Snow! School holidays!

 This morning we woke to blue sky and sunshine … and snow on the ground, on the pavements, still at the edge of the roads. Not deep snow but more than enough for the last day of November. Even before I got up and looked out of the window, I had received a message from Granddaughter Number Two with a video of snow falling in York. She was inordinately excited at the prospect of walking through the snow to her first lecture of the day. This was not really a surprise as we already know she revels in old weather and finds any temperature over 20° as excessive.

She has always been that way. Even as a very small child she would begin peeling layers off as soon as we entered a shop. Strange girl! It’s not that she goes out underdressed for the cold but rather that she likes to be well wrapped up. And she made one concession to this morning’s cold weather: she was taking her hot water bottle, Dan (so called because the case has a picture of a Dachshund on it), with her to place on her knee during seminars in order to keep her hands warm. Strange girl, indeed!

She has been complaining that the university has changed the pattern of the year, moving from terms to semesters. It shouldn’t affect the amount of studying she does or doesn’t do but might mean that her time off doesn’t coincide with her mother’s holidays from the school where she works, nor with her smaller siblings holidays from school. 

Of course, all that might change as once again they are talking about changing the structure of the school year. Apparently the long summer break is disruptive to learning and they want to even out the time spent in the classroom through the year. Goodness knows how schools in France and Spain and possibly Italy, manage as they have almost three months off in the summer. 

Here are some comments from letters to The Guardian on that subject:

“As teachers, we know the pressures facing families in 2023 and in recent years. We see first-hand the impacts of government cuts to social services and youth mental health support, and the impact of cruel employment regulations such as zero-hours contracts. We know that for many young people and their carers, the six-week holiday is an unpleasant time. Because of this, I worry that any discussions regarding changes to the school calendar in England will be dominated by issues surrounding childcare. This is a legitimate concern, but is the problem caused by the length of the school holidays, or one created by crumbling support networks for families and carers?”

Some people point out the advantages of long summer holidays from school:

“There’s a model where our school holidays can be seen as an opportunity for young people to spread their wings and explore a world beyond being sat behind a desk. If you shorten the summer holiday, you might get less of a break in learning, but at what cost?”

“School holidays need to be seen in a wider context than educational attainment: time outdoors in parks, gardens and the countryside in summer means vitamin D, mental wellbeing and engaging with nature. Holidays abroad in October may be warm and cheaper, but they are only accessible to families with higher incomes, and encourage air travel, which contributes to climate change.”

Of course there are childcare problems but in an ideal world there would be a way round that … although as always it comes down to funding!

Personally, when I was a teacher I always enjoyed reuniting with students after the summer break, seeing how they had changed and evolved. This was especially true when working in sixth form colleges. Students left the first year of the course, still very much like top secondary school pupils and returned for the second year as young adults, ready to move on to the next stage. Education is not just about imparting knowledge; it’s also about helping the young develop as people.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Words, words, words! Some not acceptable! Some proscribed! And a couple of cartoons.

 A friend of mine posted this on Facebook this morning:

“On my opening screen, Facebook informs me that they have removed one of my posts because it was "against their community standards". It is no good telling me that if they don't also let me know which post it was that caused offense!

Oh. Found this (but I still have no idea what it referred to): 

"We removed your content

Why this happened

It looks like you shared symbols, praise or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous, or followed them.

We can't show this content

Your content goes against our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organizations."”

As she posts a lot of stuff, it’s not surprising that she doesn’t remember what it is that they have removed. It was undoubtedly something very liberal, demanding justice and tolerance for all but possibly just too pro-Palestine to be totally acceptable. But she’s not an extremist and certainly not a terrorist. 

In recent years we have become a very proscriptive society: people are “cancelled”, posts and tweets are deleted. Suella Braverman wanted waving the Palestinian flag to be considered a criminal act, as well as using the words “from the river to the sea”, with our without references to Palestine being set free. Words and symbols!

The Irish Taoiseach was criticised for describing a child hostage returned to Israel as having been “lost” and then “found”. He clearly should have said ”kidnapped” and then “released”. But his words were part of a moving expression of thankfulness, echoing the words of “Amazing Grace”:

Amazing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Not just a pop song but in fact a hym written in the late 18th century by John Newton. That first verse can be traced to the parable of the prodigal son in Gospel of Luke. So the ”lost and found” reference is biblical but, of course, it’s the wrong bit of the bible, coming from the New Testament. Oh, dear!

It’s probably a good job that Woody Guthrie wrote his song “This land is your land and this land is my land” about the USA or it too might be banned. So indeed, if they were newly written today, might be any number of songs by the likes of Bob Dylan and John Lennon. (Imagine all the people living life in peace - the very idea! )

Incidentally few people know that Guthrie apparently intended his song to serve as a Marxist corrective to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” and although biographer Joe Klein, Harold Leventhal, and Arlo Guthrie have publicized the fact since 1980, the song is so widely known and so widely sung that their efforts have had little impact on public perceptions of it. As for me, I first heard it when I was about twelve, sung by Hayley Mills in the film “Pollyanna”. 

So it goes.

And here are a couple of cartoons to make us think:- 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Remembering to be grateful for what we have.

I was up and about early this morning so that I could get to our doctor’s surgery for 9.00, a ridiculously early hour for me, but I suppose that someone has to have the early morning appointments. It was a beautiful morning. The full moon was setting over the hill in the west in a clear pale blue sky. The sun was probably already up but hadn’t yet come over the hill on the other side of our valley. Everyone I spoke to, including my doctor, commented on how cold it was, with the rider, “At least it’s not raining!”

On the subject of rain and the amount of water that is around at the moment in our part of the world (our river is very full and when we went to York at the weekend we saw fields flooded where the River Ouse had  burst its banks) I have resolved to stop moaning about it when I read this latest episode of Ziad’s Gaza Diary.

He describes the importance of having a water container:

“In minutes, a very long line of men, women and children has formed, all with their water containers – names written on them to avoid losing them. If everything I had seen was not another reminder of how privileged I am, this is. Because for me, losing a water container is not a big deal; but for them, that simple item is critical.

But many people bring buckets, empty cleaning detergent containers, shampoo bottles and even plastic jars used for spices. A man helps the water provider organise the line.”

Imagine not knowing how long that water had to last you before you could get more. 

Particularly poignant, for me anyway, was his description of a teenage girl’s enjoyment of drinking clean water:  

“A girl, about 15 years old, wearing prayer clothes, gets out of the line after filling the jug she has. She can’t even wait to use something to put the water in. She takes off the lid and drinks the water. She closes her eyes to enjoy it. She puts the lid back and goes back towards the school with a big smile on her face.”

We are fortunate to be able to take for granted having clean water through our taps every day.

There is an artist called Shezad Dawood who makes works of art out of items dredged up from the seabed in places where immigrant boats have sunk in the in the sea between North Africa and Sicily. The Laboratory of Anthropological and Odontological Forensics (Labanof) at the University of Milan collects these items, which in some cases give closure to families who have been left wondering what became of their loved one and in others can be used as evidence that not enough was done to save them. The items include passports (of course), mobile phones (again, of course), medicines, and very often small quantities of earth from their homelands, carefully wrapped in plastic or cellophane. I think that, because we know that we will return to our homeland when we travel, we don’t value the actual earth in the same way. But if you have no idea when, or even if, you will be able to return home it becomes important to have a bit of the actual land to taken with you, even if it’s only for that bit of dried up earth to be buried with you one day. 

We have much to be thankful for. How long it will be before I start to complain about the rain again remains to be seen.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Listening to the rain. The benefits of being out and about in nature. Preloved and vintage stuff.

The rain came back with a vengeance in the middle of the night. Granddaughter Number One is complaining that it woke her in her attic bedroom, hammering on the skylight window. Personally, I quite like the sound of rain on the skylights. And Granddaughter Number Two plays a recording of rain falling to help her fall asleep at night. I must be very lucky; apart from times of great stress I have never really had problems falling asleep. Waking up in the morning is a different matter. Or rather, not so much the actual waking up, but rather persuading myself to leave the cosy nest. 

I didn’t get up and run this morning. However, I did spend some time on the rowing machine. By the end of the morning the rain seems to have stopped and the sky has brightened considerably. Maybe I’ll take myself out for a walk before my Italian zoom conversation class. 

According to this article, it is scientifically proven that getting our and about in nature is really good for your brain. So it’s not just a personal obsession of mine. It’s not just the exercise either; walking in an urban environment is nowhere near as good for the brain. It’s all a throwback to our hunter-gatherer past. Our brains are hot-wired to respond better to fractals (as seen in snowflakes, ferns, frost patterns) and curves (hills and meandering streams) than to straight lines and geometrical shapes (buildings). We are still in touch with our primitive selves, even if we are unaware of it. 

In the section of the article subtitle “How to make the most of nature”, I was interested to find this:

“Forgo the tech. “If you’re focusing on your watch or phone, or wearing headphones, you aren’t engaging with your environment.”

I have long and often expressed my scorn for those people who seem unable to walk along the local bridle paths without listening to a podcast or their personal playlist. Go with the flow! Let nature in! Let your thoughts ramble! Or just don’t think at all! 

I do, however, like to listen to music while I cook. I expect that dancing in the kitchen is also good for a body. Here’s an article about someone who went to play piano for elephant, rescued elephants in Thailand, and found that these large animals enjoyed classical music and in some cases even had preferences. Interesting creatures, elephants! 

We get a lot of encouragement these days to re-use and recycle, especially clothing. Pre-loved and vintage sounds so much better than second-hand. But some preloved and vintage are more expensive than anything I would buy new. It seems that the blouse worn by Lady Diana Spencer for her engagement portrait is up for auction, with an estimated price of $80,000 to $100,000. (It must be a royal family thing, having your portrait done to celebrate your engagement.) The blouse was previously on display at Kensington Palace in London as part of the exhibition Diana: Her Fashion Story in 2019. All those fancy clothes! Such extravagance! And how strange that they go to such lengths to present Diana, Kate, and Letitia in Spain, as “ordinary mums”, looking after their children and out and about with them, and yet they make displays of the clothes they wear. 

Hollywood stars’ clothes up for auction at the same time include a Givenchy dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in 1963 comedy Charade, a sleeveless gown worn by Gloria Swanson in 1950 noir film Sunset Boulevard and Barbra Streisand’s sailor dress from a 1960s special called My Name Is Barbra.

A range of prices, between $1,000 and $450,000, have been estimated for these items.

These clothes are mostly not for wearing but just for possessing - unless it’s a Marilyn Monroe dress. Its not unlike the old habit of collecting holy relics. Apparently it’s even possible to bid for the laptop used onscreen by Sarah Jessica Parker in her role as Carrie Bradshaw in the hit TV series Sex and the City. The world is crazy! And some people clearly have more money than sense.

Incidentally, the other day I took some shoes I no longer wear to leave them in a used-shoe collecting point in the village, only to discover that the collecting bin had disappeared! Most annoying! I had to carry them home again and need to try to remember them next time I go to Tesco as I know they collect them there. Or maybe I should organise an auction! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Chilly weather. Health matters, Believing Dr Google. “Humanitarian calm,“

 Well, there was frost everywhere again this morning. It was another bright crisp morning. By midday, however, the cloud had moved in and the frost had all disappeared. According to my weather app the temperature has gone up to a massive 4°. That still feels very cold to me. I did remember to fill my hot water bottle before going to bed last night. Consequently I slept better as my cold feet were warmed up. 

Now, here’s a thing by Michael Rosen on the Covid enquiry”

“Sir Patrick Vallance's notes from 'Guardian'

“PM meeting – begins to argue for letting it all rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it – ‘they have had a good innings’,” before later saying: “DC says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s okay’.

Out of bedrooms and wards

long lines of the dead

walk towards  you

asking you,

'Who were you to decide that

our innings was over?

Who gave you the umpire's white coat

and upraised finger?

Did you think we would never speak

from the graves you gave us? “

Thinking about things medical, it seems that cases of measles are still increasing. When I was a child measles was just one of those things that  most children went through. I don’t think we realised quite how dangerous it could be but on the whole we tried not to catch it. German measles - rubella - was a different kettle of fish. Mothers would try to ensure that their daughters were infected if there was a case in the neighbourhood, as a preventive measure. Everyone knew that German measles in the early stages of pregnancy could cause problems for the unborn baby. It was also a commonly accepted belief that you couldn’t catch German measles twice. So if a girl had German measles in childhood she wouldn’t have to worry about catching it as a pregnant adult some time in the future.

Then along came the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine and all three stopped being part of childhood’s background scenario. Except that now some people are refusing to have their children vaccinated. As with everything else these days, you can “verify” the scientific view of things by looking stuff up on the internet. And so, whereas I asked my doctor’s advice on vaccination when my children were small, now young mothers go to Dr Google and all sort of motherhood chat sites: 

“Just trying to learn about it all and make the right decisions. Thank you in advance,” writes one young mother. In return she receives replies like this: “No no no. Avoid them all. Once they’re injected into the bloodstream, the metals and toxins have access to the brain and every organ!” That sounds very scientific, I don’t think! 

And that nuisance-ridden NHS will insist on sending reminders via local clinics, letting people know it’s time their small people were given protection. “I keep getting letters for all my kids. It’s scaremongering. I’ve threatened my surgery with harassment if they don’t stop sending me letters,” another person says.

Some people may need to think about the meaning of harassment. I think we need more harassment from doctors! 

Racism and anti-immigration come into it as well. Apparently the increase in cases of measles has nothing to do with whether or not children are vaccinated. “It’s coming from the small boat invasion,” one person wrote. 

The human race does not necessarily improve with age. 

Meanwhile, here are some things a friend of mine has posted,:

“Temporary "ceasefire" à la Israel:

"Here is the Palestine Red Crescent Society statement about the killing of a farmer in Gaza by Israeli forces earlier on Sunday. It said:

The association’s ambulance crews dealt with two cases a short while ago east of Al-Maghazi camp, east of the central governorate. Although the humanitarian calm has entered its third day, the Israeli occupation forces recently targeted two farmers east of Al-Maghazi camp, which led to the death of one of them and the wounding of the other."

(Guardian update 10:29 am)”

Notice there is new terminology in there. A “ceasefire” or a “pause” becomes a “humanitarian calm”. But not a calm for everyone. My frind also posted this:

“In the meantime, while the temporary "ceasefire" continues in Gaza, more Palestinians get killed (and arrested) in the West Bank, taking the Palestinian death toll since 7th October to 203 (and the number of Palestinians arrested in that period to over 3,100)!

"Israeli troops killed six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian ministry of health said. A 25-year-old doctor was killed early in the morning outside his home in Qabatiya, near Jenin, it said. Another Palestinian was killed in el-Bireh, near Ramallah. Four people were also killed by Israeli army fire in Jenin, during an incursion by a large number of armoured vehicles into the town. Witnesses told Agence France-Presse on Saturday that the Israeli army was surrounding Jenin’s public hospital and the Ibn Sina clinic, and that soldiers were searching ambulances. They also reported heavy fighting with automatic weapons."

(Guardian update)

P.S. The figues above are outdated already: It's at least 8 Palestinians killed in the West Bank last night and 239 killed since 7th October in total.

This is how it reads "in IDF language": 

"Israel’s military has issued a statement about its activity in Jenin in the occupied West Bank overnight. In a post to social media, it said:

In the operation commanded by the 646th Reserve Brigade, five terrorists were eliminated, 21 wanted persons were arrested, a cargo laboratory was destroyed and an aircraft attacked from the air an armed terrorist squad that endangered the IDF forces."

They might just as well say: "Anybody who stands in our way will get killed ("eliminated") or arrested"”

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A fine day out.

 It’s been a fine sunny day, but very cold. There was frost on the garden this morning. I am going to need to fill a hot water bottle to warm my feet up when I go to bed if this continues. 

This morning we set off quite early - well, 9.30 ish early - for a day:out in York, visiting Granddaughter Number Two who is studying there. 

Having admired the minster as we walked from the station carpark, we went to explore the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey. Here’s some info about it:

“This eerily beautiful ruin is set in the heart of York’s verdant museum gardens. St Mary’s Abbey was once the richest in the north of England before the dissolution of the monasteries occurred, an event which resulted in its closure and eventual destruction. The remains of the Abbey and surrounding grassy areas now make for a magnificent picnic spot, and are frequented by locals and visitors alike throughout all the seasons. It is possible to go right up to the ruins with no restrictions, and as the museum gardens are a public park, entry is free.”

Even in ruins the abbey is impressive. 

Of course, a fine day makes it look even more so.

Afterwards we went for pizza. 

Some of us wanted to stroll through shopping streets but we we were outvoted.

So we took a  last look towards the Minster and headed for home.

Lofe goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!