Yellow Globe Seen in Sky

Just now I felt a wave of unwonted warmth. At the same time the sky lightened and I caught a glimpse of something round and yellow. What could be happening? I searched the recesses of my memory and came up with a word, something like soon or son – no wait, sun! That was it, sun! I remember that.

Ah, how quickly we forget! A week of incessant rain and all memory of the hot, sunny weather which has predominated since – well, February – is washed away. Just a few days of gloomy skies and non-stop precipitation, and the bright mornings and long sunset evenings are quite flushed down the drain. But since this week’s relentless news of Boris’s rise to power (will no-one rid us of this turbulent beast?) I have another nightmare. Remember the sun in the Teletubbies? I close my eyes and I see Boris, all haystack hair and manic grin, shining down on us all summer long.

BoJo really is this nation’s answer to Trump: once the NightMayor of London, now soon to be Prime Minister, a self-serving, capricious, lying climate-change denier and purveyor of tax cuts to the rich – oh, and listen to what he said when Gordon Brown was appointed PM without having won an election:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/06/without-mandate-british-people-how-boris-johnson-described-gordon-brown-2007

I really am going to emigrate, I swear.. but where will I go? Scotland I think – it’s the only sensible place left.

Kirk out

Shall I Part My Hair Behind? Do I Dare to Plant a Tree?

My blogging prompt for yesterday suggests writing a post about trees but instead I went shopping and got my hair done. Now if you’re new to this blog you might get the impression from reading this that I’m the literary equivalent of Rachel in Friends, not getting around to Jane Eyre but reading Vogue instead. The thing is, there are some days when despite your best intentions you can get all your books out and sit there staring at the computer and it Just Isn’t Happening. And on those days when a card arrives in the post with some birthday money inside there’s only one thing to do and, reader, I did it. I went and bought me a new outfit and got my hair done. I have to say I’m very pleased with the hair cut and clothes and intend to estrenar both tomorrow at the Labour Party ceilidh.

Estrenar is a very useful Spanish verb for which there is no equivalent in English. But there should be because we need it; it means ‘to use or try out something for the first time.’ I coined a similar verb as a child, to pervise, however this is very specific to a jar of Marmite (or something with a similarly smooth surface) and it means to broach that surface for the first time. So I think we should all adopt estrenar into our language – as indeed OH and I do.

Now I know that you’re all champing at the bit wanting selfies but in my experience a photo never does justice to the splendiferous reality so I’m going to paint you a word-picture. There’s a lot of rust around at the moment in clothes shops (maybe it’s all the rain) and I eventually persuaded myself to try on a pair of rust-coloured trousers. They were stylish and comfortable so I took a chance and bought them, along with a couple of mix-and-match tops. I’d also taken a chance on a new hairdresser’s in town (Loughborough seems to have more hairdressers than any town has a right to; I don’t know why and my stylist couldn’t shed any light either) as I’d chickened out of unisex one Daniel uses because it was full of teenage lads. Sad, I know… anyway she did a brilliant job and took about six inches and ten years off me.

Today it’s back to the laptop face though. And I haven’t said one word about trees… ah well, maybe tomorrow. Or not, as it’s my actual birthday then and I have lots of stuff planned.

Kirk out