Loose ends

View from Ward Law with Caerlaverlock Castle in the distance.

I have a postal redirection in place which will come to an end soon so I’m trying to sort out the odds and sods that are still going to the old address. Remarkably my husband still gets mail from the Halifax so, after some phone calls, I was told that I needed to go into a branch personally. It turned out that Penrith is closed on Saturdays so I went through to Carlisle. It was busy so I did what I needed to although didn’t get anywhere (stupidly I didn’t think to take the death certificate) and decided to go somewhere nicer and more peaceful.
It was a relief to meet nice people... talked to two women coming down ...we were glad there was a fence between us and the bellowing bull ... and then an elderly couple and a chat about our shared love of geese ... they were keen to look up Mary Oliver’s poem when they get home after I’d gone on about it.
Just nice to be amongst some decent people.

I’ve just checked ... I haven’t posted it since 2018 ... definitely time to post it again!

Wild Geese - Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.