Saturday morning dawns and we know that after breakfast, we will pop down the hill and see the ‘granny gang’ in Waitrose. We all make an effort to attempt to coincide at about 10.30 come hell or high water and today is no exception.

These days, I rather rely upon the hope that Meg gets off to sleep fairly easily and does not have a distressed evening so that I can concentrate upon any tasks that I want to undertake some time from about 8.30 onwards until I get myself off to bed at about 10.00om. Fortunately, last night Meg seemed to settle fairly easily which let me concentrate on what I wanted to do in the evening which was to put the finishing touches to the look of the leather sofa which I had purchased from AgeUK but had taken them about two weeks before they had a spare delivery slot. I had a fair idea what I wanted to try to do but in practice the sofa was in remarkably good condition when it arrived. I wonder if before delivery, they had someone in the store to give it a brief once over with some restorative furniture polish before they actually delivered it. Sometimes, when one makes a purchase there is a syndrome called ‘buyer’s remorse’ where one really regrets the purchase that one has made and wonders whether or not to return it. But in this case, I had the opposite of buyer’s remorse which I suppose is buyer’s delight because although I had evidently taken the decision to purchase it and tried it out for comfort, the sofa when it arrived seemed to look so much better than when I had tried it out in the store. As an interesting twist, our domestic help had wandered into the store and seen this sofa and rather fancied it but noted it had a ‘Sold’ sign on it. I had confided in her that when she called round last Wednesday about my purchase because I showed her the couple of throws that I had already purchased in anticipation of its eventual delivery. Although it did not really need it, my ‘baby wipe’ solution was put into place to remove any shop grime but in the event, it was in a very clean condition when delivered. Then I put into effect the ‘Leather Silk’ treatment to give it a final touch of restoration before the next stage of the process. I had a quick look underneath it to see if there was any maker’s trademark but none was to be found. But what was attached to the underside was a little swatch of the leather from which it was covered which I suppose you could utilise in case there was something like a cigarette burn on it and you needed to make a patch repair. I wanted to try to discover whether the type of leather utilised was ‘genuine’ leather or a man-made plasticised substitute named PUV or faux leather, But a quick trawl of the internet revealed that this is a not an easy question to answer as there are a whole slew of different types of leather varying in expense naturally from the most expensive to the least expensive and to make life even more complicated it is quite possible that different qualities of leather are utilised for different parts of the sofa, the most expensive being utilised for the parts of the sofa that will receive the most wear such as the seats) and the least expensive for other parts that receive no wear to speak of. One website I consulted listed at least six types of leather depending upon the layer of the hide that had been used. So my source referred to full-grain leather, top grain leather, split grain leather, Nubuck, bi-cast leather and bonded leather before you actually start to consider what is popularly known as faux leather which is not really a leather at all. This is all very confusing but at the end of the day, I think that what I have purchased is a combination of split grain leather and bonded leather. The latter is composed of scraps of leather once the real ‘quality’ parts of the hide have been removed and these are then bonded together into a sort of chemical soup which is still ‘real’ leather but not as we might imagine it. So all of this is really confusing and only a matter of academic interest. I think the mainly American websites are at pains to educate their more discerning customers so that one knows the type of questions to ask of the furniture salesperson in the furniture store. Anyway, I intend to take my swatch down to the local cobblers who have a very good reputation in the town (and who regularly repair my hat for me) to see what their opinion is of the matter if they have the knowledge base. Now for the throws I have utilised. One is a throw I had bought originally and is a creamy, linen type look and goes down the back of the sofa so that one is not presented with a slab of brown upon walking into the room. Most people would have their sofa backs against a wall and the fronts would have some scatter cushions and hence this question would not arise. The indian cotton throw in a delicate palish green design which I purchase just the other day goes beautifully across the seated area to almost give a two tone appearance. The two ‘Eau de Nile’ cushions I acquired recently have now found a good home as well. As a final finishing touch, I impulse bought a ‘Chindi’ rig when I was shopping in my local Aldi store. I can do no better than to quote a website telling me about this type of rug: ‘Chindi rugs are a type of rug that is originally from India. The word Chindi means leftover in Hindi, and these rugs are made by weaving together leftover scraps of fabric. These scraps can come from old clothes, bed sheets, or any other type of fabric. Chindi rugs are authentically and ethically made in India with recycled materials, and they add a traditional and colorful vibe to any space in your home or office.’ So this is placed in front of the new sofa and adds a colorful, not to say ethnic, look to the seating area. The final thing that I did was to take a photo of both the ‘bare’ and also the ‘decorated’ sofa and this will be added to the website that I maintain documenting the various types of furniture I have bought, where and how it was purchased and what its final use has turned out to be.

As today is a Friday, we make a visit to ‘The Lemon Tree‘ which is now our preferred cafe of choice on a Friday. It also has the bonus for us of a visit to the High Street so that I can make a quick detour into one of the stores if I want to buy some toiletries for example. Sometimes it has the bonus that we bump into people that we know, now that we have lived in Bromsgrove for practically seventeen years now and in fact is the longest that we have ever lived in one place (or house for that matter) in our lives.

So after what seems quite a long wait, we are now enjoying the spectacle of the Paralympic games in Paris. The French had all of the athletes parade down the Champs d’Elysee (as in the main games) rather than just around the stadium and this innovation probably allows a much larger public welcome the athletes rather than those who have just paid for an opening ceremony seat. The joy on the face of the athletes is something to behold and whether they eventually win a medal or not, it must be an incredibly life affirming experience to represent one’s country as a less abled athlete. The UK generally performs very well in these games and hopes are high for this year as well.

This afternoon, we have taken delivery of a piece of furniture that we purchased a week or so ago from the AgeUK furniture store in Bromsgrove in the form of a bijou leather two seater sofa that we intend to use as a quasi room divider. Our Music Lounge is quite a long room and is divided what might be termed a ‘Technology’ end in one half with comfortable armchairs, the TV and audio.The other half of the room has quite a different and distinctive character and has a generally rustic quality. We have a large (reproduction) Van Gogh in this section of the room and underneath there is our selection of (principally) pottery owls with a variety of cushions, generally with a bird motif, forming a kind of backdrop. The Victorians sometimes put collections of animals in a naturalistic session into a large glass case called a diorama and I think the essential concept we have tried to imitate to some extent but without the benefit of a case. So each half of the room has its own character and we intend to use the sofa we have just purchased to form a sort of open square in the ‘Technology’ half of the room and thus to add a degree of separation between the two halves of the room. We will have to experiment a little but I am hopeful that we may be able to transport Meg quite easily onto the new sofa which has the advantage that she and I can sit side by side which will very convenient if I am reading or showing Meg something. So the newly acquired sofa is completely functional as well as fulfilling a role of dividing up our living space. It was superbly comfortable that one sits ‘in’ rather than ‘on’ which can be a fault with some modern sofas. The colour is a mid to deep brown but I did not want a huge slab of this colour to dominate the room. So I have two throws which I can experiment with and use one against the other. The first I have bought is a faux fur throw which is a wonderfully subtle shade of a pinky purple colour best described as either a lilac or a lavender colour. The tonalities of this complement the sofa perfectly and helps to break up the ‘slab’ of the brown back of the sofa that might greet you otherwise in this end of the Music Lounge. The other throw I only purchased very recently and this too has been washed and prepared for eventual use. It is an Indian cotton in what is probably best described as an ‘Eau de Nile’ shade and as this turn out, it looks better o the newly delivered sofa once I have had a chance to try the two of them out. . In time I may come to much prefer one of these throws to the other but in the meantime, I am very happy with what I have managed to obtain (needless to say from the local charity shops). I have a good selection of cushions already in stock ready to be pressed into use so again a period of experimentation will be deployed until I settle on a firm preference. As I have now acquired a couple of pieces of fine leather furniture, I have some little rituals to be performed on them before they are put into their final position. Firstly, I give them a good all over wipe with baby wipes which I suppose are principally purified water and some added glycerine and therefore contain no harsh chemicals. Then I use a special spray polish which goes by the name of ‘Leather Silk’ and which, the manufacturers claim, is a blend of the purest beeswax, emollients and nutrient oils and contains no silicone. I have been very impressed by the results that I have achieved so far. The Amazon reviews of this product are very favourable and I try to ensure that I have more than one tin in stock so that I do not run out.

Yesterday, I received a phone call from one of the nurses who specialise in Meg’s condition and she is always a great source of help and advice. She is going to liaise with the Occupational Therapy service to see if there are any additional aids to help keep Meg comfortable whilst she is sitting in her wheelchair, as well as other armchairs throughout the day. As Meg cannot stand or walk nowadays, then getting Meg’s posture correct in a chair so that she des not slip forward assumes a significance. As it is, we use a variety of cushions and other aids to attempt to ensure Meg’s comfort throughout the day when she is not being attended to in one of the four visits by the care agency staff throughout the day.

Thursday is my shopping day so I generally race around a smaller Aldi store (where I know where everything is) and hope to have the whole trip completed in just over an hour whilst a care worker sits with Meg. Yesterday, we were blessed with some good weather in the morning but then the weather got progressively gloomier during the afternoon. Nonetheless, I managed to get some bedding washed and dried on the outside line I have just rigged up without it all being rained on.

I know the modern term is ‘rail enthusiast’ but I was introduced to trainspotting as it then was by the older brother of a lad of my own age who lived just around the corner from us in Harrogate. It was ‘de rigeur’ to have one’s precious Ian Allan little book of train numbers. Trainspotting began in 1942 when Mr Allan was a 19-year-old trainee in the public-relations office of the Southern Railway at Waterloo. Tired of replying to letters from railway enthusiasts demanding details of locomotives, he suggested that the office produce a simple booklet listing their vital statistics. His boss was not interested, so Mr Allan decided to do it himself. The heydey of train spotting was in the 1950’s when crowds of schoolboys could be seen crowded at the end of railway platforms. Later they were to be joined by older, retired men who had taken up the hobby. The crowds of trainspotters were tolerated by the railway and station authorities and apart from the occasional little trespass, mainly the fraternity kept out of trouble. Being brought up in Yorkshire, the principal railways serving the region was LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) and our local venue of choice was York railway station. Occasionally, we might be content with the Leeds LNER station (there was an adjacent LMS station in the 1950’s but then they got redeveloped into one larger station) but the real ‘Mecca’ was to pay a visit to Doncaster. Here there were works for the maintenance of the steam locomotives and the opportunity to glimpse some of the rare Scottish engines that came down for repair and/or overhaul. During what was termed ‘the dead hour’ (between about 1.00pm and 2.00pm when hardly any trains seemed to arrive) you could actually walk to some of the maintenance sheds where one’s eyes were well and truly opened to see locos in various stages of repair. Provided you kept to the extreme perimeter of the workshop and made sure that you did not impede any of the work being carried on in the workshops, our presence was tolerated and although we might get the occasional friendly warning, it was amazing to be able to get access to such buildings. Of course in our current Health and Safety culture none of this would be remotely allowed nowadays but in my trainspotting days (from about 1959-1961) I am quite surprised with what we got away with. In our Ian Allan record books, we would underline the number of the locos that we had actually seen and very occasionally, we were allowed to ‘cab’ a loco i.e. be allowed to climb into the cabin to witness the internal controls. Any engine thus ‘cabbed’ would be noted in our books as well as also noting those locos by which we had actually been pulled. To be allowed onto a platform one only had to purchase a ‘platform ticket’ which cost a derisory 2d (less than a penny of current coinage) and of course this lasted all day. In the 1950’s, many of the principally schoolboys who were the trainspotters could be distinguished by their school caps but this gradually gave way to an anorak and a woolly hat as standing at the end of a platform for hours on a end could be a cold business. There was invariably a ripple of excitement and excited chants of ‘Streak!’ when one heard the distinctive very low whistle of the streamlined Class A4 locomotives which never failed to attract admiration and attention. In those days, we were not particularly into photography but in general one had a good day out in which one had ‘bagged’ a goodly number of locos that were new to one. I suppose that later on, I must have thrown away my trainspotting books but it would have been nice to have rationed just one of my own as a form of memorabilia. As a hobby, apart from one’s train fare of getting to the destination, it was generally a cheap day’s leisure pursuit and I suspect that you always retain some of the enthusiasm for locos even as the years roll by. I think that in the late 50’s, trainspotting was a phase through every lad went but as one got older, things like GCSE examinations rather took over and then one developed new interests in later adolescence.

Two recent aspects of the UK political scene are causing me some disappointment. The first of these is that the Labour Party seems to be exhibiting some of the cronyism to which we have grown accustomed in the last few years of Tory government. Some of this night just be the right wing press seeking every opportunity to criticise the incoming Labour government. Nonetheless, one reads with some dismay that wealthy donors had been given a pass to the heart of government in Downing Street and there are quite a lot of reports of ‘advisers’ being brought in and fulfilling roles that should be undertaken by impartial and properly funded civil servants. Another source of concern are our relationships with the EU in general and Germany in particular. Keir Starmer has held meetings with his German opposite number and there seems to be a rebuilding of relationships after the Brexit experience. But relatively innocuous policies such as allowing German students to visit the UK for study and perhaps some vacation work seems to have been ruled out of court. Sir Keir is in Germany to discuss a new bilateral treaty covering a range of issues including market access, clean energy, trade, and tackling illegal migration. But the UK government is stating that ‘But it does mean a closer relationship on a number of fronts, including the economy, including defence, including exchanges, but we do not have plans for a youth mobility scheme.’ One would have thought that this is an ideal opportunity for the UK to exhibit ‘soft power’ but a little Englander approach where we deny German students jut a short exposure to live and work for limited periods in the UK seems to be so short-sighted

Today we look forward, as always, to the visit of our domestic help who is always a source of good housekeeping advice as well as a good friend. With her, I can discuss the cleaning and drying of the faux fur throw which I successfully completed over the last few days and am shortly to bring into use. This morning, I managed to get the front lawns cut whilst we had a burst of sunshine. Our domestic help (with some some assistance from her husband as well) had baked us a cottage pie. We ate it with some fresh runner beans, kindly donated by our neighbour yesterday and topped off with a little garlic and herb sauce to make the beans even more delicious. Yesterday on our walk back from town, it was delightful to bump into our Italian friend with whom we always exchange pleasant words. I also received a telephone call from our friends in South Oxfordshire that we used to visit regularly but which is now beyond us. He explained to us what a wonderful few days he had just experienced in Southern Spain zigzagging across from Malaga to Ronda to Cadiz. I would not be very surprised if eventually our friends might sell up and relocate to Spain as they evidently enjoy the culture so much. In fact, I well remember that when our friends joined us for some 50th wedding anniversary celebrations in Spain and I has asked the waitresses to supply us with Cava whenever we ran out, my friend exclaimed that he thought the whole trip was organised in such a way so that I could embrace as many young Spanish women (waitresses) as I could. But there again Spain has a much more tactile culture than in the UK even though things are changing here somewhat.

A story has come to light recently about which I have some fairly strong views but the exact reasons why will become apparent at the end of my piece. The story relates to the 15 year old son (not far short of his 16th birthday, actually) who interrailed across Europe with a sixteen year old friend. An anonymous caller had phoned social services who had opened a file on the case suspecting a case of neglect. Then Alsopp demanded that the file be deleted, the social services department replied that it had to be kept open in case a further case of ‘neglect’ was reported. To make matters worse, the law requires that the file be kept until the young person is 25 years of age. Allsopp is furious beyond belief because no law had been broken and she argued that in other cultures e.g. in Japan, youngsters are encouraged to make journeys of their own. Now we come to my own story. At the age of 11, I started to attend a boarding school in Bolton in Lancashire whilst my mother went off to train to be a teacher. I hasten to add that this was not a boarding school in the traditional sense but a boarding unit of some 40 pupils attached to a 600 intake grammar school. At the time we lived in a suburb of Harrogate in Yorkshire. The journey to school consisted of me walking to the local suburban station and catching a diesel train into Harrogate. Here I caught a train to a station in Leeds called ‘Holbeck High Level’ station from which I caught an LMS train that took me to Rochdale. On Rochdale station I caught another train (leaving from more or less the same platform) that took me onto Bolton. When I Bolton, I then caught a bus for a journey of some 2-3 miles after which I alighted and then walked the best part of a mile to the school. I was shown this journey by an existing pupil on one occasion but from then on from the ages of 11-14, I undertake the journey there (and evidently back at half term and end of term breaks) completely on my own. Judged by the standards applied in the Allsopp case, this would nowadays be a cause of evident neglect or child abuse but certainly not in 1956. Of course, the environment was so much safer in those days as the trains always turned up on time and I do not remember a single delay in the journeys I made across a three year period. But having said all of that, I do not think that if I had an 11-year child today, I would allow them to undertake a journey like that and nor would it be necessary. How the other boys arrived at their school destination completely escapes me but I do not remember cars turning up to collect their offspring. Even at school, I think that once I had entered the second year I was allowed to go down into town to do some shopping completely on my own and unsupervised. Now I do appreciate that it is impossible to be completely definitive about these issues and the environment of today is full of dangers and risks that were not present in 1956. But at the age of 10, I raided the local municipal tip for some empty oil drums which we then strapped onto a kind of platform before carrying it across the moors surrounding Beckwithshaw in Yorkshire where we then lived and then sitting on this raft whilst we paddled up the river. This I describe as a ‘Swallows and Amazons’ style of experience and I am not sure that my mother, who was at work at the time, ever knew of the experiences in which we engaged. I now return to the Alsopp case. I will follow the media to see what the reaction of other parents is to this story. From what I have been able to gauge so far, opinion seems to be fairly evenly divided between those who wish to encourage independence and initiative and those who feel that the Alsopp case represents a step too far. The point is made, with which I concur, that one has to distinguish between a 15 year old boy and a 15 year old girl. A further point is that youngsters may now be reliant upon their mobile phones as the answer to everything if they ran into difficulties but there are certain life skills (e.g. managing to interpret a bus timetable) which may prove troublesome for adolescents and probably many older people as well.

A high rise building in Dagenham, East London, went up in flames overnight but it appears that no one had dies or been seriously injured. More than seven years after the fatal Grenfell Tower fire in west London, it cannot be clearly explained why a building less than 20 miles away was still covered in unsafe materials. In the Grenfell case, various parties to the construction are still arguing like rats in a sack about who should bear the ultimate responsibility. If and when the official enquiry into this disaster reports, I wonder if we shall ever know how many critical documents held in the filing systems of the construction firms or even the planning departments of local authorities mysteriously have gone missing i.e. probably been shredded so that an evidence trail of blame cannot be established.

Now the Bank Holiday is over, Meg and I are looking forward to meeting up with our Waitrose friends in the cafeteria. What is interesting is this venue is not particularly easy for us to visit (one of us in a motorised scooter, another a 90 year old who has to judge what distance she can safely walk and, of course, Meg has to be pushed down (and up) the hill in her wheelchair.) But perhaps it is because the visit takes some commitment that we all make a great effort to see each other. If we have a fine autumn, then our various journeys can continue but if the weather suddenly turns very bad then this is, as the Spanish say ‘otra causa’ i.e. another thing altogether and we may have to rethink our plans. The staff who we have known for years always make us welcome and it is not uncommon for bunches of (soon to be out-of-date) flowers to be tossed in our direction.

After the hobby of model making with the Keil Kraft range of balsa wood aircraft, I developed a new interest when I was aged about 15 but I honestly cannot remember how I got this into the first place which was the breeding of hamsters. Together with a school friend, we developed our interest in common and were fortunate in that there was a friendly and eminent breeder of hamsters that we used to visit regularly in Harrogate. Hamsters are interesting little creatures but have some strange breeding habits. The females come into oestrus every fourth night on which occasions the female will mate but on the other three nights she and whatever male is in the vicinity will fight to the death. The gestation period is also incredibly short at about 16 days. After a litter has been produced, each hamster will require its own cage and at one stage, I was producing cage after cage – I think the grand total that I achieved was about 14. In the railway sidings of the suburb of Harrogate in which I lived, there seemed to be quite a supply of abandoned (or easily liberated) soda water syphon cases which were inevitably just about the right size. The only difficulty is that hamsters being rodents would easily chew their way through a normal wooden cage so each cafe needed protecting with a kind of tin strip. This was produced by taking the top and the bottom of a tin can, cutting it open with a pair of garden shears and then after some unrolling and re shaping cutting the result ‘tin’ into strips which were then tacked onto the relevant area of the cage. Although the keeping of hamsters does not sound an incredibly exciting activity in itself, my friend and I used to visit many of the small towns in the vicinity where we could take our hamsters along to be entered into a show. The show facilities were nearly always draughty Methodist halls with long rows of trestle tables inside. As a condition of entry into the show, the hamsters had to be housed within a standard show cage that were so designed that a judge could put two or three of such cages together in order to make comparisons of the animals within. The show cages themselves were housed in a special travelling box which would hold exactly two cages facing each other and this gave rise to an incident on a local train which sticks in our memory. The train conductor who inspected our tickets asked what was inside the boxes was told that they contained hamsters said they would have a special train ticket bought for them. My friend and I thought this was a tremendous joke and laughed and laughed until the ticket inspector wandered away. On his next journey down the train, the ticket inspector again requested payment and, once again, assuming that this was the most ridiculous joke we laughed and laughed until the inspector gave up. It was only afterwards that we came to appreciate that this was not intended to be a joke at all and he was absolutely in his rights to demand payment for their carriage but evidently felt he was no position to enforce the payment request. I was not very successful at hamster breeding and the most I ever achieved might have been a ‘third class’ or perhaps a ‘Highly Commended’ but that was the total amount of my success. My friend, though, visited the breeder on his own and secured an animal for about £2 which then went to secure a ‘Best in Show’ I felt at the time that this was not quite in the spirit of the show events but at least my friend and I got to explore some of the little towns in the vicinity of Harrogate and Leeds. The hamster breeding phase of my life only lasted a year or so and then I think GCSE ‘O’ levels intervened. We did have a sort of brick built shed at the rear of our house which housed the hamster cages in their heydey and I did branch out and acquire either one or two pigeons which I keep on the roof of the aforementioned shed. The father of a neighbouring boy had some racing pigeons but I do not think the pair I acquired showed that kind of class and I soon tired of them. I also acquired a rabbit that had the most beautiful purply-browny fur but the most vicious temper it is possible to imagine. When my sister’s then boyfriend exclaimed that I had got a rare ‘Australian Blue’ or something similar, I generously made a gift of the rabbit to him and I was heartily glad to be shot of it as cuddly it most certainly was not. My mother and sister tolerated my animal husbandry with a sort of bemused indifference but I do remember that my mother was not best pleased that I insisted that my hamsters be fed an extremely expensive wheat germ mixture called ‘BeMax’ which I insisted was necessary to increase the fertility of my hamster collection. Wheat germ and an associated chemical called Spermidine do have manifest health benefits. Spermidine stimulates autophagy, enabling the body to clean out and recycle any unnecessary or damaged cells. This process has been linked to multiple potential health benefits, including fighting against cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease and is suggested to display anti-aging effects.

Yesterday, Meg entered our Sunday morning rituals which starts off with the carers making an earlier than normal than visit on Sundays, after which we breakfast and watch the Politics programs on Sunday mornings. The Labour Party is bound to come under scrutiny for the policy of withdrawing the winter fuel allowance just when prices are destined to rise. Our friend who calls around from the parish is away on holiday this week so we go down into town to pick up our copy of the Sunday newspaper and then come back via a visit to the park where we normally bump into acquaintances. We were especially pleased to see our University of Birmingham friend and, later on we bumped into our Italian friend whilst I was pushing Meg back up the hill. Whilst I am prepared the Sunday lunch, Meg followed the ‘Pilgrims’ series which we to reserve for just time slot on a Sunday morning. As today is a Bank Holiday, we have changed our plans and are visiting Waitrose which we have checked is probably going to have ‘Sunday hours’ trading on the Bank Holiday. The care workers came an hour earlier today so we had a bit of a rush around to get ready for them.

Recently, I wrote about the experiences of pre-teenage lads building ourselves go-carts. I checked out with our University of Winchester friend and he did the same at a similar age but he and his friend appeared to be even more ambitious by utilising tricycle wheels, but not always successfully. Out family did not start to rent a TV until I was about 15 but before our TV days I did have a hobby in common with many lads of a similar age. There was a firm called ‘Keil Kraft’ and they produce model kits from which you could construct an aircraft. The kits were incredibly simple and consisted of designs printed onto thin sheets of balsa wood. With a craft knife, you cut out the essential 2-D shapes and then set about modelling into a 3-D shape, for example an aircraft. My first craft was a Hurricane which did not figure so much in the public collective memory and affection as the Spitfire. The Hurricane was slightly slower than the Spitfire, but it was robust, stable, and had impressive firepower. It played a critical role in defending Britain against German bombers. The Spitfire was more advanced, faster, and more manoeuvrable. However, it was also more complex and less easy to repair than the Hurricane. The construction process started off with two or three bulkheads with little notches cut along the top and the sides. Into these notches, one then glued the ‘stays’ of the fuselage which were in effect only thin strips of balsa wood. I remember that there was an awful lot of gluing involved as well as a fair degree of patience because each stay had to be held in position for about 15 minutes until the glue had set. After the fuselage came the wings and the tail assembly and then the whole was glued together. At this stage, you were left with essentially what looked like a wire model (although it was actually in balsa wood) and thus then had to be covered in a type of tissue paper and something called ‘dope’ which shrunk the tissue paper and made it cling to the frame like a skin. Finally, one followed the instructions by painting it up in the relevant colours and if you were bold you could even flit a propeller, powered by a wound up large piece of elastic band. These models took weeks to construct but it was the pre-TV era so whiled away the hours. I think the model construction process taught one a degree of patience and, of course, you had something tangible afterwards to show off to one family and friends. After the Hurricane, I bought myself a glider which was on a much bigger scale. Just out of interest, I did manage to locate on the web some cine film that had been shot within the Keil Kraft factory dating back to the 1950’s. The video showed an operative with several layers of balsa wood being shaped by a revolving band saw and in which the operative’s fingers only seemed to be a matter of millimetres away from the bandsaw. There was an amusing strap line that had been added to the cine film either originally of when it was made into a file to be displayed on the internet but the strap line read ‘No fingers were lost in the making of this film’ When my son was of the appropriate age, I seem to remember that the original Keil Kraft concept had evolved somewhat and now the current model making kits consisted of parts made of plastic that one had to detach from their containing frame and then clip together to make a battleship or what have you. But I think Keil Kraft (‘the greatest name in model kits’) is no longer still in existence but a company known as ‘The Vintage Model Company’ still produce replicas of the original balsa wood models. I wonder, though, whether the materials deployed today are considerably more advanced than the simple balsa wood of the late 1950’s.

The government has withdrawn the winter fuel payments for pensioners but retained a much more restrictive version for those who are in receipt of Pension Credits which is a very much smaller number. This has come when the Gas regulator is going to allow prices to increase by 10% this winter and so the interest on the Labour back benches is palpable. I can see that some sort of back down or way of refining the policy might be on the cards but it looks as though a massive backbench revolt may be imminent. The government could decide to tough it all to show who is boss but the danger is that once backbenchers have the taste of rebellion in their faces then they might be tempted to keep on rebelling over a whole host of related issues.

The Guardian is reporting that even some of Donald Trump’s supporters are now asking the question that was the undoing of Joe Biden: is the former president fit for office? But while Biden’s run for re-election was largely sunk by a single disastrous televised debate before a national audience, Trump is ramping up doubts with each chaotic, disjointed speech as he campaigns around the country. While rambling discourse and outrageously disprovable claims, interspersed with spite and vitriol, may seem nothing new to many of Trump’s supporters and critics alike, the former president appears to have been driven to new depths by suddenly finding himself running against Kamala Harris a month ago.

Yesterday, Meg and I went down the hill after breakfast and enjoyed the company of our Saturday friends. Upon our return, we cooked the second half of a chicken, leek and ham pie that we had left in the freezer. Then we started watched the classic film of ‘Casablanca’ which we watched until the carers came for Meg’s late afternoon comfort call. When it looked as though the weather was set fair, I washed our new purchased throw on the coolest of washes and rigged up a clothes line – fortunately, I had some spare clothes lines in places waiting until I had need of them. Then I put the throw out on the line to have a blow for about 3-4 hours after which it was nearly dry so I spread it out in our airing room so that is can get truly dried off before I bring it into use.

The Summer Bank Holiday beckons next Monday and I do not look forward to these with any degree of enthusiasm. As it is the last Bank Holiday of the year, many families take it as an opportunity to get their last little taste of a summer vacation as the school children will return to schools in early September and the long hard grind over the Autumn period commences. These days, half term breaks become quite important but these are generally towards the end of October which seems a fair way off. The next few days have to be ‘tunnelled through’ in many ways. Many friends are taking the last opportunity to have a break with their own wider families and there is a general sense of turmoil even amongst the cadre of care workers who we have grown to know over the last few months. Turnover in the care industry is high but at this time of year there seem to be an unprecedentedly large number who are leaving the agency. This is either because they are starting more permanent and secure positions within schools in a variety of roles or because the agency does not give them sufficient hours on their zero hours contracts and they seek a greater continuity of hours of work. Many of the college pupils/university student sections of the agency staff will be returning to their colleges shortly so it is a time of great change. The Paralympic games are due to start next week but as the opening ceremony is not until Wednesday, the actual events will not commence until the following day. We have always found these games to be entertaining and the UK has traditionally done very well in these sports. The proximity of Paris no doubt bodes quite well as many families and friends will find it easier to make the trips to support their athletes. It looks as though Paris is going to make a distinctive set of games by having events in the locations that show off Paris to its very best and therefore, like the main Olympic Games themselves, the opening ceremony is not going to be in a stadium. The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, which will take place between 28 August and 8 September, will see more than 4,000 athletes from around the world competing in 549 medal events and will showcase 22 sports, including both individual and team events.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech of the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination Thursday beat MAGA to the political punch and captured a key voting bloc in the process, according to a former Republican spokesperson. Tara Setmayer, Seneca Project co-founder and former GOP communications director, argued during a CNN Friday morning that Harris positioned herself as a potential commander-in-chief before former President Donald Trump could define her as a threat. ‘If you don’t think it was effective, all you have to do is look at how Donald Trump and his surrogates were responding to her speech: there was a meltdown.’ Republican commentators have already conceded that the Harris stance on abortion rights is going to be a critical factor in the Democrat’s favour in the forthcoming election. Paul Begala, co-panelist and onetime campaign adviser to former President Bill Clinton, concurred that Harris had the upper hand when it came to unifying a political party ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5. Begala pointed to Harris’ promise to be a president for all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, as a crucial moment in her speech when it came to unifying her base. I have also just come an extraordinary story concerning Trump’s finances. Trump himself has been the biggest spender, both this year and over the last decade. Between his three presidential campaigns, Trump and associated political groups have funnelled more than $28 million in campaign donations to his businesses – helping convert the enthusiasm of his political supporters into personal profit. Other Republicans have followed suit, spending millions at Trump’s properties in an apparent attempt to curry favour with the former president and signal their allegiance to him to GOP voters. An even more extraordinary Trump ‘happening’ was reported by the liberal MSNBC network. Former President Donald J. Trump was watching television on Thursday night and he did not like what he saw. His newly minted Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, had just accused him of grovelling to dictators, imperilling democracy, betraying American values and, to top it off, deemed him ‘an unserious man.’ So Trump picked up the telephone and called Fox News. It can be appreciated why the network worked quickly to get the Republican candidate on the air, albeit by telephone. Trump is, after all, the Republican nominee, and it stood to reason that he’d have something notable to say in response to his Democratic rival’s remarks. What Fox might not have realised, however, is that Harris’ convention speech had apparently caused a meltdown. Trump appeared on the air for about 10 minutes, during which time he not only raged incoherently, he also accidentally pushed random buttons on his phone. The interview might have gone on longer, but the Fox anchors effectively cut off the former president mid-rant so that the network could move on to other programming. For Fox News, one of most right wing and Trump-friendly channels to cut him off in this way is extraordinary. So the term that the Republicans are using to describe Trump’s behaviour i.e. ‘meltdown’ might not be hyperbole after all.

Yesterday morning, we awoke to a day when winds and storms had swept through the country and we hoped that the storms had well passed over the Midlands before we were due to go down into the town. We did pay a by now traditional visit to ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe and enjoyed a bacon butty but our friend who joined us last week, we passed on a level crossing whilst she was dashing off in the opposite direction, but we shall see her tomorrow in any case. As the cafe is quite near the AgeUk furniture and charity store, we could not resist a quick whizz around and liberated a couple of really fine looking little cushions in a kind of silvery bluey-grey colour and decorated with a good frill. I am not sure whether this colour is described as best described as ‘Eau de Nile’ and I have a seen a description of it as a lightish caste of green, blue and grey. Anyway, I like the subtlety of the colour and I use them in pairs when I can. As I am buying them, the assistant who works in the store exclaimed what beautiful cushions they were and what good value they were when sold in their store (with both of which judgements I agree) I also espied a throw in just the kind of shade I was looking for so this too became a purchase making it a productive morning for us. I popped by another recently opened charity shop and they had a collection of soft toys from which I selected a couple of small cuddly bears to add to Meg’s collection. The naming of bears always calls for a bit of imagination but the larger one we are going to call ‘Franky’ as there is an attached label saying the bear is a ‘Franklin T Bear’ made for American Airlines and presumably given away to their youngest passengers. The second bear we are going to call ‘Pru’ as there is a fair possibility that the bear is a cousin of Paddington Bear who, as we all know by now, hails from ‘darkest Peru’ and ‘Peru’ is quickly corrupted to ‘Pru’. We then returned home in time for the carers to give Meg a check over and then got on with cooking the Friday lunch of a bought haddock pie.

Quite by accident, I came across on my iPhone a clip of Michelle Obama’s conference speech to the Democrats convention in Chicago. If you were of a cynical frame of mind, you could say that the speech was all ‘motherhood and apple pie’ but I was very impressed by its content, delivery and emotional appeal. In truth, the speech was as much about herself as it was about Kerala Harris but a principal theme was the impact of both their (black) mothers in giving them an enduring set of values. This was an interesting way to underline the collectivism inherent in the Democratic message rather than the rampant individualism which pervades the speeches of Donald Trump. Michelle Obama does not regard herself as a politician but there is an irony in the fact that she easily made the best and most compelling speech in a political convention, even outshining the oratorical gifts of her husband. The speech is quite easily findable on the web so I will treat myself to a more extended listening of it – it contained some interesting lines that would well have merited an airing on UK terrestrial TV but instead the media has been obsessed for hours and hours with the seven rich folk who have lost their lives after the overwhelming of their luxury yacht near Sicily.

I suspect that I am not alone in keeping a watchful eye on my weight these days and if I have put on a couple of pounds, then I attempt to take some remedial action in the next few days to remedy the situation. Although it is a somewhat discredited measure these days, it is still common in any medical monitoring to measure one’s BMI or Body Mass Index. This is calculated by dividing one’s weight in kilograms by your height measured in metres squared. The resultant figure should fall within the range of 20-25 but the crudeness of this measure is often the subject of comment. If we were to take a Turkish weight lifter who has a very small stature but is a mass of quite heavy muscle then an extremely healthy Olympic athlete, for example, could have BMI in excess of 30. Conversely, when I used to get some of the students that I used to teach to calculate their BMIs as a computing/statistical exercise, then some of the very slight Asian female students who were absolutely healthy could have a BMI of 18. Now why I am mentioning this is because the other day when I went for a routine medical monitoring, the nursing assistant measured my height as well as my weight and since the last time I attempted to measure my height about a year, I seem to have lost about 2″.Incidentally, measuring your own height can be quite difficult as you are a different height standing up compared with lying down. When you are standing up, each of the 33 vertebrae in your spine will compress a minute amount but there could be a difference of 0.5″ or so. Now in the biological and social sciences, data often takes the shape of an ‘S’ shaped curve i.e. a straight line in the middle but which ‘flattens’ a little at the bottom end and the top end. Students of statistics will know that you should not make projections for any distance which is much below or above the trend line you may have plotted. But I am going to break this principle just to show the absurd conclusions to which it is possible to arrive. I have calculated that if I continue to lose height at the rate of 2 inches per year, then when I am aged 90+, I will basically be 1 metre in height which is approximately the size of a hobbitt. According to Tolkien’s descriptions, the average height of a Hobbit ranges from 2 to 4 feet tall (60-120 cm), with most hobbits standing around 3 to 3.5 feet tall (90-107 cm). So at just over 1 metre (100 cm) in height, I will certainly be in the ‘hobbit’ height range and I am not sure that this a future to which I am particularly looking forward. Consulting the web, I see that men, on average, lose 1.2 inches between ages 30 and 70, and a total of two inches by 80. So by subtraction, most men lose 0.8″ during their 70’s and it is a biological fact that height loss accelerates as you age.

Today, we anticipate paying a visit to our new found little cafe, ‘The Lemon Tree‘ despite the fact that local roadworks are making a visit to it a little awkward. Although it does involve a somewhat longer venture out than is our usual trip, it does have the advantage of a trip down our local High Street where we can pop into the occasional charity shop and/or buy things such as cosmetics which are not available in our local supermarket. The centre of the town is being remodelled yet again and goodness knows what is going to emerge at the end of the day. I suspect that some of the money coming to pay for improvements is part of the ‘levelling up’ process which was a policy of the outgoing Conservative administration. I think that quite a lot of money was channeled towards traditionally Conservative areas to help to keep them loyal. But one of the local roads through the town has been made one-way whilst various schemes are under way and there is quite a degree of scepticism that anything really tangible is to result. According to the local newspaper, workers will begin upgrading the paving, planting trees, installing cycle racks and benches and improving the drainage. This hardly sounds like dramatic improvements to the town centre which seems to be dominated by charity shops, coffee outlets and vape shops without very many of the traditional businesses one would want to see in a town centre. I am pretty sure that Bromsgrove town centre is not unique in the paucity of shops that it currently boasts and the prevalence of large outdoor retail parks as well as the prevalence of online shopping does nothing in particular to help the town centre. Some of the long established residents of Bromsgrove fondly remember the days when there used to be quality retail outlets in the town but it does not surprise me that many of the existing shops find it difficult to keep going. The one thing that does help to bring a bit of excitement to the shopping experience are the street markets that are held each Tuesday and Saturday – for example, I have traditionally used one stall which used to do quite a brisk trade in watches, watch batteries, and handbags and other stalls sell some interesting food products. But even here the stalls are not what they used to be. I used to use one stall that sold a whole range and variety of hardware and gardening implements and from another, there was always a good range of plants sold but these stall holders have moved off to other pitches such as Kidderminster down the road where I suspect that the weekly rents for the stalls are lower and the footfall more substantial. It must be a sign of the times but there always seems quite a brisk trade in the charity shops and I must confess that I frequent them myself where in the past I have bought cushions and the occasional kitchen bric-a-brac. But this does seem to be a fragile base for the local economy and I sometimes do wonder how much income goes across the tills on a typical weekday for many of the shops. Having said that, I am conscious of what are called ‘biased statistics’ because on Saturdays there always seems to be a flood of local people walking the High Street but as I tend to avoid the town centre on these busy days, I am probably not getting an accurate impression of the level of economic activity in the town. But shops cannot survive on their Saturday trade alone and it is hard to know what the local authority can do to stimulate more actual trade within the town.

There is the usual media interest in US presidential politics as the Democrats are meeting for their convention in Chicago (always a Democrat stronghold). Apparently one ‘Obama’ made an absolutely stunning and empowering speech at the Convention but it was not the speech from the lips of Barack Obama, the former president but his wife, Michelle. The convention was set alive and inspired by the speech that encouraged the Democrats to rekindle their hopes for a better future. There is almost no doubt that if Michelle Obama had ever been in a competition with Trump she would beaten him very easily. But even though her endorsement of Kamala Harris came somewhat late in the day, no doubt there was a lot of crude political realpolitik in recognising that a split Democratic party was no way to take on the challenge of Trump and Trumpism. One wonders what future political role might lie in store for Michelle Obama given her undoubted intellectual and political gifts. There are such jobs such as Ambassador to the United Nations or even to London as a suitable post but I am sure she is absolutely focused on getting Kamala Harris elected. Weever she visited London, Michelle Obama would make for schools generally in the East end of London with a high black population and inspired the school pupils with the message that she started off life coming from a poor black area of Chicago and there was nothing to stop them from aiming equally high. Tonight, we shall see the much anticipated keynote of Kamala Harris herself and no doubt this will be much scrutinised as I think it is fair to say that the Democrats campaign has been ‘policy light’ so far. The latest opinion polls out her about 3% ahead of Trump but a key portion of the electorate, the white working class male with minimal college education, naturally gravitate towards Trump and will take a fair bit of convincing before they will vote for a mixed heritage, female candidate.

In this country, all eyes at the moment are fixed upon Rachel Reeves, the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer who will be presenting a budget in October. Many have argued that the UK’s finances are not in a good state but the most recent data is giving rather mixed messages as economic growth seems a smidgeon higher than was predicted but the anticipated tax revenues somewhat less. Reeves may well do what George Osborne did and introduce a regime of tax rises, blaming it all on her predecessor. On the other hand, she may be playing a more skilful political game by making the population fear that tremendous economic pain is on the way but, having softened up the public, produce a budget which is not quite so painful after all.

Yesterday was the day when our domestic help calls around. As Meg had not been out for a trip to Waitrose the day before and will probably not do so on our shopping day on Thursday, we took the opportunity to visit Waitrose for our elevenses even though we did not anticipate meeting any of our friends. But we did take the opportunity to get some much needed provisions of which we had run out before we do the main shopping later on in the week. In the mid afternoon, we received a visit of a nurse from our local community hospital who act as an organising hub for our GP practice. The nurse’s visit appears to have been activated by the Admiral (specialist) nurse and she had called around to ensure that Meg had all of the necessary requisites to keep her comfortable. Naturally I had to update her regarding the possibility of a hospital ‘floor’ bed which might be arriving in a few days and she was going to make some recommendations of supplies (creams and the like) to keep Meg comfortable and, hopefully, to keep her asleep at night.

When I consulted my iPhone this morning, the BBC were giving prominence to an article written by an expert they had commissioned and the article was entitled ‘Riots show how the UK’s far right has changed’ The article is long, complex and detailed but the gist of it is as follows: ‘Right wing extremism can be thought of as a spectrum, rather than a coherent whole. It includes genocidal neo-Nazis treated as terrorists by the state… but the term is also used to describe people who stand in democratic elections, engage in public campaigns and put forward policy platforms’ The author of the article suggests that the term ‘extreme right’ should be used for the first group and ‘far right’ for the latter. To complicate this mosaic even further, some of the rioters were simply drunk whilst others were rampant opportunists who engaged in the fact that under the guise of the riot some shops could be looted. The article concludes with the observation that ‘far right narratives are now more mainstream than many would like to think. Is there now a far right culture that is more prevalent in society and which transcends the need to organise in political groups?’ The response from the government and the rest of us in what might be termed mainstream culture is not necessarily a simple one. I happen to believe that almost instant arrest, trial and fairly stiff fines and prison sentences was probably the right response in the short term and helped to quell what could have turned out to be a summer of rioting. On the other hand, we need a more measured analysis of the problem (which the article provides) and therefore more considered solutions. Without attempting to be too simplistic, i think there are two observations that are in order at this point. The first is that a succession of right wing governments that have constantly tacked to the right of the political spectrum which has helped to foster a climate in which such far right movements have grown in strength and influence. As a case in point, I used to have fairly neutral attitudes towards Teresa May when she turned out to be one of our longest serving Home Secretaries before she herself became Prime Minister. Whilst at the Home Office, a report had been commissioned on the economic costs and benefits of long run immigration into the UK. May sent the report back to its authors indicating to them that any reference to economic benefits should be discounted, minimised or removed leaving only the material on costs. There is a very powerful argument that whatever the short term costs of immigration, because migrants tend to be young and healthy they tend to contribute more in the taxes that they pay than they receive back in benefits than the indigenous population largely because the costs of old age such as old age pensions and health benefits are not immediately needed. The argument can therefore be made that migrants therefore subsidise the rest of the population at least for a few decades to come but needless to say this argument is rarely heard and does not see the light of day. Another important observation is that with the prevalence of social media, there is no need for far right political groups to mobilise and indeed incite the population. Instead, we can rely on social media particularly ‘X’ (the successor to Twitter) whose owner Elon Musk to argue that the UK is heading for an inevitable civil war and who will not take resolute and immediate action to remove fake and erroneous reports to circulate. One could argue that right wing governments have helped to create the climate of opinion into which mix the impact of social media provides ‘the spark’ as it were. A very old political expression is that ‘a lie gets half way around the world before truth has had a chance to put its boots again’. So one could argue that governments themselves, although they cannot censor social media, can actively engage in a far more direct rebuttal of evidently fake reports. For example, they could constantly reiterate the message that ‘complex problems need even more complex (and well thought through) solutions’ rather than engaging in the simplistic messages such as ‘Stop the Boats’ which fitted the right wing agenda.

Interesting news that has emerged from the other side of ‘the pond’. Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary took the stage at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night and shared the brutal one-word message from Melania in the wake of the January 6 insurrection that caused her to quit and she is one of several Republican figures invited to the convention in Chicago to denounce the extremism of the former president and his campaign. On Tuesday night, as she endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president, Grisham shared the brief text exchange, which finally convinced her to leave the post. She had apparently received a word one text from Melania, ex-President’s wife, indicating that ‘while peaceful protest is the right of every American, there’s no place for lawlessness or violence’ and that she, Melania, could not endorse that action. On the face of it, this sounds quite a dramatic coup for the Democrats to persuade prominent ex-Republicans to repudiate the Trump’s actions but of course it will cut no ice with the dedicated, not to say fanatical supporters of the ex-President. I wonder how much of this will be reported on this side of the Atlantic?