Out and about in the rain. The cleverness of foxes. The boldness of birds. What’s in a name?

This morning I went running in the rain. This was not intentional. It wasn’t raining when I set out. My weather app suggested there would be drizzle in the next hour. Drizzle! I reckoned I could cope with that and left my raincoat at home. About half way round my route it started. Drizzle? No, proper rain! It could have been harder but it was rain nonetheless. I met a couple of indignant dog-walkers who had obviously also taken the promise of drizzle at its word and had neglected to prepare for actual rain. The sensible dog-walkers had stayed at home. There was just me, the foolish dog-walkers and the sheep out in the rain. 

Tim Dowling writes about urban foxes in his column today.l

“A fox eating from a bin. I watched him tip it gently on its side. Then he undid the latch with one paw and pulled the bag out with his teeth. Then he spread the contents out across the road, and now he’s helping himself.”

Urban foxes learn quickly how to adapt to “our” world. They also become bolder and less shy. Tim Dowling goes on:

“That evening, armed with a list with beer at the top, I put on a jacket and head to the shops. Halfway down the road I see the fox at a distance coming up the pavement toward me. I don’t deviate from my path; neither does he. I pull out my phone and look at it casually, glancing up only as the fox draws near.

“All right?” I say as we pass one another.

The fox gives me a look that says: can’t complain.”

Granddaughter Number One thinks she has had a fox in her garden, possible hoping to help himself to quail for supper from the enclosure in her garden. 

I’ve not seen foxes - I’m not out and about at the right time these days - but this morning I passed within feet of a bird, possibly a young rook or jay or even jackdaw, admiring his reflection in a puddle and occasionally drinking the contents of the puddle. He didn’t flinch as I walked within a few feet of him.

The Guardian “Life and Style” does a regular weekend mini interview with a famous person, asking what is their greatest fear, what they are most proud of, who they most admire and such like. Today the famous person was an actress called Tuppence Middleton. I don’t seem to have seen her in any film or TV series but maybe I just watch the wrong things. However I wondered about her name. Surely this is a stage name. Surely nobody really calls their offspring Tuppence. So I googled her and discovered that she was named Tuppence in honour of her grandmother who gave her mother the name as a nickname, rather like Harry and Meghan calling their child Lilibet, which was what Harry’s grandmother Elizabeth was supposedly called by her immediate family. 

But really? Tuppence? I have heard people address children as “Tuppence”, a term of endearment, but never as an actual name? I suppose it’s the same kind of thing as naming a child after the place where they were conceived. 

Incidentally, asked who she most admired, Tuppence replied, “Anyone who can pick up a house spider with their bare hands.” I have granddaughters who would echo that sentiment. The fuss that ensues when a spider is spotted indoors is quite amazing! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Now the voting is done - for the time being. Superheroes. Art work. Blossom related lore.

Well, Reform UK did disappointingly better than some of us us - many of us - hoped in the local elections. The Greens are suffering from the various media attacks on Zack Polanski. Here’s a link to an article about him. The Labour Party continues to suffer. All that remains is to mop up the tears and do some planning!

Last night, over the tea table three of the grandchildren had a discussion about superheroes, antiheroes, villains, Marvel characters and all sorts of stuff that left us, their grandparents, quite mystified. It’s all come a long way since Clark Kent was Superman! We were all rather amazed at how knowledgeable six year old Grandson Number Two was on this topic. He revealed that before a YouTube ban was instituted for the small people in the family he used to watch all sorts of stuff which was really not intended for such a young age. 

After tea he produced this work of art, which is apparently a character who goes by the name of Venom!

His nine year old sister produced a much more abstract piece of art work.

Out and about the cherry blossom has been blown away but it has been replaced by horse chestnut ‘candles’ 

and hawthorn blossom. A week ago the hawthorn here barely had leaves and now blossom is everywhere.

I came across a bit of hawthorn folklore. 

“Tree of Boundaries and Beings. The Tree You Do Not Cut.

The hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is not just a tree, it is a guardian. Growing at the edges of fields, near wells, or alone on ancient tracks, it marks thresholds between this world and the next. It is said that to cut a lone hawthorn is to offend the ælfar, the fae, the hidden ones, who dwell in its boughs or beneath its roots.

"Cut a hawthorn, and you'll cut your luck."

Many rural people believed that to fell or even prune a hawthorn could bring sickness, sudden death, or misfortune upon a household. This taboo is strongest around lone hawthorns, especially those on old sites like barrows, crossroads, or ringforts, places where the veil is thought to be thin.

Fairy Trees: In Irish and British folklore, hawthorns are frequently seen as "fairy trees." In Ireland, roads have famously been rerouted to avoid damaging a lone hawthorn believed to be protected by the Aos Sí (fairy folk). The same idea exists in parts of Britain, especially in the West Country, the Borders, and the Downs.

"The tree chooses its place, not you."

It was believed hawthorns grew where the land needed guarding, at thresholds, leys, or where spirits moved. To interfere was to break an old pact.”

Apparently you should never bring hawthorn blossom indoors, because it is said to ‘bring the dead’. “Bringing hawthorn bloom into the home was said to invite the fae indoors, unbidden. Once inside, they could cause illness, madness, or mischief, steal children, tangle dreams, or sour milk.”

I must confess to having tempted fate on more than one occasion by bringing the blossom indoors, especially when I come across pink hawthorn blossom. So far nothing untoward has resulted from it - crossing fingers and touching wood! 

Oddly enough, it was lilac that my mother would never allow in her house - another highly scented blossom with possible graveyard connotations. 

Be careful with those flowers! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Voting!

 Today is polling day - local elections. I took my voting card and my photo id with me when I went for a run this morning. I stopped off at the polling station and did my democratic bit. 

Granddaughter Number Two and her mother had sent for postal votes. The relevant papers had arrived at their house but they couldn’t find them. Someone had put them in the stack of post and they had got lost behind a load of junk mail …  until Granddaughter Number Two found them this morning. Too late to be posted, they could still be handed in at a polling station. She forgot to bring them with her when she came to our house this afternoon. The plan had been to deliver them to our polling station. So they will have to go out to a polling station near their house when they get home after spending the early part of the evening at my house.

Phil swung by the village to vote before going to chess club his evening. 

As for the rest of the family of voting age,I don’t know whether they have voted or not. i hope they did. Nine year old Granddaughter Number Four was interested in the whole process and asked if everyone HAD to vote.  We discussed the business of people in the past struggling to get the right to vote.

So it goes.

Here’s a photo that amused me.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Pigeons and hobby horses!

Recently our smallest grandchild was very cross when a pigeon poohed on his arm. If anything he was more cross at the fact that everyone found the incident amusing. I can sympathise with him. A long time ago now I had the same experience while standing in the shade on a hot street in Florence. As I quite loudly expressed my disgust, laughing Florentines assured me that it was lucky: “Porta fortuna, signora, porta fortuna!” It may very well bring you good fortune but it doesn’t feel like it when hot pigeon poop lands on your arm! 

Personally I find pigeons quite objectionable whether they use you as a toilet or not. In town centres in particular they have a way of swooping down or taking off just in front of you, causing me to flinch every time it happens. And I’ve seen others ducking to avoid them as well, although I’ve never yet seen one collide with a person. 

I read the other day that London has the largest pigeon population in the country with 3 million pigeons. I sometimes think Manchester must have close to that. People often talk about “breeding like rabbits” but maybe “breeding like pigeons” would be more appropriate. Various attempts have been made to reduce their numbers. Ken Livingstone had a go in and around Trafalgar Square in the early 2000s and Northern Trains employed pest control experts to shoot pigeons in Manchester’s Victoria Station last year - the Manchester Victoria Pigeon Massacre. Neither was very successful. Both provoked accusations of animal cruelty from pigeon lovers. Yes, they do exist!

One solution offered comes from the National Pigeon Advocacy Association (NPAA) and its president, Sue Joyce (AKA Sue the Pigeon Lady):

“She has a vision of an avian utopia where the pigeon “problem” is solved for good.

The vision looks like this: in an empty council flat above a Boots, Sainsbury’s or Greggs, in each of the UK’s major cities, a haven for feral pigeons is constructed. Rows of shelving mimic the look of a cliff’s edge, the habitat where pigeons lived before humans domesticated them. The shelves contain side-by-side plywood roosting boxes for the birds. No need for twigs or shredded paper – pigeons aren’t fancy – just a steady food supply to keep them coming back.

Every few days, a volunteer stops by to replace recently fertilised eggs – which they will then destroy – with plastic ones. The pigeons will continue to sit on the decoy eggs until they realise hatching is unlikely, at which point they’ll kick them out of their nests and try again. Fewer squabs are born, and the mother pigeons are none the wiser. Over time the pigeon flock decreases to a manageable size, for which there is plenty of appropriate food to go around. The townspeople are happy. Their parks are no longer overrun. No more pigeons need to be shot, trapped, poisoned, starved or hunted by hawks.”

Okay! It could even provide employment for somebody. 

One day last week, out for a stroll, I saw a child with a hobby horse. You know the kind of thing: a horse’s head, with bridle and reins, on a stick which has a wheel attached; child straddles the stick and pretends to be riding a horse. The one I saw only seemed to have the horse’s head but she looked quite happy with it. I didn’t think hobby horses were still a thing. Then I saw this report:

“FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Germany’s first hobby horsing championship got underway in Frankfurt on Saturday, with hundreds of young riders competing in time jumping, style jumping and dressage on their wooden stick horses.

Roughly 300 riders — mostly youngsters, but there are about 20 adults enrolled — are expected to canter around a gymnasium Saturday and Sunday, watched by 1,500 spectators. The competition is part of a growing wave of hobby horsing events internationally: the United States and Australia also held their first championships this year.

“Hobby horsing just gives me self-confidence and I just enjoy doing it with other people,” said Max Gohde, a 15-year-old competitor from Gifhorn, Germany, who has been practicing since 2020. “And now there’s also this atmosphere here, where everyone is just happy for you. And I think that’s just really cool.”

The events stemmed from a grassroots movement in Finland, where riders trotted their hobby horses through Nordic forests more than 20 years ago. The pastime has since exploded in popularity through social media during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and it has been credited with highlighting female empowerment for the enthusiasts.”

Well! Who knew that such events took place? But there it is!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Getting check-ups. Eating disorders. And ways of eating pineapple.

 Today I’ve had an eye test and Phil has been to the dentist for a check-up. Hurrah for free treatment on the NHS - well, almost free, we do pay for dental services and I pid something to have an extra test at the opticians. But on the whole, hurrah for the NHS. We must do our best to maintain it.

We popped into Holland and Barrett, the health food store. I had a voucher offering me 20% off, a voucher given to me by their store in Manchester. The people in the Oldham branch scrutinised it carefully before accepting that it was genuine. Do people really turn up with forged vouchers? I wonder.

I came across new terminology for eating disorders today. First here is orthorexia, according to experts an anxious preoccupation with the safety and purity of food. (I thought of that again as Phil scrutinised the label on a jar of honey in H & B!) apparently the term “orthorexia nervosa” was coined in 1997 by an integrative physician named Steven Bratman, who was seeing a lot of obsessive thinking about food and nutrition in his patients. 

As long ago as 1997! 

Mind you, long before that we were macrobiotic vegetarians, members of a whole-food cooperative, bulk buying brown rice, wholemeal flour, various beans and pulses. We moved on from that long ago but still I don’t eat red meat and try to avoid over-processed food. According to dieticians, being mindful about food isn’t inherently disordered – many people want to eat healthily. By contrast, orthorexia can be defined as an obsessive and extreme fixation on food, like purity of food, healthfulness of food, cleanliness. 

There you go. And then there’s chemophobia, an irrational, broad distrust of chemicals based in misinformation. “Based on misinformation’! It’s become a standard “joke” that people dismiss the opinions of medical practitioners who have studied for years and years in favour of something theybfound on the internet! So it goes.

The thing is I know a number of people who could be diagnosed with orthorexia and chemophobia! Such is the modern world!

I read an article by Emma Beddington in the Guardian, all about trying to eat pineapple without using a knife. Quite why anyone would choose to do that is beyond me. Her reasoning was as follows: 

“I’m trying to  ‘touch grass“ more these days, to embrace embodied experiences and introduce analogue “friction” – and fun! – into my life.

So what does “touch grass” even mean? According to the internet, “Touch grass means to spend time outside in nature or engage in real-world activities, especially as a break from the internet or online interactions. It is often used to suggest that someone needs to reconnect with reality.”

So eating pineapple with pout a knife and getting all messy in the process is a way of “reconnecting with reality”? Who knew?

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Pictures of war. Green cards. Freedom of speech everywhere.

 Not long ago I wrote about Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. Today I read about another artist who depicted scenes from the Spanish Civil War, José Luis Rey Vila, who went by name of Sim, a name chosen in tribute to his friend the philosopher Simone Weil. There’s an exhibition of his work in Barcelona’s Museu Nacional d’art de Catalunya from May to December. 

He was born in Cádiz and studied art in Gibraltar. His experience as a navy gunner in Spain’s Rif war in Morocco persuaded him to become a pacifist. He moved to Barcelona where he began work as a graphic artist. Then in July 1936 Franco staged his military coup from north Africa and the Spanish Civil War started. And as fighting began in the streets of Barcelona he began to make pictures of the conflict.

The anarchist CNT-FAI (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo/Federación Anarquista Ibérica) propaganda office published his work in a book called Estampas de la Revolución Española 19 Julio de 1936. The next year, the government of Catalonia published 12 Escenas de Guerra. Some of his work made it to Canada, the USA, even China.

In 1937 he went to France where he helped with the Spanish pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition, where Picasso”s Guernica was displayed. He never returned to Spain but continued making images of chaos, such as the Nazi invasion of Paris and much later the upheavals in that city in the Events of May 1968. He died in Paris in 1983.

Here are some of his illustrations of the Spanish Civil War.

There was a time, not too long ago when we hoped that conflicts like the Spanish Civil War and repressive regimes like Franco’s were a thing of the past. Not so! And more and more it seems that our much vaunted free speech is becoming a thing of the past. Arwa Mahdawi, a British-Palestinian, the Guardian US correspondent writes that applying for a green card may be difficult for those who have openly criticised the US government or Israel’s actions in Palestine. “One example cited by the New York Times of speech that could cause problems with obtaining a green card, for example, is a social media post that says: “Stop Israeli Terror in Palestine” and shows the Israeli flag crossed out. Participating in pro-Palestinian protests would also count against you.”

Arwa Mahdawi also tells of actions against immigrants (there’s ICE again - and immigration officers are known as Homeland Defenders! ) such as Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, on a US student visa, who made headlines last year when she was snatched off the streets of by masked immigration officers and detained for the “crime” of co-writing a pro-Palestinian op-ed in a student newspaper. 

Brian Hauss, deputy director at the American Civil Liberties Union told Arwa Mahdawi in a statement:

“The Supreme Court has recognized for 80 years that noncitizens residing in this country have First Amendment rights, including the right not to be discriminated against for your beliefs. While the administration currently seeks to penalize flag desecration or speech about Israel-Palestine, there is no telling what political opinions it will try to censor in the future. We should all be concerned about the government’s abuse of the immigration system to suppress dissent.”

Just in case you think it’s not happening here, reflect on the Palestine Action court cases, the proposal to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations and the furore caused by Zack Polanski daring to criticise police action. 

Here, by the way, is a link to the article by Arwa Mahdawi.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!