27 October 2016

Off with their heads - Or Off Their Heads?

I often wonder what it was like to live in Britain four or five hundred years ago when it mattered greatly what your religion was. If you were on the opposing side of the ruling monarch in those days you were hunted down, imprisoned and killed. Catholics tortured Protestants. Protestants burned Catholics. If you were a Jew, you were always on the wrong side. It must have been a fearful time to live in, when you couldn't trust your neighbours or even close relatives to hand you over to the establishment because of your beliefs.

It seem to me that the last few months since Brexit have drawn parallels. Maybe with not such drastic outcomes, but nevertheless with some similarity. Instead of Catholics and Protestants, you have Remainers and Leavers. There was vitriol and mud-slinging on both sides a-plenty before the Referendum, but since then there has been daily outpourings of accusation, hatred and viciousness. Threats from the Remainers to scupper the vote, threats from the Leavers to bring it on. People afraid to say what side they voted for in case they were ridiculed, made to justify their beliefs, or even worse given the cold shoulder (I've heard of people refusing to have anything more to do with their parents or grandparents because they disagreed with their point of view. Really?)

I am very worried for my country and not because of the referendum result itself. I am worried that the people of this nation stand so divided (almost 50:50) on the way this country should go. Politicians have fallen by the wayside because of it and whole political parties seem to be buckling under the strain too. Apart from the Tories and the SNP, there is no viable party in opposition to help with the democratic process to take us forward in a balanced way. Whatever you voted for and aspired to, surely the way forward is to pick this country up and do our best together rather than divided. A democratic vote was taken and there was a majority result. It might not be the result a lot of people wanted, but it was democratic. To ignore it, to suggest the result was not the "right answer" and try to turn back the tables would be undemocratic. It would create the right to scupper any democratic result on whatever subject in the future, just because the result wasn't "the right one". That's not democracy.  We might as well all live in North Korea, if that's that case.

We are known all over the world for our bulldog spirit. In the last century alone we were able to withstand and rise from the ashes of two crippling world wars, not to mention a cold war. If our parents and grandparents had given up at the first hurdle,we would certainly not all be here today, able to make free and democratic decisions without fear of reprisals, imprisonment or death camps. Nor are we as a nation by any means stupid - we were the inventors of many great things such as the Industrial Revolution and the World Wide Web, to name but two things that have benefited the world immensely. We are quite capable of getting on with things and making a success of them, whether in the EU or not.

We should all pull together, not apart, and believe we can get through this rocky period together with hard work and confidence, not hatred or mud-slinging. The immediate future will be rocky and the financial markets will rise and fall as they have done since time immemorial, with or without Brexit. That's what they do, even when everything in the garden is lovely. We need to be confident we can work it out together and put aside thoughts that we can't achieve success. To do otherwise is to create a chasm so large, we could be on the brink of apathy, or worse still anarchy, and who wants to return to those awful medieval days?

17 October 2016

Poor me

It's been six months since my major operation to remove the GIST-tumour from my stomach. I had been doing very well and was more or less back to eating normally, back to driving, back to heavy lifting, back to gardening, back to normal in general. However about two or three weeks ago, I had a setback. I am not sure what caused it, although I have a number of theories - it coincided with getting a flu injection, it also coincided with me reheating some rice (which is a definite no-no), and it's possible I had eaten too many foods which are rather acidic or spicy. Whatever the cause, I now have chronic gastritis or  gastroenteritis which is not very pleasant and has set me back quite a bit. The doctor has ordered some tests but meanwhile my get-up-and go and has got-up-and gone. I'm feeling very lack-lustre and not up to much. Damn. 


Picture courtesy of pinterest.com


04 October 2016

Like Falling Off a Blog

I'm not sure why, but there is a distinct lack of blogging going on these days compared with past years. My favourite bloggers are producing less material and even I feel less inclined to blog these days. Is it the weather, other demands on our time, lack of enthusiasm, running out of steam, or what? Answers on a postcard, leave comments below, or tell me in a blog.