August 17 - Day 117 - “An optimist is a man who plants two acorns and buys a hammock.” Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

I couldn’t resist the quotation in the title to accompany the picture today as it made me smile. I suppose given he was a French Army General in the Second World War, we probably ought to quote the original, “Un optimiste, c'est un homme qui plante deux glands et qui s'achète un hamac.”

It was one of those mornings when looking at the weather, optimism was certainly required. Drizzle, mist and grey clouds were certainly features. I’ve probably been spoilt by some lovely days but, we shouldn't be at all surprised, that there are a huge amount of words in English dialects to describe drizzle and rain. There are some lovely ones like danking or deggin, mizzle, clarty, drookit or dreich. The torrential rain words are perhaps even more interesting with thunderplump, blunks, cowquaker, stoating, letty weather and plothering.

So with the oak tree being a symbol of strength, let’s try and not focus on the thunderplumps in our lives and instead remain optimistic about the sunshine that ‘rain before seven, clear at eleven’ suggests. So remaining on dialect or unusual words, I’ll end by hoping you are all unsoulclogged (contentment and peace of mind) and remember there is always ‘agathism’ (a word used in 1830 to describe the belief that things eventually get better.) That certainly seems something we should all believe in!

Storms make the oak grow deeper roots. George Herbert