Adversity is unavoidable, staying optimistic is optional.

It has not been a good day in the BacktoBodrum household.  In a home full of tennis and squash racquets where Nike reigned and we have the cups to prove it, (the latest only arriving on its shelf last September), the arrival of a wheel chair and walking frame is a humiliation and an insult to a life lived as healthily as possible. We held out against them but now welcome them with thanks as the only means of keeping going on our own for a bit longer. The day started badly for us, as I'm sure it did in 48% of UK homes, with the morning news.  This double whammy of bad karma had me searching through my picture gallery looking for something or anything to cheer myself up and I found it.

I took this picture on October 9th 2012 when bulldozers arrived beside our house and started digging up trees and opening up the forest.  We were newly arrived back from the UK and gossip was flying that we would be neighbours to a) blocks of flats b) a compound for a thousand stray dogs, c) an open prison and d) a helicopter landing pad.  Twenty years previously we had actively fought off an open-cast mine company but neither of us had the guts for another big campaign so we were resigned to take whatever came and decided we'd build a big wall and wear headphones,

And what happened.....

...this did. 

The Department of forestry built us a fire break and planted fire resistant fir trees,  which are almost a metre tall now,  interspersed with Oleander and a few fig and carob trees.  We are safer and have a better view.  I'm taking heart from this example; not giving in to negativity and holding on to hope. It might all come right in the end after all.