Boxing Day Birthday Girl

"To sneer at intellectuality is madness. If a person does not develop his mind he is denying his humanity. For there are only two really human triats - the heart and the intellect. To the extent to which a man does not develop his mind (hence also his heart), he is unhuman, not a man, unmanly - however much he may be a 'he-man.' Since being in the garicultural world, no subject has so continuously and so spontaneously presented itself to me as the problem of education. Up till now the powerful Few have not wished to encourage the Many to become aware of Mind, and most obligingly, the Many have therfore despised it and sneered at 'book-learning.' But we have to pay so dearly for the faculty of mind that if we do not make the best of it, we might just as well be animals. This gift is our specific means of becoming more - alive. Two things are essential to the rela life of man, and neither can be supplied by Act of Parliament: love and intelligence - all else is the machinery of life."
The Worm Forgives the Plough by John Stewart Collis  1946

Christmas morning

 No ridiculously early mornings in this household, on any day come to think of it. The stockings are left in the sitting room the night before so no child is disturbed by the bulging lump at the bottom of the bed. Everyone, adults too, gets a stocking with about seven presents in each and we open them at the same time with many oohs and aahs.

Irish Christmas

 Visiting Cobh with HoF and Laura. This is where many left Irish shores for Ellis Island and a new life. It was also the last stop for Titanic.

 The view from Laura's house in Cork. I loved watching from my bedroom window.

 I feel a painting coming on when I look at this one.

After a morning browsing shops and art galleries we two girls had lunch in the English Market. I hope I get to visit Cork again one day, so much more to see. A great place to be at uni.

The times, they are a-changing

Had a conversation yesterday with the postmistress. The Post Office is laying off posties. Considering that years ago students could always get a job delivering the extra Christmas mail, this seems astonishing. But then, it seems that Christmas cards themselves may soon be a thing of the past. Now that it costs 50p to post each one, folks are sending messages on Facebook to say 'this is my card to all my friends' or are sending one but including a note that requests your phone number because next year they'd rather ring, for free.

But will they keep that up? Would I? Or will that become a chore? Imagine the conversation in years to come:

"Whose turn is it to phone the next person on the list?"
"Oh, do I have to?"

Plus no decorative Christmas cards, no joy of trying to guess the handwriting on the envelope. You'd better hang on to this years; they may become antiques.

The other part of the conversation was about a family row because her daughter had sat at one end of their sitting room TEXTING her daughter-in-law at the other! More and more social interaction (can it even be called 'social', shouldn't it be 'virtual'?) is conducted electronically. Better not leave visiting your Facebook page for too long, or you'll miss out.

Even HoF, now retired, spends most of the day doing things on the pooter because that's the way everything is conducted, and it gets harder to prise him out of the house. We can order shopping, buy our postage, conduct our banking transactions, find the news, the weather, book our holidays all online. And with tablets etc we can keep it up even if we do venture out of the house. Our eyes need never leave the screen.

It's a strange new world that's coming. I'd better get off this thing myself. Now knitting, there's one thing I don't need a computer for.

London

 We are back from a super long weekend in London, having done more walking than we'd do here in the equivalent time. It was super. We saw an exhibition AND two shows AND two craft markets, travelled on train, tube, bus, Docklands Light Railway and ordinary train besides shanks' pony.

 We went on the Cutty Sark which was apparently at the 1951 festival of Britain so I might have seen it then except I was too young to remember!

 Christmas in Covent Garden market.

 And 'Let it Be' a brilliant reprise of the Beatles which even the musically critical HoF thought was fantastic.

Flood

HoF was out with his pointy spade clearing the drains in the road to ease the flood for the children coming to school. The rain has stopped and we have heavy frost and blue skies this morning.