Every little thing helps.

Yesterday I played golf on the beautiful Aberdour Golf Course. The course runs along the edge of the sea and every hole is blessed with beautiful views and vistas. I really had never appreciated just how beautiful it was until yesterday. I was hitting the ball true and clean, I was playing on my own so not competitive at all except for myself. So I relaxed and enjoyed it.

Then later some remark was made about art and what had been a great day lost its glow. 

Being an artist seems to bring this out in people, everybody can do it better and nobody ever wants to pay what it costs to produce never mind a very little extra. 

it is good when people let you know it is appreciated and thank those who take the time to do so. Life is indeed the place of hard knocks.

A little tale, more for myself this morning than others. 

Once upon a time there were four seeds who were good friends of each other. Taken up by the wind they finally landed in a jungle clearing. There they remained, hidden on the ground, hoping they would be able to grow up and become beautiful trees.

But when the first seed began germinating, they realised it wouldn't be such an easy task. In that clearing there lived a group of monkeys, and the smallest monkeys would amuse themselves by throwing bananas at any plant they noticed was starting to grow. Using this game, the monkeys learnt how to throw bananas and they also kept the clearing free of vegetation.

They threw so many bananas at that first seed that it was almost split in two. And when it told the other seeds what happened, they all agreed it would be better to wait for that group of monkeys to move on, before they attempted to grow.

Well, they all thought that, apart from one, who thought she should at least attempt it. And when she tried she was pelted with bananas, and was left folded over in two. The other seeds got together and asked her to stop trying, but that little seed was completely determined to become a tree, and time and again she would try and try. On each new occasion the little monkeys had slightly improved their aim, and so the little seed ended up doubled over yet again.

But the seed didn’t give up. Every time they pelted her with bananas, she tried even harder, despite her friends begging her to stop, and telling her to wait until the monkeys left. And so, for days, weeks and months the little plant was attacked by the monkeys, and she always ended stooped and doubled over. For a few days she would manage to avoid the bananas, but then the next day some monkey would hit her, and it would all start over again.

And then, one day, she didn’t double over. She was hit by a banana, and then another, but none of them managed to make her stoop. She had taken so many blows, and been doubled over so many times, that she was full of hard knots and scars that helped her to grow more strongly than the other seeds. So, her slim trunk got thicker and more resistant, until it could withstand the impact of a banana. And she was already so well developed that nor could the little monkeys uproot her from the ground. And there she stayed, growing, growing and growing.

Thanks to the extraordinary strength of her trunk she could continue overcoming all difficulties, until she became the most majestic tree in the jungle. Meanwhile her friends remained hidden in the ground, and they continued as ever, hoping that those horrible monkeys would abandon the clearing, never realising that those very same monkeys were the only ones capable of strengthening the seeds' trunks by their method of throwing bananas, something that would prepare the seeds for all the problems they would confront during their growth.

Thanks again my dear friends have a wonderful day.