How true it is that a picture paints a thousand words.
Thousands of refugees have died while trying to cross the border into Europe. Some have drowned and some were left to die in the back of a truck but the image of that little boy has at last sparked compassion.
These people are fleeing murder, torture and rape in their homelands. It's no wonder they are prepared to risk their lives to get their families out.
People have been dying in Syria, including children, for a long time but it was easy for the world to turn a blind eye. Now it's in our faces and we have to help in whatever way we can.
Now for something a bit lighter.
Saturday started out well for me. It was a lovely morning, so I decided to go for a bike ride up Middle Rd to Blind Rd. I don't particularly like that ride - it feels to me like I'm climbing a mountain. Also, another cyclist had told me a few weeks back that a magpie had dive-bombed her up there.
However, I'd been up the weekend before with this same person and not a magpie in sight.
When I was just nearing the top, two cyclists were coming back down, chatting away, so I thought the coast must be clear.
I decided to bike a little further up Middle Rd and was busy congratulating myself on getting to the top of the hill when ... you guessed it ... the magpie attacked. It swooped down on me so close I could hear its wings flapping and its shadow was right in front of me.
Before I had a chance to even think about what to do, it dived at me again.
It was horrible. I turned around, crouched down, started waving one hand above my head and screaming at the top of my voice: "Aaaaaaagh! Aaaaaaagh!"
I'd like to apologies to the woman in a paddock tending to her horses. She must have thought I was a madwoman riding down the road, screaming and waving my hand in the air.
She walked toward the road and I yelled out to her: "A magpie is attacking me, can you see it?"
"It's just sitting on the power lines," she said.
I didn't stop to chat, just kept pedalling furiously to get as far away as I could.
When I calmed down I realised I might have to thank the magpie because now I have an excuse not to ride up that hill again until after nesting season.
My day wasn't done. I got home safely, only to trip over my own feet and fall up the steps at the back door, hitting my head on the side of the house.
Nice bump and bruise there now.
A very hazardous morning. Might just stay home next Saturday morning and read a book.
-Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.
