These are the days…….

 

vladzhuk@vladzhuk

 

I’ve been staring at this page wondering how to put into words my thoughts and feelings about what’s happening in the world. It would be much more comfortable and sleep-conducive if I could believe that it’s all fake news. In the days before TV, radio, internet we would probably have known nothing about disaster until it was on our actual doorstep, but now we receive images of bombed out cities, death, destruction and mass displacement of people from their homes on a 24 hr basis. We also see the face of our planet changing with the climate and the displacement of even more people from places that are no longer habitable. There is so much suffering and we watch it all on our screens.

One particular image last night shocked me to tears: A young family caught in a bomb blast; a child in warm and colourful clothing with a little rucksack packed for the evacuation journey, lies dead alongside the others. I can’t get the picture out of my head. My grandson, Reuben, turned nine last weekend, and celebrated with his friends in a laser-zone party, shooting each other with light rays. They all de-mob’d, unscathed, to a feast of pizza and cake while in Ukraine, children like them die trying to escape a real war.

Images of dead and suffering children hit us in the stomach more than any, remaining indelibly in the recesses of the mind with the other pains, guilts and terrors. Who can forget the drowned Syrian infant washed ashore after a disastrous Mediterranean crossing, his family fleeing from a Middle-Eastern war; photos of children carried out from Hiroshima after it was nuked in WW2; children wasting away in famine; dead-eyed, traumatised children in refugee camps around the world……. The archive is a very grim memento.

“There will be wars and rumours of wars, but let ye not be troubled”, my grandmother used to quote when, as an emotional teenager, I ranted about some injustice occurring on the globe somewhere. It’s surprising that she should have been so sanguine given that she’d lived through two world wars. Her own children, my father and his sister, at the ages my own grandchildren are now, were packed onto a bus taking them away from Swansea to stay with un-known families in mid-Wales. The effects on them of their evacuation were evident into their old age. The traumas of conflict are many and they are being racked up minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year upon year, upon year.

I write this blog so as to have a record of the times I’m living in. I usually make an effort to find a lighter side to the issues I’m talking about, but I'm at a loss here. When I search for light relief in  programmes that usually have a witty take on current affairs I find the comedians also struggling to find the comedy. 

While trying to suppress the awful images of other people’s terror, my mind turns to the possibility of a nuclear disaster, and how to be ready. What provisions should we stow away? Do we need barricades of some sort? Is there a bunker nearby? What would we do with the dogs? What provisions have my sons made? (I hope they’re thinking about it, too)……. And even without being nuked I need to think about this brick and concrete yard that we call ‘the garden’ being an outside pantry. So much for my plans to pretty-up with sun beds, pretty lighting and lots of flowers.  Currently, we’re in a self-imposed semi-lockdown in order to keep our travel, food and heating costs down. What’s it called? - ‘Bunker mentality’? Something like that….It’s all ‘mental’ whatever.

Maybe someone soon will find their way into Putin’s bunker and ‘take him out’. He’s definitely ‘mental’ along with those doing his dirty work. That’s my opinion anyway, and I have tried looking at things from his point of view (I did initially anyway), by studying some history. If he believes he’s liberating anyone it’s an insane way to go about it. This morning I heard that having reneged on ceasefires to let people escape to western areas in Ukraine he has finally opened some humanitarian corridors; into Belarus and Russia! I guess he wants the Russian people to see a flood of refugees coming east and to see his efforts to liberate Ukrainians as working. As if!

None of us is perfect, individually or as nations and I do in general stand by the principle of letting “whoever is without sin throw the first stone” but, hey, this situation calls for something, some effective response, and NOW!

So……., it’s fires, floods, pestilence and suddenly again, war, unless you’re tucked up nicely somewhere safe and secure without access to any media of information. If you’re not, then you’ll be hearing phrases like ‘existential threat’, ‘the death of democracy’, ‘the rise of tyranny’ cropping up as often as the word ‘unprecedented’ did when the pandemic broke out in 2020 (and I’ve just re-iterated those phrases, given that they’re at the forefront of my mind as I write this blog post). They’re just words and if all you’re hearing is the crack of guns and the crump of bombing you won’t be much interested in what phrases are being added to the lexicon. But surely, there must be some words that would be capable of bringing an end to conflict and suffering. We must find them. 

At the moment I have no words to adequately describe this time in our history, and I’m just one of the many who are trying to do so - the documentarians, the diarists, the narrators, the archivists, the journalists, bloggers, vloggers and also the ‘conspiracy theorists’. It’s a human need to see a narrative, to know the story, but in these post-post-modern days there appears to be an acceptance of there being any number of conflicting narratives with truth elusive and ‘unnecessary’. And I ask myself whether this assessment of mine is even ‘true’ (such is logic).

I am sixty eight, born as Europe found ways to live peacefully and prosperously as it emerged  from the horrors of the early twentieth century. From my position of good fortune I have looked on as others have lived less fortunately, and now have to look on as my grandchildren’s generation faces God-only-knows what. Feeling helpless all I can do is pray for Heaven to help them all.

“Those were the days of our lives, yeah, The bad things in life were so few…..” (Queen)

Taking Liberties

I
I asked Gareth how, as a photographer, he would capture the idea of ‘freedom’.
“Dogs running over a hill”, he said. (My photo effort here)

So thinking about freedom……..Sheesh! Who isn’t thinking about it at the moment? From close-to-home to across the globe freedom is a big issue. So often we trade our freedoms for protection and then we have to remind ourselves what it was we wanted to be protected from so we can renew the contract if necessary. Some, like care-workers, for instance, are checking the small print to see where mandatory vaccination was mentioned. Of course, vaccination issues may not be front and centre in the minds of people facing famine, war and tyranny, with their very basic existential freedom at stake; how can I know, but, I’m just a little person in a little corner whose life is relatively safe enough (for the moment, maybe), trying to get my head around things and I figured on starting with the more banal stuff - like whether a party in Number 10 is unforgivable. Contentious? Hell, yeah! Bear with me, let’s see where it leads.

If you’re a libertarian (just had to check my spelling there as ‘librarian’ wouldn’t make sense) and you become leader of a government just as the country, the world even, enters a pandemic (real or invented - let’s not go there), how would you deal with it? To begin with, I guess you’d cautiously let people know what’s going on and give some advice as to how to protect oneself and ones loved ones. And that’s how it was at first, wasn’t it? Boris phwawed and mussed up his hair as he asked us all to wash our hands etc. Then, formulated Guidelines started popping up all over the place and became progressively more proscriptive as people asked for more detail; questions like “If I’m to stay within 5 miles of my home and the nearest supermarket is 5.5 miles away, what am I to do?”, “Is it ok to walk my neighbour’s dog?”, “Can I play golf/go surfing/drive to a walking spot”, “We’ve got five kids, so should I get rid of one to stay within the rule of keeping group sizes to no more than six?”  “Should I report someone sitting on a park bench?”etc. (I’ve made those up, but they’re close to reality).

The barrage of questions required refinement of the guidelines; a process that continued until they became a set of rules, laws even, that were often enforced enthusiastically with fines and prosecutions (there are always the conscientious sorts who like getting others to stick to ‘the rules’). I mean, imagine the frustration of those trying to manage things. However lenient a parent’s style might be, when kids seem incapable of working things out for themselves, and an occasion calls for it, boundaries and rules are laid down and have to be enforced And just as kids do, some people were busily disobeying the rules, whether for devilment or on principle. Whatever.

I doubt, though, whether Boris sat at his desk every night fine-tuning the guidelines so that every Tom, Craig and Jemima could find an answer as to how they in particular should behave in the circumstances. Our Covid-19 regulations were drawn up, I imagine, by committees of committees and you’ll possibly be familiar with the old reference to committees being like camels. Or, maybe it was some poor little person in a windowless office with a laptop, churning out rules;  straw into gold, like in the Miller’s Daughter fairy tale (I wonder who might Rumplestiltskin be in such a scenario - your guess). And, I seriously doubt whether Boris even read much of those regulations. He was busy making babies and having his flat redecorated.

I think we easily forget that government is a two way process. People react to how government behaves and vice-versa. Rules and legislation came about in the pandemic because so many of us demanded them for our safety. For many people freedom means protection, with rules that ensure the behaviours of others don’t impact on ourselves. I myself have bristled in shops when people seem blithely ignorant of the need for social distancing, stopping myself short of actually demanding more policing of it. I have to remember that my first response to being told that a killer virus was abroad was to exercise common sense. I soon discovered that everyone has a different notion of common sense in which case there’s nothing common about it at all! And then what?

I’m not a Boris fan, but I think his initial task was simply to get us on board with protecting the sadly neglected, under-funded, under-resourced, under-staffed NHS and I doubt he thought much further than that about how human behaviour works. Or am I underestimating him? Brexit? He’s been said to have some talent in ‘reading the mood of the public’….No….that was Cummings et al, surely. Winning the election? You can always win with nice promises. But as everyone knows, you have to keep them if you want others to remain on-side. You have to be seen as honest, sincere and trustworthy. Hmmmm. It looks like he’s been telling porky-pies. Naughty Boris!

Oh dear. This is turning into a ramble through the brambles of the pandemic again and the thorny issue of whether our government has made a hash of it. But I’ve started so I’ll finish. Those parties at Number 10 - If the rule-makers enforce the rules but don’t follow them themselves, what are we to make of it? Well, we can react angrily and demand resignations. After all, so many people lost loved ones without being able to spend last moments with them…..because of the rules. People across the country were being dutiful rule followers while our rule-makers were having parties. I very much doubt (in fact I know) that it wasn’t just Number 10 having parties. Not everyone was following the rules. Nor was it a rule that all happiness be forbidden because of the tragedies befalling others. I had moments of transgression myself though I was careful not to offend or to be a risk to others. I know that to be free I must not intrude on the freedoms of my fellows, but I believe that such deviances were and are necessary to remind ourselves of our individual sovereignty; in a world full of joys as well as hazards. I hope I’m not coming across as callous, but what really is the best way to behave when at any moment we could meet death? Do we shrivel and hide away in darkness, or do we live in the light?

To be honest, I’m not much bothered about whether the gang in Number 10 gathered together in the garden after work for a wee drinkie or two with cucumber sandwiches, canapés or take-aways. Are we still a free country? It’s best not to say one thing and do another, though, as most parents quickly discover, and as as our governors are now discovering, too. However, I’d be much more concerned about our leader if he was an authoritarian autocrat. Maybe that’s what he is - a bully. Certainly there are some, now standing in the wings of government, who could emerge as fully fledged tyrants. Or is he still, in his peculiar bumbling way, maintaining loyalty to libertarian principles……. even if those only apply to himself and his wealthy friends?

In my eyes, Boris is a clown and I didn’t vote for him but I think the furore over parties in Number 10 is a big distraction from the erosion of our freedoms going on elsewhere in government. Look to the Home Office for example and the creep of legislation there. The House of Lords can’t hold it back forever. And who will replace Boris when he falls? Uh-oh.

It’s a farce.

Note that I’m in Wales and have made no mention of Welsh government through the pandemic. Simply put, our Welsh government has a little bark and doesn’t bite very hard. Also, Wales is a lovely land so most of us haven’t complained too much about being locked down in it.

There are of course much bigger issues we can and will fret about, like an impending WW3 if Russia decides to impose itself on Ukrainian liberties, the creep of AI, new virus variants, Climate Change. There’s so much other stuff, but this little blog isn’t the best place for all of that, not at the moment, anyway.

So there I am, dear reader. A little clearer where I stand in relation to the pantomime of our UK government and a bit surer of what freedom means to me at least….I think. I chose not to be boosted for instance but that’s another story, so until next time - please ‘like, share and subscribe’ (only kidding - that’s apparently what you’re supposed to add at the end of blogs and vlogs).

A Yule Blog

Catching up with Facebook I’m late to the party with my seasonal wishes. Sorry. While I’ve not had Covid (as far as I know), I have had writers block. It’s not great having a blocked blog. Anyway, here is my wish for 2022 - that however eventful or uneventful it is, we all manage to hang on to the ideals of peace, goodwill, health and love for all (and by all, I do mean All).

We’ve now slipped into the New Year, whether on ice, oil slick, banana skin or dog poo, and here we all are, still alive (I certainly hope you are, dear reader). Pandemic aside, with all of the divisions it’s brought with it, 2021 was an adventure. I think it’s fair to call it that, even if a lot of the time was spent skipping around trying not to catch something or infect each other (some of us anyway). Mask wearing became more casual and at the tail end of the year people were queuing up for vaccination boosters instead of amusement park rides. If this becomes a regular thing it might be good to involve Merlin Entertainments in ways to keep the socially distancing queue (contradiction in terms?) happily distracted while they wait. It is a British talent, though - queuing. Maybe we actually, deep down, enjoy it.

A year ago, at chez nous we added four spaniels to the world of dogs. It didn’t do their mother much good though and poor Pwdin has been on a series of medical treatments ever since for some strange, unidentifiable malaise. It’s hard to have much confidence in any diagnosis as the vets at our usual surgery get younger every time we attend, as do so many of the professionals we come into contact with these days. It’s a truism to say that we get older every year and I’d like to stop counting, but it’s always a disconcerting surprise to be met with a child doctor, vet, nurse, police-man or whatever. And then there are politicians, too…..let’s not go there.

Ha! Gareth just interjected by reading me comments from a dog-blog discussing the amount of hair shed by spaniels. Hmmm, I didn’t need it confirmed on-line, Gareth; I’d appreciate it if you’d just vacuum as often as I seem to! (As I write, he’s still reading the blog)

Dragging last year’s memories from the recycling bin in my brain, we had our summer time at the caravan and turned the house over to AirBnB. It was a good way to keep the place dog-hair free though Gareth was regularly commenting on the amount of hair people left in the shower. We were pleased, however, that most guests treated the place respectfully and when we moved ourselves back in in November we haven’t had to fully redecorate and refurnish. If we AirBnB again this summer, though, we may well have to redecorate and refurnish as the present incumbents (us) haven’t been quite as respectful.

As I sit, I occasionally look up for a glimpse of sunshine through my dirty window (argh! there are snot marks where the dogs sit with their noses to the glass pining for the great outdoors that they know exists somewhere beyond our little yard). Anyway, now that I’ve added window cleaning to my post-Christmas house-keeping list, I can go back to digging into that memory bin. Special memories, like my son’s weddings, are, of course, safely stored, though I must be sure to properly archive them with the family history archive that my mother bestowed on us. Actually, she intended that my younger sister inherited it, but it seems to have remained with me along with the enormous archive of writings from both our parents, currently stuffed into the under-stair cupboard, the attic and little bedroom. If we’re making New Year resolutions, one of mine is to make a new assault on those boxes, reducing the volume sufficiently that when I pop my own clogs, it’s manageable for the next generation. I’ll never know what they choose to do with it, of course, but the importance my parents placed on it has certainly weighed with me. I don’t place much value on stuff, but I do have enormous difficulty disposing of things people have written. Heck, my heart churns after each visit by the grandchildren as I have to decide what to do with their ‘artwork’ and little written messages. My mother had the same problem, which is why clearing my parents’ home was such a heart-rending (and back-breaking, time-consuming) chore.

Some of the greatest delights one has as a grand-parent, is time with grand-children, even when they like to point out, as they often do, that one is old and likely to die soon. I’m lucky in being able to see two of mine regularly but the pandemic threw down a huge obstacle course between me and my other two, who live in the Midlands. We did have them to stay with us at the caravan for a few days in August though, and it was very special. I am acutely aware, however, that both of my grandsons are rapidly approaching the point of knowing grandparents as just wrinkly, hard-of-hearing things that move slowly, make naff jokes, and are utterly stupid. Soon I’ll be watching them from afar instead of having them cuddle up to me in bed after a sleep over. As a struggling-to-keep-up-with-everything young mum, I looked forward to the days when my kids were more self-sufficient. As a grandmother, I grieve (as I also celebrate, of course) each new step that my grandchildren take towards maturity. Of course, I praise the blossoming that I’ve seen in my now-mature sons, but my grandchildren are to me precious buds that herald a new Spring; little flowers turning their heads to the sun, ready to burst into full growth, and I do so enjoy the early Spring! My own petals started dropping off a while ago. I’m shrinking, too - a fact noted with great delight by my older grandson who will very soon be taller than me. With each inch upwards that he acquires, I appear to lose one! 

These children are getting too smart, by far. The other evening we took an evening walk for Reuben and Ivy to see the Christmas lights on people’s houses. It was about 5.00 pm so maybe people weren’t at home or hadn’t switched on and I expressed my disappointment and dismay at the limited show. Reuben then pointed out that I don’t even have any Christmas lights adorning our house-front so can’t really complain. He got me there. 

Looking up again from this page, the snot marks on the patio door window have disappeared into the shatter of raindrops and the sky has turned grey. Gareth will soon complain about me being still in my dressing gown and the need for us to get out for exercise and air. The dogs have given up on me completely, and have gone back to their beds. The grey doesn’t quite call me out, I must admit. There’s been no white Christmas - just a mild and soggy one. We venture out each day knowing that we’ll have three soggy doggies needing major mud-removal before putting on our slippers, pouring a brew and sitting in front of our virtual fire (such a comforting illusion, this YouTube fireside!) COP26 happened (you know I’d have to bring it up at some point) and I’m waiting to see how much effect my meagre attempts to reverse climate change have had. Can’t see anything yet, I’m afraid. By the way, if you’ve not seen it, watch ‘Don’t Look Up’ on Netflix - entertaining as well as meaningful. 

Well, I’m just about blogged out, now, dear reader. The blog is backing up again and I’m wary about flushing it with any flow of new random thoughts from my Christmas-addled brain. Best just to wait and let it clear. Gareth is bustling about, making the point that he’s now ready to venture into the great known and the dogs have awoken, braced to pull his sled (as if). So, I’d best get myself dressed and in the meantime wish you all the very best and hope to see you in 2022.

Certainties

Rift

The most valuable thing about travelling is that it gives you a new perspective on things. As I sit here with my morning cuppa, I think about my Canadian kin, sleeping half a world away. I so recently shared their day-to-day, looking at the world through their eyes.

I am no longer the person I was before I leapt from this corner of the globe, flying through different time zones to land on Canadian soil (tarmac, actually, thank goodness). I treasure my memory and joy of those welcoming hugs. And those lovely, familiar faces appearing in the flesh before me was miraculous. It was my own domain that was suddenly half a world away. I’m back at home now, and in the same way that we might edit our holiday photos, my mind is busy sifting and sorting the views I was presented with in those five very special weeks.

My environmentalism had made me feel guilty about taking a plane. I remembered the beautiful, plane-free, blue skies of lockdown, feeling the earth breathe clearly for a moment. But air-travel made it possible to be at my son’s wedding. I guess that makes me a doting mum but nevertheless a hypocrite. I arrived in BC at the tail end of an unprecedented (there’s that word again) heatwave. My brother-in-law was red-eyed-tired from managing fire-fighting crews and at my son’s lakeside home the ominous presence of wildfire smoke across the water focussed my mind on how climate change is a reality, making the urgency of reversing it more apparent. And yet, enfolded there in my family, I learned that any suggestion of a ‘climate emergency’ is taken with a pinch of salt - fake news put out by ‘the media’ to keep us all enslaved and compliant in a paralysis of fear.

Smoke

Back at home, not only is ‘the media’ full of talk about the climate emergency but a dear friend of mine is in jail for her part in an Extinction Rebellion protest. She’s 82 and passionate about the need to draw attention to the issue. But she has drawn a lot of abuse on the chat feeds for her actions and as her friend I felt the need to counter some of them. The responses were very unpleasant (one threatened to bury me) and left me wondering why we have to be so rude to each other. What has happened to thoughtful, respectful dialogue? I am using an on-line platform to write this blog, but I have come to deplore how on-line communication is full of vitriol and fabrication.

When visiting a funfair as a child with my grandmother, our favourite attraction was the Magic Mirrors. Her laughter at the distorted images she saw of herself was infectious, drawing in others to see what was so hilarious. The image of ourselves that we see in others is very often not one that we recognise and seldom do we find the distortion amusing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could laugh hilariously instead of attacking the ‘mirror’.

Then there’s Covid-19. That has divided us, and big time! To travel to Canada I had to have proof of being double-vaccinated; a vaccination ‘passport’ in other words. My sister practices Ayurvedic medicine and is refusing to be vaccinated even if it means she will be barred from travel and entry to various establishments. She and her family are part of BC’s push-back against the creep of bureaucratic pressures that limit freedom and choice, claiming that so many Covid-related restrictions are illegal. Throughout my visit I witnessed widespread distrust of ‘the powers that be’ and of the corporate media. It’s somewhat the same on this side of the planet, of course. Who knows what information to trust? To accept that Science knows what it’s doing when we roll up our sleeves for some strange substance to be injected into us is a huge leap of faith. Yes, the vaccines were tested, but let’s face it, it’s still early days and there is much yet to learn about how they affect us; it’s still experimental. Similarly worrying, many of those who have accepted their part in this global experiment (out of fear, or solidarity….whatever), are evangelical about the need for it; vociferous in their criticism of those refusing it. I took the vaccine in spite of my reservations, thinking of myself as something of a guinea pig in advance of my family receiving it. My own brood have now all had it. It was their own choice. I now have to hope and pray that the awful implications so many of the anti-vaxxers predict, don’t materialise.

Fake news. How do we identify it? How do we find truth in a world where narratives contradict each other? What can we count on as arbiters of truth? Science? The Law? The Bible or Quran or whatever? Few trust politicians any more. 

This photo appeared in The Guardian 23 Nov 2020

Logic is seeing coherence in a set of premises, theory or viewpoint. Science, like detective work, is seeking evidence for a theory or viewpoint. A theory may be coherent and have internal consistency, yet lack evidence or be based on flawed evidence.  Also, investigations can turn up evidence to support (or refute) a theory yet miss that which goes the other way. An investigation which is in the pay of some commercial interest is unlikely to be trustworthy. For instance, the mobile phone company Motorola carried out a ‘scientific’ study into the connection between mobile phones and headaches. Also, many scientists, keen to promote themselves, may well be less than rigorously objective. The overlooking of inconvenient contradictions is well documented in the history of Science.  Nevertheless, inductive reasoning or empirical method is the tool of both science and legal investigation in establishing fact. What other way is there? We just have to do it right and remember that our ‘truth’ can be overturned in the light of new evidence. This is true for journalism as well.

“Follow the money” is a good mantra if we’re unsure of the motive behind a piece of news or propaganda.  But, if you are a conspiracy theorist it’s an inconvenient fact that many have made money inadvertently from this ‘pandemic’ (excuse the inverted commas - some argue that it’s just another flu and there is no pandemic). Does the acquisition of new wealth in this context mean that Covid-19 is a sinister invention for the very purpose of benefitting from it? No - correlation is not necessarily causation. 

The case is still on-going, of course, as to whether a bio-weapon escaped or was deliberately released from a lab in Wuhan; whether the mortality rates have been exaggerated; whether health services have been overwhelmed (in Canada and many other places, apparently not); whether the event is providing governments with an excuse for authoritarianism and repression; whether a virus was created by Big Pharma in order to boost their profits…..and so on, as we all try to dig deep into ‘what the heck is going on’. Certainly it’s an unfolding story. I don’t think any of us knows how the story will end, and none of us can claim to be certain of any of it (oops, I just contradicted myself - I should have said “maybe it’s an unfolding story….”) 

So what do we do in these circumstances. We are free to believe what we want, I guess, and I will contradict myself again by saying that while I would caution anyone to be too sure of anything I have nevertheless often admired people with a strength of conviction; it’s what leadership is made of. You have to wonder, though, about lemmings……(and sheep, and cults, and wars). So often we have been warned about the danger of blindly following along. George Orwell comes to mind - “Animal Farm” was on the pre-16 school curriculum at one time.

One evening in Canada we watched ‘The Matrix’. Gareth and I recently watched ‘The Matrix Reloaded’. I’ve been told that actor Keanu Reeves maintains that the film is not fiction but a documentary. ‘Matrix 4’ is due to come out this winter and I’m curious what its message will be. Dastardly plots, conspiracy and corruption is what good suspenseful movies are made of. They can feed into our consciousness such that our ‘suspension of disbelief’ becomes permanent and the fiction becomes a reality. I wonder - do such movies create or alert us to conspiracies? ‘Animal Farm’ was Orwell’s commentary on the folly of Communism, according to my teachers and according to the literati. I’ve never spoken with Orwell, however, so do I trust that information? Maybe he was simply telling a silly story about a bunch of pigs who took over a farmyard. I’d better track down Keanu and the creator of the Matrix movies to find out whether they are allegorical, factual or just entertainingly fictional. Oh boy - that means getting on a plane again, and will they speak to me anyway? Will they tell me ‘the truth’?

When a story popped up recently about a horrific event in the Danish Faro islands it would be a comfort to think of it as fake news; that a massive pod of dolphins were not really lured to a barbaric death and then rotted away as a result of there being too much meat for the islanders to use. 

While I do have the choice to believe or disbelieve that humans are on course to destroy ourselves and the planet, to ignore the alarm bells seems foolish to me. There is good science and bad science, but for me there looks to be very strong evidence for us humans having brought about a climate emergency. Am I a lemming, then, running toward the cliff, duped into believing a lie? Is the ‘real’ story that I am some sort of cash-cow, an enslaved tax-payer, farmed for the sinister desires of a small but super-powerful elite? The number who think so is growing, “waking up” apparently and ready to resist. 

One thing that my Canadian sister and I agree on is that humans have the capacity to overcome the dark and sinister elements of our world through love, hope and positivity. We really do have the power to manifest a better world simply by imagining and living it. My sister and I may be following different narratives but ultimately we both want a happy and healthy future for our descendants.  

And so, on both sides of the planet my family lives, breathes and tries to make sense of things. It’s a shame we can’t all be on the same page of the story, and we don’t even know if we’re reading the same book, or even using the same language. Things are, nevertheless what they are in spite of what we think they are (note my form of the “it is what it is” current mantra). Truth will out eventually though, and of that I really am certain.

I have downloaded this photo from Pinterest
Chinchillagirl2950 on Deviant Art

O Canada

 The other day I hiked 10k with my sister, my nieces and a friend to the 2,250m top of well-named Granite Mountain and gazed with awe at the surrounding peaks and mountainous skyline. We stood for a photo where my niece Holly poses brides and grooms for dramatic wedding shots after hauling them up the steep and rocky track by foot or on quad bikes. She showed me where one of the models for her red sheet photo series had posed for her and my legs turned to jelly just thinking about the treacherousness of it - a scantily dressed female robed in a flowing red sheet perched on the edge of a hundreds-of-feet high sheer wall of granite. My niece Becca gave her another photo op on a similar ledge, which added to my jelly-leggedness. 

Life with my Canadian family is always eventful. Next day, my brother-in-law, Peter, took a rare day off to get us all up to a wilderness park lake with their motor boat. Bearing in mind that the boat had been purchased as a reject and not been on the water for at least two years, this was a dicey idea. An adventure in the making, picnic and survival gear prepared, we set off on the long trek up into the park. It’s worth pointing out here that this Wells Gray Park is the size of Wales with just 20 miles of road into it. The road stops at the start of Clearwater lake and from then on the only way into the park is by boat. They don’t call it a wilderness park for nothing. To give a sense of the scale of things here, the park is a mere dot on the map of British Columbia. This is BIG country!

At the boat launch I stood around looking to see where I might be helpful but realising that my knowledge of boating was rather limited, I left it to the apparently more knowledgeable crew to get the craft into the water. Duly packed with all the gear plus my pregnant niece Holly, Peter reversed down the boat launch. The ominous sound of a ratchet alerted us to the boat having decided to launch itself prematurely and slide off the trailer onto the slipway. The propellor hit the concrete with a hard metal sound and a disaster was unfolding before our eyes. In these situations the screeching of bystanders isn’t particularly helpful so it’s a good thing that Adam, having got to the lake before us with Becca and their own boat, was there to help out, catching the ratchet to pull the boat back onto the trailer. Such a scary moment, seeing Holly’s imminent danger of being tipped out of the thing.

Finally in the water, a narrowly-escaped pregnant Holly, engaged with her father and Adam to get the motor running. Once again I sat back, taking in the scenery and watching with interest as the trio wrestled with a particularly obstinate machine. Meanwhile kayakers came and went from the little wooden dock. I saw them holding their breath to avoid inhaling fumes from the coughing and unco-operative motor boat that we had dragged unceremoniously into the peace of this vast, wild, clear and beautiful lake.

We took off from the dock without warning as the motor suddenly came to life. Adam, half dockside and half boat-side had to leap out of the way, shove his own little Becca-contained boat out the way too as our craft shot noisily and smokily out across the water. With Peter at the helm, for a few minutes we contemplated the adventures awaiting us further up the lake, and then the engine burned out.

Dreams are often a reflection of the very-nearly disasters of the day. Drifting off to sleep with thoughts of how fortunate we were to have lost the engine so close to the launch site with Becca and Adam available to tow us back in, I shivered thinking about how differently it might have gone. Had we been further up into the park with nothing but a pair of oars to get us back I pictured my sister, my niece, my brother-in-law and I, all with our different ideas of how to deal with the situation, coming inevitably to verbal blows, with our young German companion, Kat, calling desperately into the vastness for help.

As it happened we did enjoy the rest of the day once the boat was back securely on the trailer. We watched salmon jumping at Bailey’s Chute and stared with awe into the canyon below the spectacular Helmcken Falls. A good day was had by all, for sure…..except maybe Peter whose fit-bit registered a significant spike in his stress levels.

Helmcken falls is 141m high (463ft)

And thanks to Holly for most of these photos.

……and then!

 

Just a birthday beach party?

My son got married! 

It had been a well kept secret, from him anyway. Izzy had insisted through the years that she never wanted to marry. He’d resigned himself to the fact and then, on his 40th birthday, she presented herself to him, with a celebrant standing by and a marriage certificate ready to sign.

It was a beautiful day. Friends had participated in the subterfuge and in expertly organised fashion, set up the ceremonial stage on the property beachfront while William was canoed away for an apparent spot of birthday fishing. He duly complied in spite of his bemused reservations at having to leave his birthday party and when well out of sight of the activities at home he was presented with the proposal - by a series of photos on a fellow canoeist’s phone of the four Maine Coon house cats, each with an attached note to spell out “Will….you….marry….me?” Returning to the beach he had to hoist a Welsh flag for ‘yes’, which he duly did and a surrendered Izzy drifted diaphanously out to meet him with Lewie, the biggest cat, in her arms. 

William had never suspected a thing in all of the months leading up to the occasion.

So my two younger sons are now married. Richard and Libby marry shortly after I return home from here in BC and I will have a clutch of daughters-in-law. I’m getting used to the idea of being outnumbered but I’m so grateful for the additional female energy they bring into the family, along with my two little grand-daughters.

There’s nothing like a wedding to make one emotional, and this was no exception. Tears were order of the day for a good few of us, each with our different reasons. Listening to a couple make their vows to each other, gives everyone pause for thought. Those are big promises. As a mother I enjoyed seeing my son’s happiness shine out as he embraced his lady and looked into her eyes as he made those vows. As a woman who broke her own wedding vows I reflect on the challenges of keeping them. My darling sister, whose marriage is still strong (see previous blog post) stayed beside me, knowing instinctively what was churning in my mind.

Back at home my steadfast partner, Gareth, holds fort. He came to this ceremony as a finger puppet along with William’s brothers and their little families. He and I have been together now for twenty seven years without taking the step of getting a marriage certificate. Maybe we will and maybe we won’t. Who knows.

In another life I might have been like my sister, carving out a life and living in this vast country with my husband. It scared me then and it scares me now even though I sit comfortably on the beach, signs of the weekend party mostly cleared away, waves on the the lake rocking me gently, forested mountains basking benignly in a smoke-free sky and nothing for the moment to worry about. I can’t help but think, however, about my attachment to home, my partner and the rest of the family. I will be going home before long, leaving the newly weds to their life together. I am thankful and assured that my middle son has made a choice that brings him happiness and this is the place now where he belongs.

Why am I going fishing?

That’s it! Signed!

Look what I got for my birthday!

The family came too!

All together now

The land of the free and fearless

The farm - it was the second family home

It rained again -  a real blessing for the heat and fire-fighters. At my sister’s lovely home the other night we sat on her deck watching the storm. It was better than any firework display. Drama in the sky. 

It’s impossible to be in this environment, so recently a new frontier for Europeans, not to be awed by its wild grandeur. My sister and brother-in-law forged a life here from the moment of their arrival in British Columbia nearly forty years ago. I remember the scale and difficulty of what they’d embarked upon having seen it first hand when we joined them for a few months in those early days. They succeeded, after mighty efforts, and against all odds it seemed at the time, in making a home, a family and a livelihood, putting Clearwater on the map for tourists and becoming an essential part of the growing community. Now, while they live comfortably in the lovely riverside log home that they built near town, they are still frontiersmen, constantly pushing the boundaries of possibility. The family are a firm, involved in a multi-faceted business that includes farming, logging, tourism packages and fire-fighting. My tiny niece Rebecca manfully leads one of the crews. She is impressive, with all of the indefatigable nature of her dad and an independence of spirit like her mother. She, her sister Holly and older brother Ben were brought up in this environment and are formidable products of a life built on the edge of wilderness. Holly, a photographer, treks into impossible places taking brides and grooms for spectacular backdrops to their nuptials. Ben, an engineer, has narrowly escaped death many times with his adventurous and dare-devil adventures. Their partners are no less impressive. Ben’s Claudia is a vet who can manhandle cows with ease. Holly’s Angus has bagged bear and deer, so they’ll never be short of a meal for their imminent little family. Adam, who towers over tiny Rebecca has settled into life here from his home in Tasmania and has proved himself fully up to the tasks of building a home and living in the extremes. The lives of these young people are following in the footsteps of the alpha male and female. As I write, the family are busy in the rain pulling up the maintenance-requiring pumps from their well. It’s no small operation! 

Seeing how this family lives and works, in spite of the many developments that have made life easier for them, I am made to think about how so many of us have forgotten how to be resourceful. We have become so dependent on institutions to provide for our health, wealth and security. We have enslaved ourselves to so many things in our desire for comfort. One major consequence is the extent to which addiction is a feature of modern life. In a world where living on one’s wits, fitness and resilience appears to be unnecessary, where the god is Mammon and it’s so difficult to discern truth from deception, is it any surprise that so many take potions to deaden the angst and confusion.

This house is fuelled by conversation. There is a daily mid-morning coffee ritual that draws in friends and neighbours for a catch up on news and business, of social issues that could benefit from some kindly intervention, of politics, dark or otherwise and of more lofty spiritual things. My feeling is of a well established, wholesome environment headed by two now-mature, if eccentric, characters - my younger sis and her hubby, a great team that I’ve seen develop through the many years. He has described her as the CEO of the family and she describes him as Methuselah. The titles are spot on.

Sis assessing the work needed at the farm house

Sis researching stuff

There’s a big river at the bottom of the garden

Sis in her veg garden 

All hands on deck