Fixing the weather with a bit of superstition. Jeremy Corbyn getting on with things. And Sir David and Lady Beckham.

 As I got organised to run round the village this morning, the weather app on my phone informed me that it would start raining in twenty minutes. I’m not sure how correct it was on timing but it certainly started to rain on me as I ran. Quite heavy rain at one point too. But then, I heard it rain in the night again, so a bit more rain this morning was no surprise.. The water barrel in the back garden is rapidly filling again, after I almost emptied it to water various plant pots during the hot spell.

A bit of rain won’t hurt me. So far I don’t seem to melt or shrink. I returned home, showered, put a load of washing in the washing machine and had some breakfast. The sun was shining by the time the washing was done, so I took the risk of hanging it in the garden. When I went out later to buy a few odds and ends at the local Tesco I took my waterproof with me. I was hedging my bets; hanging washing out was tempting fate and in iting rain but taking my waterproof out with me was like an insurance policy, almost guaranteed to prevent rain. 

It didn’t rain on me but it was distinctly grey and threatening by the time I returned home. So I brought in the by now almost dry washing and, of course, this encouraged the sun to come out once more. 

And suddenly the day was more than half over. The time slips away. 

Out in the wider world, Jeremy Corbyn is calling for an inquiry into the UK’s part in the Gaza conflict. Here’s a link to an article he wrote on the subject for the Guardian.  He’s just quietly getting on with pushing for what he sees as right. 

I read that David Beckham is to receive a knighthood in the king’s birthday honours. It seems he’s done a lot of good work for various charities. He will be Sir David and Victoria will be Lady Beckham. He received an OBE in 200 and apparently it was proposed that he become a knight in 2011 after he helped London win its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. But he was implicated in a tax avoidance scheme and the knighthood idea disappeared down that rabbit hole. He was later cleared of any wrong doing - Mr Squeaky Clean! 

He’s come a long way, has David, a Unicef special ambassador for twenty years, and hobnobbing with royalty as well as with other rich and famous folk. This year he was given the World Economic Forum crystal award, something given to people who have used their art or other cultural work to improve the state of the world, in his case for work on children’s rights.

In his acceptance speech he urged Davos attenders to fight for the rights of girls, saying he wanted his now 13-year-old daughter, Harper, to have the same opportunities as her three brothers. He added that girls particularly were being held back by poverty, violence and discrimination. “They need opportunities. They need collective action and they need investment,” he said.

I bet the soon to be Lady Beckham is proud of him! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

Just a quiet family day!

 I woke several times during the night last night to the sound of rain on the attic bedroom skylight windows. Not just gentle, reassuring patter but proper heavy hammering. What Granddaughter Number One always calls “biblical rain”! It was still going when I got up at some unconscionably early hour to let my daughter drop the two smallest grandchildren off for the day. 

My daughter has been back at work this week after her half term holiday. For some reason that escapes us all, the school the two smallest grandchildren go to has two weeks for the half term holiday. They have been Daddy’s responsibility earlier in the week as I have been occupied with my own stuff but today they came to me so that he could catch up with the kind of admin work you can’t do with two small children around. 

We pottered about for the first part of the morning: having some breakfast, actually changing from pyjamas into daytime clothes. We did a bit of planning for what we might do together: a bit of telly - but not too much - some craft work, a story or three, and maybe, just maybe, an adventure.

Granddaughter Number Four and I persuaded Grandson Number Two that he wasn’t going to spend all day watching Minecraft videos on YouTube Kids. While he spent some time doing just that, she and I did the first of our craftwork projects. Then we all three investigated water bears, also known as tardigrades, tiny, tiny creatures, also known as moss-pigs. Grandson Number Two was very excited to discover extra information about these survivors - surviving under arctic ice, in the deepest ocean, out in space on the space station, much more resilient than dinosaurs!

Towards the end of the morning the rain seemed to have stopped. The sun even came out. We got ourselves together, put our waterproofs in my rucksack, and set off to walk into the village, pick up some supplies at the co-op, and then go to the sandy park, a place we used to frequent on a regular basis but where we hadn’t been for well over a year. 

We had a picnic, the children managed to make the “digger” toys work - you sit on a rudimentary seat and work levers to scoop up sand from one place and dump it in another. Grandson Number Two constructed a volcano out of sand (we had been looking at pictures of Etna in eruption) and Granddaughter Number Four made a farm with all the animals and tractors and so on drawn in the sand. Who says children don’t know how to play?

After some time we had to put on our waterproofs but the imaginative play continued. Eventually we had to accept that it was no longer just spitting with rain but beginning to be a bit persistent. We fastened our raincoats and set off homewards. Just as we reached the point where there is nowhere to shelter from the worst of it, the rain decided to go up a gear, moving into that “biblical rain”. Even with waterproofs we were rather wet when we arrived home. But we had had our adventure and there were snacks to revive our flagging energy. 

My daughter arrived in the late afternoon, we all had tea together as it’s Thursday. It’s a regular Thursday thing. Out of the blue Grandson Number One turned up in an Uber. Since he’s been working he feels he can be extravagant when it suits him. At present what seems to suit him is the prospect of buying a rather expensive bicycle! We’ll see how that goes! 

A good day on the whole. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Dessert cafes. Public loos. Language use - things I’ve “gotten” used to.

 As I travelled back from Oldham on the bus yesterday (having for once made a very good connection with the tram from Manchester so that I only waited a few minutes for my bus to arrive) I went past a shop, or possibly a cafe, that declared itself to be a dessert parlour. And I remembered that I had read recently that the number of dessert cafe and ice-cream parlours, and presumably those frozen yoghurt places, has increased greatly in recent years. Somehow I associate ice-cream parlours with seaside resorts (I am of the generation that thinks of ice-cream as a summer thing, not an all year round thing) but it seems they are popping up on high streets all over the place. 

Dessert parlours and ice cream cafes are not the same as ordinary cafes. If the one which opened last year, or maybe the year before, in the park in Uppermill is anything to go by, ice cream is their main speciality and they only incidentally serve coffee as well, presumably for fuddy-duddies like me who don’t want ice cream in January or February. They don’t seem to have a range of cakes and definitely no sandwiches. And I suppose that dessert parlours operate on similar lines.

They are described as a good “chit-chat” places, where friends who don’t want to drink alcohol can meet, without the full formality of a whole meal, or where families can go for a treat. I know for a fact that my son-in-law, on the days when he collects the small grandchildren from school, often takes them to a favourite ice-cream place. The fuddy-duddy bit of me wonders what’s wrong with just going home. 

According to some experts, such meeting places might be the saviours of our high streets, rescuing them from becoming nothing but a collection of charity shops and, increasingly, pawn shops. But I also wonder of they might not contribute to the country’s obesity crisis. 

Incidentally, the ice cream cafe in the park in Uppermill is on the site of what used to be a public toilet. Public toilets everywhere seem to have closed down in the last few decades. Maybe they were too often used for nefarious activities. Anyway, this particular one stood locked for years until the news that it was to be converted, substantially extended of course, into an ices cream cafe. Oddly enough, one of the consequences is that there are now public toilets open in the park again … but only when the cafe is open. The same applies to the loos at another, more traditional cafe, in the neighbourhood, the Lime Kiln, at what used to be the Brownhill Visitor Centre which had a sort of museum of local artefacts and stuffed birds and animals. 

Otherwise, if you need a loo while out and about around here, you have to go to a “designated public toilet” at one of the pubs. 

·

Here’s a linguistic anomaly: Granddaughters Number One and Number Two use ‘gotten’ rather than ‘got’ as the past participle of the verb ‘to get’. For example: “It’s gotten very cold” or “He’s gotten fat”. Now, I know that ‘gotten’ is old English. Shakespeare used it. All the same, it sounds odd to me, although it doesn’t bother me in the same way as ‘me’ and ‘I’ confusion does, or when I hear things like ‘he done it’. According to this article, however, some people have been getting very agitated about it.

Worse things happen at sea, which is I suppose how it travelled to America with the Pilgrim Fathers and has remained in use there. Now it’s come back across the ocean and into use with a younger generation here. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Annoying buses. Annoying, inappropriately-timed rain. Some Michael Rosen items. And an erupting volcano.

 I’ve been into Manchester today. I went out in plenty of time for a bus which would take me to the tram stop in Oldham. As I approached the crossroads I saw the bus coming up the road from Uppermill,  so i thought ai had plenty of time as it would go up into our village, round the estate and back down to my stop. Instead of going over the crossroads and into the village, however, it took a left turn, directly toward Oldham. Fortunately it stopped and seemed to wait. So I started running, despite not wearing the best shoes for sprinting after a bus, because there was no knowing how long it would wait. I caught the bus! Otherwise the would have been a half hour wait for the next, throwing my schedule out.

Now, last Wednesday I caught a bus (the same service and number as today’s) back from our local Tesco, in Greenfield village. As we approached the crossroads the driver declared, “I’me not going up there. If you want Delph, get off here.” I assumed it was because the bus was running late, but I was a little indignant for people who might be waiting in the village. That evening Phil went out to catch a bus at our usual stop and once again he saw the bus approach and take a left turn rather than go through the village. That time the bus did not wait but simply sailed away into the wide blue yonder. Phil had to send for a taxi to get him to his destination on time. 

This morning I questioned the driver. He said it was something to do with scaffolding on the route through the village. Buses have been losing wing mirrors. According to my son-in-law, who works for the Bee Network, the Manchester bus service, and whom I contacted with my complaint, it’s all to do with overhanging branches at the turn-around point. My major gripe was that there is no notice at any of the bus stops warning would+be passengers that the stops, of which there are several on the route through the village, are temporarily closed. It’s been a week now.Just a little courtesy would be appreciated! 

Anyway, I went to Manchester to get my hair done. The sun shone beautifully all morning. As I left the hairdresser’s the promised rain started. How very annoying. Fortunately I was able to pop my newly styled hair under my beret and, also fortunately, my raincoat has a good hood!

So much for summer!

Here are a couple of things from Michael Rosen, first a spoof press release:

“Israeli press release:

Good news: no one in Gaza is dead. No one in Gaza is hungry. All the pictures  you see are fake. Apart from ours. Ours are not fake. Western civilisation hovers on the brink. You're either with us or with us. Hamas have more planes than the Nazis.”

And then a possible speech from our prime minister(!):

“Good afternoon.

This is a very important day. I'm announcing that we're going to be spending a lot more of your money and this is good for the economy, good for growth and good for arms manufacturers. 

We're not spending money in the silly way that Corbyn was going to do - on schools and hospitals - but in good ways. On defence. We all need defence. 

Defence is war.

And we're war ready. Grrrrrrrr! That's how war-ready we are.

Turn to the person next to you and say:

Grrrrrrr!

That's shown that bad man Farage that we're the patriots round here.

Grrrrr!

More bombs! 

Grrrrr!

That means more jobs.

Job for British people.

British bombs. British jobs. 

British bombs to drop on people who aren't British.

At last something for us all to be proud of. 

Grrrrr!

It's a dangerous world but we're ready to play our part.

And there are some bad people out there. 

Now some of you are confused about this.

The point about bad people, is that we decide who the bad people are. Not you.

Russia - bad.

China - bad.

North Korea - bad.

Iran - bad.

And if we need to biff them, we will

All of them

Grrrrrrr!

Good people:

America

Israel

The Falklands.

Cayman Islands.

Now I just want to say how intolerable things are in Gaza. I am shocked and appalled to the very core of my feet. It's so intolerable I'm tolerating it. 

Right from the beginning of this terrible war that Hamas are waging, I've said enough is enough. When it's all over and there's a reckoning, you'll see that we've been entirely consistent in expressing our concern how terrible it may sometimes have been but mostly wasn't. In fact, I was the first to say that Israel had every right to kill everyone. That was the humanitarian thing to do.

People say to me, why don't we send in aid. Ah, if only it was as simple as that. Nothing is simple in politics. That's where Corbyn got it wrong. We're not the simple people. We're realistic. 

Grrrrrr!

So thank you for listening.

Remember, Britain is British. 

It'll never be an island of strangers on my watch.

My father was a tool-maker.

I'm a Zionist and always will be.

Jeremy Corbyn isn't a tool-maker.

Grrrrrr!”

Meanwhile there is this from this morning’s paper:

“At least 27 Palestinians killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near food distribution point, say local health authorities

At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, local health authorities said.

It is the third consecutive day of similar incidents as Israel attempts to impose a new aid distribution regime on the Gaza Strip, which it has been blockading for weeks.

The Israeli military said its forces had opened fire on a group of individuals who had left designated access routes near the distribution centre in Rafah.

Journalists have not been able to independently the casualty count, but Reuters reports a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told the news agency its field hospital in Rafah received 184 casualties, adding that 19 of those were declared dead upon arrival, and eight died of their wounds shortly after.”

That’s all.

Oh, and Mount Etna has been erupting. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Sunshine and showers. Good news and bad - cycling success, being military, a collapsing glacier!

Sunny intervals and a gentle breeze are forecast for today, which is an improvement on the showers which were forecast, and which proved to be the truth, for yesterday. Despite the bad forecast, and despite the intermittent showers, I managed to go out and run run early(ish) in the morning without getting rained on and Phil and I strolled out in the late afternoon in mostly blue sky and sunshine. 

The blossom trees have all shed their petals now but we have buttercups all over the back garden, where the grass, incidentally, needs cutting again - will we have another stand-off to see who gives in and cuts it?  And we have a better crop of roses in the small front garden than I have seen for years. 

The year is rushing past and in a couple of weeks it’ll be official midsummer. It always strikes me as odd that it is called midsummer when as a rule it hasn’t warmed up very much and July and August have a better chance of being really warm. So it goes. 

And before we know it we’ll be into Tour de France time, although in fact there’s still a good month before it starts. Meanwhile our own local boy, well almost local as he was born grew up in Bury, still part of Greater Manchester, Siman Yates, has just won the Giro d’italia. 

Apparently race leaders Richard Carapaz and Isaac del Toro

let him slip past them on the descent of the Colle delle Fenestre and didn’t get their act together to chase him. This has been described as “probably the most bizarre act of self-immolation in a Grand Tour since 1989, when Pedro Delgado wrecked his race on day one by getting lost en route to the start of the prologue time trial.”

On more serious matters, here’s a headline from today’s Guardian: 

UK moving to ‘war-fighting readiness’, Starmer says, as he calls on ‘every part of society’ to play role in defence – politics live

It seems he wants the UK to be the “fastest military innovator in Nato”. His plan is “a blueprint to make Britain safer and stronger, a battle-ready, bomber-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities, equipped for the decades to come”. And we need to do this because “we are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces”. 

Maybe we do need to become “preppers” and lay in stocks of baked beans, and lentils and pasta in preparation for global disaster. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

But then there is also global warming to take into account. Here’s a report of how a glacier fell apart and the Swiss village of Blatten was obliterated. The inhabitants had been made aware that this could happen and had been evacuated a week before but they were only able to carry a selection of their belongings. All sorts of family heirlooms, photos, memories are now buried under tons of mountainside! 

I think that’s enough doom and gloom for today. Let’s just cheer for Simon  Yates instead.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Looking back at self-help groups. Stuff about the depiction of and writing about war.

When our children were very small, starting from new babyhood, a group of friends and I formed what I suppose now would be described as a self-help group. It was a kind of off-shoot from the National Childbirth Trust classes most of us attended before giving birth. We met once a week, rotating whose house we met in and who was going to bake a cake to share. The make-up of the group changed as children started school or mothers went back to work, and new members joined. We didn’t exclusively talk about babies. We didn’t moan about how hard new motherhood was. We talked about anything and everything. I still occasionally meet some of the women out and about but mostly we have all gone our separate ways. We’re almost certainly all grandmothers now. 

One of those women lives a short distance up the road from here. She was never a close friend. We greet each other when we see each other but that’s all. She remembers me by name. I hate to confess I have no idea what her name is. Back in the days of our mother and baby group a friend of mine always referred to her, rather cruelly, as “Hot Lips” because of the red lipstick she usually wore. I’m afraid that’s the only name I have for her. 

She was “Hot Lips” after Major Hot Lips Houlihan from the series M.A.S.H., the head nurse in the army hospital unit in the Korean War. Hot lips Houlihan wore red lipstick, was a strict disciplinarian and the butt of a lot of jokes from the male characters. Yesterday the actress who played Hot Lips Houlihan died, aged 87 - Loretta Swit. As the series developed she became involved in the writing and made Hot Lips into a more rounded character, strong and brave, referred to more regularly by her given name, Margaret, rather than the derogatory nickname. Interviewed in 2022 Loretta Swit said, “I am a feminist, from the top of my head to the bottom of my toenail, and I favour playing strong women.” 

Nicknames stick though and Major Margaret Houlihan will always be Hot Lips, as I suspect is the case for our near neighbour. I feel quite ashamed. 

M.A.S.H. took a sideways look at war, with some serious content in there too. We need series, journalists, commentators, not necessarily funny but taking an alternative look at events. Here’s a post by Spike Cohen (another nickname or chosen commentator name, this time of Jeremy "Spike" Cohen, an American libertarian political activist, entrepreneur, and podcaster):

“Gentle reminder that ISIS was created by the US govt to fight the Shiite militants, who were armed by the US govt to fight Saddam, who was armed by the US govt to fight Iran, who hates us because the US govt overthrew their elected leader and installed a cruel dictator.”

There’s a certain circularity there. As in so many of the current conflicts. 

Thinking about wars, here’s a link to an article by a journalist who spent some years in Jerusalem as the Guardian’s correspondent. She was afraid she might come to accept the situation out there as ‘normal’ but never did. We need to keep remembering that it’s not normal.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!