To paraphrase an old favourite from The Sound of Music which has been wiggling through my head all morning. You may, or may not be aware that the Scottish Parliament votes have now all been counted and the Scottish National Party is still in power. No surprises there, but what now? I awoke this morning with my head immediately buzzing with thoughts, niggles, questions; probably because late last night when I should have already switched off and gone to bed, I stumbled upon a Facebook page that, well, frankly it disturbed me. It was late, I was tired though stubbornly still up, I guess the words clung around as I finally went off.

The words? You know how some folk make mean, jibey comments on Facebook but you know they’d never actually say any of that stuff out loud, face to face? Well, this particular thread was written by nationalists who quite likely would say all of it and more, pitchforks at the ready to drive the English south and crowdfund to build a new wall. Actually, they kinda make me think of the Brexiteers, mmm, some nationalists are very sure on kicking out anyone English and/or unionist, I wonder if they’re aware that Scotland needs incomers? In England the PM has announced a deal which will allow students from India to live and work in the UK for two years after graduation, bet plenty there will have lots to say about that (the deal is reciprocated by India but I doubt certain factions will read that far).

Maybe I should reiterate at this point that I do love Scotland and the Scottish (well mostly). I know and like many nationalists, as I said last post, vive la différence, humans will be humans with all their foibles, just different foibles for different folk. God knows, a room full of yorkshiremen would have more foibles in it than some small countries! Scottish independence is inevitable now and while that makes me sad, I totally get why some many want it especially now. I don’t want Scotland to leave the UK but at the same time, the world of politics seems to going batshit crazy these last few years, English politics have gone right down the pan, yeah, why not? Bring it on, how much worse can things be?! Well, it won’t be utopia, a land of milk and honey, lambs will not be frolicking with wolves in the meadows. Scotland may throw out the can full of English government worms, but be sure there’ll be plenty of other worms in plenty of other cans just waiting for a can opener to come along.

I blame Trump for all this mess with political leaders. Okay, so there’s always been a cult of personality thing around like forever, but it seems to have escalated with Trump. It seemed ludicrous that he could become president, but that was just the starters! The cult of Trump showed how much a big personality can get away with and, well, Boris Johnson decided it was time for his big play. I reckon that he played everyone, even when things weren’t looking his way, he was playing the longer game moving all the pieces into place so that one by one they’d be removed from the board leaving him at the top.

This morning it occurred to me that maybe we’re all in just another play he’s manoeuvring now; see, this may sound daft, but, what if in actual fact Johnson does want rid of Scotland? He can’t say that directly but by manipulation and misdirection he can make it look like it was none of his doing! Indeed, a dear friend of mine endured some seriously passive aggressive behaviour by an Ex for months and months when he tried to manipulate her into being the “bad guy” ending their relationship, oh, she figured it out afterwards, after her unrelenting optimism (that he’d get over whatever was making him act mean) finally drove him to admitting he wanted to break up. Yeah, some good guys don’t like having to do things that’ll tarnish the image, they don’t realise that just being truthful will merely cause a blemish that will soon be gone as folk come around and respect their honesty.

Will Nicola Sturgeon take a moment, pause for thought, reflect on how the world has turned these last few years? Promises made can be shown empty when it turns out they were only on supposition that agreements would be reached to one’s own benefit. Will anyone remember that pride always has a fall following on behind? However things pan out I hope Scotland comes through, stronger and wiser. May my dark night fears of tiny minds, ego-led politicians and Kafkaesque bureaucracies just stay in the recesses of my mind, banished away by sunshine and smiles. To paraphrase from another classic film, It’s Springtime for Sturgeon and Scotland 😆

I shall leave you with another picture from my walks down here. The local river, I’ve spent many, many hours through the years beside it 💛