Quotation for Sunday 14th June 2020

Good morning everyone,

There's one word buzzing in my head for the past couple of days and it's freedom. On Friday I made my first visit to do a big shop in over three months and yesterday my husband and I went to the foreshore of Southampton Water to take the breeze and have a walk. It was glorious. Never before had I noticed the ozone in the air so much, or had the seagulls sounded so loud. There was a heavy breeze blowing, and although lots of others were there to enjoy it, it wasn't too difficult to maintain social distancing, so I felt safe and happy too. We walked along the shingle and it was quite difficult after such a long time with not enough exercise.

I've come to appreciate how difficult it's going to be for nearly 68,000,000 people (the population of UK), to safely share the open spaces we have, all at the same time. Compare that to New Zealand, which is roughly the same size as us, and has a population of 5,000,000!

Anyway, going out made me very aware of freedom and how important it is to us all, and how much some people have had to fight for theirs.

I'd looked for quotes on small freedoms but quite rightly they mostly seemed to be about the big struggles, and of all the ones i found, this one appealed most.

"There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires." - Nelson Mandela -

I very much think that this came from his heart!

I hope you all enjoy your Sunday in whatever way you can.

Photograph: John Paul Henry, Unsplash

[sassy59]

Another great quote from a great man Callendersgal. Thank you for that.

How did the big shop go? I’m so pleased you enjoyed your walk with your husband too and experienced freedom after all this time.

Wishing you a wonderful day.

Take care all. Xxx😀🌈😘

[Hidden in reply to sassy59]

Hi sassy59, the shop went really well, thanks. It was well organised and there's plenty of space to keep your distance, so it was easy and really nice to be doing something from the era of my normal life! Saturday was also really nice. Hope you had a lovely Sunday! 🌺🦋☕️🌈 xxx

[sassy59 in reply to Hidden]

That’s good to hear. We have had a lovely Sunday and seen our grandsons. Social distancing of course. Xxx😀😘

[Lynd]

I long to see and smell the seaside.

Too far to drive there and back in a day and from what I've seen on TV the locals are pretty hostile which is understandable.

[Hidden in reply to Lynd]

I definitely wouldn't be going far to find the sea Lynd and especially the sort of locations that are popular seaside town. For one thing, what on earth do you do for the loo all day? It's a pleasure you can hopefully look forward to in the future, but until people start to disperse to do their everyday activities, we are going to be too overcrowded to make it possible.

Hope you are both fine otherwise and that you'll be able to find something pleasant to do in your own locality, as the rules are relaxed and it becomes safer. 😊🙏

[Hellebelle]

Hi Callendersgal,

Congratulations on being let out! I am a key worker so I have been working through this but I am conscious of all the older people, my mum included, who have been deprived of their freedom all this time. Let's hope we continue to be able to get more back to normalish way of life, although I have loved going to work with less traffic on the road!