After yesterday’s all day rain and gloom today is bright and sunny again, temperature 7° according to my weather app. Yesterday my Fitbit told me I took only 3000 steps, possibly a record low for me. Today, running round the village I had done 6000 before breakfast. I suspect my Fitbit will tell me I went for a walk rather than a run. I clearly don’t run fast enough to satisfy my Fitbit.
On my running route, at the junction of Sandbed Lane and Delph Lame, there are still problems with drainage, or lack of the same. Very pretty! But potentially very dangerous.
The ford at the end of Hull Mill Lane is also overflowing but its more picturesque than actually dangerous.
I took my library books back today. They can stop sending me ‘OVERDUE BOOKS’ notices. It’s a good job they no longer fine borrowers for overdue returns!
In the library a young woman was handing out cards from the local council asking us what will make us happy. I didn’t complete mine. She was being engaged in conversation by a regular chatterbox, often to be found in the library. From his interrogation I discovered the young woman in question has a degree in social sciences from Newcastle University. Does that qualify her to hand out cards to potential borrowers?
Here’s some good environmental news: “The hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic this year was the smallest and shortest-lived since 2019, according to European space scientists, who described the finding as a “reassuring sign” of the layer’s recovery.
The yearly gap in what scientists have called “planetary sunscreen” reached a maximum area of 21m sq km (8.1m sq miles) over the southern hemisphere in September – well below the maximum of 26m sq km reached in 2023 – and shrank in size until coming to an early close on Monday, data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) shows.”
Not perfect but getting better.
Today is December 1st. Time to start wearing Christmas ear rings. After visiting the library I bought some Christmas cards. Slowly I am getting into the spirit of the season. My son tells me his 11 year old has made a series of Christmas lists, each one slightly updated on the one before. So now I can think about gifts. She has clearly gone beyond the stage of writing to Santa.
According to something I read, the practice of writing to Father Christmas probably began in the United States. As early as 1773 Saint Nicholas, a fourth century saint, probably Sinterklaas in Dutch, was being commemorated by Durch settlers in New York. As the US postal service became more formalised and efficient in the aftermath of the civil war, which ended in 1865, the idea of writing a letter to a benevolent man who lived at the north pole gathered currency. In England, where a figure called Father Christmas had emerged from medieval folk tales to personify festive cheer, Santa Claus was first recorded in 1864, according to English Heritage. By the 1880s, the two figures had merged into one.
There you go. My first bit of Christmas trivia. More will undoubtedly follow.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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