Stopped to blip on my way between Workington and Wigton. This doesn’t show how rough the sea was. This gull was stoically braving the wind and rain, taking responsibility for keeping the sky from falling on everyone’s heads. The others were more sensibly sheltering behind the sea wall.

Once back in Penrith I met up with my friend and we went to see 1917. Futility was the word that sprung to mind, as always, in the face of war. There was a rather sweet moment when the three elderly ladies behind us crept out to the next studio when it dawned on them that they weren’t watching ‘Little Women’.

Futility- Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?