When time isn’t on our side
Sorry to say, but I feel quite sad around this time of year.
It’s not Hallowe’en that gets me down – although I’m more partial to a slice of pumpkin pie than ghosts and ghoulies. Nor is it our more traditional bonfire nights, even if St Piran’s School’s annual display supposedly used quieter fireworks last week.
No, the saddest day of the year for me is when the clocks go back on Saturday night. It means winter is coming and – before we know it – it will be dark and depressing at five o’clock in the afternoon.
Most years I can cope with my SAD – or Seasonal Affective Disorder to sound more medically informed – because there are usually other things happening to fight off the doom and gloom. But, as the leaves start to fall from the trees and our little part of Furze Platt more resembles darkness on the edge of town, I fear we’re not really living in ‘most years’ anymore.
Although I’m probably not supposed to say it, the effects of the BBC… that’s Brexit, Boris & COVID, cast quite a shadow over my view of Berkshire’s sunny uplands. And that’s before I worry about the latest badger cull in the county, or where water companies will be allowed to dump sewage next.
But heh, I’m sure everything will be fine in the end. After all, according to the papers, Boris has got 58 days left to save Christmas! He’ll rescue all Santa’s helpers and children’s toys stuck in containers at Felixstowe; fill those empty supermarket shelves and pluck all the turkeys because there aren’t any farm hands left.
Between you and me, we have reserved our Copas Turkey already, mainly on the grounds that if there is more petrol rationing, we can walk to Cookham Dean to get the bird. Although, it will be fingers crossed that more HGV driver shortages don’t hit our festive champagne order on Ocado.
I was thinking about my old mum the other day – who did live through The Blitz and had plenty of spirit – and wondered what she would have made of our modernday moans and groans of recent hardships. She was a true-blue Tory who loved Maggie Thatcher, a Police Special, and a lady with an opinion on everything who always believed in standing up for people’s rights, no matter what. I miss my mum and – despite our political differences – I think she would be shocked at how much has changed and how little people protest nowadays.
She would not have put up with black bin collections going every two weeks; or that St Mark’s Hospital’s minor injuries unit was still shut, and as for the few parking bays at the front of Maidenhead’s revamped railway station being reserved for staff not passengers… I dread to think.
But, most of all, she supported animals, the environment, and our precious greenbelt. And even as the borough launches its green COP26 events, I bet she would have been writing to Boris, furious over their plans to bulldoze Maidenhead Golf Club. And, maybe, that would have cheered me up.