Thunder and lightning. Living on the edge of town. Crisis nostalgia. Language matters.

Apparently there was what has been described as a “silent lightning storm” over Greater Manchester last night. Presumably this means lots of fancy lightning but no thunder. We saw none of it. Our daughter in nearby Ashton and our granddaughter in even nearer by Mossley both commented around midnight on the fantastic light show they were having. It didn’t make it over the hill to Delph though. Sometime in he wee small hours I heard thunder but still no lightning.

This morning looked dull but was in fact warm and rather humid. (The sun came out later.) I went into the village for a few things and came back needing a shower. There is nothing like a cold shower on the back of your neck when you feel hot and sticky! Breakfast was late as a result!

Maybe we did not see the lightning storm because we are right on the edge of Greater Manchester. A few miles up the road and you are in a different county, probably Yorkshire, which Delph used to belong to, but with shifting boundaries you never know. We are also on the extrema edge if Oldham, which has its advantages as Oldham now has the second highest coronavirus infection rate in England, just below Pendle where the rate has jumped from 44.5 in the seven days to July 31 to 96.6 in the seven days to August 7. But we seem to be little affected by it here on the edge of town, thankfully. Maybe that’s why so many people wander into the coop store without a face covering? But I guess we won’t be coming out if extended restrictions any day soon.

And now even New Zealand is seeing some new cases, and they have been super careful!

However, a kind of Coronavirus nostalgia seems to have set in with articles like one by the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent, Sam Jones, looking back at the early days of the pandemic. He was reporting on Brexit at the end of January and has this to say:-

“The following day, after filing my Brexit dispatch to the Observer, I rang a Spanish pilot to ask about one of the stranger missions of his career. Francisco Javier Martínez, an amiable aviator with more than 40 years’ experience, was just back from flying his 747 to China to evacuate 120 people – most of them British and Spanish – from Wuhan. Those were the early days: the coronavirus outbreak had yet to become a pandemic and the virus was still vying with Brexit to become the story of 2020.

Martínez was modest and matter-of-fact about the trip but, when I look back over his quotes seven months on, his description of flying to China reads rather differently.

“Wuhan looked like a desert; there wasn’t a car on the motorway and the airport was totally empty,” he said. “It was as if a bomb had gone off and left the city totally empty. No people, no cars, no movement, nothing. It was all a bit overwhelming.”

Six weeks later, his words could equally have described Spain as it folded itself quickly and compliantly into one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.”

Sam Jones ends his article like this:-

“As the months roll on and we are pitched from peak to trough, I sometimes wonder whether the foresight could ever have matched the hindsight. And I remember something else that Martínez told me about flying into Wuhan. A thought had occurred to him as he approached the city, and his nine words still provide as fine a précis of the Covid crisis as you’ll get from anyone. “This was all a bit bigger than we’d thought.””

Indeed! And it’s not over yet.

And here is a story which brings together the pandemic and the Beirut explosion, a “we might have been in Beirut” story.  The writer describes how she left Beirut for a new job in Sidney Australia. She left Beirut in March. Her husband stayed in Beirut working for the United Nations high commission for refugees, but they knew they could always hop on a flight to see each other, and then Coronavirus hit and Beirut closed its airport. Her husband could not catch a repatriation flight because there was nobodybto replace him in his job and so he stayed, finally flying back to Australia only a couple of weeks ago. Friends in Beirut tell them they had a lucky escape.

And finally, a Spanish friend of mine has posted a list of expressions she thinks should be used in Spanish instead of their English equivalents:-
 Pasatiempo ... not hobby.
 Asesoría ... not coaching.
 Compras ... not shopping.
 Vestimenta ... not outfit.
 Apariencia ... not look.
 Registro de entrada ... not check-in.
 Registro de salida ... not check-out.
 Apoyo or respaldo ... not back up.
 Contraseña ... not password.
 Versión ... not cover.
 Fecha límite ... not deadline.
 Experiencia ... not knowhow.

I suspect she has a losing battle on her hands but there it is!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!