Where Wednesday went!

This morning I got up slightly earlier than usual. Compared with the days when I used to get up and drive across most of Greater Manchester - well, round it on the M60 - it was still rather late but still slightly earlier than my current usual. And I was strong and self-disciplined and only snoozed the alarm once before making myself get out of bed. My daughter was coming to collect something on her way to work. As she drops the small people at before-school clubs at around 7.30, she could well be here before 8.00 and I didn’t want her insistently ringing the doorbell and waking up her father.

She was coming to collect a bag of washing. In the course of their lengthy house-moving Granddaughter Number One and Friend seemed to have done very little washing. Goodness knows why not! Anyway, as my daughter helped them put items in their selected rooms she came across several bags full of clothing and on asking where it was to go received the reply, “That’s dirty washing!” Wanting to reduce the stress of the house-moving, she offered to take it away and deal with it, volunteering me to take half of it. 

And so, over the weekend both our huuses became laundries. Quite a lot went home with Granddaughter Number One when ahe came to dinner on Sunday but one load was still drying and so  remained her a little longer. My daughter’s school is fairly close to the new house and so she planned to call in after work today. 

Both of us wondered what Granddaughter Number One and Friend had been wearing over the last week or so as there were many socks and knickers in the piles of laundry. Both of us took the executive decision to throw away any such items that were truly beyond repair, such as socks with such huge holes in the toes that they deserved a new name, such as “ankle warmers”. On hearing this on Sunday, Granddaughter Number One protested bitterly, saying that Friend would realise which socks were missing and would probably weep. Too bad! We were hard-hearted! She can count this as part of the stuff-that-goes-missing-when-you-move-house. 

Of course, there is also stuff-that-went-missing ages-ago-and-turns-up-unexpectedly-when-you-move-house, such as the saucepan I lent her years ago, and its lid, which she swore blind she did not have but eventually found at the back of the vegetable cupboard! Oh, and some adventure storybooks suitable for her 7-year-old sister!

So having got up a little earlier than is my wont, I thought I might make my visit to the market more speedily than usual. But no, I remembered that I needed to phone my Spanish sister. Late yesterday evening Phil and I discussed possible destinations to fly to as we have 2 flights with EasyJet waiting to be used before they expire. These date back to flights booked to Sicily which were cancelled in that nobody-can-travel-anywhere-because of Covid period. We decided we might like to go to Andalucía and visit the Spanish branch of the family. However, with the time difference, it was a little late to call my sister to consult her about dates. 

So this morning I called her, as she was having breakfast in a cafe after having taken her grandchildren to school. Apart from February, when she plans to visit Asturias, where she has never been. It is, after all, a long way from Cadiz but should suit her well as she enjoys drinking cider and Asturias is a cider-producing region! 

All of this inevitably prevented me from making an early start to the market. Add to this the fact that I rode beyond Uppermill and called in a Tesco in Greenfield, to buy Boddington’s beer, unavailable in Delph or Uppermill.

And so, after a scuttle round the markets and small shops of Uppermill, I finally returned home. This is how mornings slip away!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Some thoughts about films based on toys. And the importance of locks.

 I’ve not watched “Barbie”, the movie. No matter how many people tell me what a wonderful feminist statement it makes, I still feel no inclination to watch it. I’ve not been persuaded by her donning outfits for various professions or occupations into thinking that she is a good role model. She remains an impossibly-shaped female. My antipathy to Barbie is nothing new. When my daughter was small I refused to buy Barbie for her and probably threatened my family with all sorts of dire consequences if they dared to fill that gap in her toy collection. 

Now I hear that on the back of the success of a movie about one children’s toy, there are moves afoot to make another movie, presumably intended for adults rather than children, based this time on Bob the Builder, he who can famously “fix it - yes, he can!”. Now, he already has a longstanding TV series with the kind of bite-sized stories that make it possible for adults to watch with their small children without losing the will to live. So said movie, with real actors not cartoons, must be aimed at adults, maybe young adults with a bit of nostalgia for the tv series. 

And I wonder what kind of spin they can put on Bob the Builder to give it a grown-up message relevant to  today’s society. 

Guardian columnist Zoe Williams has been bemoaning the loss of her bike. It has been stolen. While I can sympathise - I too would be bereft if my bike was stolen - one of the first things to go through my mind was the question: did she lock it up properly? There’s a man who lives somewhere around here (he used to live across the road from us but moved house years ago) far enough away for him to need to cycle into the village from time to time to go to the coop store. He always leaves his bicycle leaning against a tree down by the river and walks the short distance into the village centre. Maybe he thinks it’s safer there than outside the shop on the main road through the village, but still I am amazed by his trust in the local inhabitants. 

As for me, I always make sure my bike is locked up when I leave it outside a shop, even if it’s where  I can easily see it. I would be devastated to watch somebody take it away before I had time to rush put of the shop and yell, “Oy! that’s mine! Stop thief!” The only time I disregard my own advice is when I lean it against the bench right next to the fishman’s stall while I decide which fishy delights tempt me most. 

It’s very likely that the places Zoe Williams leaves (used to leave) her bike are much less crime-free than our sometimes rather sleepy Saddleworth. I sometimes think (hope) that the Uppermill market stallholders know my bike by sight and would step forward and prevent a stranger running off with it. But still I lock it up. 

Granddaughter Number Two has finally moved house. It seems to have taken a long (and stressful) time for that to happen. This morning I received a message from telling me she was locked out. She and her housemate/friend had stepped outside into the back garden with the dog. Her housemate pulled the door closed, leaving the keys inside. Oops! In the previous house this would not have mattered as the door needed to be locked manually whereas this one has a self-locking yale lock. Fortunately her father has a spare set of keys and took time off work to go and rescue damsels in distress! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A very bleak time of year - or maybe just a very bleak time.

The start of another week. It’s a very grey day. I ran in the rain this morning, on the grounds that it wasn’t actually raining too hard and besides, if I didn’t go out then I might possibly not stick my head out all day. And it wasn’t too bad. I met a few dog-walkers, all of whom commented on how we are back to normal after a few days of brighter weather. We are in that bleak of time of year, nor the depths of winter and still not yet spring. 

In his message to the country for Holocaust Memorial Day King Charles said this: 

“The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 is the Fragility of Freedom, a stark reminder to us all how freedom can so easily be lost when it is taken for granted, and how crucial it is, therefore, to learn from those who bear witness to the horrors of the Holocaust and all genocides.”

Various MPs have posted photos of themselves signing the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Book of Commitment. One of these, Labour MP for Edmonton, Kate Osamor, together with her picture, posted on her website that Holocaust Memorial Day was “an international day to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, the millions of other people murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups and more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza”. And just the last three words led to her being criticised, nay, condemned! 

The Holocaust Memorial Trust condemned her “disgusting post”, which it said was a “ painful insult to survivors of the Holocaust”. And now Ms Osamor has been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party pending an investigation. I’m unsure about what such in investigation consists of, unless someone needs to confirm that she did in fact write those words. Otherwise I suspect that investigation means putting pressure on her to retract the words. 

Freedom is indeed fragile! 

Also, if this is happening:

“The UK has temporarily paused future funding of UNRWA, saying it is “appalled by allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel”

then why is the UK government not equally appalled by allegations that some of those killed on October 10th were actually shot by Israeli soldiers and is not temporarily suspending sales of weapons to Israel?

I saw a comment somewhere that saying funding to UNRWA should be cut because of some individuals’ actions is rather like saying that funding for the NHS should be cut because of one nurse being tried for murdering babies. Or maybe, MPs’ salaries should be cut because some MPs are corrupt. 

Meanwhile people, many of them women and children, children too young to be accused of belonging to any kind of organisation, are going hungry. The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said today that it would not be able to continue operations in Gaza and across the region beyond the end of February if funding is not resumed.

And already aid is not getting in. According to Middle East Eye:

“Israeli protesters at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday blocked trucks loaded with humanitarian aid bound for Gaza from entering Israel for security checks.

After the planned checks in Israel, the trucks were supposed to head to Gaza. They returned to Egypt instead after the protesters prevented them from crossing.”

Nobody seems to be taking the ruling of the ICJ seriously. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

Things could be worse. Things could be better. Some thoughts on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Today seems to be an ‘it could be worse” day. Out and about, at least three of the people I spoke to commented on how grey the day is and then went on to say, “Still, it could be worse; at least it’s not raining” or “Thank goodness that cold wind has stopped”. Yes, it could be worse. And from time to time the sun even tries to come out!

As the ICJ has not ordered an immediate ceasefire, I suppose Israel might also be feeling that things could be worse, but they are still complaining that they are being unfairly criticised for exercising their right to defend themselves. 

A lot of people, however, feel that things could be better. 

Zarah Sultana has written to the Prime Minister reiterating her demand that he and his government should support the call for a ceasefire. After all, as she points out in her letter, the only way for Israel to prevent the death of innocent civilians is to stop dropping bombs on them. 

Meanwhile, things like this are going on: 

“Italy has decided to suspend financing of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says.

The decision follows allegations that some UNRWA workers were involved in the October 7 attacks in Israel carried out by Hamas, though Tajani made no direct reference to those suspicions.

“The Italian government has suspended financing of the UNRWA after the atrocious attack on Israel on October 7,” Tajani posts on social media platform X, adding that some of Italy’s allies had already taken the same decision.”

Just as not ALL Palestinians are Hamas, and not ALL Israelis want Palestine to disappear, so not ALL UNRWA workers were involved in the events of October 10th.

 

And there is this, posted by a German friend:

“Suspending financial support to UNRWA (as so far announced by the US, Australia, Canada and Italy) is *absolutely disgusting*! SHAME ON YOU! (And I wouldn't be surprised if Germany joined them, too, but maybe, they will be a bit more "cautious" after yesterday's ICJ interim ruling?)

"Suspending support for UNRWA involves 'great political and humanitarian relief risks', says senior Palestinian offical

The decision by some countries to cease support for the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) entails great political and relief risks, Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) said on Saturday, reports Reuters.

In a post on X, al-Sheikh wrote:

We call on the countries that announced the cessation of their support for #UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision, which entails great political and humanitarian relief risks, as at this particular time and in light of the continuing aggression against the Palestinian people, we need the maximum support for this international organization and not stopping support and assistance to it.””

And this:

“A German lady, waiting outside The Hague in the Netherlands, expressed her shame regarding her government's stance on Israel's war on Gaza. 'We do not all believe what our government is telling the world,' she said, expressing hope for change in Palestine after 70 years.”

Although the interim ruling by the ICJ (urging Israel to refrain from impeding aid delivery into Gaza and improve the humanitarian situation. The ICJ also ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in the besieged enclave and to punish incitement to genocide) has come promptly, it seems that it will take years before any decision is made about whether or not current events amount to genocide. The wheels of justice turn slowly. 

And today, by the way, is Holocaust Memorial Day. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Animal antics and other stuff.

 Here are a couple of animal stories: 

From last Saturday’s Guardian:

“A cat has died in Russia after being thrown off a train in freezing temperatures by a conductor who has faced calls to be sacked and potentially prosecuted.

The state-owned railway company RZhD has apologised to the owners of Twix, the ginger-and-white cat who was dumped into the snow in Kirov on 11 January.

“We sincerely regret that the cat Twix died,” it said, vowing to change its regulations.

The female train conductor reportedly mistook the male cat, which had escaped from its travel crate, for a stray.

Twix’s disappearance led hundreds of volunteers to search the railway station area in Kirov, where temperatures as low as -30C had been reported.

The cat was eventually found dead on Saturday, and later identified by its owners.

There have been calls to sack and potentially prosecute the conductor for her actions, with separate petitions demanding each.

Nearly 70,000 people have now signed the petition calling for a criminal investigation to be opened against her, after local authorities refused to do so.”

I’m rather surprised that Putin has not been blamed for that one.

And from today’s Guardian

“A Thai woman has been charged with illegal possession of a lion cub, police said on Friday, after a video of the animal cruising in a Bentley went viral online.

The police ordered an investigation after a video showing a lion cub riding around the raucous Thai resort town of Pattaya in a Bentley gained more than 2.6m views online.

Sawangjit Kosoognern was charged with breaking environmental and natural resources law by “possessing a protected wildlife without authorisation”, the central investigation bureau announced on its official Facebook page. “We have arrested her, using the Wild Animal Conservation and Protection Act 2019,” the police statement said.

Under Thai law, she could be fined up to 100,000 baht (£2,200) and face a year in jail.

Sawangjit told police she bought the lion from another woman for 250,000 baht but failed to acquire an official handover document owing to insufficient information regarding the lion’s sex.

She kept the cub in a house rented by a Sri Lankan man who was seen driving the Bentley in the video.

He has been deported to Sri Lanka, the national parks and wildlife department said.”

Well, well! When I was a child, the owner of Southport Zoo (no longer in existence but in its time apparently a renowned centre for rearing baby chimpanzees rejected by their mothers - our children used to communicate with the baby chimps with hand signals through their glass window) apparently used to walk along Lord Street with a lion on a lead! And in a series of books I have just read by Louis de Bernières two of the female characters have a white lion which spends some time in an outdoor enclosure (they have extensive grounds) and some time as an indoor pet, sprawling on the furniture, sitting on laps where possible and generally behaving like a domestic cat. I confess to being unaware that white lions exist. And it seems that male lions are the best to have as pets as they are lazy, apart from when they want to play, and do not have a hunting instinct. Tigers, I understand are a different kettle of fish altogether, less apt to be domesticated and more unpredictable aggressive. Not that I plan on acquiring a cat of any size.

On more serious matters, I have already expressed my admiration for the young Labour MP Zarah Sultana and wondered how she has managed to keep going in the Labour Party of today. Well, Owen Jones in a recent article had this to say: 

“Some Blairites regret not purging the left while they could. A few Corbynites such as Beth Winter, Sam Tarry and Mick Whitley have already had the chop. Thankfully, a desperate attempt to deselect the young, leftwing Muslim MP Zarah Sultana failed – indeed, critics were humiliated when she was reselected with the support of every local party branch. But as for other surviving leftwingers, it would not be surprising if a dossier of old tweets and Facebook statuses were mysteriously discovered, leading Labour to issue suspensions, precluding them from standing.

I thought as much. 

That’s all for now. It’s a fine, sunny afternoon, of rather blustery and cold. We are planning to walk up the hill and catch some vitamin D. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Meeting, exceeding or failing to meet targets. Feeling fortunate about life.

Not that I want to boast or anything (well, yes, I probably do!) but my fitbit usually tells me I have exceeded my stepcount goal for the day. Well, today it’s be a miracle if my stepcount gets up to 4,000 steps.  This is what happens when you spend most of the day crawling around on the floor being a dinosaur, building towers with wooden blocks and making complicated structures with a magnetic construction kit - the last is an excellent way for kids to learn how shapes fit together, by the way. 

Yes, Grandson Number Two arrived at our house just before 8.00 this morning, still in his pyjamas, demonstrating how he could do a wriggle dance so that his pyjama top “rubbed” his chickenpox spots. In the last few days he has learnt to do this instead of scratching. Kids are very adaptable.

And the weather hasn’t been fit for bundling him into his clothes and insisting on going for a walk, spotty or not. His mother and sister arrived late in the afternoon to join him for tea and then give Phil a lift to chess club. That’s our usual routine after I’ve collected him from pre-school, which he couldn’t attend today because of the spottiness. 

At other times of the year I would have gone for an evening walk after everyone had departed but I draw the line at walking round the village in the dark at the end of January. So it goes. I count myself lucky that that’s the only problem I have.

This is a funny time of year, especially with the odd effects of climate change. And those effects are odd, at least in my garden. My snowdrops seem rather slow to flower this year. Likewise, there are hyacinths that are barely showing leaves through the soil - mind you last year they were also odd, bursting into flower before their stems were properly grown. And this year the bluebells are growing and showing already, but not yet flowering, rather earlier than usual. Oh, and there have been violas in flower! It’s not just me; here’s a link to a little article about something the writer calls “solastalgia”, apparently an Australian term to express something between homesickness, sadness at environmental destruction and a sense of impotence in the face of change.

Again, I find myself thinking that if that’s all that’s bothering me, others have it a lot worse than I do. One of the people accused of theft and fraud in the big post office scandal, a British Asian, describes how she felt that the investigation had racist elements:- 

“They said, ‘We are short of £30,000, do you suspect anyone?’ I said, ‘I don’t, no.’ They said in that case you are responsible for it. One of the auditors commented to me as they were questioning me that ‘It is quite common in your society that women come under pressure to take money on the side, they don’t tell the family. Is someone putting pressure on you?’”

Yes, I am one of the fortunate ones.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Eating out. Thinking about storms. Problems of the digital age.,

 Yesterday I went out to lunch with an old friend. We usually celebrate each other’s birthdays with lunch in a local restaurant. Neither of us can manage my actual birthday this year for various reason so we did it a couple of days early. The restaurant is only a hundred yards or so from my house so I didn’t have far to go. Nonetheless I was almost blown away and washed away as Storm Isha lashed down on us. 

Overnight, Storm Jocelyn woke me up several times howling round the top of the house. If storms follow so closely on one another, can they really be considered separate storms? Is Jocelyn not simply a continuation of Isha, a second wave as it were? I look back at the recent spell of icy cold, but bright and clear, weather almost with nostalgia. It seems as if it were a brief interlude of calm between sets of storms. When we walked out on the snowy footpaths on those bright days at least there was always the chance of feeling the sunshine on our backs and a bit of warmth in sheltered places. This stormy weather is almost permanently grey - in a variety of shades! 

Having said all that, I have hung washing on the line in the garden today to get blown around a little, rather than draping it all over the house. The weather app promises a 0% chance of rain so I reckon it’s worth giving the wind a chance to dry my sheets, even if only partially. 

We have recently filled in forms and handed them in at our GP’s surgery, requesting access to our medical records. These records have all been digitised, apparently, but unless you fill in a form you can’t have automatic access. There might be details in your records that could upset you! 

Now, on the subject of medical records, patients’ data cannot be disclosed without their consent by law. Healthcare workers can breach confidentiality rules to give information to the police about possible crimes only if it is deemed to be in the public interest. However, since 2022, I read that at least six women have been taken to court and dozens have been investigated for allegedly ending their pregnancy outside the legal requirements covering abortion. In the previous 20 years, three women were prosecuted.

But it seems that new guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) will say it is never in the public interest to report women who have abortions to law enforcement agencies, and medical staff in the UK are being advised that they should should not report women to the police if they believe their patients may have illegally ended their own pregnancy. Some of those women investigated will have had a miscarriage, others may have misjudged how far advanced their unplanned, unwanted pregnancy was and gone beyond the legal limit. All will have been traumatised to a greater or lesser extent by the whole procedure. It seems right to me that busybodies should not be reporting them to the police; we do not live in the Republic of Gilead! 

Here’s a link to an odd tale about automatic, digitised checking going wrong. The 85 year old retired teacher in question was asked not once but three times to let her pension provider know she was still alive, and then found that her pension had not been paid just before Christmas. Her details had been matched to a genuinely deceased person, presumably of the same name. Fortunately she had savings and so was not left penniless while it was sorted out. Hers must not be the only such case though - keep checking your bank accounts, people! 

Such are the vagaries of modern life.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!