Toxic seaweed. Obesity. And a bit of nostalgia.

 When I passed my driving test in the ear.y 1970s it took some time before I plucked up courage to drive on the motorway.  And the motorways were not as crowded then as they are now so goodness knows how I would cope if I were a newly qualified driver nowadays. Of course I grew accustomed to it and throughout the latter part of my working life I would happily trundle back and forth on the motorway system around greater Manchester.

However it was my reluctance to face driving through London - before the ring-road existed - that led to our discovering Brittany. Rather than do the Dover - Calais crossing we opted for Southampton - Cherbourg. Well, as the driver I chose our route: a long drive down to Southampton and then a longish drive up the Cherbourg peninsula. And Brittany is a nice place to visit. We ate seafood and we tried savoury buckwheat pancakes. We used one visit to check out the campsite we planned to go to with a bunch of school pupils later in the year. 

 Driving along Breton roads on our bright red 2CV with the roof rolled back, waving to other 2CV drivers, getting a suntan on my forearms, we had a great time. Our son had his first birthday on the beach at Saint Pabu. We continued to go to campsites in Brittany with our son and his younger sister, who may well have been conceived in Saint Pabu, for years and years.

Today I read this long article about killer seaweed on Brittany’s beaches. Ulva armoricana piles up on beaches, rots and releases dangerous hydrogen sulphide. There seems to have been reluctance to recognise the problem but people have died, one man’s horse died, wild boar have died - what would Astérix and Obélix have to say about that? Now they try to clear beaches, taking the seaweed away before it rots but there is the inevitable dilemma: when to close beaches and still keep the tourist industry flourishing? 

Even back in the 1980s we would see, and sometimes smell, large amounts of seaweed but nothing like the current problem. Ironically enough this is a problem of our own making - well not mine personally but humankind: 

“What lies behind this explosion of seaweed are the high levels of nitrates in the water, which come from industrial farming’s intensive use of synthetic fertilisers and nitrogen-rich animal feed. Brittany is the agricultural heartland of France. On just 5% of the country’s surface, it crowds more than half of its pig population.”

And that’s the result of postwar “modernisation”, small farms giving way to big industrial farming, hedgerows disappearing - the usual story. 

We are struggling to feed the world and in the process of finding ways to feed the increasing world population we are destroying the world. It’s rather like a science fiction story. We”re living longer (well, some of us are living longer but not everyone! ) and it seems to me we’re eating more. Which brings us on to the problem of obesity. It’s not just the adult population either.mHere’s a link to an article about childhood obesity. 

It used to be that a chubby baby was considered to be a “bonny baby” but now overweight toddlers and small children are a problem. There have always been “fat kids” but when I look back at old class photos from the 1950s it seems to me that most of us were pretty skinny. 

Of course, we didn’t have fast food. Most of us had limited access to sweets and snacks. People in general didn’t walk along the street drinking take-away coffee and eating do-nuts or other snacks. 

Somewhere along the way we have taken some wrong turnings.

I’m beginning to sound like a grumpy old nostalgia freak. I’d better stop.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

On banning advertising, travel restrictions, prepping and looking for bits of beauty.

Because we have been resisting paying a fee to watch television series without advertisements we find ourselves subjected to incomprehensibly strange adverts for Domino pizza, Tui holidays, various makes of car and so on. Guardian columnist Emma Beddington has had a bit of a rant, link here, calling for adverts for gambling to be banned, as adverts for tobacco products were banned back in 2002, as Amsterdam has apparently banned adverts for meat and fossil fuel products. I am in total agreement with her. Are people really taken in by the glamourous world portrayed in adverts for gambling? I suppose people are still seduced by the chance of winning “the big one”. 

If anything I am even more mystified by the adverts for bingo. I am aware that bingo seems to have become an exciting leisure activity but for me it remains the domain of elderly ladies in headscarves, not young women dolled up to the nines. And then, for me as a former modern foreign languages teacher it remains a game to be used with younger pupils to help them practise numbers in whichever language they have been studying.

On the subject of bans, here is a link to an article about the RyanAir boss calling for airports to stop selling alcohol outside of normal licensing hours. Some people, a disturbing large number of people, still believe that holiday binge drinking begins in the airport departure lounge, even if your flight is leaving at 8.00 in the morning or earlier. Consequently they are more than a little merry when they board the plane. Mr O’Leary reckons that his airline is having to divert an average of nearly one flight a day because of bad behaviour onboard, up from one a week 10 years ago. Oh dear!

Mind you, if the Iran-Israel/US conflict continues, the whole international travel business could well be disrupted. I read that Heathrow has already seen a drop in passenger numbers.

Will we find ourselves restricted to holidays in the UK, a prospect which seemed less inviting this morning when I went out running in a temperature os 5°! Decidedly “nippy”, as one of my nodding acquaintances commented.

Another problem on the horizon is the supply of foods from around the world, and the supply of the fertiliser needed to grow food in this country. Here’s a link to an article first published a couple of year ago about people needing to stockpile food and equipment in preparation for shortages. 

And here’s a link to a more recent article on the same topic. Faced with climate change, war, social unrest, maybe we should all become “preppers”. Already Phil keeps suggesting items we should be buying in bulk when I do a supermarket shop. Maybe I should clear out cupboard space to store canned good and dried food. Maybe I should hunt out our old camping gas stove - stored in the shed since the last time we went camping when our offspring, now in their 40s, were teenagers! 

In the meantime we continue with our daily routines, seeking out bits of beauty to distract us from the current chaotic state of the world. To that end, we made another expedition to the bluebell woods yesterday - in the rather warmer sunshine than we have today! We were rewarded with some rather fine displays.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Weather. Flowers. The price of power jackets. AI. The importance of learning the langauge and culture of others.

It was a fine sunny morning for a run today, quite a contrast to yesterday’s damp gloom. It’s still not warm though.

Time was I counted on going barefoot-and-sandals from May to September but this year I am still reaching for warm socks. Mind you I have been misled before. I still remember setting out one May morning wearing sandals and a very light jacket only to find that by mid-afternoon it was snowing! Mind you, that was Leeds, which possible has a special Yorkshire climate! 

On the subject of jackets, a fashion item in yesterday’s Guardian commented on the fact that Victoria Starmer chose to wear a cream blazer when she accompanied her husband to the polling station on Thursday. “She follows in a long line of women who have mobilised the power blazer at high-stakes moments.” The jacket was described as looking like a £1,690 ivory Alexander McQueen crepe design. Wow! Do people really pay that sort of money for a jacket? More to the point, does the wife of a Labour prime minister look as though she has any link to the working people of the country if she pays prices like that for her clothes? 

Getting back to the weather and the fact that this is supposed to be spring, my garden has been invaded by poppies, looking rather fine among the bluebells and forget-me-nots. I expect buttercups will be next.

Our ubiquitous poppies are all yellow or orange.

My Spanish sister has protested in the past that poppies are supposed to be red. This is because the poppies that grew in the garden of our childhood - wild poppies like my yellow and orange ones - were always red. There is a house further up the road here that will soon have a fine display of cultivated poppies, deep red and looking as though they should produce opium. 

I’ve been seeing articles about language - language learning, AI, and minority languages disappearing. Here’s a link to an article about AI and language provision by Diego Marani, Italian novelist and former interpreter at the European Commission and the Council of the European Union. While AI programmes that translate and interpret have improved by leaps and bounds, they may cause us to lose contact with the culture of other countries that we need to trade with or have diplomatic relations with. Understanding other cultures is big part of diplomacy and helps in the peace-making process. We still need the human touch. Indeed, we still need to learn other nations’ languages. 

And here’s a link to an article about disappearing languages. It seems that at least 244 languages have disappeared since 1950. Once again it’s a cultural thing. When the last speaker of a minority language dies, a lot of racial memories and culture also die. Understanding how certain customs developed helps us make the world a better place. Now, I have been known to scoff at those who insist on schools in Galicia or Catalonia delivering at least some of their lessons in Gallego or Catalán but in fact they are perhaps on the right track. We need to keep all those influences from other or former cultures available to future generations. They are likely to be the ones who have to sort out the mess we’ve been making of the world.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

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!