The Grass is NOT Always Greener on the Other Side

I need to have a rant! With much fanfare it’s recently been announced that NASA is to begin more exploration of Mars. You can see some images of this planet here:

Now that you’ve undoubtedly been wowed by those images think of some earthly  places you’ve seen. Just in Australia I’ve seen tropical rainforests, snow covered mountains, stony deserts, amazing  coral reefs and beaches with kilometres of golden sands. I’ve seen giant Eucalyptus trees, tiny orchids and wonderful little insectivorous Sundews.

In my backyard I’ve seen Springtails so tiny you’d fit a dozen on a pinhead, absolutely beautiful rainbow coloured beetles and an hours drive away giant Southern Right Whales playing with their young off Middleton Beach.

Earth is home to millions of different species of plants and animals BUT the species which claims to be the cleverest is the one fouling it for everything else. People have caused the creation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch but it’s apparently “too difficult and too expensive” to clean it up. Not as expensive though as a little trip to Mars!

https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-much-would-it-cost-clean-pacific-garbage-patches.html

One country is prepared to spend over  $2.47 billion on an expedition to Mars, a planet that to me is less appealing than the most inhospitable place on Earth I’ve ever been. I wish that the billions being spent on nuclear weapons and space exploration was instead used to remediate the damage done to this incredible planet we live on now.

 

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New Meets Old

These days it’s proved impossible for me to resist the tidal wave of the mobile phone. A big issue for me has been the “always available” aspect but currently the most annoying feature relates to fashion. Yes, the fashion of bigger and bigger screen sizes but also the fashion for false pockets or sagging pockets in clothes. It’s summer now and hot so wearing nice loose clothes keeps me comfortable, I don’t often wear dresses but those I do wear don’t have functioning pockets. The lovely, loose, soft pants which are currently fashionable have equally soft, loose pockets which means that every time I sit down the phone silently slips out and often disappears into the side of the seat cushions. If I keep the phone in a bag when I go out I become all thumbs when I try to retrieve it to answer a call. Frustrating.

I’ve discovered a solution at least to the soft pants, a press stud midway on the pocket edge and that’s where new meets old. The mobile phone and soft, loose pants are the new while the press studs I found were definitely old. The one I used today was the last on a card I found in my grandmother’s sewing basket. She died in 1959!