A waiting game. Thinking about Palestine, Lent, the environment. And looking towards summer.

 I’m waiting for a phone call. My GP’s surgery kept sending me reminders to arrange to discuss the results of a recent blood test. So I tried. My regular GP is not available for weeks and weeks. I made an appointment with one of her colleagues. That was cancelled as the doctor fell ill! So I’m waiting for a telephone appointment with their chief clinical expert nurse! “About 9.00,” they said, “but it could be any time between 8.00 and 10.00.” It’s now almost 9.15 and I’m still waiting. I can’t really go anywhere as it would be inconvenient to discuss my health in a public place. Such is life!

Here is a post from an organisation called Wear the Peace - posting on Facebook:

“The decision by the British Museum, the largest museum in Britain, to remove the word “Palestine” from its ancient displays reflects a troubling pattern of erasing Palestinian history and identity from global narratives. UK Lawyers for Israel put pressure on the museum by arguing that the term was being used “retrospectively” to describe civilizations that predated the modern use of the name, according to The Sunday Times. The museum abided and removed the word from its display panels.”

Source: @telegraph The Sunday Times

Thinking about the whole Palestine business, it struck me that most people have always been vaguely aware of a place called Palestine but in an almost mythical way, rather like Atlantis. But over the last few years Biblical places like Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Babylon and Damascus, Jordan and Canaan, have become real places in the news. And, however,now Palestine can be erased from labels in the British Museum.

Meanwhile Carnival time is approaching. Or rather, we are about to start Lent, a time of giving things up, of abstaining. After all, for believers, eating pancakes and having carnival parades was supposed to be a last fling before a period of abstinence. Pope Leo XIV has published this message for lent:

“I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbour.”

Maybe we should agree to abstain from war as well.

And abstain from ruining our planet. At Lytham Saint Annes, not far from Blackpool, they’re burying discarded Christmas trees to create extra sand dunes to protect houses near the coast from the increasingly high tides. They dig trenches, bury the trees and pile sand on top. The trees disintegrate and a new sand dune is formed. Brilliant idea!

Finally, from the gloom of a wet winter (it rained copiously in the night) here is a painting by Beryl Cook. The bathing pool. Looking towards summer! 

Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone!