Reflections on this and that.

My alarm rang this morning as usual. I switched it off and put my head back down for two minutes. Almost two hours later I woke up. It’s a good job it’s Sunday, when all I needed the alarm for was to remind me to go for a run, and not Thursday, when it reminds me to go and take the small people (aka the grandchildren) to school. I must have needed the sleep, that’s about all I can say. 

So I forewent (is that the correct past tense of forego?) my run and got up and dressed in normal clothes instead of running gear. And then I set off to walk my running route. It takes a little longer but you don’t get hot and sweaty. I was hoping to catch the tail end of the best of the day. Ever since I commented on the good weather we have been having the rain has returned and the flowers in the garden are almost permanently rain-splattered. 

 However if you get out and about early enough there is often a window of fine weather at the start of the day. I thought I had got away with it: overcast but still fine and fairly bright. On the whole not a bad morning for a walk into the village. 


 The fishermen were out in droves around the old mill pond. Then, just as I was about to snap a picture of said fishermen, the heavens opened and I had to root my umbrella out of my bag instead of my camera. So it goes. But I bought the newspaper and made it home for a late breakfast without getting too wet. 

My newspaper had a report about the little village of Castillo Matajudíos, near Burgos in northern Spain, where they are soon going to vote on changing their name, which means Jew Killers, to something like Mota de Judíos, Hill of the Jews. Political correctness hits Spain. I wonder if the various people called Matamoros (and there are some to this day, not just Santiago Matamoros, Saint James who is supposed to have helped the Spanish Christians defeat the Moorish Muslims) will also think of changing their name. I had heard the story about the little Spanish village some time ago but who would have thought that the story would reach the English newspapers? 

Voting is going on in a number of European countries today. We voted on Thursday, not just for the European parliament but for local government. Unfortunately UKIP has successfully messed up results for all the major parties. Previously sensible people have accepted Nigel Farage’s rants and have voted for his party. Hard to believe but true! One of my daughter’s friends posted on Facebook about how he heard a number of foreign languages spoken in the centre of his town, Oldham, where we live, and how proud he is that people from other countries of Europe have chosen to live there. All is not lost while there are young people expressing ideas like that. 

However, xenophobia is still around in government circles as well. It seems that our Mr Gove, in a moment of wisdom, has said that books like Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mocking Bird” should be removed from the GCSE English Literature syllabus because it is American, not English. As one of my friends pointed out, maybe he also needs to ban T.S. Eliott and Seamus Heaney for the same reason. Mr Gove certainly wouldn’t approve of the list of books read by the SPANISH book club I used to go to at Vigo library. Half of them were translations of English best sellers! 

That’ll do for now. It’s still raining!