A short pause for thought tonight. Something completely non-political barring the worthy argument that everything is political of course.
While I was away in Germany over Christmas/New Year I saw two things that made me think. The one was the stars and the other was a woodpecker.
You don’t see much in the way of stars in Willenhall, living in the second largest conurbation in the country with all its light pollution pretty much ensures that only the few brightest get through and maybe on a very clear night there’s a good display, but being away from all this I actually saw a good array of stars, something I’m hard pressed to remember seeing since I lived in Aberystwyth.
The second thing, a woodpecker, really made me think. I’ve inhabitted this little planet for nearly 28 years and in that time I’ve never seen one before. It seems so simple a thing but it’s quite easy to get through over a quarter of a century of life without having experienced one of the little buggers banging his nogin against a tree. I think this is more about being a parent and wondering about the experiences that life will afford my son rather than anything for myself but it is easy to be deprived of such a simple experience without even realising it when you come from such an urban area as we do.