Sunday Kipling

Another 3 Gun Match yesterday. I finished mid pack. I'm getting faster and my accuracy is still good but as I speed up my mental mistakes increase. It's expected. I'll stay at my current pace while working on eliminating those errors. Once I'm there I'll attempt to speed up still further. It's a process and a goal. It was still a fine shoot and a great day.

We're both anticipating and dreading Tuesday. Anticipation because we're so hopeful that this will finally be the fix (and last) surgery Angus needs. Thank you for your prayers.

Lu and I are doing well. The early Springtime pollen has kicked her butt but in a month or two, when we switch from pollen to dry Summer dust our places will switch. Joy.

We've been busy and are taking today off. No travel, no work and no worrying. Well....

I hope you're all having a fine Sunday. It's the day to reflect, give thanks for our blessings and hold tight to those we love. Especially to God who is the author of those blessings. May your hand ever be in His.
Six

Today's poem s dedicated to all the Mariners out there. Those who have served and those who still yet brave the seas and yearn to return to we who love them. May the Coastwise Lights ever welcome you home.

The Coastwise Lights

Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry -- over headland, ness, and voe 
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go!
 
Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars 
By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail 
As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail.
 
We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care,
The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer;
From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains
The lover from the sea-rim drawn -- his love in English lanes.

We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool;
We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull;
To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the sea 
The white wall-sided war-ships or the whalers of Dundee!

Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn!
Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn!
Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us, main to main,
The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again!

Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates;
Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights!
Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek,
The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak!