What a brilliant day it’s turned our to be, although not all brilliantly good. 6th January is celebrated in Spain as Kings Day or Día de los Reyes and is when the children receive gifts supposedly from the Reyes Magos or Wise Men. It is also the date when my Spanish mother in law was born and therefore given the name of Baltasara after one of the kings. That’s some name to bestow on a tiny baby girl. Always known as Balta she was a great woman of her time. Born in a hamlet in Guadalajara, she could both read and write, she lived through the civil war which was followed by WW2, she married and moved into Madrid and had four children. A passionate mother and grandmother Balta was also an amazing cook who could produce delicious meals with very few ingredients. There’s no doubt her legacy was a brilliant one.
In the US the Trump’s Republican supporters are literally up in arms after he invited them to come to Washington DC to protest the election results. And they did just that, storming the Capitol, placing explosive devices and trying to stop Congress’ certification of the election result which Trump lost. Last year in July when protestors against racial injustice caused disruption in the capital the President said anyone who damaged buildings should serve ten years in prison. Today he eventually called for calm telling people “go home even though the election had been stolen”. He said “we love you, you’re very special people”. Definitely not brilliant.
Meanwhile in the Georgia Senate election the two Democrat candidates managed to pass the 50% of the votes needed to win the election. This result gives Democrats and Republicans 50 seats each in the senate. Raphael Warnock became the first black senator in Georgia and only the 11th in US history. In his speech he paid tribute to his 82 year old mother who gave birth to 12 children saying that those same hands that picked cotton had also picked her youngest son to be a United States senator. She could not have imagined that when she was picking cotton. Absolutely brilliant, maybe change is happening.
At home I received a couple of photos that I had requested from my older sister. They were of her wedding day in October 1961 and besides the bride and groom there were the three bridesmaids. Doreen who was tying the knot was very nearly 22, I was 19 and our younger sister Lesley was just 16. The third was a friend of the bride. I thought the photos were so much better than I remembered and for me at least, brilliant.
I hope that Kings Day brought you everything you wanted or even better, just what you needed. Sadly my daughter Sam tested positive for Covid but she doesn’t have any symptoms. I managed to do some U3A work from home. I spoke to several people on the phone, I had a nice walk and enjoyed reading messages on FaceBook. I feel ok. Absolutely brilliant. Stay well and sleep well. Nighty night.😴💤😴