Woodbridge revisited

We had a slow lazy morning, but the sun appeared and the dense cloud of the past few days began to break up, Ann drove us along winding country lanes for lunch in Woodbridge, a lovely village up the river Deben, which we last visited seven years ago, with its old tide mill, boatyard and quay crammed with smallish marine craft. Houseboats, seagoing barges, yachts and the suchlike are crammed alongside each other resting on mud when we arrived, as the tide was out. Several craft of typical character were from from Holland, a near neighbour in maritime terms.

We parked a couple of miles out of the town, down river at Kyson Hill, then walked down to the footpath along the river into Woodbridge. I heard a curlew and an oyster-catcher as we walked, but we didn't see either. The restaurant we were aiming for turned out to be fully booked, so we bought sandwiches and drinks at a modest sandwich shop nearby and took them down to a seat overlooking the estuary, and ate them in the sun watching a couple of snipe foraging for food in the mud, twenty metres away - I think there were more than a dozen snipe feeding in the area, along with the gulls and other birds I couldn't identify a hundred metres away. I took over eighty photos, half of them of birds in the estuary, uploading these from two cameras after supper.

In the news recently Haiti has suffered another devastating earthquake with around two thousand deaths reported. Emergency aid has been slow to reach the country, perhaps partly due to international attention being distracted to the crisis in Afghanistan? Since the recent American and allied  forces withdrawal, the country has been overrun at shocking speed by Taliban insurgents. The capital Kabul was handed over without a fight, and in the past few days thousands of people have sought to flee the country, fearful of reprisals because of their role in government, or as contractors with allied forces. 

Britain has made a commitment to receive up to twenty thousand refugees, army interpreters and their families. Around the country local governments are expressing willingness to offer hospitality, but are concerned that national government should support them financially. This particular national government has a reputation for over-promising and under delivery. It's impossible to see what the impact will be of this inevitable moral decision if post brexit and covid economic recovery is very slow, limiting resources to help poor and deprived citizens as well as those being offered sanctuary. 

Looking back to times when Ugandan Asian and Vietnamese refugees were welcomed to Britain, as with Jewish refugees from the Nazis, it seems likely that in the long run Britain will again benefit from a new wave of incomers bringing their creative gifts and energy to bear in freedom and security of their new country. Some people see refugees only as a threat, and not as a promise that revitalises national life and identity. Will this ever change? I hope and pray it will.