Today was always going to be quite an interesting day. It started off by greeting our domestic help who had been incredibly busy organising a large 21st birthday party for one of her sons and she had evidently worked extremely hard to achieve a successul event. Of course, she achieved these aims but was now feeling somewhat tired after all of her efforts and exertions over the past few days. Meg and I know that we were going to make a visit with fellow family members to Worcester later on in the day so we had to organise our day to fit in around this event. Meg and I collected our newspaper and then made a fairly fast and brisk visit to the park to drink our coffee before we set off with son and daughter-in-law to visit Worcester by train. We had decided to go to Worcester by train as parking in central Wprcester is a bit of a nightmare whilst one of the suburban Worcester railway stations lies within easy reach of the High Street, which was our ultimate destination. As we arrived in Worcester in plenty of time, we dived into a little coffee-cum-pancake bar where we had a carbohydrate filled lunch with quite an innovative little menu. We got along to a meeting a few minutes before 2.00pm and then spent an hour discussing some mortgage issues with the Bank. The adviser that we saw was very helpful and we were somewhat early in the application process so we have made an appointment for three months later in the year. The meeting today with all four of us was quite fruitful and now we have a name and a contact number for the person who is going to handle our transaction from this point on, so that was very useful. Also we now have an updated list of the documents we need to supply (and, more importantly, what we do not) so we feel fairly sure that we have had a successful day and we hopeful that future transactions can be completed without a hitch. On our walk back to the station, I made a brief diversion down a little arcade that Meg and I used to visit quite often when we came to Worcester using their Park-and-Ride system (now abandoned by the city council as they say they could not afford the scheme) I ascertained that the excellent little cafe that used to prepare dishes like a lasagne or a fish pie was still in operation as we had not visited it since pre-pandemic days. Now that we have re-discovered it yet again, Meg and I may well have some little days out in Worcester by travelling in by train, enjoy the excellent little café with its excellent home made food and have a toddle about the kinds of shops we hope to visit (which probably included Marks and Spencer).
After we had returned home to the customary cup of tea, we made a telephone call to the very close friend of Meg’s aged uncle in Colwyn, North Wales. Meg’s uncle is very aged and is now refusing food and drink and really wants to be reunited with his maker. The residential home in which he is lodged is run by Methodist Homes for the Aged and we know from our last visit, that there is a semi-resident Methodist pastor who is on hand to give aid and support as required. We know that he is in constant contact with Uncle Ken and are therefore reassured that his spiritual needs are being met. The purpose of our phone call is to work out whether it is sensible to make a lightning visit to North Wales tomorrow as Ken’s days left on earth must surely be numbered. His close friend who sees him every day gave us the good advice that if were to make a journey up to North Wales, we would achieve very little as Uncle Ken’s powers of communication after several days not partaking of all food and drink are severely limited and indeed he may be semi-comatose. After a great deal of thought and taking advice from family and friends we have decided not to make one final visit but to let nature take its course. In any case, we would certainly attend any forthcoming funeral so that we could participate in a celebration of his life and for this we are ready to go at the drop of the proverbial hat. As we were away in Yorkshire last Thursday, we do need to go shopping for a conventional ‘weekly’ shop up and so I intend to do just that at 8.00am tomorrow morning.
The Tory leadership campaign is surely coming to its conclusion this evening with final hustings taking place. The voting in the election will cease on Friday and the final result will be announced on Monday. After that, there will be a break in tradition when the winner (Liz Truss by a huge margin) will travel to Balmoral to see the Queen and accept an offer to form a government. Then it is back to London, the announcement of a new cabinet and Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. Ho Hum!