My next door neighbours have both been in the wars a little as one of them has had a knee replacement and his wife a replaced hip. Consequently, we never quite got round to our Christmas-time get together but our neighbours put together quite a lavish little tea party, which, as it happened, almost coincided to the day with my son’s birthday. So the day before it was excellent to finally have a get-together and I know that my son and daughter-on-law really appreciated this gesture. The installation of the new kitchen in my son and daughter-in-law’s flat seems to be proceeding on schedule and may well be finished by the very end of the week. Meanwhile, though, there is quite a big ‘cleaning up’ job to be done because as units were cut to size and adapted, there was a certain amount of saw-induced fine particles which will have settled everywhere. The one redeeming feature of all of this is that the flat is not very large which means that ultimately the amount of cleaning to be done is limited and will come to a finite end. I remember from decades ago when Meg and I had our house extended in Leicestershire some forty yeas ago now, Meg and I would come home tired from work and would immediately have to set about cleaning surfaces before we could even start to think about preparing our evening meal. Meanwhile, I am watching the liberal American news podcasts and in particular, one channel which gives a lot of attention to the health of Donald Trump. According to this podcast, the health of Donald Trump is visibly declining before our very eyes. In the last week, we have seen clips of video in which Trump is constantly falling asleep whilst in Cabinet. His frequent outbursts against ‘criminal’ judges (i.e. any judge, anywhere in the US who does not issue a judgment which backs up the Trump view of the world is immediately labelled ‘criminal’ and that includes some of his nominees on the Supreme Court) There are also signs of some neurological damage to one of his hands and experienced observers seem to be concurring in their view that Trump is exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of a neurological condition such as dementia. In the Iranian war, he has extended his latest deadline to the Iranians to accept his ‘peace plan’ (unconditional surrender) for a whole ten days which, as it happens, very conveniently excludes the Easter period including Easter Sunday. This means that Trump can retreat to Mar a Lago over the Easter period whilst the bombing continues but there is no political process such as negotiating a peace to interrupt the Easter vacation period. After quite a busy last couple of days, I am quite looking forward to some peaceful relaxation over the next day or so and we have the distribution of palms on ‘Palm Sunday’ to which to look forward in my next attendance at church. The weather is unseasonably cold with an arctic blast sweeping over all of the country but we can expect a slow improvement over the next few days. We shall have to wait until next Wednesday until we actually see a burst of anything like spring sunshine.
After we had breakfasted, made a journey into town picking up some supplies from Waitrose and then popping in, as I normally do at the end of the week, into my ‘Gifts of Love’ horse sanctuary outlet. There I consoled the proprietor, who I know quite well, on the death of her dearly beloved dog and she has spent most of the week getting over this sad event. One of the regular volunteers was assisting in the shop this morning and then another of the volunteers came by. Evidently, they all know each quite well so t was not long before the proprietor, two volunteers and myself were sitting around a table having coffee and biscuits and cracking lots of jokes (i.e. not like your normal coffee establishment) This Sunday was going to the their Spring Fair which is primarily a money raising event held in the community hall of a nearby village. There were going to be lots of stalls with some selling a wide variety of (home prepared) foodstuffs. I was told that there would be a wide variety of age ranges amongst the volunteers and lots of interesting people with whom to chat so they invited me along to participate n the activities as I am a long standing patron of their café and have already met with some of their volunteers. I feel well inclined to go along – although tempting to say that a ‘horse sanctuary’ is not necessarily my cup of tea, the opportunity to meet with and to chat with a lot of the participants and guests is not to be turned down lightly so I will probably go along.
After we had lunched, my son got a text to say that he fitting of his kitchen was all but complete. So we all decided to go over and have a look at things – my son and daughter-in-law were delighted with the finished product and the fitter/joiner had taken a great deal of care not only with the fitting but occasionally with little adaptations that have to be made as well as more specialist cupboards built from scratch. The joiner had even brought his own wife along so that she could a womanly ‘deep cleaning’ touch to the newly installed units before the kitchen as a whole was due for a hand-over. So, the amount of cleaning to be done is now much less than thought and tomorrow my son and his wife can return to their newly enhanced flat and start to re-populate the kitchen with all of normal kitchen pottery, silverware and cooking containers. Last night, I started to watch ‘Question Time’ on the TV but fell asleep towards the end of it. I shall probably watch it again on catch-up and then may have an early night before an early start tomorrow, as I am fighting off a sore throat and cold/’flu symptoms which may have been passed on by fellow family members. So far I have been able to resist these predations of winter but I may have been caught at the very end. I tend to always carry a supply of flu and cold relief capsules and powders so that I can dose myself up before the symptoms intensify.