Thoughts for May

Over here in Great Britain, it would be an official holiday where the banks and government offices are closed even though many shops do open other than this year rather rapidly it was decided to move to Friday May 8th to coincide with 75th V.E. Day celebrations leaving some Diaries messed up but most of that has gone thanks to Coronavirus.

 One things I do associate with May is Maypole dancing which is an ancient country tradition around much of Great Britain, sometimes performed by adults but often by children especially in Junior School (8 1/2 through 11+) where set to music we weave the individual ribbons together, at least in theory, as anyone who did only to find one person was out of step soon found out!
This is a lovely countryside animal drawing that shows the technique rather well and where I had my 8+ through 11+ education was in the country so we often went on nature rambles bring bits back with us for the teacher to lead a discussion of our findings and do some project work.
Before I forget, thanks for following for doing just that and for other people that started to read this blog for the first time.

May Day edition

After all that talk about going out temperatures got a little lower and we are entering May Day bank holiday over here which means schools shut and public services such as transportation shut down even though events will be taking place across this district and beyond.
Fortunately we've stocked up and I have enough spare minidiscs to continue copying some records onto and if I remember to record a half hour reading on Radio Four, the BBC spoken word channel of a Just William story which might seem odd given it's centred on an eleven year old boys fanciful adventures with much comedy but I loved those stories as a kid.  
They had me in stitches, laughing.

 One thing that will be happening in many communities is traditional Maypole Dancing  for those whose memories include applying polish to your footwear and having to have co-ordinating socks as we wove the ribbons to music forming a cross-cross pattern.
As is almost a tradition on this blog, here's a picture of Year 5 and 6 children this time  from the mainly Girls only Granville prep school performing it in style.

Monday reflections

Here we go with another weeks entry in the weekend where my BFF was away enjoying herself and I was catching up on a few things.
Part of the weekend saw me out delivering the community magazines on foot to people, interacting face to face too as I went up and down peoples paths while trying to unsure I didn't get caught out by the showers as the weather was very unsettled.
I also removed a few old catalogues from the dining room as they were not just out of date  but in the instance of Maplin's ones well that store is in the process closing down so will be totally redundant within a week or two.
One strange thing that happened was I got a cd I hadn't ordered  from a company I do use and looking through he orders and invoices I simply cannot one for it at all. Bizarre or what???
I have gotten near enough everything organized now for getting to Susan's funeral including the train tickets as it is in far South east of England and I'm in the Midlands.
There should be an edition of this blog next week and I'll be around first thing Wednesday to post any links in the usual spaces before I make my way down there.
Finally this week, I mentioned last week about some unwanted followers on tumblr and how they can bring more of the same.
A few weeks back I spotted someone had followed  and reblogged a post of mine whose user name looked a bit suspicious so I went over to their account and noticed first of all there was a high proportion of picture of children in questionable poses so I scrolled down and spotted a few that he had reblogged that were clearly sexual.
Going to that persons account, I found what I can only described as being a large collection of some that went back quite some time which was really extremely sickening.
Having worked in child protection, nothing surprises me anymore and one thing you have to bear in mind beyond even the content is in the making of such images children are exploited and injuried.
I filled out a number of report forms with brief descriptions, my concerns and links to the posts for both account holders and sent them to Tumblr's minor safety people.
On Monday I got notification action had been taken - the entire accounts had been shut down - and  I only hope details are passed to their local police to go pay them a visit.
One hopes amongst these peoples followers they get the message, regardless of whatever sexual orientation you may have, involving children in it is an absolute NO. By statute they cannot consent to it either.