Those who can't, watch.

[smokingboot]

Yesterday,having steeled myself up to go to the local shops, I walked across the room to feel a thoroughly angry ping in my ankle, a proper resounding no, no you're not. You're not even going to get up a ladder and hang those lights in the garden. Pah.

This means the Friday catch up, which was meant to include exploring a fairy glen, is not going to happen. We have agreed to go to the Scottish National Gallery instead, overlooking the Edinburgh Christmas fair. I'm sad because I wanted to meet friend's lovely dogs and wander wild places, but no point dwelling on that. The fair will be fun, and I can get a couple of small presents for the brunch on Sunday.

Re Mum, she gave me respectful room after I barked at her, and then reiterated her desire for no present at all. I don't know what to do. Southern Spain seldom has remarkable temperature drop, but Granada, with its back to the mountains, does get snow from time to time. So I bought her an oodie, a big warm fleecy blanket gown that will keep her toasty, because she has no heating in the flat. But when I looked this morning, I saw that it was made in China (should have checked before, I guess) which means she will freak out about Covid possibilities even more than she would do given the numbers of hands she imagines touching it via the post. It may be that her disquiet far outreaches any practical use she might derive from the gift, and of course, she has not had the covid vaccination, so there's that. In her space, her reality trumps any other or she just can't bear it, and she's had hard times enough.

Reluctantly, I don't think I should send that fleece.

I think instead I should buy her a living plant bouquet; she loves these, and they are excellent for her mental health, plus she won't need to touch them. Solution.

Unable to do much, I am at least enjoying some class TV. White Lotus Season 2 is a pretty meander. This season is being touted as having a theme of toxic masculinity, just as the last was supposedly all about white privilege; I can see it, though a nominally Catholic if unorthodox upbringing taught me to beware of guilt peddlers. WL2 has these perfectly valid well expressed themes weaving throughout but if one never noticed them or cared, it would still be good work. It really can't afford to go more slowly than this though, its predecessor had better pace. The cast is strong, with Jennifer Coolidge and Tom Hollander stealing the show, and it's Sicily so how can it not be enchanting?

And then there's The Traitors on at the BBC. Lordy this is fascinating and a bit horrible. Group have to find the traitors in their midst, and get to banish one suspected traitor a night. There's much more to it but that's the basic judgment put to the contestants. But based on what? What evidence? No evidence, just people-reading or whatever they can find, be it slip ups in the behaviour of their fellows, or pheromones, or anything that forces a few jolts between their ears. It's hilarious but alarming too because damn, herd mentality is powerful, and damn, folk are stupid. But maybe they are only stupid because they have no hooks upon which to hang their theories. With nothing to go on, of course they'll extrapolate wildly. Still. While not exactly Lord of the Flies, it's compulsive viewing.

And now, Snow!