I overslept a little yesterday so spent a lot of the early morning desperately trying to catch up with myself. This December seems to be absolutely racing away and although I am reasonably well prepared for Christmas with decorations done, trees in place and Christmas cards all posted, I still feel that there are precious few days left before the Christmas festivities begin in earnest. I have started taking my iphone to bed with me and the evening before I received a most welcome text. In the days when Meg and I used to walk down regularly to the park we often bumped into a couple who lived about five miles away but nonetheless used to come to the park to exercise their dog and so we got into deep conversations with them. This husband of the pair was an avid repairer of all things electrical and electronic and used to lend his skills to an organisation called ‘Men in Sheds’ where retired men occupy themselves with al kinds of repair activities. Now this couple were very kindly towards Meg and myself and we went out with them on at least a couple of occasions sharing meals in some of our favourite locations in the county. Now the husband seems to be a regular reader of this blog send me a most wonderful text saying that as this was the first Christmas without Meg, would I like to pop over to see them for a festive drink? I replied enthusiastically in the affirmative and also enquired whether I might take my Droitwich friend along with me which would be fine. In the days between Christmas and New Year, I suspect that the whole of the country will be on vacation as it were so the opportunity will be grasped to see families and friends wherever they might happen to be. I am hopeful that I might be able to make a visit down to Oxfordshire to see my very good friends who live down there but this is yet to be arranged. The day is shaping up to be a very busy one with some commitments bumping into each other.
There is a recently published report which indicates that some £11bn was spent by the government during the COVID-19 crisis in what turned out to be fraudulent transactions. To some extent, the Conservative party was to blame for this because they fast-tracked any applications with known links to the Conservative party and ‘due diligence’ there most certainly was not, particularly in the case of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). Much of this turned out to be sub-standard and needed to be destroyed and practically none of the money fraudulently obtained was recovered. The government said the sum is enough to fund daily free school meals for the UK’s 2.7 million eligible children for eight years to put this sum into context. Meanwhile the main COVID-19 enquiry is still taking evidence and one would hope that lessons had been learnt ‘for the next time’ but it would not be a surprise to discover that the country is still woefully unprepared.
Later on in the morning, I went along to my local dentist and, given that I had been sort of fitted in as emergency appointment, I was delighted to be seen my normal (Irish) dentist who was visibly upset when I informed her about Meg’s death, made even poignant by the fact that she used to treat both of us and was very kindly to Meg the last time we had a dental appointment together. My dentist replaced the lost filling with a temporary filling which will serve the purpose until late in January when I have a scheduled dental appointment and she will then replace the temporary filling with a permanent one. I was also pleasantly surprised not to be charged for this either. I gleaned the following information from the web: ‘If a temporary filling is provided as part of a more comprehensive course of treatment that includes permanent fillings or other procedures, the entire treatment plan will be charged under Band 2, which covers all necessary fillings. You only pay one charge for a complete course of treatment, even if you need multiple visits to complete it’ I cannot remember the last time I visited a dentist without paying at the end of it. I returned home via Waitrose where I had my customary cup of coffee. Whilst in the store, I popped along to the ‘drinks’ section and there saw a bottle of Negroni which I promptly bought. A classic Negroni uses three equal parts: gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth, stirred with ice and garnished with an orange peel or slice for a bitter, herbal, and slightly sweet Italian cocktail. So I was thinking of buying the ingredients and making it up from its constituent parts but at least by buying it already mixed in a bottle, I can work out if family and friends quite like this cocktail. After I returned home, I noticed that the returns parcel had been correctly collected by DPD and then I prepared to go to Pilates. Once located in the car park, I realised with some dismay that I had forgotten to bring some £1 coins with me for the parking fee so raced home, got the money and then back again only to be about 1-2 minutes for my class where we had all barely started. Next week, of course, will be my Santa Claus event (quite traditional by now and complete with the distribution of bottles of damson gin) My class members and I exchanged Christmas cards and then I returned home to heat up some of the dinner I had prepared yesterday and then had a welcome chat with my Droitwich friend before she went off to her works Christmas meal event in the centre of Birmingham. Later on in the afternoon, my chiropodist will call around for a postponed visit and then I need to prepare myself for getting to my local church (early, to secure a parking place) ready for the annual Christmas Carol concert to be followed by cups of tea and mince pies in the adjacent parish hall. Then I have arranged to phone a friend late in the evening so it has been one of these days when it has been all go but tomorrow promises to be a lighter schedule – I may well spend some of the time packing up things for my Yorkshire trip which will start on Friday.