Meg and I were up slightly late this morning but we had both had a decent night’s sleep so we were quite looking forward to the day ahead. Once we had got ourselves up, we knew that we would pop down into the Waitrose cafeteria to make contact with our normal Tuesday-cum-Saturday crowd so we even forgot about breakfast, thinking that we would probably treat us ourselves to some porridge and blueberries as part of the breakfast fare. We collected our newspaper and enquired after the health of our newsagent. He is going to have two hospital appointments next week, one of which at least is a discussion with a surgeon about a lung biopsy which is going to be performed. I can see that his wife is very worried about all of this going on (as indeed are we) but the least we can do is to hope that once within the hands of the medical profession, the diagnosis is not a poor one. I got Meg into the cafeteria with the aid of the wheelchair and met two of our normal friends there. The young assistant who is very friendly towards us and we engage in a light banter over her ‘gooing’ over a baby but when we teased her about this, it turned out to be one of her own relatives as members of her own family had come into the cafeteria for a Saturday morning treat. We thought that we stay having our breakfast and then start off our journey to Sutton Cheney which is a village about 45 miles away fom us but only two thirds of the distance into Leicester. We have an arrangement to see some long lasting friends that we have not actually seen since just before the pandemic so we know that we have lot of catching uo to do. The journey substantially involves a trip around Birmingham on the M42, followed by a stretch on the A5 and then roads off from that. Our Sat Nav indicated that should get there about half an hour before our lunch appointment which seemed fine to us as our friends in all probability would be there early and we knew we had a lot of catching up to do. But the journey around the M42 was nightmarishly slow and a lot of the time we were crawling along at a speed of some 15-20 mph. Apart from roadworks which always seems to be present somewhere long the M42 (including the preparations for HS2 where a lot of preparatory work is being undertaken) we think that an exhibition at the NEC might explain some of the delay- we did notice traffic wizzing along in the opposite direction. We did find out that this week is devoted to a Camping and Caravanning show which apparently is enormously popular. We noticed that the estimated time of arrival crept up from 12.35 to about 12.53. We did get that on time but were not surprised when our friends were not already there. In the hotel, there was evidently a huge wedding party in process so we had to make sure that we did not get entangled into it by mistake. Whilst we were waiting, though, and all of the guests dashed off to their special wedding breakfast meal, Meg and I kept the wolf from the door by snaffling some of the pre-dinner canapies evidently left over from the elebrations. Eventually, the friend who was the daughter turned up and we had some excited conversations waiting for her mother who eventually turned up half an hour late.But when she did arrive, we had so much to catch up on tht we did not sit down for our meal until 2.30 which is when the chef was ready for us even though, technically, the lunch date was 1.00pm. I dined on belly pork and Meg on cod – the food portions were not over large but the food itself was quite delicicous. In actual fact, we did not find the wait for our food at all irksome as we had ordered ourselves some drinks, snaffled some of the canapes and both informed the other of the important events in our lives in the last few years. In the case of our friends, it was principally job changes whereas for Meg and I it was healh-related issues. We carried on eating and chatting until it was time to go and it was now 5.00pm in the afternoon. The journey back, though, was so swift and uneventful that what had taken us an hour and a half in the morning only took about an hour on the way back home.

Once we had got home and had some high quality soup for our afternoon tea, I prepared Meg for bed and we settled down to watch England vs. South Africa in the World Cup semi-final. England were almost universally regarded as the underdogs but outplayed the South Africans leading by about 12 points to 6 at half time. Englnd were still about ten points ahead some 10 minutes before the end of the match but the South Africans scored the only try of the match some ten minutes before the end reducing the deficit to some two points. But the South African scrummaging was technically superior to the England team and they were awarded a series of scrum penalties in the last 20 minutes of the game. Wth two and a half minutes to go, the South Africans were awarded a scrum penalty from which they scored giving them victory over England by a single point. Nobody would have predicted some weeks ago that teams like France and Ireland would be knocked out in the quarter finals and that England would come within an ace of ending up in next’s final which will now be New Zealand vs. South Africa. So complete heartbreak for England but they could scarcely have played better.

Today was the day marked on our calendar when we were due to travel up north, mainly along the M6 to attend the funeral of Meg’s cousin, Gywneth, who died recently. Last night, Meg and I aimed to have a nice quiet evening so that we we were well prepared our today. But events rather conspired against us. Meg had a rather disturbed night last night which did not give us the sound cushion of sleep that we needed in order to prepare ourselves for the day ahead. But much more seriously, there was a huge storm sweeping northwards across the country and the Met office had issued an amber alert. Looking at the map, there was a huge bump in the weather map which just seemed to coincide with the Manchester and Bolton area that was our destination today. So on the advice of both our son and other friends with whom we were in contact, we had to conclude very reluctantly that it was probably foolhardy to make a journey today however important the occasion and we had better call off our planned journey. We texted the daughter of Meg’s cousin who sent us a sympathetic response as she was concerned even about the travel arrangements of her own brother. So this makes two funerals recently that we have ideally have wished to attend but the distances involved and other events conspired against us. Meg and I consoled each other by going to Waitrose where we treated ourselves to a good serving of porridge served with blueberries, which were quite delicious.

This afternoon, Meg and I enjoyed a quiet but very pleasant afternoon in our Music Room. The afternoon was started off by a daily ration of the ‘Outnumbered’ series on the TV (liberal minded Mum and Dad being outnumbered by their diverse and precocious children) which we always find agonisingly amusing. After that we played a selection of classical music, courtesy of Youtube but with the output from Meg’s iPhone ‘bluetoothed’ over onto the little CD player we acquired recently and which acts as a ‘de facto’ speaker system. The large box in which our new Toshiba TV was delivered had been covered in some white lining a paper (of which I always have a supply for occasions such as this) and then covered in butterfly illustrations canibalised from a colouring book I had bought months ago. I have now created a screen which sits in front of the TV cabinet donated by our son and which houses the broadband router. My new butterfly screen now hides some sunsightly cables and is a joy to behold from a distance. Finally, when we were university students and furnishing our first house, we acquired what I think is called a ‘Captain’s chair’ for either 15 shillings or 25 shillings and I had reupholstered it with some red velvet decades ago. I do not care for this colour scheme these days but we have now adorned it with two quilted cushions that Meg’s talented cousin, Margot, had made for us some years back and they go beautifully on the Captain’s chair, now made available in the Music Room for occasional visitors. Finally I rigged up a little desk lamp on an adjacent bookcase so that when Meg is sitting in her favourite, comfortable armchair, she has a much better source of light with which to read. These appear to be simple pleasures but all help to enhance our little environment.

As might be imagined, the political airwaves today have been dominated by the Labour Party’s success in the two by-elections, one held in Tamworth and the other in Mid-Bedfordshire. I suspect that many analysts thought that Tamworth, which has returned a Labour MP in the past might do so again but true blue Mid-Bedfordshire was another matter. I think that most analysts thought that mid-Bedfordshire was too close to call as there may well have been a three way split btween Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat. But he Liberal Democrat vote did not live up to expectations so this seat, and Tamworth were both won with majorities of over 1,000 and a swing that was 25.9 in the case of Tamworth (the second biggest swing in history) and 20.5% in mid Bedfordshire. Of course, it is not a sensible exercise to predict General Election results from by elections in which normally loyal supporters do not come out and vote. It has often been noted that there is a large ‘secret’ Conservative vote that does not reveal itself to pollsters but who in the context of a general election, do come out of the woodwork as it were and vote Conservative. The interesting theoretical question is how large this ‘secret Conservative but stay-at-home’ vote actually is and how many might actually be persuded to vote for other parties, Liberal Democrat being more typical but sometimes a direct swich to the Labour Party itself. Of course, it must be remembered that both of these by elections were caused by the malfeasance of the incumbent Tory MPs. In one case (Chris Pincher) there was a history of sexual antics involved, whereas in he other, Nadine Dorries, a fervent supporter of Boris Johnson absented herself from the Commons and her constituency peeved that she was not offered a place in the House of Lords by the outgoing Johnson administration. Is it any wonder that the electorates take their revenge at the earliest opportunity?

Today is our shopping day but I took the opportunity, just before 8.00am, to fill up with petol at the local supermaket filling station before the long journey up to Bolton tomorrow. The whole forecourt seemed dominated by ‘white vans’ and their drivers, all filling up before their day’s work no doubt but actually blocking my exit from the filling sttaion so I forced to reverse out of it. After I had done the routine shopping, I always treat myself to Aldi“s famous ‘middle aisle’ This is always devoted to often remaindered items of household goods and you are never quite sure what you are going to find. But I did find a child’s activity game which involved making pictures or designs from some preformed shapes on a magnetic surface and I thought this might be useful to give Meg some useful stimulation. Although there are some templates of suggested designs, obviously the user is quite free to utilise the shapes and ‘part structures’ to compose a picture e.g. of a hospital or a train station and so on. We shall have to see how Meg gets on with this but I have also treated myself to the one remining item, in acacia wood, of a tablet-cum-bookstand which I am sure might prove useful when I use the iPad to write some text, rather than just browsing. Thursday mornings always make us a little later than our normal routine because the shopping having been done it needs to be unpacked and then Meg has to got up and breakfasted after which we prepare ourslves for a venture forth. Today, we thought we would visit the Methodist centre again but we were slightly towards the end of their normal coffee time but time enough to have a cup of tea and a round of buttered toast. We fleetingly had a quick conversation with someone we knew from our own church and then made for home. We lunched on baked potato, broccoli and the remnants of last week’s joint put into an onion gravy. Then, immediately after lunch, I suddenly felt incredibly tired so I allowed myself the luxury of a quick nap even before I had completed all of the washing up after lunch.

Last Monday, whilst we were in Droitwich, we had parked fairly near the Post Office and I took the opportunity to post back to the manufacturer’s what is popularly known as a ‘BoomBox’ which I had bought some time ago and before I started to amass some of the Panasonic Micro-HiFi systems. This particular boombox as well as an FM radio and CD player also had the facility to play tracks directly from a USB as well as having BlueTooth functionality. It is this latter facility which I have started to use more and more thee days because I can access the tracks/albums in which I am particularly interested and then play them on the iPhone whose sound output is ‘bluetoothed’ to the boombox. All I am doing is to to use the superior 8-9 cm speakers and the volume controls in the boombox to fill a living room with the music I want. The BoomBox I posted off had a volume control button which not only fell ‘off’ the machine but disappeared within the works, making it virtually unusable. The unit was guaranteed for one year, extended to three years and I succeeded in getting an RMA (Return to Manufacturer Authorisation code) from the retailer. I was amazed, but very pleasantly surprised to receive a new BoomBox (although I suppose it could have been reconditioned and sold on by the manufacturer as new) As the unit I had returned could only have got to the manufacturer on Tuesday, they must have turned it around and sent me a replacement extraordinarily quickly. So far, I have only had the most cursory of opportunities to try it out but I know that the CD part works and I managed to interface it to BlueTooth and my iPhone within seconds. So this was a little venture that turned out OK although I would not have been greatly surprised if it had taken considerable hassle to get it replaced.

This afternoon, we got a phone call and then a long, long conversation with one of my erstwhile University of Winchester colleagues. She, as it happens, has had considerable experience in dealing wth the sequelae of first an ailing mother who subsequently died and then a sister who unfortunately suffered a stroke at about the same time. Our friend is a source of considerable help in dealings that she has had (and continues to have) getting care orgnised for her mother and latterly her sister and she was able to pass some very useful tips and insights, as well being a source of huge emotional support. Our friend has stayed with us once before for an all too brief visit and may well come up and stay with us again as soon as the opportunity arises. It seems that the telephone lines between Bromsgrove and Oxfordshire were red hot today because we also got a supportive phone call from our South Oxfordshire friends and we are thinking about organising a lunch date in early December once they have a busy November out of the way. Although I intend to get an earlier night tonight to be properly rested before tomorrow, there are always the two by-election results coming through in the wee small hours of the morning to provide a temptation to stay awake.

Today was a wet and blustery day as the weather forecasters had predicted and it made me doubly glad that I had squeezed in the cutting of the lawns yesterday whilst we had a beautiful autumn day. Today, though, Meg and I were up a little late and eventually once we had got ourselves up and breakfasted made for the Methodist drop-in centre which we are now going to make part of a regular routine on Wednesday mornings. We were not at all disappointed but quite the reverse. We were made welcome on the ‘Chatty table’ which is a feature of the drop-in centre and were quite quickly made welcome. When I popped to the counter to order some cups of tea and toasted teacakes for the two of us, I got into conversation with the person serving us who, as it turned out, came from Bolton in Lancshire. I had mentioned that Meg and I were going up to Bolton on Friday to the funeral of Meg’s cousin and when I mentioned the name of he crematorium, it transpired that some of her relatives were interred there. She had been born and grew up within a short distance of Burnden Park which in the 1950’s and 1960’s was of the largest and superior grounds in the country. In its heyday, Burnden Park could hold up to 70,000 supporters but this figure was dramatically reduced during the final 20 years of its life. The eminent figure of the time was the centre forward Nat Lofthouse who is still remembered by football fans to this day, not least for inflicting an injury in a goal mouth scramble to Bert Trautman, the Manchester City goalkeeper, who played the remainder of the Cup Final with what turned out to be a broken neck. On the Chatty Table, we got onto the subject of where people came from and one of the ladies mentioned that she was brought up in the Isle of Dogs. I asked her if she remembered the dramatic floods that afflicted eastern England in the spring of early 1953. The 1953 flood is the most recent large coastal flood in Europe. The devastating North Sea flood of 1953 caused catastrophic damage and loss of life in Scotland, England, Belgium and The Netherlands and became one of the worst peacetime disasters of the 20th century. 307 people died in England, 19 died in Scotland, 28 died in Belgium, 1,836 died in the Netherlands and a further 361 people died at sea. The lady to whom I was talking remembered the whole family getting into the topmost part of the house – she was 8 years old at the time (as was I) and evidently an experience that had stayed with her throughout her life. So all in all, we had a pleasant series of lttle chats and other people who were disabled in a variety of ways gave us some tips and hints about the easiest way of gaining access to the building (avoiding two short flights of stairs that could create problems for some and are a bit difficult for Meg as it happens)

I received an unusual and quite pleasant text message about a day or so ago from one the of the senior partners in the medical practice which looks after Meg and myself. In the past, I have been asked to play the role of ‘patient’ (I won’t say ‘model patient’) and have agreed to be interviewed by traineee medical students. The whole point of this, I suppose, is to get students exposed to patients at even an early stage of their career and to help them listen to case histories, ‘listen with an inner ear’ and so on. I think I have done this two or three times before but the doctor wondered if I might be able to put myself forward again but he anticipated that it might not be possible because of my caring responsibiities for Meg. I did indeed explain that caring for Meg indeed took all of my time and,regretfullly, I could not spare the time away from her to talk to these young medical students. Still, it was nice to be asked and I suggested to the doctor that it might be possible to assist him in the future if circumstances change.

The airwaves have been filled all of the day with the absolutely terrible tragedy in which a hospital was hit by a missile in Gaza city with an estimated loss of life of the order of 500 and may yet rise to about 700. Many inhabitants of Gaza have fled to the confines of a hospital imagining it to be safe from missile attack and hence the number killed may exceed the number of patients being treated. The Israelis have been very quick to deny that it was anything to do with them and have released some radar images which strongly suggest the blast was caused by a misfired rocket – launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group. Of course this is being regarded with complete sceptism by the Arab world and in the past, the Israeli Defence forces have initially denied being involved in similar disasters. In his particular case, though, it does appear that the Israeli account is more credible than the Palestinian counter claim but the thought of a massive loss of life in a hospital makes one shudder at the horror of it all.

Today being a Tuesday, we always look forward to meeting with our ‘Tuesday club’ of friends in the Waitrose cafeteria. Today one of our number, who is herself disabled, turned up with a real tale of woe. She was feeling a little sorry for herself and with good reason. Her husband who is quite some years older and has dementia seems, by all accounts, to be quite a handful for whom to care. Our friend was looking forward to a week’s respite whilst her husband went into residential accommodation. However he had tested positive for Covid, given to him presumably by one of his carers as he doesn’t get out at all. So the residential home refused to take him and so the week’s respite care was de facto cancelled. In addition, our friend had herself had a fall and some aches and pains as a result of it and had run out of some her medication. To cut a long story short,she was glad to get out of the house and seek out our company for a bit of a chat. It did make Meg and I realise that however badly off you think you are, there is always someone much worse off than you. We gave our friend whatever words of solace and comfort we could muster and resolved to meet with each other again next Saturday. I had to resort to taking Meg into the cafeteria by wheelchair today but I availed myself the opportunity whilst Meg was in the car to dash into town for some bars of soap. We hd a supply which seemed to last for ages but eventually suppplies run out and need to be replenished. I bought three different varieties which ought to last for a month or so. Incidentally, I seem to have heard or read somewhere that sales of soap are absolutely booming- in these straightened times, I think that people have realised that shower gels and cremes are actually pretty expensive to consume and good old fashioned soap is a much cheaper alternative, despite the scum that is left behind. The most innovative use of soap in my experience came from washing dishes at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate at which I started to work part-time when I was about 14 or 15. All of the regular dishes went into the dishwashing machine in which you inserted a plate between two revolving brushes and used your fingers to let you know whether all of the residues (egg being the worst) had been safely removed. Having been washed and put into wooden racks, the dishes were lowered into a huge vat of water kept almost at boiling point by virtue of a steam tht was bubbled in at the bottom. After about ten or twenty seconds or so of this,then the woooden rack was removed and the plates being so hot, dried themselves within a few seconds. But irregular items such as vegetable dishes had to be washed in huge deep wooden sinks. The detergent used in this case was large blocks of green soap (plentiful in the 1950’s I assure you) inserted into a large fruit can that had several holes puctured in the bottom and which was hung over the hot water tap with a piece of string. This was a surprising effective and cheap system and seemed to have been tried and tested over the years. Incidentally, our rate of pay in spring, 1960 when I started, was 2s 6d an hour (12.5 pence) – our wages were actually cut to 2s 3d an hour and we all came out on strike (most unprecedented for hotel workers in Harrogate in that time period) but were promptly put back to 2s 6d within an hour or so. Whilst in Waitrose, one of the members of staff who knows Meg well (we are their oldest ccustomers at this store) gave Meg a beautiful bunch of red roses to help us on our way. When we got home, I spent a few mintues of time watching the Politics programme covering the SNP conference in Scotland before I started coking our normal Tuesday lunch of fishcakes and quickly microwaved steam-in-the-bag vegetables.

It was a beautiful afternoon and I thought that this was a good opportunity to get the lawns cut because the weather forecast is not good for the next day or so and the grass is getting longer and longer. I now divide the cutting of the large green communal area into two 20 minutes tranches and this worked out fine. I installed Meg in front of the TV and a repeat of an episode of ‘Outnumbered’ and this covered the first 20 minute tranche successfully. I then came in and had a quick cup of tea and found on YouTube (or rather it was selected for us) a peace concert given by Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan orchestra. The aim of the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra is to promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians and pave the way for a peaceful and fair solution of the Arab–Israeli conflict. This particular concert was broadcast from Geneva and in at least one of the pieces, Barenboim is both playing a Beethoven piano concerto and conducting the orchestra from the piano (not uncommon in the fairly distant past) Meg really enjoyed this concert and I would have dearly liked to have listened to it if I had been engaged in grass-cutting duties.

So Monday morning dawns again and we had plans to go and visit Droitwich just down the road from us. But I had a slightly traumatic morning trying to get the NHS app to work on Meg’s iPhone in which I have installed a new SIM with a nice, easy to remember number. The NHS app required Meg’s email and I could not remember which variant of it I had used, or the exact password – I suspect that I got part way through the process some time ago and then something intervened. To cut a long story, I tried to cancel the existing account and start off a new one but evidently the NHS system takes some time to update itself because attempting to create a new account only informed me that we had an account already associated with that NHS number and so please put in the email address (forgotten) and the password (forgotten) and so on and so forth. I am going to leave the whole of this for at least a whole day if not two days to give the NHS app time to update itself and then delete itself before I start again trying to reinstall the thing. All of this started because I needed to see when a hospital appointment was for Meg and, after a telephone call, it transpired that it was this Thursday. Conscious of the fact that we have a long journey to the funeral on Friday and then another journey to our lunch date on Saturday I asked the system to give me another appointment which the helpful(!) personnel at the booking service said I might now have to wait for months. So be it – this is probably the best way round to do things in any case. Once I had been delayed by all of this, Meg and I went off to collect our newspaper and enquired after the health of our newsagent. He has already had two episodes in a local hospital draining fluid off his lungs and his wife informed me, with some evident worry, that they are now talking about admitting her husband to the large teaching hospital in Birmingham for a lung biopsy which all sounds a little grim. I have sent off my very best wishes to him amd hope fervently he gets over this episode, if that is what it is. We then progressed to Droitwich where I managed to get a parking place some 100 yards or so away from the Post Office (which they still have in Droitwich, unlike Bromsgrove where an incredibly busy local post office was reduced to a copunter in the local WH Smiths) The queue in the post office was both long and slow moving but I managed to get my parcel posted off and got my Certificate of Posting to prove it all. Then we made our way to our favourite cafe which was absolutely teeming but the proprietor found us a table and we treated ourelves to a teapot full of tea and a round of toasted teacake between us. Then we had a quick trip into the Waitrose in Droitwich after which we immediately set to cooking the lunch. This we needed to do and get all eaten and cleared up by 2.00pm because we had someone call round us to see us (a long standing appointment). This visit proved to be a pleasant enounter but not particularly productive as suggestions were made for us to try for some activities during the day which we have already considered and then decided not to proceed with.

In the last month I had acquired very cheaply from a local charity shop a simple little light with a silver base and a silver vertical section. I assumed that I had bought a dud because this seemed very reluctant to turn on and off but I did notice that occasionally if I put my fingers around the vertical section it would come on. I assumed that this was a fault but I am now a little bit wiser. I seem to have acquired ithat is known as a ‘touch’ lamp and they are evidently designed as bedside lights for those who find fumbling in the dark for a switch particularly onerous. After a bit of reseatch on the web, I have now discovered the following. These lamps, called ‘touch lamps’ work in the following way. In circuits, components called capacitors store varying amounts of charge and are used to tune circuits like radio receivers or smooth out fluctuations in voltage. When we make contact with a touch lamp, we alter its capacitance. The lamp detects this and switches on or off accordingly. All of this was new to me but I now understand how the lamp operates. After a certain amount of trial and error experimentation, I now realise that I turn the light on simply by touching the base. One touch leads to switching the light on, a further touch increases the brightness of the light and a further two taps turns the whole appliance off. This all sounds very logical and straightforward but in the absence of instructions and prior knowledge or experience of this type of technology, it has all been a bit of learning curve for me. It now occupies an otherwise dark corner in our Music Room but why it appears to switch itself on (and off) after a period of inactivity is all a bit of a mystery to me.

Today dawned bright and clear after what had evidently been a cold and frosty night. This was all to the good because we had a day out planned with our good University of Birmingham friend. We had made provisional plans to visit Clevedon which is a delightful unspoilt Victorian style resort to the south of Bristol with views overlooking the Bristol Channel. Our friend picked us up at 10.30 and then we picked up our newspaper and got on our way. We decided that it might be quite a good idea to reserve a table so I made a reservation from my mobile phone whilst in the back of the car. The restaurant was going to be particularly busy today and you could see why – today may well be the last little bit of summer that we have in place before Autumn strikes with a vengeance and days out to the sea will have to wait until next year. In the event, we had a delightful meal and did not have to wait for too long a period for our meal. The staff know our University of Birmingham friend very well and we had a magnificent dish of pulled beef, avocado, sour cream and specialised chips. After our meal, we thought we would take a turn around the pier which advertises itself as the only Grade 1 listed pier in the whole of England. It is certainly an elegant structure and we had Meg in her wheelchair so a walk along it was pleasant. It has one particular feature which is quite interesting. All along the planking of the pier and especially in the type of rotunda that graces the pier at its end, there are a series of little brass plates where you can commemorate a loved one – or any other special family occasion that is worthy of mention. Our friend especially wanted us to se the little brass plate inscribed to and dedicated to his wife and whilst we were there, our friend went to the office to collect a special cleaning kit which is made available to those family members who are visiting a previously affixed plaque and wish to keep it in pristine condition. It really was a beautiful afternoon and we enjoyed the views over the estuary (but noted the strange absence of sea birds and waders that I imagined would have been there in abundance) After that, it was a case of a gentle trundle back home but we did call in for a toilet stop at Gloucester services staion which is relatively new and pretty well designed as motorway service areas go. We watched the last 10 minutes of the England vs. Fiji match. England appeared to be in control but then Fiji scored a quick couple of tries and some penalties and at the close could have beaten England with a converted try – but England prevailed and won what had been a thrilling match by all acoounts and are now in the semi-finals next weekend. The match tonight will be a real cracker which is France vs. South Africa and England will meet the winners in the semifinal. The world of rugby tends to divide nations into Tier 1 nations (the four home nations, France and perhaps Italy) in the northern hemisphre and Australia, New Zealand and South Africe in the southern. But the World Cup has lead to the emergence of so-called Tier 2 nations (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina, Georgia etc) The Fiji team have done particularly well. They have beaten France in a pool game, actually did beat England in the round of preparatory matches played before the World Cup began and, of course, pushed England really hard today. Although England appeared to be comfortably in the lead at half time, the Fijians scored two tries and were awarded several penalties – at one stage, they had drawn level with England. So perhaps the World Cup has revelled that the former distinctions into Tier 1 and Tier 2 national rugby teams is beginning to lose its salience. I have just watched the first half of the France vs. South Africa rugby match in the World Cup and each side has scored three tries each. This was a most explosive start and raises the questions whether this was the best half of a rugby match that the world has ever experienced. At full-time a massively tactical second half, likened by the commentators to a game of chess, was won by South Africa by a single point.

I have a couple of portable cassette players at home, bought cheaply at end-of-the-range prices, and popularly known when they were first manufactured as ‘boomboxes’. I think the name was popularised because they tend to look a bit like bug-eyed monsters gaving a couple of stereo 8-9cm speakers and were popular with urban youth in the US who played them extensively in parks. I have a couple with the name ‘Panasonic’ on them and they are both equipped with Bluetooth. This means that it is quite easy to locate good music on one’s phone (Amazon Prime and Youtube) and then play back with enhanced volume and quality of sound via the Boombox speakers. Meg and I have an iphone apiece, that of Meg’s being recently re-equipped with a Tescomobile SIM so now I have a system in which I can easily play back these good bits of music in almost any room in the house that I choose.

We always knew that we were going to have an early start this morning but not quite as early as it turned out. I woke up at about 3.30 and thought I should attempt to locate an appointment letter that I was pretty sure was on the pile of ‘to do’ on our kitchen table. Not being able to find it, I set to work clearing out much of the accumulated rubbish, circulars and some correspondence that needed to be filed. By the time I had reduced the pile to a reasonable ‘to be filed’ portion and thrown away the junk, I still had not found the critical appointment letter. On Monday morning, I shall phone up and confirm the time of the appointment, which I shall then try and postpone for a fortnight. At the end of next week, we have two days in which we are engaged on journeys. The most critical of these is next Friday when we need to journey up to Bolton, in Lancashire, to attend the funeral of Meg’s cousin Gwyneth was unfortunately died a few days ago. Although the journey is quite a long one, it is one we have made before and practically the whole of it is motorway so we will set off at about 10.00 or a little earlier and stop for a lunch on the way before we attend the funeral at 2.30. Then there there is a funeral bash after the crematorium and we will start the journey home. Hopefully, though, at that time on a Friday evening, the traffic should not be too heavy and there is a fair probability that Meg will sleep a lot of the way back. So that is Friday but on the day afterwards we have a lunch date with two very old friends that we have not seen, I think, since before the pandemic. They live in Leicestershire but there is a venue of a good restaurant in the country which is approxinately half way between our two respective homes, to minimise the travelling for both of us. Our lunch date is at 1.00pm so this should nopt be too heavy a day but, of course, it is only a day later than the long journey of the day before. We also have another appointment on Monday afternoopn so next week is going to prove to be quite a busy week for us. But today, Meg and were due to have our COVID+ flu jabs appointment which was timed at 9.18. Whilst in the surgery, we met one of our jolly Waitrose crowd but the whole operation is organised a bit like a military operation with people getting jabs every two or three minutes. Meg and I had an injection in each arm so there is a possibility that both of us might have two sore arms for a day or so. There is a rumour that some individuals are feeling a bit more under the weather after this current round of jabs. We started off with Astra-Zeneca and I think then received the Moderna variant but today we are on the Pfizer variant. So far, Meg and I have been fully vaccinated to date and haven’t suffered any great reactions in the past, although I seem to recall a slightly sore arm the last time around.

The rugby continues this weekend and the really big match is going to be Ireland vs. New Zealand starting at 8.00pm this evening. But tbis afternoon, we are watching the Wales vs. Argentina match which is a tense, tough affair. At half time, Wales are narrowly in the lead but Meg and I will be attending church starting abut two thirds of the way through the second half so it is quite possible that we miss the most exciting 15 minutes of play towards the end. We had the interesting spectacle today which I have never quite seen before of the referee suffering from a groin strain so he had to retire hurt as he was not able to gallop up and down the pitch at speed which is called for if one team has a quick breakaway. The South African referee is being replaced by an English one and perhaps the Argentinians are less than happy if they feel that an English referee might be more favourably inclined towards the Wales team.

There is a great feel of impending doom as the Israelis are assembling their forces before what is going to be a massive push throughout Gaza city. The Israelis have given an ultimatum to 1.2 million inhabitants of Gaza City to retreat (where?) to the south, with the indication that if they do not comply then they may have to suffer whatever the Israeli army throws at them. Yesterday, there was a hint in the American media that the US was asking the Israelis to delay their push by one day and that, indeed, seems to have happened. Despite leaflet drops and videos to warn the civilian population what is in store, there is a feeling abroad that we might be seeing a type of ethnic cleansing in operation. The situation in Gaza city must soon be beyond dire as all supplies of food, water and power have been cut off by the Israelis. To some, this itself is seen as a war crime but we have probably enough evidence of war crimes on both sides of this conflict.

Today has been an interesting day to date, although following a predictable pattern. Firstly, it is the day when our domestic help calls around and we always enjoy her coming round tremendously, not least for the little household hints and tips that we share with each other. Our help has a very keen sense of internal decoration and things that ‘go’ with one another, so we treat her as our personal design consultant and and are happy to trust her judgement about things, but perhaps more of this later. After we had breakfasted and absorbed some of the latest grim news from the Israel-Gaza conflict, it was time to set out onto the road. We first collected our newspaper and received news of our newsagent, when we picked up our daily newspaper. In the shop was one of the faithful assistants who knows the business well and was actually ‘inherited’ by the present owners, and she gave us the latest news of the newsagent we now regard as a friend. He had had a second spell in hospital getting his lungs in working order after a serious lung infection and is now at home, feeling slightly better but still a little weak from it all. As he is now in his late 70’s and in order to run his business has to get up tremendously early, we wonder how much longer he and his wife will continue to run their business or whether he may decide (and why not?) to call it a day and to sell the business on. We shall see but often these little bouts of illness can cause a reevaluation of life’s priorities and I think it is a ripe old age at which to be still active in business. We then made our way to Droitwich to what is now our favourite cafe and had our mid-morning coffees there in nice and comfortable surroundings. I have a slightly vested interest in going to Droitwich in any case because about 150 yards from the cafe is a large shop run by the Worcestershire Association of Carers (in which I happen to be a member in any case) This shop always contains some interesting bric-a-brac and I think is a cut above some of the normal charity shops. I had my eyes upon on a little plain white ceramic lamp, with a matching shade, which I thought would illuminate a dark corner in our music room. After a certain amount of dithering, I bought this and was absolutely delighted with the results once I had got the lamp in place which fulfils the function I had in mind for it perfectly and has the bonus of a little in-line on-off switch on the cord, which I always find more convenient. But whilst in the shop, I espied a pair of teak hand-made teak candle sticks, some 27cm (10.5″) in height for which I may well have a future use. When Meg is no longer able to attend our local church, then what is termed an ‘Eucharistic Minister’ will call round to the house with a little truncated service, which may well give Meg some spiritual comfort. So I can put these candle sticks when needed on a little table with a lace table cloth and other devotional objects in position and this should help to create the right kind of atmosphere when required. As soon as I got home, I applied some of my precious beeswax to them, left them for some 25 minutes which is the recommended amount of time, and then gave them to a polish which resulted in a wonderfully delicate sheen. So this was an unexpected little bonus and I felt that both the lamp and the candle sticks were well worth the £5 each that I paid for them.

To make our diet a little more interesting, I decided to cook a risotto meal this Friday, which used to be our usual pattern but I have got out of the habit over the months. I think I was trying perhaps a little too hard to cut out excess carbohydrate calories and this is why we got out of the habit of cooking our Friday risotto. However, I remembered the core elements (start off with fried onions, add some chicken stock, the fish which was actually half a pack of mackerel, some ‘arborio’ rice,a cup of petit pois and finished off with a handful of grated cheese). Meg and I were actually delighted with the result so I happily gave a mini-portion to our domestic help who was going to have it as her break once she was half way through her shift in a residential care home which she runs off just after seeing to us on a Friday. Her husband and mother are apparently often asking after us and think that the pattern of going out to have a range of social contacts in 3-4 of the local cafeterias an excellent way to cope with the frailties that Meg has been experiencing in recent months. Today followed a predictable pattern of the James Martin cookery program, one further episode of ‘Outnumbered’ on BBC iPlayer followed by hopefully a period in which I am attempting to get Meg to have a good rest in the afternoons. This is aided today as it is raining cats and dogs outside, the afternoon is naturally dark and this helps Meg to get the nap in the afternoon and from which she can only benefit.

Thursday being my shopping day I engage in my normal routine which is to get to the shops just as they open and then home as soon as possible. It must have been a lighter week this week because I managed everything so much more quickly and then it was a case of getting home, getting Meg up and dressed and breakfasted before we ventured forth this morning. We thought that we make a visit to the drop-in centre provided by the large Methodist chyurch in the centre of town – we visited there for the first time last week and found a couple of faces that we already knew. They have a wonderful concept which they call a ‘Chatter and Natter’ table which is part of a national scheme. Chatter & Natter tables are where customers can sit if they are happy to talk to other customers. Hundreds of venues offer Chatter & Natter tables, in cafes, pubs, libraries, hospitals – anywhere that people can sit and chat over a coffee. The concept is explained on a little information stand which they have on the ‘Chatter and Natter’ table and the whole idea is that instead of individuals being seated at a table by themselves (which of course, you are quite at liberty to do if you want a bit of peace and quiet) then you occupy a place at the ‘Chatter and Natter’ table. I found that this concept works exteremely well even though this was only our second visit because when people joined the table, we found something to talk about in no time at all. We were quite rapidly joined by one of our Waitrose Tuesday crowd who we had a fair idea may well have been there on a Thursday so we carried on where we left off last Saturday. Towards the end of the morning, we were joined by yet another person that we knew who is a fellow parishioner at the church we normally attend each Saturday evening. She, like us, had crossed a denominational divide and seemed to be a regular member of the cafe. To cut a long story short, we are resolved to make a visit to the cafe once or twice a week, hopefully on a regular day each week. Attendance is also encouraged by the fact that a cup of coffee is available for £1.00 and a round of buttered toast for 30p and of course costs are kept low because the whole is staffed with volunteers. There are two parallel halls, one large and one small in which there are ‘Keep Fit’ classes, Mother and toddler mornings and the like so the whole centre is actually quite busy. There is a very large local authority car park immediately adjacent to the Centre if all of the spaces in the Centre are occupied by cars as they were this morning. Meg and I felt that we had a pretty entertaining morning and came home to cook a conventional lunch of quiche and green veg. Afterwards we had a ration of the James Martin cookery programme, today visiting Norfolk and I learned one or two things such as shredding parts of a lettuce to add to a pan of other ingredients bubbling away – that would never have occurred to me.

I do not wish to sound very po-faced about all of this but I read recently of two court cases that really made my blood boil. The first of these was the case of Bernie Ecclestone, the millionaire F1 boss, who has admitted lying (i.e. concealing) monies held in trusts and escaping the attention of the Inland Revenue. Anyone else would have been gaoled but Bernie Eccleston was given a suspended sentence because of his age. I think he eventually had to pay £653 million to the Inland Revenue but I wonder how much of his wealth is still intact, despite the fines that he had to pay. The second case was Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter who has admitted keeping £800,000 from the three books he wrote before he died – despite the prologue of one of them saying the money would go to the charity in his name. It seems that the richer and more famous one happens to be, the less proportionate the eventual day of reckoning eventually becomes. It was not uncommon for judges to remark to miscreants in the lower levels of the class structure that ‘an example has to be made of you’ whereas higher up the class structure, an offender might be told ‘You have already suffered enough’ There are now quite strict sentencing guidelines to avoid such rampant discrepancies but one is still left with the feeling that the very rich, even though found guilty of fraud, do not always receive the penalties owing to them.

The Israel-Gaza conflict is absorbing a tremendous amount of media attention, as you might expect. There is no doubt that the most severe atrocities have been committed by Hamas but the thought occurs to me that may well be that the Israelis have a vested interested in exaggerating the atrocities committed. For example, it is probably that in at least case an Israeli baby has been beheaded but I heard a spokesperson for the Israelis claiming that this had happened to 40 babies, a claim which it it almost impossible to verify. The thought that occurs to me is whether such exaggerations are given the prominence that they are in order that ground offensive currently in an advanced state of preparation by the Israelis can be unprecedented in is savagery?