It’s been a depressing few days since Trump Mark II was elected, and I’ve kept away from social media and news sites (even my beloved Guardian) for fear of falling into a deep and gloomy hole. It’s clearly going to take a while longer. Emergency cheering-up procedures have centred round food: I admit to a self-indulgent Worcester Burger Shop delivery, and there’s making scones (and I put clotted cream on the Waitrose order), an apple Charlotte, a full roast-pork-with-crackling dinner last night … Having the wood stove lit over the weekend was also good.
Most unusually for me, I didn’t observe the Silence either yesterday on Remembrance Sunday (10th), or today on Armistice Day (11th), though I have as usual been wearing the White Poppy from All Souls’ Day onwards. There’s a whole area of thinking about death and destruction which is starting to seem more imminent again: Trump, Putin, Chinese expansionism. I know that my generation is historically exceptional in having avoided living through a war that had direct domestic impacts, but I’m increasingly concerned that we may yet see one.
As distraction, there have been Green Party newsletters. Lots and lots of them, including two batches for Bromsgrove. In fact, I’ve done nearly 17,000 over the last ten days, at around three hours a day. I’ll think about asking for them to be a bit more spread out in future! Still, it’s been the kind of thing that requires enough attention to stop me ruminating, without actually being mentally demanding, so that’s all good. And I’ve taken the plunge to “upgrade” both laptops and the upstairs desktop to Windows 11 – a more mentally demanding task! However, it’s necessary if I’m going to successfully sync data on the newer, more powerful, but much bigger Thinkpad to the elderly T460s, which has been a struggle to keep going but is more convenient. The plan is to have both in simultaneous use for as long as the old one holds out.
On a more positive note, the assorted “any time but Christmas” cacti have been flowering profusely, and the winter jasmine outside the French window is magnificent (and there’s some in a vase indoors – just about the only flower still going).
