We’ve had a few fine days. Phil managed to mow the grass in the back garden, borrowing a neighbour’s electric mower as the grass had grown too long for our push-along machine to cope with. Besides, the grass was still very wet! So it goes. Today the rain has returned!
I went into Manchester in the late afternoon yesterday to go to an event at Home, the rather trendy cinema and arts complex with a prodigious amount of space given over to restaurants and bars. It took over (subsumed into its other activities) the role of the old Cornerhouse on Oxford Road, which used to be the place to go for foreign films and discussion and workshops about the said films.
It was pleasant to stroll through early evening Manchester in the mild weather. The event at Home, the first in a series of talks about “Significant Women in Italian Cinema” was interesting and I met again old acquaintances from previous events, even some from a long ago visit to Sicily.
I can’t say I appreciate all the new tall buildings that have gone up at that end of Manchester city centre though! Soon I shall find myself harrumphing like Charles, when he was still Prince and not yet King, about “monstrous carbuncles”.
At the other side of the city centre is Piccadilly Gardens, once a rather elegant place, truly gardens, and now a rather horrid mass of paving and concrete and occasional stalls selling this and that or street-food outlets or sometimes carousels and other rides. Partially surrounded by tramlines, it is not a place to linger, but a place to hurry through as fast as you can. Here is a link to some pictures of what Piccadilly Gardens used to be like. Such a difference!
In a different city, York, Granddaughter Number Two has been learning to cope again with independent life as a university student. Last year she was in a hall of residence but this year she is renting a room in a house shared with several other girls. There she has trained herself to trap spiders, in the time honoured glass and card style, of course, without going into a major panic about it. In her hall of residence she had an almost constant battle with silverfish. She thought this was behind her until his morning she reached for something from a high shelf and had a silverfish fall down! Oh dear!
I have already mentioned France’s problem with bedbugs. Now I read that Sadiq Khan, mayor of Greater London is worried about the possibility of them being on the London underground! Good grief. Apparently data from the pest control company Rentokil in September showed that from 2022 to 2023, the UK had a 65% increase in bedbug infestations. People might be inadvertently bringing them home from holidays in foreign places. They can hide in suitcases, so the advice when you return from your holidays is to unpack your bags outdoors (yes, outdoors! even in our rainy clime) pack your clothes in plastic bags and freeze them or alternatively put all your clothes on a hot wash in the washing machine! You’d need another holiday to recover from the stress. Maybe Granddaughter Number Two has been inadvertently carrying silverfish to and fro!
In the wider world, the horrendous events in Israel and Palestine continue, another place being torn apart unnecessarily! Here is a link to some letters to The Guardian, all appealing for a dialogue to put a permanent end to the problem. Such a sad situation!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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