Out of the usual routine!

It's been a funny sort of Wednesday. Usually I get up and run to the market on Wednesday morning early but today I had had a request to go to my daughter's house. So I walked to the market, bought some stuff, left my gloves on the fish stall and had to go back for them, and eventually found my way to the bus stop to travel to my daughter's house.

There, at the bus stop, I had one of those odd conversations about the reliability of buses, which routes they follow, including the fact that the lady I was speaking to, despite having lived in Uppermill for donkey's years, had only recently discovered that one of the local buses, if you catch it on the other side of the road, takes you to Oldham, via Delph. "I went the other day", she said, "It's a pretty place, Delph, isn't it? But there's not much there!" She needs to get out more!

The main reason I was going to my daughter's was so that I could accompany her to the dentist's surgery and hold the baby while she, my daughter, that is, not the baby, went and had some treatment. Now, that little possible confusion over which "she" was having dental treatment would be avoided in Spanish by use of the demonstrative pronouns "esta" (this one) and "esa" (that one). You can do it in English with "the former" (that one) and "the latter" (this one) but when did anyone hear those terms used in everyday speech recently? Okay, language lesson over!

After the dental visit, which went well apart from residual numbness, we went back to my house, where my brother-in-law was paying a hastily-arranged-at-the-last-minute visit. That involved another change of routine. As a rule, when he comes we go for a long stomp to Diggle chippy (a converted wooden garage I may have mentioned several times before) and eat fish and chips al fresco before stomping back home again. This time the visitor went off by car to Diggle chippy and brought fish and chips back for everyone, except for the person suffering from residual numbness! Very good but somehow never as nice indoors as al fresco!

We did manage a stroll around the block when the sun came out mid-afternoon but that was the whole extent of our stomping today.

Later, checking Facebook, I "liked" a post by my young friend who spoke at the anti-Trump's-Muslim-ban rally. His small daughter had congratulated him on his speech, which she said she had seen on video, and told him she was proud of him. To my surprise, I noticed that another friend of mine, from a completely different section of my life, had also "liked" that post. This just proves what a small world we live in: two bits of my life coinciding via social media. Or, as my young friend commented, "it's almost as if the left is a small incestuous cabal isn't it?! 😉"

Well, I appear to have managed to write all this without a rant about POTUS. So here is a little something I pinched from some newspaper or other:

"California Democrats are considering creating a state-wide sanctuary rule that will prohibit police officers from working with federal immigration authorities in opposition to President Donald Trump's migration policy. A number of cities, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, already operate such a policy – but it does not cover the entire state.

It means they do not cooperate with US Immigration and Customs enforcement—for example, by not notifying immigration officials if an illegal immigrant is about to be released from custody. Around 300 US jurisdictions are believed to currently have sanctuary status.

Mr Trump issued an executive order threatening to strip federal funding from sanctuary cities if they "harbour illegal immigrants" and San Francisco is already suing him on the basis the order contradicts states' rights provisions under US law. The new plan, drafted by California Senate president Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, was due for its first airing on Tuesday. The city of San Francisco said the executive order could result in the loss of more than $1bn (£794m) in funding.

Mr Trump's crackdown was foreshadowed not long after his victory in November's election.

Chief of staff Reince Priebus said cities that "ignore federal law" should not expect "federal government to help them in any way". Ending cities' sanctuary rules was a Trump campaign promise.

Mr Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants to "better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions".

There we go!