The Salvation Army has set up (paid****SEE STARRED COMMENT BELOW) hot drinks and snacks to ease the agonies of those lost in the Heathrow Time Warp. At first glance this hardly seemed to fit in with social welfare provision, the SA’s raison d’etre. Do those hopping off to sunny beaches and expensively smoothed pistes deserve our charitable instincts? Then, fatally, my thoughts turned from the general to the particular.
Four or five years ago Mrs BB and I contrived a Christmas ski-ing holiday in Cervinia with the whole immediate family, a party of eight. A very rare event, unlikely to be repeated, and something we can look back on fondly. But suppose it had all ground to a halt in that modern-day Slough of Despond – the airport departure lounge? We were lucky. And the SA is probably right. The middle classes are not immune to despair.
ALL GOD's CHILLUN When I saw a rat insouciantly climbing the central support of the bird table we stopped putting out bird food. But today a blackbird, fluffed up like a ball of knitting wool, poked sadly round the snow on that empty shelf. The service has been resumed. If the rat returns, so be it.
INNER PULSE Lucy recently posted a list of 49 exhortations, observations, indulgences, what- have-you, that I suppose help define her passage through time. The first was: Don’t forget music. I was reminded of my mother who abhorred the idea of playing music while she read, but embraced it while working – notably as she ironed. Today Radio 3 droned out a Kodaly cello sonata as we belatedly decorated our living room, hardly Christmassy but a little warp to add to the woof. (Note: MSWord’s style guide hated that last bit).
Four or five years ago Mrs BB and I contrived a Christmas ski-ing holiday in Cervinia with the whole immediate family, a party of eight. A very rare event, unlikely to be repeated, and something we can look back on fondly. But suppose it had all ground to a halt in that modern-day Slough of Despond – the airport departure lounge? We were lucky. And the SA is probably right. The middle classes are not immune to despair.
ALL GOD's CHILLUN When I saw a rat insouciantly climbing the central support of the bird table we stopped putting out bird food. But today a blackbird, fluffed up like a ball of knitting wool, poked sadly round the snow on that empty shelf. The service has been resumed. If the rat returns, so be it.
INNER PULSE Lucy recently posted a list of 49 exhortations, observations, indulgences, what- have-you, that I suppose help define her passage through time. The first was: Don’t forget music. I was reminded of my mother who abhorred the idea of playing music while she read, but embraced it while working – notably as she ironed. Today Radio 3 droned out a Kodaly cello sonata as we belatedly decorated our living room, hardly Christmassy but a little warp to add to the woof. (Note: MSWord’s style guide hated that last bit).
