Planets and pop stars commenting on the world. Possible future situation. Our visit to Portugal.

Well, it seems that the planets of our solar system are all in a line. I doubt they’ll be visible from where we are as it’s very cloudy. People who believe in such things would tell us that this alignment has some influence on the state of the world. If so, it must be a malign influence at the moment. 

I rather get the impression that Israel is trying to wriggle out of moving on to the next phase of the cease-fire. And I don’t think Hamas are really doing everything possible to help. The future looks gloomy.

Here is possible future report from Michael Rosen:

'April 8 2035

Great day today. Met up with Paul and Susannah. They're just back from a great holiday in Israel. They went all over - the coast, the cities and right over to the east. They say it was marvellous. Great weather, great beaches, fantastic trip into the hills. They says what's wonderful is to have a sense that it's a place that we made. Our people made it. And it's our homeland. At the moment, Renée and I are not really in the right frame of mind to live there but one day, who knows. Paul and Susannah are thinking about it too. Not yet, they say, but possible. Some of our friends still get a bit chippy about this and make snide comments about stuff from the past, but sheesh, that was 10 years ago. Either you believe in democracy or you don't. I very much regret some of the stuff I've heard about what happened, but there's nothing we can do about it now, is there? At the end of the day, it's peaceful and safe for people like Paul and Susannah, or me and Renée to go there, then that's what matters, isn't it?'

Meanwhile, Gene Hackman has died, aged 95 but still under rather suspicious circumstances. His death is being investigated. Another famous name gone! 

Also gone is one time world chess champion Boris Spassky, at the age of 88. 

New names I have never heard of are making comments on the state of the world. One such is Gracie Abrams, described as the year’s biggest pop star (I am seriously out of touch with such things!) who is reported to have said that Trump has been office a month and everybody is more at risk:.

“Trump has only been in office for a month and has already done everything in his power to make every marginalised community feel smaller, to make everybody more at risk, to overwhelm us with information, or disinformation, so that we feel powerless and hopeless.”

As I have been writing this, the rather grey morning has been making great efforts to become brighter. And here is a photo of the breakfast room in our hotel.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone. 

On our travels. Fun with taxis. Trials and tribulations but (almost all) solvable!

 So here we are in Portugal again. We’ve had fun with taxis today. First of all, we knew that we had a taxi booked for 6.00 am to take us to Manchester airport for a 9.15 flight. We probably could have gone later as we always travel hand-luggage only and so have no cases to check in, but it’s always as well to follow the airline’s rules. What we hadn’t factored in was Uber texting Phil at about 4.30 am to confirm the booking. So for once he was up first organising coffee and toast. 

After a sleepy, boring wait at the airport, the flight was uneventful. Actually it was rather noisy. A large number of people must have been very excited to be flying to Faro, Portugal on a Thursday morning. One chap even sang intermittently throughout the flight!

We had been told that a taxi would be waiting for us at Faro to take us to Silves. We had the make and model and number of the car, even the driver’s mobile number, which is just as well as there was no sign of him. He was supposed to be waiting where cars pick people up. No sign! Eventually, after several halting phone calls in a mix of English and Portuguese, we discovered he was waiting at Departures rather than Arrivals! Doh! These things happen!

It was sunny and warm when we arrived at Faro -18°, considerably better than Manchester.

Our hotel is on the edge of town - quite literally - but we have a good view of the castle. 

The hotel is quaint and old fashioned. Photos later his week perhaps. To reach our room you take a lift from the ground floor to floor -1. You walk round a corner and take another, slightly more modern, lift to floor -2. We tried the stairs to go out to lunch and got hopelessly lost! 

There was a distinct lack of coathangers, which we were able to remedy, and a distinct lack of electric sockets (computer, 2 iPads, 2 phones, 2 kindles, not to mention my straighteners - we are the electric people) which we are unable to remedy and will work round.  

The wifi was reluctant to connect but once connected, so far has been okay. We shall see! 

We dumped our belongings and went out to lunch, at a place called Tasca Béné with a “prato do dia” for €12. The decor was interesting.

We had a good basic veggie soup and little fish - carapazinhos - served with a risotto and a tomato salad. Somewhere they didn’t charge us for something because we also had white wine, water, bread (which nowadays is charged for) and coffee, and still the bill was only €25 altogether. 

And so another adventure of eating our way around a Portuguese town begins. 

Oh, it did rain on us as we returned from the restaurant. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Pilgimages … of sorts. Giving monetary value to works of art.

 On our various visits to Sicily over the last decade or so we have visited places featured in the detective series “Montalbano”. We sat behind his desk in his office, we admired his house on the beach at Punto Secco and wondered if we could buy it if it ever came up for sale. We would have liked to take a look inside but it was not possible. We had lunch in one of bis favourite restaurants and one or two of our group even went for a swim in the little bay, emulating the actor’s morning dip - not me, I hasten to add! 

This morning I read about The Hardy Way, described as “challenging, coastal and literary”, which runs from Higher Bockhampton to Stinsford Church, both in Dorset, presumably pointing out Hardy landmarks along the way. A different sort of pilgrimage from the Camino de Santiago.

There was a time I would have recognised the places, had I gone on such a pilgrimage. I read an awful lot of Hardy when I was in the sixth form. Not as much, I suspect, as a former colleague of mine who grew up in Wessex and had at least one Hardy text a year as a set book thought her school days. In fact she confessed to being surprised when she went away to university to find that reading Hardy year on year was not compulsory in all schools throughout the UK. 

Ir’s an odd compulsion that we have to somehow make the protagonists of novels more real by visiting the places where they might have existed. 

Another human foible is attributing value to works of art in a sometimes arbitrary fashion. Here’s a link to an article about a Rubens painting which might not be a Rubens painting after all. The depiction of Samson and Delilah was purchased by the National Gallery some forty five years ago for a silly amount of money. Now it seems that art historian claims to have demonstrated that it is a twentieth century copy of a long lost painting. And suddenly, boom!, its value is decreased. But does a painting  become any less impressive just because it’s a copy? After all, paintings by artificial intelligence are beginning to sell for silly money. 

And there have been incidences of paintings done by small children selling for large amounts of money. In such a case it is often a parent stopping a child adding any more daubs of colour to a painting and turning it into the mess of grey and brown that some infant art works turn into. Having said that, both my smallest granddaughters produce fine pictures, unlike the smallest grandson who took a long time progressing from grey daubs, the result of mixing ALL the available colours, to recognisable images. 

In the final analysis, surely the important thing is that we recognise the ‘bits of beauty everywhere’ that Madeleine Peyroux sings about, wihout necessarily ascribing a specific value to them.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Running with bruised knees. Stowaways. And illegal re-wilding.

 A runner with bruised knees, I took myself out for a run this morning. On the same principle as getting back on your horse after you fall off, I decided that after falling over my feet I should get back on them. It seemed to work. I examined the place where I ‘face-planed’ the pavement (my eldest grandson’s terminology) and, yes, as well as being slightly uphill there was a hole in the already uneven pavement, quite big enough to catch your foot in. So there it is, I’m not just a silly old besom who falls over her own feet - well, there might be a bit of that too!

It’s a fine sunny day here today. In fact, yesterday also turned into a crisp sunny afternoon after a quite inauspicious start. 

My snowdrops are coming on nicely.

Here’s a link to an article about a woman who tried to stow away on a plane from the USA to Paris. Well, she actually managed to get onboard. Discovered some time into the flight, she was arrested on arrival in Paris. It’s not the first time she has done so. Maybe she has decided she doesn’t like being in the USA, despite having permission to be there (she is an unemployed Russian) or maybe she is making her own protest against Trump. Or maybe she just enjoys international flights but has no money to indulge her “hobby”.

Our friend Colin comments from time to time in his blog about wild boars in Galicia. Here’s a link to a report of increasing numbers of sightings of wild boars on Dartmoor. Apparently it is suspected that someone might be taking the law into their own hands and doing a bit of unauthorised re-wilding. Wild boars used to abound on Dartmoor but were hunted to extinction in the 17th century. British hunters presumably were more successful than Astérix and Obelix in France! 

There seems to be trend for releasing animals into the wild without authorisation at the moment. There have been lynx and feral pigs in Scotland. As far as I know, nobody had released wolves but I know that some people would like to. Who are these people who can afford to purchase what I assume are expensive animals and then set them free?  

It’s a funny old world.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Bruised knees. Changeable weather. The continuing chaos of the wider world!

Another Monday. My bruised knees were not up to running round the village this morning. Maybe we’ll go for a walk later … if the rain which is currently falling eases off. It’s all very well seeing snowdrops and crocuses and such, all trying to give the impression that spring is just around the corner, and it’s all very well the weathermen talking about milder weather, but round here it’s still cold and damp! 

In a few days we are off to Portugal where we hope that even if it rains the rain will be slightly warmer. 

Meanwhile the wider world continues to be chaotic. 

The far right seem to be winning in German elections. 

President Trump has a least one state governor objecting to his rulings on transgender people.

Some 150,000 Canadians have signed a petition calling on their government to take Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship away from him because of bis alliance with Donald Trump. Mind you, if Trump manages to annex Canada that won’t be a problem any longer. 

Israel has sent tanks into the Jenin in the West Bak, in an operation they say will last a year, leaving another 40,000 displaced people unable to return home. Here’s something from The Guardian:

“Israel has sent tanks to the West Bank city of Jenin, in the first deployment of its kind in the area in more than two decades, as troops intensify operations in the territory that officials said will last at least a year.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that the latest operation across the West Bank was expanding, and that troops would remain in the area’s urban hotspots “for the coming year”, meaning approximately 40,000 people displaced by the fighting will not be able to return to their homes.

The Israel Defense Forces said they were sending tanks to the northern city of Jenin for the first time since the height of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in 2002.”

And here’s something else: 

“Netanyahu 'preparing atmosphere' to return to waging war on Gaza - Hamas official

Hamas official Basem Naim has been talking to Al Jazeera about the precocious Gaza ceasefire deal which looks increasingly like it will collapse. As a reminder, Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed the handover of 620 Palestinians indefinitely as he is demanding Hamas stop what he called its “cynical use of hostages for propaganda”.

Naim – a member of Hamas’s political bureau - said the Israeli prime minister is “intentionally sabotaging” the truce agreement. He told Al Jazeera: 

Before going to the next step, we have to be sure that the past step, which was releasing 620 prisoners, are already released.

Because Netanyahu is clearly sending strong messages that he is intentionally sabotaging the deal; he is preparing the atmosphere for returning back to the war.

Therefore what are the guarantees that he might take the other four bodies and again not release the agreed upon number of Palestinians plus the 620 Palestinians?

Sometimes I wonder if, had the state of Israel had not been created by international agreement, Israel, or at least the IDF, might also be declared terrorist organisation as well as Hamas. 

It’s been going on a long time. Here’s an extract from a  poem called  “Jenin” by Lebanese poet Etel Adnan. It was originally published in French in 2004. That’s 21 years ago. And it had already been going on a long time then. 

Jenin

But they came, the bastards, to eradicate, with bombs,

to tell very simply that we didn’t exist.

     They started with the olive trees,

      then with the orchards,

      then with the buildings, 

and when all had disappeared,

they threw, one on top of the other,

the children, the old and the newly-weds

In a mass grave,

all to tell the world of the half-dead

that we didn’t exist,

that we have never existed,

and therefore that they were right …

to exterminate us all. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

On not running! Travellers’ complaints!

 I’ve been away visiting our son in Buckinghamshire. It’s lovely going away but it plays havoc with your normal daily routine. 

As a rule I snooze my alarm on the first ring and try to get up on the second and run round the village. On Monday I didn’t run because I was awaiting the arrival of the smallest grandson. The schools were starting the half term holiday. His sister was going on a playdate with a classmate. Nowadays children don’t just go to play at a friend’s house; they have a playdate. Their mother wanted to get some work done in preparation for the second half of the term, especially as we were going to be away in Buckinghamshire from Wednesday to Saturday, so she wanted to park him with me. In the end the small boy decided he wanted a pyjama morning, staying in his pyjamas and playing games on his tablet and promising not to disturb mummy. I found out midmorning!

On Tuesday I got up early but didn’t run. Instead I went into Manchester to get my hair done.

On Wednesday I got up early but didn’t run as I was expecting the imminent arrival of daughter and the two small people to set off on a long drive. The plan was to set off after rush hour but still quite early. I prepared a picnic lunch. I got myself organised. Time ticked away. Finally, towards the end of the morning, we set off. Had I known, I could have gone for a morning run. 

Thursday and Friday we visited museums and castles and suchlike activities.

And finally, yesterday, we walked down a local park, where the children played on various pieces of climbing equipment 

and I went for a walk round the soggy perimeter of the park, admiring the Adams Bench (not named for our family!) and the view of distant hills. 

Then we all went back to my son’s house, had a fine lunch, and loaded the car to head for home.

So this morning I set off to run my usual route round the village. A few hundred yards up the road I tripped over something in the path, or maybe just fell over my own feet, and finished up with bruised knees, a bruised chin and a bitten lip. I went home to shower and examine my injuries - not life-threatening!

Something is opposed to my running!

So it goes!

I saw a post about what are supposedly “actual complaints” received by Thomas Cook Vacations from dissatisfied customers. Here are a few:

"On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."

"We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

 "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."

"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."

"When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."

Now, I might suspect that someone invented these but for the fact that about 10 or 15 years ago we flew home from Santiago de Compostela airport and came across something that would fit is nicely with the above. The airport was pretty empty when we arrived but soon filled up with a large group who turned out to be the “Crosby Cross-Denominational Pilgrimage Society”. I got into conversation with one of them who declared that the hotel they stayed in was lovely apart from “the language problem”. “There was a suggestion box”, she told me, “so I filled in a form and wrote in large letters SPEAK ENGLISH!”

So it goes.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!