The evening before once Meg was safely abed, I made sure that we had an assembled together a range of NHS provided aids which has been loaned to us over the past year or so in efforts to make life more tolerable for Meg. But a lot of this equipment is not only taking up space but also needs to be got into the hands of people who desperately need it. The principal piece of equipment is a ‘Sarah Stedy’ much used in hospitals to transport patients from their beds or bedside chairs to a toilet and back again. This is a marvellous piece of engineering, but Meg did not possess the upper body strength to hang onto the framework as she was required to do so the cate agency a year ago moved Meg onto a regime of hoist and wheelchair which Meg has used ever since. There is an appointment made for all or most of this equipment to be picked up during the day, but we have no idea when, so it is a bit of a waiting game. There are two wheelchairs in this collection and one is definitely NHS provided whereas the other I believe I successfully bid for on eBay. My first thought was to ‘gift’ this back the equipment store but I have an idea that they may refuse to accept it so I am left with the option of selling it, giving it away or even retaining it. As it folds up for ease of transportation and I still have a storage box for this in the garage, I am minded retaining it should I need to use it myself in the years ahead. Part of my decision making here despite my evident desire to declutter is that I might need it myself in the years ahead. If I were to retain it, then according to the way in which ‘Sod’s Law’ operates, I might not need it for years whereas if I were to dispose of it, I might have need of it tomorrow.

The first cracks in the Trump regime are starting to appear with Elon Musk probably about to depart government but not before he had called Trump’s principal tariffs a moron who is saying things that are demonstrably false and also calling him as dumb as a sack bricks. There is actually a deep philosophical rift at the heart of the tariff disaster with some believing those who believe tariffs are a good thing in themselves and that the USA has been disadvantaged and exploited in its international trade arrangements and others who believe that the erection of tariffs is the start of a negotiating process. This rift can be seen in Trump’s pronouncements that the announced tariffs are immutable as against the fact that according to the White House countries from all over the world are clamouring to negotiate a better deal with the USA, on the presumption there can be some negotiation. There are some commentators in the middle ground who are convinced that the whole Trump experiment will end in disaster (like Liz Truss) and the Republican party may well split over this issue. But there is plenty to happen in this scenario and one can argue by analogy that although cracks can be seen to have appeared in the dam walls, the dam is still holding for now. However, it is true to say that every country in the world (with the exception of Russia) is having to make economic adjustments to deal with the crisis. Here in the UK, for example, in a bid to assist the motor manufacturers, a slight relaxation in the transition period to full EV (electric vehicle) status from 2030 to 2035 has been announced.

Yesterday morning, the carers were getting towards the end of their session with Meg when the Worcestershire equipment agency turned up to collect the various items of which we no longer had any use. The person who turned up was somewhat dismayed to see the numbers of items of equipment much of which he had not been told about and, moreover, as the two care workers were occupying the space in the front of the house he had to trundle it all a fair distance away to get it into his vehicle. He would not accept the return of the wheelchair either but that might be provided by a somewhat different service. I have finished up with two almost identical so-called ‘transit’ wheelchairs, one of which I almost certainly paid for myself as I acquired it through an eBay bid but the other supplied to us. However, this morning I did get a letter confirming the fact that in two weeks’ time a specialist would turn up to re-assess Meg’s needs in view of the fact that she is danger of slipping out of her current chair if the journey is of any length. I have managed to find a home (under the stairs) for the two wheelchairs I am retaining, and I thought I would offer one or both in a sort of trade when the wheelchair specialist does pay a visit. In the morning, I had set myself a little task of taking one of the bookcase shelves that I use for stationery items and giving it a thorough sort-out. One thing that we had was a couple of boxes of face masks from the COVID days and we shall retain for further pandemics and I also rediscovered some joke spectacles that I sometimes have worn to persuade people that they prescribed by my optician for computer use. On the same shelf are series of A4 folders in which I have various documents and saved papers filed but my technique for dealing with this pile (as with paperwork in general) is to turn the whole pile upstairs down and then start throwing away from the bottom upwards. Generally, things at the bottom of the pile can be dispensed with in any case but I may have to leave a lot of this activity until later in the day. I am trying to fulfil my objective of decluttering by choosing a fairly simple task e.g. one shelf of a bookcase, and making sure that it is completed by the end of the day. Another district nurse called around, as scheduled, in the afternoon and she brought with her some specialised medical supplies for future use with Meg as her condition progresses.

Yesterday, to continue with my spring cleaning and decluttering zeal, I decided that the next priority along should be the desktop in my study. To describe this as a cluttered eyesore would not be an inaccurate description so after lunch, I set to work on this as I put any of the desktop items into one of those vegetable boxes with low sides beloved of supermarkets because the fruit that they contain (apples, pears and the like) can both be transported and displayed. I like to have one or two of these available to me if I have a clearing up job to do because I keep the original approximate location of an item so that can be restored to its proper place. Ad so armed with my vegetable box, I set to work in our Music Lounge where I could sit next to Meg whilst I worked and the whole job took me the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening after Meg had been put to bed. Part of the origin of the problem is that I have a table rather than an actual desk to house my computer and associated peripherals. If I had an actual desk, it would have had some drawers in which stationery items could be stored- instead I have a series of little functional containers to hold each stationery type. When I have a completely free desk top I treat it to a clean it with a dose of furniture polish and it might be a year or so until it gets its next one. Bu the overall result was pleasing to me. The large computer table is ‘de facto’ organised into quadrants. One is filled with the Apple Mac and its keyboard whilst behind it lies the scanner, backup storage drives and cables in variety. The third quadrant is now filled with well organised stationery whilst the fourth is my functional work area protected by a series of mats that may have started off life as one of those huge blotters you occasionally see. In an utterly nerdish way, I counted the number of different stationery items (think of everything from paper clips to Tippex to scissors) and it cane to 4 dozen. But, of course, now that it is in pristine condition, it is quite an easy to remove any one of the containers and reassess its contents. For example, one of them contains felt tip pens in a variety of colours and point sizes so one little job for this afternoon will be to go through the lot and ascertain which are functional and to be retained and which are dried up and need to be thrown away. Actually, below the desk I store some actual tools which I deploy on quite frequent occasions including some long nosed pliers (excellent for removing paper jammed into a printer for example), a fine long bladed screwdriver (for multiple purposes), some pliers (for flattening staples) and a supply of that stretchy elasticated fabric you sometimes see in hardware stores. Needless to say, I am filled with good intentions to keep my desk as neat and tidy as I can and perhaps only engage in one of these more radical cleanups about once a year. I did resurrect a rechargeable Apple mouse which tends to be a bit particular about the type of mouse mat on which it is used whereas the Logitech alternative mouse which I now use is so much more precise and reliable and cost about a quarter of the Apple version (incidentally, a quick perusal of the web shows that other Apple users had the same experience as myself)

In the morning, Meg seemed a little more alert and a little less sleepy than in past days so I was happy to get her well strapped into her wheelchair ready for the journey down to Wetherspoons. I always approach these journeys with a certain degree of trepidation because as the journey progresses, Meg having no body strength remaining does have the tendency to gradually slump in her wheelchair assuming a sort of ‘hypotenuse on the triangle’ orientation instead of an ‘h’ type of orientation and over the course of a two and a mile round trip (down and up the hill) there is always the slight danger that she might end up on the floor again as she did about a month ago. I have made several improvised adjustments to the wheelchair by inserting thin triangular type wedges designed to throw the seat backward somewhat. In addition, Meg’s ankles have the approved wheelchair velcro ankle straps and there is a lap belt as well. To these, I have added a luggage strap which goes around Meg’s torso and then to the back of the wheelchair, so this is a third anchorage point. I really need an extension or an adaptation so that Meg does not allow her head and neck to go backwards over the back of the chair but I improvise with a ‘V’ shaped cushion, put upside down which half does the intended job, at least at first. In two week’s time, we have an appointment when a wheelchair specialist is to call around to see what adaptations can be made. I suspect that at the end of the day, we need a more specialist chair because the wheelchair that we have is officially designated as a ‘transit’ chair and the assumption is that you are going to use for this short journeys, either within or outside the house and certainly not 2.5 mile round trips over what can be appallingly bumpy pavements. Whatever. the wheelchair experts recommend, it will probably be some time before we can see any improvements and in the meantime I feel that I have to take a calculated risk each Tuesday and Saturday and it is true to say that Meg is in a fairly slumped state by the end of the journey.

This afternoon we are both enjoying a concert of the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Sophie Anne Mutter, one the world’s finest violinists. The quality of the concerts – generally European artists and performances- available to us on YouTube makes for a very pleasant and restful afternoon while I am generally engaged in other tasks with the music playing in the background. It certainly makes a change from some of the depressing economic and political news but we have the local elections to which to look forward on 1st May when I expect to see the Labour Party get punished for their stance on the Winter Fuel Payment as well as their current ‘bash the poor’ agenda. As the Greens are rightfully saying in their local election campaigns launched today that the Labour party has proved to be a ‘crushing disappointment’, a view shared by many of us at present.

Last night, when I happened to be up for a brief period during the night, I idly turned on YouTube and stumbled across a fascinating podcast by Alastair Campbell (ex-Labour communications chief) and Rory Stewart (ex-Tory minister and one time governor of a province in Iraq). They make a fascinating pair, probably with a mutual admiration for each other, and their podcast was so good I might try and tune into them a bit more regularly to follow their observations. One of them had gleaned the following observation upon the Trump tariffs from a world trade expert to the effect that ‘The proposed changes to the tariffs to be imposed globally bear as much relation to economic realty as creationism does to biology or astrology does to astronomy’ One of the utter madnesses behind the Trump tariff walls is that the figures only relate to manufactured or physical goods and take no account of the service revenues that accrue to large companies such as Apple, MicroSoft and Google )which are, of course. considerable) There are also rumours, not denied, that the UK may exempt some of these companies from the 2% Digital Services tax as a ‘quid pro quo’ for a new tariff agreement with the USA which would be the terrible concession to make. But the fascinating part of their podcast were their insights int the new world order that may emerge. Their guess was that Canada would form a close association with Europe probably by in effect joining the Customs Union and the UK would follow on their coat-tails, with Australia, New Zealand and Japan and several other Asian economies joining in. After all, if you are clearing up after the ‘bull in the china shop’ (what an appropriate analogy, by the way) you do not need to put the various pieces that survive back into the place that they once occupied. The two podcasters made the interesting observation, shared by some other commentators, that the Trump tariff regime is not about economics at all. They make the point that Trump is first and foremost a showman as well as being extremely egotistical. Hence his announcement in the White House garden of the various tariffs that were about to imposed on practically on country on earth (but not Russia!) meant that most countries in the world, not to mention the major corporations, were hanging on Trump’s every word and he was loving every second of it. In his attempt to re-industrialise America, Trump might not be at all unhappy about wrecking other parts of the world economy as, in a paradoxical sense, it reinforces his self-belief as a president who is changing not only America but the whole of the world economic order.

Given the economic reconstructions that have to take place in the major western economies following this bout of severe American protectionism, then a nimble footed government could introduce all kinds of policy changes that might otherwise be hard to get through the political system. But there are indications that even erstwhile Trump backers are starting to appreciate the economic madness that is being wrought. Billionaire Trump backer warns business investment ‘will grind to a halt over economic nuclear war.’ Ackman, who endorsed Donald Trump’s run for president, said the president is losing the confidence of business leaders – and should pause his trade war. In a lengthy post on social media, the billionaire fund manager wrote: ‘The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out. That’s to give time to resolve any trade issues through negotiation. If, on the other hand… we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt. Consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate’

Yesterday morning did not exactly go as planned. It did not start well when the carers thought that Meg may be suffering from an infection and also reporting the unwelcome news that the deep tissue injury on Meg’s heel might be showing signs of breaking down. So my first reaction was to make an urgent call to the District Nurses to apply a dressing to Meg’s heel(s) and then I needed to utilise the webform which is the way in which requests the assistance of a doctor in today’s conditions. Just after breakfast, the postman delivered a parcel for Meg which was not expected but when I opened it up, it contained two large medical bootees which were designed to wrap around the heel/foot to help with the deep tissue injury. I was just on my way out to collect a newspaper when the District Nurse turned up and thought that Meg’s heel did not look in too bad a condition but fitted the bootees as I shall call them to Meg’s feet. Shortly afterwards, I did get a phone call from a doctor whose name I did not recognise who fitted the track record of being of useful as a chocolate teapot. Without suggesting that she would make a call to see Meg she indicated that she would prescribe some antibiotics and offered not very helpful advice how to get food and drink inside Meg. So, we shall probably have to wait at least a couple of days for the antibiotics to arrive through the post (I cannot leave Meg in order to get a prescription dispensed) so I am just hoping the infection does not worsen until the antibiotics have time to arrive. In the meanwhile, the carers came in the middle of the day but now had Meg’s bootees to take into account whilst they were making her comfortable.

It was reported mid-afternoon that Donald Trump is considering a 90-day pause in tariffs for all countries except China, according to the president’s top economic adviser. It is still too easy to make an assessment whether this is somewhat of a ‘U’ turn on Trump’s part, but it is certainly the case that some of our economic and financial elites are starting to worry about the potential damage to the world economy. Some leading bankers and large investors met over the weekend and one wonders whether the international banking community will withdraw support and succour to the American regime.

Now that I have one room in the house – our dining room – restored to a state of perfection such as it has not known for at least 10 years, I am resolved to continue on a de-cluttering campaign, aided by the fact that spring is here and the days are lengthening. Actually a Swedish book, and the concepts it explains, has hit our bookstores recently. ‘Döstädning,’ or ‘Swedish death cleaning’ is a Swedish term that which refers to the practice of sorting through and discarding possessions to make the process of clearing out a home easier for loved ones after death. The primary goal is to reduce the emotional and practical burden on family members who would otherwise have to sort through a lifetime of accumulated belongings. While it involves decluttering, ‘Swedish death cleaning’ goes beyond simply tidying up; it is about intentionally curating one’s belongings, keeping what truly matters, and letting go of items that no longer serve a purpose or bring joy. The benefits can be listed as follows.

Peace of Mind: By taking control of one’s possessions, individuals can gain a sense of peace and clarity, knowing that their affairs are in order.
Simplified Legacy: It helps ensure that loved ones are not overwhelmed by the task of sorting through a large collection of items.
Reduced Burden: By decluttering, the process of downsizing or moving to a smaller space can be made easier.

I think that I might buy and read the relevant book which is Margareta Magnusson:’The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter’ before I actually start because it might give me a whole series of tips and hints from which I could learn. I suspect that my son and his wife will give this book their enthusiastic endorsement and have already started at least some of this process themselves. Whilst on the subject of learning from others, I am a firm believer in the observation that one can learn something from someone every day if one is sufficiently open minded. But given our Anglo Saxon culture and the prevalence of social media, I have a feeling that we in the UK are not very good at learning from others or from cultural borrowing – for example, in terms of social policy we tend to take our lead from the USA which, in present times, is a terrible role model. We could learn a lot from the ways in which the Germans and the Scandinavian democracies organise themselves. For example, I believe that in Germany individuals from their middle age (when presumably their earnings are somewhat higher than when they were younger) pay an enhanced rate of social security contributions to help to reduce or to offset the increased costs of an ageing society for both themselves ( and their parents) This sounds such an eminently sensible idea but it is not even on the radar of any of our political parties. Sometimes, of course, the Liberal Party used to develop ideas and policies e.g. in the ‘green agenda’ which were then stolen by the other political parties just before election season.

Our University of Birmingham friend called around as he typically does and we spent some happy time discussing the problems that we had in common in our respective employs. After he left, the carers came round to perform their ministrations upon Meg and I pressed ahead with a lunch of a newly cooked ham, a baked potato and some mange touts. Meg ate most of her portion I am pleased to say and then I had a little doze. It was another superb afternoon so I made haste to get the back lawns cut whilst I could. Actually it only took some 15 minutes plus some extra time to clean up the mower which I do on every occasion. To prevent too big a buildup of grass/mud on the underside of the hood, I also give a spray of WD40 which would drive out any damp in any case. I took care in my mowing to avoid the slightly ‘dodgy’ side of the mower, repaired as it is with what I term ‘little girlie bands’ but more properly called hair bobbles. Just before I did the mowing, though, I did a quick think about what I might deploy to act as a table protector and actually found a little foot mat which might serve perfectly for the purpose. I have given it a thorough cleanup and the only problem is how and where to store it as if it developed a pronounced curl, it would not fit its intended purpose. This evening, the two caters might arrive for the bedtime call about 15 mins earlier than usual. I am quite looking a quiet evening where I can read the Sunday newspaper at my leisure and perhaps catch up on the Trevor Philips Politics programme generally broadcast at about 8.30pm on a Sunday morning bit which I now miss as the ‘morning call’ carers arrive at about this time.

Thousands of people gathered in various cities across the US as protests against Donald Trump and Elon Musk took place in all 50 states on Saturday. Sky News is reporting that around 1,200 demonstrations were planned in every US state, in locations including Washington DC, New York City and West Palm Beach, Florida- just miles away from where the president has this weekend played golf. The ‘Hands Off!’ protests were against the Trump administration’s handling of government downsizing, human rights and the economy, among other issues. In Washington DC, protesters streamed on the grass in front of the Washington Monument, where one person carried a banner which read: ‘Make democracy great again.’ And as I was preparing lunch, I was listening to Radio 4 and I think that I heard a female American commentator observing that the USA was as near as turning into a fascist state as it was possible to imagine. Now of course Trump and his cronies can ignore these protests for ever and a day but eventually this tide of public opinion might have an effect on enough members of the Congress (House of Representatives and the Senate) to swing some crucial votes. Both houses are fairly evenly divided at the moment unlike the UK House of Commons so it is not going to take vast numbers of the Congress to change their minds for Trump’s measures to be countermanded or made invalid (not to mention illegal)

Last night proved to be another late night but largely because I really wanted our dining rom to be absolutely perfect before I completed my reclamation of it. Because the dining table was a large area even though populated by some table linen, I tended to use it whenever I needed plenty of space to do a clerical type of job. The prime example of this would be Christmas card writing them when I had piles of different kinds of cards, address books, address lists, stickers of news to go inside, address labels stamps, Sellotape and so on. I also used this table when I was experimenting with putting a keyboard on an iPad and other activities when needed to have a number of files open around me. The solution, of course, is is be absolutely scrupulous about clearing away afterwards so that the dining room looks like a dining room and not an overflow work area. As the table looked a little bare, I put a place mat on each setting and complemented this with some coasters of which we seem to have accumulated a lot over the years. As I put the coasters into position, I realised that they were the same rural scenes (I think taken from Constable) as the place mats themselves which I had not ever noticed before, so it gave me some pleasure to match them up with each other. In order to ensure that everything I wished now to retain was properly stored away, I needed to severely rationalise our drinks cabinet to create some storage space. At the end of the day, I have some papers that I need to file or discard and random items of stationery but these I have seated on a spare food tray so that I can take them out of the room easily to go through when I am in my sitting room. Of course, when you have things absolutely perfect and in is rightful place, it creates a big incentive to keep it that way. The next more formal occasion when the room will be used for its proper purpose may well be next month if we decide to have a family meal to celebrate my 80th birthday and, of course, if we have some friends around for some afternoon tea.

In the USA, the Democrats have finally taken a leaf out of the Republican campaign book and come up with a good catchy slogan to rival ‘Make America Great Again’ The slogan is the three word mantra ‘Tariffs are Taxes’ and the message is being hammered home that Trump and his cronies are imposing a $3,800 tax on each American family. Although I deplore the modern tendency to reduce complex political policies to simplistic slogans, I am prepared to concede that on this occasion the Democrats might have found a worthy stick with which to beat Trump and the oligarchy with which he has surrounded himself. The increase in tariffs against the Chinese coming on top of other tariffs (imposed by past Democrat presidents!) has spurred the Chinese into retaliatory action, the consequences of which are likely to be severe.

I was not a particularly happy bunny this morning because although I was ready for the pair of care workers at 8.35, I received a text saying that one of the carers could not make the call and could I assist the other one? The carer who turned up ome 40 minutes late had been on maternity leave and although she had seen Meg a year ago, she was in a very different state of health just then. Consequently, I needed to instruct the carer about how to deal with Meg at the moment and the call started so late there was no chance that we could get down to Wetherspoons to see our friends. But I texted them to explain we probably could not make it this morning but in order to avail ourselves of the fine weather, I pushed Meg down the hill to Waitrose to pick up our Saturday newspaper and then got back to a well-earned cold drink of cordial. The strip light bulb I ordered for the unit arrived this morning and this went into the cocktail bar ‘section’ which is normally hidden behind a locked panel so now I have the four lights working in the display cabinet for the first time in years. I also have in mind, and have done some preliminary searches, for a ‘table protector’ which can be bought in a variety of sizes. When next I need to have a larger working area, I will utilise the table protector so that I do not disturb the place settings underneath. Looking at how these are advertised, I think that people engaged in craft activities deploy these table protectors so that in the pursuit of their hobby they do not damage the furniture. After lunch, even though a little tired, I thought I would get the front grassed area cut although the flattened molehills make life a little difficult at the moment. But I got the mowing done, leaving Meg to listen to a Beethoven concert on YouTube and, fortunately, the mower behaved itself with the temporary repair that I effected last week. Tomorrow, I will cut the back lawn which only takes half the time of the front.

This afternoon when the two young care workers arrived, I showed them our renovated dining room because they had seen it at its worst when there was a hole in the ceiling. I also showed them the pencil portraits that our Lancashire friend had drawn of us whilst we were all on holiday in Southern Spain and they were intrigued by these – they agreed with my plan to eventually get them framed. Incidentally one of the newest care workers who was one of the older generation said that I reminded her of the film star, Clark Gable. Now she is not the first person to have made this observation and I suspect that is the similarity of the moustaches that lead them to that conclusion. I did out of interest, though, see what Clark Gable looked like and there is the faintest of resemblances but I would not want to dwell on that.

Last night proved to be quite a full one, once Meg was asleep in bed. But the evening did not get off to a flying start because the anticipated carer who was due to arrive at 7.00pm (and was scheduled to assist him) did not turn up and the relief care worker turned up at 7.40pm. By this time, Meg was well and truly asleep and badly slumped in her chair so it always more difficult to prepare Meg for bed under these circumstances. I had set myself the task of washing all of the really good glassware which normally occupies a pride of place in our display cabinet, being wedding presents in the main. Glasses stored in a display cabinet like this acquire a sort of dull bloom and we used to empty the cabinet once a year as part of a spring-cleaning routine but those days have long gone. I started the seemingly endless cycle of washing the glass, drying it and then remembering how they were actually stored but I did manage to complete this task sometime after 9.00pm. Then there remained three large cardboard boxes filled with all kinds of things that we have accumulated over the years, so I completed the task of emptying one of them which was filled with some ornaments and pictures that adorn the walls and shelves of our dining room. Then I placed one of the two remaining boxes on the table and started on its contents. At 10.00pm having got all of the glassware back into the unit and two of its lights working again (not an easy task as the supply cord had been trapped behind it by the decorators who had not seen fit to rescue it before it was moved back into position) I decided to have a break. Unusually, I thought I would treat myself to an especially fine flavoured low alcohol beer but then, not to break the habit of the last few months, I promptly fell asleep with the beer glass falling from my grasp. Most of this ended up on my trousers (straight into the washer) and some of the rest on a protective mat I have in position to guard against such an event but the remainder on the carpet. Now I have to swing into a well-rehearsed routine to clean spills off the carpet which involved a lot of water and then drying off with liberal amounts of kitchen towel using bare feet to get the right degree of moisture absorbing pressure (a tip got from a local renowned carpet cleaning expert). Then I really have gone to bed, but I wanted to watch a bit of NewsNight in view of the global financial reaction to the Trump tariffs and then I could not resist a little start on one of the remaining boxes. Here I discovered all kinds of things long forgotten about but often, I suspect, Christmas style gifts. The box proved to be a cornucopia of forgotten things but I did discover a wine thermometer, a fine Italian leather note wallet and a couple of pencil portraits that a holiday friend of ours – quite a renowned artist in his own right – had sketched of Meg and I whilst we were on one of many vacations with him and his wife. We might just get these framed when I am next in the vicinity of the local photographic shops that sells frames in variety and will find a place to give them the airing they deserve. Needless to say, I am finding some things to throw away but not quite as much as I expected.

The carers arrived at a time schedules slightly later than usual and they got a sleepy Meg up, washed and dressed whilst I supplied her with porridge as per usual. I had a quick excursion to get my Saturday newspaper, and I had not been back for long when the electrician turned up to re-install the light fittings taken down before the decoration. As he was doing his work, I questioned him about things electrical and I pointed out that I needed to get a 221mm picture (strip light) for the central panel of the unit. He thought these things unobtainable and did a quick search on the internet through his mobile phone to no avail but said he would look for me to see if any his suppliers had any old stock. I searched on eBay and found one source that sold the longer (280mm) strip lights, so I emailed him to ask him if the shorter picture light was still available and did he happen to have any? I then had a bit of brainwave and cannibalised the size of bulb I needed from the companion corner unit so now the main unit has all of its three lights working for the first time in years. I did a quick Amazon style search and did find a 221mm bulb so promptly ordered it because I suspect that they are (or may become) as rare as hen’s teeth. I contribute to be inspired by my clearing out zeal so carried on apace with the second last box until everything here had been sorted. Then I started on the final box and, by Sod’s law, found a bulb of exactly the kind I was looking for, so it was soon fixed in the corner unit and is working perfectly. The late morning carer came round to check on Meg but she was comfortable, so I mentioned to the carer how I was de-cluttering and disposing of unwanted stuff from the dining room. As it turned out, she was absolutely mad about candles and so I let her have a good supply them to her. At the same time, I established that she was a gardener as well, so she left clutching one of my big RS encyclopadias which reduces my book clutter a little. Then I carried on until the entire table and was cleared and I reestablished the normal table decoration – the dining room looks tidier than it has been for about 15 years! I took a photo of it and and am now resolved to keep it in its nice clutter-free state. I still have some files of paperwork to sort through and file or discard, but I can do that anywhere and at my leisure.

Late last night and just before I went to bed, Donald Trump was announcing the list of tariffs he was going to impose across the world. The UK is going to be hit by a 10% tariff which is better than a 20% tariff which would meant the loss of thousands of jobs but worse than no tariffs at all. The UK seems to have emerged from this bloodletting with one of the lowest of tariffs but the 25% on imported cars seems to be universal and which will hit Jaguar/LandRover. My initial reaction was also shared by Beth Rigby, the respected Sky News political analyst whose reaction was ‘It could have been worse’ But even a 10% tariff will hit the UK hard and will result in some job losses without a doubt but the UK is continuing to try to negotiate a better deal given that our trade with the USA is approximately equal in both directions and therefore any tariff is unfair. The EU for whom Trump seems to have a particular hatred is to be faced with a 20% tariff and they are certainly going to retaliate with reciprocal tariffs of their own. The reaction of the rest of the world will unfold throughout the day but ‘Liberation Day’ for America spells out a terrible downturn in world trade from which we all suffer, and stock markets will no doubt fall throughout the day as the news is digested. In the days when we used to have ‘GATT’ (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) trade negotiations were long and complex and took months to emerge and were certainly not announced unilaterally by a world superpower. In time, the USA may be able to ramp up is manufacturing capacity, but this cannot be done overnight, and Americans will be hit in the short term. The big political question is whether this short-term hit will be enough to stop Trump in his tracks but it all rather depends on how well the Democrats get their act together and any reverses in the electoral battle grounds. The next month or so will prove crucial in the American political scene and, of course, what happens in the USA is bound to have an effect on the UK economy which is hardly in a healthy state.

Thursday is my shopping day and I have a ‘sitter’ to care for Meg whilst this gets done. Fortunately, these days, Meg is still pretty sleepy in the mornings which makes my dashing out to do the shopping a little easier to bear but I still try and do it as fast as I can. It is always a relief to get home and see that all remains well. After I had the shopping put away, my son (recently retired) called round and said he would help me to put our dining room back to rights after the redecoration. We re-hung the curtain pole and restored the dining room table to its rightful position as well as re-commissioning two audio systems that we have in the room. One worked fine, the other which was a Sony system inherited from my son and daughter-in-law, we got working but frustratingly the remote seemed to work for a second or so and then fail. It is always possible that it got damaged in the flood damage but as I can get the system to play ClassicFM that is good enough for me in the meantime. There are several boxes of china and bric-a-brac yet to unpack but the glassware I want to keep needs to be washed and then out back in its rightful place but anything else I will put in some boxes for the carers to have first refusal and then the rest will go to charity shop. Then I started the business of trying to return some of the NHS equipment we have accumulated. After a couple of phone calls, I have a collection day of next Wednesday so the equipment is neatly stacked up in the hallway awaiting collection. I also have several other pieces of gear including a wheelchair very similar to the one supplied by the NHS which I am pretty sure I bid for on eBay about a year ago and this needs to go to a good home but the wheelchair service will not accept donations so I may have to find another quick and reasonable way to sell this. The trouble is I do not have the time to advertise, pack up, post off and so on but just want to see the back of the stuff. The wheelchair is pretty good, though, and might just be worth hanging onto in case I need it myself in a year or so’s time.

With all the comings and goings of today, I have not had a chance to catch up on world news but, as expected, there is a certain amount of controlled fury. China, facing a 34% tax, said it would ‘resolutely’ hit back and ‘take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests’.’China urges the United States to immediately cancel its unilateral tariff measures and properly resolve differences with its trading partners through equal dialogue,’ said the commerce ministry. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the tariffs would have ‘dire consequences’ for millions of people around the world. The whole point is that world trade is a delicate ecosystem of rules, regulations and trading relationships which Trump is trying to re-write unilaterally. It must be said as well that the Americans do not care what the rest of the world thinks as they do not travel and interact as we in Europe would do, for example. There is an interesting geopolitical theory emerging that perhaps China, the EU, the UK and Canada ought to ‘gang up’ on the US to indicate what a rogue nation the USA has become. I even head the European representative of Republicans Abroad on the BBC2 Politics programme arguing that the US was ‘subsidising’ the rest of the world, they were effectively paying for the NHS for us! This argument was so ridiculous that even the Tory on the panel could not helping to laugh out loud at the absurdity of the suggestion.

The decorators should have finished doing their work today, but the massive task remains to them of moving the huge, but now emptied, display cabinet forward sufficient inches to paint behind it. Then, of course, after the decorators have departed comes the equally large job of restocking the display unit. I have in mind that this is a good opportunity to dispose of much of the historic china pieces which we inherited from Meg’s parents and some glassware as well. I always like to keep in stock some of those large but flattish vegetable boxes in which supermarkets display their vegetables and I have in mind that I might fill these with some of the unwanted china and offer it to any of the carers. Some of them may want pieces for themselves or for family members setting up house and the remainder can go to the charity shops. As well as the china pieces, we have several table decorations (‘runners’ and tablecloths) that tend to come into play at Christmastime but which realistically really needs to go, I remember that when we moved house some seventeen and a half years ago, I adopted the philosophy of only putting into the study the things that I knew that were needed in the newly populated study so perhaps can do similar with our dining room. There are several pieces of NHS equipment which Meg now cannot use so these need to be returned as soon as it can be organised.

Yesterday morning, the world was holding itself in readiness for Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation day’ when it appears that 20% tariffs might be applied to every product imported into the USA (but more for cars). To make matters worse for the UK and the rest of the DEU, Trump’s financial illiteracy is deeming VAT to be regarded as a tariff. The UK government is grinning and gritting its collective teeth, hoping to secure a special arrangement with the USA but the omens are not good. If the rest of world trade is generally disrupted, then in the Trump play book this is a good thing because it appears to his followers that he is shaping the world in his own image. Due to the time lag between Europe and the USA, the full scale of Trump’s measures will not be revealed until later on this evening. But some opposition to Trump is slowly starting to emerge in the USA. A senior Democrat has broken records with a marathon speech on the Senate floor against US President Donald Trump. Cory Booker, a New Jersey senator, began speaking around 7pm on Monday (just after midnight on Tuesday in the UK) and said he intended to disrupt the ‘normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able’. Referring to Mr Trump’s presidency, he said: ‘I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis’ The 55-year-old senator has been speaking for more than 24 hours and 18 minutes – beating the record for the longest speech in Senate history. He remained standing for the entire duration, as he would lose control of the floor if he left his desk or sat down.

The decorators turned up promptly at 8.30 (even before the carers) and promptly got to work shifting our large display cabinet which I had emptied yesterday evening. This they managed to do quite easily, thank goodness, and promptly painted the portion of wall behind the unit and then got it back into position again. Then they needed to spend some time clearing up all of the carpet protection materials that they had put down and then left, leaving (almost) everything neat and tidy. Our domestic help and I put the drawers back inside the unit and I restored all of the liquors and drinks to their normal home but as far the rest of the unit, I am going to take the opportunity to rationalise, throw away, or pass one some of the contents. I was particularly pleased that our domestic help was delighted to receive a present of the entire set of a ‘Ming Rose’ tea service (inherited from Meg’s parents) which she is going to be delighted to use when she has friends in the garden. At the same time, I washed some brandy glasses and some of traditional and modern champagne glasses that I am not going to use. Our domestic help was delighted with these and also with the Carlos Tercero (really old and special Spanish brandy) with which she was going to treat her husband. I restored some of the gardening books (big, heavy RHS tomes) to their traditional resting place but not before making a present of one of them to the District Nurse who called around to examine Meg’s heel. As today was the day when our ‘green’ paper bins have to be wheeled for emptying, I also threw away a couple of Spanish encyclopaedias that I doubt I am going to read as well as some old memorial material for the Arena de Verona, dating back about 40 years which I certainly do not need now. Later in the afternoon, I restored some of the photographs to their place on our shelves and phoned up to try to dispose of some of the NHS equipment which is littering up our dining room. Despite getting through before closing time, they had closed their phone lines down so I must try again in the morning. Our son is due to call around in the morning and between us, we can rehang the curtain pole and put some other things to rights. The electrician is also due to call around tomorrow morning to replace the light fittings he took down so the decorators could do their work. Once I have got our dining room well and truly decluttered and turned around, it will give me a lot of incentive to start on other rooms within the house so that my new de-cluttering zeal will not diminish. Normally, of course, moving house is a good time to de-clutter but we have now occupied this house for 17½ years (the longest Meg and I have every lived anywhere) and when one moves house, this is normally the time to throw a lot of stuff away.

I have been reflecting upon the recent conviction of Marie Le Pen for embezzlement of EU funds as well as the report that Donald Trump is actively contemplating running for a (completely illegal) third term. In particular, the attitude towards law and the legal system is deeply ambiguous. Whereas these rich and powerful right wingers will actively use the law to defend their own property and interests if any of use were to infringe upon their property rights, they take a completely different attitude to the law when they themselves run foul of it. Trump was convicted in a New York court of false accounting practices and now Marine Le Pen of embezzlement, but when found guilty, thee is an immediate cry of political persecution. The point was made on NewsNight last night that these right wingers are not really the nationalists that they claim to be but part of a worldwide endeavour to support each other and to advance right wing causes. So, or example, other right wing leaders have all rushed to Le Pen’s support each claiming that the law has been used by (in Trump’s phrase ‘radical left’) to use the law to achieve what cannot be achieved in the political sphere. In all of this, when convicted these extreme right wingers will never accept the attribution of ‘criminal’ and any conviction is seen as a purely political and not legal movement against them.

Yesterday afternoon, after I had successfully got some dinner inside Meg, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the issue of my ‘sick’ mower had been preying on my mind, I decided t have a quick look at it myself. Having put it on a small stand, I reasoned to myself that it had started to malfunction when the left side of the mower was cutting under some quite spiky bushes so I thought I would look here first. Here I discovered a sort of ‘V’ shaped rocker switch attached to a wire which controlled air flow though the air filter (and hence to the carbureta) and nothing seemed to be controlling it. So I reasoned that it was probably held in place by a little spring which was now lost after the incursion under the bushes. Holding this in one position and then with another holding the mower control lever, I discovered that this rocker switch did indeed control the engine speed so I improvised a sort of rubber band arrangement to approximately hold the switch in the right position. Actually for little jobs like this, I used a couple of those elastic hair bands that are sold everywhere in cosmetic departments and are dirt cheap but I find them more substantial for repair jobs than perishable elastic bands themselves. I did quick mow up and down to ascertain that my temporary repair was holding which indeed it did and it could be that my temporary repair could prove a better solution than the spring itself which could again detach under similar circumstances. I am not the world’s most natural mechanic bit I did experience a degree of satisfaction in both diagnosing and then fixing the problem, not least because the mower is completely available to me at the start of the rapid growing season. I have always reckoned that if you keep on top of the grass cutting in the months of April-June, then one can afford a somewhat more relaxed attitude to grass mowing in the subsequent months.

Yesterday morning, being a regular Tuesday I wheeled Meg to have coffee with our friends in Wetherspoons. We had experienced not a very good start to the day as one carer waited outside for the other and she was about 20 minutes late. So I started assisting the carer who had turned up and was two thirds of the way through the task when the second helper turned up – consequently, everything took place in a bit of a rush. I was a bit worried that if Meg slumps in her wheelchair, she is in danger of sliding out so I really have to be careful she is in the right position before starting out. But we got down all right and although Meg was a little slumped in her wheelchair, we did get her home without mishap. On the way home, we bumped into out Italian friend who invited us in for a coffee but I could not tarry as I felt under pressure to get Meg home in one piece.The decorators dealt me a bit of a body blow because they now decided they needed to paint behind our big display cabinet and could this be emptied please. But this is a huge unit and is groaning with precious class, crockery, liquor in one of the lower cupboards, books, spare table linen and goodness knows what else. It has not been emptied in the 17 years that we have been idea and the packers probably did it when we moved house anyway. So most of the afternoon was spent putting precious glassware into cardboard boxes and I still have three large drawers and a side cupboard to empty. The unit is so heavy that it will have to be completely empty before the decorators can move it even a few inches. In the midst of all of this, a nurse turned up to give Meg and I our COVID booster jabs which she did very efficiently, breezing in and out in no time.

Today is the day when the various utilities are going to increase their charges and mostly increasing at more than the rate of inflation. At the same time, the non indexation of income tax allowances will, via ‘fiscal drag’, draw many more people into the higher tax bands. The pain will become evident in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, my son has enjoyed the first day of his retirement, having retired from his high pressure job in the NHS (which was probably going to be abolished shortly in any case, but with a fair probability it would have to be reinvented under another guise) He has spent a lot of the day both shredding and throwing away stuff which is surely the way to start off a retirement. Soon, I must get into the Swedish habit of ‘Death Cleaning’. Once you reach the end of middle age (or sooner if you feel like it, or later if you’re late to the exercise), you get rid of all the stuff you have accumulated that you do not need anymore — so that no one else has to do it for you after you pass. That’s according to Margareta Magnusson, author of the new book, ‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Make Your Loved Ones’ Lives Easier and Your On Life More Pleasant’ which is to be released soon.

These days, I always seem glad to be rid of one month and to be entering a new one. So yesterday sees the last day of March and hopefully a bout of some spring-line weather for the first week of April. After my little mishap with the mower yesterday (as when cutting under a low hanging bush a twig or branch had jammed into the engine part) the mower started to run at only half speed and I had to struggle to cut the last bit of our back lawn. I could not see anything evidently wrong but in a week’s time I had better haul it on top of our little garden table we have in the back and see of there is anything can I can fix simply. I always reckon that when things go wrong, it is either a simple fix or a more complicated repair so assuming the worst, I wondered what the cost of a new Stiga mulching mower might be. Mulching mowers are marvellous because you do not have to bother about emptying a grass box – the grass is cut once and thrown upwards and then cut again when it falls back and mulched in the grass. Assuming the worst, I investigated the cost of a brand new mower and found that the price is practically the same as I paid eight years ago, so I can only assume it is now manufactured in China rather than Sweden and hence the fact that the price has been effectively lowered. Now I have never had a petrol mower that lasted as long as 7-8 years old nand I think I have had this mower for eight years so is it worth the cost of a £100 repair or am I best just simply buying a replacement rather than spending the money on something that might break down again? I cannot not have a mower for a week or so if the existing one is to be repaired so I am inclined to think I might have to fork out for a new one. Taking the old mower to be repaired and picking it up again if it can be repaired is now something that is so difficult when I need to be with Meg in this stage of her illness so we will have to see what happens next weekend when I attempt to use the mower again.

The news from the United States is that Trump is finally getting annoyed with Putin and letting that irritation show. But there are indications that J D Vance the Vice-President, who has has such a low opinion of the UK and all things European, may well be on a position to succeed Trump and would probably be able to serve two terms of four yeas so we have about 12 years of ‘Trumpism’ effectively – this is a prospect that must fill our hearts with dread unless the Democrats can come up with a saviour which looks unlikely at the moment.

Yesterday morning seemed to be quite a busy one. For a start, the decorating team showed dup, the plasterers having done their repair on our leak damaged ceiling. There was a certain degree of disruption as it was established that the hall was part of the re-decoration schedule, so the carpets needed a special film protection and then everything movable moved to the centre of the hall. In the midst of all of this, the two care workers turned up but about 20 minutes late. One of them had had a fall down the stairs in her own home during the weekend and was limping badly, having badly sprained a toe. So I needed to help out with some of the hoisting activities, and of course I am always willing to lend a hand. After we had got Meg into her special chair, a couple of plumbers turned up ‘to remove the radiators’ The decorators informed them this was not at all necessary as they reach as far as they needed to (and up to the previous paint line) by just stretching as far as they needed behind the decorator. I spent the morning doing some reading and some other necessary chores like reordering some of Meg’s medication before I started to prepare lunch. In the late morning only one care worker turned up and the other (new to me) girl failed to show and the care worker who came was the one with the injured toe. I had seen a crepe bandage in our upstairs bathroom so I offered this to the care worker and showed her (on my hand) how she needed to bind together her toes in such a way that the sprained one was ‘splinted’ against her other toes. She was going to go home and have her mother do this bit of bandaging but, not for the first time, I have offered first aid to the care workers who call at the house in order that we can all of us keep the show on the road. I was relieved that when it came to eating her lunch, although she was slow (half an hour), Meg managed to get most of the dinner I had prepared for Meg actually inside her because she seemed to be slightly more awake and in touch with the world today.

The amazing international news today is that the far right French leader, Marine le Pen, has been found guilty of embezzlement of EU funds. The National Rally leader was found guilty and barred from running for public office for five years. She receives a four-year jail sentence, with two years suspended, although she is not expected to serve any jail time. But most importantly, she is now disbarred from running in the next Presidential election where she had a narrow lead (although it will not place for another three years) It is interesting that these far right parties are not averse to getting and then mis-spending EU funding. The then Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, an MEP for 20 years, was docked half his MEP pay after parliament administrators concluded he had misspent EU funds intended to staff his office. A political group dominated by Ukip – Farage’s former party – was asked to repay €173,000, after an official report said EU funds had been misspent on national campaigns. No doubt Le Pen will appeal and there is always the possibility that the sentence may be reduced on appeal. But if the sentence is reduced to three years rather than five, this might still enough to disbar her from being a candidate in the Presidential elections. No doubt National Rally will cry ‘foul’ but if the judges had taken Le Pen’s possible candidature into consideration, they would have been applying different standards to the politically powerful which would hardly be equality before the law.