Power and Authority Preview

Update: Sorry! I have had rather too much wine with supper (fish & chips for the first time in months) to write up a post about Temporal Authority, so we'll have to discuss it tomorrow.

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Lawks! Chapter 5 of Integralism, "Temporal authority (I): its origin", is rough going for your poor correspondent, not because of the writing, which remains elegant and clear, but because of her deficiencies.

I was halfway through the section "Division of Temporal Authority" when I realised that I would not be able to write about the chapter in anything approaching a comprehensive way before B.A. and I have our sanity-sustaining Saturday adventure. So I have set down the book at page 95, and if you are interested in what I make of it all, come back later today.

In gardening news, the first shoots of kale and rainbow chard have appeared in the veg trug, and the primate of the courgettes has reached such a height, I may have to pot it again. But this will mean leaving it out of doors in the biggest of the pots,  an act of faith in the Scottish weather.

In lockdown news, I spent almost the entire day indoors with books and the computer. However, I have begun to take cod liver oil tablets with my Berocca, so hopefully I am absorbing sufficient quantities of Vitamin D against the Dread Germ.

Bathrobe Servitude

Good morning! It's sunny again, and a reminder that central-east Scotland often sparkles in the sun. It is the west coast that is soggy: future tourists take note.

Yesterday Benedict Ambrose stuffed one end of the hose up the nose of the bathtub tap and watered the lawn and gardens. I stayed out of the sun, unfortunately, and dealt with work. I did not  go outdoors even at lunchtime or take a lunch break, which is not a sign of character but of my inability yesterday to keep my mind on the job. The horrors of working on and from the internet include the disintegration of the adult attention span.

Speaking of work, this morning I sat down with my coffee to read the fourth chapter of Integralism; it is entitled "Servitude." The opening sentences gave me quite a shock, for they seemed cheerfully accepting of the state:

"Servitude, or slavery, is the ownership of one person's labour by another. As such it is not contrary to natural law but it is an undesirable state."

"What do you mean 'not contrary to natural law'?"I inwardly shrieked.

I was vastly relieved to discover that by "servitude, or slavery," Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister mean being employed by another. They distinguish between "chattel slavery," which "finds pseudo-legal expression in the idea that the master owns the person," and the slavery of merely working for someone else.  They also call "chattel slavery" a "tyrannical relation based on the false claim that one man may own the person and not simply the labour of another." Whew.

They discuss a number of just and licit forms of servitude. There is the servitude of felons in prison and of prisoners of war--and here I think of the Axis POWs sent to Britain and Canada to toil in the fields, and some liked it so much, they came back after the war for more.  Then there is the hereditary servitude of serfs, which is apparently just under certain conditions, and indentured servitude, which the authors see as a long-term work contract, and ordinary employment of employees by employers.

I am an employee, and my workplace is online, I occasionally start work in my bathrobe--hence the title of this blogpost.

There is much to enjoy in this chapter, especially the discussions of the origins of servitude, the injustice of wages too low for employees to save up to escape our servitude, and Pope Paul's 1537 condemnation of the devilish notion that the indigenous peoples of the New World "should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service." This last, by the way, was in Footnote 20, and by no means should you skip the footnotes as you read this interesting and instructive book. Footnote 24 features Pope Leo XIII's stirring rebuke of the worker-exploiting rich in Rerum Novarum; I recommend memorising it for future recitation to anti-Catholic Communist acquaintances.

There is a reference to the Jubilee of the Hebrew people of the Old Testament, for whom it was apparently an opportunity for land re-distribution as well as a chance to retire from indentured servitude. I would like to read more about that.

It is a short chapter, and I think I have covered the main points, so now I will indulge myself in more MTs. (Whenever I mark up material with pencil, I preface My own Thoughts with MT, so that I know it is mine and not the author's or authors' when the time comes to write the essay or the review.)

My first MT is "employees/tenants; servants; upper servants; poor relations; rich family" which roughly corresponds to English and Scottish society until after the First World War. I think there must have been versions of this all over the Western world. The richest branch of my family tree had tenants, employees and domestic servants in disintegrating numbers from the late 19th century until, I believe, the 1950s (or whichever Census proves that set of great-grandparents had a live-in housekeeper).

But one arrangement that interests me very much is Polish society in Lithuania in the 18th and 19th centuries  because of the Polish epic Pan Tadeusz . In Polish-speaking areas before and during the Partitions, there were peasants and there were an enormous number of aristocrats, many of whom were very poor and therefore had to work for their richer aristocrat relatives. There were also Jews, who were partly in mainstream society and partly not. (It's complicated.)

In Pan Tadeusz the poor aristocratic relations who manage things in Soplicowo for the noble families seem confident and honourable in their service. However, English literature of and about that period is full of the anguish of poor relations in their secondary status in households. Jane Eyre hated her rich relations so much, she didn't mind becoming a governess, which was the only paid employment considered at all suitable to gently born women with no money. However, becoming a governess is considered a terrible threat to other women throughout the English canon, and the poor relation who serves as a paid chaperone is a figure of fun in both the work of E.M. Forster and Georgette Heyer.

The American attitude to this is slightly different, perhaps. In Little Women, Meg bears her governess-servitude with quiet dignity, but we all know we're supposed to be sorry for her. Meg's sisters Jo and Amy serve as paid companions for their rich Aunt March, which Jo finds very boring and Amy does not. Naturally, this exalted in-family employment does not make them at all ineligible for the very rich boy-next-door. It also has its perks, as Amy discovers.

Interestingly, there seems to be no shame in fiction both light and heavy in a well-born young man becoming a secretary or a landless younger brother managing his older brother's estates. Usually younger brothers become military officers (expensive for their families) or clergymen (less).  But I may be digressing.

My second MT is FIRE, which stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. There is a movement devoted to achieving this, combining intense hard work at high-paid employment with parsimony and strategic investment in the stock market. I am very interested in this movement  although, alas, I have not the skills that attract high-pay. According to Integralism, this self-sufficiency is something that we should all be able to achieve in a well-regulated society. However, Integralism is also rather down on "rapacious usury," from which I believe the stock market is not immune.

Thus, my third MT is the nobility of the trades compared to the professions, and the supremacy of farming and handcrafts over both trades and the professions. If you have your own farm, you have your own food and something to sell, and if you are a weaver (for example) you also have something to sell. Thus, a successful market gardener (especially who makes other things for sale during the winter) can be self-sufficient and thus has escaped the bonds of servitude.

Incidentally, by that logic freelance writers also avoid servitude but often not poverty. The freedom of freelancing is that one markets one's writing instead of writing for someone else. Some freelancers can actually make a living doing this whereas others pray for one of the increasingly rare staff rare positions. In fact, they are praying for servitude, trading in their freedom for money, rather like a  weaver's son abandoning his loom and putting on the livery of the local Big House. Still, if he collects enough tips, he will be able to buy his own pub one day, so there is that.

Are We a Family?

Good morning! It's a beautiful sunny day. I haven't yet visited my plants, but I have read Chapter 3 of Fr. Crean's and Dr. Fimister's Integralism, so let's crack on.

Chapter 3 is about the Family and easier to read than Chapter 2. Pursuing the author's train of thought on the Family is like striding through a sunny meadow after climbing a slightly difficult ascent. It's all great fun, and the margins of our copy are now penciled with many heart symbols (solid agreement) among the electric light bulbs (new ideas).

Fimister and Crean return the goods of marriage to their proper order, leaving the so-called "unitive aspect" many paragraphs down from its primary purpose, which is the generation and education of children. Marriage is not primarily for the spouses but for their children, a truth I very much enjoy, for it means my Aged Ps are on the hook for the rest of their lives. Ah ha ha ha!

But here is a most interesting point: Fimister and Crean assert that the family is the society generated by marriage, and in a footnote they state that "In the absence of children, husband and wife may be said to have simply a marital society." This is absolutely true, and thus the supreme importance, for a childless Catholic couple, of being grafted to each other's families of origin and at the same time not to separating ourselves from our parental branches.

It is important to be a part of a family, a necessary society, for the bonds of friendship therein, as well as for the generating, educating and all that part of it. I note with joy that Aquinas believes parents are to "lay up wealth" for their children to inherit, and this counts as part of the children's "education" which goes on for our, ahem, their entire lives.

"...It should be said that matrimony, from the intention of nature, is ordered to the education of the children, not for a certain time only, but rather for the entire life of the children (which is the reason why, by the law of nature, parents are to lay up wealth for their children, and children should inherit from their parents)," says St. Thomas and goes on to explain this is why parents must never, ever divorce.

It's all a win for children, I must say, especially as it's a myth that adult children are usually a-okay with their parents divorcing. Meanwhile, children owe their parents obedience until we attain our majority, and there's something in there about deference, respect for the experience of the aged, etc.

But lest you think I am merely enjoying this all for the goods Chapter 3 confers upon me, let us turn the pages swiftly, past the explanation of why same-sex marriage is  impossible, and look at the following exciting sentence:

"The husband has by natural right the authority to govern his wife so that the family may attain its end."

There's more, and you should read the chapter yourself to see if you find it convincing. There is a recognition that a wife is a rational being and so the husband should "desire her counsel" and "explain the reasons for his decisions" and to "recognise her right to accomplish her household tasks in the manner she judges best." Also the wife may work outside the home ("by her husband's consent") "if her domestic duties are not thereby harmed."

The authors point out that in a well-regulated society this outside work wouldn't be necessary for the maintenance of the family, and I happen to agree with this. I also agree that children shouldn't be neglected so that their mother can have prettier clothes, snazzy holidays, or legions of adult minions under her command. But I will point out the stultifying boredom, for many women, of spending their day entirely around children, and then having only a tired man who doesn't want to talk, or accompany his wife from the house, for company at night. This is a very real thing. It must be addressed.

As for husbands having the natural right the authority to govern his wife, I have two thoughts. First, this is not such a horrible thought if the wife chooses the husband very carefully (so carefully, in fact, that you run the risk of becoming too old to have children). Second, when it comes to the care and feeding of husbands, it helps them flourish and I think the good ones are deeply humbled by it. If I were a man, I think I would feel awe and even a dose of fear if my wife were to say, "Well, you're the husband, so you win." It's a heck of a responsibility.

Oh dear, there's a lot more, including delightful appearances of Marx, Calvin and Hobbes, so they can be swatted like the pop-up creatures in "Whack-a-Mole". There are many heroes, too, like Leo XIII. However, I have only ten minutes before work, and I want to visit my plants.

In gardening news, one of the tardy courgettes has actually sprouted. The basil, thyme and cucumbers are thickening in their pots, but the runner beans are still entirely MIA. I shall go have a look at my gardens. I must say those April radishes are taking their time, but I suspect the soil quality in the raised bed is very poor.

     

Are Rights Right?

Good morning! I rushed out at 7 AM to unburden my vegetables from their newspaper and cardboard blankets. They look fine.

I washed the remaining unwashed dishes, made a coffee, and sat down with Fr. Crean's and Dr. Fimister's Integralism, Chapter 2.  This is a fun but also challenging chapter. It is fun because the authors use such homely examples as cake and football (soccer) to illustrate private and common goods and such concepts as chess and backgammon to illustrate the extrinsic and intrinsic ends of society. It is challenging because the authors discuss authority and rights and I am, in my meek and feeble way, an anarchist.

Whether or not you can be both a Catholic and an anarchist is something I have been arguing with Benedict Ambrose for eight years or so, and the underpinning for my argument involves concepts of freedom and rights that Fimister and Crean thoroughly attack in Chapter 2 of Integralism. Their (and so I suppose Aquinas') concept of human rights is necessarily attached to "the notion of the common good." They consider the idea that rights are an inherent property of a person to be a "fatal inversion." Rather shockingly, they use the right to life as their first example.

The last three paragraphs of Chapter 2 are like an unexpected roller-coaster ride during a hitherto pleasant and peaceful journey by train. My mind is blown. I seem to be more of a modernist than I thought, and I didn't as much as blink when F&C wrote that God ordained husbands to be the rulers of their wives. (That said, I congratulated myself on my broadmindedness.)

I am reminded, incidentally, of my maternal grandfather, who permitted my maternal grandmother to earn some pin money at Charlie's Smoke Shop on the condition that it not interfere with her household duties, i.e. having dinner on the table shortly after he got home. This was, I believe, in concert with Catholic teaching about working women at the time (work not interfering with one's vocation as wife and mother) although my grandfather was certainly not a Catholic.

I wonder what my grandfather's reaction would have been had my grandmother come home and said that Charlie had asked her to become the manager of his Smoke Shop, and perhaps other Smoke Shops, at a wage higher than my grandfather's, thus more than doubling the family income. Would he have been pleased or would have have found this against the natural order of things?

I must admit that, although my grandfather died at 65, my grandmother survived and thrived (despite having smoked most of her adult life) into her eighties without having had to work outside the home for her necessities of life since 1945, doing good works, visiting friends, child and grandchildren, playing cards and doing exercises at the local seniors' centre, enjoying excursion to Kmart for bargains, and occasionally going with friends to a resort in Muskoka where she, usually a non-drinker, enjoyed cocktails. Apart from the "Births" and "Deaths" section, she kept her name out of the papers, and yet has a monument in a local government building today.  Her obedience to my grandfather did not blight her life; in fact, I sincerely find it enviable.

But to return to F&C's attack on the modern conception of rights, here is the section that stabbed my anarchist and pro-life heart:

"...Persons are [now] taken to possess inherent claims to certain goods, claims to which are inevitably conceived us as being in themselves unlimited--for they supposedly exist independently of a person's ordering to the end of any society. Whereas in the former view, an innocent man has the right to life because anyone kills him is harming the common good, of which an innocent man is an important part, on the latter view, a man's 'right to life' flows from his human nature without reference to any society, somewhat to do with his intellect, will, sense-powers, etc. The difficulty with this latter view is two-fold..."

But I have to stop here, for I must go to work.   

Integralism and Lunch

I'm finally having lunch. I started work early today, and I may well end it late tonight. The new book which we will be discussing for the next 12 days  is Integralism by Fr. Thomas Crean OP and Dr. Alan Fimister.

I read the Acknowledgements and Chapter One this morning, and they were great fun. Bernard Lonergan is notably absent from the Index. This is Thomism of the Strict Observance, as one rather expects from Fimister and Crean.

B.A. was delighted when the book arrived yesterday, and I told him that it was his anniversary present. We have both committed to reading a chapter a day. After reading Chapter One, B.A. warned me that it was not light reading, or however he put it. This was a misplaced tribute to my intellectual humility, for naturally I informed him that Integralism was not as difficult to read as Lonergan. I mean, I read [most of] Lonergan's Insight once. Did I mention that I read [most of] Lonergan's Insight once? Yes, I did.

This doesn't get me Brownie points with Thomists of the Strict Observance, but it did give me something to discuss with a Scottish Professor of Moral Philosophy. He was great fun and pointed out that he had got the Chair once refused to David Hume. B.A. and I had taken him to a restaurant for supper. The Professor one-upped me on morality (as you might expect), for when I mentioned I didn't feel comfortable, as woman, stepping into a pub alone, he declared that his mother had never set foot in a pub in her life.

That, by the way, is something unique to Scottish life. In the 1950s, if a young man took a young lady out for a drink in Edinburgh, he took her not to a pub but to a respectable hotel. And, in fact, once waiting for BA to finish a learned talk late one Edinburgh night, I waited for him in the Peacock Alley of the Caledonian Hotel, feeling safe, warm, happy and utterly chic.

Anyway, I feel a bit guilty for name-dropping (or, rather, Chair-dropping) an academic celebrity, but he is a reminder that philosophers can be great fun.

I have only eleven minutes left of lunch, so you won't hear oodles about Chapter One of Integralism except that Wendell Berry served as a good warm-up, as the book is about political philosophy and explains that political philosophy is "the study of man's life insofar as he is united with his fellow man in a way that extends beyond the family."

The writing is both elegant and clear, but although I have peppered it with my symbols for new ideas, important points and heartfelt agreement, the incidences of ???? show that I am not in total agreement. Fimister & Crean assert that "the good that men may obtain by [extra-familial] union is greater than the good which they may obtain by their union in domestic society." I have yet to be convinced of this although they swiftly make reference to the famous Lykov family.

Chapter One is also elegant in that it sets out the premises, definitions and/or distinctions and follows up all with a handy list of "Theses." Like the Summa, its a textbook, really. Meanwhile, it's lovely to read Aquinas again. He dominates the footnotes.

In lockdown news, I got very little fresh air yesterday as I was working that hard. However, my plants survived the frost, the cucumbers are on the move, and I've even seen a hint of basil. So that's all good. B.A. and I continue to be charmed by the Victorian Kitchen Garden, and I tried to work out what ours could look like before I fell asleep.

Lunch was leftover penne bolognese, and now I must go back to work.

Gardening Update: More movement among the gin botanicals on the windowsill (and dark silence from the runner beans and two other courgettes). Tonight the mercury may go to zero, so I have been out with my (local!) newspapers and cardboard to tuck in my vegetables for the night. I have brought the strawberries in again and informed BA that "I am a good plant mother." Ich bin Pachamama.

Victorian Kitchen Garden

Sunday was Mother's Day in various countries, including the USA and Canada. Unfortunately, by the time I remembered, my usual Toronto flower shop wasn't taking any more orders for Sunday. The second-Sunday-in-May Mother's Day was founded by an American woman named Ann Jarvis in 1905, and she worked like a filial bee to make other people recognise it, too. Later she resented its commercialisation and tried to get people to boycott it. Hilarious! Her original idea was that sons and daughters should write heartfelt letters of gratitude to their mothers, not enrich the coffers of Geo. Hatcher, Florist, et alia.

This strikes me as a very American story. Naturally British Mother's Day, or Mothering Sunday, arose from mediaeval traditions in which the people of the British isles went home to their birth villages on Laetare Sunday and brought their mothers cake. How natural! How organic! How typical of Britain to have another excuse for cake.

Not having any real children, I solicited my Polish Pretend Son for new photos and speedily received them. One has my four-and-a-half-month-old goddaughter appearing to read a large book. I believe it is called Polska: Najlepszy Kraj na Swiecie, but I can't see the title, so I'm not sure.

In the morning, Benedict Ambrose and I set up our chapel, got dressed in our church clothes and sat down before Warrington's Fourth Sunday after Easter Mass. The homily was again a corker, this one making an oblique yet still daring reference to a powerful and IMHO disgraceful prelate. It also mentioned Alfie Evans and condemned the lack of care that ensured his death, which was even closer to home, as Warrington is in the Diocese of Liverpool. We were told that the way to confront the "reckless hate" of our violent world is to "ride out and meet it." By this the homilist meant we should be good Christians and embrace the suffering that inevitably comes with that.

Then we pottered about a goodly bit. I queued up outside Tesco to buy a bag of compost, feeling once  again that I had fallen into an alternative universe where the Soviet Union had won the Cold War and now everyone has to line up outside shops. Then I lugged my compost home and repotted the one faithful courgette.

Theological reflection: Our sitting-room windowsill is crowded with unresponsive pots. The leeks and one courgette flourish, but what of those silent, unmoving, invisible runner beans? What of the other two courgettes? What of the the basil, cucumber and thyme? Does Almighty God look upon humanity and see millions of seeds that do not sprout? Does He leave them on the terrestrial window sill for up to 100 years on the off-chance that they will spout even though, being omnipotent, He knows which ones will and which ones won't? Clearly He must rejoice more over the great saints, as I rejoice over the the leeks and the faithful courgette, than He fumes over the unyielding seeds. But actually I now see the first signs of live from one of the pots of thyme and one of the cucumbers, which reminds me of the joy in heaven over repentant sinners. End of theological reflection.

The faithful courgette got bent slightly in its repotting, and "I'm a bad plant mother," I cried. But I propped it up with a wooden skewer, and this morning it is standing up straight on its own again. In other plant news, both last night's weather forecast and the lady downstairs said that there would be frost in the night, so I put newspaper and cardboard on the vegetables and brought in the strawberries for the night.

When I got back from Tesco, we had leftover Chinese for lunch and then watched the first episodes of The Victorian Kitchen Garden, a series B.A. watched with his grandfather in the 1980s. We took a short break between Episode 1 and 2 to dust off the cappuccino machine and make cappuccinos, and I felt positively euphoric. The Victorian Kitchen Garden reminded me of what I loved so much about British Stuff when I was a child. Recollected childhood anglomania hit newly acquired adult interest in gardening, and whoosh! Maximal Happiness.

Then we went for a walk and came upon an abandoned Victorian property with ruined greenhouses, potting sheds, a walled garden and all. So we enjoyed walking and climbing all over that, and I enjoyed taking photographs, and I was once again reminded of childhood. As a child I enjoyed tramping though the ravines of the Don Valley and trespassing on the Don Valley golf course, one eye  out for the "Greener" I had been warned about. The "Greener" was more Mr. McGregor (of Peter Rabbit infamy) than Boogie Man; if he existed, I think he must have been a groundskeeper, or a collection of groundskeepers, who chased children away.

We were almost home again when the hail began to fall, and I rushed for some cardboard to protect my beloved broad bean seedlings. Then the lady downstairs warned me about the frost, so I hunted up some newspaper and continued to mother my green babies. Meanwhile, B.A. busied himself in the kitchen and rustled up a delicious Sunday supper of pork roast with fennel, apples and our homemade apple cider. I had some of the cider as I looked at photos of kitchen gardens on the internet, and it was quite good.

After supper, I spoke to my parents over Skype, and then B.A. and I watched a third episode of The Victorian Kitchen Garden. 

"This is so good," said B.A. "This is so innocent and so pure."

I predict that we will be watching nothing but gardening and cooking shows in the evenings for some time.

Adventure and a Brown Bin

Hundreds of uprooted dandelions in a capacious Brown Bin.

Yesterday Benedict Ambrose and I gave into our whims and marched part of the way to what may be the nearest farm shop. It was a glorious sunny day, possibly the warmest day in our part of Scotland so far this year. I wore my French Scouting hat, and hatless B.A. got sunburnt.

I have often said that Edinburgh is so beautiful that, on a warm and sunny day, I never want to be anywhere else. The same can be said for me in the nearby countryside. We passed canola fields the bright colour of American mustard and a ruined 16th century castle that glowed ruddily in the sun. The grain fields were a luscious green, and trees were heavy with blossoms in all shades of yellow, pink and purple. The woods were carpeted with blue florets.

We cut through a noble estate, admiring the flocks of sheep and alpaca, the strutting hens and the water fowl sunning themselves on the grassy shores of an ornamental lake or swimming about. The smallest ducklings seemed to be racing each other on the water; they put on startling bursts of speed, like tiny speedboats. The aristocratic dwelling, elegant Georgian with fantastic Victorian additions, made me wonder if Potsdam, though worth seeing, was worth going to see. (B.A. protested against this architectural heresy, but all the same, if confined to the UK from now on, I would not run out of palaces to see on weekends.)

The farm shop was open, and we joined a short, politely spaced queue, as only three customers were permitted in the shop at once. Once in, B.A. went straight to the meat counter for some pork, and when I went in, I put a bottle of lemonade in his basket. We also chose an onion, a fennel bulb, a courgette, a slice of chocolate tiffin, and 500 g of ground beef. This all cost £20, which did not seem like a lot for a Saturday exercise.

Afterwards we went back through the noble estate and briefly rested from all this healthy exercise on a bench, watching the ducklings and answering the greetings of other athletes walking through the park. One of the geese made a terrible semi-mechanical crackling noise, and we saw two murderous herons swooping overhead. I worried about the ducklings, and B.A. said he would like duck with spring onions and garlic from a Chinese takeaway for supper.

One of the herons landed on an island that was so overgrown we couldn't see what it was doing although from all the avian shouting and swearing we could guess. We saw the other sail through the air and land on the opposite bank. I got a few photographs, which my computer won't allow me to import from my phone. Perhaps a computer-savvy relation, real or pretend, can advise me. (And yes, I did finally update my phone.)

We had nothing to fear from the herons, but we found our traditional way out of the estate blocked by a herd of cows, a closed gate, and a sign saying "Beware of bull." And, lo, at a distance from this sign  was a big, square, black ox. Thus we made a sharp right and walked along the Firth of Forth and found other means of getting home.

Upon reaching home I fetched an old green sofa throw, my Scottish vegetable-gardening book, two magazines and a brimming glass of Berocca and stretched out on the lawn under the 6 PM sun. I have never lounged on our lawn before, and I couldn't resist. However, this idyll was broken first by my remembering my promise to call our favourite Chinese takeaway  and then by my neighbour telling me she had pulled the Brown Bins off the street.

Here is an opportunity to record two interesting details of lockdown life in our part of Scotland.

First, there have been reports that the digital delivery services have been gouging the nation's takeout shops. The last time we wanted Chinese takeaway I was disappointed to see how few shops were, according to the online service, still available. However, after pondering the gouging accusations, I realised that the missing shops might have just reverted to their old delivery schemes. So I called up our fave, and the American-accented girl who answered assured me that they did deliver but that they were so busy, our order wouldn't arrive for two hours. Also, their card machine was "not working," so we would have to pay cash on delivery. Clever, clever shop.  I agreed to both of these conditions and to B.A.'s glum promise to get some cash from the nearest ATM.

Second, while I was lounging about reading about the Cucumber Family's fortunes in Scotland, the lady downstairs came out and said that the Council had finally emptied the Brown Bins. The Brown Bins are large brown plastic containers of about 4 feet in height, standing on wheels. They are the same size as the Green Bins, which are used for sacks of refuse bound for "landfill," i.e. Pachamama's tummy. The Brown Bins are used for excess vegetation.

Normally our street is very obedient about bin collection. We put out our bins the night before or very early in the morning of collection. Then we pull them back in off the pavement within 12 hours of them being emptied. Petty crime and violent assaults are not unknown in our humble road, but at least we are tidy.

We are also mad keen gardeners, so the suspension of Brown Bin collections was a problem and led to some garden bonfires, about which the Council was not happy. It also led to people hopefully putting out their Brown Bins on the normal day and waiting three days to see what might happen. However, some other people are better at reading the local news, and thus a rumour went around that the Council was going to collect the Brown Bins momentarily, and so an enormous chorus of Brown Bins appeared on the street and stayed there for a week. In the fullness of time, e.g. yesterday, the Council's bin lorry came along and emptied the bins.

Upon discovering that our Brown Bins had been seen to at last, our neighbour pulled her nearest neighbours' bins to our communal path. Unfortunately, someone had taken our relatively clean and  new one, which had no number written on it, and so I had to take a dirty, battered one with a plastic compost bag left at the bottom. Such is life, but I cleaned the lid with kitchen spray.

We also have a plastic Blue Box for paper and cardboard allegedly to be recycle and a plastic Green Box for metal, plastic, and glass also  allegedly to be recycled. We keep the collection of containers in front of our shed doors, a slight deterrent to tool thieves.

As a matter of fact, I was a little sad about the Brown Bins emptying because I might have used the contents for compost, as the Council has been telling us. However, I was concerned about the wild rose and dandelion seeds that were in there, too. Our wild roses keep poking stems through the lawn; they are absolutely rapacious.

That said, they are blossoming again, so they are earning their considerable keep.

Another note about the lockdown in Scotland: the Scots are very athletic indeed. It's a good thing we are permitted exercise because I don't think there are enough police officers to fine the entire country for our bouts of athleticism, especially on sunny days. I feel less worried about this now that I have researched Professor Lockdown's past pandemic predictions and discovered his reluctance to allow other scientists to examine the workings of his famous 15-year-old modelling technique. Also, almost every household we see outside are keeping to the two-metre distancing rule. The others are teenage boys on bicycles.

UPDATE: Happy Mother's Day to Aged P! Mother's Day in Britain is on Mothering Sunday (i.e. Laetare Sunday), so there are no advertising cues to remind me. Happy Mother's Day, too, to all nulliparous women like me. Hopefully someone somewhere is honouring your spiritual motherhood. One of the most beautiful things St JP2 ever taught is that all women are called to be mothers. If any woman tells you she thinks that is a terrible idea, ask her if she would object to being a Tribal Elder.  My guess is no, and the difference is that westerners are taught by our quislings to admire the roles of the elderly in eastern and indigenous cultures while despising the traditional roles of our own.

GARDEN UPDATE: Repotted courgette. Stem slightly bent, so now staked. Frost warning tonight, so cloches on new parsley, and newspaper and cardboard screens for vegetables. Strawberry planter in the bathtub for the night.