Still cold. Still avoiding the storm - or it is avoiding us. Traffic mayhem here and there. Headaches. Bears.

The pavements were very icy when I went out earlier today to our local Tesco.  However, Storm Goretti has still been avoiding us. Ot has been blowing trees down on St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall though.

For some reason buses are not running through our village. Fortunately I spotted the bus I wanted to catch parked just before the crossroads and was able to go and catch it there. And on my way back from the supermarket there was a broken down car in the centre of Uppermill, slowing everything down to a crawl as they made their way round it. It seems that traffic mayhem continues!

So for an example of traffic mayhem, here is a photo which I have almost certainly posted before: the iconic photograph of the train wreck at Montparnasse Station in Paris, France on the 22 October 1895. I couldn’t resist. It’s like something staged by a model railway enthusiast. 

The train overran a buffer stop and smashed through a window due to the driver approaching the station at too fast a speed. Surprisingly, there was only 1 death as a result of this disaster, a woman outside the station was killed by falling masonry. 

I was reading about “cluster headaches”. Having recently suffered from rather nasty earache, I can vouch for how nasty any kind of pain in your head can be. Fortunately I have never been a migraine sufferer  here’s some interesting information: 

“Headaches have been described throughout history. “The first description of headache comes by way of the Mesopotamians in 4000BC,” write Seymour Diamond and Mary Franklin in their 2005 book, Headache Through the Ages. They attributed the disease to Tiu, an evil spirit who attacked his victims’ heads.

The Ebers Papyrus, a record of ancient Egyptian medical knowledge dating from 1550BC, suggests crocodiles should be wrapped around the head to combat what some modern-day observers would describe as a migraine. In the middle ages, migraine was recognised as a distinct disorder, with treatments ranging from bloodletting and herbal concoctions to other, more superstitious remedies.”

There are certain disadvantages to living in California, it seems. According to this article, there is always the distinct possibility that a bear might decide to take up lodgings in the crawl space beneath the house. Fortunately around here we are more likely to find hedgehogs in piles of leaves in a corner of the garden, nothing much more dangerous!  

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!