The blades of green, green grass

This past weekend was a long weekend in England, and Matthias and I went down to Devon to visit our friends C and L, and their two small daughters (aged four and six). We've been friends for a very long time; Matthias and L were best men at each other's respective weddings, and Matthias is godfather to their older daughter, but for various reasons, we haven't seen each other in person for a very long time. Thankfully, things worked out, such that we were able to stay with them from Friday evening until Monday afternoon.

It was a lovely few days. The weather cooperated (not always a given in that part of the world), and we spent a lot of time wandering around in pretty National Trust gardens, fruitlessly assisting the daughters as they waved a metal detector over the sand at a beach (although they had more luck filling buckets with shells), and answering endless questions that started with the word 'why'. It's actually relatively easy to find activities that suit both adults and small children, provided you're able to go outdoors, and this past weekend worked out well in that regard. (The two girls are very good walkers, particularly as their parents have a sneaky trick on any walk of giving the children a bucket each, and asking them to collect the ten 'most interesting things' they find on the walk.)

It was not exactly restful (I was exhausted every night), but I had a wonderful time. You'll get a feel for things via this photoset — golden sun, lush green vegetation, clouds hanging like cotton wool in the blue sky.

One final Australian politics link for now

You may recall that in my previous post about Saturday's Australian federal election, I said that after the 2022 election, our right wing parties, upon losing, refused to accept that they had done anything wrong, and responded essentially with 'are we out of touch? No, it's the voters who are wrong.'

They now appear to be doubling and tripling down on this after losing the following election.

The Guardian decided to engage in a bit of pointing and laughing at the spectacle of a bunch of ghastly Sky News talking heads blaming the voters for failing to embrace their toxic offerings. Andrew Bolt literally came right out and said it:

By 9.46pm the rightwing commentator had penned a piece on the Herald Sun blaming the Australian electorate for the Coalition loss.

“No, the voters aren’t always right. This time they were wrong,” Bolt wrote.

The reason for the loss? It was because the Liberal party “refused to fight the ‘culture wars’”.

And I'll just bask in the schadenfreude of the article's closing lines:

Former Labor minister Graham Richardson, who hasn’t lost his talent for the one-liner, said the Liberals have got to ask themselves where do we go now?

“We’ve tried Dutton - what else have we got? Well not much because if Angus Taylor is the answer, it’s a stupid question.”

The comments section is full of people boggling at the inability of Sky's brains trust to read the room.