An adventure.

I was asked last night why at my age I was still out there doing all those things I get involved in. I only had one simple little answer and that was, "You cannot spend your life just sitting about."

The minute I said I remembered a tale that was true but makes me laugh every time I do remember it. 

it was the story of a man called Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighbourhood from a new perspective. 

He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land. 

Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky, smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, causing long delays in flights from across the country. 

Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions. 

"Were you scared?"  "Yes." 

"Would you do it again?" "No." 

"Why did you do it?"  "Because," he said, "you can't just sit there." 

It is so very true, you cannot just sit there.    I know some of my friends find going from the living room to the kitchen a strain and they have to sit down for the next two hours to recover from the experience. But they have done it because we need to hold on to our independence for as long as we can.

This selfie was taken yesterday as my friend and fellow member of the Freuchie in flower team decided to brighten up the roadside leading out of the village planting polyanthus and pansies to welcome or say a cheerful farewell to those entering or leaving the village.

The roadside was hard and difficult to turnover but once completed we felt a sense of achievement. We are both of an age when we were also aware of our present situation of, " youth deficiency". 

But you cannot just sit there. I like to think that at least once a day I have done a little something that makes a difference to the life of somebody else. Even if it is to just make a friendly gesture to somebody on my friend's list.

Have a wonderful day.