Yesterday my alarm woke me at 6.00am but I turned over and promptly went back to sleep again for another one hour and a half which I must have needed. These days I have received a flood of sympathy cards as well as the more immediate text messages. One sympathy card was especially heartwarming and, so much so, that I am going to incorporate some of the sentences into the tributes page for Meg which will slowly be augmented as messages arrive. This particular word was from a young lady who is now in her 30;s but was only 4 years old when we first moved to Hampshire which was nearly twenty eight years ago. Meg and I acted as surrogate grandparents to the two delightful children who lived 2-3 doors away and the youngsters popped around almost ever day because their parents knew that they safe with us and their own grandparents lived in Devon which was more than 100. miles away. In the card, the now grown up young woman had written of Meg that ‘she was in credible woman who had an impact on many, including us… Mike, we struck gold ad children when we had you and Meg as our surrogate/local grandparents and that is something we will forever be grateful for’ One has to say that that is one of the most heartwarming and touching tributes it is possible evert to receive and I hope we can meet up again fairly soon to reestablish relationships. On the afternoon of the day of funeral, I had organised a hardback book in which people can write a sentence or so and this, too, is so heartwarming. In fact, I have just read a card from one of Meg’s carers which reads as follows. ‘I feel privileged to say that I used to care for Meg – she was a lovely lady and just a special lady in. my eyes from her smiling at me when calling her to reaching to hold my hand. I will never forget her, never.’
This morning, I needed to call in at the local branch of my bank which, fortunately, still has a presence of the High Street. I needed to p[ay in. cheque actually made out to Meg but a refund of some of the deposit made on our now returned Motability vehicle. Altogether, I was in the bank for 30 minutes first waiting for some 10 minutes for the assistant to see me. Fortunately, it was the same person who helped me to close down Meg’s account about a month or so ago now, so I was relieved about that. The assistant found a dormant account some thirty years old with about £25.00 in it, evidently dating from the days when one only had passbooks so eventually, this money will wing its way over to me and that will take several days but it took three signatures and a photocopy of my driving licence and my passport to get this transaction concluded. After I had concluded my business at the bank, I went to have coffee in the Methodist Centre which Meg and I used to frequent when I could Meg into a car but not at all for the last year. But the coffee centre was all locked up today- perhaps it is a closure because of the imminence of the summer holidays. So after this, I wandered slowly down the High Street and decided to go into ‘The Lemon Tree’ cafe to which I managed to push Meg for about six months before she died. the cafe is run by an Italian lady and her daughters and we knew each other slightly as we both attend the same Catholic church. As soon as I entered, I was embraced and consoled for my loss because the cafe owners had read about Meg’s death and funeral in the parish newsletter. I treated myself to some home made cake and coffee and then made my way down to Waitrose and texted my son who came to pick me up to save my legs or a journey up the hill When I go home, made myself a salad lunch and had a little doze afterwards before I got myself ready to give the back lawns a cut, which I did a bit later in the afternoon.. Then I thought I would make a ritual call to the Teachers’ Pensions Agency to see if thy had received my application for a continuation of a portion of Meg’s pension (which is sorely needed). I as greeted with he by now familiar news that the computer system was ‘down’ but I nonetheless persisted. Then I received the pleasant news that my application form had been received and was being processed. A letter had been sent to me which was kindly read out to me. The import of this was that the calculation of the benefit was being reviewed in the light of recent Court judgements and this might delay things somewhat but I am very relieved that the application gas been received and some action is being taken on it.
The news media late yesterday evening was switching between major, televisual, news stories. The first of these was the horrendous plane crash in India where more than 240 [passengers and crew died but absolutely remarkably, one British citizen walked out of the plane crash alive and what appear to be superficial injuries. The other major news story is documenting the way in which the Israelis have finally decided, with or without American knowledge to ‘take out’ or at least severely degrade nuclear facilities in Iran It also appears that top military chiefs and even nuclear scientists have been targeted and many of them killed. For their part, the Iranians have started to retaliate but is is likely that all, or nearly all of their drones have been successfully intercepted by the Israelis. But now the Iranians are launching full scale. missiles and this may the start of several days of ‘tit-for-tat’ as Israel and Iran trade blows with each other. Almost inevitably, one wonders how this is going to end but no doubt the Israeli military strategists have taken the view that both countries may inflict damage upon the other but the Israelis must be calculating that they can inflict more damage upon Iran than Iran can upon Israel.