The evening before yesterday, I went to church which is now part of my weekly routine and it seemed rather appropriate as it was exactly three months after Meg had passed away. I bumped into my Irish friends and we agreed last minute arrangements for a meal at a local Thai restaurant which we are going to attend this evening as a farewell to our much-loved neighbour, a French widow who is moving away to live near her daughter in Cheshire. I had a fairly early night and thought I would listen to the offerings on ClassicFM and also ClassicFM Calm which is a parallel station available on my smart speaker which has now been returned to a place in the upstairs bedroom (rather than helping Meg to go to sleep with a selection of Beethoven) I was very pleased to have finally got the selection of commands to get the smart speaker to recognise, and then to play, the part of Brahms’ ‘A German Requiem‘ which is particularly well known and that is ‘How lovely is they dwelling place’ which is always the piece played by ClassicFM on a fairly regular basis. I have found the Alexa smart speaker can be a little picky unless you get the command absolutely correct but I think I have cracked it now. When it finishes, I just ask it to repeat the last track after which I am often asleep. Through the mail the other day, I received a glossy magazine from Manchester University which is distributed to their alumni and whilst giving news of developments at the university is also designed to elicit donations, legacies and perhaps even sponsorships for deserving overseas students. But as Meg and were both Manchester graduates (1965-1968), the magazine was addressed to both of us. So, I needed to use the form inside them to ask them to remove Meg’s name from their database as otherwise it may be a rather painful reminder every time I receive a future issue. Actually, getting one’s name removed from a mailing list can be quite a difficult and prolonged affair and organisations do not seem to comply even when they are notified. The political news is full today of a meeting between Trump and Putin scheduled for next Friday in an obscure part of Alaska within sight of the Russian border in an attempt to resolve the Ukraine issue. British defence experts have already given their view that the Russian team will be stuffed full of experienced and street-wise negotiators whereas the American team may be popularly called ‘cowboys’ with no real experience of foreign affairs and the Russians will probably run rings around them. Incidentally, the phrase ‘war is the Americans’ way of teaching themselves geography’ is a critique, not a literal statement. It suggests that, for Americans, geographic knowledge is often acquired through military conflicts and interventions, rather than through formal education or a broader understanding of global affairs. This view implies that the nation’s involvement in wars, particularly in distant lands, has forced Americans to learn about unfamiliar regions and their geopolitical complexities.
In the morning, I walked down quite early to collect my copy of the ‘Sunday Times‘ as they apt to go quite quickly on Sunday mornings. On the way down I had varied conversations both with a near neighbour and with a more distant neighbour and then collected my newspaper and treated myself to a coffee. As I was drinking this, I was greeted by one of the senior members (in every sense of the word) of my church’s parochial council and he had been very instrumental in organising some of the really practical details for Meg’s funeral (making sure that the funeral car itself was not blocked from the entrance) and we chatted over things both funeral and also liturgical. One the way back, I decided to make a detour round the park exactly as I did last Sunday and I noticed that when I approached the two benches upon which Meg and I used to sit, they were both empty. I could not resist taking a photo of the empty benches to remind me of old times but decided against asking a young girl who occupied one of the benches to take a photograph of me alone on the other. I did make contact with another park acquaintance but not the same joke-cracking one of last week and we spent a few minutes in conversation about things we had done in our working lives. Then I came home and prepared a fairly large Spanish omelette for myself (onions, tomatoes, peppers, because I dd not want too full a meal as I am going out with friends in the early evening for a valedictory dinner with one of our close neighbours who is moving away.
Although I had no inclination to do it, I pressed on and got the car washed this afternoon. Even though I am now on a weekly schedule the building works in each side of us whilst they are still at the earth moving stage means that the whole area is covered in a very fine dust which will start at about 8.30am on Monday morning and carry on all week until Friday afternoon, when they tend to knock off for the weekend. Fortunately, I have a fair bit of quite overgrown vegetation in my back garden but I know from actual conversations with neighbours that they are driven to distraction by the constant dust but can only pray for it to come to an end. Talking of ‘praying’ I have come across a prayer, attributed to Saint Teresa de Avila (Meg’s adopted saint) which is not really a prayer but is more of a secular homily about the things you say when you get old. I thought I would take it down to the dinner to read to the assembled company and I am sure that we can identify with at least parts of it. I just got a text late on this afternoon from one of Meg’s carers who wants to pop in and see me together with his new partner. They are just in the process of setting up house together and I wish them both well but I am waiting for the much-promised house-warming party here I am sure I shall make my number again with a lot of the other younger carers after a gap of some three months.