The strangeness of time. Getting things done. Deciding what’s important in the news,

I’m not quite sure where time goes in the morning. Today, for example, I had set my alarm for a reasonable 8.00. Okay, I did snooze it but then I got up and ran round the village, trying to get back into my routine which has been severely disrupted in recent weeks by weather and by family events going on here and there.

So I got up and ran, stopping at the local co-op to purchase a few things, the idea being to decrease the list of stuff I would need to buy from the supermarket ready to feed the family on Christmas Day. So far, so good! I returned home, had a shower, dressed in normal clothes, organised a few things and eventually had breakfast. Suddenly the morning was half over. But I suppose I had achieved number of things. 

My daughter had offered to take me to the supermarket, or at least to meet me there, part of her insistence that I should not carry heavy loads on the bus! So I called her to arrange to do that tomorrow morning. However, she then suggested meeting today and going, not to my local Tesco but to the larger Sainsbury’s near her house. I could hop on a bus to her house. Well, it sounded like a plan!

However, there were a few errands we needed to do on a local retail park, also near her house. But eventually we arrived at Sainsbury’s. Now, I am really averse to huge unfamiliar supermarkets, where it is impossible to locate the stuff you always buy, even when you remember to take your list with you. And I did have my list and I was quite efficient at finding stuff but there were some things they simply did not have! I was growing a little frustrated and grumpy! But how can a large supermarket not have any baking apples? Why is their mincemeat - for my speciality Christmas mincemeat cheesecake - only available with added brandy or whisky? 

In the end we did stop at the smaller Tesco supermarket on our way home and there I located the items I had not found in the larger Sainsbury’s!

But that was most of my afternoon slipping away, rather as the morning had done. 

I read somewhere long ago that time speeds up as you grow older, or at any rate your perception of it does so. This is why school summer holidays were so much longer when we were pupils than when we were teachers?

Tomorrow I will undoubtedly snooze my alarm again. I shall spend some of the day planning menus, some of it making sure all my parcels are wrapped ready for Santa to leave them under the tree, and a large part of it simply relaxing! 

In my organising and tidying today I found a mystery parcel wrapped in newspaper on a window ledge. Without opening it I recognised that this was an item my daughter-in-law has purchased at a local charity shop on Saturday morning, intended as a gift for a friend. She is very good at finding treasure in charity shops, and it seems she is good at putting stuff in a safe place and forgetting it. I texted her. We considered posting it but decided it can wait until next we meet.

A friend of mine, a former colleague, is a great aficionado of craft beer and specialist ales. Here is a disgruntled comment he posted this morning:

“Part time Christmas drinkers in pubs now, clogging up the thoroughfares for all the very fine people who’ve been supporting pubs all year long.”

So it goes. The season of good will calls for tolerance all round.

We could do with some of that all over the world.

Donald Trump is still trying to annex Greenland. He has appointed the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, as US special envoy to Greenland. Landry, a former state attorney general who took office as Louisiana governor in January 2024, thanked Trump, saying it was “an honour to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US”.

Greenland is understandably not pleased! 

A sink hole has appeared in a canal in Llangollen. People in narrow boats had a narrow escape.

Mayhem continues in Gaza.

The main item on the radio news, though, is the death of singer/songwriter Chris Rea, at the age of 74. No doubt sad for those who knew and loved him but hardly the top item in today’s news!

Hey! Ho!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Winter Solstice calm.

 Today is the shortest day. Winter solstice has arrived. We’re not quite at the moment when he sun is poised exactly at the midpoint but we’re close enough. We had a bit of a discussion over breakfast about how Christmas replaced solstice celebrations. 

I began the day with an early alarm call and dragged myself out of bed quite promptly. Just as well, for I had barely got a pot of coffee on the go before the doorbell rang. Granddaughter Number One and friend had arrived with a huge box of yarn. She proposed to donate as much as possible of this to her small Southern cousin in the hope of encouraging knitting in that bit of the family. 

The Southern branch ff the family was heading back south to continue Christmas celebrations at the other end of the country. And suddenly breakfast turned into another huge family occasion as my daughter and the rest of the grandchildren turned up to say goodbye to the Southerners. I think we had every coffee cup in the house on the kitchen table, in a range of different sizes. And I lost track of how many pots of coffee I brewed. It’s a good job I laid in stocks. 

Later, when everyone had departed, we tackled the washing up, and i put things back in their rightful places - it’s amazing how inventive visitors can be in their putting away of pots and dishes! A stack of tea towels went into the washing machine and I whizzed the vacuum cleaner over almost every floor surface. 

Calm has been restored … until we begin again on Christmas Day. 

At some point yesterday afternoon our son and his wife sneaked off for quiet drink in one of the local pubs. Another Christmas tradition! Almost everyone sneaks off for a quiet drink at some point over the Christmas period. But according to this article quite a lot of pubs have put up signs indicating that Labour Party MPs are banned. It’s a protest against tax rises. So much for the season of good will! 

Yesterday we were blessed with a cold crisp day for a sunny walk around the local reservoir. Today the cloud has descended and I really wouldn’t advise travelling too far. I suspect the Southern Branch of the family will be having a dull journey homewards. So it goes! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Family stuff

Yesterday I finalised preparations for the arrival of the southern branch of the family for a pre+Christmas visit. Our daughter and family came to spin her brother and his family who had travelled from near London to our house

So last night we sent a delegation to go and buy fish and chips from the local chippy for dinner.

Today we got up so that we could go for a walk together. Well, I got up early.maybe I could have had an extra hour or so in bed. It was late morning by the time we all set off.

It was a beautiful day, one of the best for a walk in a long time. So we met in Greenfield and walked down to Dovestone reservoir.

The sun shone, the sky was blue and the small people walked 5 or more miles round the reservoir.it was very cold.

Eventually we headed for home where the small people made cookies and did craft activates while we prepared a family dimmer.

Presents were exchanged. Everyone was happy.

We’ll repair the whole business next Thursday, but without the southern branch of the family.

Normal blog service might be resumed tomorrow.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Nativity plays. Selective reporting. Reinstating Erasmus. AI toys. Bad jokes.

Yesterday disappeared into a mass of organising for Christmas and then going to watch Grandson Number Two in his school nativity play. He was a reluctant joiner-in and spent part of the time sitting on my knee. One of the small narrators had a panic attack and her part had to be read out by a teacher. One of the three kings tripped as he was making way onto the stage and had to go off and cry before he was able to resume his role and pock up his gift of frankincense to give to the Baby Jesus. Another of the kings, offering “myrrh for the baby”, threw his gift down with a resounding crash. Pretty much a standard infant school nativity play performance! 

Yesterday also saw a host of articles about the Bondi Beach attack, with quite a few comments contrasting the response to that attack with the media response to children killed in Palestine. Here’s a photo report from CNN about storms causing havoc in Gaza.

And here’s someone’s comment on CNN’s reporting: 

“No CNN, it wasn’t the ‘Gaza storm that killed 14 Palestinians, including 3 children’… it was Israel. 

Israel bombed the buildings that collapsed. 

Israel denied entry of tents, mobile homes and building materials. 

If not for Israel’s genocidal war those kids would have been tucked safely in bed listening to the rain outside their cosy homes.

These 14 people won’t show in the death toll figure though. The death toll (70,663 people) only records those killed by Israeli combat weapons. And being starved and exposed to disease through the deliberate destruction of food production, housing and sanitation infrastructure, whilst being denied medical care is not classified as a combat weapon, despite being a deliberate weapon of war.

The true number of people murdered by Israel will be closer to 700,000 once the indirect causes of death and birth prevention are counted.”

I heard yesterday that the UK is set to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus programme. What a good idea. As a teacher of modern languages  I saw many of my former pupils set off for a year in some foreign part. Some of them never returned to the UK on a permanent basis. It may, however, be too late for rejuvenating study of modern foreign languages in our universities. 

Here’s a link to an article by Arwa Mahdawi about AI toys, which are proliferating all over the place. I was reminded of Furbies, possibly the original AI toy. It’s highly likely that there are creepy Furbies shut away in cupboards all over the country, indeed all over the world, waiting for another Furby to talk to. Granddaughter Number Two tells me that she and Granddaughter Number One found theirs so creepy that they buried them in the garden! That says it all!

And finally here’s an old joke about chess players. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Some Christmas nonsense.

 After yesterday’s all-day rain, today we’ve had bright, crisp sunshine. If it stays clear we’ll have a cold night I should think. As it is we’ve had a rather fine sunset sky.

Here’s a linguist’s view of Christmas spirits, sent to me by my Italian friend. You have to have taught or at least studied complicated grammar to really get the joke. 

Granddaughter Number Two and I spent some time, not too much time, selecting suitable Christmas presents for various members of the family. Here’s a cartoon about unromantic christmas gifts. 

Skimming through odds and ends of news online yesterday after Granddaughter Number Two and I had returned from rainy Manchester, I came across the headline “A potato is for life, not just for Christmas” at the start of an article by Emma Beddington. This led me to a photo of a potato shaped flask.

Apparently it’s a late-18th-century Staffordshire pottery flask – intended to be filled with strong drink and used to toast a safe journey for a traveller – shaped like a very realistic, knobbly spud, complete with green bits. It has been donated to the Nairn Museum. The benefactor who donated the flask apparently explained it was so ugly that no one in his family wanted to inherit it.

The article also led me to the potato wall calendar. Calendars are frequently given as Christmas gifts. This one features different photos of potatoes for each month of the year. Originally priced at £38.84, it is now available for the bargain price of £29.13. I don’t think there will be a rush to buy them but you never know. 

Many workplaces are having their Christmas socials, complete with Secret Santa gifts. This never used to happen when I was in full time work, for which I am quite grateful. Nowadays it is almost obligatory to give presents to just about everyone. As a primary school teacher our daughter has amassed a range of ‘best teacher in world’ coffee mugs, not to mention bottles of wine that she never drinks. Here’s a link to an article about Secret Santa gifts going horribly wrong. Another reason to have nothing to do with the idea! 

Another Christmas staple is crackers - another source of Christmas gifts nobody really wants unless you do really expensive personalised Christmas crackers. However, the children do enjoy pulling crackers so I need to acquire some before the southern branch of the family (our son and family) arrives at the weekend. Here is a selection bad Christmas cracker jokes: 

1. Why is Prince Andrew not writing any Christmas books? He hasn’t got any titles.
2. Which pop star carves her own wooden nativity scene? Sabrina Carpenter.
3. What is a French burglar’s favourite Christmas film? Louvre, Actually.
4. Why won’t Angela Rayner get any Christmas presents this year? Santa can’t decide which address to deliver to.
5. Where has Santa been more than Nigel Farage? His house in Clacton.

That’s enough nonsense. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Christmas Traditions - in our family. And a bit of family nostalgia.

This morning I got up early so that my daughter could collect me and take me to a tram station with Granddaughter Number Two. For the last few years we have made it a tradition to go into Manchester together and do some Christmas shopping. The first time we did it we trawled round the Christmas markets, which still had some variety of content back then. We found some nice things. This year we didn’t look at the Christmas market stalls at all. At a first glance they seem to be more about selling sweets and food and drink than anything else. But maybe I am doing them a disservice.

Anyway, Granddaughter Number Two and I are dropped off a tram station near my daughter’s school at an ungodly hour of the morning, when it’s still almost dark, only barely officially sunrise, and too early for me to have free travel on the buses and trams with my old lady bus pass. We go into Manchester and have breakfast in a cafe while we wait for the stores to open. Then we hit the shops!

This year we have been efficient and went armed with lists of stuff we wanted to look for. It worked, more or less. I seem to have managed to get most things off my list. Now I need to finish wrapping. And at some point I need to plan menus so I can do the food shopping!! 

Nostalgia is a strange thing. Granddaughter Number Two and I reminisced about various episodes from her childhood. At 22 she already quite a difference between her own early childhood and that of her younger siblings.

Then there is Granddaughter Number One, who lived for some time in our house with her mother in her early childhood. At that time I would play Spanish songs in the kitchen and the small girl would sing along, usually not understanding a word but sounding good. At some point yesterday evening she sent me a message asking about “that song about the bird who tried to fly in the sea”. She thought it might have been sung by Ana Belén. I found it: La Paloma by the poet Rafael Alberti and sung by various artists: Joan Manuel Serrat, Rosa León, Ana Belén, among others, but these are singers I used to play to her. It’s amazing what the memory throws up.

Here’s the poem Rafael Alberti:

Se equivocó la paloma.

Se equivocaba.

 

Por ir al Norte fue al Sur.

Creyó que el trigo era agua.

Se equivocaba.

 

Creyó que el mar era el cielo;

que la noche, la mañana.

Se equivocaba.

Se equivocaba.

 

Que las estrellas, rocío;

que la calor, la nevada.

Se equivocaba.

Se equivocaba.

 

Que tu falda era tu blusa;

que tu corazón, su casa.

Se equivocaba.

Se equivocaba.

 

Ella se durmió en la orilla.

Tú, en la cumbre de una rama.

 

Se equivocó la paloma.

Se equivocaba.

 

And here is an English version, not my own translation:

The Dove (English)

The dove was wrong.

She was mistaken.

 

To travel north she flew south,

Believing the wheat was water.

She was mistaken.

 

Believing the sea was sky,

That the night was dawn.

She was mistaken.

 

That the stars were dew,

That the heat was snowfall.

She was mistaken.

 

Your skirt your blouse,

Your heart your home.

She was mistaken.

 

(She fell asleep on the shore,

You at the tip of a branch.)

And here, I hope, is a link to a YouTube clip of Ana Belén singing it.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!