Feel Good Friday

[MAS_Nurse]

Hi everyone and welcome to Feel Good Friday. How has your week been? Please share with us any high spots or low ones on this caring community. We would love to hear how you have all been this week. I have just returned from a short cruise in the Scottish Highlands. The scenery was fantastic and we had a wonderful time. We visited Mull and saw where the children's TV series was made. I would like to share an inspirational quote with you all-----

"Put your heart, mind and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."

[Swami Sivananda].

I hope you all have a lovely week,

Best wishes

MAS Nurse.

[PMRPete]

Too hot here in Gloucestershire but coping well mostly staying indoors. My wife and I share all the needs as we can, cleaning cooking and gardening.

We like the quote! Best wishes.

[Kittie103]

Too hot to do anything here in Kent, and I'm using all my energy trying to get DH to keep up his fluids - it's a losing war I'm afraid.

All I can manage is the bare minimum of cooking and washing, but we are due a thunderstorm later. Hope everyone is keeping as cool as possible.

[sassy59]

Very hot week and Pete has struggled but not too bad. Had friends here for lunch which was very nice indeed. Feeling a little cooler today.

So pleased you enjoyed your cruise and hope everyone has a good week next week. Xxxxx

[MAS_Nurse]

Thanks everyone, have a lovely week. Best wishes.

[MAS_Nurse]

Thanks everyone. have a lovely week. Best wishes.

[Hidden]

Hi MAS-Nurse,

Your Scottish cruise sounds delightful! Glad you enjoyed it so much.

This week's highlight for my husband and me was our annual pilgrimage to that most British of institutions, the country show, and namely the New Forest Show in Hampshire. Unless the weather is truly dreadful, or my husband's shift pattern won't allow for it, we always try to go.

The ritual is a bit like Christmas really; i.e. the same old formula, with events going on in the show ring all day, the most magnificent of farm beasts proudly displayed, and lots to eat, drink and see.

The flowers were, as always, magnificent but my favourite by far, as every year, is the WI tent. Never mind the jam and Jerusalem, I head straight for the handicrafts which this year had the theme 'Girls Can' and there was the most amazing array of craft work remembering female authors and heroes, and of course the 100th anniversary of votes for women and the work done to achieve that by suffragettes and suffragists.

I always feel very small and humble when I see the magnificent results of someone's imagination and skill displayed in a beautiful and/or interesting piece of craft. Unfortunately I'm not really to be encouraged with sewing or knitting needles or a pair of scissors!

I find it hard to get excited by the best cake, or the best jar of jam even though there's great skill in that too course, and I always admire the moistest cake and the jammiest jam, but it's those little tableaux of stitched work that really always make me gasp in admiration!

Lots of heartfelt comments about the heat this week and sorry to hear so many people are struggling.

I hope for all of them that we get a little promised respite over the next few days.

Have a good week everyone.

[FredaE]

It rained--that lovely smell of wet earth and the sound of rain on the window this morning.

I am not a desert animal

FredaE

[Hidden in reply to FredaE]

Hello FredaE

There was a lovely article over the weekend on this smell - petrichor it is called. This is an extract:

"These critters are abundant in soil," explained Prof Mark Buttner, head of molecular microbiology at the John Innes Centre.

"So when you're saying you smell damp soil, actually what you're smelling is a molecule being made by a certain type of bacteria," he told the BBC.

That molecule, geosmin, is produced by Streptomyces. Present in most healthy soils, these bacteria are also used to create commercial antibiotics.

Drops of water hitting the ground cause geosmin to be released into the air, making it much more abundant after a rain shower.

"Lots of animals are sensitive but human beings are extremely sensitive to it," added Prof Buttner.

Isabel Bear and RG Thomas, the researchers who first named the scent petrichor, found that as early as the 1960s it was being captured to sell as a scent called "matti ka attar" in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Now, geosmin is becoming more common as a perfume ingredient.

"It's a really potent material and it smells just like the concrete when the rain hits it," said perfumer Marina Barcenilla. "There's something very primitive and very primal about the smell."

"Even when you dilute it down to the parts per billion range, [humans] can still detect it," she added.

Yet we also have an odd relationship with geosmin - while we are drawn to its scent, many of us dislike its taste.

Geosmin also gives beetroot their distinctive earthy flavour

Even though it is not toxic to humans, the tiniest amount can put people off mineral water or wine when it is present.

"We do not know why we dislike geosmin," commented Prof Jeppe Lund Nielsen from Aalborg University in Denmark.

"It is not toxic to humans in typical found ranges, but somehow we associate it with something negative," he added.

bbc.co.uk/news/science-envi...