So a new bright day has dawned and I took a minute or so to gaze admiringly on my newly cleaned up patio from the vantage point of an upstairs landing window – I must say that it looked great in its de-mossed state and I think I probably need to give it a good stiff brushing once per week to keep it in good condition. The first thing I did this morning was to send a text to a specialist steam cleaning company recommended to me by my domestic help who spoke very highly of their work. I think the whole patio needs a re-pointing/re-cementing and will then be in a condition to have a specialist clean but I need the advice of an expert whether this is the right way round in which to do things. In the meanwhile, there is some lawn edging to be done and general garden restoration work in the vicinity of the patio but now I won’t be ashamed of its condition when  or if guests come round to visit. After all, what is the point of a nice garden if you never have the chance to enjoy it. As soon as my finances stabilise a little, I need to employ a good regular gardener, but these are hard to find so I may have to ask around some of my immediate neighbours for a recommendation. I know that the husband/partner of one of Meg’s carers did what I call ‘rough and ready’ garden restoration work so it might be time to give him a ring as well. Although it is true to say that the back garden is overgrown at the moment, there is so much building work going on all around me so, up to a point, I have been not displeased to let the garden grow on for a bit to provide me with some shielding from the sights and sounds of the incessant building work. Fortunately, Meg was not aware of this during her lifetime and it might have distressed her so that is a bad thing avoided. Actually, I have just  found a UK-made 7-minute video of the restoration of a garden path/patio which looked in the same condition as mine and it was very instructive. Mind you, there was an  initial jet washing, followed by sodium hypochlorite solution  to kill of weed seedlings, followed. by another  jet wash, followed by a specialist repointing followed.  a third jet wash so I need to get used to a multi-stage process if the whole job is to be done correctly. When Meg and I had this done in Hampshire, I think a specialist sort of thing glaze was applied last of all to help to keep  the driveway in a really good condition – and it did help to sell the house because  our drive way looked magnificent compared with that of my immediate neighbour. There are so many ‘cowboys’ in this business that I must take care to find a good restorer who will do a good job at a reasonable price and so I might need to take my time and plenty of advice before I commit myself to having this whole job done.

My Tai Chi class proceeded as planned but when I went to have my customary teacakes-and-coffee,  I was served by my American friend who I was not expecting to see but who had evidently just taken on a volunteering role in the kitchen of the Methodist Centre. I had quite a jolly chat with some of the ladies present, including two new additions to the class which is always welcome to see. We chatted about holidays, airports and some of the normal crop of travellers’ tales. I left after about an hour when others were leaving to do their shopping. It was beautiful day and I knew that the car was very dirty but I had enough time on my hands so thought I would go and assess the do-it-yourself car wash facilities at our local BP garage. They had two unoccupied units side by side and you could purchase a variety of rinses and washes at the price of £2 for 4 minutes. I thought that 4 minutes would not be time enough to clean a car this dirty so I payed £4.00 for a variety of rinses, foam washes and final rinses. As it turned out, eight minutes  was just about enough time to do the car justice, so I was pleasantly surprised. I think at that price and availability I might try and build this up into a weekly routine because the price for the car wash was not much more than the price of a cup of coffee these days. The windscreens is a left a little smeary but I don’t mind the little job of doing a quick clean of this when I get the car home and the weather has cooled down. Then I had a chat with my neighbour about this and that and made myself a salad lunch. After lunch, I was delighted to get a text from the owner/proprietor of the patio cleaning company and we have agreed a time of 9.00am tomorrow morning for him to call around and give me a quote. I was equally delighted to discover  that his firm might do the entire renovation for me which is just what I want. In the late afternoon, I went out to cut back the lawn which had crept over the years over the side of the patio and several inches of turf needed to be removed. These took a combination of half moon tools, lawn edging shears and brushes and, of course I had to renovate (.e. sharpen) the steel instruments as they had not been used for a couple of years. Under normal circumstances, I am quite meticulous about cleaning my gardening tools before putting them away and generally giving them a protective spray of WD40 or its equivalent each time.  Many of us are savouring that the King managed to deliver a subtle barb to Donald Trump in his recent visit to the White House. During a state dinner at the White House on April 28, 2026, King Charles III jokingly told U.S. President Donald Trump that if it weren’t for British ancestors, Americans would be speaking French. This comment was a humorous, witty retort to President Trump’s earlier assertion that without American intervention in World War II, Europe would be ‘speaking German’. The king could rely upon the fact that with an abysmal knowledge of early American history, Donald Trump would have no idea what the King was talking about and whilst the joke was lost on Trump, it was fully appreciated by all of the other guests at the dinner.