Sunday's Walk and A Perspective

A new day arrived! What better way to welcome it than to embrace it with a joyful spirit, yeah?

It's fairly quiet here, well except for the roaring genny in the background. We had to do more than 3 weeks of laundry before it turns into a scary pile. The husband was so kind to do it himself. I'll probably just help him hang them out when done.

Meanwhile, let me just share about my wee adventure on Sunday afternoon. I drove to the second crossroad from here and then took a walk with my umbrella for some 30 minutes or so, where this cheerful bloom caught the eyes along the way. It's been quite a while since I last sighted a yellow flower and it was fun to see this one.

I was not to go out but I was restless. We were informed that my brother's truck which had been carried away by a big mudslide during the super typhoon weeks ago was found and that the contractors decided to attempt to start the recovery.

The husband went out earlier that day to the site thinking they might need extra pair of hands. I opted to stay home and just wait for updates.

But then, my curiosity was enough to make me go out of the house despite the drizzly weather. I have to see for myself what happened to it.

On arriving at the site, people (25 of them I think, didn't really count) were by the roadsides resting. Turned out they just had lunch. Half of the day was gone and there was no sight of the truck nearby nor any debris of it whatsoever.

I was told it got stuck somewhere down close to a cliff and they had to clean the mud and things out of it first. These were what the hubby could show me of the place and some parts of the fallen vehicle.

I discreetly asked the husband why do they need to recover when it was already damaged. He explained that there are other parts of the vehicle that could be salvaged and can be used to customize another one. They were also hoping that the engine may still be intact.

"An engine costs $2k right?" I inquired further. "Oh, not that cheap, for the kind and type of engine that Jap had, it's five or six times that amount." The farmboy replied. It finally made sense to me why my brother (Jap) was keen on paying the contractors for the recovery.

I stuck around wanting to see how they would do it. There were cables and pulleys tied to a tree trunk and another was attached to Jap's other truck which will be used to pull. I was holding my breath as I watched the attempt. After a few minutes of pulling, the cables snapped and flew hundreds of yards down. There were loud mumbles and men running everywhere.

The attempt failed miserably.

The husband told me it will take a long while to set up the cables again, so I decided to walk back to where I parked and go home. Besides, I was already feeling cold.

I photographed these tree roots by the roadsides. They were uprooted by the previous storm and people had to cut them off to clear the roads.

And here's a partial view of the valley. My phone camera seems to be playing tricks on me. Sometimes it can pick up better shots, and on some occasions, it just could not and this was one of them. Or maybe I wasn't just really mindful of how to get good ones, lol!

The husband came home late that day. The recovery attempts had not been successful and they re-scheduled it this coming weekend. Perhaps I will check it out again when it pushes through.

In the meantime, life goes on as usual here in our lil kingdom.

Maybe in the afternoon, we'd be attending the wake of Mom's relative who passed away at the tender age of 53 on Monday due to a heart attack. The story goes that he sent his wife to their kitchen to make coffee and he will take a nap. When his wife returned to their bedroom, he was already lifeless. They brought him to the hospital but he was no more.

Death is truly a thief. It isn't one who at least has the decency to let people know of his coming. But perhaps that's the one thing that makes us try to really live our lives one day at a time.

Whilst lost or damaged things can be replaced, a life lost is gone forever and only memories are left. That is why we are often reminded to create and bank as many memories as we can, with the people who matter most to us.

And we really should...

Happy new day, everyone!