Today was a dismal day but we did not mind too much because it was the day when our domestic help calls around and we are always glad to have a chat and a catch up on the week’s news. But through the post this morning, I received another flash drive which is the same size as the SSD in my McBook (a measly 128GB) so I rapidly reformatted it to the MAC formatting system and then got it to work making a backup of all of my transient (non-App) files. This was going to take it about an hour and somewhat more so I just let it get on with it whilst I had breakfasted and then showered. As the day was so showery, Meg and I had a think (but not for long) and decided to go down into town by car. So we collected our newspaper and then set off for the cafe in the park where we anticipated that we would meet with our two regular friends. This proved to be the case and in no time at all we were discussing big geo-politics. Should Estonia be admitted to Nato and was it a good idea to admit the Baltic states to Nato and so on. Of course, the over-riding question to all of this is to determine if there is a point at which ‘the West’ feels compelled to challenge Putin’s Russia directly although the risks of a third World War and a nuclear confrontation are increased considerably. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the country has reached a ‘strategic turning point’ in the conflict, and that he is convinced Ukraine can win. He also accused Russia of deploying Syrian mercenaries into Ukraine, following Vladimir Putin’s invitation for volunteers to fight for the country. Meanwhile, there are several reports that are indicating that drones are being successfully used to attack Russian supply lines and 2-3 Russian commanders were killed in the last day or so. Also, the Ukrainians are very successfully utilising some not so subtle propaganda when they capture any Russian soldiers who are usually conscripts. The first thing they do is to put a mobile phone in the young conscript’s hands and say ‘Phone your mother and tell her where you are and what you have been doing‘  This is proving to be quite an effective tactic as it means that information not provided by the Russian state is going straight into the families and communities from which the young conscripts come and this is certainly helping to fuel whatever counter-culture there is in Russian society at the moment. 

And now for domestic political news – although not a  million miles away from the Ukrainian conflict. I think it is fair to say the UK response to accepting refugees from the Ukraine has been laggardly, bureaucratic and quite frankly inhumane. We are requiring that refugees have passports and then must travel from Calais to Lille or to Paris or to Brussels to get a visa having submitted a long application form and supplied their biometric data. Practically every other European society are allowing the refugees in instantly and indicate they will get the paperwork sorted out later. But the  UK is insisting that everyone supplies a visa and biometrics in case terrorists use the crisis to ‘sneak’ into the UK. Two sources told Sky News that Mr Johnson, his new chief of staff Steve Barclay and Number 10 head of policy Andrew Griffith have been cautious about opening up routes for Ukrainians to come in large numbers without full checks. ‘The problem is Number 10 – the PM and Steve Barclay – who are personally slapping this down,’ said a source. A Tory source said that some people in Number 10 have been more hardline on migration issues than many expected, and it was unfair that Ms Patel was getting the blame. It does seem almost unbelievable that Priti Patel’s suggestions for more humanitarian approaches are being slapped down. There has been some reluctant liberalisation announced day by day and the latest sitution is that one cn apply online (assuming, of course, that you can supply biomtrics and passpports online). It really does seem that our present Home Office throws up every (bureaucratic) obstacle it can think of to allow more Ukrnians to enter the country but the media are already focussing upon the cruelties involved in the system – asking a blind, 80 year old mother who have never used the internet to travel to Lille or to Paris and wait there for days until an application for a visa is accepted or rejected.  To illustrate the problem, then about 760 visas have been granted under the Ukraine Family Scheme, with 22,000 applications ‘on their way through’. This represents less than 3.5% of the total eligible. Home Secretary Priti Patel was asked multiple questions about the UK’s handling of Ukrainian refugees at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, a government source said, with everyone said to be raising concerns. As one cabinet minister is reported to have said ‘The process isn’t necessarily going as fast as it could be. Is the Home Office the right department to be running this? Not sure’ If I were a cartoonist I would certainly draw a cartoon of Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus in their flight into Egypt being turned back at the border because they did not have a visa.

Thursday is my shopping day and so, in theory, I should have got up in plenty of time to get to the supermarket as it opened at 8am in the morning. But I overslept a little and it was practically 9.00 am when I arrived at the supermarket but it seemed pretty uncrowded at that hour in the morning so I was not too unhappy to be an hour later than planned. Today I was trying an experiment which was to go the smaller of the two Aldi stores that we have here in Bromsgrove and also to go round the store without the benefit of a list. Taking one thing with another, I think that both of these strategies worked as I intended. Without a list, there was less chasing about the store looking for one particular item. Also, the fact that the store is quite compact means less overall trailing up and down. As it turned out, there was one or two items that I could not find or they did not stock but I can always rely upon the Waitrose at the bottom of the road to remedy any deficiencies. Whilst I was out, I also collected the newspaper and this means that when we eventually walk to the park, there is a slightly less long walk for Meg to cope with. So after the shopping was unpacked, Meg and I went on our customary walk and the weather was almost springlike with the flowering cherry starting to blossom in various places and other shrubs and trees ready to burst into life at a moment’s notice. It was fairly late when we got back so we had a somewhat delayed lunch of quiche.

This afternoon, we had three pleasant surprises to brighten up our afternoon. The first of these was the fact that I had ordered yesterday a 64Gb micro memory card – I nearly always tend to buy SanDisk cards as they have a 10 year warranty upon them which is good enough for me. As this was cheap enough, I also bought a microSD card reader which plugs into one of the USB3 ports in my MacBook. This, in effect, gives me the facility of an additional card reader on my MacBook and I have already made a backup of my usual working files. The second pleasant surprise was that my sister called me on the phone and we converted this into a FaceTime call between my sister and Meg and I. We exchanged news as to how we were  both coping on a day-to-day level and my sister seem to be getting her ‘act together’ in seeing neighbours. She is talking about getting a mobility scooter when the spring advances a little and I think this is an excllent idea. I am trying to encourage my sister, despite her mobility difficulties, to do what she can to maximise social contacts as a way of counteracting the loneliness she undoubtedly feels after the death of her husband. The third good thing to happen this afternoon was that we were preparing to eat out little bit of supper in front of the TV, the doorbell rang and it was our next door neighhbour distributing some hot apple crumble and cream that she had just dished up and wanted to share with us ( a sort of ‘Meals on Wheels’) We did not have the time to have a chat on the doorstep but it was a most wonderful,and neighbourly, act to look after the ‘old folks’ next door.

Talking about the ‘person next door’ the house that had belonged to our neighbour, across the way from our communal green area, has been up for sale since the death of our neighbour last August. It has on the market with the ‘Purple Bricks’ estate agency and although there is undoubtedly a presence online, we have not observed anyone coming around to confirm their ‘online’ views with a site inspection. As of yesterday, though, we noticed that a ‘Sold’ sign had just been affixed to the board and today we did notice a couple of largish vehicles were paying a visit to the bungalow. So it looks as though in the fullness of time, we shall be expecting some new neighbours. I suspect that it may be a month or so yet until people move in as in all probability the house has been bought in order to secure it and as there is no onwards chain, the vendors will be disposing of their current property before moving into their new one.

In the Ukraine, the artillery attacks on the Ukraine cities seems relentless. Some are arguing that the Russians have derived their tactics from their conflict in Syria where at least one city, Aleppo, was systematically flattened. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seem to be having some success when it comes to ‘taking out’ strategic parts of the convoy of miliary vehicles (as in north of Kyif) when they come across them.

Wednesday is a generally a day free of other commitmnts for us and is therefore a good day to enjoy a day out. We determined a few days ago that if the weather was to be reasonably fine, we would make a little trip out to Evesham. So after we had had breakfasted at some leisure, we set out for Evesham which we have not visited from way before the pandemic so it must be at least three years ago now. When I consulted one of my trusty road maps to give myself an overview of the road systems, Evesham lies at the opposite corner of a parallelogram from Bromsgrove so we could basically choose an easterly route or a westerly route, the difference in timing and miles being minimal. We chose a westerly route which turned out not to be ideal. We had been making reasonable progress until we had come to one of the villages through which we had to pass to get to Evesham but the road was entirely blocked so we sent on quite a long diversion to get into the town by another route. We got parked reasonably centrally once we remembered the layout of the town- by this time, it was getting a little late so instead of seeking out a place for a late coffee we decided to cut our losses and make for an early lunch. We walked down the high street which we vaguely remembered and then espied an Italian restuarant in which we recall having had a magnificent meal, probably the last time that we visited. As we approached it, we realised with some dismay that it was only open in the evenings and at lunchtime on Fridays or Saturdays. One can sort of understand this – often better restaurants do not have a lunchtime opening and last time we came, perhaps we had struck lucky and come on a Friday.  So we progressed down the main street and came across another place which was evidently serving both coffees and light lunches. So we entered and ordered a risotto which was pretty good once it arrived. It contained salmon as the principal ingredient and was garnished well with watercress but had a lightly poached egg served on the top of it which seemed an excellent idea (as the egg overflowed into the rice once you started to eat the dish) I thought this was a good idea so I have ‘filed it away’ in my mind to do this the next time we cook a rissotto for ourselves. I used to do this about once a week but have got out of the habit since I am trying to minimise carbs when I can. After lunch, we strolled around the old buildings which constitute Evesham Abbey and its surrounding buildings. But by this stage, the wind had really intensified so we did not stay overlong but reminded ourselves of he magnifient view over the park which runs down towards the river (Avon). The last time we were here, we seemed to remember it was a brilliantly hot summer day which is when the park can be appreciated at its best. We viewed the memorial to the burial place of Simon de Montfort which we remembered as having a prime location. Simon de Montfort’s parliament of 1265 is sometimes referred to as the first representative English parliament, because of its inclusion of both the knights and the burgesses, and de Montfort himself is often regarded as the founder of the House of Commons. So the specially constructed memorial stone had been formally opened/re-opened by the Speaker of the House of Commons in 1965. As it happens, I remember the date of 1965 well as it was the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Parliament. I was working in the reference department of the Central Office of Information, in London, and we were beseiged with whatever information we could uncover to feed to the world’s press at the time. This was quite an eventful year because it was also the year in which Winston Churchill died which occasioned another feeding frenzy from the world’s press.

My observations of the last few days concerning the donation of Mig fighter aircraft from Poland to the Ukraine via the Americans now seems to have been unduly optimistic. Basically, the Americans are refusing to ‘play ball’ with this proposal arging that the plan was ‘untenable’. Evidently, the USA feels that this whole gesture might be seen as a hostile act by NATO and might occasion a Russian attack on NATO which would almost certainly be the start of WWIII. Meanwhile, the stories emanating from the Ukraine are equally horrific. It seems that the power has been cut to the crippled Chernobyl reactor which could mean that the ‘normal’ cooling processes of the radioactive waste become less viable. The even more horrific event is the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol in which it looks as though newly born infants (and presumably their mothers)  will have been buried alive in the rubble. One could not think of a clearer example of a war crime than this.

Today is my Pilates day so to some extent, this dictates how the day is going to shape up. It seemed to be quite a fine morning although a chill wind was blowing. Nonetheless, Meg and I went down to collect our newspaper and then made our way into the park. As we were a little conscious of the passing of time, we occupied some of the benches overlooking the lake where we consumed our coffee and ate our biscuits (well, Meg did – I treat myelf to an orange to cut down on the carbs) Then we had plenty of time to get home and I put some fishcakes in the oven before i departed for my Pilates class, which I must have been doing for about 9-10 years by now. Our sessions are organised into six-week blocks and we typically have a mini-period of relaxation in week 3 and a somewhat longer one at the end of the final week of the block, week six. However, if any one has a birthday in the preceding week (which one of our number had) then our Pilates teacher relents a little and allows us 5 minutes of relaxation at the the end of the session. My contribution to this is that I nearly always manage to fall into a sleep before the end of the 5-minute relaxation session and I gently chide my teacher if she fails to induce me to sleep.

This afternoon after which we had our lunch and a doze the TV event of the afternoon was to witness the historic video link by means of which President Zerlenskyy made the first ever address by  a foreign leader to the House of Commons. Sky News reports the ‘first ever address’ but a quick Google search indicates a list of about 50 people from 1939 onwards who have addressed a joint meeting of the House of Commons so I find this claim a little misleading. But an interesting political development has emerged this afternoon. A fascinating report has been published in the Jerusalem Post this afternoon, which quotes sources it says were privy to a meeting three days ago between Israeli PM Naftali Bennett and Vladimir Putin. This reports indicates that the gap between Putin and Zerlenskyy is not as great as popularly supposed. The report indicates that Zelenskyy can fortify Ukraine’s independence but will have to pay a heavy price. Assumptions are that he will be forced to give up the contested Donbas region, officially recognise the pro-Russian dissidents in Ukraine, pledge that Ukraine will not join NATO, shrink his army and declare neutrality. If he declines the proposal, the outcome may be terrible: thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Ukrainians will die and there is a high probability that his country will completely lose its independence. It is slightly difficult to know what to make of this report. One might not have been totally surprisd if this report had surfaced in about a fortnight from now after the Russians had totally over-run and were, in theory, in control of Ukraine. On the other hand, and against all of the odds, it does seem that there is today a prospect that the Ukraine will not actually lose this conflict. There seem to be inflicting casualties on the Russian troops (about 12,000 by their own reckoning, but about 3,000-4,000n according to America’s CIA) The apparent superiority of the Russian military machine must be tempered by the knowledge that many of the raw young recruits, used by the Russian invading army, do not seem to have too much stomach for a fight and, according to many reports, feel that they hve been cruelly deceived by their military leaders, many believing that the were only on an ‘exercise’ and not knowing they were actually in the Ukraine. The 40 mile long column of military vehicles to the north of Kyiv appears to be literally and figuratively bogged down and crippled by shortages of fuel, food, water and critical supplies – and it appears to be going nowhere in the short term.  A least 2-3 senior Russian military leaders have to have lost their lives and there is the prospect that some Russian Mig-29 fighter planes might be sent from Poland to bolster the Ukrainian air defences. The Ukrainians seem to have had quite a lot of success by utilising drones that have successfully attacked the Russian supply chains. So, in my book, it is still a little too close to call.

The breaking news tonight is that Poland is going to hand over all 23 of the Mig-29 fighters  (Ukraine already has 37) to the Americans, at no cost.  They, in turn, will resupply Poland with the latest generation of fighter aircraft whilst the 23 will be ‘given’ to the Ukranians. This will increase the supply of this particular fighter by some two thirds and, of course, the Ukrainians already have pilots who know how to fly them. How much of a difference is this going to make and how soon can the aircraft be deployed?

This morning we knew that our regular central heating engineers were due to call around to give our gas boiler its annual service so we were prepared for a slightly different routine this morning. Fortunately for us, the firm we utilise, who live almost around the corner from us, turned up reasonably early so we got the boiler serviced with the minimum of fuss. It was interesting to chat with the central heating engineer as to what he thought the future held in store. We got the ‘low down’ on the different alternatives and varieties of heat pumps such as air source heat pumps (a bit like air conditioning in reverse) and his view, for what it is worth, is that many of the alternatives have not been thought through and we could see the return of traditional gasometers filled with LPG. His own view was that hydrogen is a fuel worth considering apart from the fact that every house will contain within a potential bomb if hydrogen technology to become more extensive. Once the gas service had been completed, I walked down to town on my own because I wanted to visit a few shops after picking up the newspaper. So I made a trip along the High Street, making an appointmnt at the opticians, paying a visit to an ATM and finishing off with buying some cosmetic items principally for Meg. When I eventually got home, we decided to have our ‘elevenses’ at home amd then proceeded straight away to cook our lunch. The afternoon seemed to presage a beautiful sunny afternoon as the sky was blue and the sun shining brightly but only when we got outside did we realise that there was actually quite an icy blast.  So Meg and I decided to reverse our normal pattern and go for our walk in the afternoon. Of course, the park has a different clientele at this time of day as there are fewer dog walkers and youngsters on their little bikes and more school children making a shortcut through the park on their way home. We were pleased to get home, though, as by the time we had left our bench the icy blasts had started to chill us more than was comfortable.

The Ukraine news still appals us and fascinates us at the same time. The most extraordinary ‘event’ of today is that the Russians have established some humanitarian corridors but only if they lead to Russia or Russian-controlled areas –  for example, a corridor has been established out of Kyiv but only straight to Belarus. Naturally, the Ukrainians have rejected these ‘offers’  believing that Ukrainians who availed themselves of these corridors might end up being used as a propaganda tool for the Russians. One particularly heart-rending stories of today  is the account of the death of mayor of Hostomel, a small town close to Kviv and home to the Hostomel airfield, a key strategic point at the centre of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.   The mayor had been shot and killed, dying with a couple of his colleagues while distributing bread and medicines to those in need. There are numerous other stories of direct attacks upon civilians and their dwellings which must, by any account, constitute a war crime. There are some Ukrainian journalists compiling careful evidence for what may well become critical evidence when those responsible are charged (as they will be) with war crimes.

Now this may be clutching at straws but here goes anyway. There are some intelligence sources which claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is suffering from terminal bowel cancer. An ex-military intelligence offer working at the Pentagon in the US said analysts had been studying the 69-year-old and that they believe him to be gravely ill. The ex-intelligence offer says that his ‘puffy face’ is a sign that he is taking chemotherapy drugs or steroid and that his unsmiling expression shows that is he in constant pain. This could have made him more aggressive or he may be attacking Ukraine as he knows he is dying and wants to leave a legacy. The source said: ‘In the past we have seen him smile, but in 2022 there are few pictures of him looking happy. His look suggests he is in pain and our people suggest his angry look is most likely as a result of him being in agony.Our people are confident he is ill – he is concerned about Covid as he keeps his staff at a distance.’  Well, this might be largely material designed to bolster the confidence of everyone opposed to Putin and I would take it with the very largest pinch of salt but it is interesting nonetheless. Of perhaps more significance is the story that  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the United States was ‘working actively’ on a deal with Poland to supply Ukraine with jets to fight invading Russians.The deal, according to reports, could involve Poland handing over its existing MIG-29s, a Soviet/Russian-made jet fighter Ukrainian pilots are familiar with, and the US would then provide its F-16 fighters to Poland as replacements.

On Sunday mornings, I get up a little earlier than I would normally feel inclined because I like to set off to collect the Sunday newspaper at about 8.00am so that I can get back, prepare breakfast and watch the Sunday Morning (politics) programme. As it tends to be quite cold first thing in the morning, the last time I went shopping I bought some of those packets of ‘instant’ porridge which takes about 2 minutes in a microwave. I am finding these very useful on those days when I leave the house early, for example to go shopping, although I find that I have to watch the microwave very carefully to make sure that they do not bubble over.  After we had watched our fill of Sunday morning TV, Meg and I set off for the park and, quite unusually, we did not take any provisions with us. This is because we had a loose arrangement to meet our two regular friends in the park cafe. We started off drinking some coffee outside but eventually, the cold wind got the better of us and we beat a hasty retreat to one of the few tables provided inside. A lot of our discussion today, as almost every day, was to discuss Putin’s frame of mind and his likely courses of action. One line of speculation that we have is whether the American diplomats are in touch with the Chinese president (Xi Jinping) and whether it would be in China’s long term interests to put some pressure upon Putin (by not buying any of his gas?) in order to resolve the situation. This might consolidate Xi’s position as a world leader but I am sure that the situation is being watched with interest from Beijing. After we had sorted out the geo-politics of the world, we set off for home and cooked a Sunday lunch of turkey. We had some sprouts left over from last week but I have discovered a rather innovative way of ‘tarting’ them up a little so that they become a culinary treat. We have in our kitchen some chopped apricots which bought because we could not find any of the whole ones. To make the sprouts a little special, I have cooked them in some boiling water (with a little demerara sugar added to counteract a ‘sprouty’ smell) and then drained and dried them off and returning to the saucepan with some cooking oil. Then they get tossed in oil and a little bit of runny honey added at the last moment and this makes for a delicious – and unusual- vegetable.

The Ukrainian situation continues to appall. Firstly, in the nuclear reactor which narrowly avoided damage in the conflict in the last week, the Russians in control are cutting off phone and internet contact in the area.  This is making the plant very difficult to operate by the native Ukrainian staff and the international nuclear autorities are getting increasingly concerned about the situation. Secondly, the number of refugees from the Ukraine now constitute the biggest flow of immigrants since WWII and is 1½ million and rising. But thirdly, the protest movements are really starting to underway in Russia itself. The Russian government has banned the use of the phrase ‘war’ or ‘invasion’ under pain of a 15 year prison sentence. Nearly 4,000 people have been detained at anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday, rights groups and Russian authorities say. Some 1,700 people were detained in Moscow alone, the RIA news agency reported, citing the interior ministry. The OVD-Info rights group says detentions took place in 53 cities. Although protests have become increasingly restricted in recent years, numerous rallies have taken place across Russia since the invasion. In the last 11 days, more than 10,000 people have been detained at protests, OVD-Info says. So the amount of internal repression is enormous but in these days of the social web, it is increasingly difficult for the Russian authorities to maintain the tight control over news events to which they are accustomed. The older (and non-internet savvy) elements of the population do tend to believe the messages that their government is feeding them. But If the protest movements keep growing in size, a point will come where the government cannot shoot and imprison all of the protesters in the country.

Meanwhile, at the border in Calais, the French are saying that the UK authorities are displaying a great ‘lack of humanity’ in denying Ukrainian refugees. According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels. Priti Patel (the UK Home Secretary) later denied France’s accusations that Britain was not doing enough to help those Ukrainians in Calais. So who to believe? This is just another example of the constant spats between French and British officials over whole of the refugee crisis.

The gloomy spell continues over much of the UK – in fact I read with some dismay that the spell of gloomy weather having spread eastwards may now reverse itself and backtrack on itself to persist for a few more days. I have started looking forward to ‘Weather for the week ahead‘ on the BBC News Weather tab and from this I learn that ‘Chilly, sunny and dry weather will slowly give way to wetter, windier and milder weather in the coming week.‘ As it looked as though the rain was going to hold off, Meg and I walked down to the park but a chilly wind started to blow. We made our way to our norml bench and had our coffee but our two regular park friends must have spotted us from their vantage point of the café below us so they wandered up for a chat. I left Meg with them whilst I made a fast walk into town to pick up the Saturday edition of The Times and then, upon my return, we decided it was a bit chilly sitting down for an extended chat so we made an arrangement to meet in the park cafe tomorrow for our ‘elevenses’ coffee.

Meg and I typically have a lazy afternoon on Saturdays and today was no exception. This is because we leave to go to church in the late afternoon (and now, fortunately, it is light when we leave the house) and then return later for something like a bowl of soup. Fortunately, I still have some left over from the other day so this is always a bonus. Tonight, I am going to try to give it a slight ‘twist’ by adding a rice biscuit and some grated cheese of which I have plenty since my weekly shop-up. We may treat ourselves to an opera via YouTube this evening but if we do, we have to be slightly careful not to choose an overlong performance as we do not like to gt too late to bed these days. Whilst intermittently reading the nespapers and dabbling bout with my Apple MAC now that I have got it restored to functionality, I cam across a little known feature of the newly-installed operating system (Monterrey) that will help to enhance the security of computer browsing. Apple call this technology ‘Private Relay’ and it gives you some of the advantages of a VPN (Virtual Private Network). It is quite possible to be identified over the web with ‘normal’ browsing when two pieces of information are combined i.e. the actual address of your computer called an IP ddress and the address website you are visiting. The Apple technology splits these two bits of information, routing them via different servers (one of them, not Apple’s) and also encrypts the address of the wbsite that you are visiting. There are many more technical details than it is not appropriate to go into here but basically for a user such as myself one’s internet browsing experience is enhancd without having to go through the hoops of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) This all sounds a ‘good thing’ and time will tell, I suppose, whether my system is made significantly more secure than it otherwise would have been.

Russian forces continued to shell the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier – throwing an attempted mass evacuation of civilians into chaos. as one resident said ‘I can see cars of people who tried to flee and they are coming back. It is chaos.‘ Three hours after the ceasefire was supposed to begin, at 09:00 (07:00 GMT), Mariupol authorities announced they had postponed a planned mass evacuation because of the continued bombardment. Whether all of this is bad faith on the part of the Russians or just a military ‘mess-up’ it is not possible to say – the Sunday newspapers tomorrow may give us a fuller picture.

At this time of year as we experienced ‘pancake Tuesday’ and then Ash Wednesday last week, then all of this presages that Easter is not too far away (although I think Easter is a little late this year on 17th April).  I can remember fairly vividly when we first started supermarket shopping when we were students (in the mid-1960’s), one did get a graduated approach to the onset of Easter. As I remember it, the very,very first potatoes in the stores were Egyptian which were followed a week or so later by potatotes from the Canary Islands (quite a way south of Spain!) Then we go the new season’s earliest offerings from Cornwall before finally, the very earliest of our own new potatoes might have been ready in late April or May. Nowadays, the potatoes seem to have sprayed with something and then kept in a cold store and then bagged and could potentially be months old. Personally, I quite like waiting until foods come into their ‘proper’ season instead of having goods sourced from all over the world and completely at the ‘wrong’ time of the year.

Meg and I were a little late up this morning but we still enjoyed a chat, as is customary, with our domestic help who calls around each Friday. Once we had got ourselves up and running, we took the car into town and then collected our newspaper. Then we popped into the park and stuck our heads inside the cafe to see if any of our friends were finding refuge inside. There we teamed up with our University of Birmingham friend as well as Seasoned World Traveller. We had our usual exchange of banter over some extraordinary subjects before Meg and I had to make a fairly rapid exit to strike for home. This is because we have a lunch date with the French lady who lives down the road and who we have we have to got to know a lot better recently. We have had a long running agreement to choose a Friday when neither of us had any other committments and this Friday fitted the bill perfectly. Just after our friend arrived, I got cooking the sea-bass which is extremely easy to cook (3 minutes on one side and then 2 minutes on the other). This is then served on a bed of salad and eaten quickly and we washed it down with some glasses of white wine as well. During and after lunch, we had some interesting chats including explanations of the contacts that we had in Spain and in Mexico. We learned today that our friend during her university course in France  was due to go off and have a placement in Spain as she was studying this at University. But her course coincided with that period in French history when lots of young men were being called up to serve in the French army in order to combat the Algerians in what was to become the Algerian War of Independence. Her course was quite badly impacted by this as when several course members disappeared, they had to keep reorganising the course around the existing students. So whilst the university experience of the present generation of students has been badly  impacted by the COVID pandemic, so her own undergraduate experience had been affected by France’s last colonial war (as I suppose it was) We had a really interesting chat over lunch and coffee and I dare say we will keep on exchanging social contacts like this, which we both enjoy.

The really big Ukrainian news this afternoon is the attack on the nuclear plant which is the largest in Europe. It looks as though the Russian attack was intentional and not accidental. As it transpired, the Russian shells had set alight a training facility building which was a little set apart from the main series of reactors, some of which were shut down. I suspect that an inexperienced commander made completely the ‘wrong’ call when it came to firing on or near a nuclear reactor but if the decision was taken higher up the chain of command this constitutes irresponsibility of the highest magnitude. The USA and many other countries are calling this attack on a nuclear facility a war crime – it may be that this is written into some international law somewhere but I am sure that ‘war crime’ is an accurate description. The world may well have narrowly escaped from a Chernobyl Mark II – the important point here being that the nuclear reactors themselves do not have to be directly attacked but if their power supply fail that automatically cools the core, then we would literally be in ‘melt-down’ situation. This version of the nuclear reactor is better designed and more capable to containing nuclear escapes that was the case in Chernobyl but we have to say that the world as a whole has just ‘dodgd a speeding bullet’ as it were.

Late on this afternoon, the news came through that Shane Warne, the legendary Australian spin bowler had died apparently of a heart attack (or natural causes) at the age of 52. One does have to be a follower of cricket to appreciate that he had a prodigious talent – in general terms, leg spinners do not attract the kind of adulation that fast bowlers do in the whole world of cricket but one has to perfect one’s skills over many years as a rule. It is true to say that Shane Warne lived life to the full, both on and off the cricket field and he was actually found dead in his house in Thailand. The bit of video clip which is replayed constantly is the way that Shane Warne dismissed Mike Gatting, the English captain, with his first ball in the Test match of 1993. The ball itself pitched outside leg stump and then turned prodigiously to nick Gatting’s off stump. Although I disapprove of the habit of ‘sledging’ (loud comments made by a fielding side to disconcert a batsman) one of Shane Warne’s was very funny – he called out ‘How is your wife doing today – that is, your wife and our kids‘ (the implications of which one does not have to dwell upon too much)

Today was another gloomy day but not quite as gloomy and overcast as yesterday. As Thursday is my shopping day, it was time to go to the larger supermarket where I have a more extensive shop. I had a very comprehensive list with me but on reflection, I am not entirely sure this is always a good idea. I suppose if you have a list ‘in your head’ which is how I used to shop, then if you forget one or two things it hardly matters whereas if you have a printed list in front of you there is a compunction to try and buy every single item on it, and perhaps one or two things in addition. Next week, I am due to the go to the (smaller) Aldi store and I think this might make for a less stressful shopping experience. I might, as an experiment, try and shop without a list next week (which is the way I used to shop) and see what kind of a difference this makes.By the time I had got back from the shopping, got it all unpacked and then had breakfast, time was moving on. So Meg and I went into town by car, collected the newspaper and then just had a quick walk round the park, without the benefit of a flask of coffee because we thought that we would have all of this at home. After we got home, it was a case of having our mid-morning coffee and then catching up on the latest grim news from the Ukraine before cooking lunch.

The news from the Ukraine is enough to make one weep. The Russians have two terrible weapons in their armoury – cluster bombs and thermobaric (vacuum) bombs. Cluster bombs release a series of bomblets which are spread over a large area and not all of these explode. This means that an area of land where they have been used can remain dangerous for years – although they can be removed painstakingly from some battle ground terrains, whether they have been removed successfully from an urban area is open to question. The second kind of weapon, popularly known as a vacuum or thermobaric bomb, is exploded in the air. After the initial ‘explosion’ the released material combines with the oxygen in the air to produce a weapon of complete ferocity. Both of these weapons are not completely illegal although some military authorities have said they will never use them – but not Russia. They are designed to be used against purely military targets  but their use against civilian populations is certainly a war crime. There is already some evidence that cluster bombs have already been used in the battle to take Kharkiv – to date, we have no definitive evidence that the thermobaric bomb has yet been used by the Russians but we do know that they have them available for use. Although the Ukrainians are putting up the most incredible resistance, in the long run it is almost inevitable that will succumb to the might of the Russian military regime. As I blog this evening, there is some news that human corridors are going to be provided, presumably under the cover of a temporary cease fire, to allow residents to leave a city before a final onslaught. The Russians are indicating that once they have encircled Kyiv they will probably pound the city almost to destruction in order to secure a victory. The nearest exemplar that we have from history is what the Russians did to Aleppo in Syria when most of the city was physically destroyed and there was a massive exodus of its peoples. 

Tomorrow we are looking forward to sharing our lunch with a French lady who lives next door to our Irish  friends and who lost her husband in the autumn. We have already had ‘tea’ in each other’s houses but we are trying to take the opportunity of sharing the occasional meal with other if only to try and make the winter go a little bit more quickly. Tomorrow, we are just going have a simple meal of sea-bass which will take no time at all to cook – we will wait until our friend arrives and then do a bit of cooking on the spot. Tonight I deployed the soupmaker, making a soup out of a variety of root vegetables (swede, parsnip, carrot, celery and some fried onions) and as is usual on these occasions made far too much. I have enough prepared for a second meal which just requires heating up and also a supply of ‘diced’ vegetables which means that all of the hard work of preparation has been done for future meals. What, I suspect, absolutely makes the difference to these root vegetable soups is a few spoonfuls of a balti cooking sauce which just add a little bit of spice to the finished product, without overwelming it all. Late on this afternoon, the book on the Monterey operating system arrived (only ordered yesterday from Amazon) so I am hopeful that I will uncover a lot of ‘tips’ to more fully exploit the new operating system.

Today must have been one of the gloomiest days I have experienced for a long time. There seems to have been a thick blanket of cloud all day long long and intermittent bouts of rain. So Meg and I were running a little late today so we decided to pop into town by car, collect our newspaper, pop into Waitrose where we pick up some supplies of things that we only seem to get in Waitrose and then get back home to have our ‘elevenses’ at home. Then, as it was such a gloomy day we decided to cheer ourselves up with a  heart-warming curry. This is a sort of tradition which we have carried over from our student days. Even then when Meg and I lived in a block of flats with a couple of our university friends, we shopped in a ‘Spa’ supermarket down below. Thursday was always our traditional night to shop because we didn’t want to clutter up our Friday evenings which were devoted to partying. By Wednesday, we were running out of a lot of our provisions so anything we had left over tended to go into the curry on a Wednesday evening. The curry that we made today followed our fairly conventional formula which is always to start off with frying some onions and then using up the last of the tomatoes and mushrooms bought in last week’s shopping. In the absence of any meat left over from the weekend, we threw in some Quorn ‘mince’ and then supplemented the whole of this with some frozen petit pois and a mugful of onion gravy. The bit that makes it a bit special is that we always throw in a few sultanas, a couple of apples diced small and a spoonful of demerara sugar.  This makes it a little bit special – we serve it not on conventional rice but one of those specialist pouches that are available these days of what is sold as ‘Riced’ sweet potato  which claims to be 62% lower in carbs than white rice. Just before serving up, I stir in some Chinese curry paste to which I am partial and then finish it all off with a big dollop of Greek style yogurt.

The assault on the Ukranian cities is terrible to behold – and it looks as though Russian paratroopers may actually have landed in the second city of Ukraine which is Kharkiv. The number of refugees is now of the order of 800,000 whilst the Ukrainians are claiming that they killed nearly 6,000 Russian soldiers. Of course, both sides have a vested interest in over or understating military casualties but even the heavily censored Russian state media is now admitting to deaths in the Ukraine. I realise that it is just part of the propaganda war but the Ukrainians are doing two things which are interesting. Firstly, it is broadcasting pictures of captured or killed Russian militia so that their families in Russia can identify them – this, I believe, though is a contravention of the Geneva convention. Another thing that they have done is to broadcast the interviews of some captured Russian POWs in which young conscripts were saying thay were tricked into the invasion. They claim that they were told they were just part of a military exercise – when they discovered they were part of an invading army, they were warned they would be shot as ‘enemies of the people’  if they did not continue with their mission. They claim that they were ‘cannon fodder’ and, as such, were cynically used by the Russian military authorities. Back home, Boris Johnson told the House of Commons that the Russians were guilty of war crimes and certainly the evidence is being collected on the ground  on a day-by-day basis. The Ukrainians are calling for a ‘no-fly’ zone across the whole of Ukrainian air space. But if Nato were to introduce a no-fly zone then they would be committing themselves to shooting down any Russian military aircraft and this would certainly trigger a complete war against Russia. With Putin in such an unpredictable mood, then this could be the start of Amargeddon so NATO is probably quite correct in not being drawn into this. But I am puzzled why some powerful weapons could not be smuggled in the Ukraine so that they could fire them at the apparently static 40 mile long Russian convoy making its way to Kyiv.

Our son popped by this morning and helped me to reinstal the virus protection on my Apple Mac desktop and which does not seem to have been properly operative since the upgrade to the operating system. Nonetheless, we managed to get the virus checker properly reinstalled so this has got to be a ‘good’ thing. In the meanwhile, I am enjoying using my system where I put the system to sleep when it is not in use and with a keystroke to bring it back into use when needed.