Hope springs eternal

Tuesday 2nd February, 2021

Another strange day and disappointing but maybe at the moment all days are...I need to change my mind set. Ms Sturgeon has kept the lockdown going and I had hoped we might be able to see a person or two. Nor has my notification come as to a date for the jab but that is not really important as they are being done. I hate the negative but have to face it so I ask will the jab cope with a mutating virus? However as I do not know I decide to hope and to be positive. I accept the lockdown but will want a justification.

Marvellously I found a gap in the sleet and rain when I could get out for a walk with my grabber. I had to be back before Tesco delivery so I left at 12.45 and returned by 13.45 and Tesco arrived at 14.32. The bill came to over £95 and yet there seemed to be very little for that amount of money. Life is expensive and I wonder how the poor and unemployed cope here let alone in the third world as we call it.

On the walk I came across our local postman. He is ever cheerful so I yelled across at him and asked where my letter from the NHS was and why I had not been sent one. He scoffed and said he was always being asked that question. Then he told me that his 93 year old Mother had not received hers either!

Further on I picked up a large piece of litter outside a small house where the householder was chatting to a neighbour. I knew the latter so jokingly shook the litter at them and said I was appalled at their behaviour! They laughed. I then asked if they had had the jab and both replied simultaneously 'Friday'. That is the same day as my landlady. She is struggling badly with pain. She fell the other day and her back is very sore. A tooth broke also and her mouth and throat are very painful and seem swollen. She does not want to take pain killers as the pamphlet accompanying her invite to the jab said be careful re any medicines. What is false what is true, what to do what not to do? Ever confusing.

This afternoon after Tesco as my landlady was in Paris on a Virtualtrip I went to get a film off SKY cinema which somehow we have. I chose a brilliant yet deeply disturbing film: ' The wind that shakes the barley '. It was about the fight for freedom of the Irish Republic. It is a time I know little of because my Grand Father was shot in Dublin at that time. My Grand Mother never spoke of it and did not want it discussed. She sank in to poverty with her five children. I have no resentment nor any real emotions concerning it but I adored my Grand Mother. The film was terrifying in the number of conflicting theories and decisions having to be made. The Irish man against the Irish man against the English man and so on. Most disturbing the brother against brother. How horrifying is war, is any war and civil war included. I know families divided over issues, even such issues as Brexit but when it turns to killing or even to cutting off from each other one goes in to the realm of true pain. How do we discern the right cause? How far do we go? I pray I would stand for freedom but to the point of non aggression, yet how do peoples gain against the enemy? How will Russia stand up to Putin, or Syria to Assad, or Hong Kong to Xi? Perhaps people do not want to.....

I pray for peace and understanding, for tolerance and mutual respect. Am I living in cloud cuckoo land as I hope? No....for all things are possible to God. I firmly believe that. Also I believe in the goodness of man and that love will win even if in the grave.