Leisure activities prorogued! And food fights!

Today I had planned to take an old friend for a walk around the area. We do this about once a year, maybe more, admiring the stuff in bloom - at the moment heather (and Indonesian balsam, but we don’t mention that) and at other times bluebells, cherry blossom, snowdrops, or just autumn colours in the trees. We had worked out that today was a convenient day, although the changeable weather forecast did have a go at scuppering our plan. But things settled down. Today is not spectacular but fine and blowy with little chance of rain.

And then along came Boris Johnson and his proroguing parliament and suddenly my friend is busy saving the UK, maybe saving Europe, certainly doing her bit to save democracy. Since she retired from teaching she has been increasingly politically active, possibly as a result of not having been able to vote in the referendum and finding her fate as an EU national living in the UK rather precarious. And now she is spending hours poring over stuff on the internet, answering messages from different groups, and doing admin for this that and the other.

And I occasionally feel like a guilty fraud for not following suit. But only occasionally.

The Boris Johnson move had really stirred things up. All sorts of people are discussing the legality of it all. Her Majesty has come in for some criticism for approving his request ton prorogue parliament but really her hands are rather tied by the system. She’s not supposed to take a political stand. Would Charles have dealt with it differently? Who knows?

So my friend and I have postponed (or perhaps we should say prorogued) our outing until tomorrow, weather and Boris permitting. There is a Spanish verb, by the way, “prorrogar” which means to postpone.

In the meantime, here is a link to some photos of one of the silliest festivals anyone could imagine, La Tomatina in Buñol, in the Valencia province of Spain. It takes place on the last Wednesday in August, yesterday, and seems to have grown almost out of all proportion so that nowadays tickets are sold for the event, with a limit of 22,000 participants.

Less dangerous than the bull running in Pampona, it must still be a bit hazardous - I have never fancied having tomato juice in my eyes, for example.

The whole thing began by accident during a parade in the Buñol fiesta week in 1945, one of those parades they do in that part of Spain with “cabezudos”, the big-headed giants on stilts, and musicians and such like. Some youngsters made one of the participants fall down, knocking over everything in bis way. The crowd grew angry and began throwing tomatoes from a nearby fruit and veg stall. And so a tradition began.

It was banned for a while in the 1950s by Franco - such a spoilsport! - but the locals protested and it was reinstated. And people now travel from all over the world to throw tomatoes at each other. Personally I can think of nothing worse than voluntarily going and getting soaked in soggy tomatoes, especially as you would undoubtedly have to throw your clothes, and even your shoes, away afterwards. Even a tiny blob of tomato on clothing is really hard to wash out!

However, I suppose paying good money to take part in a food fight is just another form of escapism!