TB and Covid

Sunday 11th October, 2020

Another dry day with sunshine. The blustery wind however is cold. A day to wear a vest, shirt, pullover and coat plus mittens and scarf.

After streaming a Mass from New Brunswick, Canada, with a sermon on Thanksgiving, I decided to head out to pick more wild apples. My AGA owning friend has agreed that I can stew them at hers tomorrow and let them drip over night. I shall probably add lavender again so as to have some more jars of lavender scented apply jelly. It is delicious. Then one pulps the left over apples through a sieve. I added fresh apples to that pulp last week and made a crumble. I used the usual butter, flour and added muesli with raisins and nuts. Again tasty especially when it is with cream.

I have picked two bags of apples. On the way back home I popped in to Leuchars Railway Station to get a ticket for my visit to Edinburgh on Wednesday. Fife County Council have a marvellous and generous scheme of £1 rail tickets for anywhere in Fife if one has a bus pass. So I shall be off to Inverkeiting where I will change for a train to Edinburgh. I chatted to the lady ticket inspector. We had a long chat re Covid and the reaction of Governments. She told me that she had looked up the WHO website and discovered that over 1,000,000 people in the world died from TB last year and over 10,000,000 had suffered the disease. It is rife in the third world! "They, or should I say we, do not care. It is a disease for poor countries and poor people without a voice. Look at the fuss we make re Covid and not a squeak re TB" she said. " I am utterly horrified and disgusted and shamed", she added. I was stunned.

She gave me the train times and said I had to pick up the ticket on the day. " I am on duty Wednesday so I will see you then" she added cheerfully. What a lovely woman.

I noted the changing Autumn colours again and drove back via some small coastal villages. Balm for the soul. It is Thanksgiving week end in Canada so I too joined in with prayers of gratitude.

After a short siesta and some reading and two letters I decided on a quick walk to clear my head. So through the private Park noting the swans but no herons. I pondered the lovely names of groups of birds. I recalled four: a round of robins, a murder of crows, a quarrel of sparrows and a murmuration of starling. I heard two or three major quarrellings of sparrows as I passed hedgerows.

Then at 5pm my allotment friend arrived. She gave me a superb leek dug an hour before from her land. I shall have it for supper. That is what I call fresh.

How about describing my day as a ' purring of satisfaction ' with a ' squall of sadness '.

I am indeed truly grateful....thanks to all Creation.