Category Archives: In betweens

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A round robin to sign off for the year

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As I sit typing I can hear the wind gusting outside. It is dark, and even the robins are quiet now, leaving the storm to hold the stage.

It’s a big storm, called Henk, and it’s sweeping over the southern half of the UK. Trees are down, water is spreading, trains are disrupted, and many of us are beginning to wonder whether it’s worth trying to get to work tomorrow. Bizarrely, it is also warm – 12 degrees at midnight last night according to my mobile, and not much colder now unless you’re standing in the wind. So far the power is still on.

So is the evening news. One story was of lives saved by the courage of aircrew in Japan as they helped 379 passengers exit a burning plane. The next was of deliberate killing and destruction.

Makes me wonder what the news is in the world of robins. They were out and about today, chests puffed, singing into the wind, full of the excitement of life. Hope that’s how you’re feeling where you are – bold and ready for the year ahead.

I’m hoping it will be a good one, and that I might have a little more time now I’m signing off on my daily blogging. I’ve enjoyed the writing, but it’s taken a chunk out of each day. By far the best of it, has been your company. Thanks so much. I hope to be back occasionally.

Meanwhile … here’s to you, and to 2024!

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2024

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Happy New Year! May 2024 be filled with hope

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“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.” John Lennon

I’ve been thinking about each letter in the little word ‘hope’ and finally decided to attach the words below to them. There are so many alternatives it took a little while.

H – health
O – opportunity
P – peace
E – encouragement

I wish you all of them. Thanks for your company.

Georgie

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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The limbo land between Christmas and New Year

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It’s that time between Christmas and New Year when it’s hard to figure out what’s happening when, or if you’re supposed to be doing it. One theory is that, if you lie still long enough the answers might come to you.

The best news for us in this part of the world is that the daylight hours are getting longer. The weather might be cartwheeling in new directions, but so far the world is still turning as it always has. I typed that last sentence full of confidence … and then I began to wonder. Is Earth turning as it always has? And if so, why is it turning? And the biggest question, will it keep turning?

I am no scientist but it seems that the answer to the first question is yes. The Earth is turning as it always has, and the reason why it continues to spin as it does is apparently something to do with the explosions that formed it initially, and sent it spinning … on and on and on. The only force that seems to be slowing this spin down at all is the Moon’s gravity which is pulling on it very slightly, slowing the planet’s spin, shaving tiny, tiny percentages of merest milliseconds off its rotations over the centuries since it formed.

I shall now abandon this topic as it is outside any of the orbits I normally fly around in, but here, in case you’re interested are two articles I found online when checking my easy assumption about the Earth spinning. This article by NASA’s Jet Propulasion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology was written in 1990 and describes how they measured the slowing of Earth’s spin, and this news story on the CNN site was written in January of this year, and talks about how Earth’s inner core may be about to start spinning in the opposite direction.

I’m not sure what they’ve discovered since, but it’s definitely time to lie down for me.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023