Gardening And Israel

I was up and washed and dressed early this morning, which is unusual during my summer hols. Reason being that a friend of mine was due to arrive to take me to a garden centre in Dundonald. She duly did, and off we went in her flashy 2-door silver Merc. My neighbours curtains were twitching up and down the street!

Excellent it was. Good coffee in Fraser's tearoom, good chat and then a wander round picking up this and that to try to give the garden a bit of a finished look before the season gets any older. As women can get carried away shopping, retail therapy my geographer friend Iris Law calls it, I can get carried away in garden centres. I usually forget my specs and the prices of things become very blurred! I buy on the basis of like rather than necessity. Came back with a bootload of stuff and a smashing stone Winnie The Pooh as a garden ornament for our Toni. She was delighted. As was I of course, as it makes me laugh everytime I see it.

The afternoon was spent putting in my new plants and tarting up some pots. Amazing how knackering planting is! All that bending I guess. Appreciated the weather as well. First nice day we have had since college broke up almost a fortnight ago. And it might be the only one, with my luck! I blame our crazy weather entirely on the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. This was when a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine suffered a meltdown in one of their reactors resulting in 2,500 deaths, birth deformities, and cancers. What was chucked up into our stratosphere I am certain has influenced our weather ever since.

The news today was interesting. The International Court of Justice in The Hague found Israel guilty regards the security wall they have built in the occupied territories in Palestine. They say it should be torn down and the land returned to its owners. The Palestinians. Not that they give a stuff, nor will do anything about it. Says it stops suicide bombers getting into their country. I doubt this and question whether it will stop the carnage they claim.

I used to have great sympathy for Israel, and all that it stood for. Defended it in the 1970's when it was most unfashionable in student politics to do so. Main reason was my next door neighbour, a Mr Anson for whom I had immense respect. He managed to get out of Germany in the nick of time and came to Scotland in the 1930's. He spent the war years getting loads of other Jewish people to safety when many others turned their back on their plight. He died a few months ago in his nineties. At his funeral the congregation was told that many alive in Scotland today would not be if it weren't for Martin. What a hero he was.

He had been in a concentration camp as a teenager not much older than me the day I noticed the strange tattoo on his arm, and asked him what it was. Even as a 13 year old I realised he had seen things I could never contemplate. I went off and read Mila 18 and Exodus by Leon Uris. That made me even more sympathetic to the victims of the Holocaust and what a shit deal Jewish people have had ever since Moses. The Israeli's want to read those books I did. Remind them where they, and all downtrodden peoples are coming from.

Get out of Palestine please, its not yours! Be true to your own heritage and support the plight of a people fighting for their own independence and sovereignty.