July 2021

Nature bursting out all over, with small garden at the front and pots at the back providing food every day, with friend and keen gardener doing the work, and blogger and keen forager foraging from the woods, the front garden, and pots at the back. Mutuality and sharing always seems to work best. Synchronicity replaces sheer coincidence daily and life continues to get weirder ... in a good way. Today is the third, tomorrow the 4th, which is Independence Day in the BSA and a window of opportunity for opponents of fascism to stand up and be counted.

Yesterday, the 2nd, an outing was arranged with the friend and keen gardener. Since Wallington Hall is close by and has plenty of gardens to admire, Daisy the Chinese MG was deployed, since it was a little to far to walk there and back in the day. Since both humans are members of the National Trust, giving unlimited visits all round the country, entry was free, and the same kind staff member as last time, relaxed the attempt to enforce a booking time this time, which seemed like progress. Probably more than one or two members expressed their views about the rules being created for no good reason except to remind us that an illegal regime seized power last year and has been playing games with the populace ever since.

Minor inconveniences occurred in the toilets, with a urinal or two taped off with green tape, which replaced the previous red tape. Subliminal messaging? After wandering the gardens and along the river, a drink and scone was required at the cafe, indoors to avoid the light rain. The gardening friend went up to order and collect the tray with the order and was ordered by a School Prefect to put a mask on her face, even though she has difficulties breathing, especially if breathing in CO2, which is designed for plant respiration but not humans who breathe better with oxygen. In order to avoid a situation she tried it out but soon said if she kept the mask on she was likely to fall over, causing a problem for the Prefect, not to mention the old blogger waiting for the coffee and scone.
Things improved at the House, where the mask situation was swiftly resolved with no reason required, with the two kind staff, neither appearing to have the need to feel important like the Prefect, showing us a short film about the history of Wallington, which is fascinating since Sir Charles was a socialist as well as a toff, MP in Newcastle, and supporting the National Trust as it started by offering the whole estate the nation in lieu of death duties as long as he and his family could live there until they expired. More mutual benefit! The question of the heir of Sir Charles finding himself without the estate was also of interest, since Sir George was influential at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, and had designs on making Wallington a place for spiritual enquiry.

Anyway, suffice to say, one of the staff was a Druid, which is nice. And Wallington still has the House and gardens and woods and ponds open to the public, for any reasonable reason, with or without membership or Prefects, since a Right of Way runs through the grounds. Hooray for Sir Charles, the red aristocrat, showing the world they're not all t***s, even if they went to Eton.

None of which covers the events of previous days or the mounting excitement in England and Ukraine, who go into battle this evening in Rome, to find out who goes on to battle in the semi-finals Tuesday and Wednesday next week. All of which leads to more confusion on the televisions as Scottish fans cheer for Ukraine, English fans cheer for England, lots of normal people are not interested in any team game, being either tennis fans, rugby fans or none of the above, thank you, are televisions safe at all?

As for next week, after planning to Stand in the Park in Hexham tomorrow, infiltrating a junior school to check mask wearing on Monday, before maybe heading for Bowness on Solway on Tuesday, and walking East along the Great Wall of Hadrian towards Wallsend, in time for an event a week tomorrow, in the Park at Bowes Museum, a posh house in Barnard Castle, not Bowes.

Weather permitting ...