Today dawned quite a cloudy day but no rain was forecast all day and there was the promise of sunshine  later in the day. In fact it was fairly warm and almost muggy and one would not have been surprised if thunderstorms had threatened. But there were none on the radar and none forecast so we looked forward to a day when we could walk and complete some gardening. Once I had collected the newspaper this morning, Meg and I set off the park at a gentle pace and after some chats with dog-owners that we know by sight, we were joined by our University of Birmingham friend. As we had not coincided for quite a few days now, we were delighted to see him and we chatted about a variety of things, including holidays that we both might make, separately, to various parts of Spain and when we might undertake such trips. After a long chat we said we would meet again tomorrow in the park and we wended our way home. To go with the quiche that we were warming in the oven, I decided to put together a type of ‘melange’ of vegetables which consisted of a gentle fryup in some good oil of peppers, onions, tomatoes and a few frozen French beans that I had  steamed to tenderise them. I let these cook for some time until the onions were almost caramelised and the results were so good (to my taste) that I may well repeat it another time. If I had need to, I could have put in a dollop of brown sauce or even some a splash of onion relish but in the event the result were delicious enough not to need further enhancement. I must confess I also wanted to try out a new ceramic saucepan I was tempted to buy when I was last in Aldi and I reckon that. new one is overdue as I do not think we have bought a new saucepan in 15 years. Anyway, this new one is absoliutely excellent as after my fry-up, it just took a quick wipe with some kitchen paper, a dip in some hot soapy water and it was cleaned up like new in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.   Straight after lunch, I got to work to finish off the semicircular gravel bed which lies at the front of the house and which badly needed a radical weeding. By the time this was done, we had our afternoon cup of tea and then I thought that I would finish off a complete weeding of the roadway which constitute the principal access way to the Close in which we live. Now that all of this is completely weed free, then tomorrow all of the work I have done in the last few days will be finished off with a good soaking of PathClear which should keep us all weed free for several months. Now it was time for a weekly visit to Church which is a regular commitment for Meg and myself each Saturday afternoon.

There is quite a ‘briefing war’ going in around Downing Street at the moment. The Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ is due to see the light of day early next week. This report has been said to be ‘independent’ but it now transpires that Boris Johnson and Ms. Gray have already had a meeting about the contents of the report some time ago. No. 10 first suggested that Sue Gray had asked for the meeting – if Boris Johnson had instigated it, then this would be tantamount to an attempt to influence the contents of the report. This was then denied by Sue Gray but it is now clear that the meeting had been organised by ‘some’ officials in No. 10. One way or another, Opposition politicians and many independent observers are bound to smell a rat. The Labour Party is calling for full transparency  of what appears to be a secret meeting and one has to wonder what was the purpose of the meeting. As it is, both parties are manoeuvring to try to demonstrate their independence but I suspect that some of the beans may well be spilt by some of the inside analysis to which we can look forward in tomorrow’s Sunday newspapers.

My newsagent was telling me that are some plans for Bromsgrove to close off some its streets and to host an impromptu ‘street party’ to celebrate the Queens Jubilee in a couple of week’s time. This does not sound to be exactly our ‘cup of tea’ as it were and I am not sure I want to engage in jollities with lots of people on the High Street. This feeling is intensified a little as about a couple of days ago I received a text to say I had been in contact with a Covid infected person. I immediately did a lateral flow test on myself which tested negative but it seems strange to get the text out of the blue and when the pandemic has lost it sting.

The day dawned somewhat gloomy and I imagined that it would be raining on and off most of the day and this would alter what I intended to do. In the event, I popped down into town to collect my newspaper and by the time I got home, it was raining on and off to make life a little miserable. We decided to go into town by car, neglecting our walk, and decided to treat ourselves to a coffee in Waitrose.   When we got there, we were delighted to see two of our pre-pandemic friends in there that we have not seen for well over two years. The husband of the pair has memory problems and of course, things have not got better over the past two years. Nonetheless, we had quite a lot of ‘catching up’ to get on with and I was amazed how well the wife who is 88 was caring for her husband despite having her own  health issues to cope with. They tend to visit the cafe on Fridays, as indeed they did in the pre-pandemic days, so we will probably get in the habit of making a trip to Waitrose every Friday from now own to rekindle a friendship. Then we popped home and we organised a fairly early lunch of smoked haddock risotto to see if it would be possible to get a lawn mowing done. At the start of the day, I had written off all mowing until tomorrow but I knew from my weather app that we ought to have a window of opportunity open to us between 12.00 and 4.00pm. The gods must have smiled upon us because we did have a window where the rain held off and it was real bonus to get our lawns cut today as earlier in the morning, I thought it was pretty certain that we would be rained off.  After our post-mowing cup of tea, I thought I would make a start on the hand weeding of the semi-circular gravel bed that occupies a position in the front of our hopuse. Just as yesterday, the weeds were not particularly easy to remove as it was a case of finding the tap root and ensuring that the weeds got taken out root and all – which actually sounds easier to say than it is actually to do. Nonetheless, I managed to get about two thirds of this big gravel bed weeded and, in turn, they will get a good dose of PathClear once the weeds have been removed and the weather is propitious. All being well if the weather is fine, I can finish this off tomorrow.

There is a certain degree of astonishment from both of Boris Johnon’s supporters and detractors, that the Metropolitan police have concluded their enquiries into the Downing Street ‘partygate’ with a sum total of 126 VPN (Fixed Penalty Notices) issues but no further fines for Boris Johnson or any other politicians. Altogether, twelve officers worked on the investigation full-time and others were brought in when required. They investigated events on 12 days but only ended up fining people for eight of those days. There is a certain of jaw-dropping at the fact that Boris Johnson was not fined again and that those who received the fines seemed to be fairly junior staff who were presumably told by their superiors that an ‘event’ was to be held and the Prime Minister might be in attendance. One line of thought is that that inadvertently, the Met may have helped Boris Johnson because as their investigations proceeded, the whole issue ‘cooled’ and dropped out of the public gaze whilst other events (the war in the Ukraine) intervened to save Boris Johnson’s skin. This gives a further twist to the cartoonist’s view of Boris Johnson as a ‘greasy albino piglet’ who can successfully evade/escape any attempt to capture him. We are now waiting the full publication of the Sue Gray report which is expected some time next week. Although some who seen an initial draft claim that the language is ‘stomach-churning’ the report is probably written as other official documents tend to be which is a factual statement of what happened and when and whether the finger will be pointed at any of the senior Downing street staff or their political masters remains to be seen.

I am trying an experiment to germinate some parsnip seeds. A selection has been put into neat rows on kitchen paper and then kept moist (with an occasional spray of water) for as long as it takes. The trouble is that parsnips are easy to grow but quite difficult to germinate but when/if I get them going, I am then going to keep them going in a system which I have devised (toilet rolls filled with compost) This way, ought to keep the roots long and straight and they can be planted out in their toilet roll holders without needing to be thinned, the toilet rolls should rot away into the soil and we should be left with some lovely long parsnip roots in the autumn. We shall see.

Today dawned bright and fair, which was a relief for me as I have several outdoor jobs lined up to get done today. First, though, having got up a little early I got to my local supermarket at just before 8.00am and was the first to get through the doors as they opened. Then it was a fairly routine shop-up followed by my collecting my newspaper as I was in the area. Then it was home for a quick breakfast and an unpacking of the shopping. Whilst I was waiting for Meg to get herself ready, I had a stroke of good fortune. Since I have had our patio cleaned up so that it looks like new, I am anxious to keep it that way but I know that this is threatened by fairly large clumps of moss that have accumulated on the bottom edge of some of our roofing tiles. I have as part of my gardening equipment, an exceptionally long bamboo cane constructed by lashing three long bamboo canes together with cable ties. At the end, I have a little wire hook arrangement shaped a bit like a curvy ‘L’. When I constructed this tool several years ago, I had used it to ensure that a climbing clematis that I had could make some progress through some of our bordering holly trees. This tool worked very well for the purposes for which it was constructed. Rather than getting rid of it, I had stored it down the side of the house (on the mid-wall brackets holding the drain pipes where it was well out of the way) Anyway, as a type of experiment, I wondered how far up the (dormer) roof I could reach with my home made device.  I was delighted to say that the moss only needed a little tickle to detach from the tile and fall either into the gutter or over the side onto the patio. I immediately swept up the fallen moss with a very soft long handled little brush that I have  and the net result was that I had cleared about three quarters of the side of the house that was worst affected for only about 20 minutes of effort.  This means that if we have we have the anticipated heavy downpours in the next day, the amount of moss that will will tumble down will be minimal and easily dealt with.

After this (and in fairly high spirits) we set off for the park for our daily walk. Sitting on the park bench, we had several chats with some of the park regulars where we know each by sight even if we are not on first name terms. Then it was case of a gentle walk home for lunch  which was to use up a small portion of gammon and some spring greens that needed using up. This turned out to be surprising tasty even though it was just using up ‘odds and ends’. I had a little project for the afternoon which was to finish off weeding the ‘other’ side of the communal roadway. This sound to be s simple task but in practice it was complicated. This is because of the type of weed growing on the gravel was generally quite a flat and spreading type of weed that had established long roots as the plant burrowed through the gravel searching for moisture and nutriment. So it was not just a case of pulling the head and and leaving the rest of the root system to regenerate but rather giving the gravel rake with a weeder and then hunting for a tap root so that I could pull out the weed roots and all. In order to prevent me having a bad back  on what could be a backbreaking task, I adopted a technique of lying on my side with my hip on a foam kneeler and then attacking the errant weeds that way. At the end of the day, I am pleased to have a good ‘root-and-branch’ job done and in the next day or so, I shall use some ‘Pathclear‘ on this gravel to keep things OK for the rest of the season. My next door neighbour returned home from work and gave me words of support and encouragement – when they return from holiday we are going to tackle an overgrown ‘Elaeagnus‘ shrub which is overhanging one of the corners in the roadway serving our houses. My weeding task completed, it was then a case of washing down the rest of the garden furniture  residing temporarily on the lawn and putting it back into position on the patio. Several bits of gardening ‘clobber’ which is in constant use and I tend to store around the sides of the house have now been relocated to some decking much further down the garden where they are ‘out of sight, out of mind’ with the overall intention of keeping the patio area clutter-free and easy to maintain (by clearing away moss, leaves and the like)

Today was the day when we were meant to be going to Leamington Spa to have lunch with our De Montfort University (Leicester) colleagues but unfortunately this had to be postponed as the (very aged) mother of one of our colleagues had died so evidently funeral arrangements had to take priority. Our domestic help called around today rather than Friday and we are always pleased to see her and exchange news of families. One of her sons, training to be a jockey, had won his first race the other day so there were a lot of interesting photos to be shared. The weather was cloudy but fairly bright so Meg and I looked forward to a pleasant walk down into the park. We were speculating whether the park had got a little busier than was the case a year or so back and we surmised that people might have got used to using the park during the pandemic (lots of fresh air, exercise, ability to avoid others) and having got into the habit had changed their life style. So we walked back at a lesiurely pace and immediately got to work throwing together various bits and pieces into an impromptu salad. As she was a little late coming to us this morning, our domestic help was happy to help us consume the salad which she really enjoyed and polished off in no time at all. Our domestic help is thinking of getting her patio professionally cleaned so we found a local firm who happened to be only about a couple of miles or so from where they live so she was going to get a quote from them this afternoon. After lunch, I knew that I wanted to tackle the weeding on the other side of the communal roadway but as some of it is in almost perpetual shade, I knew that removal of the weeds (particularly of the creeping kind) was going to be more difficult. In the time limit I had set myself, I managed to get about three quarters of the whole length completed leaving  a more difficult section to be finished off tomorrow. As it was ‘brown bin’ (gardening refuse) emptying day tomorrow, the bins have to be out at the end of the roadway this evening so I took the opportunity to remove  some of the ubiquitous holly leaves which are littering up the side entrance to our property.

On the political front, it looks as some kind of ‘U’ turn may be on the cards. The government has consistently resisted the move to tax the anticipated profits of the big energy suppliers (oil companies) to help to supply some relief to ‘ordinary’ consumers. However, this is an evident source of revenue that costs the government nothing and even the oil companies are admitting that they did not have to ‘do anything’ except sit back and received the extra revenues from the higher prices. As all of the opposition and even some government backbenchers are calling for a one time levy, it will be interesting to see how, or if, the government effects a change in policy. At the moment, they are are repeating the mantra that ‘no measures are ruled out’ There is also some local political news with an interesting twist. In Staffordshire, some HS2 (High Speed 2) protestors have taken to tunnelling their way across part of the projected route. To counteract this, the contractors are using their own tunnellers, presumably to dig their own tunnels. Does this mean that we shall have underground battles between groups of tunnellers? And how does one group of tunnellers combat another? The imagination boggles.

Later on this evening, a heavy band of rain is due to sweep across the Midlands so I have had to ensure that some of the equipment left lying round on the lawn until it gets put back onto the newly restored patio tomorrow evening is basically waterproofed. Just out of interest, I managed to locate some photographs that we had taken of this property nearly 15 years when we moved in  and, in particular, to look at the colour and condition of the patio as it was when we moved in. Now, we have a series of quite interesting colours and we can discern some five or six different colours that have been used in the patio construction. Having been cleaned, it looks pretty impressive (and even more so after a shower of rain). As it was, our domestic help thought that the whole of the old patio had been removed and replaced by a new one. So now, without being neurotic about things, I am taking measures to keep everything looking pristine. I think the crucial thing is a constant brushing with a soft bristled brush so that the surface is not damaged. I already have a leafblower which I am using more and more, even though I only get about 10 minutes or so out of the battery unit until a recharge is necessary.

Another Tuesday in which we have to organise our time a little carefully, as it is my Pilates day. Having picked up our newspaper by car, Meg and I wished to have a walk down to the park as  we have missed this for a day or so what with one thing or another. We walked down a little early according to our normal schedule and hoped to coincide with some of our park regulars but we were out of luck this morning. So we just enjoyed the spring/summer sunshine whilst we have it and drank our coffee alone. After. we had finished, we made a slight detour as fas as the park café but again missed our normal contacts. So we made for home and after another drink I made for my Pilates class. All was proceeding until half way through our normal routines when our Pilates teacher was called out of the class to receive an emergency telephone call. It transpired that our teacher’s husband who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease was thought to have suffered from a minor stroke and was told to make his own way to the hospital in Worcester some 15 miles distant. Our teacher’s inclination (and sense of duty) was to carry on with her class until its natural completion in half an hour’s time. All of the class members insisted that our teacher abandon a class immediately and go and transport her afflicted husband to hospital – as we all know, if the symptoms were to be a stroke then the sooner that a firm diagnosis is made and treatment administered the better. We were relieved that our teacher took our advice so we all gave out our good wishes and made for our respective homes half an hour early.  After lunch was over, I managed to locate my ‘edge cleaning’ tools which the patio cleaning crew had unceremoniously dumped in one of the raised shrub beds by the side of the house and then started work to attack the weeds in the junction bewteen the kebstones and the roadway along the long side of our communal grassed area. As is often the case, I have a variety of tools to assist me in this task. Of course the bigger weeds are easy to pull out but more problematic are of couse those insidious little ‘flat’ weeds and, of course, the dandelions which always have a habit of seeding themselves in inaccessible locations. I have a little curved patio weed rake, a dandelion remover, a general weeding tool, an old but stiff  washing up brush and then a general purpose softer hand brush. I find that this combination of tools allows one to loosen the weeds, rake them out and finally leave a nice clean and weed-free edge.  There is a 20 yard section that I had wanted to get in the time I had allocated myself this afternoon and it is always satisfying to fulfil one’s objectives. Later on this evening, as we always do on a Tuesday, we FaceTime our oldest Waitrose friends and exchange news. Later on there a couple of comedy programmes that we like to watch and ‘Yes Minister‘ to us never seems to date.    I think it is generally well known that the ‘Yes, Minister‘ Storie all have a foundation in fact. Harold Wilson’s private right hand woman, Marcia Williams (later Lady Falkender) and another policy wonk whose name I have not remembered, used to meet with the scriptwriters of ‘Yes Minister‘ each Monday morning and feed them several of these stories. The scriptwriters basically elaborated upon the stories and spun each into an episode for TV and there may have been a certain degree of artistic licence but the kernel of the story is in fact true.

In North Korea, COVID-19 seems to have taken off with a vengeance in a society in which nobody at all has been vaccinated. It seems that 50 people have died and 1.5 million have been infected but this secretive society has, this far, rebuffed all offers of help and prefers to rely upon their own self-reliance. The population are advised to gargle each day with salt water and to drink willow leaf tree three times a day. As I am writing this blog, a breaking news story is the latest sex scandal from Westminster. Scotland Yard confirmed in a statement that a man aged in his 50s has been arrested on suspicion of indecent assault, sexual assault, rape, abuse of position of trust and misconduct in public office. These offences were committed between 2002 and 2009 and is believed to be a Tory MP – the whips had advised that he absent himself from the ‘parliamentary estate’ but at this precise moment he appears to be in custody. It will be fascinating to see how well the rumour mill is working and whether a name will emerge later on the evening. Try as they might, political parties find it very hard to keep the identities of their errant members private.

Today was one of those ‘sorting out’ days when I knew there was quite a lot to be done. Before I went down into town, I phoned up my Internet provider who had sent me a text to say that a payment (by direct debit) had not been made this month. So I made a phone call and when I got through to a human being, he could not access my account. All he could suggest was that I abandoned the call and get another operator who might be able to access my account. This I did and whilst the more helpful operator was consulting with colleagues, I discovered that a direct debit had indeed been taken about two days ago. So the internet provider apologised for their systems saying I was both up-to-date and also overdue. In the course of all of this, I rediscovered the new password I had been given and this worked as well. So at least, I was not in danger of being disconnected for non-payment (which happened about a month ago) I then went down into town to my branch bank because I needed some cash to pay my dues to the patio cleaning crew. This was quite helpful because they upped the limit on the amount of cash I can withdraw in branch and this might be more than useful to me. Whilst on the High Street, I managed to get some cosmetics of which Meg was in need and also did a quick whizz through Poundland where I bought a small tarpaulin for £1.00 (always useful) and some potting compost as I have some little pots that are crying out to have some seeds planted in them which I will germinate on a window sill. Then it was home to prepare a lightning lunch before our chiropodist called around at 2.00 to do our feet so that we can keep on going for hundreds or thousands more miles yet. After the chiropodist had finished with us, I got onto our internet provider because they are offering a deal which include my landline with the retained number at a price which is actually less than I am paying at the moment. If all works as intended, I can dispense with my BT account (and associated payment) and all of that ought to be taken care of automatically, so they say. All that I can say is that I believe all of this when I see it but at least that is what I have been promised.

After we had our afternoon cup of tea, I set myself the task of starting to do a cleanup  of the various bits of garden furniture that had got  splattered by the cleaning process yesterday. This turned out to be quite a messy job but I made a start by cleaning up the various wheelie bins that had been stored temprarily on the lawn. I got through about half the entire job but I can always finish off tomorrow. Last night we had evidently had quite a downpour and this had loosened a certain amount of moss that had fallen in some clumps onto the newly cleaned patio. I remedied this with a quick sweeping up job and this has stopped the moss from causing a mess on the newly restored surface. However, a longer term solution is required to remove this moss, preferably on a continual basis so I had a bit of a think as to what to do. Our dormer bungalow has a roof that is relatively accessible from ground level so I went on the internet and ordered from Robert Dyas a special brush which has a specially extensible three metre handle. I am pretty sure this will facilitate the removal of most of this moss and I will then find another solution for what I cannot reach. Quite fortuitously, I had bought a tarpaulin from Poundland for £1.00 and at this price I can buy one or two more which should help to protect the newly cleaned patio surface before the moss comes down. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, as they say.  

After our trip up to Bolton yesterday, we have had an exchange of emails in which we each thanked the other for the wonderful day we had yesterday. Meg and I were in the state of preparing ourselves for another reunion, this time with ex De Montfort University, Leicester colleagues that had been organised for Wednesday. But fate has intervened and the mother of one of the party has passed away at the ripe old age of 98. So we have had to put this particular reunion in Leamington Spa on hold for the time being until we can all find another mutually acceptable date. We were looking forward to dscussing the political situation both here and also in France (where two of our friends have another residence) but by the time we meet, there may be even more to discuss.

Today was the long anticipated day when we were due to travel North to visit Meg’s cousins in Bolton, Greater Manchester. We did not bother to set an alarm but just got up at the normal time and had our an ‘oats and bran’ quick breakfast for a Sunday morning. We prepared some comestibles and a flask of coffee ready to be consumed on the journey. The journey itself went very smoothly and we made a pitstop at Keele Sevices which is an approximate half way point. We secured ourselves a relatively secluded little location inside the services station where we could drink our coffee and ‘eat our snap’ before resuming our journey. The motorway systems around Greater Manchester are complex so we stuck rigidly to our SatNav which dropped us to the door absolutely on time. By the time we had got ourselves out of the car and laden with the pot plants and wine we were taking long, we managed to arrive practically on time, practically to the second. Inside we were greeted by Meg’s cousin, Meg’s cousing once-removed i.e. the daughter and her husband. The family dog also put in an appearance and after a few barks and sniffs accepted us aspart of the family. As always on these occasions, we spent most of our time talking about family members, particularly a generation or so ago and we managed to convey a few things about Meg’s extended family that they did not know (sort of ‘skeletons in the cupboard’ time) Then we had a magnificant meal of chicken and lashings of vegetables before we started to access some of the photos on our iPad telling the story that lay behind them e.g. the photograph of my grandmother, probably taken by about 1910 which had been ‘colourised’ by the technques popular at the time. My grandmother was wearing a beautiful dress and even more exotic headgear but we understand that photographers often had this type of clothing available for their subjects to wear. The afternoon seemed to absolutely speed by so at 5.00pm we took our leave before we outstayed our welcome and headed for home. We had a quick ‘pit stop’ on the way back down and got home before 7.30 By the time we arrived home, the rain had started to  fall quite gently. We noticed with much pleasure that the patio that we had cleaned yesterday looked absolutely fabulous as the colours glowed in the soft rain. This reminded Meg and I that we had a feature constructed in the garden of our house in Hedge End, Southampton which was called a heritage circle. This utilised a series of differently coloured and sized slabs arranged in a circular pattern and we reminded ourselves that in the rain this also looked stunningly beautiful but as that was some fifteen years ago, we had forgotten all about until today.

There are persistent reports concerning the health of Putin this evening. Some of these reports may be a case of wishful thinking on the part of the West but a persistent report is that Putin is seriously ill and may well be suffering from leukaemia or a similar illness. The puffiness around the face that Putin seems to be exhibiting is probably the consequence of the use of steroids, western medical experts are saying. Whether this is true or not is difficult to say but even if Putin is ill, it may take him some time to die and the war in the Ukraine rages on. In the fullness of time, Putin’s miscalculations may cost him dear but this evening, both Sweden and Finalnd are busy abandoning decades of neutrality and are making haste to join Nato. If these applications are successful, then in the ase of Finland, Russia is now faced with an 800 mile border (with Finland) now facing a hostile NATO front line. There must be some minds in Russia who must be secretly appalled by the miscalculations that Putin has wrought, making Russia less rather than more secure. All that this does is to lower the threshold at which the Russians may feel inclined to utilise tactical nuclear weapons which well presage the start of World War III.

Eggs have been thrown after a statue of Baroness Margaret Thatcher was lowered into place in the former prime minister’s hometown of Grantham, according to Sky News this evening. The original plan was to have the statue erected in Parliament Square in London. After fears that the statue might be attacked or vandalised by ‘far left’ groups if erected in London, it was thought better to erect the statue in Thatcher’s home town of Grantham, Lincs. But after South Kesteven District Council approved a £100,000 unveiling ceremony in 2020, a Facebook group proposing an ‘egg-throwing contest’ at the event attracted interest from more than 13,000 people. What will be interesting to observe in the next few days is whether the statue will attract similar protests some two years later – perhaps the relevant authorities have placed it at such a height or with a physical barrier such that any egg-thrown missiles will fail to reach their target. We shall have to wait and see. 

Well, you never know what a day is going to bring and so it proved today. The day started off whilst Meg and I were in our dressing gowns as the patio cleaning firm which we thought would turn up yesterday actually turned up today. After an estimation and a price had been agreed, the trio of men started work. The first stage was evidently to clear everything off the patio and it was piled, somewhat higgledy-piggledy upon our back lawn. Then a special solution was applied  the function of which was to attack both the black mould and the white spots of algae that had eaten their way into the stonework. The crew departed for an hour or so and then came back and started work in earnest. I have to say that the end result was that the stonework came up in a series of muted colours that we had not realised actually existed. Evidently, when the patio had been laid down some 17 or so years ago, a selection of stone had been carefully chosen and the colours came up to give a very pleasing effect. The patter from the head of the crew was that if you were to lift these stones (which we would not) and sell them they would go for at least a couple of thousand. Whether this is true or patter who is to say. but it was certainly streets ahead of the buff coloured concrete that passes for patio paving these days. Now this is when the fun started. The act of hosing/cleansing had loosened if not dislodged vast chucks of the original grouting. If the truth be told, it was never in the first place a professional grade grout but rather a simple sand-and-cement mixture and over time this had cracked and loosened. Meg and I knew in our heart of hearts that the existing ‘grouting’ was not really fit for purpose and it was pointed out to us, quite forcibly, that if we mixed ‘old’ and new grouting the overall effect would like a bit bodged up. So we did agree to a much more extensive job in which all of the old grouting was removed. I would estimate that we had 250 yds of grouting to be replaced and I knew from previous reearchs on the internet that the specialist grout compound on its own could cost us a pretty penny. Anyway, after some negotiation we agreed a price which was a considerable increase on the initial quote. However, we have been saying for years that our patio needed a makeover so we reluctantly agreed. At the same time, the firm cleaned a small area of roof for us (the difference being dramatic) and was then touting for the whole roof to be cleaned with their specialist steam cleaning equipment. At this stage, we telephoned our son and daughter-in-law to have a family conference on whether we should go head. or not and the consensus view was ‘enough was enough’ and we should assess whether the patio cleaning job turned out to be as good as claimed and we could then make a decision as to whether to proceed with the roof or not. We all agreed upon this and although the firm kep on discounting the price to us we felt we had probably agreed a price that somewhat on the high aide to start off with so we should stay our hand and be content with the patio alone.

As our son and daughter-in-law had come over to help us assess what had been done and how we progress from here, they stayed on throughout the rest of the afternoon. My daughter-in-law helped Meg to sort out some of her clothing so that she can find quickly ‘what goes with what’ and then Meg and went to church at our normal time. When we returned home, I looked at the ‘mess’ of things on our lawn which were now all covered in a sort of sandy grime. The firm had initially indicated that they would put everything back the way they found it but then at the end of the day informed us that we had best keep off the patio for a week to allow the grout to settle. So during the week, I will have quite a job to clean up some of the things we stored outside such as our rubbish bins, some gardening things, table and chairs and what-have-you. Having quickly made some order out of the chaos, I knew that the car needed a quick flash of a wash before we made our journey up the motorway to see Meg’s relatives in Bolton tomorrow. Now we are settling down to ‘watch’ the Eurovision song context except that Meg and I will go to bed about 10.00 or before and listen to the rest of it in bed anyway. Ukraine are bound to win – but can the UK come second this year? At the last moment, though, we decided that Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd‘ was a better watch for us.

Today was a fine spring day and we were looking forward to our walk in the park. Meg and I had breakfasted relatively early so we were in plenty of time this morning. When we arrive at the park, we enter not by the main entrance but in a small side entrance that runs alongside the local Girl Guides clubhouse. Then we normally have to cross a rough area of grassland for a hundred metres or so before we join one of the main paths around the lake. But yesterday, the park groundsmen had lowered the normal cutting height of their mowers by about a half and then specially cut two ‘paths’ across the grass, one direct and the other more curving. This seemed to be a brilliantly simple idea as many people (principally dog walkers) as well as ourselves use this top entrance and I thought that a path was long overdue. But now this broad access strip has been mown, psychologically it is easy to walk along it and, in the fullness of time, this path will remain a green path but will no doubt make itself under the pressure of many feet (and some paws). We noticed one of the groundstaff working on his tractor nearby, the tractor pulling some wide cutting units.  We mentioned to him to pass on to his superervisors what a thoughtful and intelligent thing the staff had done for regular park users. The groundman explained to us it was part of a conservation unit to encourage people on some parts but bees and flora and fauna in the remaining parts. In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that the Massey Ferguson he was driving was manufactured in France whilst the grasscutting units were imported from New Zealand at a price of £18,000 per unit whereas the British equivalent would cost in the order of £30,000. So we then continued with our walk and had our coffee but hoped we make contact with our University of Birmingham friend but it was not to be, even though we made a detour on the way home hoping that he and our friend might be having a coffee in the park’s own café. Meg and I needed to get home and have lunch because we have some trademen calling around at 1.30pm. As we walked home yesterday, we noticed a specialised form that was cleaning the drive (and the roof) of one of the nicest houses on the other side of Kidderminster Road. We asked one of the workers for a leaflet which they gave us and we also made arrangements for them to call around to our house and give is a quote today. But despite having lunched, got washed up and were generally well prepared, the firm did not show up. So I had a quick read of the newspaper and then made a weekly start of the weekly mowing. I use my extremely light hand mower to do all of the lawn edges (a task taking me some six minutes) and then the main mowing.

After all of this had been completed and refreshments had been taken, Meg and I went to our local Morrisons where they have a little mini-garden centre just outsde the store. We needed to buy a couple of potted plants to take up to our relatives in Bolton in two days time and we also wanted to buy some clematis plants for ourselves. This we succeeded in doing although the clematis plants on offer were quite small (albeit cheap) but climbers ought to grow quickly if we get them into their position early and we have a spell of warm, alternating with wet, weather which seems to the the weather forecast anyway. Traditionally, I always liked to grow parsnip and although this is not a ‘difficult’ plant to grow, the seed needs to be this years and there is quite a long germination period. But I have seen some internet tips how to speed up germination, one from Alan Titchmarsh no less, which involves mixing some parsnip seeds in some potting compost and then keeping the bag with the mixture in the airing cupboard for a few days. Well, it is worth a try anyway. If and when the seeds have germinated, I am trying a novel experiment to get them growing to a certain size and then planting out. This involves taking a toilet roll inner, making a cone-shaped base from the relevant part of an egg box, filling with seed compost and then priming with seeds. When (if) they get going, then the whole tube is to be planted and obviously the cardboard tube will rot away and you should get long, straight parsnip roots as the developing roots will find the easiest way to exit i.e. through the bottom. I am going to give it a try anyway – this has the advantage of not having to thin the young parsnip plants so the ‘tubes’ can be planted at the optimum distance some 10″-12″ apart.

Thursday is my shopping day so I get up reasonably early so that I can get to the supermarket as it opens at 8.00am. Today, though, I left home five minutes early so that I could mak a flying visit to Morrisons store which is adjacent practically to the Aldi store I use. I had had my eye upon some particularly nice large ceramic planters which were very reasonably priced. Fortunately, even at that hour, there was assistant bobbling about who took my payment in the gardening section attached to the store and then carried the planter to the car for me. I got it home by putting on a protective cloth I keep in the boot for occasions such as this and did my normal weekly shop up. This finishes off with me calling in at my regular newsagent as they are in the vicinity and thence home. After a slow unpack and a bite of breakfast, Meg and I were ready to wander down into the park. Once in the park, we did not expect to see any of our regular acquainatances but our Intrepid Octogenerial Hiker strode into view and we exchanged news of our various comings and goings. As he regularly does circuits of the park and has a special Apple watch with an app that records his steps, I asked him for some assistance with a little query that I have. As our friend regularly does a complete ‘circuit’, I asked him to measure it for me and he already knew the answer which was 1000 steps. We then needed to know how many feet he has in a typical step. To solve this problem was fairly easy because we measured the distance from where we were towards the end of.a fairly adjacent bench which we measured both there and back and took an average.Then I did the same and I could compare my steps with those of our friend. The results were that my stride is three times the length of our friend (who is in his 80’s and takes quite small steps). From this we managed to compute that the distance round the lake is 1000 x.2ft andd the net result of all of this is that the distance around the lake is something of the order of 600m. Estimating by eye,I thought the distance was near to 100m (1 km) so I may have to  do a special walk to solve this particular problem to my own satisfaction. Incidentally, is it a ‘man’ thing, this constant desire to measure and record things? I think I will leave this topic for now.

After a lunch of quiche and a bit of a doze, I was ready to start on my afternoon’s project which is to get some of the beetroot and lettuce plants that we purchased yesterday to get planted out. The section that I have marked out under some of our bordering trees used to be devoted to my daughter-in-laws superb dahlia growing but the land has ceded back to me and hence my planting regime. I had ‘rough’ dug the area some weeks ago and then limed it well, as it probably not been limed for years if ever at all. It was then a very simple task to make the soil into a friable condition by a simple raking, assisted of course with a good trampling underfoot under some heavy gardening boots. I know that I had near our compost heap in the far regions of the garden some pelleted chicken manure and I put some of this into an empty tall sauce jar which makes an excellent way to distribute the fertiliser evenly. I then made some drills and fortunately rescued from Mog’s Den a short offcut  of timber with a 2″ x 2″ square cross section. This proved to be an excellent  way of creating some planying holes which almost exactly match the cross section of the plastic cells in which the newly purchased plants were  sold. The upshot of all of this was that I planted out 2 x. 2 rows of beet plants which I hope will now grow away quickly as there is no thinning to do. Beet plants have the added bonus that you can eat the tender young red/green leaves in a salad as well as cooking the roots which are always delicious if home grown ( and even more if baked which I will try if I achieve some success) I finished off with a row of lettuce plants which I think are of the ‘Lollo Rosso’ (i.e. red-leaved) variety. Finally, I doused each of my plants with a special  anti-slug solutuon which is ecologically sound and works to a completely differemt formula to the conventional slug pellets. A ban on the outdoor use of metaldehyde slug pellets is to be introduced across Great Britain from spring 2022.

Downing Street has been issued with 50 more fines which brings the total to 100+. The latest fines relate to a Christmas party which we know that Boris Johnson did not attend  but there is always the possibility that he will be fined when news of further tranches of the fines is realised by the Metropolitan police as their investigations proceed.