R's rue

  The stunning image shown above was taken this week  by the NASA Perseverance space vehicle on the surface of Mars. It looks lovely up there on Mars doesn't it? Perhaps in the future, human beings will take their holidays there, enjoying the raw beauty of The Red Planet. Now I am going to confess something that will probably reveal once and for all what an ignorant fellow I truly am. I do not really approve of space exploration. There I have said it. You have licence to deride me. Billions of dollars, roubles, yen, pounds, euros and rupees have been spent on space exploration. The current Perseverance mission to Mars will cost American tax payers at least three billion dollars. Admittedly, there are often technological spin-offs and by-products resulting from space missions but these are invariably accidental, disconnected from the project's central aims. Instead of space exploration, what I would like to see is those resources, that human ingenuity, that passion, that in...

 On Saturday it will be the six year anniversary of the day I got married  Of all the dates I need to forget , this one is the one I always seem to remember. The morning of March 6th 2015 was very much like the one we experienced today. It was springlike and warm and sunny.  Like this morning I was alone in the cottage, drinking coffee at the kitchen table. Unlike this morning, I had been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow receiving cards and gifts from villagers and friends. I remember the table being filled with bottles of champagne and boxes with bows and flowers in vases. Around 11am I spied Auntie Gladys walking carefully down the lane.  She wore a red woollen coat and looked frail at 95 I met her at the garden wall and she held my hand in greeting “ I have a wedding gift for you both” she said handing me a hand written card  I started my usual  you shouldn’t have  type reply which she waved away with a hand “ Buy yourself somethi...

 Help me Be the change I want to  See in others  Walking the walk Instead Of talking the talk from R's rue https://ift.tt/30bNWRT