It is allegedly “less cold” today. Now, my weather app may well tell me it’s 3° - that’s +3 as opposed to -3 - but there is a cold wind which makes it feel colder. And because it’s dull and grey there’s no sun warming your back as you run along the road. And neither is there any chance of stopping and basking in the sun in a sheltered spot.so, Weathermen, ypu can claim that things have improved but out in the real world it doesn’t feel like it. And the millponds are still frozen!
The two youngest grandchildren go to a drama activity after school one day each week. Consequently they are involved in “shows”, for which our daughter has to buy tickets if she wants to see it. The tickets are not cheap and as the children are in different age groups they are in deferent shows. This whole weekend seems to be devoted to children’s dramatic activity, and their social life. This morning there was a dress rehearsal at the little theatre in the village where the performance takes place. Late in the morning my daughter phoned to ask if she and her partner could pop in for coffee while the children changed out of their performance outfits into normal clothes, especially as the small boy was due to go to a birthday party in the early afternoon.
This evening there will be the first performance in which the older of the two little ones is involved. Tomorrow the smaller child is in a performance from 2 til 4 and the older in her second performance from 6 til 8. So when does anyone get to eat? Solution: come to my house for pizza between performances. That seems to be the plan!
I don’t remember life being quite so full and complicated when our children were small. But my son tells me that his almost ten year old has the following activities in a normal week: Monday - extra classes in preparation for the 11 plus exam which she will sit next year: Tuesday - gymnastics club; Wednesday - the only day she just goes home and does homework, plays, watches TV; Thursday - art club; Friday -after-school gymnastics and then Brownies! All I can say is, WOW!
No wonder there is always so much traffic around: parents are busily running their children from activity to activity! Surely there has to be a time when children just occupy themselves, maybe even get a little bored on occasion!
Out in the wider world President Biden still appears optimistic about the possibility of Israel agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, a spokesman for Hamas’s political bureau is not so convinced: “The illusion that Biden is preaching about a state of Palestine and its characteristics does not fool our people. Biden is a full partner in the genocidal war and our people do not expect any good from him.” And as fighting grows closer to Nasser hospital, the biggest hospital still partly working in Gaza, it doesn’t really look as though a solution is any closer.
Nasser hospital has been receiving hundreds of wounded patients every day since the fighting shifted to the south last month. There are fears it could be forced to close because of Israeli bombardments and evacuation orders.
"Two-thirds of Gaza’s hospitals have now ceased functioning and losing Nasser would further curtail the limited trauma care still available. Two other hospitals – al-Aqsa and the Gaza European – are also at risk of closure according to the UN."
How do you even begin to consider a solution while still bombing places to pieces? And in fact, as reports come in of missile attacks on Damascus, which Al Jazeera says Iranian state television has called a “terrorist” attack by Israel, it seems that the conflict is expanding rather than contracting.
How strange it still is to hear news reports involving names, such as Damascus, which for so many of my generation were places in stories we heard at Sunday School.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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