How sad am I.

 We can now meet up with up to 6 friends out of doors, but how sad am I that I do not know that many people locally well enough in order to do that.      My small network stretches far and wide, but not locally and even local links are not always available.    One local friend for example is currently in the Czech Republic and another friend who has a birthday over Easter is still not comfortable to meet up.    However, the wonderful weather means that I see whole bunches of people gathering together and enjoying each other's company and that increases my sense of aloneness.  

My emergency dash up North, does mean contact with family and on going zoom gatherings however mean that in some ways more connections have taken place during the pandemic.    However, the hope that I had finally sold my flat and was about to move has again been dashed as the person has pulled out.  

Whenever I go out I love seeing all the birds and smells from the flowers wonderful and intense, but the rubbish every where is very depressing.  Worse than it was when the rubbish locally inspired the name for this blog.  I am pleased that Dan Walker on Breakfast TV had a little rant against it and of course many people on TV have commented on it recently, but it does not seem to shift behaviour.  Nor does the appeal for us all to keep our lawns growing wild instead more and more people locally seem to be getting rid of their lawns all together and replacing them with either ghastly artificial lawns or bright yet barren looking stones.   One of the joys of this area was the front gardens, so it is very sad to see more and more of them becoming sanctified homages to the motor engine, rather than to animal life, who continue to lose out as more and more of their homes are ripped up. A small victory, however, over winter I have grown a few tomatoes on my window ledge.   Watching them grow has kept me and my lodger entertained.       My intention was to put a photo of it up but my new phone still has many mysteries and one of them is how to transfer pictures onto this blog.    (Several days later, have worked it out, please see tomatoes above)

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So whilst nothing much has been happening in my life,  lots of very important things have been happening in society for example the Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities has been met with disbelief, by the many people who have experienced the institutional racism in this country as the main finding of the report according to the media is that the impact of race has been overstated statistically speaking.        The report looked at whether the term BAME was useful.  It is only recently that I have tuned into this weird expression, and it seems it is very unpopular,  but for me the term race itself needs exploring much more, and this the report does recognise: Recognition of the differences between groups requires a new and more granular approach to data and how it is collected and used. Too much data continues to be collected at the level of the ‘big 5’ ethnicity classifications: White, Black, Asian, Mixed and Other, which in some instances merges together ethnic groups with vastly different experiences and outcomes.  And the report does call for more precise language, which seems useful, but in the process, it seems to have not taken on board the very real impact of racism on people's life experiences.    I made the same mistake when my son was targeted by his headmaster. I was aware that many of the black African students from Nigerian backgrounds had a good fit with the school and achieved well, whilst my mixed son,  from a much more laid back British background  didn't -  I just trusted his intelligence would mean he would be fine -  and in the end it actually meant he was very disadvantaged at schools by teachers who I realised too late were racist towards him.     They judged him inappropriately.  The same happened at his third primary school where the word attitude came up from teachers who did not even know him,    he was saved by a school trip, where the teacher's got to know him a bit better, and on the whole they were okay with him,  but not always.   And the teacher's at his second school totally failed him when he was bullied, and whilst all this was long ago a recent meeting of the Blackvoice Letchworth,  showed the same things are still happening and yet the report does not seem to address these experiences as fully as they could do. 

Many people though feel that they are not being heard,  victims of crime for example and it does now look as if Victims rights will be strengthened, but given the state of the criminal justice system,  this may not be effective.      I know for me,  being defrauded was made worse by the response of the Criminal Justice System, they doubled the trauma, and the  former Victim's Commissioner, has made it clear that is a common experience when dealing with the British justice system. 

Sadly many young victims of abuse in school have also come forward giving voice to their horrid experiences on the website Everyone's Invited, but the former Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal has said again that the criminal system is not in a position to support these children, so he is concerned that they will be let down even more as they try and seek redress.   

So the good news is people are expressing themselves, but the statutory responses may not always be useful and it does show how much trauma and pain is out there is shaping our lives. 

Creeking

 I got up late this morning, seem to have no energy, but faced 5 hours of teaching. However, two students have cancelled and a third one has not turned up.  If I was solely dependent on my income from teaching I would be in serious trouble at times.    Instead I am treating myself to Cole and Abel deliveries and lovely the taste of organic food and beginning to yearn for the allotment again as there is nothing better than picking fresh food, but then the odd mouldy product reminds me that even in the organic world not all is perfect. 

Here we are liked mothballed creatures gradually coming out into the sun, but across the waters in Europe, the vaccine has been rejected and the numbers receiving the jab so tiny as to be almost meaningless. It is baffling.    I suppose however, it might evidence which route is the right way medicine or leaving the thing to go its merry way.  

My step father has been into hospital and out again and survived, so that is very positive news. So many people going into hospital for something unconnected to the virus have picked it up in hospital that he was resisting going in for treatment, but then it became so urgent he had no choice but to go in.   I could not stay with my sister,  so had to stay in a hotel, and it was not clear if I would be able to see him, but in the end we were allowed to wave at him through the ward doors and when they opened, as they frequently did, have a conversation, till they swung shut again.  Very surreal. On the way up a throng of people were waiting for the train, some with masks akimbo,  mostly ignoring the death knell 1948 Government voice telling us all but essential travel was not permitted. 

Despite all the postives, I do not know why I feel down, maybe the world is returning and I am not sure how to deal with that, maybe i am on the move and regret the things I have not done whilst here or maybe I am not on the move and regret the lack of dynamism to change things. 

Legal or illegal? Racist or not?

 I am about to go on a permitted journey, but how weird to think that an unessential journey is illegal.    I have tried booking two permitted journeys, but with one, the hotel has just cancelled so legal or not it is tricky.  However, having hoped in the process to be able to stand outside a family home and wave at the people inside, but now one of them is in hospital and so legally it looks like I cannot see them. In lots of countries of course doing normal things like visiting someone is illegal, but in the UK it feels unnatural and frightening to be told something normal is illegal.    And presumably in countries where normal things are illegal presumably that feels oppressive. 

Meanwhile the hottest topic this week is not the virus for once, but the Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan and Harry.    I choose to watch it, despite not thinking I was that interested in it, so that I would know what they said, rather than what a commentator said they had said and in the end I am glad I made that decision.  When they had first met,  I just had the feeling things would be difficult,  just so much baggage and such different lifestyles and of course since then the press and even the BBC have often portrayed Meghan as a bit high maintenance,  very American and she has definitely been a victim of racism.  But I was pleased to find how natural she seemed and how much in love they seem, the conversation of course brought up a lot to me. 

 Coming from a family where most of the family were white, but now a substantial number are black and mixed  from a variety of black cultures some of the discussions were very familiar.    Sometimes both sides do not understand the other's cultures and sometimes both sides can experience pain and alienation as a result and finding a safe place to try and understand each other is sometimes difficult. For example one of my aunts cut me out of her will for having a black child    But in many ways talking of both sides is an issue,  really we are just people and each family regardless of colour has a different culture so in some ways we just need to know each other as individuals and families but sometimes differences can be cultural but basing that on colour worries me.  As a white person I often find I am accused of lots of things, so I am treated as a colour quite often and I find that quite weird and of course many black people are mostly treated as just being a colour and in a way that is derogatory.  But I would accept that culturally I am culturally very English, whatever that means,  and until after WW2 the majority of English people would have been white.    However, all my life time and for a long time before then Britain has had a black population and scratch the genetic culture of many British people and all sorts of backgrounds might emerge, so seeing things in just black and white terms  seems to reduce things to an almost meaningless point, most of us are such a mix, but as cultural historian Em Dab reminded viewers after the Meghan and Harry interview, just one dot of black, has been the way white cultures have excluded black members of the community from equality.    Slavery and racism make having a conversation on the topic of dual heritage black and white children, very charged and the language of it is very difficult for example I do not like the term mixed race as we are one race, but dual heritage could mean anything and it perhaps does not address the historical and cultural differences in our histories    Long before predominantly white people enslaved black people in the most ghastly fashion,  slavery had been a part of many cultures and sadly slavery is a major problem today.  Most people are judgemental, many people are prejudiced.  All of us have to catch our thoughts and challenge them at times.     But where does the power lie and how does that impact on people, that is a key part when addressing racism for when most of the systems are historically white and the power is mostly in white hands and embedded with colonial and racist ideologies,  discrimination is embedded and people of colour continue to be disadvantaged.  And so even the son of an in theory powerful Prince would seem to be a victim of this distorting history.

Usual winge about life.

 A friend of mine made me chuckle recently he is having to move to Spain on his retirement and was complaining about all the forms he is having to fill in to move  The forms are customs forms and of course they have only come in since Brexit, but apparently he voted for Brexit!  So he has been hoist by his own petard.  

Meanwhile however, the success of the vaccination programme compared with what is happening in Europe does seem to show going "our own way" has its pluses,  though of course we could have done that within the EU, but the vaccination programme on the mainland is not filling the EU with glory.  

Meanwhile in the UK I work on but as per usual battle with the powers that be.  I cannot get my extra bit of pension because I have not filled in my forms correctly, despite having gone through things with Teachers Pensions before filling in the form and despite having told them the missing information. But nor could I get new forms because TP think I already have my pension etc etc. I just slightly  miss the profile for a standard teacher's life,because I worked for the college, then left and did other teaching and then came back again before being sacked!,  and yet the chaos this seems to cause automated systems and humans alike is just full of stupid and annoying grief. heaven knows how the system would cope if I had a more complex work career.    I also cannot get a whopping extra £90 a year from another small pension and that is because I do not know how to answer their questions, but this whole debacle makes me regret having cashed in my GLC pension, that would have been worth a bob or two by now if I had kept it but at the time I was a student again and needed the money or thought I did and that I would have plenty of time to build up another pension afterwards. But that period out of work had a big impact on my future career and I did not find well paid work with a pension for over 14 years afterwards and then even when I became a teacher, because of my health issues I was part time for much of my teaching career.  

I think all of us make choices and have no idea what the implications will be - careers not followed, courses done or not done loved ones left or lost, homes vacated etc     I was awake at 3 am last night and listened to some interesting programmes on the World Service, one commenting that too much choice and we will often freeze when it comes to decision making.   - that is definitely me when it comes to housing.  And the other on the impact of working extended hours and its impact on our mental health.    Made me feel that some of the deep anxieties I have felt and the shame I have felt re not being good enough because I cannot maintain a 60 hour a week schedule really has been as much about the conditions of work as about me as a person and whilst I knew this when I raised my concerns at work because I was doing too much,  it did not stop me from feeling inadequate,  when really it was the way my employer was behaving that was the issue - at least according to the expert who has researched this topic.  

In the past though choices came and went often very painfully and yet somehow in the flow of it all one felt one was trying to get somewhere.  Now at 66 I still do not know where that place was or is or whether it exists at all, but in the past there was the feeling that there was the time to find out, now more and more the worry is that one will die before finding out.  Yet I am according to Mooji here already.