The evening before yesterday, although I was inclined to just have a really lazy afternoon, I thought I had bestir myself and get the car washed. The previous Honda that we had was a wonderful sandy colour which had the wonderful attribute of not being washed for weeks and one would not really notice. But now we living in different times and a huge development is being built on the other side of the road that service our little development. As they are at the earth moving stage, a tremendous amount of fine dust is filling the air and gets deposited on cars as well as the rest of the environment. So it is possible to wash the car one day and have it looking pretty dirty the following morning. The contractors try to alleviate this somewhat by having a huge water spray to help to settle the dust but this seems pretty ineffective and I am having to live with all the inconveniences associated with masses of building work going on all around me both at the back of our property and now also to the front. Although the garden has been a bit neglected not to say overgrown since my energies were devoted to caring for Meg, under the circumstances I am quite glad to have a lot of vegetation to screen me from the various vexations going on around me. My Asian neighbour from across the green area in front of the house brought me over some rhubarb crumble which I enjoyed last night with some ice-cream and I am always pleased to accept these little gifts of kindness. In the evening, I also spent a certain amount of time comparing the blood test results that I obtained the day before with readings taken some two years before and they were very similar to each other with the critical ones all on the right side of the safety margin to my relief. So I need to continue with my current regime of diet and exercise and not be tempted to let things slip.
New age verification rules are now in place to attempt to ensure that those under 16 do not by accident view inappropriate on the web such as pornography. But already it appears that the rules can be circumvented and some researchers have claimed that by using easily available software they have managed to gain access to such sites within about 30 seconds. Of course, teenagers will spread such knowledge between themselves so one despairs whether any new such rules will be effective. One age verification technique is to ask for credit card details but an enterprising teenager could set their alarm for the middle of the night and creep downstairs to acquire such details from their parents’ wallets without their parents being any the wiser. So, together with many others, I suspect that these new internet controls whilst being praiseworthy in themselves may well be ineffective from Day One as some journalists have already demonstrated. Personally, I think all children under the age of 16 should be banned from having a mobile phone but I doubt whether this is enforceable in any meaningful way.
The rest of the day turned out to be one of the most interesting of days. Firstly, I called in at Wetherspoons and had my usual Saturday morning sojourns with my two sets of friends that I have coffee with sequentially. As I was concluding my drink of coffee within the store I got into conversation quite by accident with an old lady and somehow we got onto the topic of talking not just to ourselves (with whom we can often hold an intelligent conversations) but also conversations with departed loved ones. She intimated that although she was 88 years old, she still spoke with her departed husband every day. She was very kindly and sympathetic about my recent loss of Meg but we agreed with each other that we had to make positive steps to life beyond that which we had experienced with out past partners and had to keep interacting with the world and talking to people (as indeed, so were we with each other)
Then I came home and bought some special low-salt lentel cakes from Waitrose before calling in on my Irish friend who I did not meet in person but eventually he identified me from his doorbell system and we spoke by phone. Then I got home and made myself a light lunch of ham and cheese on some crackers. Later on in the day, I knew that my Droitwich friend was due to call around but I had already saved some risotto from the day before so I ensured that this was kept warm for the moment that she arrived. Then we spent the most marvellous late afternoon and early evening in each other’s company. After recounting to each other the various traumas that had afflicted us during the week we polished off the risotto complemented by a bottle of rosado Cava which I happened to have in stock Then after lots of conversations about how to maintain healthy a lifestyles I eventually persuaded myself to show my friend some of my favourite tracks on YouTube. We started off with Joan Baez (of course) and then progressed on to some Ravi Shankar sitar instrumental music before finishing off with some of our favourite Fauré. This weekend is promising to be a weekend of exhausting and last minute finishing. The British Lions rugby team (combined England, Wales, Scottish and Irish team) pulled off a second win against Australia although I believe that the winning English try was only scored in the last minute of the game. Meanwhile, the whole nation is holding itself in readiness for the final ion Sunday evening between England and Spain.
In the political sphere, the starvation in Gaza has now reached such an intensity that air drops of food are now being considered. The Israelis are saying that plenty of food is available within the territory but that Hamas is commandeering supplies for itself but this view is not backed up by any of the evidence from seasoned international observers. The pressure is growing on the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer who seems fearful of taking a stronger line in case he falls foul of the Americans with whom he wishes to conclude a comprehensive trade deal in any case.