Too right! Ten degrees cooler this morning after yesterday's rain. It has not rained today but it has not been sunny either - just dull. But the plants in my garden have all grown considerably overnight and are saying 'thank you' in no uncertain terms.
C ovid jabs for the over 75s are now available here but the nearest place I can get one is at a school almost thirty miles away. To have a taxi there, get it to wait for me and then come back would cost me about seventy pounds which does seem rather a lot. My doctor rang me this afternoon about another matter and she suggested I wait a few weeks when they will probably be available at local chemists. So that is what I intend to do.
Friend and neighbour H came round for a cup of tea this afternoon and, as usual, we chatted about old times. We spoke of how things are now and agreed that we have probably lived through the best age. Unless things drastically improve this does not seem to be a good time in which to live and really the future does look not all that bright. Or am I just being pessimistic? The idea of bombing and shelling a country into submission and killing thousands on both sides seems unthinkable to me. And all that has happened so far is that the side which was invaded has fought back with such ferocity that things seem to be stalemate. There was a picture in the Times today (among several others, all equally telling and going a good way to showing that every picture is worth a thousand words) showing a Ukraining soldier burying the decomposing body of a Russian soldier by the side of the road. My immediate thought was that the young Russian soldier, most likely a very young conscript, as most of them seem to be, was somebody's son - he would never go home, his family would never know what had happened to him or where he was buried. And the people plotting and planning are all far from where the action is taking place. What a cruel world we live in.
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18 comments:
Soldiers fighting on the front lines is the same as both World Wars.. the Generals planned away from the front lines and the young men died. What sort of world do we live in when this is still happening, so sad?
The same thing happened to my great uncle in WWI .. he was a German soldier fighting in Russia. Never knew what happened to him. His Mother, my great grandmother, waited for him for the rest of her life!
The horror of all the killing in Ukraine is more than sad. It is too bad that WWI didn't turn out to be the war that would end all wars. As Christine said,the Generals plan and the young men die, and in my opinion usually the rich get richer.
I was talking with my husband about how I thought we had lived through the best times as a society that we will be having. We were both born in the 1950's. I am not seeing things getting better and I am seeing people getting meaner and more rude all of the time here in the USA, though that seems to be mostly in news stories. Personally, I often meet very nice people.
Well, as long as there is springtime, I'm going to try to concentrate on that.
I fear mankind will probably never learn from it's experiences, but in every terrible situation there are usually some good men and women. I have not read a national newspaper for weeks now and am trying to distance myself from the horrors occurring in Ukraine. Cowardly maybe, but if there was more I could do I would do it.
Do you think our parents and grandparents thought they had lived through the best times? Is it just our age that makes us think that we have seen the best we can hope for?
I stupidly believed that I - having been born in the age of reason - would escape this stuff. Has anyone really escaped war in the last 1000 years?
Hubs and i both think things are going downhill quickly... quicker than anticipated i might add.. both at home and abroad.. scarey times.. What i find most disturbing close to home is that you have be afraid to speak your mind.. reactions to what you might say are so over the top.. You might get killed or seriously hurt for not agreeing with someone.. questionable looking people seem to be everywhere.. not just on 'THAT' side of town.. And thats not to mention food prices.. gas prices.. It all seems very unstable.. like the world is perched on the head of needle and could go any direction.. Even with all we have all been through up to now.. over the years.. i fear the worst is yet to come and we truly have seen the best.... Hugs! debs
It was ever thus when it came to wars over territory.
I've always felt that I have lived through the best of times. I lived through the war but was too young to remember much. This is a time in my life when things look very scary.
Times of war are terrible for everyone. It is said, this is P's war. It is alarming that one person can have this much power and cause so much harm.
I read that Putin's next round of compulsory conscription will begin the first of April.
It all seems to arrogant of Putin, that he thinks it's OK to commit such horrors. I have today posted Wedgewood-Benn's 1998 speech about Iraq, which says it all so much better than I could ever do.
Putin started something with what he thought was easy pickings in mind. The truth proved otherwise, Ukraine fought back. I think we all weep for the young soldiers on either side for their tragic ends.
Let us hope peace talks will eventually arrive at a solution, Russia needs to save 'face', and another country has to be rebuilt because of war.
While we rightly find the atrocities being committed in Ukraine as truly awful, it should be remembered that we have also been guilty of such stuff. In WW2 a joint British/American bombing campaign over the German city of Dresden saw 1,600 acres of the city raised to the ground and almost 25,000 people killed.
Raining here this morning.
During my childhood in the 70s and teenage years in the 80s, I grew up to believe anything was possible, any career or way of life I chose was open to me, and the future was looking good; the Cold War ended and the two Germanies were reunited - weren't those signs of mankind finally learning?
But for the past 10 years or so I have changed my opinion. Personally, I am still living in paradise with no financial worries or immediate fear for personal safety. But I think I have come to accept that, as a species, we have not learned a thing. There are still plenty of good people about, though.
And wasn't it ever thus?
I was always think of the children first when I'm thinking about the horrors of this war in the Ukraine. But I also think of the fighters on both sides, some of whom are as young as 18. This morning my own 18 year old son was hovering around me fishing for compliments on his newly purchased Star Wars tee shirt. As much as 18 year olds see themselves as men, they really aren't. Many of these "kids" will never recover from what they've been through and it devastates me to think how many of them will never return to their mothers.
Thankyou for your comments- theydon't make it easier to bear but anything shared helps to ease the pain.
To lose everything you have worked hard for, are proud of, and enjoyed for some time, then to see it ripped out from under you and your trusting little children, is perhaps even worse than death. Broken hearts, injured bodies, destroyed homes, fear every hour of every day and night. . . . . just so, so sad.
I saw an elderly woman who said, "I'm just too old to go through this again." She cried. I just wanted to bundle her up and bring her home. She has refused to leave her demolished home.
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