Cloudy outlook

I avoided looking at news/social media yesterday evening. I read a book instead. When I got up this morning, I looked at headlines on my tablet, blanched, and switched to Wordle.

The reality dawned later -- this wasn't a narrow win, it was a landslide. A majority of white women and an even bigger majority of white men actually wanted what Trump was selling. Whatever criticisms you have of the Democrats' campaign, no tweak they could have done would have overcome this (I think Kamala did as well as she could given the limited time available). It's heartbreaking to face this reality. I'm so sorry for my US friends on here. And the effects will obviously spread beyond US borders.

We did our best to distract ourselves. To the market in the morning, and as we were driving there S's sister R phoned to say S's mum was struggling to breathe, so the care home had called an ambulance and they were taking her to A&E. It took R most of the day to drive up there thanks to British traffic, and by the time she got there J had been admitted. So we wait on tenterhooks.

We had delicious moules de bouchot for lunch, cooked to perfection by S -- a slight variation on this recipe. Then we had the further distraction of visiting the notaire to talk about wills and power of attorney. Very jolly.

We continued to do our best to avoid social media for the rest of the afternoon, S by playing ping pong and me by going to the community gym class. Trying to focus on positive things, but it's hard. I feel so unsettled about what's going to happen next, in both personal and global terms.