The view eastwards from my home office window
Being well into my sixties, it seems that I should no longer be surprised by the everyday little things we encounter in our daily life. It occurs to me that I am surprised by the effect that the view from my home office window has on me. It’s a lovely warm winter’s day – 16°C (61°F). What I find surprising is a realisation that there is not the slightest hint of a breeze. Even the the wind turbines in the distance are still.
The image shown in the header of this blog is cropped from a snapshot of the view from the terrace outside my office window. There are three wind farms on the ranges seen in the distance, although they are not easy to identify in the picture, being taken on my HP Slate tablet. I’m not sure of the total number of turbines but each wind farm has between 50 and 80. Today, not one of them is moving. The day is eerily calm and the effect is carried over into my being.
Today is not a day for ranting. It’s more a day for gentle reflection and being grateful for the blessings life has bestowed on me: an amazing wife, two wonderful children, three absolutely adorable grandchildren and good health (if I ignore the migraines). I have a mortgage free home with views that are simply stunning and change by the hour. It’s almost perfect.
Except…
It’s Sunday, which means it’s race day at the nearby motor racing circuit. We are at an elevation so that even though the circuit is around a kilometre away, we get the tortured sounds of screaming engines from various parts of the track, without any intervening obstructions to moderate the noise.
Another Spectrum 
8 Jun, 2014 at 4:29 pm
Sounds like you have a very nice life and certainly a nice view. I suppose the sounds of the motor raceway on Sundays is a relatively small price to pay for everything else that you have in your “almost perfect” world.
8 Jun, 2014 at 6:04 pm
It’s an almost perfect life because that’s how I choose to see it. If I chose to take a negative view on how health issues have affected me socially and financially I could easily be quite miserable. But I don’t see any point in that.
24 Jun, 2014 at 2:35 am
Ha! When you live in the city, the sounds of kids racing is a nightly thing. Don’t be an old curmudgeon Barry. ha! grumble, grumble.
24 Jun, 2014 at 1:42 pm
Kids racing is relatively fleeting before the cops either move them along or run them in. The motor racing is nearly all day. And the two days of practice before an event are just as bad, if not more. They start earlier and end later than race day.
Even more of an issue is the sport of drifting which is very popular here and growing. I don’t understand their scoring system, but it seems to me like the whole point of the sport is to make as much smoke and tyre noise as possible. Of course they use the same race track as other motor sport. Try relaxing through the continuous noise of screeching tyres.