The Winter Olympics

I always tell myself I'm going to ignore the Olympics, but I never stick to it.  My mother has to have her TV tuned to some channel or other and why not BBC 2?

Winter sports are spectacular. Well, perhaps not the curling.

I particularly enjoy the snowboarding- which is like skateboarding and then some. The athletes pull off the kind of moves you'd look to see in an action movie only without the green screen and invisible wires. 

The politics have been interesting. I don't know what Kim Jong-Un is playing at and wonder whether he does either, but it's hard to see the sporting rapprochement between the two Koreas as anything but a good thing. Mike Pence's cold-shouldering of Kim's sister was ugly- and portentous. An opportunity for creative leadership was presented- and refused. The USA has had something like a hundred years as the world's most powerful nation- which is about as long as any has managed in the modern era. Was this the moment that it tendered its resignation?

The Bees Are Stirring

 The bees are awake- and venturing out of their nest in the eaves. The sun must have roused them. I don't suppose there's much for them to harvest yet.

I found Marlowe investigating one of them in the long grass at the edge of the lawn "Uh, uh," I thought, "vets bills"-  But instinct must have told him this was one little playfellow he didn't want to mess with- and he backed off.