Decisions

Monday 21st December, 2020

I am mildly unsurprised by the panic food buying as ferries to the Continent are suspended. I am not surprised by a blustering Prime Minister waffling on about getting an agreement. It all seems so surreal but is not because I know the food banks in Dundee are much in demand, because I have tasted the panic of people in a shop I went in to. A friend tells me her nurse niece has been inoculated in Aberdeen so some vaccine is getting through. I have had a dozen emails about people having to change their plans re Christmas. It is just a fact that we are trying to live in a new environment and we are not in control. We are not good at being stymied. I hope we use this experience effectively and learn from all the angst and inefficiencies and ridiculous statements and counter statements and conspiracy theories and false news. It just seems so surreal as I have said. Do people truly believe, as I have read recently, that the vaccine injection is a vehicle for the Government to inject us with aliens and thus control us? I happen to believe we need to have a cautious approach and some suspicion and surveillance of Government and big business and I applaud the bodies that do so, such as Amnesty International. Yet I also believe trust is an essential ingredient of a civilised society as it is of a functioning and loving family.

Today I have been pondering and ruminating on the question of disagreement, compromise and tolerance and acceptance. There are a series of plans for this Christmas involving my household and a bubble of four people in all. One person has kindly invited us all to Christmas lunch, to sleep over ( it may not be permitted but at present is legal ) as well as to decorate the Christmas tree, a ritual she enjoys and which has been part of her life since she can remember. Personally I do not enjoy hours faffing over a tree or twittering on in endless hours of socialising and four hours to eat a lunch and everyone to play their part in its preparation. Then the ghastly 'pressie opening' as dictated by 47 years of tradition. I have given my opinion and, sadly, upset more than half the bubble. Should I state my point or simply allow myself to be sucked in to it all and wear a rictus smile of delight? Or should I resist what I consider an attempt to control me as well as force a fake jollity and demanding the spending of time in enforced tedious peculiarities? This is a petty discussion but it bears on a wider and more essential issue. How and when do we stand up for what we believe is right and confront what we think is wrong? Each of us has the gift of freedom, of thought, of self determination, of conscience and we cannot simply hand them over to others. We must take responsibility for our beliefs and actions which, of course, include the rights of others. It is, I suppose, simply another attempt to define, understand and execute love.

I could easily enjoy being on my own with a Christmas pudding and thickened cream and nought else, so long as the Dover blockade allows me to have such luxuries! But I am part of a whole and must consider the other parts. It seems, and I am amazed, that the other three want me to participate!

Much of this muddled me and confused me and I came to no conclusions as I walked with my new Litter grabber through Fife countryside. At least I could curse the litter bugs and feel better for it! There was no shortage of litter! Perhaps with a shortage of food we will have fewer wrappings, plastic bottles, cans and other food detritus on our streets and in our fields and thus in the stomachs of our creatures.

It is surreal in some ways but then reality is surreal!!