A whirl of activities and history provides some interesting examples.

What a lovely weekend, London felt like it was more or less back to its busy self. First a lovely lunch in Chinatown, with G, who last time I saw her was even too scared to have a coffee out mid Covid, then I stopped by the V and A fully expecting them to say I had to book ahead, only to find it full of activities including a delightful little dance performance in the pond. Then on Sunday I finally found Hogarth's house, followed by a stop off at Chiswick House Gardens and today I had another meal out in London with another friend.

In between I watched snippets of Middlemarch on a DVD and wondered why I had never seen it before, and prompted by a cousin trawled yet again through family photos. I did not find the photos my cousin wanted but found something even better, something we have been looking for for ages - my grandfather's letters from the front.

I won't show it all but given the bombs raining down, as I type, on Ukraine, his pithy words from the front, are shocking and fresh and relevant. "the fearful mess on the right margin is where I dropped my writing pad in mud so you have some real mud from the British trenches now, Bang that is one of the Huns wretched whizz bangs on top of our parapet no damage done - as usual. Here they come six at a time. ? now indulging in his daily ? of hate while we are ? new dance - "The Dug -out Dive". He ought to know that whizz bangs are no good for trenches life throwing butter at steel, what they want is some 8 " shells they might! shift something. I do wish these beastly rats would shut ? crawling over my feet until I have finished this letter then I may be able to give them all my attention for a ? I think Fritz must have "got the wind up" last night judging by the way he was letting his machine guns fly and rifle fire. By the way " Got the wind up" is an Army term which means " afraid". I love that every time he uses some slang, he puts it in inverted commas. I never knew my granddad that well, having read all the letters, I feel I have a better sense of him and what he went through.

I did not know until I went to the Hogarth House but in 1709, the thousands of refugees apparently coming into England then were from Germany they were known as The German Palatines. The person who lived in Hogarth's House at the time, was a Lutheran priest and he helped the refugees along with a Chaplain for the Prince of Wales through fundraising and by establishing the skills of those arriving. Priti Patel note, I thought. Looking on Wikipedia, the information gleaned is even more, Priti Patel note, for apparently many of the newcomers were "helped" to find a new life in Ireland, where the majority of the refugees failed to settle and so they wandered back to the mainland. Those shipped to America, where many had originally wanted to get to - it was then a British colony - fared slightly better and some went on to intermarry with the indigenous population. Once they had paid for their passage that is!.

More unbearable madness from the government

 The Tories solution to the fuel crisis - build nuclear, despite this being the most expensive and most dangerous solution.  The war in the Ukraine has brought us close to seeing nuclear clouds going across Europe, the tsunami in Japan showed natural disasters can cause leaks,  nuclear power is just not safe and it is not needed. Years ago the Government panicked at how successful the roll out of solar panels was and so pulled the plug on the movement, a movement which would have meant most of us would be able access cheaper heating by now.  And rather than learn from this and initiate a return to subsidising more solar power on private homes, the Government is planning more nuclear. They are, I am appalled to say, supported by the Labour Party. 

But as if that was not mad enough Priti Patel has developed a policy so mad it is almost not believable.   I would have thought it was illegal under equal opportunities law and vastly expensive but at a time when the Government is pretending to be more tolerant to refugees by opening the doors in theory to people from Ukraine, it is intending to fly some lone men who are currently within their rights to try and get to Britain to claim asylum to of all places, Rwanda.  What is wrong with Priti Patel, how does spending a fortune sending traumatised people to a place they have no links with, when they have just tried to escape such a place? I cannot bear the way this government operates, it is so inhuman   To add insult to injury PP lives in Hertfordshire, and her Dad stood as a UKIP candidate,  sadly her views, are shared by quite few people in this area.   Now if only we had a great turn around here, as lots of people here do care, we can vote Green instead and lots of these horrid issues would go away. I also think levelling up could also really be achieved. 

Just had a class with a Russian and a Ukrainian in it and the topic was the news, which as the latter said, is going on outside his window.  Sometimes the news and what is going on is just gut wrenching.   The Ukrainian student did not stay, I hope I did not make their situation worse.   We have been given advice about how to deal with the situation and the Russian student was fine, but.     My company in theory is giving free English lessons to some Ukrainian refugees and I have done the training but have not been allocated any lessons,  perhaps I have misunderstood the allocation system. 

I have just read a book, a novel, by actress, Sheila Hancock,  which starts with the optimism of post war Britain but the heroine then sees all their hopes destroyed by successive governments shutting down innovative schools, innovative health services and so on.    I do not remember reading a book before that has traced all the disappointments imposed on British people over the years of one person's life. (one often parallel with mine) The only unreal element is where the story ends happily with the person finding comfort in France.  Of course all countries have downsides to them, France for example is a fan of nuclear power.    And their treatment of refugees is also in many instances appalling too.    It seems like the hopes of my childhood,  in the wake of victory in Europe   are more or less dead now. 

And just to cap it all off, I finally have come down with Covid and now we do not have free testing,  I have to decide whether to spend £2.50 a time to  avoid risking others getting ill to see if I am clear or not.  Having M.E I am constantly coming down with little things, that I have been double checking just in case is not the virus, as I do not want to risk others health, but going forward I really do not know how this is going to be possible.    Testing constantly and paying to test constantly just is not feasible.  And at least if there were ten tests in the box that would make sense, but all this packing just for one - this is just stupid.  Oh and of course Boris has been fined for being at least one party during lock down. So it is both completely messed up and agony .