All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today.
- European proverb
Picture © M.Perry 2010
Today's reburials of the lost men of Fromelles, conducted with full military honours, will unfold to the haunting sound of the Last Post - played on a battered old cornet which belonged to the 31st Battalion and was found and bought by a soldier's descendant on eBay.
Peter Nelson, whose grandfather survived Fromelles, had been researching the 31st Battalion when he spotted the cornet which was clearly inscribed with the name of the company as well as the instrument's donor, a Queensland grazier.
"It was three or four months back and I saw a dealer in NSW put it up for sale. I'm a member of the 31st Battalion association. … the battalion is still current in Townsville and in service," he told the Herald yesterday.
"It's battered and bent and seen quite a few years gathering dust somewhere but the dealer who saw it saw the inscription and a dollar in it. I had it restored, a few spare parts and it's back to working order. I got in touch with Tim Whitford, [a descendant] of one of the men, who put me in touch with General Mike O'Brien. They checked their musicians could play it and now it's on its way to France with the Federation Guard contingent."
"I believe in love at first sight because it happened to me with my wife Vanya.
We first met when she was working as Simon Cowell's secretary. I'd gone to his office with Jerome Flynn and she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever set eyes on - she's a former Bond Girl and model.
Coincidentally she'd seen me the night before on television in The Gambling Man and she told me it was wonderful and I'd made her cry. Then she asked me out and I declined!
The second time she asked me out I said yes and we've been together ten years. Our marriage lasts because it's passionate, we understand each other and we're developing together."
Extreme Fishing with Robson Green can be seen on Five on Thurs at 9pm (UK TV)
If you keep one green bough in your heart, someday a singing bird will visit you.
- Japanese 17th Century Poem
"76: Represents the termination of the individual Karma, 6, by the completion of its cycle of evolution, 70, passing from the death of the matter - or of oneself - to the birth to the spiritual, that is to say the passage on a higher level of existence - 7 + 6 = 13."Whatever! All I know is that 76 is a positive symbol in my life.
"These coincidences are happening more and more frequently and when they do, they strike us as beyond what would be expected by pure chance. They feel destined, as though our lives had been guided by some unexplained force. The experience induces a feeling of mystery and excitement and, as a result, we feel more alive."The adventurer is then told:
"The manuscript predicts that once we reach a critical mass, the entire culture will begin to take these coincidental experiences seriously. We will wonder, in mass, what mysterious process underlines human life on this planet. And it will be this question asked at the same time by enough people, that will allow the other insights to also come into consciousness ..."At the time of reading the book I was getting a few coincidences in my life, especially one about my deceased father that I haven't written about as yet on this blog. Because of this I started thinking about and recording coincidences.