Stress Busters!

The other day I found myself getting rather irritated by a particular situation - and then later, happening to have a conversation about 'Chas n Dave' (like you do!), l went looking for their old classic 'Gertcha' on Napster. Well, strangely enough I was able to tie both these coincidental happenings together and lo and behold - a perfect stress buster! Just accompany Chas n Dave in a belting rendition of this classic and all your frustrations will just slip away.... (well perhaps not totally...). I suppose it helps if you have either slightly dotty tendencies or Cockney roots (both of which I am blessed with).
However, if you just can't bring yourself to this kind of humiliation then I would like to offer a more dignified alternative (I am having amusing thoughts at this moment of several people I know who would be as unlikely to sing C & D as you can get!). The dignified alternative is a little bit of poetry for reflection. Of course, it is even more stress bustingly therapeutic if mulled over with some chocolate and a nice cup of tea!
So, here you go:

The View from the Window
Like a painting it is set before one,
But less brittle, ageless; these colours
Are renewed daily with variations
Of light and distance that no painter
Achieves or suggests. Then there is movement,
Change, as slowly the cloud bruises
Are healed by sunlight, or snow caps
A black mood; but gold at evening
To cheer the heart. All through history
The great brush has not rested
Nor the paint dried; yet what eye,
Looking coolly, or, as we now,
Through the tears' lenses, ever saw
This work and it was not finished?
R.S. THOMAS

Find out more about R.S. Thomas here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Stuart_Thomas

I love 'The View from the Window' all the more for its view of Wales that Thomas would have been describing. I can remember the sky, the sunlight and the snow caps in the distance from our skylight window that I would hang out of for what seemed like hours on end. This stunning, renewable, unfinished painting.
And this view would always bring to mind the words of the Psalmist...

"I lift up my eyes to the hills -
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth."
PSALM 121: 1,2