Yesterday in the midmorning the small people arrived at my house equipped with a bag of sand toys (buckets, spades, etc) and a frisbee and informed me we were going to the ‘sandy park’ - the park on the edge of the village. My daughter had arranged this so that she could do some sorting at home. We were just hoping for fine weather. And fine weather we had. She hung around long enough to slather the small people with sunscreen and off she went … and off we went.
The sandy park was fine, just warm enough to be comfortable but not too hot. The little fellow made some friends, older boys who could work the digger and scooper sit-on toys. There’s a fine line there. When small children really want to play on these things their arms are not quite long enough and not quite strong enough to work the levers and swing the machinery around. Mums and dads and grandmas have to help them. Then for a brief time the kids are big enough and still keen enough to work them. So our little fellow had a couple of older small fellows to help him out and organise the “construction/destruction” work.
Eventually his sister, not really into digger and scooper toys, decided she wanted to head back to my house. Lunch and a craft project were calling her. We had to go through some negotiation with the little fellow - five minutes more, two minutes more, the bribery promise of an ice lolly from the co-op!
As we walked back to the village centre we could hear a brass band, the distinctive big bass drum and the brass instruments sound. It turned out to be the local junior band, apparently practising for next week’s Whit Friday Band Contest. We stopped to admire.
After a minute or so, the little fellow said, “Right, let’s go to the co-op now!” We bought a few essentials, and ice lollies to eat as we walked home alongside the river.
Back home, we had some lunch, craft projects were worked on, my daughter and partner turned up and we sat outside in the sunshine, drinking coffee and chewing the fat. And at some point in the late afternoon, everyone went home and Phil and I went for walk up the hill, looking for the laburnum tunnel we saw a few years ago and have never found again.
The other day I commented on the troubles going on in New Caledonia. Now, according to this article, there is a theory that Azerbaijan is behind the riots! Azerbaijani flags have been spotted alongside native Kanak symbols in the protests; while a group linked to the authorities in Azerbaijan is openly backing separatists while condemning the government in Paris. Goodness! Azerbaijan is a long way from New Caledonia! This must be what a friend of mine used to refer to as “the interconnectedness of everything”.
Meanwhile, here in the UK I am reading disturbing reports of people who have lived and worked here for 40 years or more suddenly finding their “settled status” no longer exists and the home office wants to send them back to wherever they came from. Often it’s a minor mistake on an application form and their life is turned upside down. Imagine having come from Nigeria in the 1970s and suddenly being told you have to return there, usually no longer having family there. I suspect it’s a way of saying that the government is working on sending immigrants “home”. Statistics of one kind or another!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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