Weathering the storm!

 It's odd how the weather affects one's mood. A bit of sunshine and everyone is out there, smiling at the rest of the world. You find yourself serving light salads, smoked salmon and crisp, dry white wine. 

Today by contrast, with the garden still completely white and occasional flurries of snow still falling, I had an urge to go and cook hearty stews and thick soups. It was most definitely a day for hibernating. The seasons are seriously out of flunter. Having posted photos on Facebook, I now have friends sending me comments about temperatures of 21 degrees in Galicia and 27 in China. 

And so I was not moving from the sofa unless forced to do so. Plans to go to the bookshop for a last-minute extra birthday present for the small boy of the family went by the board. 

Instead some comments on news from here and there. 

Last night on the TV programme This Week, I swear I heard the host Andre Neill speculating about whether there is a Tory plot to discredit the Labour party. Well, they will certainly take advantage of any blunders. And I did read that the original tweet about Israel by Naz Shah would not have been causing all the furore if it had not been republished by a Tory person! Such is modern politics. 

At the other end of the world, I read about someone returning a library book 67 years late. She took the book out in 1948 when she was a child and has just got round to returning it, much to the librarian's surprise. They no longer even have records of the lady's membership as it was so long ago. But her conscience mist have been troubling her and on a visit to family she took the book back. Because she took it out as a child, fines do not apply. If she had had to pay them they would have amounted to almost £12,000! Amazing! Sometimes having a conscience works. Although the book, a collection of Maori myths and legends, is probably not of great value, it is being evaluated and will be added to a special collection in the Auckland library. 

Someone who does have to pay up is the father of a 28 year old Italian. This father has been ordered to continue to support his son through university despite it having taken him much longer to complete his first degree course than originally estimated. And the young man has now embarked on post-graduate courses! Sounds to me like a case of putting off the dread day when he has to declare himself a grown-up. When his father suggested he should start to look for a job and support himself, the young man took him to court and was backed up officially. 

This an example of "bamboccioni", literally big babies, which is the term the Italians use to describe such young people. In the UK apparently we have "Kippers" - "Kids In Parents' Pockets, Eroding Retirement Savings” and IPODs – “Insecure, Pressurised, Overtaxed and Debt-ridden”. France has young adults still living at home who are known as the “Tanguy” generation after a 2001 film about a 28-year-old man who drives his parents to distraction by refusing to move out. 

We have been known to refer to ourselves as the Bank of Mum and Dad but on the whole I think Phil and I may have got off lightly. Neither of our offspring have tried to move back in yet.