Air-raid Precautions!

I admit it could be a product of advancing years, but I confess to having great feelings of dissatisfaction over the last year or so.  There is so much wrong with this world.  I listen to the regular news bulletins with their stories of political wrangling, most recently the build-up of tension over Ukraine.  I hear reports from nearer home and am faced with politicians unable to follow simple instructions that they themselves have imposed, while their colleagues - or they themselves! - are processing new laws that will curtail individual freedoms in a variety of subtle, and not-so-subtle ways.

Meanwhile, the world, we hear, is drifting slowly to complete melt-down resulting from, inter alia, our seeming insurmountable dependence on fossil fuels ... quite apart from the problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which is far from over, may never end and is causing us to re-think our lives in terms of 'living with Covid'.  There is so much famine, violence and hardship in the third world; boatloads of refugees are arriving daily on our shores - 25,000 last year, did I hear this week? - preferring, it seems, to be shut up in near prison conditions, in fear of deportation, to staying in the countries from which they have fled.  Are they being deceived by stories of a much better life here, or simply being let down by the unrelenting selfishness of the natives?

I'm dissatisfied because I can't see a way through all these problems - notwithstanding the immeasurable difficulties of executing any solution - and I realise there is virtually nothing I can do about them.  I can send donations to the Salvation Army and other relief agencies; I can support UNHCR, contribute to appeals for food in Yemen, medical aid in Ethiopia or hurricane relief in this or that country recently hit.  But how much can the few pence that I send help to reduce the problems?

I can write imploring e-mails to my MP, but I'm afraid that he won't read yet another boring contribution to his inbox that is just like the other hundreds he gets.  And even if he did, since he's only the Shadow Defence Secretary, I guess there is little he could do anyway.  If we had a better, more co-operative system of government than the present adversarial system - did you know that the two front benches in the House of Commons are two sword-lengths apart ... and why? - then there might be some hope.

HOWEVER ...

Amidst all this macro gloom and doom, there are micro-shards of the light of satisfaction.  In the strong winds of storm Malik the other week, my back gate jammed.  It was a one-off incident and it passed out of my mind.  Then this week storm Dudley had a crack.  This time the problem was far greater; I couldn't wrench the gate free by pulling it from the inside, and had to resort to strolling innocently around the block armed with a hammer, and thumping it into submission from without.  Close examination revealed what was making this situation possible so, when I later contacted the landlord's agent to report the problem, I was able to suggest at least one possible remedy.

I had scarcely put the phone down when I looked out of my window to see that the wind had once again released the gate from its moorings and was thrashing it to and fro once more.  I needed little thought to hit upon a temporary remedy.  When I re-modelled the garden last autumn, I unearthed a large slab just smaller than the others that were there, about the same weight but, unlike them, not made of concrete.  I hadn't known what to do with it, so it has stood against the shed wall ever since its discovery.  I've now found a use for it.  It holds the gate in the closed position, at an angle that - I hope - will not allow it to be blown out of place by storm Eunice, whose winds are beginning to be felt as I write.

I end with a picture of this week's 'air-raid precaution'.