Quiet

My sore throat is over. Drank lots of water and used lots of gargle. But now I have a cold ... it was quite warm last night and I slept without the blanket. Regretted it by 3am when I got up shivering and sneezing. And Mass in the freezing chapel at 6am was no help. So now I've got a runny nose and sneeze attacks. My nose is tickly all the time. I've taken cold tablets so I hope by this evening it'll be over.

At the hair saloon

Yesterday was Valentine's Day but we don't celebrate it because it's also the feast of Ss. Cyril and Methodius who are patrons of Europe. It's not popular among the jews and muslims either. Only christians celebrate it but with the economic difficulties, hardly anyone nowadays even pay attention to it. I saw only one shop in Jaffa Street in the New City with balloons and buntings .... and it was a jewish hair saloon.

We've just got news that the war in Idlib in Syria is getting quite bad and residents in nearby Aleppo can hear the bombs and missiles exploding. The friars there are calling for help to stop further killings of innocent lives. Most syrians living in the area are christians. Unfortunately the world is silent. What would St. Valentine have done in such a situation?

Anyway there was relative peace yesterday. And so far no news of clashes today either. This might be one of the quietest weekends we've had. It won't make a difference to my work as I still have lots of it this weekend ... but it certainly makes the atmosphere around work alot less tense.