I had a better night’s sleep than the night before so am left to contemplate the prospects for the day ahead. I am always a bit relieved when the technology available to me works as intended and, after an initial hitch, I got a network established for my laptop and even got the rather temperamental TV tuned to Sky News for the morning’s news. I was rather in two minds whether or not to treat myself to a really good, cooked breakfast in the hotel this morning as I have run out of provisions although there is a very reliable little shop which should open across the road and which I generally use to keep me in supplies. It is always good to connect with members of one’s family at this time of year ad I started off my meetings with them by looking at a collection of photos on my iphone which I have in a ‘Favourites’ section and where I explain the context and significance of each photo. For the family, I then show them some photos of my family which they, or the younger members of the family, might never have seen before. One photo is on of my grandmother taken in about 1910 where the evidently black-and-white photo of the time and my grandmother was photographed in a magnificent bonnet and possible set of clothes and a backdrop which the photographers of the time may have supplied whilst the photo itself has been painted or otherwise colorised. Another intriguing photo is one that a very distant Australian cousin interested in the family history unearthed some years ago and it is showing a photograph of a display stand in an exhibition devoted to ‘Hart Cycle Company’ Some subsequent research reveals that probably a great grandfather established this company in Wolverhampton which shows that, deep down, I actually have some roots in the West Midlands rather than in Yorkshire which is the county in which I was raised and to which I have always tended to affiliate. No doubt, these photos will come out again today if only for the erudition of the younger members of the family that I will meet today for whom all of this may be a complete revelation. I might just take along this laptop as well because I have a collection of photos which more or less mirror Meg’s life and which younger members of the family may not have seen and these are collected together on one of those professional photo websites. At some later in the day, I will go along to my nieces house in Harrogate for a pleasant pre-Christmas meal but I have some of the morning spare so I am minded to pick up a copy of the Sunday newspaper from the little shop across the road and then to have a leisurely read in the warmth and comfort of the downstairs lounge rather than just staying in my bedroom all of the morning. The weather is a bit too cold and inhospitable for a morning stroll which I did on the occasion of my last visit here. In the event, this is exactly what I did having a leisurely time reading my Sunday newspaper, doing some Soduko and ensuring that the ‘Favourites’ section of my photo collection on the iphone is augmented a little. I have already received a text from niece telling me time she is going to pick me up so I am getting the bits and together that I wish to take along with me.
So my niece came to collect us for the family meal and we were eventually joined by one of niece’s children and her two grandchildren aged about 4 and 2 years old together with her husband, another niece with her long term boyfriend amd a third niece who was preparing for her ‘A’-levels.Together with my niece and her hsuband and my sister and I, we were a party of eleven altogether. We sat down to a meal of honey-glazed gammon, served with roast potatoes, carrots, red cabbage and parsnips together withan a range of pickles. So we had a magnificent pre-Christmas meal after which I showed off both some of the favourites on my own iphone and a website with a collection of photos most of which are arranged in such a way that they form a commentary upon Meg’s life as a whole. Then members of the family had to leave for a long journey back up to Newcastle from whence they had journeyed for the meal and then my sister needed to be transported back to her residential home. This is proving to be quite difficult for my sister but we are living in hopes that after one very successful Christmas get together, there will be the opportunity for even more as the occasion arises. But it is true to say that my sister’s mobility is getting somewghat worse and mirros, to some extent, the same problems that I experienced with Meg when she was alive. I noticed yesterday whilst in Harrogate in the railway station that ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ is being put on by Opera North during most of February so I might grab the opportunity for another trip north to see the opera and my family as well. So I received and made a couple of texts before I was taken home by my niece at the end of delightful day. I managed to coax the reluctant TV into showing me a compilation programme of Victoria Wood’s favourite pieces which is always worth a watch. I am going to leave the packing up before my journey tomorrow to the early morning after I had got up for the day and then trust that the journey back on a Monday in the middle of the day proves unproblematic.
As we had surmised, some extra photos thate should have shown Donald Trump have been released and then withdrawn. One of them shows Donald Trump surrounded by young women in swim suits but it appears that somewhere in the White House, this has been seen as being problematic and seems to have been withdrawn. The Democrats are immediately crying ‘foul’ and it looks as though this sort of activity will increase over the days and weeks ahead. It seems unlikely that any really incriminating photographs as such will be found but the smoking gun may well lie in the documentation such as notes that are already coming to light indicating that young women need to be procured for eventual ‘work’