The Restory Retreat Centre

Two old men go moose hunting in Canada. They arrange with the pilot who drops them off in a remote region to come and pick them up in a week’s time. After a week the pilot returns to find the two old hunters with a moose each. “I can’t take the two of you with the two moose” he tells them. “My plane won’t manage with the load. You’ll have to leave one moose behind.” “The pilot we hired last year said the same thing” they tell the pilot, “but after we’ve offered him a big tip he agreed and took the two of us and the two moose.” The three of them argue for several minutes more. Finally the pilot agrees to take both moose. With everything and everybody loaded the plane charges down the runway and with a shudder they have lift off barely missing the tree tops at the end of the runway. But try as he may, the pilot cannot gain height and has to make an emergency landing in a clearing. The two hunters, dazed and confused make their way out of the wreckage. One hunter looks at the other and ...

Every now and again George remembers his duties as my personal muse and assigns me a writing exercise with themes that range from truly mediocre, like to write about who lives in my street, to spectacularly bizarre: the Queen's handbag being one I distinctly remember. Of course, he knows that I will find out, as I write along, that no theme is ever mediocre, but the writing makes it so. As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, mediocrity is often the shades we wear looking at the world around us. "Write about what you don't think about." I ignored the assignment for a bit. I usually do when I know it will take me places I might not find comfortable. In any case, writing about what I'm not thinking about will have me thinking about it, won't it? But yes, I know what he means. So let's see where this leads me. It really depends on the season, but in these glorious, golden, autumn days, and again in late spring, I don't think about climatic temp...