The topsy-turvy world weather is currently wreaking havoc in South East Spain. The news shows film footage of cars swept away down streets, people being rescued from cars which are trapped in deep flood water, huge areas of land under water. People are warned not to travel close to riversides and ravines, places where a flash flood could sweep you away. Climate change deniers might try to persuade us that this is a totally natural phenomenon but personally I’m not convinced. Even accepting that there are cycles of weather, cycles of global heating and cooling, we’ve done a lot of things to exacerbate matters.
It’s quite frightening how much damage water can do. And even if you live in a high rise block of flats, it’s quite likely that your car is parked in an underground garage - just the sort of place the floodwaters will get to. Even though have the technology to predict at least some of the extreme weather, it seems we still can’t always prepare for it.
Our son and family have gone to Baiona in Galicia, near the Portuguese border, for the half term holiday. Their daughter has just passed the eleven plus examination, so this sun-seeking is by way of a celebration. Had she failed it would have been a commiseration holiday. In contrast to places like Valencia, Baiona seems to have sunshine and clear skies, at least according to the weather app on my iPad. And it should remain fine for the rest of their week there. They have struck lucky.
We, meanwhile, just have dull and grey and cloudy, but apparently no actual rain forecast at the moment. So it goes!
When Granddaughter Number Two was small, we used to have to remove labels from clothes as they made her extremely uncomfortable. Failure to do so led to an absolute refusal to continue wearing said items of clothing. Now she’s old enough to remove for herself any labels that she cannot tolerate. She’s not alone in this, it seems, but nowadays, according to this article, there are easy-to-remove labels. I remain amazed that someone has gone to the trouble of writing a whole article about clothes labels, how to remove them, how to store them along with spare buttons once removed, and the possibility of labels going digital. As more and more places now like to email receipts rather than printing them, maybe clothes shops will add washing instructions and such like information to those emails. This is 21st century living.
That’s the trivia dealt with. Now for some more serious stuff again.
I truly despise headlines like this one that I saw yesterday:
“US says it is concerned by 'horrifying incident' where 'two dozen children killed' in Israeli strike in north Gaza residential block
The US is “deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life” in an Israeli strike on a residential building in northern Gaza that killed at least 93 people, including a large number of children, a US state department spokesperson has said.”
These are empty, hollow words, like the “apologies” that say “I’m sorry if you offended” rather than “I’m sorry I upset you”. What is the point in expressing horror at events that you have facilitated by supplying arms? And why is the US suddenly concerned now, as if this has not been going on for a year?
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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