More fun with leaves

A very broken night's sleep, last night... no one major cause , though R's snoring is at least a little bit implicated :-)

Fortunately we're still in the 'getting over Covid' routine of not making any arrangements with anyone, and taking it easy.  We're due to look after Luca on Monday, and I'm really keen to be in good enough shape to do it. Ruth and Jack have had to juggle quite a bit to cover the days we couldn't do recently, and I'm hoping we can avoid any more of that for the moment.

So I've done some minor tidying up, indoors and outdoors, including giving the grass in the back garden its final mow for the year. And I slept for much of the afternoon; such a luxury...

After that afternoon nap, I took a cup of tea outdoors, with the camera, and returned to contemplating afternoon sunlight on leaves (the espaliered mulberry tree this time, with its heart-shaped leaves and delicate serrations).

What to say about the murder of another MP, yesterday? It would feel wrong not to mark that event, which feels to me like another twist in the pathway we seem to be on, to ever greater polarisation and loss of democratic norms. I guess I say that not only because of yesterday; it's too early to say exactly what was going on in the mind of the young man who killed David Amess.   But the story has flushed out so many more accounts of threats to MPs and their staff, at a time when we also know that GPs and other NHS staff are also on the receiving end of verbal and physical violence. For me, this is the trickling down of the effects of all the austerity years, plus Brexit and its accompanying dishonesties.  A kind of ominous unravelling.  Whatever Thatcher once said, there is such a thing as 'society', and it's hurting.