Off with the old, in with the new - 2023
As for 2022, I’m kind of glad to see the back of it. My ambition last January was to get through the year without being hospitalised, and in that at least I succeeded, despite some sciatic problems that needed some physio in a clinic, but I don’t really class that as “hospital” - so I’m calling it a win.
Apart from that, at least on a personal level, not a lot happened. For a number of very good reasons, it was a quiet year. Finishing off the new place meant there was not a lot of spare cash so for the first year in my life (at least as far as I can remember) I never got to the seaside, and I’m rather surprised at how much I actually missed it. Since childhood I’ve loved the sight and sound of waves, big and small, rolling in, and the taste of the salty air, whether the sun is hot on my back or the day cold and miserable - there is something hypnotic and fascinating to me.
I had two relatively brief trips out of town all year. In August it was a long weekend in the Mazurian Lake District in north east Poland visiting friends, and just before Christmas I had ten days in England, visiting sisters, kids and grandkids, and enjoying the strike-bound rail network - and snow, which is unusual: I don’t think in all the years I’ve been away a trip home has coincided with a snowfall. It
made an enjoyable trip more interesting……
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At a wider level, the war in Ukraine rumbles on with Putin’s rabble committing war crimes on a
daily basis (I suspect more civilians have died or been maimed from the indiscriminate bombing
and shelling of non-military targets like schools and hospitals and apartment blocks, than armed
forces). The resolve of the Ukrainian people and President Zelensky is quite extraordinary as we
approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. They are being supported by NATO, but
so far little has changed - the sanctions imposed on Putin and his allies and apologists, and
Russian business generally, have so far not worked as well as had been expected. If anything,
the man has been able to use it as a means of uniting a doubting public to support the “special
military operation” in defence of the Motherland. Patently untrue, but it does seem to have
mustered support.
It seems to me about time that there is an escalation of some kind. Expelling every Russian
diplomat and the forced closure of Russian embassies from every NATO country might be a
start, accompanied by the withdrawal of diplomatic immunity, and this should be extended to
Putin and his cronies like Lavrov and Peskov and their families. Close the borders. Extend
the sanctions to every company, big or small, still doing any kind of business with the country.
Let the fuckers stew in their own juices, pariahs all. Meanwhile, provide Ukraine with all the
weapons they need and ask for, to take the fight to Russia. Putin must be defeated and shown
to be defeated - nothing less than a date at the ICC in The Hague on charges of crimes against
humanity and mass murder will end this satisfactorily.
Global warming continues to bite, with extreme weather events occurring somewhere every day.
The ski slopes in Poland and elsewhere are devoid of snow, record rainfalls are causing catastrophic flooding in California as I write, a week after record low temperatures and snowfalls paralysed the eastern and central US. I watched the New Year’s Eve fireworks from my neighbour's balcony at midnight, wearing a t-shirt and did not feel in the least bit cold. And yet licences are being dished
out by British and German governments to open new and extend old coal mines, to compensate
for fuel shortages caused by the Ukrainian war. The COP commitments are clearly being ignored. The climate activists, meanwhile, continue their protests, and are rewarded by the wrong kind of action: new legislation tabled to imprison them for causing a public nuisance, and widespread
threats of violence against them by politicians, public and police. The world has clearly gone to
hell in a handcart.
What else? Well, Britain is gridlocked by strikes on the railways, hospitals are overstretched and
beyond crisis point as nurses, ancillary staff and junior doctors strike for better pay and conditions,
the post office workers are striking to protect jobs, and the border control people and civil service
are on strike for……well, something to do, I think, not wanting to be left out… Brexit continues to
divide a country that is in the middle of fuel and cost-of-living crises, and an incompetent and
corrupt Tory government that went through three Prime Ministers in the space of a couple of months
last year has run out of ideas and ability just when those qualities are most needed. A general
election is sorely needed, but there is unlikely to be one for another couple of years because the
government won’t commit electoral suicide and the opposition seem incapable of forcing the issue.
Christ knows what will happen this year……
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But enough of the doom and gloom already! It’s a New Year, and I must be positive. What I can’tdo anything about - like the above - I will merely rage about as and when I feel like it, but
I refuse to let it dampen my spirits. I am fit, and healthy (to the best of my knowledge) and I have
much to look forward to. For a start I turn 70 in March, an age I somehow never thought I’d reach
(touching wood…), certainly not when I was younger. I have no idea how I will celebrate, but doing
it somewhere on a hot and sunny beach has its attractions!
I expect that we will finally get to move sometime around mid-year after what seems like two years
of hard labour, and that will be interesting - probably my last home move. Not being dramatic about
that, but I’ve lived in this place for close to 20 years, so if I stay in the new place for a similar time
I’ll be close to 90 and probably past caring. In any event, I’ll have a bit of personal space to work
at, on this blog and other writing projects, relax and read and listen to my choice of music rather
than someone else’s choice of tv. And have my books in one place rather than several. Happy days.
And I plan to travel more. I want to do a few solo weekend (or for that matter midweek) trips to
places in Poland that I haven’t visited yet (or liked and want a return to), just wander around and
look at stuff at my own pace. My Beloved and I want to do a couple of trips, just the two of us, to
do likewise - Switzerland is top of the list to visit family, maybe England in the autumn, and God
willing a couple of weeks in Croatia. So we’ll probably end up doing none of those things! But,
hey, there’s nothing wrong with making plans, right? And whatever I do end up doing, I intend to
chronicle it here - the good bits, in any case.
A Happy 2023 everybody!
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