Glass

I was reading some stuff a freind had written online. She was talking about likes and senses and i remembered how cool these little quirks of interest can be. The film amelie has that, she likes skimming stones and plunging her hands into bags of grain. She meets people who clean, or punch the leaves of a laurel plant. So i remembered my all time favoirte sensation (except for the obvious of course):

On a cold day, when inside and feeling cosy i love to put the palm of my hand flat against a window. It works best on single glazing you can feel the cold coming through and feel how close you are to the world outside. If it is a really bad day outside you can feel the window rattle and shake as the wind hits it. It reminds me of how fragile we are, when standing there looking out feeling the cold it reminds us that if it wasnt for the glass i'd be cold. If it wasnt for the bricks and the roof i'd be exposed, if it wasnt for all the genius of people we'd be fighting for survival rather than drinking a cup of tea.

Sailing equalises that to a certain extent. We have all this technology and skill but at the end of the day if we are halfway across the atlantic and something goes wrong, or the weather gets really bad there is no glass. We cant hide, we have to deal with it, all our cunning. I thought about this last summer, sailing up a river (forget the name i'll find out), we saw a pair of hawks. They were gliding high up, using the thermals, barely flapping their wings. I got so captivated by them, watched for an hour maybe. They were so in control of their situation but had to deal with changes of the wind to stay where they where. Sailing has the same principle, if the wind blows we must act.

But at home, on land, if the weather worsens we can just stand behind the glass and drink tea.

Oh one last unrelated thing, great line from mr Scruff:

Why should it be
that the fish in the sea
are all unable to sing