did you ever kiss a frog?

340 million years ago it was coral! :something new every day

A fact I have discovered which I didn’t know or had forgotten, and forgetting has to be considered these days!:) was that part of our peak district used to be a coral reef in warm shallow seas. Who would know it!

I have always known the Peak District has bitter winters - had its shape and contours carved from at least one great Ice Age. Geography lessons taught me that. A tough land with tough people living there. Not a place for wimps like me. A beautiful wild part of our islands.

Now I'm told that 340 million years ago parts of the area was a lagoon with coral reefs. I do like coral reefs. Full of interest and colour. I wonder if they were so, 340 million years back. I shall assume they are because it would be too disappointing to find out otherwise.

Since I was at school and learnt about ice ages. I have discovered north has been south and back again a couple of times. So I could maybe have considered our colder north of the country might have been warm at some time. Knowing there is a lot of limestone in parts of the Peak District maybe I could have wondered about where it came from. Hindsight though is a waste of time it was this year I discovered, decades after those geography lessons, that the Peak District used to be coral reefs in warm lagoons.

 

Have a look at our Peak District  and here

A thousand lifetimes: something new every day

 

I like cats, always have. We had both cats and dogs in the family home, but it was the cats they drew me. Photos of me as child have me with kittens and cats hardly a one with the dogs. I collected postcards of them, learnt quite a bit about them through books and experience. I knew when the kittens were due before the adults. My knowledge of the domestic cat went back to the Egyptians, and had skidded over the sabre tooths. Of the big cats no further than zoos and wild life documentaries

After I left home my life style was unsuitable for the keeping of pets not even cats. I didn’t have my first cat until retirement. And have been content with this.

The other day I watched a documentary of the cat family and discovered much that was new to me.

Cats were well evolved by 11 million years again, in S.E.Asia

They arrived in
Africa 8 Million years

And there I was thinking they all began in Africa!

I always knew that sabre tooth cats were in cat’s history but had not realized we were talking 25 million years ago.

There are now 37 species of cat or is it 41, accounts appear to differ!

They are some very small wild cats like the Rusted-spotted cat who weighs in at 4.6lbs
Small yes?

Younger cat (she is no longer young, neither is she a younger cat, older cat died over a year ago) weighs in at approx 6lbs - there is a wild predator in the wilds of India and Shi-lanka smaller than my cat

Then we have the big cats - I knew they were big I had seen them - but a Siberian tiger has weighed in at 930 lbs He was a (captive animal but still) even in the wild a Siberian has been weighed in at 857 lbs

There was so much more I didn’t know in the programme, there is always so much I don’t know, a thousand lifetimes would not suffice to know it all - pity that:)

A thousand lifetimes will not suffice

 

 

I like cats, always have. We had both cats and dogs in the family home, but it was the cats they drew me. Photos of me as child have me with kittens and cats hardly a one with the dogs. I collected postcards of them, learnt quite a bit about them through books and experience. I knew when the kittens were due before the adults. My knowledge of the domestic cat went back to the ancient Egyptians, and had skidded over the Sabre-tooth cat. even longer ago. Of the big cats no further than zoos and wild life documentaries

After I left home my life style was unsuitable for the keeping of pets, even cats. I didn’t have my first cat until retirement. And have been content with this.

The other day I watched a documentary about the cat family and discovered much that was new to me.

 Sabre tooth tigers were not  tigers, indeed not even cats. They lied to me a school all those decades ago:)

Cats  as we know them were well evolved by 11 million years ago,  in S.E.Asia

They arrived in

Africa only 8 Million years ago

And there I was thinking they all began in Africa!

I always knew that Sabre tooth cats were in cat’s history but had not realized we were talking 25 million years ago.

There are now 37 or is it 41, accounts appear to differ!

They are some very small wild cats like the Rusted-spotted cat who weighs in at 4.6lbs

Small yes?

Younger cat (she is no longer young, neither is she a younger cat, older cat died over a year ago) weighs in at approx 6lbs - there is a wild predator in the wilds of India and shi-lanka smaller than my cat

Then we have the big cats - I knew they were big, I had seen them - but a Siberian tiger has weighed in at 930 lbs He was a captive animal but still! Even in the wild a Siberian has been weighed in at 857 lbs.  From 4.6 to 857 is a huge size range.

There was so much more I didn’t know in the programme, there is always so much I don’t know, a thousand lifetimes would not suffice to know it all.

Pity that:)

Something New Every Day

Among the bad and unhappy news with is sent our way; the doom-mongers who declare our world is finished, that human nature is rubbish; among the indifference and blindness that inflict some, there is a wonderful world full of beauty and interest, full of fascinating people of ingenious inventions, marvellous work being carried out.

When I was so very young my ambition was to go and see, to travel and visit all the various cultures and find excitement. I didn’t consider post war austerity Britain as very exciting!:) I did travel off and on for years. I thrived on it, almost an addiction. Saw, heard and experienced so much. Everything kept my brain fizzing and colourful. Something new every day.

Then I came home to help ageing parents.

What then?
What to do?

On a whim I took myself off to University and discovered a new way of experiencing the new, interesting and exciting. More brain fizz, more colour. Something new every day.

Now I am ageing and retired I am confined more and more, travel is non existent but now there is not only my mainstay, books, there are scintillating videos, documentaries, there is the Internet - connections with millions, a whole universe of the new, exciting, interesting. Colourful fizz. Full of something new every day.

I am going to be adding short posts on some of newness I experience - spurred on by Nerd in the Brain’s Three Thing Thursday, of small things which makes one smile. I smile most of the day so it becomes difficult to pick just three occasions so I will alternate 3TT with something new every day.