-letters words simultaneously.
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There’s also the French wordle and Histordle or Yeardle which is a history challenge.
The geography challenge Worldle involves identifying a country by its outline.
With Globle you enter the name of a random country and narrow your search for the country of the day according to how near or far away your guesses may be.
The names of remote islands in the Pacific are not something I can instantly come up with.
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As if all of those was not enough, I recently began doing the Globle capitals quiz which is the same as the country search, only using the names of capital cities.
Some days I get through all these puzzles fairly quickly. With the world and globe quiz, you only get one chance per day, whereas the history and word puzzles allow you infinite attempts, so I keep going until I succeed because I do not accept defeat!
These past two days I’ve had to go around with some of those puzzles a number of times. Does this mean they have been particularly difficult or that my brain is slow?
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The whole reason I do these puzzles is because Alzheimer’s runs in the family and I feel it necessary to keep the brain cells activated.
As far as I am aware, they are still functioning and maybe it is inevitable that some words escape my grasp.
How many before I should start worrying?
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When the Sun broke through a thick layer of cloud, I tried to capture its light on the snowy slope across the way. The bird was a surprise. I think it’s a blue-jay.
Birds often get in my photographs.
They are welcome!
Wow, those orange trees against the white snow-covered fields are truly beautiful. You exercise your brain early in the morning (which isn’t a bad thing at all), while I just try to properly wake up during the first hour of my day 😁. I sometimes struggle just to remember the name of Berto’s favourite jam for breakfast … so, I reckon for you to try to remember names of the world’s capitals is above average for any person!
Thank you, Carolyn, for the interesting account of your intellectual hobbies and the beautiful photos!
Joanna
Thank you of always being so appreciative!
Well done for taking on the challenge of all those word puzzles. I asked a friend to explain Wordle to me, (she was addicted) and after she did I told her, “Life is too short for that”. I think I will stick with blogging and writing fiction to stave off the onset of dementia.
Best wishes, Pete.
The beauty of nature and it’s symmetry, perfect color coordination and other assets you know sometimes the very indescribable (poop)fest of a rural human abode full of/surrounded by things it would take days to list, much less describe holds a big dose of fascination. In my travels I spent much time on two lanes between here and there, took many pictures of run down/falling down/trees growing them once upon a time dwellings. I called a collection of them Where Dreams Die. No matter how hard we try the planet will absorb us, sooner or later.
I am impressed by your efforts to stay cognitively alert. My mind wanders to poetic parodies. Your approach is the kinder one.
I like your poetic parodies!