The evening before last, I devoted my attention to two offerings on TV. The first of these was to observe the progress of the men’s curling team in their pursuit of Olympic Gold. When half way through the match it looked as though the Canadians had the edge over the GB team, I stopped watching and indeed the GB team, although World Champions, had to settle for silver as they were coming off second best. The other bit of TV is that on my son’s recommendation I have started watching the series entitled ‘Small Phrophets’ which is one of the wry, fairly slow paced English comedies brought to us by the writer of ‘The Detectorists’ which set the terms of the genre. Whilst the humour is gentle and understated, there is some genuine pathos in the scenes and Michael Palin was persuaded to play the part of the father with dementia in a residential home. To be honest, the whole series has not absorbed my attention as much as the ‘The Detectorists’ (series on the antics of a group of English metal detectorists) but perhaps it will grow on me. In the afternoon, there was an exceptionally exciting Six nations rugby match in the contest between Wales and Scotland. The Welsh got off to a good start and played rather like the Scots did last week against England and had established a good lead by half time. But the Scots gradually overwhelmed the Welsh team but only late on in the second half so it just seemed possible that Wales could end their terrible run of bad form in recent matches. But certainly the Welsh could take plenty of pride in their performance and almost succeeded in taking the match. The England team seemed lethargic in their match against Ireland and we now have the situation in which England have lost two matches against two of our Celtic neighbours, Scotland last weekend and now Ireland this weekend. I cannot remember a period when there were two England defeats like this and we now have a break of two weeks before the final set of matches. On Sundays, I now have a new pattern where attend the 8.30 service at church instead of the 6.00 service on the Saturday night beforehand and one of the undoubted attractions is the tea-and-biscuits in the parish hall adjacent to the church at the conclusion of the service when I have the chance to socialise and reconnect again with members of the parish community. This I did for the early Sunday service and was greeted by a small band of two of the regular parishioners and two teenage children who were going to provide accompaniment by guitar to the hymns that had been selected for the day. Afterwards I went for my tea-and-biscuits but not many were in the parish hall this morning – nonetheless, I engaged in a half serious theological discussion with the member of the parish community who is responsible for offering instruction to new converts to the Catholic faith. Later in the day, they were to be formally received by the bishop in a special service which was to take place in St. Chad’s cathedral in central Birmingham. Last week, I thought I had lost my little black purse in the parish hall so when I went back for a second time to see if any of the tea ladies who dispense refreshments at this time had found it but no such luck. But I had another round of tea and biscuits with another parishioner with whom I chatted for half an hour before I returned home to prepare a lunch of ham, roast potatoes and broccoli.
My son and daughter-in-law came around in the afternoon and we watched rugby together. This was Italy – the weakest team in the Six Nations – pitted against France who are the strongest. Nonetheless, Italy put on a good show and although overwhelmed by the superiority of the French team, nonetheless provided a very entertaining match for us to enjoy. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks as though a lone gunman was about to attempt an assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump. As soon as the gunman raised his rifle to a ‘shooting position’ he was immediately shot dead so his actual motives will probably never be known. Trump’s behaviour continues to be bizarre. In his latest adventure, Trump has claimed he is sending a boat to ‘take care of the many people who are sick’ in Greenland, which has a universal public healthcare system. He announced the plan at a dinner for Republican governors at the White House. Trump posted on Truth Social: ‘Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there. It iss on the way!!!’ Whether this is actually a military operation clumsily disguised as a modern day Trojan horse, it is really too early to tell but no doubt more news will emerge later.
After a quiet week, next week promises to be quite a busy one as I have a hospital appointment in Redditch and other appointments in both Droitwich and Worcester later on in the week. But the weather seems to have turned a little less cold than of late and I am looking to next weekend when we can actually celebrate the new month of March. I have been discussing with family whether or not to have a short term break over the Easter period but my son and daughter-in-law are due to have a short break in Spain in the week after Easter and Easter week itself is problematic for a variety of reasons. Later on in the week, my son and daughter-in-law will be helping me to clear out the last of our ‘hobbit holes’ which is the family name for the small doors giving access to the eaves of the house that we use for storage. The things that I know for certain are lots of boxes of photographs, all unlabelled as well as spare duvets and Christmas wrapping paper. No doubt, a lot of the contents will be junked on this occasion, I will ensure that the duvets get given to the Salvation Army who will both launder them and either sell them on or more likely use them in their charitable work with the homeless on some of the streets of our large cities.