Epiblog for Laetare Sunday

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. Spring continues to spring, but in what many would regard as a cantankerous, half-assed, and unwilling way. One or two of Maisie’s indestructible daffodils have now actually flowered, and joined the massed ranks of the snowdrops. Unfortunately, for them, their emergence coincided with being blasted by Storm Jake, the latest in the series of now strangely personified bad weather which seems to be washing over the British Isles in dismal waves, and will no doubt continue until September, by which time we will be feeling the stinging lash of Storm Willibrord.

Wednesday was a case in point. It started out reasonably bright, but eventually the sky turned as black as Satan’s furry underpants, and at about 10.30 there was the most enormous crack of thunder. Matilda not only woke up, but in the process of doing so jumped about a foot into the air, quite an achievement for a large Bagpuss of an unathletic cat, and when she landed, she skedaddled into Colin ‘s front room and stayed there.  The squirrels and the birds, on the other hand, redoubled their efforts to clean out the bird food dish, as if they knew what was coming!

Meanwhile, outside, the weather had started doing its pieces. I was quickly saving stuff on the laptop in case the house got struck by lightning or something, but there was no further thunder. Instead, it bucketed down with hail, then sleet, then briefly snow, before fairing up later on in the day.  Friday saw another similar procedure, but this time the snow was more prolonged and it did stick, at least until well into the afternoon, when it started to turn to rain.

With all this rain around, I was relieved that the new gutter man, as opposed to the old gutter man who failed to make two appointments, never actually turning up for either, and the old, old gutter man, who is in prison, apparently, did actually pull up outside on Saturday morning, complete with all his gear. He stayed two hours, and I have to say he did a very thorough and competent job, and only charged £20 more than the old, old gutterman used to charge, three years ago.  Anyway, at least now, when it comes down like stair rods, the rainwater goods, such as they are, will at least carry the water away, instead of allowing it to pool in the gutters at the blocked points and then potentially ingress into the house. So, I guess that counts as a small victory.

Set against that, we almost had a massive defeat, on Saturday. To tell the story in its entirety, it is necessary to explain that Zak and Ellie have been staying with us for the last couple of days, as Granny has been house-sitting for another family member who has two cats that don’t like doggies.  Anyway, Debbie decided on Saturday that she had had enough of frowsting indoors and wanted to set off on a famous five type adventure. She had been watching videos about K2 and Everest on Youtube, which is never a good sign.  Ellie, however, is not a suitable companion as a mountain-dog, because she is only about nine inches high at the shoulder. She’s willing, and determined, and has a great heart, but physical reality kicks in after a few miles and she has to be either dragged or carried.

It was arranged, therefore, that Debbie would take Zak and that Ellie would stay behind, as Granny would pop back and take her for an hour or so, chucking sticks on the playing field. Thus is was that Ellie, who looked crestfallen at being left out – at least until I distracted her with a dog treat -  found herself in the same fortunate position as those people who bought a ticket for the maiden voyage of the Titanic but turned up ten minutes after it had sailed.

Debbie set off in the camper with her two more-than-willing companions. No press-ganging was needed.  Granny came and took Ellie off, showing her delight by scampering and wuffiting as she went. I was left contemplating the grey, monolithic, unforgiving slab of text that is Crowle Street Kids, slowing inching, at a glacial rate, towards publication.

My mobile rang. It was Debbie. I should say, at this juncture, that it is a well-known and acknowledged fact by all who know her, that any expedition Debbie takes on has a constant propensity to turn into an episode of I Survived at any moment. This one was no exception. She had decided to go up West Nab in search of still-lying snow. She found it. In great quantities, much more than she was expecting.  She decided to coast in to the side of Wessenden Head Road, tuck the van in nicely so that it was slightly off the road, and set off on the climb from there. All went well until it got to the 'tucking in' bit. The van and the snow between them conspired to tuck it in very well. As she edged off the road, what she thought was solid snow gave way with a loud crunch, and the front nearside wheel went down into a hidden ditch, tipping the van over at an angle of about 30 degrees and burying the side door in a snow drift to a level just below the window.

Attempts to reverse out proved fruitless, serving simply to dig a larger hole in the snow.  The traction mats which we carry were deployed, to no effect. What she was lacking, however, was a shovel, but she improvised, using the lid of a plastic caddy that we normally keep the loo rolls in when we are off on a trip!  What does give me heart in the circumstances is that several people actually stopped and offered to help.  Two were almost successful, but the first of these only had a little sports car and had to give up before he burnt out his clutch trying to heave the rather solid bulk of the T25 out of the ditch.  The second bloke had a small jeep type vehicle, which was at least a 4 x 4, and he succeeded in shifting it a few inches before our two rope broke, so he, too, had to give up, as he wasn’t carrying one of his own.

It was at that point that Debbie had called me. I called the RAC and after being on hold for a mere 22 minutes, listening to recorded messages about how important my call was and how they were very busy so could I possibly just look at their web site instead and stop bothering them, I finally got through to a human being and rang it in. They said they were experiencing delays of up to 90 minutes. Right… I rang Deb back and she said it was too cold to wait in the van, and too uncomfortable sitting at a 30 degree angle anyway, so she was going to get the dogs out of the tailgate and go up West Nab anyway, because, ironically, that was the best way of warming up.

This, in fact, is what she did, although there were still a couple of twists in the tale. As he jumped down from the tailgate, Zak misjudged it and landed, up to his chest, in an 18 inch puddle of mud and slush, that had been created by Debbie churning up the snow trying to reverse out.  When they came back down to the van, they only had a few minutes to wait before the RAC man, who had come from Bradford, for some bizarre reason, finally arrived. However, by that time, Debbie’s hands were so cold that she dropped one of the van keys in the same 18-inch deep puddle of mud and slush, and had to take her glove off, squat down, and scrabble for it. Fortunately she found it, otherwise they would all still be up there.  Anyway, it was but an inkling of a twinkling for the RAC man to attach the hook from his steel hawser to the rear towing bracket on the van, and pull it out backwards, until it emerged with a plop, like a reluctant molar.

Needless to say, when they returned, there was much boiling of water for hot water bottles, hot coffee, [Debbie] plus towelling down of wet dogs, removal of soggy dog harnesses, and general steaming by the fire followed by chomping through a hearty bowl of Muttnuts and “Butcher’s Dog”.  [Zak and Misty].

So, a narrow escape. And, to a certain extent, a first-world problem. They were never really in any danger, as such, and the worst that could have happened would have been damage to the suspension, and the RAC man declared it fit to drive, so, no real harm done. We are lucky to be able to laugh about it.

It’s certainly been one of the few things to laugh about this week. The meaningless crap from both sides on the EU referendum and “Brexit” debate rumbles on, each side seeking to make the most of The Great Confusion for their own devices, instead of actually telling the truth.  One of the most sober and measured assessments of the likely economic consequences of leaving was published this week in The Economist, as you might expect. Sadly, it is not good news for the “better off out” brigade, but most of the people who will vote no are most unlikely to read The Economist anyway, and will vote no because they think, as racists, that by doing so they are keeping out brown people and somehow reclaiming “their” country. The whole areticle (too long to quote in full) is here, http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21693568-david-cameron-will-struggle-win-referendum-britains-eu-membership-if-he-loses?frsc=dg|a and is well worth a read. Apologies for the long and messy hyperlink – I don’t normally hotlink from this blog, but I think everyone should at least  read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest the implications set out in it, before they decide how to vote.

Not that the EU has been especially useful or anything this week. It’s been the same old, same old, especially where the refugee crisis is concerned. The French have been simultaneously demolishing “The Jungle” outside Calais and threatening to export it to Saltdean if Britain pulls out of the EU. Perhaps someone needs to remind them of how many refugees from Hitler’s conquest of France in 1940 were able to carry on the fight against fascism from a base in Britain, notably a certain Charles De Gaulle.  And, if it comes to that, how many people died on the beaches of Normandy so that the modern-day French could have the freedom to behave like a set of petulant tossers over the refugee crisis today. If it wasn’t so grim, it’d be ironic.  I remember when we all felt deep and real empathy for France and for the French at the time of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and we all wrote about how it was important to stand up against bullying, to stand for freedom and for liberty, equality and fraternity. Well, having watched the scenes coming out of Calais this week, I can only say Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie. Not  any more. Not in my nom de plume dans le bureau de mon oncle.

Mark Steel, writing about it in The Independent, was suitably scathing:

But as well as dignity there’s the security, and the French government says they’re moving the refugees to better accommodation, so they’re just helping them along by gassing them, like an enthusiastic branch of Pickfords. Whenever I’ve moved house, I’ve infuriated myself by dawdling and going back indoors to check I’ve not forgotten anything, and often wished the removal men would give me a hand by whacking me with truncheons and snapping my arm in three places.

A spokesman for the French prefecture – the state body that ordered the evacuation – described the event as a “humanitarian intervention”. That makes sense, because when you see CRS riot police gassing refugees as their kids scramble away through the mud, the first thought that comes to mind is: “I bet that’s what Florence Nightingale would have done.” The first area of the camp demolished was the part that contained the health centre and makeshift school – and there’s nothing more humanitarian than knocking down annoying places like that.

I envy him his detachment and his mastery of the reductio ad absurdum. It makes his piece all the more effective. I am afraid I just can’t do it these days. Instead, I get a red mist before the eyes and am filled with incoherent rage to the extent that I want to go outside and shout at the passing traffic. I am seriously thinking though that it is time to consider boycotting French produce, French products and French services.

The problem is wider than just France’s reprehensible attitude, however. It is an issue which has shivered faultlines throughout the whole EU. The EU’s attitude seems to be that it is now best to confine the refugees to Greece, despite the fact that Greece’s economy is tanking (or had everyone forgotten the ‘Grexit’ crisis?) and that one of Greece’s few profitable income streams, tourism revenue, is being hammered as people cancel proposed Greek holidays in their droves for fear that the refugees will have nicked all the sunbeds.

There are Greeks, and there are other Greeks. The refugee crisis in Greece itself has provoked a variety of responses, from the Greek coastguard trying to sink migrant boats through to people actively trying to help with humanitarian aid. If I were Greek, right now, I would be very tempted to take a pair of industrial-sized bolt cutters up to the Macedonian border fence, chop a 16 foot hole in it and then say to Macedonia that it was their problem now, and good luck. If the Macedonians had any sense, they’d do likewise, and so on.

Instead though, we have just the opposite. A hardening of attitudes and a closing of borders that has left some commentators howling with fury.  Wieke Löwenhardt writes

I can't grasp it anymore. If you really, really let it all sink in, you can only get utterly depressed, ripped, torn up, shocked, aggressive, outraged, mad, distressed and infuriated. Think for one moment of where they are now when you take a bite, step into the comfort of your home or the warmth of your bed. When you use your passport for anything. When you cross borders without being noticed. How on earth is it possible that people call me an activist when it is out in the open what is happening here?

How can we not inform ourselves, help in any way, raising awareness, giving money, helping there or here, bury our heads in the sand, in ignorance? How can we not shout it out? How can we pretend this is just a minor thing happening or it is out of our hands? Why are we now, one year+ talking about flying newcomers in? How can we not feel responsible for all of this? For giving our children no moral values and not educating them? How can we not see what will happen? What the consequences for their future and the future of us all will be?

Gabriela Andreevska writes in a similar vein:

Humanitarian aid? - How many sandwiches will it take us to open these gates?
- How many croissants to appease the crying infants, men and women stranded in the mud at the Greek-Macedonian border? How many croissants to give them the "right documents"?
- How many pairs of socks to fight for the freedom of movement of the thousands of people with disabilities sleeping in despair tonight next to the razor wire?- How many gallons of water in nicely wrapped aid packages to wash away the blood on our hands?

To anyone that has ever asked me how they can help, please join us in protests, civil resistance, petitions, campaigns, direct and indirect action...If we wish to "help" these people (or rather, fight together WITH them in solidarity like sisters and brothers), we must not limit ourselves to humanitarian aid. If humanitarian aid does not go hand in hand with activism aimed at structural changes, it is only further feeding the exploitative, oppressive system creating refugees and migrants in the first place! Speak out. Resist. Fight. Because being silent is not an option. Because being silent is being an accomplice!

If there is one ray of hope in all of this, it is that the EU seems to have finally stirred its stumps and set out a plan allocating aid to Greece to build proper camps to house and assess the migrants. Six months ago, I agued for this very solution, in fact I said there should be a pan-EU effort to set them up in all the countries along the migrant route. It’s great to know I was ahead of my time in something, but not so great when you think how many people have died in the interim. And of course, the same EU that is proposing this is also giving the green light to France’s destruction of The Jungle.  To underline the seriousness of this paradox, 18 people died by drowning off the Greek coast today, and Macedonia introduced still tougher border checks and controls. It’s a bad time to be a refugee.

George Osborne, meanwhile, here at home, hinderer-in-chief of the economy and soothsayer of self-generated, self-fulfilling austerity doom, has raised his head above the mire of Brexit-related crap to opine that “driverless lorries” would be a good thing for Britain’s crowded congested motorways. Driverless lorries, championed by an aimless man, who has missed every target, every goal, set for him since 2010. What could possibly go wrong? He has also criticised the appointment of ex-Channel 4 journalist Paul Mason as an economic advisor to the Labour opposition.  Describing Mason as a “Marxist” [and since when did that become a term of insult?] Osborne quipped that Mason, who does look disconcertingly like Jeanette Winterson in a certain light, only got the job “because Chairman Mao was dead and Mickey Mouse was busy”. All I can observe, in response to this, is that, given Osborne’s dismal performance, if Mickey Mouse was busy, it must have been because he was busy advising George Osborne at the time.

Talking briefly of fascism, as I did when I mentioned De Gaulle just now, I should also pause to note that Donald Trump has continued his Hitler-esque rise still further in pursuit of the Republican ticket in the US elections this November. It is a scary thought indeed that, if things continue in their present vein, this time next year, Trump could be president of the USA, and Boris Johnson prime minister of the UK.  I read a very cogent piece of analysis during the last few days that put its finger exactly on why Trump is getting such a rave response. It is because his support is coming from people who feel that their aims, aspirations and even, in some cases their rights, have been impugned and ignored by politicians of either party whose origins lie in the educated, patrician elites, and what Trump has tapped into is the anger of the “ordinary guy” at not being listened to. Now Trump has said he is listening, and they are flocking to his rallies to hear him talk of making America great again, which to them means the freedom to carry guns and to indulge in casual racism.

We had the same thing in the UK with UKIP stealing the core white working class vote when Labour abandoned it in favour of wooing middle England. Although in that case, it manifested itself in a misty eyed longing for the days of the 1950s when hedges were clipped and so were accents, and it was perfectly acceptable to put a notice in the window of a lodging house saying “No coloureds”.  In America at the moment, it seems that Trump’s supporters are exhibiting a misty-eyed longing for either the 1960s, when “coloureds” had to sit in the back of the bus, or indeed the 1860s, when they were all safely corralled on plantations.  This is the conclusion of the article. I wish I could remember who it was by and where I read it, but it makes sober reading:

Fascist movements build their base not from the politically active but the politically inactive, the “losers” who feel, often correctly, they have no voice or role to play in the political establishment. The sociologist Émile Durkheim warned that the disenfranchisement of a class of people from the structures of society produced a state of “anomie”—a “condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals.” Those trapped in this “anomie,” he wrote, are easy prey to propaganda and emotionally driven mass movements. Hannah Arendt, echoing Durkheim, noted that “the chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships.” In fascism the politically disempowered and disengaged, ignored and reviled by the establishment, discover a voice and a sense of empowerment.

There is no doubt that there are dark days ahead. As for me, these days, I just take things one day at a time.  I feel, often, a bit like one of those blokes in the films Debbie watches about Everest. You plant your ice axe in the snow, transfer your weight on to it, and heave yourself one more step towards… what?

Well, towards today, I suppose. Today is Laetare Sunday, or the Fourth Sunday in Lent.  It derives its name in the same way that Gaudete Sunday does, from the first lines of the introit for today’s services.

Laetare Jerusalem: et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam: gaudete cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis: ut exsultetis,et satiemini ab uberibus consolationis vestrae. Psalm: Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.

Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her: rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. Psalm: I rejoiced when they said to me: "we shall go into God's House!"

It is also “Mothering Sunday” – not to be confused with Mothers’ Day, the second Sunday in May, and an American invention dating from the early 1900s. Mothering Sunday, because it is always the fourth Sunday in Lent, which depends on Easter, which is a moveable feast, varies from year to year in the date on which it is celebrated. Easter Sunday, which is early this year, is three weeks away!  Originally it is thought that it became known as Mothering Sunday because of the custom of people to make pilgrimages back to their “mother” church on that day, or at least to the church where they were baptised.  Later, with the growth in domestic service, particularly in Victorian Britain, it became a Sunday when indentured servants were given the day off so they could visit their families.

It is also, traditionally, a day when the austere regime of Lent is allowed to relax a little: Simnel cakes may be baked (originally as a gift to be taken home to the family) and the clergy wear rose-coloured vestments as opposed to the normal violet ones worn during the remainder of Lent.

The traditional olde English idea of Mothering Sunday has been merged with the brash commercialism of the American holiday that even though they are on two different dates, these days confusion reigns and they are both the trigger for a relentless bombardment of crap advertising from all directions.  Especially so these days, since we are followed and tracked wherever we leave a footprint in the crisp, fresh snow of cyberspace. It doesn’t worry me these days. My mother died in 1986, at the horribly early age of only 57, from cancer.  I could not miss her any more or feel sorrier for her loss than I already do.  But it must be hard for those only recently bereaved, and those who have not yet come to terms with their grief, to have the cyber-equivalent of someone constantly pushing leaflets under your door, reminding you of something you’d rather remember in your own way, on your own terms.

I’ve actually been thinking quite a lot about my parents of late, because I have been striving to finish off Crowle Street Kids before it finishes me off.  It’s also kept my mind occupied in another week dominated by ankle pain and plantar faciitis. I don’t intend to write about the pain. Pain is boring, and other people’s pain is twice as boring, but it has been preventing me sleeping to the extent that I have been nodding off in the middle of the afternoon.  It’s sort of a follow on (the train of thought, not the ankle pain) from my meditations last week about Deb’s dad.  Sometimes, when I think back to those days in Alexandra Terrace, it seems like I am looking the wrong way down the telescope of time at a completely different person. How the hell did that snotty-nosed little urchin who used to play at “archaeologists” with Trevor Tozer and dig up the bomb site opposite out house, ever grow up to be me?

We had three choices of play areas, the bomb site, the school playground (during school hours only unless you fancied bunking up over wrought-iron gates and playing tag with the caretaker) and the disused cemetery. Can you imagine it today? Mummy, can I go and play in the disused cemetery? Yes dear, but I insist on dropping you off there in the 4 x 4 you can’t be too careful.  And yet, somehow, I survived. Survived being a kid with my duffle coat unbuttoned, the hood on my head, the arms held out at 45 degrees, running along the street making a noise like a Vulcan V-Bomber.  Survived the culture shock of moving to Brough, passing the 11+, and the even bigger culture shocks of going away to university, being unemployed and then getting a “real” job.  I guess in the “Everest” metaphor, that must have been about Base Camp, if the analogy holds.

Now, of course, as I approach the summit, and my breath is getting thinner, I realise what good companions I had in the parents I have now left behind on the sunlit lower slopes.  I won’t say they fitted me for everything life has to throw at me. I have also said, and done, things which would have horrified them, and usually, in those cases, it’s turned out that my headstrong stupidity caused me and others pain, and their reaction, had they been there to react at the time, of horror, would have been the correct one. I should have listened.

So, anyway, Mum. Although you are not around in person this mother’s day, you are as much “with me” as you ever were and are.  After all, paraphrasing Henry Scott Holland, what if you had been here and had just gone into the next room, somewhere very near, perhaps next door? I wouldn’t be able to see you then, but you wouldn’t be any the less to me. And although you gave me these dodgy genes that are now wreaking their own special brand of havoc, you also gave me life and the eyes with which to see it, and the skills, together with my Dad, with which to interpret it, make some sense of it, in as much as anyone ever can, and plot a course forwards. So don’t worry about the dodgy genes thing, I know you didn’t do it on purpose.

Meanwhile, somehow, it’s become 6.30pm. Matilda just went to the door, so I booled over there and opened it to let her out. She took one sniff of the dark frosty evening and went back to her bowl instead. Ellie is curled up on the chair next to the fire. Deb and Zak and Misty are presumably on their way home from wherever they managed to climb this afternoon, and the RAC are on speed-dial, just in case.

I don’t feel I have achieved much this week, to be honest, and I will really have to up my game in the next few days.  Easter may well be a ray of hope to look forward to, on Laetare Sunday in the middle of lent, but it is also a massive deadline. For all sorts of things. Still, I know what my mother would do right now if she were here, and I intend to follow her example. She would do what Granny Fenwick, and no doubt Great Grandma Walker would have done. Put the kettle on.