21st August 2022

20th August 2022.  Well in diary mode, the day of Karen's birthday.  Lillie baked the cake yesterday, and then her mother wanted a breakfast of pancakes, blueberries and bacon.  This at 5.30 am of course this morning because of the railway strike.  Karen's normal journey into Manchester is a train trip at 8.0.clock, but there is a train strike.  Which meant bus into Rochdale and then catch the tram to Manchester.

We discussed in my bedroom what to have as a takeaway tonight, not much choice, we don't live in America, so it was either curry or chicken/chips.  Cards were opened.  My present is always money, Matilda's card had on the front  something like 'The classiest bitch out'.  This because Karen is always dressed to the nines and surpisingly enough she is not bitchy but more of a surrogate mother to the students that volunteer at her shop.  She is good at her job makes several hundreds a day because she knows the price of things and has a keen eye for fashion labels.

Fashion goes over my head of course, watch the girls giggle at 'Cotton Traders', Ellie had the account at one stage in her PR job! But I reckon we should all dress like the Chinese used to do, in a similar uniform. ;)

Matilda who lives in London studying at Uni to be a fashion journalist, has by some miracle managed to find a flat for four of them, found herself a part-time job and an internship.  So all worries over there, though why interns aren't paid puzzles me.  Ben is styling for some famous girl songstress, who's name escapes me.  So by and by everyone of my grandchildren are either working or studying, so one could almost say - so what is wrong with Britain ;) ;) 

Books listened to at the moment, well I still have 'The Inklings' to finish.  A Phil Rickman for light relief and in my library Germaine Greer 'The Female Eunuch'.  Something I have never read.  I think her appearance always put me off Germaine and her behaviour, which let us say, was way over the top.

But like all of us that got older over the last  decades, we have had to adjust to this new world of a sexual revolution, or quite a few ways of describing your gender.  Feminism has become 'old hat' I think, it is just about arguing for the equality of pay etc and the realisation that ground gained is occasionally lost.

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Today is Sunday.  The geese have already flown over on their way to the canal and last night I heard an owl hooting, so fragments of nature still remain. There is rather a cool article about tourism.  The photographer goes to particularly touristic places takes quites a few photos and then collages them altogether, showing crowded places, when all these people just want to photograph self images alone in a vast natural world.

Last night after the feast we watched 'Absolutely Fabulous' film, not as funny as it could be and we all retired early before the film finished.  There is so much to choose from on the television, especially if there is more than one person in the room, then hours are spent scrolling through the various offerings.  The only thing I watch is the new 'Shetland'.  Plot is good and of course the remote scenery a joy to the eye.  But of course these Scottish islands will become touristic spots, ready for the quick browse tourists off the great cruise ships which dwarf the small harbours of the islands.  

I managed to work out my phone video, and took the moment of the cake coming into the sitting room and.......... even managed to shunt the video onto the family App place, which is one more step to understanding how to upload stuff...

8.15 and my daughter has just dropped into the bedroom says Andrew and herself are going up to Gaddings Dam, Andrew to do a bit of wild swimming... Perhaps I should have taken a bet on that! or should have told them that if the cows are on the beach with their young be careful.

Years ago I watched a cow with a young calf at foot chase a man and his two dogs.  Luckily they escaped, but my Moss would never walk through the field and would always take a much longer route to miss the cows and join me later.  You can't beat a collie for brains...