world of wonders

moments of peace like brief arctic bloom
red gold ripple of the sun going down
line of black hills makes my bed
sky full of love pulled over my head
world of wonders . . . *

a Jay walking

This wonderful world we live in never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps I'm not as jaded as you - despite what people seem to think, I remain optimistic and pleasantly full of surprise.

This morning I checked out my emails and the first thing I saw was an advert claiming to teach you how to become "Bankrupt in 3 easy lessons".  It used to be a coat of shame, now it's a badge of honour.  Switched on modern students know how to get rid of the shackles of debt . . .

Just before that I woke as usual on a Saturday to Farming Today on Radio 4.  As usual, I was intermittently mentally tuning in and out - after all, I don't properly wake up for another 2 hours.  Today they went on at length about the "carbon footprint" of growing potatoes.  Although I wasn't really listening, I did wonder how many 25%s were involved (you had to be there - try iPlayer).  Anyway, a few hours later Mrs Dave brought the subject up.  Evidently a friend of hers has a grandchild and he is interested in tractors (as very young children seem to be) so they went for a chat with the farmer who owns a field behind their house.

Interlude:

As we drove back from Cornwall last year, we passed Stonehenge and were surprised that despite the dark, tractors were working - seemingly bringing the Harvest home. . .

Back to today:

Mrs Dave's friend became a little concerned during the conversation with Farmer Giles that "nobody seems to be driving the tractor."

"Arr . . . that be because I control it from my laptop here."

Essentially, loads of tractors nowadays are controlled by satellite so the buggers don't have to pay NH contributions or anything - they run remote controlled tractors that don't have lunch breaks or holidays.  What's going on?  We're back in that Science Fiction World I mentioned before - am I the last to know this?  Are you all going to raise your eyebrows to the sky saying, "Oh for god's sake - didn't you know that?"

Not only this, but Mrs Dave also informed me that she no longer gets affected (in a hay fever way) by the fields of rape because they now use a "sterile" type of rape (no jokes,please).  So, isn't that genetically modified then? I thought that was banned.  I'm so innocent (naive?)

For the first time ever (well, in the 30 odd years I've lived here) as I drove back from Sainsbury's I saw a Jay fly down onto the road and strut about.  Wonderful, a genuine example of Jay-walking if ever there was one. This was definitely the highlight of the day for me.

Oh well, just thought I'd touch base before I finally go to Skye - the trip I've planned for ages.  Back next weekend - unless there's some form of wiffy (wifi) to allow me to connect with the world, but as even compasses don't work there, I somehow doubt it.

Hmm, this post seems to have been sponsored by the makers of brackets . . .

* thank you Bruce Cockburn - mad Canadian political christian et al