Tuesday 24 December 2013

Christmas is here

Christmas Eve and guests scheduled to arrive from Oz within the hour. House scrubbed, fridge stocked, will probably fall asleep about mid-afternoon as soon not used to housework! Took Tim for a walk early this morning and managed to come home without being coated in mud. Funny how only men were dog-walking this morning - women probably chained to the kitchen. But Maybe I do both sexes an injustice...men on holiday, women happy to let men walk the dog? A distinct possibility.

The news this morning cites the pardon for Turing, and, as with all these posthumous pardons and apologies I cannot see the point. Times have changed so much in the sixty years since he died. Plus which he will never know, so who are we pleasing with this? I never saw much point in the current craze for offering apologies over national wrongs in the far distant past. Apologise now for something you've just done and regret, to the person you hurt, of course. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to realise it is necessary, but if  both of you are still alive, then do it and feel better. But after four hundred years when all parties involved are long dead and forgotten - is there a point? It has to be lip service to  a large degree. But then politicians are good at that.

I know it's the season of good will and all that, but sometimes I think we are too forgiving for our own good these days.  Before you all shout and tell me to go retire in my corner and not come out again, let me wish you all a happy and serene festive period and a prosperous, healthy and happy 2014. I may not get much writing done in the next few days, but I'll be working hard in the coming few months. Ideas are bubbling and I may just get them down on the computer before too long.

The picture was taken in Kielder forest last week. A riot of winter colours.

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