This morning I woke to the sound of rain on the attic skylight windows. I opened the blinds and got back into bed to watch the rain, debating whether it was raining hard enough to prevent me from going out to run. Eventually some bits of blue appeared (albeit briefly) in the sky and so I donned my running gear and set off down the Donkey Line. It had stopped raining and the bridle path was much drier than the earlier rain had led me to expect.
My Donkey Line run takes me to the midpoint - the path is divided into two sections, with a bit of road access to nearby houses splitting it up - where I leave the path for a while, do a short section on a main road and then get onto a lane which runs parallel to the bridle path, finally rejoining the Donkey Line and getting back to my starting point.
As I ran down the Donkey Line this morning I noticed a couple of the access points to the parallel lane blocked off with official-looking cones. There was a man working there and I stopped to see what was going on. The wall had collapsed, pushed put of place by the trees, and he was putting it right. “What a daft idea, planting trees close to a wall,” he commented, “They need cutting down.” I had to defend the trees. After all they make the Donkey Line into the pleasant walkway that it is. I didn’t enquire whether the workman was a proper dry stone wall expert but somehow I doubt it. However, provided a stone wall goes back up and is not replaced by a fence of concrete blocks, I suppose I will have to be satisfied. We shall see!
Be that as it may, the rain kept off but the day does not look too promising. There is talk of an Indian Summer. It clearly hasn’t started yet. Maybe it will be a South of England thing! Once again, we shall see.
The news continues to be gloomy. Brexit looks like being a total mess. Surely the EU should not be surprised at Boris Johnson possibly reneging on their deal. After all he has form for u-turns! Bolton, on the other side of Greater Manchester, where I have a number of friends as I worked there for quite a few years, is now top of the league for Coronavirus infections, pushing Oldham down the table, but Oldham still remains on alert. Testing, or the lack of it, still causes problems. Here is an example from a news report I read today:
“It took 59-year-old Jackie Cawkwell, who works as an administrator in Nottingham, three days to be offered a coronavirus test close to home. She started feeling unwell on Thursday with Covid symptoms including nausea, diarrhoea and temperature. “When I tried to get a test on the Friday, it only gave me the option of going to Oldham, that’s 57 miles away,” she said. “I tried three times and I was only given Oldham and when you are feeling that poorly, it’s just not feasible to do a 100-plus round trip. I was despairing.””
My brother-in-law, who also lives in the Greater Manchester, managed to get himself tested when he had a chest infection last week but I am not sure where he had the test. Fortunately he tested negative. Just a bog-standard chest infection after all.
We have been hearing a lot of reports of the problems for coffee shops as a result of the lockdown. Small places are really suffering and even big chains are having a bad time of it. That is a UK-wide problem, maybe even a Europe-wide problem. Then I came across two other lockdown consequence stories.
First there is the rich men’s problem. Ocean-going yachts usually take shelter, it seems, in safe havens in New Zealand and Australia during the cyclone season. However, these safe havens are closed because of Covid-19 travel restrictions. There are exemptions, such as if there is a substantial economic benefit to New Zealand, such as for superyachts undergoing repair or upgrades. Smaller yachts require exemption on humanitarian grounds but this does not include refuge from the storm season. And so the yachts (hundreds of them apparently) and their crews risk being stranded in the Pacific islands. As I said, rich men’s problems but I suspect the rich men themselves will be able to fly off in a private plane, leaving their crews to face the storms.
The other story concerns poor women’s problems. I say women but mostly they are just girls. In rural communities of Nepal it is always difficult for girls to continue with education as they approach adulthood. The girls have to help with the housework and with other tasks. Often they need a good deal of help and encouragement from outside agencies to persuade their families to let them continue to go to school as they approach marriageable age. And now with schools closed for lockdown, and others in the family out of work, also because of lockdown, 17-year-old girls are being married off. Their families simply cannot afford not to do so. Beyond the immediate loss of their education, it puts girls at increased risk of a life of abuse, ill health and poverty. Poor people’s problems!
It puts things into perspective.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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