Today my reliable weather app. informed me, the weather was better in Carlisle than in Genoa. We had unbroken sunshine whilst it rained in Genoa (although admittedly Genoa was a little warmer).
So what else could I do, I fired up the Harley and set out across the Lakes, Penrith first to check out the fishing gear in John Norris's and then across to Keswick across the A 66 which sounds a bit like Route 66 if you cough whilst saying it.
Then up to Cockermouth to make sure the flood had finally receded, it had and Cockermouth looked lovely in the warm, spring sunshine, even though the price of fuel at £1 40 a litre, was a bit pricier than on Route 66!
The on to Maryport and fish and chips, sitting overlooking the Harbour, the Solway and looking even further, the Galloway Hills, Gatehouse of Fleet and Kirkcudbright.
Just an amazing day, so home to play a soundtrack song, Lou Reed of course, what else, it was just a perfect day.
Riding through the lakes I found myself thinking about the email I had received that morning and contrasting it with a piece in the newspaper about the Big Society.
Apparently the vision of the big society is the vision of village life, half a century ago, when we all lived in villages, but now we live in elective villages which are shaped by the communities, clubs and associations we elect to join by becoming members.
Certainly as I rode through these villages in the Lake District, including the one I live in, it was easy to imagine that there has been a history of mutual support and neighbourliness, certainly in Cockermouth the community pulled together heroically in the aftermath of the floods, but against that, as we are reminded nightly as the inquest investigates the shootings, there was Whitehaven and the random killings along the West Coast.
It is also true that amongst the 'villages' that I have lived in two were in Newcastle and Birmingham, both big cities with a capital 'C'. But within those cities, Gosforth and Stirchley, were villages. The local shops were the village centres, where neighbours met, chatted, visited for coffee and socialised. Not dissimilar to the fellside village in Cumbria and without a nine mile round trip for fish and chips and with somewhat more than four channels on the TV.
At the heart of the idea of a big society is a view that something is wrong with society which needs fixing. First the Aunt Sally of broken Britain is set up and we are all shocked into believing the hype, even though for the vast majority of us, nothing is broken at all.
We are able to get up each morning and go about our daily business, challenged only by the deadlines imposed by work or what we have promised to do as part of our voluntary work, whether it is the WRVS shop, the Flower Rota, The Rotary Collection or the Parish Meeting.
So we move from broken Britain, through the squeezed middle via alarm clock Britain to the big society. All of us, the working, the unemployed, the retired, the homemaker, the disabled have to be slotted into a group and labelled so that the politicians can patronise us with their labels.
Well the Britain I live in as a retiree, is not broken, I am not being squeezed in the middle and I no longer have to set the alarm clock, so what do I know?
What I know is that there should be a new categorisation, shameful Britain.
Why do I say that?
This morning I received an email from a friend in Newcastle, the new communities we belong to are the social networks made possible through, email, facebook, twitter etc. I was asked to sign a petition. Normally I am petition averse, but when I read the attachments I was angered by what I was reading.
For the full story see: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/jeanine_kamba/
www.ipetitions.com
Or: save.our.sister1@groups.facebook.com.
As I rode through The Lakes I found myself asking again and again if we are being encouraged to join the big society, then why can't the political leadership set an example. Why can't we have a big, generous, welcoming society? A society in which the weak, those at risk, the vulnerable, those in fear of rape or death are invited to join in and feel safe?
The OED defines Asylum as 'shelter or protection from danger' here is a young woman, making a new life for herself with the support of an adoptive family, who has been forcibly detained by the British Government and who is facing deportation. It seems that her her life and well-being may well be put at risk.
Our big society is not for her?
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