Friday, 21st August, 2020

[Day 158]

Today was a strange kind of day weather-wise in that it was quite blowy but also mild at the same time (often you associate wind with quite cold weather but not today) Having collected our newspapers and made our way to the park, we did get rained on and Meg had to shelter under a neighbouring willow tree for a minute or so. I stuck it out as the shower seemed to be quite fast-moving and in a few minutes time, we were treated to a burst of glorious sunshine. The weather being somewhat inclement, we saw none of our usual friends with whom to have a chat but it was the type of day when only the foolhardy or the intrepid would set out for a walk (we are both of those). Our son and daughter-in-law had returned home from a few days away and had had a very relaxing few days in a hotel they know quite well – and where the chef cooked some special dishes for them as regulars.

After lunch, I engaged in a little job I had been putting off for days but turned out to be quite easy in the event. Via the web, I have discovered a farm which grows their own rapeseed and then presses, processes and filters their own rapeseed oil which they then sell in 5-litre containers. This I then dispense into 10 half-litre ex-cordial bottles (which are slim but with quite a nice long neck and therefore ideal receptacles for the cooking oil – a smidgeon of which I use to oil the blades of the shredder I have in the garage for the sole purpose of shredding cardboard for composting) And then, half-way through the afternoon, my son looked out of the window and said ‘There’s Miggles’ (our missing cat!)

Miggles (whose proper name is ‘Buddy’) had turned up after an absence of 11 days! He limped down our garden and I immediately gave him a bowl of food before he wandered off. This is the full story…His true owners found him about 10 days ago with an injury to his left leg – possible he had been trapped somewhere and struggled to get free. Anyway, they took him to the vet and (presumably) he had an antibiotic to counteract any infection and then his owners kept him inside for 7 days. Today, they let him out as he was feeling a bit stressed, being constantly confined to the house. Miggles (I will continue to call ‘him’) was evidently still feeling a little sore and sorry for himself as he ate his food, allowed a quick stroke and then wandered off to reconnect with his old haunts. We went round to make contact with the owners for the first time. The owners were quite pleased that we had made contact with them- we told them that the cat often visited us and so, inevitably, we had got a little attached to it but we decided to come round as we didn’t know whether he had just turned up for the first time in 11 days. The crucial thing is whether ‘he’ turns up for breakfast in the morning – we will just have to wait and see! I think his ability to leap up and over fences is impaired until his leg is fully healed so whether we will see him regularly or not, who can tell. Having thought that the cat was dead or stolen, it is hard to describe the range of emotions that I felt, as you can imagine.

Tomorrow, we will be going to St. Mary’s at Harvington Hall, which is now part of our new-found Saturday morning routine. In the meantime, we are still watching the ‘ferrets fighting in a sack’ syndrome as the Head of OfQual and the Education Secretary argue with each other as to who was responsible for the ‘A’-level debacle. In this process, pure lies are being told. For example, the Education Secretary, Gavin Wliiiamsom is trying to give the impression that he alone foresaw and tried to solve the problem The education secretary said repeatedly during the week “As we looked in greater detail over Saturday and Sunday, it became evident that further action needed to be taken.” But we know that is not true. As HuffNews tells us:

But this is not totally true – last month the Education Select Committee was warning that the proposed method of using an algorithm to calculate student grades could cause “significant problems” and “might hurt the disadvantaged”. And on Thursday, The Times revealed a former director-general at the Department for Education, Sir Jon Coles, actually wrote to Williams and told him the algorithm would only be 75% accurate and hundred of thousands of students would get the wrong grades.