Spring

[hypatia_66]

It's cold, it's pouring with rain but it's the first day of meteorological spring - in the UK, anyway - and Yorkshire is awash with daffodils.

Spring in Wensleydale, Yorkshire

Comments

[duche55]

Oh-oh, it sounds like fool’s spring, to be followed by second winter followed by….etc.

[hypatia_66]

Yep. It's cold, frosty and foggy. The more witless tabloids continue to threaten blizzards to come, which nobody at the Met Office seems to be suggesting, so who knows?

How is your autumn coming along?

[duche55]

Very nicely, thank you. I used to look forward to summer, but since the fires in 2019-20 it’s a relief to see the back of it. The BOM was threatening a hot, dry summer with catastrophic bushfire conditions, but thankfully we had a warm, very wet one. They have had fires in WA and just last week in country Victoria, but nothing on the scale of our ‘black summer’. So I’m looking forward to autumn, winter and spring, before we prepare for bushfire season again.

[hypatia_66]

No visit to the UK then? Don't blame you. We have a government becoming alarmingly repressive and desperate to hang on to power. It is trying to pass legislation to prevent all public protest - even those marching for peace - by labelling participants as terrorists because they are by definition being anti British values (whatever that means). Recent Home Secretaries (who would have risen high in concentration camp management) have actively encouraged police to attack peaceful demonstrators. How much lower can we sink? Nearly as far as the USA under Trump?

Apologies - a bit depressed. Just off to the funeral of a friend of 45 years whom I've been visiting regularly while he was dying in the local hospice...

[duche55]

I’m so sorry to hear that - I’m assuming this was the friend you mentioned previously. It is depressing when there are more goodbyes than hellos.

I had though that the British government had sunk to its lowest, but it sounds as if it’s found new unchartered depths.

My daughter’s op went well, so that’s a huge relief. She is going to the UK and Europe in May for about three weeks. Now we’re looking forward to our youngest daughter’s second baby, due at any time in the next two weeks. Then our eldest, in the UK, will be coming over in Oct/Nov for a holiday with us all. So, I’m afraid my trip back home will be postponed again. I will make it eventually though!

[hypatia_66]

Glad to hear the op went well. Must be a great relief.

There are no depths to which the current government can't sink...

Yes that friend. It was a really beautiful spring day, and the funeral was very dignified and appropriate - so often they aren't. It was a religious service, which even as a non- believer I often find better than any other kind. He was a well known historian and very much liked as well as admired, so lots of people came, many of whom were shocked to have outlived him.