Vernal Equinox - Spring bulbs and weeds!

Yay, it's the Vernal Equinox at last! Actually to be precise it occurred yesterday at 17.32 GMT.

You're never too old to learn, are you? I always think of the Equinoxes occurring on the 21st of the month but I've just discovered today that the date varies from year to year. It's all to do with Leap Years and that the Earth takes approximately 365.25 days to go around the Sun. We have to allow for that extra 0.25 day somehow.

In case you couldn't guess, science was never my strong suit (I've yet to discover what is!) so I'm expecting all those science teachers out there to correct me on this one.

All that matters to me is that the days and nights are roughly the same length at the Equinoxes and the Vernal Equinox is the beginning of Spring, and more importantly, the end of Winter - hooray!

When I heard the weather forecast last night and the promise of a lovely day, I decided that I would have a good few hours in between Mass and Rosary and Benediction to get out in the garden and do some much-needed tidying up.

I should have learned, it's never a good idea to make plans - something always seems to get in the way of their being realised. I woke up this morning with a rotten head-cold and spent that time dosing myself up with hot lemon etc. and resting. Still I did manage to take a few photos. A lot more leaves and weeds in evidence than there might have been if all had gone to plan.

I thought I might get away with sneaking this tiny little gnome into the pot on our front doorstep - none of the family have commented in the 5 years of so since he took up residence!

You may remember a few weeks ago, when we had a lovely mild day which actually coincided with my day off, I mentioned that I'd visited the local garden centre. These pansies are only now beginning to show signs of life after our long winter.

Crocuses, a bit late but much in evidence.

Again, quite a bit later than normal, the first few opening buds on the camellia. The shrub is covered with loads of big juicy buds so promise of a great display to come.

By the way, I did get to Mass, and Rosary and Benediction was beautiful - O Salutaris, Tantum Ergo and Adoremus. People still remember the Latin and join in with gusto.

D'you fancy a coffee?

They've done it again! I posted a while ago about some scientists' recent claims that chocolate was good for you (hooray) and a glass of red wine too (double hooray!)

Now scientists in the US are saying, 'drinking five cups of coffee a day could reverse memory problems seen in Alzheimer's disease.' If you're a tea drinker, apparently you'd need to drink about 14 cups a day to get the equivalent amount of caffeine.

Read all about it here.

Great news . . . I don't know which to do first - tuck into some Greene and Black's, pour a nice glass of red or have a cappuccino! Oh, life is hard, sometimes.

When does life begin?

I don't usually refer to political topics on this blog as it's mainly a sort of online family newsletter but my attention was drawn to one of the headlines from the New Scientist on my iGoogle page today, Where does life begin? especially in the light of the recent Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

People were asked this question in a survey and were given a list of possible answers to choose from:

A. At the point of fertilisation?

B. At detection of foetal heartbeat?

C. At implantation of the embryo in the lining of the womb?

The survey was undertaken by an IVF clinic in Atlanta and the results make very interesting reading.

Only 22.7% selected answer A, then came B with 23.5% and finally C with 15%.

There were 12 categories in all.

The article continues,

Not surprisingly, Roman Catholics had the highest proportion voting for "sperm-egg" fusion, around 31%. By contrast, a third of Jewish respondents, 29% of agnostics and 27% of Muslims opted for foetal heartbeat. So too did 38% of IVF patients.
Geographically, only 13% of UK respondents opted for "sperm-fusion", with 43% choosing "foetal heartbeat".

Is there anybody there???

I dozed off to sleep last night to the comforting (!!) words of the presenter of the late night chat show discussing the possibility that the end of the world might in fact occur at 8.31am tomorrow (now today!).

Of course the topic of the conversation was the so called 'Big Bang' experiment about to take place in the Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the Swiss Alps.

Once they start talking about protons, hadrons, ions etc. I'm afraid I'm hopelessly lost!

As far as I can make out they are trying to recreate the moment of the 'Big Bang' which scientists believe caused the creation of the universe.

In 'laywoman's' terms I think this involves putting some particles into a huge scientific-instrument-thingy called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and whizzing them round until they reach the speed of light and collide with one another. Of course I could have completely misunderstood this (more than likely I would think - Physics was never 'my thing'!) By doing this they are hoping to find the 'Higgs Boson particle' or the 'God particle' which is supposed to explain the beginning of the universe.

I can't help but get this image of a giant washing machine on super fast spin speed with those annoying minuscule bits of tissues that inevitably get left in trouser pockets by mistake, whizzing around in it.

Also, I'm afraid the whole idea leaves me rather cold but what I did find interesting was the possible spin-offs (pardon the pun) which would probably arise out of the research - new advances in medical science for instance.

I'm pleased to say that when I made it downstairs later than usual, today being my day off, I found I was still alive at 8.45am.

I hope there are a few of you still out there too!