For the last few years Granddaughter Number Two and I have got into the habit of having a pre-Christmas shopping day in Manchester. Today was the day. So I was up and about while it was still dark so that my daughter could drive us to the tram stop on her way to work. Some people assume we go for the Christmas markets but in fact largely avoid them because lately it seems that there are more stalls selling food than anything else. German sausage at nine o’ clock in the morning is not really my thing. And the stalls selling all sorts of sweets somehow look a little insalubrious. Is it really healthy to have piles of fudge exposed to the elements?
Instead we went to Prêt à Manger for coffee and croissants as neither of us had had any breakfast. Having breakfast out makes it feel like a kind of holiday. Then we hit the shops running - Next, which has a section selling Gap clothes, since Gap has closed down in Manchester; Marks and Spencer; Bodyshop; Boots; and on and on. By 12.30 we were all shopped out, our lists ticked off and we were waiting for the tram for home. By 1.30 we were home eating cheese toasties for lunch.
While she did odds and ends on the computer, I took apart what was left yesterday’s roast chicken to make soup. Then I moved on to begin making a mince pie cheesecake, my Christmas speciality, ready for the arrival of the southern branch of the family tomorrow. I’m feeling quite efficient!
The shops are full of Christmas songs. There’s a young man who works in the local co-op who joins in with the songs on Co-op radio at the top of his lungs, freely admitting he can’t sing for toffee but clearly enjoying himself. And surely, if you have to put up with Christmas songs on repeat throughout your woking day, the only way to deal with it and stay sane is to join in.
The estimable Michael Rosen has made his own version of “In the bleak midwinter”:
“In the bleak midwinter
PPE made Mone.”
He’s referring to the former Conservative peer Michelle Mone who has finally admitted that she lied to the media when she denied repeatedly she was involved with a company that made millions of pounds in profits from UK government PPE deals during the pandemic. Apparently she lied to protect her family from coming under pressure from media attention!! Maybe not profiting from the misfortune of others would have been a better idea.
Michael Rosen, I feel, has a perfect right to be scathing about her as he very nearly died from covid.
And now, here’s another aspect of the chaos going on in Gaza.Absolutely unbearable!
"Reuters has a report on the hardship faced by babies born during the conflict:
The grandmother has a simple wish for her twin baby granddaughters, Alma and Salma: they should be in a clean, safe room where they can be bathed.
Instead, the infants are living in a tent in a camp for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza. Their mother cannot breastfeed them because she is not getting enough nutrition for her body to produce milk. And they have never been bathed.
Alma and Salma are part of a generation of Gaza babies born into homeless, destitute families struggling to survive Israel’s ferocious military assault on their crowded strip of land, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
Their grandmother, Um Mohammed al-Jadba, struggles every day to find water to make them bottles of formula milk. She boils the water in a thermos flask on a fire outside the tent.
Gesturing to a floor consisting of mats and blankets spread on sand, she said:
They are a month old now, and have not been bathed yet. Do you see the space they are living in?
A few belongings were hanging in plastic bags from plywood slats that held up the roof of the tent. Otherwise, precious possessions such as clothes and a plastic water bottle were piled on the floor, around the edges of the mats.
Al-Jadba said four babies in her family had been born into displacement since the start of the war: her daughter-in-law gave birth to a girl, then her sister-in-law had a boy, then Alma and Salma were born to her other daughter-in-law.
It was a struggle to feed all of them, she said. The whole family was hungry.
She said:
There is no nutrition (for the mothers), nor food for them to eat, how can they breastfeed? There is nothing for them to eat. Every day I feed them thyme, there is nothing else for them to eat.
Our hope was for these children to be born in a safe place, without air strikes, without wars, without the displacement these children are experiencing."
(Guardian update)
Meanwhile our king has been coming under fire for appointing a homeopathic doctor to the royal household. Here’s a link to an article about it.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment