Horizontal epistles

Lying on my side looking out the window from my parents' bedroom I have occasion to marvel once more at the sky and the landscape in all its youthful beauty as spring emerges.  It feels like a it's been a long winter but this is more an internal situation.  The sky is a patchwork of cotton balls and grey-white blankets and although it's mostly cloudy it still feels bright.  This view never tires.  I've observed this patch of sky for 39 years as it arcs over my childhood home.  It's been greeted by all the things that stirred my heart and made me fall in love with the sky: planes, microlights, helicopters, hot air balloons, airships (yes, even those rarities), birds of prey and thunderstorms.  This is the stuff of dreams and adventures.  And I'm here once more to rekindle that fire in my heart and my stomach. 

Well, truth be told, I'm here because I'm unwell and life has had to slow but I'm taking advantage of this time of respite and recovery.  I'm also taking a little license by using a title familiar to any Adrian Plass lovers.  I'm no Andromeda Veal - or Adrian Plass for that matter - but the title amuses me and is apt during this era of bedridden lurgy. 

During these past few days the precipitation seemed to glisten as it fell, like some sparkling gems were falling.  It turns out it was sleet falling in the faint sunlight.  Spectacular.  Even if it snuck in a little wintry shower during my springtime celebration.  But this is April and according to Dad it's normal.  Trueness: it snowed heavily on my grandmother's 80th birthday (April 8th) in 2008.  I love these little memories and anecdotes on weather. 

Dad kept a daily record of the weather and temperatures here from the 1960s all the way up to the early 00s, when, after another battering from a stormy season, his weather box finally gave up the ghost.  'Twas a sad day and we have tried to hook him up to the latest gadgets but he opted to retire from this long-haul hobby.  But if anyone wants to know what the weather was doing "on this day, 1977" Dad is your man.  Well, for this part of the world anyway.  My love for weather and the sky comes from him I suspect.  The utter geekdom about planes and aviation is something else entirely. 

Apparently I could draw planes before I could write my name.  This continued into my teenage years when I flew solo in a light aircraft before I had passed my driving test.  Some might say I like to do things the hard way.  I say, well, yes... but isn't it also about carving ones own path?  Pioneering.  I don't know.  Look at the sky.  It does its own thing and we are affected by it all.  We can predict and forecast but never get it correct every time.  That's sort of how I see life.  Roll with the unpredictable.  It builds resilience. And makes for a good adventure.  Probably why I opted to learn to fly hot air balloons.  How do you steer a balloon? - any way the wind blows (cue a well-known Queen song).