That time of year

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or few, or none

Do hang upon the ragged boughs that shake against the cold

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang"

So said Shakespeare in one of his sonnets. It's not been a really cheerful time for me; one of my closest friends had a stroke last weekend and is still in hospital. Her prognosis is good. She was with her family and she was speeded into hospital very quickly, but I fear it will be a long process of rehabilitation before she has her old self back again. She is a chirpy person, so it was a shock to see her lying in a hospital bed, not very with it at all. And a shock for her too. She has always been careful of her health and this was not something that was signalled in any way.

And of course the news is not any help in encouraging one to have positive thoughts. The massacre in Orlando is horrible; even worse are people like Trump who are using it to justify their own agendas. There seems to be a level of madness in the so-called civilised world that we have not seen for a long time. "Let's all go armed to the teeth to defend ourselves from mad people" is a strange idea, rife with a deep paranoia. How do we know which armed person is mad? How do we know which are sane, and are just "defending our families" as the NRA likes to put it? "We have seen the enemy, and he is us".