Staying Home Part 2: Day 17

Watching the Covid figures it looks as though the current semi-lockdown is beginning to turn the tide and numbers are beginning to creep down. Hoping that is the start of a bigger trend.  

I enjoyed the chance to sleep in a bit this morning, then did a bit of social media stuff for work (I'm not meant to work on Saturdays, but it was only 30 minutes or so). I "finished" a Kindle book I had been reading about 19th century prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. I borrowed it on Kindle Unlimited but then stopped my subscription. So long as I kept the book open on my Kindle I could keep reading, but then today I forgot and closed it. As I was most of the way through I am counting it as finished.

H and TG went out later in the morning to B & M to get Christmas wrapping paper and a few other bits. H kindly bought me a Christmas mug as my old one got broken. They also got takeaway coffees from Costa Coffee and brought one back for me. After lunch M and I went out for a walk. First we went to have a look at the site where H's house is now partly built (up to roof level). Then we drove to the village of Bow Brickhill and did a new-to-us walk through the woods. 

At one point we crossed back into the village, coming out near the church and the cottage below. The autumn afternoon light was perfect. H also went out for a walk with her BF, but was back before we were. It is Saturday, so the girls and I watched Strictly. I also did a bit of online Christmas shopping. 

I was sad to see that the writer Jan Morris died yesterday at the age of 94. I feel in love with her writing when I discovered her book on Trieste when we visited the city back in 2017. She lived an extraordinary life, and in her death we have lost one of what she called the "lordly ones", the people of "humour and understanding" she describes in Trieste: 

"There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones. They come in all colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities, because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it."