Sunday morning when I walk down for the newspapers on my own is always my opportunity to engage in some indulgence as I listen to certain classical tracks I have on my aged iPhone. Today the first track along happened to be the overture to ‘The Marriage of Figaro‘ and the first time I heard it when I was aged 14 in the music room at Thornleigh College, Bolton (the school which I attended whilst my mother rained to be a teacher). The music teacher, a stocky Glaswegian built like a tank, told us that the syllabus had just been published for the ‘O’-levels we would take in two years time. We were informed that although it was a sparkling 7 minutes worth, we had better get used to it as we would study it in detail for the next two years (which was the length of time deemed necessary to prepare you properly for the GCE ‘O’-level in Music). This was thought at the time to be one of the most demanding ‘O’-levels that there was, on a par with Physics. My memory may not serve me correctly but I suspect that at the time we had to know the score in some detail and might even have to engage in some composition as well. I know that when I changed schools the following year (when my mother had returned from her teaching training course) then I had a massive culture shock as I moved from school with an average plus reputation in music (we did have a school orchestra, choir and brass band – of which the brass band was by far the best known and the most prestigious) to a school where the only music was a lesson in singing for the 11-yr olds taught by an obscure little teacher in a back room somewhere. Later on, I listened to the aria ‘The Queen of the Night‘ and the film ‘Amadeus‘ on the life of Mozart had a brilliant scene win which the incradibly high, not to say shrieked nature of the soprano part was transmogrified into the face of his mother-in-law. A similar psychological transformation takes place in the same film where the voice and image of ‘The Commendatore’  is transformed into the face and image of Mozart’s own stern father. The Commendatore is a military hero, the father of one of Don Giovanni’s conquests, who is slain by him in the opening scene of the opera whilst the closing scene is the statue of the Commendatore who comes to life and drags off Don Giovanni to the flames of hell) You really have to see the whole opera to appreciate the drama of all of this. On my way home, I was ‘overtaken’ on the road by one of my acquaintances who I used to see quite regularly when we were members of the same Pilates class together. She was on her way to the hotel at the top of the road where she has worked for the past few years. She had her hours progressively reduced from five hours to two with the same volume of work expected in the two hours. She had had a new boss who was threatening her with disciplinary action for some of dispute she had had over time off over  holidays – so eventually, she had decided to leave. It does make you a wonder whether this a microcosm of what is happening in the overall economy where (some employers at least) very much have the whip hand, but I found it all rather saddening.

Eventually, Meg and I drag ourselves off to the park, really in search of some of our regular park friends who we have temporally abandoned whilst we patronise the Waitrose coffee bar. We did not run into any but we did run into several interesting dogs and their owners. One of these was a ‘labradoodle‘ (a cross between a Labrador and a poodle) which really is quite an interesting looking dog with curls of woolly hair and quite a striking physique. Another hybrid puppy cane along ( a cockapoo?) and the owners happy chatted whilst the dogs enjoyed each other’s company. All very touching, really.

This afternoon, the weather looked gloomy but not actually raining so I took a chance and decided to get the lawns cut before the football started at 5.00pm. Fortunately, I got the lawns cut in time, the mower (and myself) cleaned up, a cup of tea prepared and was sitting in my chair one minute before kickoff. As we might have expected, plucky little Wales was completely outclassed by a very dominant Italy but by keeping the score down to 1-0 victory  for Italy (although in truth it should have been several more), Wales managed to quality (on the basis of one win, one draw and one loss) in the pool stage and will then progress to the knockout stage of the competition – where I do not think they have ever been before so that are quite happy bunnies tonight.

Today was another overcast day and we assumed that we would not rained upon but nonetheless we had to endure one of those rather ‘glowering’ kinds of days. Meg and I did a tour of the park to see if we could make contact with any of our normal park acquaintances but it was not to be. Having done a tour of the park we went to pick up our newspapers and then made sure that we frequented the local Waitrose cafe that we wanted to see if we could keep in business – as attendance seems to be right down at the moment. Waitrose used to sell a range of cups so that people could avail themselves of the ‘free’ coffee when this was offered. They offered rather a super collapsible cup (a brand called ‘Stojo‘) which comes complete with lid.These used to retail at £12.00 each and perhaps it is not surprising that hardly any were sold at this price. But then Waitrose have reduced them to £1.19 and at that price, they are an absolute bargain. We bought a couple for ourselves and they will be very welcome when/if we resume coffee drinking in the park. I asked our domestic help if she would like any at that price and this morning we bought  couple for her as well. I have taken to having a soup at Waitrose rather than relying upon a cappuccino and some excess carbohydrate – so far the two soups on offer have been so incredibly spicy that I ended to request a glass of cold water to make sure the soup could be ingested OK. Then it was home and a fairly quick lunch so that we could settle down to the football.

I am not an excessive football fan but the European championships have a certain fascination at this stage because in in the initial phases you get well-fancied teams together with teams who are delighted to have qualified and, you might say, are in different league to some of the major footballing nations (Germany, Italy, France, Spain). What happens in the pool stages is that you occasionally get a match where you assume it is going to be a ‘walkover’ for one team but it doesn’t work out that way. For example, in the last few days we have England versus Scotland, Framce versus Hungary, Spain versus Poland and the assumptions before the match is that the ‘first’ team in the matches just announced are by far the stronger term and the result seems to be a foregone conclusion. However, they all seem to have played out to a different script but one with a pattern in it. the ‘stronger’ team is all over the ‘weaker’ team for a portion of the match and may even score a goal. Then there is a quick breakaway and the opposing team scores an equaliser – and then hangs on for dear life so as to secure a draw. The ‘stronger’ team is disappointed to only have a draw (although they score one point with it) and the ‘weaker’ team are absolutely delighted to have held their ‘stronger’ opponents to a draw, and of course. they too have scored a pint – sometimes for the first time ever in the history of that country’s European cup runs where they have struggled to qualify and expect to be soundly beaten in the pool stages. What I am saying is that we have a series of “David’ and ‘Goliath’ contests which have a certain fascination – and the delight of the ‘weaker’ team is always a joy to behold when the referees’s final whistle is blown. and just to reinforce the point, plucky little Wales is scheduled to play torment favourites (and do far, very impressive) Italy to morrow evening.

The CID pandemic is still making an impact on our travel and vacation pans. The good news is that Meg phone up her uncle in North Wales who will be delighted to see us (particularly as he is his mid-90’s and is now confined to the house). We are travelling up to North Wales to lodge in an AirBnB for the first time next Wednesday and will pay a visit to Meg’s uncle the following day. We have already got booked into one of our favourite restaurants on the day that we travel so we will not be hunting around for somewhere to eat. We will have two clear days on Thursday and Friday before we return home next Saturday. We did have plans, though, to visit a cousin on the other side of Meg’s family in the neat future but Bolton in Greater Manchester is the last place to visit at the moment. Meg’s cousin’s daughter is in contact and they are having some domestic upheavals so we have pencilled in a date for about two months time and hope the things might be clarified by then. We know this is affecting lots of people – one of our friendly staff in Waitrose is South African and he has to re-arrange and cancel 3-4 trips already. Many of us are now writing off all our international travel and trips until next Spring of 2022 in any case.

Today was one of those days that I describe as ‘chewy’ i.e. we felt a bit out of sorts with the world. Matters were not helped when Meg woke up this morning with a very bad neck – it might have been that she had slept in a somewhat awkward position but from the word go her neck has been troubling her. More of this later. Our domestic help texted as she was without a car today so after breakfast I had a quick shower and went to pick up by car (never a chore!) She was chattering excitedly about her job as an activities assistant in a residential home and from what she tells me about it I am sure she will prove to be excellent and a real asset to the home. Having got her into the house and had our normal chat, Meg and I decided to go down into car as it was drizzling quite heavily – and it has been all day. I am sure that the gardens need all of this rain and we are not massively disappointed but it does come as a bit of a shock over the last few days. Having picked up our newspapers, Meg and I went to reestablish our customary relationships with the Waitrose cafe – but we have to say it was incredibly quiet and I hope that trade picks up or the powers that be may decide to devote the floor space to something else, which would be a great shame. After we had had our comestibles, we decided to go to the park to see if anyone we knew was foolhardy enough to be taking a turn in the park. We parked in the car-park and did a circular tour (in the rain) to give us ourselves a breath of fresh air as much as anything. The park was practically deserted and, needless to say, we met none of the usual crowd so we made for home. Then I cooked lunch for Meg and I but she was quite a bit of distress with her neck. So we got prepared by downing some paracetamol and organising some heat in our living room, the electric blanket bing switched on in the bedroom, a specialised ‘neck warmer’ warmed up in the microwave and finally a tube of ibuprofen gel that had been presided for my ‘trigger finger’ but which could be pressed into service. Meg had a good sleep in the early part of the afternoon so a lot of our remedies did not need to be used but we might have try some of these if things do not improve.

The political news is interesting this evening as overnight and, almost out of the blue, the Liberal Democrats have scored a stunning victory in a true-blue Tory seat of Chesham and Amersham, replacing a Tory majority of 16,000 with a Liberal Democrat of 8,000. Of course, it is often said that people vote differently in bye-elections compared with the General Election i.e. prepared to cock-a-snook at the government in a bye-election but returning to the file at the time of the next General Election. There two particular factors that riles the good voters of Chesham with Amersham. Probably the most significant is the whole issue of HS2 which, as they see it, destroys some of the beautiful countryside surrounding them (and not benefitting them but only people from the Midland the North with whom they share no fellow feeling!) A second factor about which the Tories have been repeatedly warned is the provision new housing. The Toy Party needs people who are house owners (they feel) before people vote Conservative but this is difficult when prices are so unaffordable so the solution is to build a lot more houses- but where? The present government policy is to encourage housebuilders to build houses almost wherever they want to but this means that the Tories who are sitting in good housing in beautiful countryside do not want this ‘ruining’ by lots of new housing all over the place, even including areas that were formerly protected by the so-called ‘Green Belt’  Yet a third factor is that fact that the voters felt they were ‘taken for granted’ as the Tories poured resources,and promises of investment, into the former Labour-held ‘red wall’ seats in the Midlands and the North. But of course, the feelings in the minds of suburban Tory voters, is that ‘more money for them means less money for us‘  and Tories in the South have never shown themselves to be over-keen to share their own good fortune with less fortunate areas. Yet a further factor is that the more educated the population, the less likely they are to have voted Brexit or even regarded it as a good idea. Boris Johnson himself, on the quiet, is not well regarded by well educated (and well-heeled) Tory voters. So this while cluster of factors have come together in a perfect storm to help the Liberal Democrats to claim a famous bye-election victory.

The long, sunny spell is gradually coming to an end and it may well be that the day finishes with thunderstorms. When we awoke this morning, it was evident that overnight we had a smattering of rain but no more. The longed for thunderstorms had not made it as far as Bromsgrove but it is quite possible that some will make it by this evening. As the day has worn on, the atmosphere has got more and more oppressive and there is a feeling all round that our gardens, in particular, would welcome a sustained downpour for an hour or so. Meg and I are resuming our daily pilgrimage to the shrine of the coffee bar in our local Waitrose and we went shopping for bits and pieces to complement the main Waitrose order which arrived at about 10.0am this morning.  When we got home, we could not stand a full meat-and-two-veg type of meal so I made something in which I put together some left-overs and served them a bed of cauliflower rice – which actually turned out to be a lot tastier than it actually sounds. 

Later on this afternoon, we were ‘at home’ to a new found friend who lives just around the corner. She is an Asian lady brought up in South Africa and has lived for a period in California so we were interested in getting to know each other a little better. We had bought some things  that I suppose I can label as ‘party food’ but seemed interesting for us to try out including some duckfilled sushi and similar delicacies. Our friend came around on cue and we spent a couple of very happy hours chatting, eating and drinking red wine until the weather really started to threaten and it was time for us to bid farewell to each other. I have recommended the book ‘Watching the English’ by Kate Fox which I have always found to be one of the most interesting and stimulating of books (and I have purchased several copies and given them away to numerous friends in the past). This book is written by a social anthropologist well used to observing the mores and minutiae of a culture but made particularly interesting when her attention if focused not on an exotic country but on our own society. Hopefully, we can have a good chat about the things that our friend finds particularly interesting having been brought up in the Asian community of Cape Town.

Interesting but disturbing news is now emerging about the Delta version of COVID. It looks as though the symptoms are changing somewhat and it is more than possible that this is not fully appreciated in our communities. A headache, sore throat and runny nose are now thought to be symptoms of the virus, according to data collected by ZOE, instead of a cough and loss of smell or taste – though a fever is still common. Last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Delta variant now makes up 91% of new cases amid a warning from Public Health England that infections are rising ‘rapidly’. So, what are the most common symptoms of the Delta variant? According to Prof Spector, a headache is now the most reported symptom, followed by sore throat, runny nose and fever. A cough is even rarer, coming in at the fifth most reported symptom and loss of taste or smell doesn’t even make it into the top 10. 

The UK has reported 11,007 new COVID cases and a further 19 deaths in the latest 24-hour period – but in four weeks infections could be lower than they are now, according to an expert. The figures compare with 9,055 cases and nine deaths reported yesterday, and 7,393 cases and seven fatalities this time last week. Today’s number of new infections is the highest reported since 19 February when 12,027 cases were recorded. It comes as a leading COVID researcher says he believes the current wave ‘should be peaking around 10 to 14 days’ time and in a month’s time cases could be lower than they are now and more manageable‘. All of this looks to me like the third wave of the pandemic.  Prof Ravi Gupta, from the University of Cambridge, said although new cases were ‘relatively low’ the Indian variant had fuelled ‘exponential growth’. But what appears to be interesting is that the fact that we might be at the start of a third wave is not receiving as much media attention as it surely deserves.

We are starting to look forward to our few days away which will start on Wednesday next. The fact that some of our friends have had little trips away is making us feel a little relatively deprived so we having to make sure that we have all the arrangements put in place. For example, I had to remember to cancel next week’s Waitrose order which we will no longer need. At the same time, I have taken pain to purchase a few biological and handy wipes so that on our journey and in our AirBnB abode we will be able to wipe down whatever surfaces we feel need our attention. 

Today is another one of those days this week to which we have been looking forward for some time. We needed to update our Waitrose order ready for delivery tomorrow and this was quite soon accomplished. Then we made our way through the now familiar sunshine to pick up our newspapers. Finally, we made our way towards the Waitrose store, knowing that today was the scheduled date on which their coffee bar was due to reopen. We imagined that there would be a red carpet, a brass band playing, a bottle of champagne for each customer with chocolates and flowers to match.Did we get all of that? The answer is – no, we did not but we did have lots of cheery smiles and ‘Nice to see you back‘ after a gap of some 16 months. We sat and surveyed the street scene and the rest of the store, much as we always used to do. It did not feel as though we had been away for any length of time as the decorations were the same and the staff were largely the same. We did have to check in the QR code using the Covid app on my iPhone. Although it worked on the ‘big’  version of this displayed at the front of the coffee bar area, it did not seem to work at all on the little QR codes which they had got pasted onto each table, so perhaps a little bit of fine-tuning is needed there. We saw two of our regular Waitrose friends there but they were just on the point of leaving as we were arriving so we only had the time for the briefest of chats. We had thought it might have been teeming with members of the Waitrose fraternity but instead it was fairly quiet. No doubt news of the re-opening will take some to circulate and it is always possible, of course, that everyone had developed new routines and perhaps patronage of the local watering holes. We chatted at length to one of the employees whose first day it was in the coffee bar. She told us that she had been employed in the (huge and iconic) John Lewis in the centre of Brirminham next to New Street station. It had come as an amazing shock to the staff to be told that they had all lost their jobs and our friendly assistant told us she had cried for two days when she got the bad news. But at least, she is now re-employed with tin the Waitrose family as it were and I am sure that ‘good’ jobs in retail are as rare as hen’s teeth.

After we had eaten and drank our fill, we slowly made our way to the park. There although we did not tarry as we normally would upon a seat we did bump into two or three of the old faithfuls. There we received some sad news from one of our regular friends as she comes to it nearly every day in her electrically powered buggy. A very common sight adjacent to the island used to be that of ‘Henry the Heron’ was was very distinguishable because he had an injured foot – either a genetic fault or the result of a past injury we know not. Some of the park regulars had noticed that Henry was painfully thin and was off his food – and therefore seemed to be wasting away. The RSPCA had been called and anaesthetised the bird – upon a good examination they was able to ascertain his age (about 11-12 we think) and his overall condition was such it was decided that it was in the bird’s best interest to say goodbye to this life. So that is a regular sight of which we will now be deprived, unless, of course, another heron comes to take his place.

Today’s political news has rather been dominated by the Biden-Putin summit abroad and Dominic Cummings at home. The latter has just published a 7,000 word blog (that is about the length of 8 of these daily entries) and In the most explosive of these entries, Boris Johnson is shown to have said of Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary that he was ‘totally f****** hopeless‘ A similar sentiment was repeated on more than one occasion as well. Of courses, this is hard to deny given that we now the evidence in black-and-white as it were. What Cummings has to say about Boris Johnson is no less revealing. Cummings claims that then PM wants to quit shortly after the next election to ‘make money and have fun‘  He also claimed Mr Johnson has a clear plan to leave Downing Street ‘at the latest a couple of years after the next election’, which is scheduled for 2024. The ex-adviser claimed this mattered because a public inquiry into the government’s handling of the COVID crisis had been ‘designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone‘. Asked about the claim Mr Johnson had already planned when to quit, a Number 10 spokeswoman said: ‘The prime minister has been asked about this before and described it as utter nonsense.‘ Finally Cummings claimed that the PM ‘pegs it out of the room before anybody can disagree‘ Stories from the inside!

Today was the day to which we had been looking forward for some time as we shall see. But first of course, we had to get some of our daily jobs done. One of these was to get a basketful of clothes washing to be done and then hung out on the line. As I was doing this, I was kept under the watchful eye of Miggles, our friendly neighbourhood cat who has adopted us (or at least our garden) and pops around in the early morning for a stroke and a bit of fuss. As it was so sunny even first thing in the morning, the cat stretched out for a sunbathe. I asked him/her to keep an eye on the washing and if it were to rain, could it be brought indoors for us? The cat replied saying it would bring in any items of washing that it could reach.

Having collected our newspapers, I popped into Waitrose in order to buy a ‘Happy Anniversary‘ card for our son and his wife. The we established a rendez-vous with our University of Birmingham friend and then we repaired to the garden of our friends for coffee and cakes. Actually to call it ‘cakes’ is rather a misnomer because our wonderful hostess had got up at 6.30 and had baked a magnificent cake replete with both strawberries and cream. So we ate our fill with these delicious goodies and then filled up on even more strawberries and cream so a good time was had by all. As it happened, our University of Birmingham friend and our Catholic friends had quite a few acquaintances in common – with lots of good conversation the time absolutely flew past as we started off at 11.30-ish and didn’t finish until three hours later. I think we are all conscious that this wonderful spell of fine weather must break down in a day or so and, in fact, the weather services are maintaining that we may have an outcrop of thunderstorms sweeping across the country from about 6.00pm tomorrow night. 

As you might imagine, after a very belated lunch (if you can call it that), we were destined to have a very lazy afternoon. But towards the end of this afternoon was the time when we generally FaceTime some of our ex-Waitrose friends and this we did, catching up on all the news since we saw them ‘in the flesh’ as it were when the came around to our garden last Tuesday. We explained to them how we had got an AirBnB trip booked on the North Wales coast starting a week tomorrow. The location of our accommodation is only about a mile away from Meg’s godfather/uncle so we can see him for the first time in over a year. Having stayed in the area several times before, we know some of the good eating places/parking places/ ways of getting into Conway so we are looking forward to this little trip in just over week’s time. Our friends too were looking forward to their trip to both York and to Harrogate in early July and as they have seen neither town before, we are sure they will be delighted and enchanted by what they will see. It is our friend’s birthday in about three weeks time so we have made plans to pop around and have some tea and cake either in the garden or the house (depending on the weather). Tomorrow is also going to be a special day for us because it is the day when the Waitrose coffee bar is due to reopen after period of at least 15 months when the COVID restrictions precluded its use. We are not quite sure how they are going to manage the social distancing regulations for us tomorrow but no doubt they will have a little plan worked out. I have asked that they raid their store and roll our the red carpet for us when we attempt to pick up the pieces again after such a length of time – mind you, we still know most of the staff because we still go into Waitrose about once a week to pick up anything special that we may have short of during the week. 

I have just tried to replay myself a videoclip (presumably from YouTube) which shows a BBC journalist (Nicholas Watts) being verbally assaulted and abused by a crowd of anti-lockdown protesters who, presumably, think that BBC reporting of the news is contributing to all of society’s ills. Whilst one must tolerate freedom of speech in an open society, it is very disturbing when a fascist-inclined mob tries to shout down legitimate reporting of the news, particularly if you do not happen to like the message. As one of my previous work colleagues used to argue ‘Should one tolerate intolerance‘ and this particular question is even more salient now that we have lived through  an era of ‘fake news’ and the whole episode of Trumpism (which I must say now feels like a particularly obnoxious nightmare)

The start of another week and we are taking pains to maximise our social contacts whilst the weather is fine and we can have tea in each other’s gardens. We were a little late down to the park, having popped in Waitrose for a few ‘essentials’ (ice-cream of which we have been consuming a lot in this warm weather). Once we actually made it to the park, we were delighted to run across our University of Birmingham friend who we had not expected to see. He was on his way to a tennis tournament but ran into the most horrendous traffic jam so he decided to call it a day and pop into the park (where he can be guaranteed to find people to chat with). So this was an unexpected bonus for us – we took the opportunity to make some final arrangements for tomorrow when we are invited around to some of our oldest friends for coffee. At it is so warm currently, we are popping round the garden two or three times a day to give our pot plants some much needed water. As it happens, I am keeping an eye on a group of plants called ‘verbascum’ which grow to a tremendous height (well, the best part of 6′ anyway) and eventually finish off with a flourish of yellow flowers. Then, apparently, they are very liable to be the host to a particular variety of moth caterpillar that threaten to overwhelm them. The caterpillars apparently creep out at night and do their worst. The official advice to get rid of the caterpillar is to have a ‘hostage’  wild verbascum plant nearby and transfer all the caterpillars you find to the hostage plant in the hope the hostage plants will get eaten and none of the rest will. I am going to follow this particular wild-life cycle with some interest – even if they fail we have some other fast growing plants (sun flowers in a variety of colours, sweet peas which make lovely cut flowers one you get them going) When I last cut the lawns, I decided to see if I could propagate some softwood cuttings from a large Elaeagnus bush that we have growing in one of the borders to our communal lawn. In theory, you take softwood cuttings by taking a cutting some 6-8″ in length, remove nearly all of the leaves part from the top two or three and then plant in a mixture of grit and sand to encourage rooting behaviour. When I have tried things like this in the past I have either had abject failures or a measure of success but on this occasion I have my cuttings planted in a little pot (suitably kept moist with a kind of plastic cover) and then put in the shade of a larger plant so that it gets watered (and not missed) every day. We shall see.

Today, as completely anticipated, Boris Johnson has announced that the lockdown will continue for another 4 weeks although his choice of language was confusing -‘taking the foot off the accelerator’. The press conference at 6.0pm was excruciatingly bad – every time Boris Johnson was asked a straightforward and easily understand question (e.g. will all university students have received the vaccine by September) all we got was waffle, obfuscation, evasion and so on. I think our Prime Minister is incapable to giving a direct answer to a straight question. There seems to be some interesting reactions on the political front. Whereas more than 50% of the population appear to agree with an extension to the lockdown, the Tory right wing are furious. There could be a rebellion when the measures are debated in at the House of Commons on Wednesday. In addition, from a quick glance at Channel 4 News, there seems to be an angry crowd demonstrating in front of the gates which block off Downing Street from Whitehall so it could be that we move into the interesting territory that Downing Street wants to extend measures which the rest of the Tory party will attempt to vote down. They won’t succeed because the Labour Party will vote in favour  of the extension but the size of the rebellion might be a pointer to political developments in the future.

Tonight I am going to settle down with a bar and watch Spain play Sweden in the European cup finals. Having watched Scotland play the Czech Republic, I am very much reminded of the reply that Clement Attlee (immediately post war II Labour Prime Minister) gave as a reply to a minister who was asking why he was not reappointed to a ministerial position. Clem’s reply was delightful and apocryphal ‘Not good enough‘ was his sole reply and this was very much my emotion when I watched the Scottish performance. What else do you say when the Czech lead striker hits a ball from just over the half-way line only to lob the Scottish goal keeper who had come off his line and score a second goal?

Today being a Sunday, it was a day when the alarm gets set a little early and I get up ready to make my progress down to the newspaper shop bright and early in the morning. There is always quite an interesting atmosphere around first thing on a Sunday morning. For a start, I am generally listening to my trust old I-Phone I utilise as an MP3 player and this morning was a Mozart morning. I particularly enjoyed the track of a tenor singing ‘Il mio Tesoro’ from Don Giovanni – I remember this because the melody is sufficiently simple to be played on an instrument. In this case, my son played it on his clarinet for some sort of examination (Grade 3 I wonder?) All if can remember pf this is that the junior headmaster had asked my son how the examination had gone and received the answer of ‘Brill’ Later on he was to win the school prize for music in his year group playing the 2nd (slow ) movement of the Mozart Clarinet concerto. At some stage after this, a combination of three things entered my son’s life (photography, girls and classic locomotives but in which order I couldn’t say) Walking down to town at that time in the morning, one does not encounter many other souls but they tend to fall into the category of serious joggers (often in pairs) and dog walkers. To make life even more interesting this morning, there is evidently some cabling or other kind of activity gong on in the pavements in the town. All of the underground services are labelled in a variety of spray paints and I counted at least six colours of paint (white, yellow, cyan, blue, orange, red) as well as some white chalk marks. I suppose these represent water, sewage, gas, electricity and TV /communications and more besides) but evidently there are all sorts of codes and symbols represented by these symbols but with their meaning obscured to the general public. Also at this time, the owners of some classic vehicles take to the road and I spotted this morning one person on a Vespa scooter ( the last one I saw must have been decades ago) and I think I noticed a classic sports car called a Triumph Stag but as it swept past me, I was having to rely upon memory as to whether my identification was correct or not. After breakfast and the Andrew Marr Show, Meg and I wandered down to the park where we met up with a couple of our park regulars before we departed fairly early in order to have our lunch before kick-off in the England-Croatia match in the Euro finals. Actual, as it turned out Meg and I thoroughly enjoyed the match although football is not really our game. The match was enjoyable to watch, not least cause England secured a (deserved) 1-0 victory but also because the young English team demonstrated some enterprise and initiative. The goal was well-deserved and the Croatians were lucky that an earlier excellent England shot had rebounded from the upright. Tomorrow’s matches are going to be Scotland vs. Czech Republic and Spain vs. Sweden so there is something in both of these matches that might well attract my attention tomorrow. Of course, as the matches are played in European time zones, then one doesn’t have to get up in the middle of the night or ridiculously early in the morning which can happen if it is the World rather than the European finals.

Although I did not really want to do it, I thought the it was so long since the car had a wash that it badly needed a wash down. We haven’t been on the kind of trips that generally makes cars dirty but a fine dust had descended upon it over the last week or so. So I gave it a rather cursory wash, compared with normal, as it is the hottest day of the year and not the best day to engage in car washing although I did wait until 5.0 before I started. Tomorrow is going to be the day when the government plans will be announced whether the lockdown is to continue or be lifted. Boris Johnson will, in all probability, announce that the lockdown shall continue for 4 weeks more.This does have the ‘advantage’ of any eventual end of a lockdown being in the middle of July ie. approximately when the schools finish. Also it appears that more than half of the population agree that the restrictions should be in place for another month.On a societal level, we are waiting for the rate of vaccinations (and particularly  the second vaccination) to proceed at a faster pace than the virus can spread. However, this Delta variant seems to spread 60% more rapidly than its predecesors. It would appear on the surface that any  government that did not extend the lockdown for a further month would be guilty of the most severe dereliction of duty.

As might be imagined, we have a slightly different routine on a Saturday and today was no exception. Meg and I did some routine jobs this morning so our morning walk was a little delayed. Once we had both walked to collect the newspapers and the day was quite warm, we were more than happy to collapse on one of the lower park benches where we could oversee the peregrinations of the ducks and a few ducklings. Nonetheless, we ‘touched base‘  (as the Americans would no doubt say) with a couple of our park regulars and had the kind of conversations we generally do (not a million miles away from the latest state of play regarding the various virus variants and the UK government response to date) We started off home for lunch fairly late (at about 2.0pm, which is late for us as we have to prepare lunch when we get home). But not far from home we were hailed from the open window of a house where we used to stop and admire the Honda CR-V on the drive and we have subsequently got to know the owner of the house (an Asian lady with roots in South Africa) We had not bumped into each other for quite some time, although we did have an ‘understanding’  to try and have a cup of tea with each other in our garden as soon as weather and work conditions permitted. It transpired there was a good reason why our paths had not crossed. Upon trying to turn right from the main road into her own house she was run into from the rear by an on-rushing ambulance. As in the course of a 20-30 minute walk we see about 2-3 ambulances, many with blue flashing lights, then the fact that a collision had occurred with almost anybody was not a great surprise to us. So to cut a long story short, our friend had received some injuries including concussion and her car was extensively damaged – but the ambulance were trying to claim it was no fault of theirs (is this their default response I wonder) As the weather is still set fair for several days yet, our friend has been invited round here for tea with us next Thursday afternoon and we shall look forward, very much, to filling in each other’s back stories, Whilst we were chatting at the open window, we were joined by her aunt who had been staying with her for a few days. We learnt that she had recently (i.e. about a year ago) got her PhD in nursing from the University of West London which started off life as Ealing College of Higher Education and went through several transformations subsequently. Our friend took a selfie of the four of us and I was pleased to get this through our messaging links. So roll on next Thursday when lots of news will no doubt get exchanged.

This week is going to be quite busy – I think we are all trying to see each other and ‘socialise’ whilst we can and before the weather breaks. On Monday, we need to pop into Waitrose for a few things (‘cake-related’) and then on Tuesday our University of Birmingham friend and ourselves have been invited to take tea with two of our church friends just down the road. We have kept missing each other with one thing or another so it will be great to have a nice old chin wag not outside in the street but in the privacy of our own gardens. Then on Wednesday, our local Waitrose is going to re-open (we think and hope) so we intended to be there fairly early on to savour the delights of Waitrose coffee and cakes once again. Then on Thursday, we are seeing our friends from around the corner and on Friday I am not sure but we might have some more tea in prospect.

This afternoon, I got to mow the grass which badly needed it. Although it was only a gap of eight days since the last mow, the wispy dandelion stalks not to mention the daisies and the buttercups all contributed to a very  untidy sight. Now it has double mowed (first in one direction and then a cross-cut at right angles to this first cut) it looks a treat in the late afternoon sunshine. As I was mowing our own back lawn, though, I was dismayed to discover that we had practically no damsons on our damson trees (last year I collected enough to make 16 litres of gin!) I did a quick search on the web and it seems that a wet May might have contributed to the fruit not setting when it should. But another contributor gave forth the opinion that her damson tree tended to have a super abundant year (as we had) followed by an almost barren year – so perhaps this is just to be expected in the cycles of damson  tree development. Incidentally, we noticed out gooseberry crop seems to be non-existent this year as well – I suspect the very wet May might be the culprit here as well.

Another day dawns in which we were going to diverge from our normal routines. We had set up in advance a day trip out with our University of Birmingham friend so we went through our normal daily routines and picked up our newspapers before we made a rendezvous-vous with our friend at the gates of the park. Then we made our to Arley deep in the heart of the Worcestershire countryside. Arley is most noted for having one of the most picturesque stations on the whole of the Severn Valley Railway – it has been used in a number of tv and film productions because it is maintained as a Pre Dr Beeching Railway Station. The second thing for which Arley is particularly famous is Arley Arboretum. I quote some of the blurb I have found on the web:  These beautiful historic gardens and arboretum dating back to the late 1700’s are surrounded by over 1600 acres of countryside within the picturesque village of Upper Arley beside the river Severn. In addition to providing wonderful walks through the 300 ancient trees of the arboretum there are walks along the banks of the river, all set in the beautiful Worcestershire countryside with far reaching views. Meg and I have visited the Arboretum in the past and really enjoyed it but that was not the point of our trip today. Instead we made for a delightful little cafe which straddles a little lane – on one side of the road you order your comestibles whilst on the other side there are some benches laid out with a magnificent view of the River Severn. The day turned out to be a little overcast and glowering – nonetheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the hot bacon sandwiches which the young staff of the cafe prepared for us. We had just about finished our repast and were treating ourselves to some tea and cake when there were a few spots of rain. The two young girls who ran the cafe very assiduously ushered us to the inside of the cafe in case the rain came on apace (which it failed to do) and then we carried on with out tea, cakes and interesting conversation. By the time we had finished, the sky had brightened up somewhat and we made our way home in a leisurely fashion through Kidderminster. We were very impressed by the old Saab that our friend had bought some six months ago – it cost only a little over £2,000 and was magnificently equipped with beautiful leather seats and the like on the inside.  Really quite tempting, I suppose, if you do not want to drive particularly fast but you want to do it in some comfort and style. In addition, I imagine, you would have to know a very good garage or service mechanic who could keep it well maintained but I must say these older cars have a charm all of their own.

In the early evening, we spent some time as we normally do on a Friday with a FaceTime chat with one of our oldest University of Winchester friends.We spent some time talking about computery types of things (our friend used at work at IBM and then taught some Computer Science so he very knowledgable about such things) We then finished off comparing notes about the various kinds of low alcohol beers that we had purchased from the likes of Lidl, Aldi and Waitrose so I have been given some ideas what to look for when I next browse the shelves of a supermarket. I know from my last trip to Waitrose there is a bewildering variety of beers now on sale, mainly from very small, independent brewers but short of a ‘Consumer Guide’ to low alcohol beers I suppose you have to buy them and sample them bit by bit. Whilst on this subject, I am reminded of one of the most innovative Christmas presents I have ever been bought. At the suggestion of a friend, my son had equipped himself with a large cardboard box and then went off to his local off-license were he bought one of every type of beer that they had on their shelves.The shop keeper was no doubt delighted to get rid of some of his old stock whilst from the point of the recipient, the pleasure of the present slowly unwinds week by week if you allow yourself one special beer per week as a kind of treat.

The COVID information is now worrying in the extreme. The number of new infections is now increasing at the rate of 1200 a day (and reached 8,125 today) and the R=rate is now between 1.2 and 1.4. The Delta (Indian) variant now accounts for 90% of the new cases. Today the BMA have called for the ‘end of the lockdown’ on 21st June to be delayed and it looks as though tomorrow many other medical bodies are going to declare their opposition to a premature end to the lockdown. We have have been warned!