We set out for a walk up the hill yesterday but almost got blown away just walking along the road to the start of the road up the hill. Storm Kathleen was seemingly doing her worst. So we turned right instead and made our walk into a simple circuit of the village. During the night it rained heavily again but by the time I got up and went for a run it was dry and quite bright. Storm Kathleen is still causing problems for Scotland apparently though.
We’re hoping she’s blown herself out in our part of the world as we fly to Portugal in the morning. It would be rather annoying to get up for an early morning taxi to Liverpool airport only to find that our flight was delayed because of wind. According to the BBC weather app the weather in Ponte de Lima, northern Portugal, promises to be better than the weather here. Fingers crossed.
Our daughter, her partner and their two children appear to be enjoying the sunshine in Texas, judging by the photos she has been sending. They also seem to be visiting lots of zoos and museums; dinosaur skeletons and fossils abound, much to the delight of four year old Grandson Number Two.
Over the last week or so it seems that we have had heavy rain during the night - the river is full to bursting - but reasonably dry day. I wonder briefly from time to time about the rough sleepers. How do they manage on these wet nights, even if the nights are less cold than they have been of late? Some of them get arrested. Here are some statistics:
“Almost 2,500 homeless people have been arrested by police in England in and Wales since 2019 under the Georgian-era Vagrancy Act, among them nearly 500 people since the government pledged to replace the act in 2022.
Freedom of information requests to police forces by the Liberal Democrats showed a total of 2,412 arrests since 2019 under the 1824 law, originally introduced to target homeless and wounded veterans of the Napoleonic wars.
Merseyside police made the most arrests under the law, detaining 866 people, followed by West Midlands, with 307 arrests, and Devon and Cornwall, with 135.”
Arresting them isn’t a solution though.
We’ve all got used to being told we should eat five-a-day - portions of fruit and veg that is. Now Dr Tim Spector tells us to ignore that and instead to eat 30 plants a week. Here’s a link to an article by a journalist who gave it a try.
By a complicated system of points, coffee counts as a plant but give you no points, while lettuce, especially crispy lettuce like iceberg, doesn’t give any points at all. Looking at the “plants” which the journalist highlights as qualifying for points, I get the impression that once again it will be easier for the comfortably off to eat healthily than for those who scratch to make ends meet.
That will do for now. I have a case to pack - the usual ritual of seeing how much I can fit into a hand-luggage size suitcase and a small carry-on bag. Such fun!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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