Being efficient. Communication. Finding the news altogether depressing. Survivalist granddaughter.

I’ve been quite efficient this morning. Before going for a run, I put a load of washing in the machine. I came home, showered, had breakfast, hung out the washing and set off to catch a bus to Tesco. Within the hour I was back on another bus, having done a rapid whizz round Tesco with my list. Goodness! It’s quite exhausting being so efficient!

Today I received another letter from my eight-year-old granddaughter, the one we don’t see often as she lives down south, where the sun shines more often and the rain falls less frequently! We became penpals during lockdown. The envelope was adorned with a picture of a castle. She is clearly her father’s daughter; he used to draw castles all the time, and not only external views but floor plans, with rooms labelled. Ah, the afternoons spent trying to think up yet another use for the multiple rooms of his castles! His little daughter told me about her recent holiday in Baiona, in Galicia, northwest Spain. She told me how she enjoyed building sand castles - her father’s daughter! Her punctuation seems to consist almost entirely of exclamation marks! Not that I am objecting! I am quite fond of a good smattering of exclamation marks myself!

I checked the news when I returned from the supermarket:- 

• Little Charlie Battersbee is finally going to be allowed to die quietly despite his mother’s attempts to keep him on life support a little longer. I feel terrible sorry for her but it seems the miracle is not going to happen. 
• Smiling (no, grinning!) Liz Truss declare that if/when she is PM she will not give handouts to people struggling with their bills: cutting taxes is “the Conservative way”! I’m pretty sure that taxes need to be reduced to beyond zero to help some people pay their bills. 
• Boris Johnson has gone on holiday. Sir Anthony Sheldon, a chap who has written books about lots of prime ministers said this about departing PMs: 

“But when they do have the time, like Theresa May, they use it to really do all the things that they would have done early on, had they had a better sense of the rhythm of the architecture of a premiership. Blair also planned his departure very carefully and did keep going to the very end. He choreographed his departure and how to maximise those final weeks.

“Whereas this is all lackadaisical. It’s odd because the story of the Johnson premiership is of incomplete work. The things he cared about – levelling up, getting the Brexit dividend, creating the strong economy, creating a strong position for Britain in the world, being the most decisive prime minister on the environment – these things are not complete.

“A lot of the others had a whole series of speeches they delivered to finish things as they would want to finish them. Maybe that’s going to come, but the timing is acute for him because the country is going to be on holiday until the beginning of September, and then the interest isn’t going to be on him.”

I don’t know why he is surprised. After all, this is the ,an who famously hid in a fridge! 

On the whole, the news is mainly rather depressing. I think I should stop paying attention to it. I’ll go back to tending my garden and painting watercolour pictures! 

My daughter has sent us a photo of all the pasta bought in the latest supermarket shop by her second daughter, 19 year old Granddaughter Number Two. We are all aware that she would live on pasta, given half a chance. Indeed, she will probably do that when she goes off to university later this year. But we did wonder if she turned into a survivalist and was laying in stocks in case of a future catastrophe. Her response was that you can never have too much pasta! Hey ho!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!