Yesterday was quiet a Sunday, Diane was running the Seaford Half Marathon, Dan is in Australia at Wes and Donna's beach house, Abbi travelled from Venice to Arezzo. The house was quiet and even the seagulls seemed quieter than normal. I had some work to do as an External Examiner which I did in the kitchen, with the back doors flung open to reveal the garden. There was a calm about the world, its as if the previous week's commemoration of the D-Day landing had finally come home to roost and we could be thankful for just being able to relax into our life. We have much to be grateful for for, but that calm is just how it should be and now we have a responsibility to spread it around the world. I wrote yesterday that Baudrillard thinks this new, western modernity is wrapped up in consumption, that we choose consumerism over the liberation and emancipation our fathers fought for and that, 'how men, betaking themselves for free men, have fallen into servitude.' Well he has a point but it only serves to remind us of our obligations to others. As I step into the last six months of my sixtieth year I will continue to remind myself of this - and I love how the music in this clip sways and ripples with life:
