It's good to see British women doing well in the Vendée Globe again. Ellen MacArthur preceded her impressive round the world voyage with a Vendée Globe success.

Sam Davies completed the coure in ninety five days and impressed people by not moaning about hardships but marvelling at the beauty of the natural world. "It sounds strange, but it was easy," she said. "It felt as I was doing something normal." It sounds like she was 'in the zone!'

She was closely followed by Dee Caffari who thus became the first woman to sail solo around the world non-stop in both directions, despite having a broken sail.

Wow!

(Source: The Week, 21/2/09, quoting Andrew Longmore in The Sunday Times and Kate Laven in the Daily Telegraph.) 

I like this photo of swans, with reflections from water and ice as the temperature rises above freezing on Corsham lake.

Click here to see album of other Corsham snow scenes.

It seems to have been snowing all week, which we don't remember happening for the last eight years, and according to the weather forecasters this is the biggest snowfall we have had for eighteen years. It's fun to make snowmen, but not so much fun if you're car is stuck in a snow drift. Ours are just stuck in a car park, so it's good that we can work from home.

Here's some snowmen from our back garden and our creative local florist!
Click on the photos to see them in full.

 

Following a couple of earlier articles about God getting a mention (here and here) it's interesting to read that Tony Blair is enjoying his new found freedom from British public office to invoke God's blessing.

Perhaps because he wanted to, but was purportedly prevented from, ending a speech with "God bless the British people" he has been first among British leaders to meet new president Barack Obama at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in the U.S.A. He finished his speech there with: "By the way, God bless you all."

It is curious that a short trip across the Atlantic Ocean allows things unsaid to be said. It is Grace Davie, Professor of Sociology at Exeter University, who has written particularly about the unique secularism of Western Europe. I wonder whether, if we become increasingly entrenched in this, we may find it increasingly difficult to relate to the other 95% of the world's population.

Surprised this morning to see snow falling here in Corsham. It feels cold in the house too. Although there is just a thin covering here, England is experiencing "the heaviest snow for 18 years" - that's since 1991.