Category Archives: Out and About

Wild Animal Rescue – Fish & Chip Babies

March 17, 2014 Mugo Leave a comment

There is the Kangaroo Sanctuary near Alica Springs and the Penguin Foundation Phillip Island, East of Melbourne. And around the world similar endeavours are finding creative ways to draw attention to their need for funds. I particularly like the Knit for Nature program providing the tiny Penguins of Phillip Island with much needed sweaters as part of their rehabilitation programme. Ahh, cute! And this evening we watched the first in a BBC2 series of Kangaroo Dundee featuring a lone man in the Australian outback who has dedicated himself to rescuing orphaned Joeys from the pouches of road killed mother Kangaroos. Imagine!

Then in Africa there are the so called ‘fish and chip’ babies. So called because newborns are going home from hospital wrapped in newspaper because the mothers don’t have resources for even a blanket or clothes either. Knit For Africa, blankets for the babies. I heard recently about some bodies 70 + dad knitting up a storm for these babies.

A British TV series about a man who rescues baby Kangaroos, an all out call to knitters around the world. What’s underneath this heart string pulling? Something good I’d hope. Compassion in action or rather the raising of that aspect in all of us? To nurture and care and act and above all to give of ourselves. Media can bring distant needs close however sometimes it is the need close to home that is harder to spot. Because it is close to home. Just a thought.

Curiosities, Daily Life, Information, Out and About, Overcome Difficulties

Good-Time, Hard-Time Cat

March 14, 2014 Mugo 1 Comment

This ginger is Spain’s ‘every cat’, every stray cat that is. They all need a special tender touch considering how many of them live on the edge. Many have taken to climbing into car engines to warm up and this happened to a couple I know while holidaying in Spain recently. They had driven for more than an hour up a mountain road unknowingly giving a cat the ride of it’s life! Thankfully it didn’t die but one can imagine it might have done on a longer journey. So, be warned, and check under the car bonnet for cats before driving off, when in Spain. That’s probably the last thing one might think of doing!

And closer to home, in London, around ten hand picked stray cats are having the time of their life! Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, England’s first ‘cat cafe’ opened at the start of the month. A cafe for those who enjoy tea ‘n cakes – and playing with cats. Sounds like the whole venture is geared around the welfare of the felines, thankfully.

I’m left thinking this evening about these few good-time cats in London and the untold numbers of strays needing homes all around the world. If the the existence of The Cat Emporium (and similar ventures in the future) highlights the need for cat rescue then it will have done a great service.

Daily Life, Out and About, photograph, Teachings

Returning Within

December 27, 2013 Mugo Leave a comment

Today the sharp crisp air of late December gave way to windswept soggy blasts. The weather is an ever-present changing phenomenon here on the moors. Commented on, pondered on, prepared for, and the anticipated effects of weather defended against. Water gathering up high on the moors eventually reaches critical mass and comes gushing down in foaming, gushing, bubbling waterfalls. It comes so fast the drainage system struggles to do its job effectively. And I’m now thinking of those in Britain who have lost their homes and livelihoods to the weather this winter.

Now is the time to stay indoors, settle down and be less physical active. But that’s not possible for everybody and nobody can stay in for ever. There’s shopping and driving and visiting to be done. Relatives and friends to see and people to visit who are stuck indoors. The elderly and infirm, the sick and those recovering surgery in hospital. I feel myself fortunate that all I have to do is walk from one building to another. That too will change.

What ever the weather and where ever one is be it indoors, stuck indoors, being blown about by wind (inside or outside!) always there is the choice to return within. Constantly.

Just in case you are a grandparent and need advice, support and a laugh, try Gransnet.

Daily Life, Out and About

Be Careful Not To Trip Over

December 23, 2013 Mugo 2 Comments

Drawing on the collective memory of the monks it is generally agreed there has never NEVER been so much water gushing down the hillside here at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey. But why? Why so much water all of a sudden since there hasn’t been that much rain. What ever the reason there has been much activity during the day to channel the water using sandbags. There is a line of them going directly across the sparsely lit lane we walk down early in the morning for meditation. A helpful note stuck to an outside door reminds us to, Be careful not to trip over the sandbags in the lane!

So on a wet and very windy night-time moorland in Northumberland, where we are taking care not to trip, here’s wishing equanimity and peace of mind be your constant companions into the New Year ahead.

May we
within the dimly lit
interior of our
over active
minds…
not
trip over.

Out and About, photograph

Platforms and Pavements

December 12, 2013 Mugo Leave a comment

Crowds walking, talking and some singing. Carols on Euston Station. Some laughing, pulling luggage, pushing wheelchairs and everywhere the phone.

What stays with me from the last 24 hours being on the road is a small boy in an all bells and whistles wheelchair. His mother so up-beat as she wheeled him onto a bus with two more children in tow. Likely that child will become a man – in a full sized wheelchair. In it for as long as life lasts. And then there was the man in the wheelchair waiting to be assisted onto a train via a ramp. Silently stressed yet still prepared to travel, with assistance.

Mobility, being able to move about freely on foot and on wheels as I have been able to do causes me to ponder. In gratitude. And in sympathy for those who can’t and may never leave their wheels. Some photographs in London. Post written on the train heading north. Uploaded via email from a phone….