Here in St Mary on the Wold, where to be honest, not much happens in the usual turn of events, the largely middle-income Guardian and Telegraph reading mostly elderly residents, go about their daily lives in much the same fashion as they always have done in similar places across middle England. Many of them are retired public sector workers with children who are mostly following in the family tradition, even if, at the moment, they are either unwilling or unable to live locally due to the cost of housing in the area.
However, don’t think for one moment that mom and dad have been short of attention from their children and grandchildren during the pandemic, as most have had no problem with that at all, even at Christmas when, if you remember the media experts and various politicians were forever telling their captive audiences on the mainstream media that to go home at Christmas was tantamount to giving granny (not grandad for some reason) a death sentence. It was heartening to see that all the dire warnings went mostly, it seems, unheeded as visitors arrived from afar, sometimes from what we must now call foreign countries to stay – very quietly of course – for the muted festivities and then disappearing into the night once January came.
January was a quiet month and a long one here. The weather didn’t help for a start and even country dwellers can tire of an east wind, fog, and rain turning roads into muddy quagmires as water pours off the fields as streams and rivers flood in the locality. We have a grand total of three rivers in the area, all of which have flooded again, but thankfully this time as yet not causing any great distress or damage, although one brave soul found out the hard way that his go anywhere off road 4×4 was actually not equipped to drive through a fast flowing torrent of muddy water two meters deep and had to call out the emergency services to be rescued as the vehicle turned into an out of control boat and was carried off into even deeper water.
Some people it seems never heed actual signage placed near flooded rivers by the agents of local government, but prefer to have faith in their own inflated ideas of their driving skills and the hype provided by vehicle marketing departments as they strive to sell yet another vastly expensive over complicated vehicle to people who ordinarily would only drive the vehicle across a the local supermarket car park on a wet day and then only when they have checked the weather forecast on the BBC.
Fortunately, we missed out for the most part on the heavy snow and arctic conditions that hit the country mostly north-east of the Wold, which is just as well as, being up high, when we do get a heavy snowfall it drifts and lingers around the place for sometimes weeks afterwards. This time though, it only caused a minor disruption as most of the residents who would normally be at a workplace are, thanks to Dishi Rishi throwing taxpayers’ money around as if it’s going out of fashion and will never have to be repaid, still tirelessly working away at home.
Just what working from home means is not particularly clear, as whole families, complete with their newly acquired – during lockdown one – puppies of mostly exotic heritage, which is the new and expensive description for dogs that are not pedigree and which for generations were known as mongrels and have now turned into badly behaved adult dogs, parade for hours on end around the public ‘millennium green’ and lanes and by-ways of the area. The dogs are mostly off lead and prone to charge at anyone near them or worse still chase animals, particularly sheep, much to the annoyance of local farmers, while woolly hatted, quilted jacket Annabel and Quinton, shout despairing after Bella or Milo before clambering back into the family SUV along with children Poppy and George and disappear back to Audi Avenue.
All those children, apparently suffering educational and mental health problems due to missing their school and other friends and having their education and future prospects ruined, benefited greatly from the inclement weather, spending endless hours on the local hills snowball fighting and sledging. Not on home-made sledges of times gone past but with brightly coloured plastic sledges thoughtfully suddenly on sale in the non-essential goods aisles of local supermarkets and of course from on-line sources delivered by couriers who have not the choice of working from home and facing not only working temperatures and conditions never before experienced according to some media sources, since, well, the last time we had some winter type weather during January or February. If one took any notice of forecast or predictions one would never venture outside in these two months, even if living in the middle of one of our major cities.
One wonders how that sits with the younger generation’s views on climate change, non-essential travel, social distancing rules and their worries about losing much valued online tuition provided by their school. The fact that most schools would never have allowed pupils out in inclement weather due to Health and Safety ‘issues’ seems not to matter to teachers, parents and authority figures in general when its suits, and is perhaps something which, when the country returns to some semblance of normality, if it ever does, will have to be decided.
Although hopefully not by political and scientific and psychological experts and elites that have done such a wonderful job of frightening much of the population during the emergency of the last year or so. One wonders when an event of some sort stops being an emergency and becomes the normal state of affairs? Certainly, Boris Johnson, apparently the Prime Minister, does not appear to have been attending something called a ‘cobra’ meeting of late, so perhaps the gravitas and drama of it all and having to appear on live TV press briefings is starting to wane somewhat. Or perhaps he’s been told by his ‘spouse in waiting’ that he’d be better employed by cleaning up after the dog, or at least training it not to destroy the nation’s antique furniture on loan to the many temporary residents of ‘Chequers.’
One head teacher has certainly had enough of the doom and gloom forecasts promulgated in social media and the mainstream media. Neil Wallace, a Headteacher of a school in Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire, has written to parents, telling them that we have had enough of what he calls ‘catastrophizing’ and how it can be disparaging being bombarded daily with talk about mental health problems, a lost covid generation and all the rest. He says that it all needs to be put into perspective and we should look at the new skills pupils and students have learned, for instance how to use technology in different ways and learning self-reliance and resilience.
Something that many of their parents and grandparents would do well to do. Far too many it seems have had life far too easy for too long and expect that life, in their view of course, should remain, as people from a previous generation would have said, ‘rosy.’ Anyway, he went on, feeling bored, confused, anxious, worried, and sad are normal responses and should not be ‘medicalised.’
I can almost hear the chorus of disapproval from the experts on social and mainstream media over what, to many, would be common sense comments regarding a situation that, only two generations ago, students, pupils, teachers or anybody else, would, in the main, have just got on with, which is, by the way, what the populations of many less affluent countries have had to do right from the start of this pandemic.
At last, somebody in education taking a different view. Makes a change from that other Headteacher who, after cancelling lessons so that kids could go and play in the snow, said she expected that somebody would complain, but went to say that ‘she just didn’t care.’ There speaks the voice of somebody on the public payroll without a care in the world, not for her worries about finding the money for unexpected childcare when school is closed, or maybe losing a day’s pay, or indeed wondering, having lost a job or business through no fault of their own, just how bills are going to be met.
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.
As Norman writes in his third paragraph……. ” We have a grand total of three rivers in the area, all of which have flooded again….. ” That is not surprising. The UK government has ordered a huge reduction in the dredging of UK rivers since the start of this century. This was in obedience to a Water Framework Directive from Brussels.
The Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC) introduced a comprehensive river basin management planning system to help protect and improve the ecological health of our rivers, lakes, and estuaries. (Green propaganda said that dredging was harmful to flora & fauna in riverbank environments.)
Banning dredging has lead to more rivers overflowing their banks and flooding surrounding land, which Green propaganda says is caused by Global Warming & Climate Change.
Thank you Ralph. I thought about that, reading Norman yesterday but couldn’t remember the details. Just one example amongst many, of the EU directives that need binning – pronto.
Doggies Lives Matter… Wag something.
The real crunch is yet to come. An economic depression seems inevitable. We’ll then see which of the Audis and SUVs have been paid for. Almost none I suspect.
The brats will need to get used to a diet of fish and chips with cold porridge. Plus hand-me-down clothes.
The millenium generation will find it hard to cope.
Don’t agree Harry. Economic depression is not inevitable. So long as we do not raise taxes in a panic over the national debt and if only we could get rid of the ‘green blobbery’ threatening our power supplies, we still can recover to a healthy growing economy.
It’s obvious that Covid, like any other flu is seasonal. The lockdowns should have been ended last spring.
For heaven’s sake end them soon. Temperatures are already rising and crocuses are coming out.
Total drivel.
The money expended on furlough will have to be recovered.
When interest rates rise, the debts will be unaffordable.
It’s you Harry talking drivel. Who does the national debt have to be paid back too?
I sometimes wonder, the things you say, whether you are part of this global conspiracy we hear about, seeking to bring down Western Democracies.
Like that ‘who does the national debt have to be paid back to’. This time they have ‘printed’ all the money in house by loaning it to themselves so they do not have to pay the cash created that way back to themselves if they don’t want to! Everyone else must be printing even more than us as the pound is stronger against the dollar recently.
Whilest growing up, I invariably belonged, and together with my young briother, and my cousins dog Rex an if bullied my small female cousin Barbara, forned the core of our local Gang. Our gangs always included several dogs.no matter our itinerary , cutting down small trees, damning streams or modifying local rivers or just lying in the field or road. In those days dogs were human. No collars few boundaries, different skills and hobbies. If they never learned to cross roads safely they died and new ones welcomed, All had personalities and were friends. At the age of 17 , one time, in the middle of the night at two am, several miles the other side ofBirmingham, I met Rex. He stopped dead and clearly didn’t expect me there. We both stopped and , after a quick scratch, checked each other and went cheerfully on our ways again. To join the gang again on the way to school and occasionally waiting by the school gates at home time.
What we have done to dogs shames our species. Not cats. We cower before cats condescencion ( Well you do, I don’t ) I treat them as they treat me. While living in tenerife the dogs there also lived another life. Most dogs clearly owned a restaurant and expected titbits and tribute. Personalities.
A race subjugated, because we are scared of something.
We have done shameful things to dogs T.G.S. but it is not keeping them safe from our roads. It is the in breeding, they call it line breeding of course, of pedigree dogs in the pursuit of making them a particular shape. A shape that we think beautiful, or pleasing.
It has led to various weaknesses and health problems.
Then there have been umpteen rules, regulations, misconceptions and campaigns etc. making life more and more difficult for sensible dog and cat owners.
I’m glad I no longer have to go out to work. At least if I am fit enough to have a dog again I don’t have to work round the leaving it at home all day problem.
I think we humans, have been subjugated, to dictatorship, by the propaganda scaring us for a year now.
TG Spokes……….there is a lot here about dogs and their interests and even being human and having hobbies etc. Did those dogs speak as well and play chess, and were they made of metal with flashing lights, and were they called K9, by any chance. I bet Henry II is well impressed. Checkmate in five moves master!!!