We had every intention of getting the bikes out of the shed yesterday, or at any rate getting my bike out so that I could cycle to the market once more. In the odd dry period yesterday between the morning rain and the evening rain I walked into the village to change my library books and to buy a couple of things. Not long after I got back it started raining again and somehow the will to go out to the garden shed and release the bikes from where they were hung up faded away. The prospect of being out in the pouring rain lost any appeal it might have had. And besides, it could well be a fruitless exercise as if it should be pouring with rain this morning there was no way I was going to cycle along the muddy Donkey Line bridle path.
As it turned out, it wasn’t raining this morning and I probably could have cycled. It would still have been rather muddy on the bridle path though. So I walked over Dobcross and down into Uppermill. The market was almost nonexistent. Goodness knows when things will get back to normal. The deli was open again after their quite long Christmas break but they had bad news. Their lease is about to run out and the owner wants to sell the property. So the deli people have brought forward their plans to retire. They’ll be around for a couple of months more and then I will need to find a new source of nice olives and interesting cheeses. The good news is that as a long-standing customer I get a 20% discount in the remaining time they are there. But it’s a sad loss for the community. It will be hard to “shop local”, as we are all encouraged to do, if local shops disappear.
But at least, as I have already mentioned, it’s not raining on us … for the time being. The river is positively bouncing through the village. In other parts of the country rivers have bounced out of their normal pathways. I have seen pictures of the centre of York, where the Ouse has burst its banks. The last time I was there, in November I think, it was already overflowing and it’s quite possible it never really subsided.
All the rain must make it harder for the homeless and for those just scraping by. It’s one thing dealing with your family wash if you have a drier or if your house is warm enough for clothes draped over airers and radiators to dry reasonably quickly. But if you cannot afford to heat your home it must be extra miserable to have damp washing hanging around adding chill to the atmosphere.
And now the government wants to pass laws which effectively make striking illegal. And my head fills with images of events in Zola’s novels of working people pushed to violent extremes by poor working conditions. But that was the 19th century. We should be doing better in the 21st!
Okay! Now it’s time for something more cheerful and silly. It seems that last Sunday, January 8th was one of those “days”. It was “No Trousers Tube Ride Day”, when enthusiastic participants rode the London underground without their trousers, revealing gaily coloured underwear and a variety of shapes and sizes of legs in different degrees of hairiness. Furthermore, this Sunday was the first time enthusiasts were able to participate since the pandemic. Goodness! How they must have missed it! And it was the inaugural trouserless tube ride on the Elizabeth Line.
It’s an American idea, it seems, beginning with a No Pants Subway Ride in New York in 2002. You have to remember that “pants” is American for “trousers” and that nobody was revealing their bare bottom! A group calling themselves The Stiff Upper Lip Society imported the idea to London. Ivan Markovic, the founder of The Stiff Upper Lip Society told MyLondon : “We're not raising money, we're not raising awareness – we're just creating a moment".
We need some moments of silliness in the world at the moment.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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