December

 

Above - the view through our kitchen door at midday yesterday. A glum December day with flurries of rain and sleet and gobs of snow as large as oak leaves. Not a day for walking. A day for hunkering down as we edge ever closer to the winter solstice.

Shirley has been in cleaning and clearing out mode. This is a hangover from our recent decorating project  - making over our dining room. We are trying to reduce the amount of clutter that surrounds us even though every item has some meaning for us.

One of the things we have cast out is this picture of a cat that came with us in 1989 when we moved from our first house in the Crookes area of the city. We bought the cat picture because it reminded us of Blizzard - our first cat who was also black and white. The picture faded over time and now it has gone but at least I snapped this photo of it before it was assigned to the wheelie bin.:-

It can be so hard to let go of things. I am of the opinion that is natural for human beings to surround themselves with things that echo past times or symbolise ourselves in subtle, unarticulated ways. Homes that are minimalist as if copied from some style magazine make me shudder slightly. It's unnatural to live like that. You need to strike a balance.

At 9pm I visited the Lidl store on Chesterfield Road. There were  more members of staff there than customers. I like it that way - especially during this never-ending pandemic. If I visit a supermarket in the daytime I get anxious about other shoppers entering my personal space.

Thinking about the pandemic, it is frankly outrageous that Trump continues to tweet furiously about  his election defeat - pathetically turning a blind eye to  his country's COVID fatalities - 2873 passed away on Wednesday, 2923 on Thursday and so far 2555 on Friday. Is his apparent ignorance really the way to "make America great again"?  He has less compassion in his bones than a wild Texan hog.

December can be such a grim month in the northern hemisphere and as we keep soldiering on through this coronavirus nightmare, it feels more gloomy than usual. Even Christmastime will bring little relief, curtailed and constrained as it must be. Thank heavens there can be occasional days like Tuesday when I walked in the countryside twenty miles east of Sheffield. On days like that you can almost forget the twin horrors - COVID and Brexit - at least for a little while...

The Chesterfield Canal on Tuesday

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/33KABSx