Summertime - Oh really?

The first day of meteorological summer today. Dull, overcast, humid, but cooler. 

I drove into town after a slow breakfast to find the computer shop recommended for buying printer paper. Closed on Saturdays I discovered. Then I went to the church shop and chatted with volunteers Mary and Judith, who suggested the Libreria de Europa on the Calle Granada near the Balcon as most likely to be open and hold stocks. And thus it was so. I returned with two reams of paper, which should be enough to print pew sheets until the autumn. I'd forgotten how heavy they'd be and glad that I'd taken my rucksack.

For lunch I made a risotto with mushrooms, mussels and lots of lemon. I was pleased with the result, even better than my last experiment with a small can of mussels. After a siesta, I chatted with Clare and then my sister June. Before supper, I took the rubbish down to the bins and walked to the Mesonera restaurant and back. It's rather amusing to see blue banners decorating each roundabout, and occasionally stretched over narrow streets, with the legend 'Vota PP'. For a while I saw a single banner on a roundabout with the 'Vox' legend, but it soon disappeared. So far I haven't seen a single PSOE or other regional leftist party banner. It's clear which party dominates the public realm around here, as elections for the E.U. parliament draw near, next weekend in fact.

The fact that ex President Trump has been convicted on charges of false accounting in the USA is causing concern as he's been whingeing loudly for months about political persecution. According to polls he seems to be gaining support for his forthcoming presidential campaign, posing as a champion for the disaffected. America strives to uphold the rule of law, Trump believes he is above the law and can persuade people to believe his version of any story he chooses to tell. 

The country is deeply divided and could be destabilised, especially with Russia and maybe China quietly adding to the chaos with fake news to confuse the populace and generate uncertainty. A very dangerous scenario. Europe and the UK will have to work hard to ensure unity of purpose and action with American solidarity and support under question again from a Trump administration. He behaves like a populist dictator, and with dictatorships of a different kind in Russia, China and Iran to name a few, the future of democratic government in the rest of the world is no longer quite so certain.

The Biden administration has continued to press Israel's extreme right wing government take heed of global opinion that its actions in Gaza have violated international law and treated the whole population cruelly and inhumanely in pursuit of its war aims with more than 33,000 people dead and countless others injured, without hospital treatment, overwhelmed by famine, due to inadequate humanitarian aid. In the background, ceasefire talks have continued through the mediation of third party states, but hopes of resolution seem to ebb and flow. 

It's been like this for months, to painful to reflect or comment upon Every now and then there's some new outrage involving indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians. The damage to the long term reputation of Israel as a humane democratic society is hard to imagine at this stage. The Israeli government may be about to achieve its chief war aim of eliminating Hamas as a military and governing power, but the generation of orphans that survives yet another 'Nakbah' won't forget. Who knows what the future holds for Gazans as a result? How many hostages taken by Hamas eight months ago will survive to tell their tale? If any. Can anything good come out of it?

Before bed, completing tomorrow's pew sheet production and printing off my sermon. It occurred to me to check how much data is on the parish hard drive. Ten years worth, less than 200mb surprisingly. There are far fewer photos on it and documents are smaller sized. Older computers didn't generate such large files anyway. The OneDrive account has never been used, so as it stands, there's no backup, and all could be lost at any time. I've asked John if he has an old USB memory stick unused to spare, so I can back up the files. No point in getting a new one forty times the capacity that will never be needed. I wish I'd brought one from home as well as the spare mouse that will stay here when I leave.

A few noisy nighttime outdoor parties in a scattering of residences around the valley this evening. I wonder what it will be like in a month from now?