Happiness: Spring

This was supposed to be my Mono Monday photo - one word, Spring, and an image of something that makes me happy; but it looks so much better in colour.  This was my Monday moment of bliss: a morning warm and bright enough to take my coffee and book out on the balcony, for the first time this year. Happiness feels difficult at present: the combination of politics, making me angry almost every day, the pandemic and all its negative effects on our lives, and the horror of Putin's war on Ukraine all mean that everyday pleasures often loose their gloss or feel almost inappropriate. These, though, are among the things that help to keep me going: good coffee once a day, a good book, and snatching twenty minutes to sit down and enjoy them. Sunshine is a huge bonus; and much as I like mono photography, colour makes me happy, especially in Spring.

Another pleasure on Monday was watching Then Barbara Met Alan on BBC2 with J - a drama telling the story of some of the people at the heart of the struggle for disability rights, particularly access to transport and buildings, in the 1980s and 90s. I have vague memories of the bumpy journey towards legislation, with people lying in the street and handcuffed to buses, when J was very young; she knew little of the story, and was hugely excited and happy to see so many disabled people acting and represented on screen and asserting their right to demand the civil rights others take for granted. It was well acted, and I liked the way it was produced, with almost a collage effect as the drama was cut together with short sequences of archive film, commentary from the present and little animated sequences. It's now streaming on BBC iPlayer (in the UK). When it finished, we turned to Twitter to see something of the huge buzz throughout the disability community. Thirty years later, a lot of things are very considerably better - I can now wheel J onto most buses, something which became impossible in the 1990s when she became too big to hold in one arm while simultaneously using the other to fold the buggy and carry it up the steps -  but there is still a lot which needs improvement; and enforcement of the Equality Act too often relies on individual disabled people being willing to take organisations or businesses to court without access to legal aid. It was good to be reminded of the energy and determination which set so many things in motion; it's still needed.