Today is another fine and sunny day. I ran up and down the Donkey Line thinking that we ought to get out and about and take advantage of the good weather while it is here. I am pretty sure the forecast for the rest of the week is not so good. This is a pity as we have just taken delivery of a very sophisticated-looking baby-carrying backpack, an early Christmas present for our daughter so that we can go on family adventures along paths too narrow and rugged for the baby-buggy. It looks much sturdier and decidedly safer than the backpack we had to carry our offspring around in on hikes forty years ago. In fact, when I look back at what we had by way of baby carriers, car seats, harness in the car and so on, it amazes me that our two children grew up safe and sound.
Yesterday we had our first Italian conversation class on Zoom. After a certain amount of initial fumbling to make sure everyone was connected and that we were not “frizzato”, Italian for frozen on screen apparently, we got along fine. We had to adjust to putting our hands up to signal a desire to speak, rather than just butting in and speaking over each other. Although I would prefer a face-to-face class, with all the chances to read everyone’s body language more fully, on the whole the session went well. I have to admire the technical wizardry of our teacher, busily throwing up extra things on screen for us to look at, as well as managing a rather eccentric group of half a dozen mostly over-seventy-year-olds. Indeed, my admiration goes out to all those school teachers doing the same thing with larger groups of teenagers. No doubt I could adapt myself to it but I am still rather glad not to be obliged to learn that new skill any longer.
That’s another thing that wasn’t around forty years ago - super-advanced distance learning. How different might the pandemic have been without modern technology.
One of my eccentric Italian conversation classmates told us she is about to acquire a puppy, which she will call Florence. Why Florence? Because she loves the city and because it is a name with so many diminutives - Flo, Florrie, Flossie. How much harder it would be if she had to call the dog Firenze, using the native Italian name for the city. Here is Peter Hitchens ranting about that very topic, largely expressing his annoyance at Bombay having to Mumbai and Peking Beijing.
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
He fails to mention the Spanish habit of continuing to convert names of the British royal family into their Spanish versions. The queen is Isabel, Charles is Carlos, William and Kate are Guillermo y Catalina. It’s just as well Harry and Meghan have resigned from the royal family as I am not sure what they would do with Meghan. In autonomous regions of Spain with their own “language” (aka: dialect, regional variation of standard Spanish - don’t get me started!), of course, they also change local place names, presumably to confuse and annoy outsiders. Thus The Catalans call their region Catalunya, and thenGalicians change the spelling of places like Orense to Ourense. But at least they use the same alphabet!
On the crisis front, world numbers for deaths from the virus reach frightening levels. And the WHO thinks we may have underestimated. Most places are still seeing an ongoing rise. Universities here are facing a possible mass revolt in the form of a return home of students afraid of being trapped in halls of residence. After all, if you are having lectures and classes online, you might as well do it at home where Mum and Dad will feed you and do the washing for you.
Between threats of further lockdown and likely shortages of food and other goods because of Brexit, I understand that some supermarkets are now introducing limits as to how many of a particular item customers can buy. Nothing stops customers from going day after day to repeat buy stuff they want to stockpile of course. Strange times!
Our eldest granddaughter, meanwhile, appears to be stockpiling pet rats, as she has just acquired four baby fancy rats to join the two adolescent specimens she already owned. Personally I do not see the attraction. Each to their own, as they say!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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