Yesterday,it dawned as one of those grey and dreary looking days and it is a little hard to know how the weather is going to develop – but certainly cooler than the last few days. The evening before I had engaged in one of my usual heart-warming conversations on the phone with one of my University of Winchester friends and we are often in touch for a heart-to-heart when the occasion demands. The news was dominated as you might expect by the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska but as they are some six hours behind us then we are all waiting for the news to unfold. One thing that I did notice was that Trump was finding it very difficult to walk in a straight line down the red carpet that had been laid down in the tarmac and one stage zigzagged over it almost walking off it. Wondering whether I had been hypercritical, I did a quick Google search and, indeed, the social media and particularly ‘X’, are full of rumours about the health of the 79 year old president and are speculating whether his strange perambulation down the red carpet is indeed an indication of a much more serious medical problem. There are also video clips around on the internet showing Trump (like Biden before him) stumbling on the steps of the presidential aircraft, Air Force 1, so this one may run and run. It is a little too early to tell how the result of the Trump-Putin talks will pan out but many commentators are of the view that Putin being invited onto American soil and with no sanctions applied to him has already been brought in from social isolation and exclusion so this must make him a winner already. Looking ahead to the week that stretches out in front of us, there is going to be a big ‘family’ meal with some of Meg’s cousins at a nearby restaurant next Wednesday so this is something to which I can look forward.
Not many people realise that in our national efforts to curb carbon emissions, the fuel that we put in to our cars is not 100% petrol but up to 5% ethanol is used to bulk up the fuel. The UK’s largest bioethanol plant is set for closure with the loss of 160 jobs after the government confirmed it would not offer a bailout deal to the facility in Lincolnshire. This is quite a serious blow to the country and the company itself is blaming the imposition of American tariffs as the reasons for its failure. When large and important companies like this fail, and we can put Thames Water into the same category, there is a temptation that the government should step in and nationalise the asset in the public interest. But we are living in an era when our government in particular does not have the resources to take over a failing national asset and the public at large would not be best pleased if public funds are diverted from, say the NHS, in order to prop up a failing privately owned asset. Governments can do a certain amount of back door support in the form of loans and special deals but these are often not sufficient. If there were an easy answer to this problem, then the government might already have grasped it. Perhaps there is a case here for a small levy on everyone’s petrol duty to provide the funds to keep the bioethanol plant functioning but this only adds a further twist to inflation which is already above guidelines. Incidentally, my son and I are watching the inflation rate that will may well peak in September with a great deal of interest. This is because all of our pensions, including Teachers Pensions in our case, are uprated each Spring by the September inflation rate the year before so we both have a vested interest in this rising as high as 4%. The September inflation rate is published in mid to late October and my son has already got this date marked into his planning calendar.
In the morning, things did not tuurn out as I would have predicted. After breakfast, I was on my way down the hill when I bumped into my Italian friend and, as we have met had a good chat for ages, we stopped and spent some 20-30 minutes discussing how we were both going to organise our lives in the months ahead. For my Italian friend, the future is less certain as she has her house on the market and when she has got it sold, she is going to make a new life for herself somewhat nearer to her daughter who I think lives in Gloucestershire. I can understand my frieds’s motivations in all of this but to abrogate a life time of over 60 years of contacts and then to try to recreate new friendships is a tall order. Having lived here for nearly 18 years, I am happy to reap some of the rewards of the ‘investment’ I have made in the local community. By the time we concluded our conversation, I judged that my Saturday friends would have given me up so I went down to Waitrose, made one or two purchases and treated myself to a coffee before striking for home. Just before I left the huse, I received a brown envelope from the Inland Revenue and normally these fill mne with a certain degree of foreboding but not on this occasion as it contained a cheque refunding some tax paid by Meg. The cheque covered most of the price of the three-day stay in a hotel in Harrogate and so was very timely. So, I went down into townn by car to visit the bank and there was nobody else around when I was there so I sought the help of the young assistant who was manning the counter. First I had my withdrawal limit increased substantially which is going to be very helpful as it means in future that I can withdraw 2-3 weeks normal ‘living money’ at a time (I am one of the few supermarket customers who actually pays for their weekly shopping in cash) I also made an appointment to see a manager on Thursday next because the assistant thought that I was eligible for another current banking account that regularly pays a type of bonus each month into your account depending upon the nature and the amounts of direct debits in operation in the account. This is something I have been meaning to sort out for a long time now so I am delighted that the opportunity has arisen. I then made one or two small purchases in charity shops but also bought myself a simple no-nonsense little purse in which can store £2 coins when I happen to receive them in my change. Then I returned home and made myself a quiche and salad lunch before I contemplate washing the very dirty car in the afternoon.