ESP - Second Sight

My mum called it ‘second sight’. She had inherited it from her mother and grandmother. It has come down the generations to me, though mine differs from theirs. The first time I encountered it was at our hotel on Central Promenade. I was a young teenager making myself useful by helping, or possibly hindering, the receptionist.  I was sent to fetch my mum to attend to a guest, a woman who was in great distress. I ran upstairs, along the corridor to our private rooms and found my mother on the settee, waking up from a nap. Before I had chance to speak, she said,

“Her son drowned in a boating accident. I just dreamt it.”

What struck me most was the calm, matter-of-fact way that she said it as she stood up, smoothed her skirt, popped her shoes on, combed her hair and checked her lipstick, all in two seconds before she was out of the door. Sadly, that’s exactly what had happened and the poor lady had just received the terrible news.

I am told that my great-grandmother sometimes dreamt names that matched horses in forthcoming races. I don’t know how lucrative it was for her, but it hasn’t come down the line to me, though I’m not into horse racing.

From an early age I knew that my Nanna could see absolutely everything and she knew what everyone was up to. Her eyes looked like she could see right inside a person’s thoughts. With her, everything and everybody was safe. Things came to her in dreams and sometimes she would sit, deep in thought then tell you what you wanted or did not want to hear, never less than honest and nothing ever ‘wrapped up’. I adored her.

I don’t tend to dream things, I just know, usually out of the blue. My sister was in the early stages of her second pregnancy. Very randomly I told her she was having a daughter and she would be born early, a bit poorly but she would be fine. I could even pin-point the date to either 31^st October or 3^rd November, which didn’t mean anything at the time.  My niece was born by Caesarean section on 31^st October, 1988, spent a short time in the Special Care Baby Unit and has grown up into a beautiful young woman. My daughter was born on 3^rd November, 1994.

There was an avalanche in the Alps at a time when people I knew were in the area. I was sure I’d heard something on the radio news, but it wasn’t on the next bulletin, no mention of it on teletext and nothing on the TV news, until the next day when it actually happened. The same thing happened with an earthquake.

I don’t know if it’s connected to ‘second sight’ or an entirely different phenomenon, but I have had ghostly encounters. There are many, but what always makes me smile is the Most Haunted episode featuring The Old Hall in Sandbach. We lived there for a short time when my father was licencee. I hated that move to Cheshire and I’ve mentioned it, not by name, in previous blogs. Yes, it had ‘occupants’, we quickly became aware, but none of our ghosts matched any of the findings in the programme. Strange.

     I found this poem. I can really relate to it.

 

 
    Conjugal Telepathy
    Have you ever noticed when you’re talking with your spouse?
    No matter if you’re out with friends or wandering round the house,
    That when you have a thought you think is worthy to express,
    You’ve scarcely uttered half of it before your thoughts digress,
    And you have quite forgotten what it was you wished to say,
    But there is no need to panic for your spouse will save the day,
    And without the need for prompting, and indeed without a pause,
    Your partial thought’s completed, with an extra thoughtful clause.
    My friends to whom I’ve spoken, and I’ve spoken to a few,
    Have noticed this phenomenon, and so perhaps it’s true,
    That when you live together an extended length of time,
    The need for speech reduces and there's more accent on mime.
    So perhaps there is no worry when your mind begins to go,
    For even out in company, no one really needs to know.
    There is a great incentive to always keep your cool,
    When your spouse's intervention stops you looking like a fool,
    For even if the utterance is not what you would say,
    It is best to grin and bear it and pretend so anyway.

                                                                           By Ian Smith

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

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Building Bridges - A Real Greek Dilemma

So here is the problem. We have a ferry service that is the only physical communication route linking the town of Rio on the Peloponnese peninsula to Antirrio on mainland Greece. Charilaos Trikoupis was a 19th century prime minister of Greece; he suggested the idea of building a bridge between Rio and Antirrio. Unfortunately there were many factors that prevented the construction of such a bridge, one of which was the overwhelming cost of such a construction, as Greece was trying to get a late start in the Industrial Revolution.

The cost was not the only problem. Although the Straights of The Gulf of Corinth that the bridge would have to span was only 3km wide, opposite sides are situated on two different tectonic plates, making earthquakes in this region a very likely deterrent to building a safe bridge. There were other minor problems too (I am understating of course). Firstly, the seabed beneath the Gulf of Corinth is sand with no rocky structure and one side of the straights is subject to liquefaction in the event of a seismic event. The likely occurrence of earthquake also means that the bridge must be able to withstand a tsunami. It also has to be constructed in very deep water. Add to this, the incredibly high winds that are a feature of this area, causing a suspension bridge of this length to swing and you have barely scratched the surface of the difficulties facing designers of such a mammoth engineering project.

So now fast forward to the 1990s. The bridge has to be built. It is essential to the future of the Greek economy that there is a better way to cross The Gulf of Corinth: the ferry service is incapable of handling the volume of traffic and the journey takes 45 minutes each way. In modern day Greece there is also another dilemma that must be factored in to the equation: the stanchions of the bridge must be strong enough to withstand impact from a 180,000 ton tanker sailing at 18 knots. Oh, and there is just one more thing: the South Rion coast drifts several millimetres away from the North Antirion coast every year.

Would you like the job?  Well somebody wanted to do this and to help them they used a technique derived from studying the roots of the traditional Indian incense plant. The foundations of the bridge are constructed on top of narrow vertical poles, driven deep into the sand and then topped with gravel. Specialist machines had to be designed and built to work at depths of 65m and the stanchions were built in dry docks and towed into the Gulf.

The Rion-Antirion Bridge in Greece, opened to traffic in August 2004 and was the product of a seven-year construction project from 1998 to 2004. It is the world's longest cable-stayed bridge,
with a suspended deck of 2,252m, with four pylons, (where there are usually two) and has a reference span of 560m. Currently 10,000 vehicles cross on a daily basis. The total cost  of the project was 630,000,000 Euros. Since its completion it has won many awards for civil engineering, innovative lighting, structure and the Outstanding Project Award 2007.

So there you go. The seed of an idea, over one hundred years ago was a cause for celebration at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympics. The man who had the idea didn't see it completed but he believed that it could be done. Others believed it could be done. They built it.

We all have bridges to build, don't we. Surely we can use this analogy for being determined: for having the strength to believe in our own ability to succeed, despite the obstacles that life puts in our path. If you think there is a gaping gulf between you and your destination, shrink it down to manageable bite sized bits. In other words, as my wonderful Dad would often advise us, "Cross your bridges when you reach them and don't meet defeat halfway."

The poem this week is from Sophie Hannah.

On Westminster Bridge

I don't believe the building of a bridge
Should be an image that belongs to peace.
Raised eyebrow or the river's hardened ridge,
It wouldn't want hostilities to cease.
Aloof on tiptoes, it deserts each side
For the high ground and, though it has to touch
Land that real lives have made undignified,
I don't believe it likes that very much.
It knows that every time we try to cross
To a new place, old grudges bind our feet.
It holds out little hope and feels no loss,
Indifferent more then neutral, when we meet
Halfway to transfer ownership of blame,
Then both of us go back the way we came.

Thanks for reading.  Adele

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