As my weather app predicted, today is bright and crisp and cold. Ever since Phil and I went one year to spend Christmas in Florence we refer to days like this as “Florence cold”. Our first few days there were all bright blue sky and sunshine and a temperature of at least -5°. When the cloud moved in, the temperature rose to a more normal December-in-Florence level but we lost some of the brilliant beauty. In the few days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day the city was quiet and the reduced numbers of tourists meant that we were able to get into the Uffizi without queueing.
And today is “Florence cold”, or at least it was when I went for a morning run. There was still a good deal of water running off fields and lanes, not frozen perhaps simply because it was moving too quickly. The rough road on the other side of the ford (see photo in yesterday’s post) is going to need some attention before it’s properly fit to drive on as it has piles or gravel and rubble which have been washed down. The section of footpath that was impassably under water yesterday was clear again this morning but with huge holes when the force of water has gouged away great chunks of the surface. Not good for bikes of buggies!
As I run along those lanes and footpaths there’s a point where a bush is filled with chirruping sparrows. It’s a particular sound which always takes me back to evenings on the street where we lived in Vigo. For some reason the sparrows congregated there each evening and sang their hearts out.
I read somewhere that in Scotland they call sparrows ‘dunnocks’ but according to the Guardian’s ‘Country Diary’ feature, it’s a slightly different species. Following links, I found this definition:
“The dunnock is a small bird, about the size of a robin, which is common in gardens, parks, hedgerows, scrub and along woodland edges. Dunnocks are shy birds, hopping about in low vegetation and around the edge of lawns, feeding on small insects, worms and seeds. When two males meet, however, they become animated with territorial calling and wing-flicking. Males and females will form strong pairs, but the female will still mate with another male, so neither male knows who the father is and both supply her chicks with food. They nest in hedges or shrubs, laying up to five eggs.”
Hmm: “neither male knows who the father is and both supply her chicks with food”! It’s a pity it doesn’t work out that way with people. What a different world it would be if the various men who potentially could be the father of her child ALL helped the single mother struggling to make ends meet. As it stands many (but not all, it must be said) of those who know for certain they are the father of the child don’t have an instinctive feeling that they MUST help.
Which brings me round to some statistics.
The number of children referred to emergency mental healthcare in England has risen by 10% in a year, with lengthy waiting lists for regular NHS care pushing more to crisis point.
There were 34,793 emergency, very urgent or urgent referrals to child and adolescent mental health services crisis teams between April and October 2024.
That compared with 31,749 in the same six-month period in 2023.
Why are so many children suffering a mental crisis? It must be the state of the modern world.
Of course, the use of the world ‘children’ is misleading as most of us think of small people, primary school age, when the term includes all those teenagers as well. We should talk about ‘children and young people’. After all, booksellers have a category of books known as “young adult fiction’.
Anyway, here’s another bit of information:
“The Department of Health and Social Care acknowledged that too many children and young people were waiting too long to access the mental health care they required. A spokesperson said: “We will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers, provide young people with access to a specialist mental health professional in every school and a young futures hub in every community.”
It sounds like an admirable goal. Where will they find all those qualified additional mental health workers though?
Finally, here’s a Michael Rosen poem, almost certainly about Gaza but equally applicable to all sorts of other situations:
What's worse than worse?
It was months ago
they said that
that things had got worse.
But then they said things got worse
after that.
And then they said things were getting worse
last week.
And things got worse than last week
yesterday.
And things are worse today
than yesterday.
And things are worse now
than a moment ago.
It's always worse.
It's always getting worse.
When does it get to a point
where it can't be more worse?
When does it get to a point
where worse becomes
the worst?
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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