Curve Balls

Our week in Warwickshire is almost done. We've been to Reading twice which isn't Warwickshire at all, it's Berkshire and it is high on the list of where our new home will be. 

We've seen three places there and one was pretty good...until we got the "6 months in advance" rent thing again because it's all about having an income, not savings. C'mon people, the longer we have to pay for accommodation while we search for a rental and work the less likely we are going to have any money to pay rent for 6 months in advance.

One thing I have enquired about this week is obtaining the records for my great grandmother from the County Record Office. She was a patient at Central Hospital at Hatton for much of her adult life. We have known for many years that she was a patient there, and for more than 30 years that she was there until she died. But that looks like it might be all we ever know because of the ridiculous privacy restrictions which mean that the files are locked to the public for 100 years from the closure of the hospital. So her grandchildren are likely to never know why and what caused her to be admitted and institutionalised, and I'll be getting my old aged pension by then as well. We can pay and have someone at the record office research for us, but possibly not be allowed to tell us anything still, or we can dispute their decision. All we want is to understand her condition and circumstance. Surely in the interest of our own health as descendants we should be entitled to the files in case there is some medical benefit to our own futures. "There could be sensitive information." Sensitive to who ? She isn't here anymore and no-one who actually KNEW her is either, and it is widely known how people were treated in these institutions in the past. Do they think we might want to challenge their treatment of her or something ?

Anyway, we went today to find the old buildings that were part of the old hospital and now are part of a housing estate. Pretty amazing - I wonder if they are haunted. 

should have taken a panorama - doh !

We also went to Hatton Locks. Amazing, I didnt even know there was a staircase of locks like this here. I so want to hire a canal boat and go cruising.

You can even see the hospital buildings from there !

Anyway, enough of my 1st world problems. My heart is sore for the families afftected by this act of terror in Ukraine. Families who farewelled their loved ones as they travelled on holiday, to football matches, to conferences, to work. Families who witnessed the horror and had to assume roles they would never have thought they would need to.

And who is going to accept responsibility for the crime ? What of their families ? 

Why is peace on earth so fragile ? two hundred and ninety eight lives, eighty of them children. These were people just like us. Ordinary. So unforgivable.

Did the fields of sunflowers nodding calmy in the breeze soften their fall ?