Knee Deep

Last week the wind ripped the bark off the eucalyptus tree and sent it flying all over the garden. A vase blew off the woodshed and shattered into tiny pieces. A trampoline blew onto the railway line between Orpington and Sevenoaks and Waitrose was empty save for me and a few other souls who were buying reduced gin and firelighters.
The nephew and his partner came over for dinner. We had peppery mushroom soup, I added black and white pepper to my oyster mushrooms and dried porcini, a delicious melange of red peppers, onions, and courgettes only I’d run out of courgettes, so I used cucumbers instead. Slopped in a pile of refried black beans, heated tortillas on the stove and, voila an East Sussex Mexican feast was created topped off with dollops of vegan mayo and handfuls of vegan cheese. Salad and delicious homemade hummus filled the plate as we ate and talked then ate and argued. We decanted into the sitting room and watched JUST MERCY, a film of such pain and optimism that I felt I had to remind myself that all really is not lost.
The wind blows malevolently, raucous with change, the rivers swell and burst their banks, damp logs will be banned and bags of coal will be confined to history, but in the middle of the howling and surging the small voice of community can be heard.
I found this from last weeks Storm Ciara, before Dennis took hold, we had multiple power cuts, this blog resurfaced along with several unfinished emails.
So now we watch as Wales and Yorkshire sigh under rivers of mud and broken dreams. Does not the arrogance of our missing Prime Minister disturb, or the utterances of Cummings rankle, as he swaggers into Number 10 with his disrespectful trousers hanging round his disrespectful arse, his sense of entitlement pinned to his clip-board. Our new Government sends ministers to stand knee deep in silt promising zilch whilst the insurance companies continue to gather their premiums and close ranks as not one penny is paid out to people who have lost everything.
Reporters report, commentators commentate and the cameras keep us glued to the screen as we watch people scrape sludge and family heirlooms onto their watery roads.
Sitting in front of a roaring fire discussing life and art with the younguns I feel desolate that my dawter and her generation are having to Iive through such unhinged times, but hearing my niece and nephew describe their will and their fearless fight I do feel rather less hopeless than of late.
Intergenerational living certainly must be the way forward. A complete overhaul of political thinking. Humanitarian decisions, not political posturing based on power and greed. The elderly have wisdom and the youth have energy to put it into action.
Talking with my nephew and niece sieving out the crap from yesterdays news, straining the shite out of the media, we agreed on tactics and what to do about veganism. We laughed at the old order struggling to hold on, we imagined a brave new world of calm and peace; readjusting, rebalancing, believing, taking to the streets, writing letters, calling out the lies, it’s clear that I had allowed myself to become a victim of thought terrorism.
So as the wind blows down our fences and the cellar smells of wet Schnauzer, the primroses and grape hyacinths the hellebores and cyclamen are shouting back at the wind. The small of voice of community is growing louder. 2020 has started with a painful shriek, lone killers in Germany, viral deaths in China, immoral deaths in Syria, racist bigotry from the overblown Twat in the US, and silence from our Prime Minister who is up to no good behind closed doors plotting with his sycophantic cabinet who are as out of touch with the Great British public as an Eton educated monk sitting on the top of the Himalayas singing Cumbaya into a cassette tape recorder as the rest of the world drowns in its own shit.
As the Phoenix rose from the ashes so our sodden communities will rise again too. May we all support each other in these waterlogged days.