My daughter and I sat in the park in Uppermill yesterday while the two smaller grandchildren played in the river with a host of other children. Damp children being provided by well-organised mummies with dry clothing was the order of the late afternoon. And yesterday the weather forecast for today was for a continuation of yesterday’s fine and sunny weather.
I was looking forward to going into Manchester in light clothing for a hairdressing appointment. However, this morning the forecast changed to showers and sunny intervals. So I put on a light jacket, packed an umbrella and a light scarf to put over my hair in case my trusty umbrella was less trusty than it should have been. It was cloudy and cool when I set off. Rain splattered the windscreen of the bus. It rained on me in Manchester. Quite a lot of people were expressing their puzzlement at where the sun had disappeared to.
By the time I left my hairdresser’s the rain had departed, the clouds had cleared and the temperature had risen to the high 20s. The great British summer continues on its uncertain way. In the news this evening I heard that parts of the midlands and the south and east of England are on yellow alert for extreme heat.
It could be more severe. The south of Europe has temperatures at 40+°. Wildfires are reported to be burning in parts of Spain and Portugal, in addition to those already reported in Greece and Turkey. Our daughter and her partner have taken the small people off to Croatia, somewhat miffed that they are leaving good weather behind here. Croatia, however, is one of the places under alert for high temperatures. I hope they have packed enough sunscreen and sun-hats.
Apparently this is our fourth heatwave of this summer but the people who study these things assure us that this summer is not exceptional. I feel it may be exceptional for the NW of England.
I returned from Manchester on the tram, arriving in Oldham just in time to miss my connecting bus home. I had a couple of fairly weighty bags of odds and ends I had picked up in Manchester or I might have considered walking a couple of bus stops along the way. But in the end I sat in the shade and chatted to a lady in a similar situation. We swopped stories, as you do at bus stops, and lamented the parlous state of our town Oldham. She remembered the town centre she grew up with and which I got to know in the early 1970s, a bustling town with Woolworths, C & A, then Debenhams and other stores, as well as a busy market. Now the big names have gone, replaced with a lot of charity shops, like so many town centres. And the market is much reduced.
Together we lamented the feeling of optimism we had back in the early 1970s, the feeling that everything was improving and that people were becoming more tolerant and open. Now it seems that nastiness rules in a lot of areas. One such is the situation of women described in this article, not necessarily trans-gender people but simply women who don’t fit the gender stereotype who are being quite aggressively challenged in ladies’ toilets and changing rooms.
It may well be that people as a whole are not really less tolerant than they used to be but that they are generally ruder and more willing to shout out about it, whereas in kthe past British reserve made a lot of people keep quiet. However, I am not totally convinced about this. Other nations have traditionally been more outspoken about such things. More than twenty years ago for a while I wore my hair very short indeed. I accompanied a group of A-Level Spanish students on a visit to Malaga and one day paid a visit to the ladies’ toilets in a cafe. I was greeted with horror by some ladies who declared that I was not allowed in there as this was for ladies only. I had to reassure them that I was indeed a lady. The Spanish teacher with our group told me that it was my hairstyle that had done it: women of “a certain age” like me - I was in my fifties - wore their hair longer! Of course Iw was challenged!! And this was long before gender identity was an issue.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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