Darker days ahead

Pancakes for Saturday breakfast seem to come around quicker than ever, weeks slip by at a pace when everyday life routines are familiarly the same. It rained until mid afternoon, keeping us indoors until we donned our wet weather gear and walked around the park in the drizzle. Then it stopped. After a visit to the Co-op to buy phone top-ups for both of us, Clare returned home, but I carried on walking further to maintain my daily mileage. We noticed how much less traffic was on the road for a Saturday, far fewer people going into town to shop with many non-essential stores being closed. 

First Minister Mark Drakeford seems to have committed a rare error of judgement by insisting that the supermarkets shouldn't sell non-essential items during the lock-down period, as so many stores selling clothes and non-essential utilities were obliged to close. All on the grounds of chwarae deg, fair play, not giving the supermarkets an advantage over other retailers. One criticism made is that the ban hands business over to on-line retailers, unfair in a different way. It seems to have caused an outcry from the public, people complaining it stops them from acquiring items other than food and toiletries they need to help them live as normal a life as possible under lock-down. By this evening it seems the First Minister's office is already reviewing the ban.

It was closing time as I reached the gates of Thomson's Park, then I heard a loud whistle being blown by the park-keeper, announcing gate closure, so I walked on to Victoria Park, did a circuit of the periphery and headed back. The sun wasn't yet on the horizon but with low cloud it was already dusk an hour before sunset. The clocks go back tonight. Sunset tomorrow will be at five. I don't look forward to this, especially as overcast weather is going to prevail for much of the lock-down and my self-quarantine.

We watched a lovely programme about the history of Venice by Francisco de Mosto, architect and historian, himself a Venetian, giving a clear account of the impact on the city's fabric and community life of environmental damage due to 20th century regional industrialisation, climate change and mass tourism. The poor quality of life there is driving younger people, the mobile enough to be able move away to live and work, making it into a city with the highest average age per capita in Italy, where one in five people are pensioners. 

Tony Robinson's Scandianvian train journey programme which followed seemed lacking in content and interest. Then I noticed a Danish crime drama simply called DNA was on straight afterwards, and indulged further. It's developing an interesting plot, and has dialogue so far in Danish, English and Polish, the latter being a reminder of how close countries of Eastern Europe are to Denmark, now that all are covered by the EU Schengen agreement. We can't travel anywhere for the time being. It's nice to see a little of what places abroad look like on our TV screens.