Feest Isolation Days – 8 June
In Bristol there were ten thousand protestors yesterday who managed to pull down the statue of Colston who was a slave trader. The man died in 1721. They dumped his statue in the river. Someone knelt on the neck of the statue like the American policeman who took George Floyds breath away by that action.
Pulling down the statue was an impressive and meaningful gesture in 2020. Look how long this legacy has been around! Let’s hope that the protests calling for racial equality all over the world amount to some sort of positive change. I hope too that the protestors don’t spread the disease. BAME people are apparently highly susceptible to Covid. That’s the last thing that community need…more deaths! We didn’t join the protest. We are still being extremely careful. I was with them in spirit. Shame there wasn’t a more effective way of protesting. On the other side of the world there are protests too and with over four hundred aborigines having died in police custody in Australia in recent years let’s hope that there is a meaningful outcome.
In New Zealand, life is returning to near normal and my friends make me feel envious. They have no virus and have unlocked internally. No one can get in or out of the country, but those lucky folks who live there are filling every hotel and B and B from the tip of the north to the bottom of the South Island. And it’s winter there!
Yesterday we went for a walk to the Tyndale monument that sits atop the Cotswolds and is reached via magnificent woods.
The Cotswolds are always a delight. The name Cotswold means “sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides”. We saw a few sheep but not too many on our walk. We picnicked in the tall grasses and Terry made sling shots from the top of the grasses that we were sat upon and I hooted with laughter – small pleasures. These pleasures were not to be enjoyed by William Tyndale for long. Tyndale translated The Bible into English so that ordinary people could read it rather than relying on priests for an interpretation. His reward for his efforts was to be strangled and then burned at the stake in 1536. The world can indeed be a very strange place!
Meantime, at the foot of the monument to this poor man, who was born nearby, a very special visitor landed on my hand and filled me with delight.
People largely seemed to be social distancing and there were many families enjoying the splendour of the day. In the crazy world we live in these days, let’s hope that there is a more promising tomorrow in every way.
Stay safe.
With love, Kathy