The Invisible Tree

Pic: Courtesy of RARE

For my Moment of Joy this week I'm sharing the story of the Invisible Tree which has just won the NI branch (excuse the pun) of the Tree of the Year competition.  Read more here ....

http://www.irishnews.com/…/sessile-oak-tree-in-rostrevor-c…/

A while back I wrote a piece about a building project that was being proposed on the edge of the forest where the council overturned their own planners advice and allowed the project to go ahead in spite of no proper traffic assessment or assessment on the danger to the animals and trees in the forest.  As it turns out, the site was afterwards put up for sale and the planning permission was listed as being suitable for changing to alternate purposes.   In other words, the original plans to build a nursing home and some luxury apartments was a ruse - no nursing home will ever turn up there.

Rostrevor Action Respecting the Environment (R.A.R,E) started a campaign and took it as far as the High Court to get the plans at the very least reduced in size, but a high court judge ruled in favour of the builder.

Not deterred, RARE carried on with a much more successful action, focussing on this tree that was left off the plans along with a right of way.   Now The Invisible Tree and the story is getting worldwide attention and the site is still not sold - there are many ways to skin a cat ...

A moment of joy

Glorious

Autumn Days 

Resplendent in colour

Fruitful End of Year

Joy

Have a great week - I hope you're getting lots of sunshine wherever you are.

Two for Joy

Photo by Adrian Pingstone

You know the old rhyme about magpies

"One for sorrow, two for joy
Three for a girl and four for a boy
Five for silver, six for gold
And seven for a secret never to be told."

I'm not very superstitious and yet I always look for the second magpie.   At this time of the year they're usually alone because one of them is on the nest, but if you hang around for a minute or two another will appear.   My mother tells a story of one day when she was cycling to work as a young woman - they had to go about 4 or 5 miles.   The guy who was cycling with her spotted one magpie and being really superstitious went off the road in search of the second one.   As a result they were both an hour late for work!   I always thought that was hilarious - I'm sure it wasn't at the time but she laughs at it now.

Well I'm wondering would she laugh if she knew we have a pair of magpies nesting in our garden.     Most people I know hate magpies.  

But I love the idea that we'll always have joy.

There has been too much sorrow around in recent days and weeks and I need as much joy as I can find.

While the world reeled from the loss of life in Nepal and from all the horrors of life in the wars and riots around the world, we were mourning the loss of another member of our little choir. A relatively young man recovering from a minor operation on his knee - he died very suddenly four days later.  Everyone's assuming it was a clot.   I sang yesterday at his funeral and it was such a sad day.   He was a fireman and had two young children and a beautiful wife.   He was 51.   You will be very much missed  Larry.

As the choir gathered on Wednesday night I struggled to find songs to lift everyone's spirits.  We were all on the brink of tears and everyone was singing flat.  When one person left the room in tears I thought tea was needed, and gradually after lots of chat we managed a smile and even got a few laughs in the last few songs of the evening.

Singing gives great joy.  It releases hormones not dissimilar to chocolate :)  It's not always easy to sing when we're feeling fragile and broken and beaten by life or just by the stresses of the day.  But if you can manage even to sing along to the radio or yell out a bit of AC/DC at the top of your voice in the shower, or hum a lullaby to a child, or sing along with Dolly, your mood will lift and it will lift very very quickly.

The world is in serious need of joy at the moment.  Let's keep on singing.



I'm joining in today with Lisa for the 1 Word Blog Linkup.