A SWAN - OR MORE THAN A SWAN?

Whenever I walk before breakfast by the Dart in Totnes and see this swan he swims across to me immediately. This morning his behavior was quite extraordinary. From the far side of the river - where he had been hobnobbing with two wading birds and a duck - he came straight over (and posed for this photo).

I spoke to him (as I often do!)  and he appeared to listen. Then I made as if to go and he turned to go too. But when I stayed he came straight back. We repeated this process several times and I was able to take a whole host of close up pictures of his arrivals and departures.

It might of course just be my fancy, but more and more I feel as if this swan and I share an affinity - and maybe a history!

You see, I had a Bearded Collie who yearned to be a bird and spent his whole life trying to fly ...

Is there any connection between Sam and this swan? I leave you to decide!

WHO WAS A.J.B?

I was stopped in my tracks during a walk near South Brent, Devon, the other day by the sight of this little cross and the poignant words nearby. Who was 'A.J.B - Royal Navy' and how was he 'taken by this tree' in 1990?

Did the tree fall and kill him, or did he die naturally at that spot? Whoever he was, someone still marks with fresh flowers the place where he died, keeping his memory alive.

ETERNITY

When I recently took this picture of St Michael's Mount from Marazion I felt a curious sense of eternity - almost as if I were standing outside time, in the place where there is no death, just life eternal!

Have you ever experienced a similar feeling?

IN A CHURCHYARD

Whenever I see snowdrops growing in a churchyard I think of my great-grandmother. I never knew her, but I know that she lived (and died) in a castle in Czechoslovakia. I also know that every year, at the first hint of spring, she went barefoot into a special part of her garden and gently lifted the snowy coverlet from the earliest snowdrops.

She went barefooted because that's simply what she did. How do I know all this? I learned it from my mother who, year after year, sent pressed snowdrops to her brother George for his February birthday. He lived in Nassau in the Bahamas by then and she sent them from her home in Kent as a poignant reminder of their shared childhood in Czechoslovakia - and of their grandmother.

Do you find, as I do, that when we keep memories alive it is almost as if the one we're thinking of has not died? I certainly found that when, inspired by my grandmother, I wrote The Foreigner!

SOOTHING SEA!

Do you find it as soothing as I do to gaze out to sea and imagine just how fathomless it is?

There's a whole universe concealed within its depths. I have a sense of awe when I try to consider the size of that universe. But it's too vast for my limited vision - just as the sky is too vast when I raise my eyes to the stars.

While surrounded by so much that's awesome in our lives, it isn't such a big jump, is it, to feel secure in the knowledge - or at least to believe - that there's further cause for awe awaiting us after we die?

YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT IS AFTER DEATH

Do you love these words from Fiddler On The Roof as much as I do?

‘Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years; one season following another, laden with happiness and tears … ‘

It’s so true, isn’t it, that time flies swiftly by? Maybe you find, like I do, that the years seem to fly by faster and faster as we age. I remember my parents saying, when I was a teenager, that they still felt exactly the same on the inside as they did in their teens. I confess to not quite believing them!

But I certainly believe them now that I am somewhat older than they were then. I now know that I’m ageless within. It’s solely on the outside that we show the passing of the years.

So, our bodies age while our souls retain their original state …

It surely follows, then, that upon death our soul simply discards the body that is no longer wanted or needed and returns whence it came.

Do you agree – or do you have other views that you’d like to share either here or via Face Book? I’d love to hear your thoughts on what is after death! 

P.S. I'm excited to tell you that THE FOREIGNER (a novel I truly believe my charismatic grandmother helped me write after she died) has just become available here.