Spring is on the Way

It's been a mixed bag of a day today, spent mostly down the rabbit-hole of my mother's family history - the Southall side - until my brain can cope no more until at least tomorrow: I've traced links both real and possibly fantastical [lovely, old world usage, that] to rather more diverse places than I'd imagined I would at the outset. Still it's an interesting diversion to engage with, and offers new light on some people who I actually knew personally, despite their being three generations older than me. Also, I discovered that my great-great-grandmother Harriet Taylor was the village postmistress in Bosbury, Herefordshire, back at the turn of the 19th/20th century.

Aside from that, we shopped briefly and managed to secure an order for more firewood from Rob before he goes back to Cornwall to visit his ma, in about ten days time. With a bit of luck, we can then stretch it out into spring, should the season arrive in a timely fashion. At least the days are lengthening, albeit slowly: I hate the gloom of late afternoon in the winter, but still at least we are on the up now, as evidenced by Jane's piccie above.

Watched some of the Post Office Scandal debate this evening and can't help feeling that, despite the fine words and across-the-house consensus, that it's all a bit late in the day, given the knowledge and scope of the coverage we've had available to us in the many years since the scandal was first uncovered. That it has taken a TV dramatisation to bring awareness to an audience big enough to shame the authorities into real action speaks volumes of the compartmentalisation of our collective awareness when it comes to politicking and the world in general. That so many people have been unaware for this long that any of this had happened at all, is frankly scary. I wonder what the heck my great-great-grandma would have made of it all. We need to give up relying on social echo chambers for our 'knowledge' of the world, and read, listen and look more widely at the data there is before us: and most importantly, formulate informed opinion, based on that data, rather than parrot the opinions of sundry other commentators.