When all the world was ...

I was going to post a photo of my garden this afternoon, with the secateurs and the hedge clippers and a tarpaulin full of greenery and other signs of industry, for that, O best beloved, is where I have spent most of today, trying to make it possible to walk down the back path from car drive-in to our back door without having to go on the grass. I've not really done this for several years, with the result that the onset of wet autumnal days has us cursing and dodging the Weigela with its tendency to poke one in the eye on a dark night while all the time being soaked to the knee by the overhanging greenery below it. Not this year. I feel quite smug, though my back aches horribly and I'm actually blipping before dinner because I'm not out for a walk. 

Other than that I have been out early to do the shopping, worried a bit about the costs of our fuel (encouraged by a woman on the radio who was raging about the absurd figures touted on various news items which bear no resemblance to the cost of heating an old house in Scotland, even with insulation) and looked uncomprehendingly at a statement from our investment company. I think perhaps I took to the gardening because it wouldn't tax my brain and would yield a positive result - though I did listen to some of the Liz Truss re-emergence interviews on local radio stations. That woman's a farce on feet. 

And suddenly I thought of this photo, sent to me yesterday by a friend from choir, Pilates class and my previous incarnation as a teacher. It must have been taken in 1985 or '86 - so not today's photo by Blip standards - and I'm in it (third from left, holding someone else's placard)  as is the friend who sent it and several other faces I remember. I think it must have been taken in Ayr, as the background seems unfamiliar, and was a horribly cold day in winter for an EIS (our union) march through Ayr protesting about Thatcher's government suggesting they "let Scots stew" rather than pay us more.  I actually wouldn't have remembered all that, but I can recall the cold, the fact that my children were at Primary school when I had that jacket, and the "Maggie Maggie Maggi/out, out, out!" chant that a colleague with the most stentorian voice led as we marched through Ayr. I also remember that I had a purple plastic water bottle belonging to my son. I put cider in it.

You know, "Liz" isn't quite as good for a rant, but how therapeutic it might be ...