What a Wonderful World!

I see trees of green

Red roses too,

I see them bloom

For me and you,

And I say to myself,

What a wonderful world.

 

I see skies of blue

And clouds of white,

Bright blessed day,

The dark sacred night.

And I think to myself,

What a wonderful world!

 

I love hearing Louis Armstrong singing these fabulous words, written by George David Weiss and Robert Thiele. And yet, when one looks around, whether high on a pass in Cumbria, as Wendy and I were recently, or sitting at ones computer and watching through the window, a variety of birds swinging on the feeders in front of a mixed hedge of laurel, snowberry, hawthorn, and a fair amount of ivy, under a sky of blue, or blends of rather darkish hues, one realises that there are no words that adequately describe the natural world in which we live.

I love gazing at snow-capped mountain peaks, whether the Alps, Andes, Pyrenees, or our own beautiful Cumbria. Likewise lakes, rivers, and rural pastoral scenes such as we have in East Anglia. 

And back to the birds on the feeders. Blue tits, coal tits, great tits and long tailed tits are daily entertaining me. They are exquisite in their delicate design, fascinating behaviour, and variety of colour. Pigeons are clumsy and awkward, great spotted woodpeckers are strikingly coloured with their pied colours, and our friendly robins are never far away as I tend to the garden. In other parts of the world one has seen eagles, albatrosses, humming birds, and indeed, all shapes, colours and sizes. Yet, all have the same basic design. Either they have all evolved from a common ancestor, or they were created. I know which seems the more rational and logical to me, whilst respecting the views of those who believe that they themselves are descended from hairy creatures who swing through the trees. Indeed, I once shared those views, until something rather dramatic happened that changed my whole way of thinking. Changed me, and my destiny. 

And then there are teeth! Well, I would come to teeth, because once, they were such an intrinsic part of my life. The way they develop from primitive ‘gum’, and the way there are incisors at the front for biting, and molars at the back for chewing. Hard protective enamel develops on the surface, whilst there is continued addition of protective dentine from living tissue inside the tooth. I continue to be amazed. And the rest of the body – self-repairing skin, millions of filters in the kidneys, and capillaries which would stretch from Norfolk to the moon if laid out end to end. And if you want to believe that all this ‘evolved’, you are welcome.