The weather was bright to start with today, but deteriorated later, so I pottered around this morning, chatted with Ashley on the phone for an hour, then cooked lunch before going out to post a few more cards and then for a walk. It was almost dark by the time I got back. The tall tree at the entrance to our side street has been decorated for the festal season with huge pom-poms made by some of the kids from shredded plastic bags, strings of fake lanterns - I don't think they meant to glow, plus a string of white lights which do light up, spiralled around the tree. I saw them lit up for the first time this evening.
Several houses in the street have decorated their front garden fences with lights, and curtains are being left open to reveal Christmas trees within. I think more people are making an effort this year, not just as a cheer-up measure, but because they may not be able to travel away to be with family at Christmas. Even though relaxed restrictions are meant to come into force in a week's time, concern is rising about the wisdom of this, given the rapid rise in cases in the South East, and in Wales, experiencing now what the North went through a couple of months back. Present restrictions may end up not being relaxed at all.
Last night Joe Biden was formally declared to be the next US President by state by state appointed members of an Electoral College. This will be confirmed by Congress in the run-up to the Inauguration in January. Trump has refused to concede that he has lost, many Republicans are silent or voice agreement with him, but some have acknowledged that his election was free, un-corrupt and fair. Trump's last ditch attempt to subvert the democratic process will be to produce his own alternative panel of state appointees, to declare him the winner, and insist that Congress examine his claim, although his lawyers have produced no concrete evident in support of his claims.
In his last month as President he has approved the execution of several prisoners on death row for years, and plans to issue pardons for himself and some of his cronies. He has behaved consistently as a fantasizing megalomaniac ignoring deadly reality, fomenting racial and social divisions, denying climate change and America has suffered grievously as a result The fact that he now denies his decisive rejection by the majority of voters, poses serious questions about his mental health. Will he use an insanity plea in future to evade the long arm of the law when he's faced with a series of indictments, I wonder? So glad he's going, even if the lame duck is acting strangely and savagely. The world will be a safer place with a practicing Catholic in the White House, with a record as a reconciler, and a declared re-unifying agenda.
After supper I continued preparing texts for Morning Prayer in the days before Christmas completing one started yesterday but interrupted by the Google server outage, then completing another, and saving a copy of the three done so far on the SD card attached to my Chromebook, so it can be taken away and edited in a standalone device if needs be. Better safe than sorry from now on.
Tech reports today indicate the Google outage lasted only fifty minutes, although there have been knock-on effects in latency of function with some apps. My sister June was complaining about typing and words being slow to appear. Not an uncommon phenomenon in my experience, with Windows updates and scans usually seeming to hinder normal functioning, either because the background process hogs bandwidth, or processing power is consumed by security scans on the device. Grand scale server outages also part of the Google ecosystem too, if less frequently than Microsoft, and yesterday's outage was a prime example of this nerve wracking failure.
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