Pottering

Another rainy day but with a few dry spells which meant that by timing things right I managed to avoid the rain every time I went out.  I slept really well last night, which now means I’ve slept well for four nights in a row, to achieve this I’ve had to take a cocodamol tablet, but it’s been worth it because my pain is greatly reduced. I’m no longer waking several times a night with tense painful shoulders, in fact when I do wake in the morning my shoulders seem fine.  I also managed a swim tonight without any pain, although if I move my shoulders through their full motion there are a few twinges.

The day started in Caffe Nero, I got there early and they let me in before it opened and gave me free milk! later as it was really windy I avoided the sea front and walked through the housing estates until I reached the northern dunes and then back to Sainsbury’s for cherries – yum – and then home.  Over lunch I watched the second episode of Harvest and then more TV on my exercise bike.  I’ve not done much else today, a bit of house work, washing up, the clothes washing, repairing Tessa’s laptop, making homemade Pizza for tea and swimming this evening.

Facebook has been driving me crazy today, the outpouring of emotion over the Paris tragedy, which should have made me feel good about the compassion, instead really riled me.  What is it about 140 dead in Paris that warrants such compassion, that’s not also true of Syria where as many people are dying every day, or Palestine, or Iraq …  Our empathy only seems to extend to rich/white people, or perhaps more accurately to people like us, in circumstances like ours.  Anyway I vented in a constrained way on Facebook, but more importantly donated a hundred pounds to Oxfam’s, Syria appeal – the real victims of ISIS.  I can hardly imagine how angry people from the region must be at the west now having seen how we react when ‘our own’ are killed, compared to our relative inaction to their plight, at a stroke we have probably sown the seeds of discontent that will bloom into even more radical Islamists being born from the Muslim world and who can blame them.  if it makes me angry, they must be seething with the injustice of it.

The whole ISIS crisis hung over me today like a cloud as I watched the world spiralling into angry revenge action again, unfortunately in such complex situations, there’s no easy answer and scared of inaction, violence is the default action.

I’m off walking in Arnside tomorrow with Vince, being out in nature will make me feel clean again, hence today’s photo.

Now it’s Sleepy Hollow time.