Women’s football. Footballers’ husbands. Music. Climate stuff. The price of pet ownership. Cartoon.

According to the newsman on the radio, people are streaming into Wembley to see the England women’s team play in the final of the Women’s Euros. As I have listened to the reports of their success and the news about the Wagatha Christie case, it has crossed my mind that we  might see a new phenomenon. If women’s football becomes a major popular sporting event on a longer term, and if female footballers start to be paid on a par with male footballers, will we start to see “footballers’ husbands”? Will they seek fame in the social media profession of being footballers husband? Will there ever be a libel case like the Vardy-Rooney affair? I am partly inspired to have this thought by my phone sending me one of those pings about news “events” - “find out about the lives of the England Women’s football team on and off the pitch”. Oh boy!

A friend of mine has posted on Facebook that she in on the train on her way back to rainy Manchester after a brief few days in hot and sunny London. I was tempted to comment that we had sunshine in Delph at that point. Up to midday we had had dull and cloudy, warm and drizzly, heavy rain and blue-sky sunshine! I expect that pattern will continue but I have hing washing out to dry anyway!  

I hope it manages to stay fine onto this evening. Relatively near here is Cannon Hall Farm, near a place called Cawthorne, on the way to Barnsley. It’s a place that my daughter visits with her small children on occasion because you can get close up to the animals, a sort of petting zoo, I suppose. Well, recently I saw a notice that Suzanne Vega’s UK tour was taking her to Cawthorne. Does Cawthorne have a venue big enough for the likes of an internationally known singer-songwriter? I wondered. Some time later I discovered that Cannon Hall Farm regularly hosts the Underneath the Stars Festival, which is taking place today. That’s where she is going. Suzanne Vega’s appearance in Glasgow on Wednesday has had good reviews. I hope she is as well received down on the farm this evening! She’s well worth seeing live. 

Yesterday we walked out in the late afternoon, when the damp and drizzly finally eased. We took with us the secateurs and our new acquisition, a litter picker! We have been planning for a while to collect litter as we are out and about. There’s often quite a lot but we’re somewhat reluctant to pick up and so I eventually bought us a gadget: basically a stick with a grabber on one end and a handle to operate it at the other. A good walk and a bit of useful community work - snipping and grabbing -at the same time!

As we made our way home I spotted a tree with some leaves that were turning red. I have been hearing reports on the radio of places in the south of England where they already had red and brown leaves falling from trees because of the lack of water. I thought we had had enough rain to put off autumn for a while yet. After all, it’s not quite August yet! But it seems that the seasons might already be turning here too, even if only in small way so far! 

Amidst the reports of the growing economic crisis I came across an article about the cost of vets’ bills. It’s not just the cost of treatment but the problem of what to do when a pet dies. I have every sympathy. A dog has usually been with you for a long time and they do become friends I suppose, if you are a dog-person, which I am really not. Even the loss of a cat causes sadness, even though cats are sociable on their own terms, unlike dogs who are on the whole good, faithful companions. However, I find myself almost moved to laughter when I read something like this: 

“When my beloved hamster Maisie died, I faced the trauma of figuring out what to do with her body.”

My experience of hamsters is rather limited but they seem mostly to sleep all day and then keep you awake at night as they trundle around their exercise wheel. Still, each to their own. Faced with a large bill to have Maisie cremated, the writer, who had no garden put her in an iPhone box and popped her into the freezer until such time as she can visit her brother and bury Maisie in his flower beds. 

Finally, here’s a cartoon that made me smile. 

 

It’s much better in my opinion than the one that Nadine Dorries is said to have posted of Sunak stabbing Johnson in the back. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!