Goodbye to the fog. Football. Christmas trees.

Well, yesterday’s fog has largely gone from around here but it still feels cold and rather damp. However, I cycled to the market without problem. All is well - or at least all is well here. Other parts of the world are a different matter, but I am not going onto that now. 

England beat Wales at football yesterday. Now the Prince of Wales no longer has to choose between the two teams: he can root for England with impunity! Is he really bothered though? I wonder.

The USA also won their match, against Iran. Proper football, which the Americans call soccer, is not usually their game. In a discussion I heard the other day on a news programme they were wondering whether it should be introduced to all schools and not kept as an activity for girls. Apparently there is also discussion about training football (soccer) players European style, recruiting them into training systems from a young age. There is at present no tradition of scholarships to American university for football (soccer) players as there is for other sports. Some want that to change. All I know about their team is that the players are all very young and that they seem to be doing well. The USA wants the World Cup! 

It’s the last day of November. December starts tomorrow. We can start to wear Christmas jumpers and Christmas earrings. Some people have already put their trees up and lit up the outside of their houses - what about the energy crisis? Here in Delph, we have the great Light Up Delph ceremony of switching on Christmas Lights (capital letters obligatory) on Saturday, probably a sure sign that it will be rainy and cold. 

Columnist Arwa Mahdawi was contemplating when is the best date to buy a Christmas tree:

“What is the optimal date to buy a Christmas tree? The Arwa-Mahdawi-approved answer is 26 November, which is when I bought mine. There was a time when I would have been aghast at anyone buying a Christmas tree in November. That was when I didn’t have a small child and the world didn’t seem to be on the brink of disaster. Now, however, I am a parent and the world has gone to hell so I seek comfort and security anywhere I can.

And you know what? Christmas trees are very comforting. They’re a calming constant in a world of rapid change. Christmas trees are the same every single year. They smell the same, they look the same, they act the same. They don’t get software updates … hang on, has some Silicon Valley bastard invented a “smart” Christmas tree? I bet they have. Wait a sec while I Google this. Oh my God, they have. Of course they have. That’s not very Christmassy of them.”

I looked up “smart” Christmas trees. Basically they seem to be pre-decorated artificial trees with the possibility of programming them to change according to your mood. And you can connect them to Alexa, if you run your house that way. In one of the pictures I saw, the smart tree looked more like a dalek than anything else. And surely the whole point of having a tree for a Christmas is so that you can establish family traditions about which decorations you use and who decorates the tree. A friend of mine has a series of photos of her son lifting his small daughter up, year after year, to place the star on the top of the tree. And suddenly last year she no longer needed lifting up. She was tall enough on her own!

My tree awaits the arrival of the southern branch of the family, so that the two little girl cousins can decorate the tree together. This year they will undoubtedly have the assistance of the smallest grandson, aged 3, so goodness only knows what kind of chaos might ensue.  

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

A rather muddled Tuesday - the best laid plans and all that sort of thing!

 After yesterday’s blue sky and sunshine, today we have had fog! All day fog! At one point my weather app told me, “fog starting in 30 minutes”. Thirty minutes, my eye! It started foggy and stayed foggy.

I had the day pretty well organised. I ran round the village in the fog first thing, having put a load of washing in the washing machine before I set off. By the time I had arrived home and showered, that was ready to hang up to dry and I was able to put load number two in the machine. 

After breakfast my plan was to go into Oldham to collect boots and shoes from the cobblers where I left them last week for repairs. It was quite late morning when I set off. My route through the town centre was carefully plotted: get off the bus near the library, walk to Sainsbury’s to buy, among other things, a Christmas cake, walk up to the market, entering by the far end so that I could buy some good fruit, stopping off at the batteries and lightbulb stall, and finally collecting the boots and shoes before walking to the bus station to catch the bus home. Buses no longer go through the town centre you go to the bus station or you walk to the farther end of town. Hence the carefully plotted route. 

At the cobbler’s I came across the first set-back: one pair of shoes was not ready as they had had difficulty obtaining the necessary type of soles and heels - cue for a little moan about Brexit. 

On the bus homeward I phoned Phil. He had an appointment for physiotherapy for his knee and it was likely that at Delph crossroads he would get on the bus I was about to get off. Our paths would cross at the bus stop. I suggested that I take my various shopping items home and then catch the next bus to meet him at the doctor’s in Uppermill so that we could perhaps walk home together.

As I got on the later bus Phil rang me. Because of some kind of mix-up his 2.30 appointment had been cancelled, but no-one had alerted him to this. So they rescheduled him for 4.00 - hardly time to get home without immediately turning round to catch the next bus to Uppermill. As I was already en route we decided to meet in Uppermill as arranged and change our plans accordingly. 

A visit to the library was a possibility. Oh, no, it wasn’t! The library had a notice on the door: “The library is closed today due to unforeseen circumstance”. Now, today is Tuesday. On Tuesday our daughter takes her two youngest children, one after the other, to age-appropriate drama activities, spending the time that each is busy being dramatic in the library choosing books with the other. So Phil and I went and had coffee and a snack and I alerted our daughter to the library problem facing her. 

In the event she dropped one child at drama, met me with the other child in the playground, where we played hide and seek in the foggy gloom, while Phil saw his physiotherapist. Then she gave us a lift home before sorting out the further activities of her small children. 

And here I am. The day is coming to an end and I am listening to the news on the radio. So it goes. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Sunshine. Walks. Odds and ends from social media.

Today has been one of those blue sky early winter days, which amazingly didn’t cloud over by midday. So I ran round the village first thing. Last year at this time we had snow, not a lot but snow nonetheless. No snow today!

Later in the day we walked up the hill to Dobcross, admiring the holly en route. And coming back down the hill we ran into old friends we’ve not seen for years. The sunshine brings everyone out.

 

I’m still ignoring the football in Qatar. A friend of mine, the one who said she was boycotting the whole business is still watching everything and getting quite excited. 

Still on football, a friend of mine posted some stuff on social media about Manchester United, stuff I didn’t know but which Phil assures me is well known by everyone : 

“When Newton Heath FC changed its name to Manchester United in 1902, a grand flag and a very large image of the team captain Harry Stafford graced the club’s headquarters at the Imperial Hotel, Piccadilly. Harry Stafford was later to become the pub’s landlord.

Five years later, the pub was the venue for the establishment of the Association Football Players' and Trainers' Union in 1907, which was convened by City/United legend Billy Meredith and United's Charlie Roberts. The organisation continues to this day as the Professional Footballers' Association, the world's oldest professional sport trade union, with over 5,000 members.

The fantastically styled old building was sadly demolished in 1997 for the new Hotel Malmaison development.  There's a Starbucks on the site now.”

Starbucks doesn’t seem like much of a replacement, in my opinion.

Here’s MP Zarah Sultana on social media: 

“Jeff Bezos could give every Amazon worker a £90,000 bonus and he'd still be as rich as he was at the start of the pandemic.

But instead workers are facing a massive pay cut.

That's why I joined Coventry workers on Friday as they head towards the first strike at an Amazon UK site ✊🏽

GMB Union GMB Midlands”

It makes me wonder just how much money a person really needs!

I bought a Christmas present for our small grandson (dinosaurs, of course) from a local toyshop, rather than ordering it more cheaply perhaps from Amazon! I’m lucky to be able to afford to do that.

I was reflecting on the amount of targeted advertising we all receive when I saw this: 

“Women trying for a baby are being targeted by formula milk companies on social media even before they have become pregnant, a World Health Organization scientist has said.

Formula milk brands use online shopping and search data to detect when someone is planning a baby, said Dr Nigel Rollins, of the department of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health at the WHO.

Direct advertising of formula milk to parents of babies under six months old is prohibited in the UK but loopholes mean companies can provide advice to pregnant women and new parents under their own logos.”

Here’s a link to the full article.

From articles I read, it seems to be more stressful nowadays to be a new mother than 40+ years ago when I was doing it. I had a couple of books and a bunch of friends from the National Childbirth Trust. Nowadays they are bombarded with information from all sides apparently. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Lancashire Day! County boundaries. Where do we belong?

 Apparently today is Lancashire Day. Who knew? Not I! 

 

When a friend of mine posted the red rose symbol, at first I thought that this Lancashire Day thing was one of those recently created “days”. But then some else posted this: 

“On this day in 1295 the first representatives from Lancashire were called to Westminster by King Edward I to attend what later became known as ‘The Model Parliament’.

                                  —o0o—

THE LANCASHIRE DAY PROCLAMATION:

“To the people of the city and county palatine of Lancaster, Greetings!

Know ye that this day, November 27th in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Two, the first year of the reign of His Majesty King Charles III, Duke of Lancaster, is Lancashire Day.

Know ye also, and rejoice, that by virtue of His Majesty's County Palatine of Lancaster, the citizens of the Hundreds of Lonsdale, North and South of the Sands, Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn, Salford and West Derby are forever entitled to style themselves Lancastrians.

Throughout the County Palatine, from the Furness Fells to the River Mersey, from the Irish Sea to the Pennines, this day shall ever mark the people's pleasure in that excellent distinction - true Lancastrians, proud of the Red Rose and loyal to our Sovereign Duke.

GOD BLESS LANCASHIRE AND GOD SAVE THE KING, DUKE OF LANCASTER.” 🌹 

This supposedly comes from the Friends of Real Lancashire, whoever they are.

I’m not sure that where we live counts as Lancashire, even the old Lancashire. Saddleworth used to belong to the West Riding of Yorkshire before the county boundaries changed in 1974. Some people here still insist on putting a white rose emblem on their houses or fly a white rose flag. 

Before that, before we lived in Saddleworth with its indeterminate allegiance to the white or the red rose, a group,of my friends used to agitate (jokingly) for Free Rule for Lancashire. Maybe we should start a similar Free Rule for Greater Manchester and see if we can’t rejoin the EU.

Certainly the Labour Party, if it were to get back into power seems officially opposed to closer contact with Europe:-

‘Sir Keir Starmer has vowed not to cross the “red line” of bringing back freedom of movement with the EU as he accused allies of Rishi Sunak of wanting to renegotiate Brexit.

The Labour leader was ruling out a Swiss-style deal with Brussels that would allow access to the single market after a report suggested the Government was considering the move.

His warning that “ripping up the Brexit deal would lead to years more wrangling and arguing” appeared to be an attempt to outflank the Conservatives on Brexit.’

Goodness knows where we’ll end up! 

Meanwhile, the Conservative government continues mired in alleged wrongdoing of one kind or another. After the mess that was the Manston immigration centre, despite its having been emptied of refugees, there comes this extra scandal: 

“The Home Office is routinely changing the dates of birth of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to classify them as adults, according to experts who say the practice is now happening on a “horrifying scale”.

As a result, many children are being wrongly sent to the notorious Home Office site at Manston in Kent, the experts warn, and detained in unsafe conditions for up to several weeks.

The Refugee Council said interviews with 16 children released from Manston revealed that even in the cases of some boys who had identity documents stating they were children, the Home Office changed their dates of birth to make them over 18.” 

Oh, boy! Here’s a link to more information. 

And as professions that never before even considered striking now prepare to take action, I read this: 

“Teachers are being forced to take second jobs, including driving taxis, bar work and private tutoring, in order to pay bills and eat, headteachers and unions warned last week.

The NASUWT teachers’ union has found that one in 10 teachers now have a second or even third job because their teaching pay doesn’t cover their monthly outgoings. With teachers resorting to school food banks, heads are warning that the recent 5% pay rise will still leave many unable to manage basic living costs.

Garry Ratcliffe, chief executive of the Galaxy Trust, which runs nine schools in Kent, said: “At one of my schools, as well as those doing private tutoring, I’ve got a teacher who has to dance at the weekend in a Greek restaurant, a teacher working as a farm hand, and one doing shifts in a bar.”

Here’s a link to more information on that. 

As a retired teacher and mother of a primary school teacher, I wonder how any teachers find the time to take on a second or, goodness me!, a third job!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Some more about things kids play with.

 In my great reminiscence yesterday about playground games, I omitted “cat’s cradle”, a game for two or more people, played with a loop of string. My older sister was an expert player. Here is a link to instructions on how to play. 

According to Wikipedia the game has been around for centuries:

“the first known reference is in The light of nature pursued by Abraham Tucker in 1768.

"An ingenious play they call cat's cradle; one ties the two ends of a packthread together, and then winds it about his fingers, another with both hands takes it off perhaps in the shape of a gridiron, the first takes it from him again in another form, and so on alternately changing the packthread into a multitude of figures whose names I forget, it being so many years since I played at it myself.”

The name may have come from a corruption of cratch-cradle, or manger cradles (although this derivation is disputed by the OED). The connection between the two words, cratchesand cradle, may come from the Christian story of the birth of Jesus, in which a manger is used as a cradle.

In an 1858 Punch cartoon it is referred to as "scratch cradle", a name supported by Brewer’s 1898 Dictionary. As "Cat's cradle" often is used to refer to string figures and games in general, Jayne uses "Real Cat's-Cradle" to refer to the specific game.

Different cultures have different names for the game, and often different names for the individual figures. The French word for manger is crèche, and cattle feed racks are still known as cratches. In Japan it is called “ayatori.” In Russia the whole game is called simply, the game of string, and the diamonds pattern is called carpet, with other pattern names such as field, fish, and sawhorse for the other figures—a cat isn't mentioned.? The game may have originated in China. In China he game is called 翻繩 fan sheng (English: turning rope). In Israel the game is called "Knitting Grandmother" (in Hebrew "סבתא סורגת", Savta Soreget). In some regions of the U.S. this game also is known as Jack in the Pulpit.”

Goodness! Who knew a piece of string could lead to so much information?

In our children’s childhood, there was a similar thing with a rope of elastic band round ankles, probably banned now on health and safety grounds - like conkers! 

Here’s a link to that game, this time played with a length of actual elastic, which looks rather more dangerous than using elastic bands, which snap quite easily, after all.

And in more recent years there have been “loom bands”, originally intended as a craft activity for making bracelets and the like but sometimes used to make record-breaking loom bands to surround buildings! Crazy stuff!

That’s enough of that!

Today we have walked to Uppermill under heavy skies but the rain has kept off so far. Wet and windy weather is forecast for the rest of the weekend. We shall see.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

A little playground nostalgia.

Yesterday afternoon I overheard my six year old granddaughter invite her small brother to play a new game she had learnt about at school: hopscotch! I think they had been doing something about games children used to play but, as for me, I was whisked off down memory lane. 

When I was in primary school - not infant school, I don’t have very specific memories about that bit of my schooling - boys and girls had separate playgrounds. Heaven forfend that boys and girls should play together - the very idea! The two playgrounds were even separated by the school building, just in case we might accidentally mingle! Funnily enough we all played together after school without problems! 

So I have no idea what went on in the boys’ playground. Presumably they played a lot of football and running around games. Or maybe, they walked about sedately discussing philosophy and politics. You never know.

But hopscotch was one of the activities that cycled around in the girls’ playground. It seemed as though there was a season for everything and at certain times of the year everyone was equipped with chalk to draw the numbered hopscotch patch on the ground and a slider stone or a ball to slide or roll onto the relevant number according to the stage of the game. 

The balls, of course, also served for simple catch or piggy in the middle or just throwing the ball against the wall and catching it. The really proficient showed off their skill at playing two-balls or even three-balls! And the suitably skilled would also demonstrate how they could do cartwheels, or handstands against the wall. Especially in the summer time. Proper circus skills. But maybe that’s why we had segregated playgrounds, so that exhibitionist girls would not show their navy blue school knickers to the boys.  

At other times skipping was all the rage, either individual skipping ropes or longer ropes for communal skipping, with one person at each end to turn the rope. Failing that, you could tie the rope to a post or drainpipe and have one person doing the turning. And then there was the complicated business of running in and running out, trying to join in the skipping without tangling up the rope and spoiling the rhythm for everyone involved. I was pretty hopeless at running in, better at running out. Sometimes this communal skipping involved up to five or six people skipping at the same time. And always there was a skipping rhyme, regulating who was to run in or out:

“On the mountain stands a lady,

Who she is I do not know.

All she wants is gold and silver.

All she wants is a nice young man.

So run in …….. dear

and run out …… dear.”

Or there was:

“There’s a party on the hill, 

Will you come.

Bring your own bread and butter

And a bun. 

……… will be there,

Kissing ……. on a chair,

O U T spells out.

So already there was an awareness of interest in the opposite sex and an element of teasing and embarrassing your classmates.

And suddenly skipping ropes and balls disappeared to be replaced by the whip and top. Overnight everyone acquired a short stick with a hole at one end, through which was tied a string, or better still a fine leather thong. And, of course, to go with your whip you had to have a top, a wooden top with a nail or stud at the base so that it could spin properly. Learning how to set the top spinning, using your whip to do so, was a skill in itself. And then you had to keep it spinning with judicious application of the whip. Another aspect of this was decoration of the top. You had to have a plain wooden top which you decorated with patterns of various colours, vying with your companions to see whose top created the best effect once spinning. And, naturally, you had to have a new one each year. Last year’s top would simply not do! 

And then that activity was equally suddenly out of date and we all moved on the something else. Quite who decided what was in season when remains a mystery. No doubt it had something to do with what was available in the shops at any one time. 

I don’t remember hula hoops being all the rage at my school, although I remember them being around outside school This was the 1950s and I suspect they became fashionable after my cohort had moved on to secondary school. We were too cool and sophisticated to “play” during break-time - the name says it all, no longer playtime! 

We did, of course, still indulge in fortune telling, folding and refolding a square of paper, embellished with choices - North, South, East or West, red, blue, green or yellow - until you lifted a final flap and discovered what fate awaited you. 

Simpler times! No need for tamagotchi or Pokemon, but yes, swapping information cards from packets of tea or, even better, picture cards of pop stars from packets of bubble gum - even if we had no record player at home and thus no idea of who some of the singers really were.

A little bit of nostalgia.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Another Thursday - began well but turned wet later!

I don’t know about ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. I think we’re into the season of soups and mellow cheese ‘n’ stuff. Okay, so John Keats was talking about early autumn and now we’re practically into winter, although I’m never quite sure when one season is supposed to end and the next begin. 

But there’s something very comforting about a nice bowl of soup on a cold evening. Yes, I know it’s almost certainly going to get colder before it gets warmer again but there it is. I could probably live on soup and good bread through the winter months, with the addition of nice apples. So I’m checking out my recipes and stocking up the freezer. This is just as well as my daughter has invited herself to tea two Thursdays on the run. 

On a Thursday, for probably more than a year now, our smallest grandson has spent Thursday morning at our house, being collected just after lunchtime. As time has gone by the collection time has grown later and later. Originally our daughter arrived in time for a leisurely coffee and a snack before setting off the collect her youngest daughter from school. Then we got to the point where she flew in, collected the small boy and zoomed off again. Either she or her partner comes back later and gives Phil a lift to chess club. Last week in he torrential rain she asked if I objected to her going to collect her daughter first and then coming to pick up the little fellow. They stayed for a very makeshift tea. Last might she called to ask did I mind doing the same this week. So I made sure there was a better supply of soup and plenty of eggs for the small girl who appreciates scrambled eggs. So there we are: soup, salad stuff, cheese and some nice apples for dessert! And at least half an hour’s mayhem as two small people chase each other around. Then they put their pyjamas on (just the small people) and head for home, dropping Grandad at chess club en route. 

Today began fine and reasonably sunny, but rather cold. Rain was forecast for later so mid-morning, after the ritual snack of honey-toast, I took the little chap out for a walk. We had to go to the ‘sandy park’ to poke around with sticks in the large but rather damp sandpit. Eventually, as the sky grew more and more threatening, I persuaded him back into his buggy so that we could head for home. Just in time! We made it home just before the rain started. 

And that’s my Thursday over and done with. Anything at all could be going on in the outside world.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

A day of showers and sunshine! Confusing times!

 It’s been a very varied day so far. I woke up to the sound of heavy rain and decided that today was not a good Wednesday for cycling. So I found my waterproof trousers and raincoat and set off to walk up the hill to Dobcross and down into Uppermill. In the centre of Dobcross I came across the lady whose garden I so often admire - sunflowers in August, roses almost all year round and at present a fine display of fuchsia. She was waiting for a bus, specifically the one that does a tour of Diggle and then on into Uppermill before going eventually to Ashton. Last week, she told me, that bus did not turn up for her. Around here the buses run every half hour so if one fails to turn up it is a real inconvenience. 

One of the market stall holders told me he had already had to change his clothes completely as the rain has been so heavy earlier in the morning. Jenny, the cheese and biscuits lady, was not present, which was what I had expected. She finds it hard to set up her stall in the wind and wet. So, no gingerbread dinosaurs today!

Having bought fish, fruit, veg and so on, I managed to catch the 10 o’clock bus for home. Very efficient! The time saved was then spent on a long phone call from an old friend, organising our Christmas activities and reminiscing about this and that. Consequently Phil and I eventually had a late breakfast, if such it can be called, after 11 o’clock. 

As we had our toast and coffee the rain stopped, the sky cleared and the sun came out. And so we decided to go out for a walk before tackling any other jobs, hoping to benefit from the sunshine. Of course, we had barely set off when the cloud moved back in and the sun disappeared. So it goes! And, naturally, not long after we arrived back home the sun reappeared. I suspect we’ll have more rain before the day is over though. 

I’m mostly ignoring the football stuff that’s going on at the moment. A friend of mine had promised herself that she would boycott the whole world cup business but she has watched every televised match so far. She’s got quite excited, both sports-wise and politics-wise. And I never knew she was a football fan. 

I am rather surprised at the number of people who have flown out there to watch football. Some folk still have money to spend then, which is surprising when you take into account those who need to work two jobs to get by, even people earning £40,000+, like one of those interviewed for this article. 

We live in interesting times. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Christmas is coming. The price of new boots and mending boots. Who pays for MPs’ parties? Sources of joy!

 We’re past the midpoint of November now. The month is hurtling to a close. I’m half-heartedly thinking of Christmas presents. I’ve been into the centre of Oldham this morning on various errands and picked up perfume for my daughter’s present. It’s one thing I know will be appreciated. Oldham centre is not the best place to go present-hunting though. I am going to have to go to Manchester before it gets too close to Christmas. I am working on a list of possible purchases.

One of my errands this morning was to take three pairs of boots (two of Phil’s and one of mine) to the cobblers (I do like the old-fashioned word, so much nicer than shoe repairman!) to be soled and heeled. They’ll be ready next Monday and will cost between £12 and £18 a pair. Just out of interest, for comparison purposes, I popped into the Clark’s shoe shop to see if they had a similar pair to mine, which came from there more years ago than I care to remember. They’re not quite “fashion boots” but sturdy, dark brown leather, lacing up just past the ankle. They’re also fleecy lined, which is another big advantage. A similar pair of boots, but veering more towards the “fashion boot” category would cost between £120 and £150 this year. For about a quarter of that I am getting three pairs of boots repaired so that they have a new lease of life.  

I am reminded of Sam Vimes in Terry Pratchett’s book “Men at Arms”:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

Quite so, Sam Vimes! 

And as the party season approaches, I read this in The London Exonomic:

“MPs will be allowed to claim back for food and drink at their staff Christmas parties for the first time, it has been revealed.

Advice from the expenses watchdog suggests MPs can “claim the costs of food and refreshments for an office festive” in their parliamentary or constituency offices.

Lights, tinsel, and a tree can also be expensed because “festive decorations” are covered by the guidance.

However, MPs have been told to be mindful of the cost of living crisis and any claims “should represent value for money, especially in the current economic climate”, and alcohol can not be included in the “hospitality” claim.”

I wonder what would be the reaction if every company, every establishment in the land put in a claim for tax relief for their office Christmas parties. I look back differently now at the boxes of chocolates that used to appear in our college staffroom, regularly renewed in the last few weeks of term. Perhaps this was not a generous gesture of thanks from the senior staff, in recognition of all the hard work over the longest term of the year. Perhaps the college principal was claiming it back as tax relief! 

Mind you, crisis or no crisis town councils have spent tens of thousands of pounds on firework displays for Guy Fawkes Night and on Christmas lights. I’ll have to stop being an old curmudgeon and accept that it brings joy to a whole lot of people. And heaven know, we need some joy! So I’ll go out in the next week or so and buy a small Christmas tree for the smallest grandchildren to decorate for me. A small contribution to joy. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone. 

Back in the old routine. Political footballs. Who takes the photos?

 It’s Monday, a new week and I’m trying to get back into my normal routine. I seemed to spend a large part of last week catching up with various jobs around the house. So here I am. I’ve been out for my run first thing, in reasonably dry but rather chilly weather. Granddaughter Number Two has been complaining about how cold it is in York where she had to get up early to go for training to be a Student Ambassador, basically someone who shoes prospective students around the university - not bad for a first term, first year student! She’s back in her digs now, eating cereal for lunch. As for me, I’ve finally completed my preparation for my Italian class this afternoon.

Elsewhere, football is underway in Qatar. Various countries’ football organisations have decided last minute not to wear armbands that might convey a message the regime does not approve of. Somebody on the radio has just described FIFA’s statement about this as “word salad”. And suddenly football is very political despite the fact that Emmanuel Macron says we should not politicise sport. But really it’s been political for a long time. Even the fact that some cities have two football teams, often one Catholic and one Protestant, or as I think happens in Madrid, one left wing and one right wing. And there was of course the whole matter of taking the knee in support of Black Lives Matter. And now it seems that Iranian players were not singing their national anthem at the start of the Iran-England match. Iranian born Shappi Khorsandi is getting quite emotional about it all on the radio news programme. She has pointed out that if the issue were not Iranian homophobia but a racist issue of one kind or another our team might not be playing there. She can’t bear to watch the match.mShe talked of the freedoms we still have here in the UK. We must make sure we keep them.

Less seriously, Emma Beddington in the Guardian has been writing about taking photos on holiday:

“”I think you should take a picture of me,” I say to my husband, with slightly gruff embarrassment. We are on a long-planned, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Venice, undertaking a self-devised initiation rite for the empty nest stage of our lives: working and living in a single room for a month with our mildly demented dog.

I can’t stop taking pictures – 263 so far, and counting. Everything is beautiful: the luminous green water against faded yellow and terracotta, the bridges topped with smart Venetians looking at their phones, the glitter of sun or low-lying morning mist on water. I have to capture the joyful decorative flourishes: a stone camel here, a brass lion there, the five-tiered Murano glass chandelier surrounded by plaster daisies in the library where I’m working. My phone is packed with boats, a woman walking nine chihuahuas and countless gulls.”

I know just how she feels. My own reaction to Venice was much the same. While I get quite scornful of those who walk around places like Venice glued to their cine-cameras, I do take a lot of pictures. 

She goes on:

“My husband is not taking pictures. When he does, it’s an event, not a habit: I think he has taken five since we arrived. But we are walking along a particularly fetching canal in the sun and the dog, falling apart but still elegant, like the city, is at my side. I have lots of my husband (OK, more of gulls); wouldn’t it be nice to have a few of me? He obliges happily, but I look self-conscious and awkward. It shows I had to ask.”

Yes, I see that as well. Intake few photos of Phil because he usually refuses to cooperate. Occasionally I ask him to take one of me, or he even gets inspired to do so. This usually ends up being a picture of some monument or a picturesque view with a tiny little me somewhere in the photo!

Ms Beddington continues:

}Men don’t take photos. There are countless talented male photographers, but most men don’t seem to take phone pictures the way women do: candid, constant ones of their partners and families. I am in hardly any family pictures, except posed ones taken by friends or relatives.”

Yes, that sounds like me!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Out and about in York and at home. Temperamental weather. Flooding!

Yesterday my daughter and I set off mid-morning, with the two small people, to visit Granddaughter Number Two at university in York. The idea was to drive to her hall of residence, collect her and go into the centre of York for a spot of lunch and probably a look at the Christmas Markets there. 

As we left Saddleworth behind and headed up the road towards the motorway access road we were surprised to see loads of cars parked at the roadside. What was going on? Was someone organising an event we had not been invited to? As we got further up the hill we saw crowds of people standing at the roadside, clearly waiting for something to happen. Then we remembered: local rugby player Kevin Sinfield was on the last leg of his Ultra 7 in 7, running seven super marathons in seven days to raise money to help out motor neurone disease charities. He’s raised over a million pounds in donations apparently. We thought we might see him run past us, in the opposite direction to us, but he hadn’t appeared by the time we turned off onto the motorway. So it goes.

The day was forecast to be reasonably fine but we drove through misty rain. Fortunately it had mostly cleared by the time we were closer to York. We stopped and had a chat and a toilet stop at Granddaughter Number Two’s place before heading into the centre of the city. And once in the centre we spent a good hour (no, a really bad hour!), maybe more, looking for a parking place. Really we should have parked on the edge of the university campus and walked the rest of the way. We should have known! It was Saturday. There were Christmas markets. Of course parking was at a premium. Eventually, after doing several circuits of the carpark, we found a place on the railway station carpark. Heaven help any poor soul who was trying to park a car and then catch a train!

We walked into a glittering city centre and spent another ridiculously long period of time looking for somewhere to have some lunch, some late lunch. Everywhere had lengthy queues. At one point we thought we had struck lucky and found a street food stall without a clue but the young lady serving warned us before taking our order that we would have a 45 minute wait. At least she warned us! We moved on. Fortunately the small people has snoozed as we hunted for a parking place. Their only problem now was empty stomachs. 

 

Finally we found a Cornish pasty-selling place with at least one empty table. This may have been because they had run out of pasties. But they had sausage rolls, freshly cooked, and very good scones. All was well. 

We did a bit of shopping - fancy shoes for Granddaughter Number Two who is going to a university ball next weekend - and oohed and aahed at the sparkly city. 

 

And then we did a bit of orienteering to find our way back to the railway station carpark. We parked Granddaughter Number Two in her student accommodation, put the small people in their pyjamas and headed for home. A mostly successful day but with rather more driving in circles than planned! 

I almost forgot to mention that the River Ouse has burst its banks. We spotted flooded fields at various places on our way to York but in the centre we saw that places where we had walked alongside the river in the summer were now under water! Goodness!

 

This morning dawned fine and quite sunny here. In the late morning Phil and I walked up the hill to Dobcross, down the other side and back along the Donkey Line, which was rather wet and muddy. 

 

Some time after we returned home, the dark clouds moved in and now it is pouring with rain once again. We are rather grateful to be just high enough not to risk flooding.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!