A rather gloomy Saturday.

Yesterday turned into a beautifully sunny, if still very windy, day. I stepped out of the supermarket into a sheltered spot in the sunshine and was astounded by how hot - yes, hot! not just warm! - it was. And then I stood for best part of half an hour waiting for a bus! Someone told me that all the buses were running late because of road works but the one that I should have been able to catch at 4.00 must have been early because I was at the stop with minutes to spare and had not seen it go past! So it goes.

According to last night’s tv weather forecast for the North West of England today should be equally sunny and warm but so far, midday, it’s still dull and grey. The morning mist has just become midday gloom! So much for plans to cut the grass! The grass itself is too wet for the mower to deal with it. 

And the world in general continues to be rather gloomy. They may have finally reported on the Grenfell enquiry but the fact remains that vast numbers of people live in unsafe buildings. And although there’s a lot of talk, lots of words spinning around, yhe solution doesn’t seem any closer. I’m more than a little glad to live in an old house where the only problem is the occasional spider. 

(The grandchildren, by the way, all seem to have a near pathological fear of spiders, even the smallest one, Grandson Number Two, now almost five years old, who happily picks up woodlice and marvels at their “lovely little legs and antennae”. Their mother says spiders like our old house! The sight of a spider leads to squeals of terror. Granddaughter Number Two, however, has had to develop spider-catching abilities living independently at university - and she’s not been living in an old house!)

Here’s a quotation from an American novelist I’d never heard of before someone posted this:

“Libraries are one of the last non-commercial spaces we have where everyone is welcome. They strike me as a little glimpse of how we could live if we chose to be a generous society rather than a fearful one.” Jenny Offil author. 

That’s how libraries should be. And yet, large numbers of public libraries in the UK have been closed. I’ve already commented recently on how the writer Lee Child relied on the library as child. 

Diane Abbott has an article in the Guardian about her experience of being a new young MP, as a woman already part of a minority group, and as a black woman MP completely unique. It makes interesting reading. At one point she writes about Jeremy Corbyn:

“If I had not been in a relationship with Jeremy Corbyn, I might have drifted away from Labour, but he drew me in and infected me with his love and enthusiasm for the party. I had never met anyone so absorbed by it. By day he was a full-time official for the National Union of Public Employees, the predecessor trade union to Unison. His evening and weekend hours were taken up with being a Labour councillor in the north London borough of Haringey. Whatever spare time Jeremy had was consumed by being a volunteer organiser in various local Labour campaigns, and I could not help but get caught up in his whirlwind of activism.”

It is worth remembering that this is the man who has been pushed out of the Labour Party.

In this photo she is with Jeremy Corbyn and Joan Ruddock at a protest against new road proposals in 1989. And here is a link to the article. 

Tomorrow is another day, another birthday celebration and I have a cake to make.  

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!