Beautiful tree. Good people. Interfering US politicians. And not protecting the environment. .

 When I run round the village in the morning, I go past a horse chestnut tree of quite spectacular beauty. Back in January I decided to post a photo of the tree every month of this year, usually on the first day of the month. My June picture has been delayed because we were in Portugal when June crept in. I could have taken a picture yesterday but the smallest grandchildren were spending the morning with us and Grandson Number Two, six years old and bossily determined, didn’t want to go for a walk. Besides it was threatening rain and the small people amazingly did not have waterproofs with them. So here is today’s photo.

Today rain has been forecast again but I have managed to dry several loads of washing in the garden. One of the downsides of going on holiday is having to wash clothes that your took with you. 

 

Yesterday was the birthday of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. Born in 1898, he was killed in 1936, possibly on August 19th, but records of such executions during the Spanish Civil War were not really kept. Nobody knows what became of his body. But his poetry and his plays outlived the regime that killed him. I wonder what he would have to say about modern times. 

Here’s one of the many pictures that have been posted on social media in tribute to Marjan Satrapi.who died this week. 

We need to remember the good people of the world.

Meanwhile, it seems that US Vice President J.D. Vance has been tweeting about the death of young Henry Nowak. Apparently it’s a consequence of the mass immigration into the country which we have allowed, accepting people who are opposed to the western way of life. Despite Henry Nowak’s parents’ insisting that they do not want his death to be politicised, it is being used as a way for the US to poke its nose into how we run our country. Here’s a link to an article about our Mr Starmer’s reaction to that. 

Here’s something else I came across about the USA:

“The Trumo Administration plans to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system that has for more than a decade provided crucial data on ocean systems and climate change.

In a notice, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it had “initiated descoping of the Ocean Observatories Initiative” (OOI), a vast ocean observation network comprising more than 900 instruments that collect data on ocean health, including current patterns, climate variability and marine biodiversity.

The notice, issued on 21 May, came just days after Trump fired all members of the independent board that oversees the NSF. It outlined plans to remove all in-water infrastructure from observation sites off the coasts of North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, as well as from the Irminger Sea, a marginal sea between Greenland and Iceland.”

Of course, it may not be necessary to work at environmental stuff if Mr Trump and co manage to destroy the world through wars here and there. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Coming home. Travellers’ woes - suitcase sizes; airport parking! Marjane Satrapi. The Bayeux tapestry.

Back in the UK, where it’s considerably warmer! Well, milder, than when we set off a couple of weeks ago. 

Everyone tells us we missed the summer here. We also missed most of our small front garden’s moment of glory when it was full aquilegia flowers in a lovely range of colours, as it does every year. We have returned to a garden overgrown with tall buttercups, aquilegia gone to seed, a fern that has gown exponentially and pampas grass which has spread everywhere. There are roses in profusion as well but I need to release them from the surrounding mayhem as soon as I can raise the energy to do some gardening.

I had a small argument with RyanAir staff in Faro airport. We regularly travel on “priority booking”, which allows you take a cabin-suitable suitcase, of specific dimensions and weight, which can go in the overhead locker, and a smaller second bag, also or their specific dimensions, which must go under the seat in front of yours.we are very careful with our suitcase, even using a handy gadget to check the weight. In the aairport, at the gate was a young man demanding to see proof of priority booking and selecting suitcases to check in a RyanAir device. Phil’s new hard shell case was passed at a glance. My now rather ancient Ikea spotty case, originally bought for it budget airlines dimensions, was selected for measuring. The young man put it in at an angle and declared it too big. I remonstrated and insisted he put it in correctly. Grudgingly he let it pass. I had read that some employees were being offered a budget for every case they rejected in hold luggage with, of course, an extra charge. Not to mention the hassle of waiting at the carousel for your suitcase to emerge.

A small victory! Stand up for your rights! 

We flew back from Faro to Leeds- Bradford airport yesterday. It’s the first to e we have flown to that rather confusing airport. Our daughter volunteered to collect us and drive us home. We emerged into a largely un-signposted area, headed for an exit and called her. She had parked in the pick-up carpark  she told us, but was now inside the airport looking for us. We failed, however,  to meet inside the terminal. So we agreed to head for the carpark and meet there. Fortunately it was not raining. We found each other eventually. She had been unable to find a “meet and greet” area or anything specifically labelled “arrivals”. We headed out and the carpark charged her £14.  Various quite well-hidden signposts indicated that there was a free carpark for up to an hour but we were unable to locate it. Our verdict: could do better! 

I read that the Iranian-French artist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi has died at the age of 56. Known for her graphic novel ‘Persepolis,’ Satrapi spoke out on exile and women's freedom. Her family says she died of ‘sadness’ after the death of her husband. Marjane Satrapi, author of the autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis, recounting growing up during the Iranian Revolution and challenging stereotypes about Iran and its people, died yesterday. She was only 56. Her family said she died of sadness, her husband having died a year ago. Do people really die of sadness? Apparently so. 

While wars continue to wage in various places, despite claims about peace talks and agreements being bandied about, the pictorial record of another war is getting set to travel from France to the UK: the Bayeux tapestry. Some people think it should bot be a,lowed to leave France,for historical-sentimental reasons also out of fear that we will just keep it. However, Lord Peter Ricketts, the former British ambassador to France and UK special envoy, has told French politicians, officials and specialists, “Yes, of course we will give the tapestry back, safe and sound.”

It seems the French have perhaps agreed to the loan only because the tapestry’s permanent home in the northern French town of Bayeux in Normandy closed for renovations and for a new building dedicated to the artefact to be completed. 

France and England have been enemies on and off throughout history. It’s reflected in aspects of the two languages. If you go absent without permission we English say you ”take French leave” while the French use the expression “filer à l’anglaise”. There are other examples but they are perhaps too rude to include here. Despite longstanding rivalry and enmity, Catherine Pégard, the French minister of culture, said she understood that the loan would  “allow the English people to contemplate on their own soil the act that was the birth of their nation”. More than an entente cordiale, it was an entente amicale – an act of friendship “marking 1,000 years of shared history … and occasional rivalry”, she said. 

If only our politicians could be as diplomatic!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Leaving. Caves and art. Rosen-Mogg.

 So today we say goodbye to Silves … until next year when we are quite likely to return, all being well. Preferably without such a heatwave!

Here’s a link to an article about the caves at Altamira in Spain, with its fabulous cave paintings. For decades the caves have been closed to the public because their exposure to the air and to the carbon dioxide people breathe out caused the paintings to deteriorate. Pablo Picasso is said to have visited, or at least looked at some photos, and the quote attributed to him is possibly apocryphal, but an appraisal for the ages nonetheless: “After Altamira, all is decadence.” 

We have a print of Picasso’s lithograph “Taureaux’ in our house. His bulls bear a strong resemblance to those in the Altamira caves.

For the first time in ages, here is a Michael Rosen “Dear Mogg” post. 

“Dear Mogg

I see Blair has written an essay. I should have thought of doing this, as I am the true descendant of Cicero, Seneca, Purina, Bonio and Paxo. My essay of today would range from Ukraine to cricket, as Sinatra sang, 'I can see clearly now'.  

Brillo pad in playtex 

Boris”

That’s all for today. We are going into town for a light lunch and then a taxi will take us to the airport. I think we are due for a rainy return to Manchester. Somit goes.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Last day. Favourite restaurants. Sad stories and self-publicising politicians.

 This is our last full day in Silves, a last chance to go up the hill to the castle, which I suspect we won’t bother doing, even though it’s less hot than earlIer in our stay here. Tomorrow we should just about manage a last lunch at one of our favourite restaurants before a taxi arrives to take us to the airport.

In one of those favourite restaurants we have established a nodding acquaintance with an elderly lady who lunches there every day, sitting at “her” table in the corner.

The restaurant is decorated with a mix of traditional agricultural equipment, 

ancient carpentry tools (the sort my father and his father used to use), 

mariachi-style hats and curious musical instruments.

I have just discovered “disappearing messages”, which seems to be something that you can add to your WhatsApp so that your messages conveniently self-destruct after a set time. I came across this as I was reading about the Mandelson vetting business; it seems that it’s hard to establish exactly what communication went on between Starmer and Mandelson because of “disappearing messages”. I suppose it was inevitable that such a facility would eventually be available in this modern age where your posts on all kinds of social media can be scrutinised and used against you. I wouldn’t be surprised however to discover that those disappeared messages are still floating about somewhere in the ether, in a version of the cloud, just waiting for a clover bod to publish the scandal they contain.

Here’s something else I have just learnt. Marina Hyde began an article (about the Starmer - Mandelson stuff if I remember correctly) with the statement: “We are in the TL;DR days of Keir Starmer’s government

 

So I had to look up TL;DR. This is what I found:

“TL;DR stands for "too long; didn't read," and it is commonly used to introduce a brief summary of a longer piece of content or to indicate that a text was too lengthy to read in full.”

Which just goes to show that there is always something ew to learn.

Here’s some more serious stuff. Following the murder of a young man, Henry Nowak, by a Sikh man (a sad, mixed-up story involving racism, police mishandling of the whole business, the right to carry ceremonial knives - all in all a nasty mess), Nigel Farage has been finding another way of publicising himself, organising a broadcast to “address the nation”. Here’s a link to an article about that.

The estimable John Crace comments on that beginning like this:

“The email invitation arrived shortly after 7am. Nigel Farage would be making an “address to the nation” an hour later. The grandiosity. The self-importance. An address to the nation is something usually delivered by the monarch or the prime minister during an emergency. Not from a leader of a political party with just eight MPs.”

Thank you John Crace. We need more reminders that Refirm UK has ONLY EIGHT MPs. Instead of going on about Farage possible being a future prime minister, someone should organise huge posters all over the country declaring in large, brightly coloured letters that

HE ONLY HAS EIGHT MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT!!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Weather here and there, now and in the future. Tour de France. Beggars. Keeping towns clean and tidy.

There’s a cool breeze this morning, or at least there was when I ran first thing. There’s a little cloud on the horizon too. The sky is not quite so relentlessly blue. We are promised a high temperature of 29° today as opposed to the 34°+ of recent days. A Belgian lady in our hotel was complaining that it was cold on the terrace where she likes to have breakfast. Cool and breezy, yes, but hardly cold! But then, everything is relative.

However, it seems that the weathermen are predicting not only continued hot weather over much of Europe, including the UK, but also even hotter conditions to contend with. As ever, predictive maps show much higher temperatures for the South of England than for the Northwest. No doubt we’ll have reports of England sweltering and running out of water. Though quite how a generally rainy country like ours can run out of water still defeats me. El Niño is supposed to be making a comeback too, bringing extremes of weather later in the year. We must be prepared.

And here we are in June already. It’s now officially summer in the northern hemisphere. In another few weeks the Tour de France will be starting. Another bit of excitement to look forward to. The usual names arevalready being talked about and Jonas Vigegaard has already won the Giro d’Italia. He is now the eighth man to win the Giro, Tour de France and Vuelta a España, joining Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Vincenzo Nibali in reaching one of the sport’s hardest goals.

A few weeks ago I read that the Tour was coming to Oldham, and not just to Oldham but to our village, Delph, with riders battling up the steep hill to Grains Bar. Checking for information about the 2026 Tour date, I could find no mention of England, let alone Delph. This year’s tour will start on Barcelona, weave its way around la belle France and finish in Paris. I was puzzled. Had I dreamt it? No, no dreams at all, just the Tour de France Femmes. I don’t envy those ladies struggling up that hill. Much gentler slopes have me pushing my bike.  

As I returned from my run earlier I reflected that we haven’t seen any homeless people here in Silves. Neither have we been stopped by anyone asking for a contribution so they can buy some lunch. As you leave the Aldi store there is a stall where volunteers are handing out bags for shoppers to fill and pay for and then return to the stall. So clearly there are people in need of help to get on with their daily lives but the homeless and the beggars, if such there are, must somehow be kept away from the centre of town. Maybe there are none.

What there are are people who clean the streets, empty the litter bins, cut the grass and clear weeds away. I reflect on the overflowing litter bin in the centre of Delph village, the bus shelter frequently full of rubbish because someone in their wisdom removed the litter bin from there, and the “healthy” crop of dandelions, buttercups, poppies, you name it, that grow at the edge of our pavements. If Portugal can employ people to keep their cities beautiful, why can’t England? Just wondering!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Potatoes. Salad. Salmon to excess. Food philosophy. In praise of pools. Poor politicians!

 When we were in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria recently we decided to try a local delicacy, papas arrugadas - wrinkled potatoes, basically small potatoes boiled with their skins on - that’s where the wrinkles comes from - and served with a spicy sauce. Well, I like potatoes in almost any form and these were quite tasty. Like so many “specialist” regional dishes, it struck me that it had probably started as poor man’s food, something to fill a space so that you don’t need as much meat. Think of Yorkshire pudding, a nicely filling batter affair, good with gravy, to fill up the children’s hungry tummies and so leave more roast beef for daddy. Anyway, here’s a link to an article about papas arrugadas. Who knew that there was so much to say about the humble spud?

Felicity Cloake, author of the article, maintains that the name “mojo” for the sauce probably comes from the Portuguese for sauce “molho”. I would add to that the fact that the Spanish verb “mojar” means ,”to moisten”, “to damp”, “to wet”. If you are caught in a rainstorm you can be “mojado hasta los huesos”, not just soaked to the skin but soaked to the bones. So to me it makes sense that you call a marinade or sauce “mojo”.

The papas arrugadas, by the way, were quite tasty but proabably not something to be eaten every day.

 Here in Silves i am eating a lot of salad. The price of a salada mista ranges from €4.50 to €6.50, sometimes little more than lettuce, tomato and sliced onion, at others adorned with grated carrot and red cabbage and other such stuff. 

Yesterday at the Marisqueira restaurant I considered a fish soup and mixed salad for lunch but was persuaded that a slightly more fancy, and slightly more expensive, salada de camarāo would be good. So I abandoned the fish soup (it was really too hot for any soup other than a very chilled gazpacho anyway) and enjoyed my salad with prawns, walnuts, orange and the other usual ingredients. I also helped Phil out with the enormous serving of grilled salmon which arrived for him. 

Here’s bit of food philosophy from one of our favourite restaurants: don’t put off til tomorrow what you can eat today! 

The temperature soared to around 36°C yesterday and more of the same is forecast for today. Thank heavens for a hotel with a pool and a shady area with loungers (shade loungers not sun loungers) for those who do not want to toast themselves!

Former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is protesting her innocence and ignorance of he husband’s misuse of the party’s funds. She says she is not responsible. She’s just a wife who doesn’t notice what her husband does. Here is a link to John Crace’s reflection on poor Nicola’s situation. Poor Nicola must have been wearing blinkers though not to notice expensive items appearing at their household. It must be a hard life being a politician.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Hot sun. Blue moon. Illustrating children’s books. The problems of Sunday eating!

 They are forecasting a high temperature of 36°C today. That’s rather hot! It was a relatively cool 20°at 8.00 this morning. In view of the possible overheating later, I dragged myself out of bed and went for a run. I may need to lie down and rest later.

We have had a splendid full moon this weekend. I am told this is a blue moon. 

This has nothing to do with its colour.  Blue moon is apparently the term used when you have two full moons in one month, one at the beginning of the month and one at the end. It’s also a micromoon, although it doesn’t seem especially small. The moon goes round the earth in an ellipse. So sometimes its closer to the earth and we get a supermoon and sometimes its further away and we get a micromoon. Blue micromoons are relatively rate. That’s a bit of lunar science for us!

With temperatures soaring, here is Madeline Horwath’s cartoon on overlooked challenges in a heatwave. 

Incidentally I saw a young goth down by the pool the other day, dressed in black, complete with heavy black eyeliner. I don’t think she went in the water.

Illustrating children’s books is an art form which according to this article is going to get recognition in the form a museum/art gallery in London. 

It could be sort of place to go to when you are old enough to become nostalgic about The Gruffalo, The Twits, Hairy McLary from Donaldson’s Dairy, and my favourite Where the Wild Things Are. It’s hard work illustrating children’s stories. I know this having put together a story about a talking cat for my grandchildren. 

We know from our experience last Sunday that two of our favourite restaurants here are closed on Sundays. So yesterday we tried to book a table at the Marisqueira for lunch today, only to find that they only accept bookings for evening meals! So we’ll take pot luck and head there at lunchtime, goping we don’t have to stand around in the midday sun waiting for a table.

Hey ho!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!