Beware the Dog

Pitted black olives seemed unusually difficult to track down this morning at the local shops, which gave me an excuse to journey to the furthest reaches of the fiefdom and a solitary coffee at the café which once served as a funeral parlour for the lately departed near the canal but which is now bright, airy and welcoming.

Reading the Guardian newspaper there, as you do when you look like Billy No Mates, with horrific news about Gaza, the Ukraine, the butchery carried out by the members of the Islamist State in Syria, and the pitiable conditions of migrant workers in Qatar, building the new football stadium there,where the pay is 45p an hour if they are lucky enough to get paid at all, it was a relief and heart warming to read about the friendliness and achievement of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

I passed this garden just before I found my olives: someone with a sense of humour to restore my spirits.