BLIPPING IN THE UK

I live in the Scottish Borders. I love this place, contrasting as it does to all the English city life I have endured during 60 years of my life. The ‘banks and braes’ help me to take time to consider what it means to connect with this wild, mostly untouched environment. It was formed through a mighty collision of land masses 100 thousand years ago. It took nearly 400 thousand years for the land to arrive from the southern hemisphere, pass through the tropics and arrive in the northern hemisphere. The land our cottage stands on was once the seabed of the Iapetus Ocean. How can I not be overwhelmed?

Thanks to reading books and searching the Internet, I am a little better informed about this tiny location on our spinning planet. You can check out the facts for yourself. I may make mistakes as I may have misunderstood the science passed from specialist to layperson through the written word. I do think I have grasped the gist of it though.

My ageing process has made me think about the ageing of the Earth. James Lockhart has postulated this Earth is so old that it is unlikely to last more than another 500 million years. ‘An old lady.’

The surface of the earth remains young as it is constantly changing and reforming. Not so for my skin, though being away from polluting air has helped!