The merging of shopping festivals

My yearly festive twaddle rant.

In this fracturing world where nearly everyone must surely be aware that things are not heading in a good direction - especially environmentally - one might think that the amount of consumerism could be on the wain . . . manufacturers taking a bit of responsibility, or more likely, jumping on the 'ecologic' band-wagon/bus/trolly, bike, whatever. But, no. Certainly no evidence of this in our local cathedral of shopping.
I went in to get A4 paper, a bag of prunes and a bit of cheese but must have spent five minutes just gawping at this years Christmas displays of chocolate. It was definitely worse than last year. Ferrro Rocher marked their territory with a sort of pathetic golden cardboard arch under which you have to pass to get into the main actual food area of the shop. Other brands - mostly Lindt, it seemed, had been arranged in a huge block - a red and gold battleship ploughing its way between pasta and frozen foods.
People were loading their trolleys with a polite frenzy. Why? It wasn't even December. Then I noticed the Black Friday/weekend signs. All festive chocolate 30% off in celebration of this . . . event. We might as well just have Black Century and be done with it. The weekend has already spread to Black Week.

                              

I did look up the origins of all this madness.

According to a site called History Stories, the first recorded use of the term 'Black Friday' was applied after a major financial crash on September 24, 1869: specifically, the crash of the U.S gold market Two Wall St financiers worked together to buy up as much of the nation's gold, thus hoping to drive the price sky high and make astronomical profits. The outcome was discovery of the conspiracy, stock market free fall and massive country-wide bankruptcy.

Apparently ten people have died in crushes over cut-price goods. The first in a Wallmart. A shop worker was trampled to death while opening the doors to a flood of eager people, another during a shooting incidents over goods in Toys R US . . .

I don't actually recall Black Friday being a thing until a few years back. Mad folk waiting in sleeping bags outside Harrods in January for various sale unmissables, yes, but crazed shopping on a Friday in November?

Anyway, I did get my prunes, paper - no cheese as there was a queue like the M25 around the counter - but I did fall slightly under the festive shopping spell, or perhaps it was a pine-needle/roast dinner/ho-ho-ho spray drifting down from the sprinkler system forcing us into goodwill to all food manufacturers.
My purchase, a very small box of 30% off After Eight mints. Just for nostalgia of the 70s reasons.

                     

                     

Keeping a light on in the soul

A beautifully enigmatic house that I might not have seen near Narbonne station if my son hadn't suggested going for a walk rather than shivering and lusting after chocolate in the vending machine while having to wait an hour for the connecting train

A very good friend of mine sent a post of her brother's blog to me yesterday, part of which was discussing the fact that in the 'olden days' - i.e before internet and even as far back as no phones, possibly even newspapers, people didn't really know much about anything beyond a few muddy fields/patch of desert/icy tundra, depending on where they happened to be on the planet and would go about their business, occasionally hearing something about the next village, or town, possibly city, possibly across seas - maybe once a year for somewhere so distant . . .
We now carry this weight of information about with us all the time, plus all our small domestic worries and fears, and perhaps it's really not too healthy. Anyway, if it is or it isn't this post is about taking a few minutes for the soul each day - leaving a constant homely light on, getting outside even if it's a total damp fog-out, to look at other things that we share this globe with: trees, birds, dogs, weeds - even a weed covered with morning drops of dew can be a startlingly beautiful thing in contrast to a picture of a ranting politician.

                            

                            Go outside and look at clouds - a wonderful and cost-free activity


Today, I did feel overloaded: one of those days where everything builds up into a vast mound of impossible-to-scale stuff.
I drove to collect water from our local source without remembering the drive there, and filled bottles while worrying about my ageing mother, my ageing God-mother, our ageing car, my, about to go to uni, son, where will he live? The hillside behind our house full of trees that all need cutting, the storyline I'm working on; why is it taking so long for the people who have my last book to decide what to do with it, the roofs that need clearing of moss, my aching legs, the computer that keeps announcing 'your start-up disc is full' the chimney that needs cleaning, the dogs that need expensive tic-preventative treatments, my husband who works too hard; whether we should update our wills, etc, etc . . . plus all the stuff I happened to have glanced at in The Guardian, and that tear-inducing film about ill-treated animals someone had loaded up on Facebook.
Two things stopped this mania: one: talking to another friend - who has an incredibly small amount of time to spare in her life - about artist activities, and the other, going for a walk in the rain with the dogs. I got wet feet and a wet head but felt revitalised on returning to the house. The trees on the slope suddenly seemed quite all right - I'll get round to cutting them in due course, the boy will be fine, mother will age more and she'll be fine in her warm, caring, care home, and everything else is really okay compared to most of the screaming headlines that I saw this morning, and perhaps might not look at tomorrow.

Further, further, further proof

that the world is a mad and dangerous place.

On a trip to our local DIY shed a few days ago to buy a plank, I stopped in amazement at a display topped by a gabbling televisual advert for an incrementally-descending loo lid.
Yes, folks, it is true! There is an end to all that terrible worry and domestic noise pollution caused by the clack of plastic against plastic, or wood against wood if you have a posh lav. . .
For years I have felt troubled by this, disturbed you might say, even avoiding the toilet altogether and peeing in the garden so not to be plagued by this awful, house-vibrating sound . . . finally a solution! Praise the Lord of all invention!
But really. Who would buy such a thing for nearly forty euros? Quite a few people apparently if the diminished pile was anything to go by.
What could you buy with forty euros? Let me see . . . toilet paper to last for a year (if you are a little puritan with it - which one should be), lunch out for two, a good donation to Oxfam; the entire box set of Spiral (fantastic) a mahogany loo seat with gold hinges, a night in a sordid motel with your lover, a new shirt, a hairdo, a massage/reflexology/shrink session, a tree, or even two trees depending on the age of it/them, a budgie, a vast chocolate cake and a bottle of fizz and invite a load of people round for tea . . . or you could buy a plastic widget that will make your loo lid become silent.
I don't think anyone in our house ever puts the lid down anyway. Are we bad people?

And goodwill to all men

Even to Ezra who woke us up crashing about at 5.00 am — still, I'm sure we all did the same at eleven years old.

Excellent Christmas day. Brilliant presents all round, lunch in the sun, walk above Limoux, far too much chocolate and a viewing of an awful 'Carry On' film from   Ezra's stocking.