Beauty in Unexpected Places

Sometimes I spend so long at the beach looking at distant veiws, the breaking waves and clouds, I forget to look down at my feet.  And here I see them; sturdy little plants of soft bleached colours, eking out an existence in a hostile, dry and salty environment.  Clinging on, holding the sand together, and starting the soil-building process, and providing a tiny, more hospitable micro-climate for insects.   Good on them, I say!

Poem for Pudding

In my quest to find interesting photos of Wellington last week, I came across this plaque, and after reading it a dozen times and still not really understanding it, I decided to take it home and ask that clever blogger Yorkshire Pudding.  So.  What's it all about, YP?  

Global Warming is Happening!

For your perusing.  And ACTION.

I know I've posted it before, under the title of saving (money) but it's a great little mind-map poster and worth posting again.

I heard on the radio yesterday (I don't watch TV) that there has been an update, based on the rate of melting of the Antarctic ice sheet...  expected sea level rise of .9 to 1.3 metres (or even 'meters', dear friend-in-other-parts-of-the-world) within the next 100 years.  

This is significant.  And is based on the present rate of global warming.  It could be 3 metres.

Don't think waves lapping the doorsteps of houses or apartments.  

Don't think 'oh we can just move the little huts on the beach-front up a bit more'.  

Don't even go near 'let's buy inland now and it will be beach-front and we can make lots of $$€€££ darling'

Think storm surges over present low-lying land.  Deltas.  Tidal flats.  River mouths.  Islands.  Shell-banks.  Sand dunes.  Spits.  It is irrelevant if there are people or buildings or cities there.  The sea won't care.

London

Perth

New York

Shanghai

the Netherlands

Vancouver

Bangladesh

New Orleans

Bangkok

Can Tho

The Suez Canal

the Chilean coast

Hong Kong

Auckland

Nuie

The Panama Canal

Egypt

Guangzhou

Sydney

Nagoya

Miranda

Venice

Tai Binh

Juneau

Peterborough

The Mekong delta

Darwin

Yokohama

many Pacific islands

Karachi

Maine

Indonesia

Quebec

To check your area go here.

You can also plug in a different sea-level rise and click for the new scenario.

Now please look at the poster again.  You can click on it to make it bigger.

Yesterday I discovered records on the internet about a branch of my family going back to the early 1500's.  I now have information about my great( x 11) grandfather... and all the fathers between him and my own grandfather Eddie who died before I was born.  

With the exception of my own grandfather, they all lived out their lives within a few miles of Bristol, marrying women within a few miles of their own homes.  Yeomen, tenant farmers, publicans, cobblers, and coal miners.  Eleven generations, until along came the industrial revolution, and England grew wealthy and built ships and trained armies and  my Grandfather Eddie ended up far from Bristol in a military hospital in China where he fell in love with and married a White Russian emigré and took her back to England with him.

Their first child was my mother.  Her first daughter was me.  My first daughter turns eighteen tomorrow.

Somehow this seems very momentous.  And in another way, it's just another day.  

Life, if we are lucky, goes on.  

But if any one of those eleven men and their wives, and all the people living in Russia that were required to create my Baboushka, and all the people in London that had to live long enough to marry and breed and produce the line leading to my Nanna and Poppa on my father's side, hadn't survived long enough to have the next child down the chain, I wouldn't exist.  

And likewise for my children's father...

Makes you think, don't it?

Happy Birthday for tomorrow darling girl!  You are the amazingly special product of a long line of lucky chances.

My Dog Likes to eat up Boxes.

When the kids were little, one of our favourite books was this one:  "My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes".  Fun, simple rhymes and introducing cats from all around the world and what they like to do ... 

These days we just have a real-life dog.  Who likes to sit in boxes.  Once she has had a good growling and frenetic tear and chew session of the box - to make it more habitable, perhaps?  

Beauty in Unexpected Places

Miranda Shorebird Centre and the astonishing Godwit

Today, with three friends, I drove up to base of the Firth of Thames - the big bite out of New Zealand that has the beautiful pristine Coromandel Peninsula on the east, and the huge city of Auckland on the west (more or less - let's not get too picky) to the Miranda Shorebird Centre. 

Here on the shell banks the special and rare Wrybill Plover overwinters.  

There are only about 5300 of these lovely birds left in the world and about 40% are here.

  

At Miranda, enthusiasts also can see lots of other birds too.  

There today, back from their long journey to Alaska where they nest and raise their young, were Bar-tailed Godwits.    We listened to a great talk by Keith Woodley who is the manager at the centre, about his months in Alaska checking out the Godwits' tundra nesting sites.  He told us about E7 - a female Godwit that has been tagged with a satellite tracking device.  She has proven what scientists have suspected - that, unlike seabirds which rest and feed on their migratory journeys, Godwits just keep going.  She flew non-stop for 10,200km (6,340 miles) from New Zealand to Yalu Jiang in China.  She then flew a further 5,000km (3,000 miles) to the Godwit breeding grounds in Alaska.  And on the way back to NZ, her tag was still working, and we know she flew even further - a record at an amazing 11,500km (7,150 miles) in one hop, without stopping!  She took just over 8 days to come back to New Zealand from Alaska.  

This is a little bird smaller than a Mallard duck.

BBC news:  Godwits' epic journey tracked.