Turning point

It's the shortest day today, I'm pleased to say. Slowly lighter evenings will return. I wake up at first light , switch on the radio to hear the news and then doze, often until eight thirty before getting up, frequently missing Thought for the Day and needing to listen on catch-up. After breakfast the fourth and final Reith Lecture for this year, on  'Freedom from Fear' by Fiona Hill a British born international relations advisor who worked for several US presidents sharing her expertise as a Russian affairs analyst. 

She started with a useful long perspective on geopolitical power struggles and conflicts over the past centuries, observing a tendency for history to repeat itself, and then analysing the war in Ukraine and Putin's strategy of arousing fear as a primary instrument of war. This I thought was a brilliant take on the situation, particularly her idea that the only way to counter the impact of fear was with resolute courage. Nicely timed this week as President Zelenski ventures away from Ukraine for the first time to visit the USA and make a bid to the US Congress for continued support. 

Then a walk in the rain to St Catherine's for the Eucharist. There were a dozen of us present and ten stayed on for coffee chat afterwards. Then I walked in the rain to collect the weeks veggie bag and return to cook lunch. A full stalk of brussels sprouts and huge red cabbage this week. Christmas fare indeed! I cooked a batch of soaked yellow split peas for lunch, but these took far longer than anticipated, so they were added to the vegetables sooner than necessary, and then needed pressure cooking to make them palatable. I was rather disappointed with my effort.

It stopped raining and the sky cleared of cloud after lunch. I started preparing the texts for the next two Thursdays' Morning Prayer, then went out for a walk just as the sun was settiing. By this time clouds were filling the sky and the temperature dropped enough to cloak the Fields with mist, quite beautiful.

After supper, another evening watching the last couple of episodes of Rocco Schiavone. Apart from the interesting story-line there are occasional sympathetic vignettes of characters marginal to the plot, encountered in the course of the investigation. Often old, or poor. There are still a few unresolved threads in the overarching story, maybe to do with high level corruption and vendettas that would benefit from several more episodes. If the sixteen episodes so far fourteen were made between 2016 and 2019, and two more last year, so the series survived the pandemic. I hope there'll be more.

Before turning in for the night, I recorded the audio for next week's Morning Prayer and set up the Video creation app ready to complete the task tomorrow to make ready for a work-free Christmas feast.