Celebrating. Remembering. Cutting trees down. Sentimentality in the world. Coping.

 Everyone has been celebrating 80 years since VE Day. My daughter has been getting quite indignant because her smallest children’s school has not done anything special to celebrate. Most primary schools apparently have had non-uniform days when children are asked to dress in patriotic red, white and blue or some simulacrum of 1940s clothes. And they’ve organised lunch outdoors, pretending it’s a VE Day tea party. But her children’s school - nothing! She’s quite put out about it.

I’m not sure how much patriotic stuff secondary schools do. Teenagers still enjoy dressing up but maybe they prefer zombies and vampires.

So everywhere is celebrating 80 years of peace. Meanwhile war is popping up everywhere. India and Pakistan have now joined in, although I just read something about a possible ceasefire. We shall see.

Here’s yet another bit of Michael satire:

“I've just watched a news item about 'defence spending'. Apparently every country in the world is spending more on defence spending. Good news for peace because if every country is spending on defence, no one is spending on war, eh?”

Given how much serious nastiness is going on in the world, it almost seems like an irrelevancy to comment on the two men found guilty of felling the Sycamore Gap tree. It seems they did it “for a laugh” and were rather surprised when it went viral. One of them commented that “it was only a tree”. It must have taken quite some planning to carry put the act of destruction. What a pity they didn’t apply that energy to something more positive. 

And now lots of people are mourning the loss of that symbol of endurance and beauty, a place where people orchestrated the important moments of their lives - engagements and wedding photos and scattering of loved-ones’ ashes. 

There’s a whole lot more sentimentality around than there used to be. Most parents have experienced that feeling of loss when your offspring leave home. I remember feeling quite bereft driving home alone from Keele University where I had just deposited Offspring Number One. But we still had Offspring Number Two at home, causing teenage mayhem and regularly breaking all the rules about what time she was supposed to come home. Eventually she left too. Both of them come back at regular intervals. It’s always good to see them and their own offspring. I never felt the need to have counselling. I think I was still too busy with my career. Now I read that Michell Obama is having counselling as the Obama daughters fly the nest. I would have thought her the kind of strong woman who could find an occupation to fill that empty nest! 

So it goes.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!