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!
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