In the news this week - 12/5/26

Well our National news has been dominated by the results of the local elections last week and whether the Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer will resign. 

Locally, our council which has been Labour run for a long time is now controlled by the Green Party.  Our own ward still has 2 Conservative councillors and there are still some Labour councillors but the Greens have the majority.  Even in our former area, Newham, there were massive changes with Labour still having the most seats but with no overall control, although they did elect a Labour Mayor.

The number of Reform candidates that managed to secure wins is slightly alarming.  But already there have been cases of candidates resigning or being expelled from the party.  One candidate had even resigned before the election took place but was still on the ballot paper and was elected!  I wasn't sure what happened in those circumstances so of course I googled it to find that a by-election will be held "if requested by local registered electors".

There has also been a story today about the leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski who may not have paid the council tax due on the houseboat he was living on.  There seems to be a lot of people who will call themselves something else but basically they're just dirt diggers.

The International News has focussed on the outbreak of hantavirus on the cruise ship MV Hondius.  It seems that passengers have disembarked and travelled on to various locations during its travels and this must be making it difficult to trace all those who may have come into contact with the virus.  The long incubation period (up to 6 weeks in some cases) means monitoring will be going on for a while.  Hopefully there will be no further deaths.

In Sports the two big London clubs, West Ham and Spurs continue to try and hang on to a place in the Football Premier League.  West Ham will be bemoaning a VAR (Video Assistant Referee) decision that cost them a late equalizing goal and denied them a point in their match against Arsenal at the weekend.  The decision to disallow their goal took 4 minutes.  It looks like who goes down will not be decided until the last game of the season on 24th May.  The winners of the Premiership title might not be decided until then either although Arsenal look more likely than Manchester City.  All the teams play their final games on that Sunday with the same kick off time of 4 pm.  There will be a lot of nail biting going on.  And probably some shouting at the TV.

Entertainment news continues to give us hints as to who the new presenters of Strictly Come Dancing will be but no actual information has been forthcoming from the BBC.  I wish they would just get on with it!

At least we know who the next celebrities taking part in Traitors will be.  Another good line up. (See here for more info.) Can't wait.

And finally under Miscellaneous, the Japanese snack giant Calbee has switched its packaging to black and white due to problems with ink supplies due to the Iran war.  Somehow they don't look as appetising!  See more including pictures here.

A (little) bit of Waffle 11/5/26

Well its already 11.26 pm as I'm starting this post so I think it will have to be short and sweet so I can be in bed before midnight.

Firstly a belated "Happy Mother's Day" to any American or Canadian Mothers reading this.  I hope you all had a good day yesterday.  My American DIL had a good day that included putting up some shelves and marking papers - but apparently my son occupied their boys so she could do that and she was happy.

Mother's Day was back in March here in the UK so just an ordinary Sunday for us but we did have my daughter and her family here for dinner yesterday. Ella had been entrusted with Ozzie the Owl from her class for a few days so we had to take a photo to show that Ozzie had visited Nanny and Grandpa at the weekend.

Saturday was spent in town, doing a bit of shopping and also attending a Flea Market at the library.  Members of the various knitting groups organised by the one I attend were there doing some knitting to promote the various groups.  It was quite relaxing sitting inside the library doing a bit of knitting, especially when someone was selling homemade, delicious, chocolate brownies just outside.  Well it would be rude not to support a local business right?

Today I had an errand to run with my DIL this morning and then it was a few chores before heading over to babysit our Grandkids Nathan & Ella.  

Spring has decided to retreat today - on the way home from our daughter's the car flashed up a warning that the outside temperature was only 4 degrees C.  Brrr.  Time to get snuggled under a duvet.

This is not a weekly photo post! 10/5/26

Well I think this is a more accurate picture of my camera this week, not that I have an actual camera as all my photos are taken on my phone.  But this week I have taken very few and most of those were included in my Monday post here.  I really haven't got into a routine of taking photos.  Maybe I'll do better this week.  Although probably not.  I will have a photo to include from today but it wasn't taken by me!

#SoCS - 9/5/26 - Contrast

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “contrast.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

These weekly prompts are provided by Linda and the link up is here. Thanks Linda.

Well the idea of these posts is that we don't really think about them too much - just get writing and see what flows.  I'm having a hard time thinking what to write about this word.  I know what it means but what to write about it?

In contrast, when I know what I'm going to write I can waffle on for ages.  I've just recently finished the A-Z challenge during April and had a lovely time waffling on about authors and the books that I've read.  Reading is another thing I could talk about for ages.  I love reading and proper books mainly although I will read e-books too.  In fact I've just downloaded one from the library to read.  

I'm trying to work through my TBR pile but failing miserably.  That's what happens when you join two reading groups and you're also doing a challenge based on 52 prompts for the year.  Thankfully the reading group choices have worked for prompts on the list so I'm keeping the number of books I need to read over the year manageable.  I can usually get through a book a week without too much trouble.  Depending on the book of course.  Some of the reading groups choices have taken a while!  Not because they're particularly long but because they weren't as enjoyable.  The discussions on some of the books have been interesting.

Oh and there has been contrast there with people either loving or hating a book!

Phew got that in eventually.