Thursday Thoughts A-Z

~ tidalscribe.com

One often learns something new from Facebook. APRICITY is the comforting warmth of the winter sun. Sunlight comes about 93 million miles and then gets blocked out by one little cloud or a building. If you find a sunny spot it is bliss.

Most of our local buses have a running commentary to tell you which stop is coming up next, very handy if it’s dark, torrential rain or torrential rain on a dark night. Especially useful if you are blind. I wonder who the anonymous voice is, perhaps an out of work actor. On an unfamiliar route recently a very jolly voice announced a stop then added ‘Alight here for the crematorium.’ Two stops further on he cheerfully announced ‘The next stop is Cemetery Junction, Cemetery Junction.’ Even dead passengers are assisted.

Fact is stranger than fiction. Since I wrote Tuesday’s tiny tale ‘Whatever the Weather’ we have had Storm Ingunn, named by the Norwegians. Apparently the Faroe Islands may have been hit by winds up to 155 miles an hour. I bet Gail Macleod is there reporting.

If your closest contact with wildlife is watching Mr. Fox trotting down the road in broad daylight or Roland Rat scurrying across the back lawn you will enjoy blogs from the African continent.

Robbie Cheadle shares some beautiful photos and we learn a lot.

https://writingtoberead.com/2024/01/24/in-touch-with-nature-giraffes-chew-bones-and-lions-eat-grass-animalkingdom-natureconser

 Scuba Hank NYC is usually underwater, but has been on safari lately and his latest clip of a lovely Zebra set me thinking. Other members of the horse family were domesticated millennia ago. As far as we know Zebras never have been. It’s like the elephant conundrum. Asian elephants have been dragging logs and dressing up in beautiful garments to carry royalty for a very long time and more recently entertaining in circuses, while African elephants seem to have remained independent, or have they? Hannibal took 37 North African elephants over the Alps to give The Romans a fright. They had never seen elephants before so no doubt they did get a surprise. His plan worked, but sadly most of the elephants died of the cold that winter.  African elephants no doubt decided to avoid ever getting involved with humans again.

Up Close with a Stunning Zebra – South Africa

If you have seen a zebra steeplechase or watched zebra dressage, let us know.

24 thoughts on “Thursday Thoughts A-Z”

  2. I chuckled when I read about the bus stop announcements on your buses. Our buses have them, too. Just the other day, my partner and I got off the Park & Ride bus at the National Space Centre stop. But don’t be fooled. We are not astronauts.

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      2. Obviously a story there Liz. My strangest surprise was on a train in suburban Perth, Western Australia in the seventies when I glanced out the window and saw a herd of elephants by the track. It turned out the circus was in town.

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    1. Hello Carol, I would love to see an elephant strolling around when I am shopping.
      The Castle Street mural was painted last year.
      ‘In 1860, the Mission of Seafarers charity opened a chapel for sea men at the premises. Often the priest of the chapel would row his dinghy from the Quay to boats moored in the harbour to preach and to give support to the crew and so the ‘Flying Angel’ figure, as the symbol of the seafarers, was the inspiration behind the mural.’

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  8. Hi Janet, thank you for including the link to my post here. A lovely surprise. African elephants are bigger than Asian elephants and they cannot be tamed. Elephants sometimes turn on their carers. Its a dangerous job. We have wild animals and you have an efficient bus service that works. I suppose its a choice, but life here is getting more and more challenging as all the government services fail, one by one.

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    1. Yes Robbie, without blogging we often wouldn’t know about other peoples’ lives. Many parts of the world hardly get a mention in the news with some events and countries in the news all the time!

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