So - using email, texting, using your own printer, making your own photographs - it's all so convenient, and quick. Yes, for the most part, that may still be true. But what about this scenario?
A fortnight ago I was inundated with emails from someone who said I was using her email address. I had inadvertently used it once - because icloud wanted me to use another email address other than my own as icloud, or was it Apple? id. So many fruitless hours fiddling and talks with Apple later I signed in, changed my password and signed out. No problem. No problem? It took over 2 days to get all that sorted.
Another scenario. I tried to use my ipad to air print with a printer my aunt uses. I had her password but forgot to change my wi fi password once I got home. So which password is this then? Yes I had travelled home, I had sorted things at my mother's house, I had visited her in her nursing home three times in two days. I was tired and had a cold. Thankfully I have the sky hub password on my iphone and it's clearly labelled on the new hub. But how do I change it to a memorable password? How many more wasted hours were spent trying to sort that? I did get my ipad connected to the internet again but no luck with sky hub password change. That only took 24 hours fiddling. Then I went down big time with some flu-like symptoms. No surprise there then.
Tonight my iphone won't receive emails and I buggered my ( very old) printer which kept referring me to 'documentation'. If they mean the handbook that would take another day of searching ... Thankfully, despite the fact I had only 4-5 hours sleep last night, by pulling out a few cables, switching the printer on and off, then switching my lap top from which I was trying to print, on and off, the thing finally starting printing again. I'm sorry but each of my devices, in some way or other, needs a great deal of time spent on them.
Yes I have got them all running again but why do we need so much knowledge and time for these semi-expensive gadgets? Meanwhile I still haven't seen TV I recorded from Sunday night. Perhaps if I use my ipad for itv player it might let me watch The Durrells? Or do I need a password for that too?
Meanwhile I'll spend ages trying to get the thing to work and,guess what, I still won't have seen the programme. Time consuming or what? I thought computers worked for us - not the other way round.
Grrrrrr
Monday, 18 April 2016
Friday, 8 April 2016
How do I get the balance?
A few weeks back I wrote the final chapter of my novel. I hasten to add I'm not especially ecstatic, more mildly pleased, as it's only draft one and I know how much editing will be required, even though, in essence, the work is complete.
It begins in December 1918, just after the end of WW1 and the novel ends in France just before the outbreak of WW2, in September 1939. England has declared war on Germany, but France hasn't entered the war.
In some ways it would be easy to think my novel is about the inter-war years. In fact it's a tribute to the relatively few women who got the vote in 1918, and who forged ahead, in difficult times. They lived and worked through The General Strike, The Depression, during a time when there was a lack of free health care, non universal secondary education and poor contraceptive choices. The women who voted for the first time in Britain in 1918 had to be thirty and either married or householders in their own right. In my novel the central character is Eliza. She got the vote in 1918 and succeeds with none of the advantages of modern times.
I have spent something like six weeks working on these last 20,000 words. The whole is now 92,000 + words. I am pleased to have achieved writing the novel but my social life has gone through a down turn, I haven't been swimming for three weeks and I seem to have spent a lot of time behind a screen!
However I have managed a Creative Evening, my Writers' Group, pub quiz and Book Group. We are planning a garden party in July so we are prepping the garden in readiness. I feel I have had a busy few weeks but tomorrow - ah tomorrow - I have promised myself a day of rest. This will include a walk, sensible eating and other physical exercise, but no sitting behind a screen, growing roots through the cushions on my sofa, nor typing at my desk. Perhaps I should be like Barbara Cartland and have a secretary. That way I could dictate my novel, get up, walk around, do step ups and get fit while getting my novel written. Or maybe I could speak into a voice recorder while I'm going out for a jog. Either way there is a tension between the creative urge and the need for physical activity. One feeds the other but both areas of my life seem time consuming.
Our next plans are for the Open Studio at the end of this month. That also takes a lot of planning. Cards to label and package, bio in the brochure, paintings to be framed, prints to be made. I also plan to bake cakes and biscuits to raise a little for the Cancer Unit at the RUH. It's all laudable, creative planning. But again it doesn't help me keep fit!
Perhaps I need to invent some form of exercise I can do while planning other things. But in order to invent a new form of exercise I will have to sit down and come up with some scheme. Back where I was. The tension between brain activity - or creativity - and physical activity. I am physically lazy but mentally active. How do I get the balance?
It begins in December 1918, just after the end of WW1 and the novel ends in France just before the outbreak of WW2, in September 1939. England has declared war on Germany, but France hasn't entered the war.
In some ways it would be easy to think my novel is about the inter-war years. In fact it's a tribute to the relatively few women who got the vote in 1918, and who forged ahead, in difficult times. They lived and worked through The General Strike, The Depression, during a time when there was a lack of free health care, non universal secondary education and poor contraceptive choices. The women who voted for the first time in Britain in 1918 had to be thirty and either married or householders in their own right. In my novel the central character is Eliza. She got the vote in 1918 and succeeds with none of the advantages of modern times.
I have spent something like six weeks working on these last 20,000 words. The whole is now 92,000 + words. I am pleased to have achieved writing the novel but my social life has gone through a down turn, I haven't been swimming for three weeks and I seem to have spent a lot of time behind a screen!
However I have managed a Creative Evening, my Writers' Group, pub quiz and Book Group. We are planning a garden party in July so we are prepping the garden in readiness. I feel I have had a busy few weeks but tomorrow - ah tomorrow - I have promised myself a day of rest. This will include a walk, sensible eating and other physical exercise, but no sitting behind a screen, growing roots through the cushions on my sofa, nor typing at my desk. Perhaps I should be like Barbara Cartland and have a secretary. That way I could dictate my novel, get up, walk around, do step ups and get fit while getting my novel written. Or maybe I could speak into a voice recorder while I'm going out for a jog. Either way there is a tension between the creative urge and the need for physical activity. One feeds the other but both areas of my life seem time consuming.
Our next plans are for the Open Studio at the end of this month. That also takes a lot of planning. Cards to label and package, bio in the brochure, paintings to be framed, prints to be made. I also plan to bake cakes and biscuits to raise a little for the Cancer Unit at the RUH. It's all laudable, creative planning. But again it doesn't help me keep fit!
Perhaps I need to invent some form of exercise I can do while planning other things. But in order to invent a new form of exercise I will have to sit down and come up with some scheme. Back where I was. The tension between brain activity - or creativity - and physical activity. I am physically lazy but mentally active. How do I get the balance?
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Birthday Weather on International Women's Day
As my birthday is in mid-March the weather is usually sunnier, the flowers brighter and the days longer - all much better than in the previous months of January and February. And, despite having come out of a relatively warm, wet season - in other words a mild winter - it suddenly feels like a cold, bleak run up to my birthday.
Yesterday a gang of us went to the Thermae Spa - in splendid sunshine - and we came out feeling invigorated and rested all at the same time. After that lovely experience we saw more friends for a drink in Bath - then went out to a local pub. A great day all round!
Today, however, has been grey, cold and uninspiring but, thankfully, the narcissi are still flowering - despite their early blooms in January - so their yellow petals have enlivened a dreary day.
Please, please can we have sunshine on my birthday? We will be in Devon then and I'd like to enjoy the sea air - not have three days feeling cooped up. It is spring now, isn't it?!
Despite the dull skies this morning I enjoyed opening my birthday cards and making plans for a garden party in July. This includes arranging two or three musical entertainments for the evening. By then it should be warm and light at night and we can sit out lapping up wine, food and live music. Perhaps I am simply too impatient and want to celebrate my birthday in the sunshine - in warm, spring days - we need them after a wet, overcast winter. Everyone felt so happy in the sun yesterday - and now we are back to the gloom, it seems.
I am, however, pleased I have completed 70,000 words of my novel and that puts a spring in my step. I have two major scenes to write. It seems fitting that, on International Women's Day, I can talk about my novel, which opens in 1918 on the day some women in Britain got the vote. I am preparing chapters on The General Strike and details about Jennie Lee, a great inspiration to other women, who, initially couldn't afford to go to university, but was helped, left Edinburgh University with a degree and became an MP. Another scene I have yet to create is of another kind of woman altogether. She was wealthy and well connected until, in 1939, she had to flee Italy, where she had led a a very comfortable life. Her life becomes impoverished, whereas my central character, through steadfastness, prospers. I am reminded of the weather that day in 1918 - when eight million married women got the vote - "it had been an uncommonly warm,wet winter."
Yesterday a gang of us went to the Thermae Spa - in splendid sunshine - and we came out feeling invigorated and rested all at the same time. After that lovely experience we saw more friends for a drink in Bath - then went out to a local pub. A great day all round!
Today, however, has been grey, cold and uninspiring but, thankfully, the narcissi are still flowering - despite their early blooms in January - so their yellow petals have enlivened a dreary day.
Please, please can we have sunshine on my birthday? We will be in Devon then and I'd like to enjoy the sea air - not have three days feeling cooped up. It is spring now, isn't it?!
Despite the dull skies this morning I enjoyed opening my birthday cards and making plans for a garden party in July. This includes arranging two or three musical entertainments for the evening. By then it should be warm and light at night and we can sit out lapping up wine, food and live music. Perhaps I am simply too impatient and want to celebrate my birthday in the sunshine - in warm, spring days - we need them after a wet, overcast winter. Everyone felt so happy in the sun yesterday - and now we are back to the gloom, it seems.
I am, however, pleased I have completed 70,000 words of my novel and that puts a spring in my step. I have two major scenes to write. It seems fitting that, on International Women's Day, I can talk about my novel, which opens in 1918 on the day some women in Britain got the vote. I am preparing chapters on The General Strike and details about Jennie Lee, a great inspiration to other women, who, initially couldn't afford to go to university, but was helped, left Edinburgh University with a degree and became an MP. Another scene I have yet to create is of another kind of woman altogether. She was wealthy and well connected until, in 1939, she had to flee Italy, where she had led a a very comfortable life. Her life becomes impoverished, whereas my central character, through steadfastness, prospers. I am reminded of the weather that day in 1918 - when eight million married women got the vote - "it had been an uncommonly warm,wet winter."
Monday, 22 February 2016
5:2 and all that
Yes - another 21 days and I'm still managing the 5:2 diet.My jeans seem tighter than ever and my weight goes down after diet-day then back up on ordinary-meals days. Am I doing something wrong?
My diet days consist of:
porridge - with hot water and blueberries* ( which are not exactly the same as bilberries ) 148
small green apple* 40
1 hot cocoa. 22. (210 subtotal)
soup - 1/2 a pot* 100
salad*. 20
another green apple*. 40
1 or 2 nairns oatcakes with fruit. (1) 44
1 or 2 boiled eggs and more salad. (1). 70. (484 subtotal)
Lots of water
Blueberries for a snack*. 8
Late night cocoa. 22 (514)
* my five-a-day
I'm still swimming and walking. Hopefully moving furniture and gardening count as exercise as it's rained so much it's been impossible to do anything but short walks some days.
The 5:2 diet does train your body to eat and want less - but I've yet to see this on the scales!
My headaches seem better this month but I have had a few days off as we had to go to see the family - eating habits changed somewhat!
Snippets
My office now has its desk in it. That's furniture moving par excellence. So I have to get on and finish my novel. No more disturbances now!
Condor Ferries managed to completely change their timetables - 3 months after we booked. So we are now on less good seats and having to be at the ferry in Poole by 9.15 on day 1 of our Channel Islands trip. To avoid complete exhaustion we have booked a B&B 5-10 mins away from the ferry.
It's been gloomy out, no ice, but such a lot of cloud and rain. Bring the sun herewith!!🌞
Had enough of winter. Thank you so much ...🌞
My diet days consist of:
porridge - with hot water and blueberries* ( which are not exactly the same as bilberries ) 148
small green apple* 40
1 hot cocoa. 22. (210 subtotal)
soup - 1/2 a pot* 100
salad*. 20
another green apple*. 40
1 or 2 nairns oatcakes with fruit. (1) 44
1 or 2 boiled eggs and more salad. (1). 70. (484 subtotal)
Lots of water
Blueberries for a snack*. 8
Late night cocoa. 22 (514)
* my five-a-day
I'm still swimming and walking. Hopefully moving furniture and gardening count as exercise as it's rained so much it's been impossible to do anything but short walks some days.
The 5:2 diet does train your body to eat and want less - but I've yet to see this on the scales!
My headaches seem better this month but I have had a few days off as we had to go to see the family - eating habits changed somewhat!
Snippets
My office now has its desk in it. That's furniture moving par excellence. So I have to get on and finish my novel. No more disturbances now!
Condor Ferries managed to completely change their timetables - 3 months after we booked. So we are now on less good seats and having to be at the ferry in Poole by 9.15 on day 1 of our Channel Islands trip. To avoid complete exhaustion we have booked a B&B 5-10 mins away from the ferry.
It's been gloomy out, no ice, but such a lot of cloud and rain. Bring the sun herewith!!🌞
Had enough of winter. Thank you so much ...🌞
Thursday, 21 January 2016
Celebrations
We had a jolly home-grown Hogmanay with friends who live locally. A great start to 2016.Another party at the beginnning of January was fun too, and enlightening - it always is when meeting new faces. I can also celebrate my self-discipline, aswell as my indulgence! I have got back my swimming bug, and we walk to shops or into town instead of taking the car. So exercise is taking more of a priority - and it has to! Soups are the great lunchtime mainstay - so nutritious and no empty calories. A balance in all things. Must look after the body as well the indulgences. In so doing I have tinkered with the 5:2 diet.
Having tried the 500 cals fast as part of the 5:2 diet I realise that may be a bit harsh for me - don't want to trigger migraines - but I can up it to 600 calories and see how I go. 1300 calories seems reasonable for dieting but experts suggest 1000 per day would be counter-productive. I then read 2000 calories a day is usual for a healthy woman. May have to rethink the 5:2!! Food and me. Either eating far too much 🌭🎂🍗 or hardly anything at all 🍒🍏🍲 !
I do love fruit and salads, which is good, so I couldn't quite see the point of the 500-calories-diet leading to the abandonment of the 5-a-day rule.
Far too confusing for little ol' me. If I lose a stone in weight I'll be happy - but can't risk having migraines. So must be sensible. However that new year's resolution is 21 days old and is sustainable - so I hope I'm still swimming, walking and losing weight in another 21 days.
Speaking of celebrations: we going away to Guernsey for my 60th birthday but for the actual day itself we will be in a lovely room with a balcony overlooking the sea at Sidmouth. There is a spa and warm pool in the adjoining hotel so that will be fun. Topaz cottage in Sidbury has been reserved for us at a discount so that can be our 35th wedding anniversary treat. I hope as many girl friends as possible can join me in the warming waters of the Thermae Spa just ahead of my birthday - a party without the catering and clearing up!
In the summer the family are coming from London, the Midlands and Cornwall, we hope, to join us for a summer-time BBQ and more celebrations.
So that's the first six months of this year taken care of. Better do some writing during the rest of 2016.
I lack discipline! I just have too many things to celebrate. But can that really be so bad?
💻. 🖨. ⏱. 📒. 📖. 📝. Or 🍾. 🍰. 🌞. 🎷. 🍓 🎤
🏊🏻
Having tried the 500 cals fast as part of the 5:2 diet I realise that may be a bit harsh for me - don't want to trigger migraines - but I can up it to 600 calories and see how I go. 1300 calories seems reasonable for dieting but experts suggest 1000 per day would be counter-productive. I then read 2000 calories a day is usual for a healthy woman. May have to rethink the 5:2!! Food and me. Either eating far too much 🌭🎂🍗 or hardly anything at all 🍒🍏🍲 !
I do love fruit and salads, which is good, so I couldn't quite see the point of the 500-calories-diet leading to the abandonment of the 5-a-day rule.
Far too confusing for little ol' me. If I lose a stone in weight I'll be happy - but can't risk having migraines. So must be sensible. However that new year's resolution is 21 days old and is sustainable - so I hope I'm still swimming, walking and losing weight in another 21 days.
Speaking of celebrations: we going away to Guernsey for my 60th birthday but for the actual day itself we will be in a lovely room with a balcony overlooking the sea at Sidmouth. There is a spa and warm pool in the adjoining hotel so that will be fun. Topaz cottage in Sidbury has been reserved for us at a discount so that can be our 35th wedding anniversary treat. I hope as many girl friends as possible can join me in the warming waters of the Thermae Spa just ahead of my birthday - a party without the catering and clearing up!
In the summer the family are coming from London, the Midlands and Cornwall, we hope, to join us for a summer-time BBQ and more celebrations.
So that's the first six months of this year taken care of. Better do some writing during the rest of 2016.
I lack discipline! I just have too many things to celebrate. But can that really be so bad?
💻. 🖨. ⏱. 📒. 📖. 📝. Or 🍾. 🍰. 🌞. 🎷. 🍓 🎤
🏊🏻
Monday, 21 December 2015
Happy 2016 !
Such a lot has happened since my post last Christmas. Mum has indeed settled well in her new home. She doesn't complain nor does she feel dejected by not being with one of us. She had an operation on February 14th to remove a wart on her face and she has continued to eat well, sleep well, enjoy a cuppa and a glass of sherry on high days. I do hope we can enjoy a sherry or brandy with her on Christmas Eve. Last year it was a mad dash to get her decorations from her so-silent house, put them up at Atholl House and get some colour in the room that was to be her new home.
This year I got decorations and small Christmas trees up for her on December 1st. She doesn't want me to write her Christmas cards - I did about 60 or maybe 80 for her last year - but I can write and thank senders in the new year.
It should be a good journey on Christmas Eve - the annual great north trek - well to Tettenhall ! - except for the complication of Richard's own treatment. The discovery of very early-stage prostate cancer cells in the summer has meant Richard now has a daily visit to the hospital for radiotherapy. Even on Christmas Eve he has an appointment so we now have to work round that - plus taking the cat - and fitting carols and midnight mass in. At some stage we will need to eat. When did Christmas Eve suddenly get so busy? When illness took priority!
Last year - on Christmas Eve - we sat in the smokers area on the decking outside at The Oddfellows - feeling like neither fish nor fowl - trying to get everything done and fitting in. But it was hard seeing mum and keeping things light-hearted. At least this year we are all more used to her situation and we have the importance of Richard's own health worries to concentrate the mind. It does help put things into perspective.I hope mum can enjoy something of Christmas and that her room still looks jolly with the decorations.
Other things have happened in 2015 - and they are non-health-related events!
We have a new, improved roof and the beginnings of a new kitchen. The garden has been tended and repaired, no little visitors are gnawing away in the kitchen this winter, and I hope to get round to sprucing up the bathrooms in that haitus between Christmas Sunday and New Year's Eve. I've enjoyed seeing the girls for exam prep and have got back into the discipline of book group. Walking around town has been much more fun this Christmas and the pub quiz team has expanded to eight of us! Swimming has been slow but that is certainly a resolution for the New Year for me - just do it! The delight that is our great neice is an area of fun I have yet to explore properly - but photographs of little girls - especially of your own flesh and blood - are always good. Great aunt - that's me!
As 2015 ends I can reflect on the improvements in my writing - I haven't entered competitions just had professional help to work my words into something publishers will like. My brain, at least, is kept active. Physically I'm nowhere near as tired as I was this time last year and I am aiming to walk more and trying harder to eat non-fattening foods. Food-watching rather than dieting. Time will tell whether my regime is working! I do enjoy Christmas baking, though. But I have to resist the temptation for over-indulgence ...
Back to thinking about fun ...
Mum's house needs little attention from me now. I hope to get bark down on more of the flower beds and do a little cutting back just before we drive home after Christmas. That will be another task completed. When Richard's treatment ends I hope we can relax properly and go away. It is our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. That's a long marriage and, along with Christmas and my BIG birthday in March we should sink some money into just having a lot of fun. 2016 - this is our year!!
Happy Christmas one and all 🎄
This year I got decorations and small Christmas trees up for her on December 1st. She doesn't want me to write her Christmas cards - I did about 60 or maybe 80 for her last year - but I can write and thank senders in the new year.
It should be a good journey on Christmas Eve - the annual great north trek - well to Tettenhall ! - except for the complication of Richard's own treatment. The discovery of very early-stage prostate cancer cells in the summer has meant Richard now has a daily visit to the hospital for radiotherapy. Even on Christmas Eve he has an appointment so we now have to work round that - plus taking the cat - and fitting carols and midnight mass in. At some stage we will need to eat. When did Christmas Eve suddenly get so busy? When illness took priority!
Last year - on Christmas Eve - we sat in the smokers area on the decking outside at The Oddfellows - feeling like neither fish nor fowl - trying to get everything done and fitting in. But it was hard seeing mum and keeping things light-hearted. At least this year we are all more used to her situation and we have the importance of Richard's own health worries to concentrate the mind. It does help put things into perspective.I hope mum can enjoy something of Christmas and that her room still looks jolly with the decorations.
Other things have happened in 2015 - and they are non-health-related events!
We have a new, improved roof and the beginnings of a new kitchen. The garden has been tended and repaired, no little visitors are gnawing away in the kitchen this winter, and I hope to get round to sprucing up the bathrooms in that haitus between Christmas Sunday and New Year's Eve. I've enjoyed seeing the girls for exam prep and have got back into the discipline of book group. Walking around town has been much more fun this Christmas and the pub quiz team has expanded to eight of us! Swimming has been slow but that is certainly a resolution for the New Year for me - just do it! The delight that is our great neice is an area of fun I have yet to explore properly - but photographs of little girls - especially of your own flesh and blood - are always good. Great aunt - that's me!
As 2015 ends I can reflect on the improvements in my writing - I haven't entered competitions just had professional help to work my words into something publishers will like. My brain, at least, is kept active. Physically I'm nowhere near as tired as I was this time last year and I am aiming to walk more and trying harder to eat non-fattening foods. Food-watching rather than dieting. Time will tell whether my regime is working! I do enjoy Christmas baking, though. But I have to resist the temptation for over-indulgence ...
Back to thinking about fun ...
Mum's house needs little attention from me now. I hope to get bark down on more of the flower beds and do a little cutting back just before we drive home after Christmas. That will be another task completed. When Richard's treatment ends I hope we can relax properly and go away. It is our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. That's a long marriage and, along with Christmas and my BIG birthday in March we should sink some money into just having a lot of fun. 2016 - this is our year!!
Happy Christmas one and all 🎄
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Perfectly beastly
We've had a perfectly beastly eighteen months; mum's stroke, finding provision for her, sorting through her belongings, rearranging her finances, doing her garden ( then repeating all that every month or so) ... Only for us to find, in the last few months, Richard has very early prostate cancer cells lurking and doing some, as yet, slight damage.
On top of that we've had the third lot of scaffolding in the last three years up at our house. Mum's house still needs some repair as there's damage from trees on the field next to her's. And we've had the disruption of electricians, carpenters and other workmen in and around. Yep perfectly beastly.
Richard even had to rush back from Cornwall after only a couple of days with his brother and our neice. All because he had to see a GP pronto. But he is feeling no side effects from his treatment and as it's his birthday on Friday we'll have a bit-of-a-do. Must show a willing !
And the bank seems to think we are excellent savers - really - we ( we?) are good with money?! Heaven help everyone else if we are financially savvy!
But my thoughts turn elsewhere.The poor mites stranded in Lesbos in pouring rain, rottng feet, falling ill, no shelter, no fresh drinking water, no nappies for the babies, no food and no medical care. Like the refugees from the war in Sierra Leone. They have their lives - but for some - only just.
I have sent a little money today - will it get to the refugees? Will some rudimentary shelters and food and medicines reach them before they die from sleeping in wet blankets? What a terrible crisis.
And all our government can do is talk about taking in 20,000 over five years and stripping the most vulnerable,here, of disability benefits and tax credits. I wish there was an off button whenever 'he who is in charge of the NHS' comes on our screen. I resent the energy I have to expend reaching for the remote control. Can he and his ilk not empathise? How would he cope - disabled or on £7.20 an hour - without the daily support required to lead a reasonable life? Of course he would rely on family wealth - not benefits. But we are the world's 6th richest country. Surely, as a nation, we can do better than this? Both for our own needy people and those suffering terribly beyond Syrian and African shores.
I'm usually optimistic and forward-looking.
The news around us seems somewhat bleak.
The clocks have changed and the weather is dull.
Perfectly beastly.
On top of that we've had the third lot of scaffolding in the last three years up at our house. Mum's house still needs some repair as there's damage from trees on the field next to her's. And we've had the disruption of electricians, carpenters and other workmen in and around. Yep perfectly beastly.
Richard even had to rush back from Cornwall after only a couple of days with his brother and our neice. All because he had to see a GP pronto. But he is feeling no side effects from his treatment and as it's his birthday on Friday we'll have a bit-of-a-do. Must show a willing !
And the bank seems to think we are excellent savers - really - we ( we?) are good with money?! Heaven help everyone else if we are financially savvy!
But my thoughts turn elsewhere.The poor mites stranded in Lesbos in pouring rain, rottng feet, falling ill, no shelter, no fresh drinking water, no nappies for the babies, no food and no medical care. Like the refugees from the war in Sierra Leone. They have their lives - but for some - only just.
I have sent a little money today - will it get to the refugees? Will some rudimentary shelters and food and medicines reach them before they die from sleeping in wet blankets? What a terrible crisis.
And all our government can do is talk about taking in 20,000 over five years and stripping the most vulnerable,here, of disability benefits and tax credits. I wish there was an off button whenever 'he who is in charge of the NHS' comes on our screen. I resent the energy I have to expend reaching for the remote control. Can he and his ilk not empathise? How would he cope - disabled or on £7.20 an hour - without the daily support required to lead a reasonable life? Of course he would rely on family wealth - not benefits. But we are the world's 6th richest country. Surely, as a nation, we can do better than this? Both for our own needy people and those suffering terribly beyond Syrian and African shores.
I'm usually optimistic and forward-looking.
The news around us seems somewhat bleak.
The clocks have changed and the weather is dull.
Perfectly beastly.
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