The day dawned bright and clear yesterday morning and I felt I had quite a lot to do in preparation for my weekend visit but, in truth, once the car has been washed and some money out of the ATM all I have to do is to pack an overnight bag. As I have two pieces of script on my kitchen table, I take the opportunity to practice the cadences in the ‘Grace Before Meals’ which I am due to deliver at my friends birthday’s party tomorrow and I also have the second verse of ‘Danny Boy’ which  starts ‘But when you come and all the flowers are dying’ which I am committing to memory to recite when the time is propitious over the next day or so. The evening before last, my American friend phoned to tell me that she had just had a scan and hope to get the results  of this from her doctor on Monday morning but, in any event, was feeling a bit better than she had been feeling for the past few days. Shortly afterwards, my Italian friend from down the road phoned and now that she has decided to stay located in the house in which has lived for the past sixty years and not move to be nearer to her daughter which had been her original intention. She knew we were approaching the anniversary of Meg’s death and hence the phone call but I was happy to be able to tell her my plans for the next day or so away with friends about which she was pleased.  I made an arrangement to pick her up in my car and take her to the Methodist Centre next Wednesday when we can sit at the ‘chatty table’ and having lived in Bromsgrove for so long I would be amazed if she did not run across some old acquaintances one way or another. But my Italian friend did convey some sad news to me. In the days when I used to walk Meg regularly up and down the Kidderminster Road, we often used to bump into an acquaintance who lived down the Kidderminster Road.  Now he and I had a joint interest in the Honda cars that we both owned at the time and he always managed to keep his garden in pristine condition as well. In fact, we shared a table at a joint social gathering which the French lady who used to live down the road loved to organise for neighbours and friends whenever there was a suitable occasion. But I was distressed to learn that my ‘Honda’ friend had actually passed away some three months ago and as I do not walk up and down the road as regularly as I used to do, I had no idea this had happened. So I must ensure that I take the opportunity to knock on the door and offer my condolences to his widow who, fortunately, has a daughter who lives fairly near by. The situation in the local election in Birmingham is complicated and the result has been delayed for hours. The Labour party’s 14-year leadership in Birmingham has come to an end after Reform, Greens and pro-Gaza independents made significant gains in the UK’s second-largest city. No party has yet won an overall majority at Birmingham city council, one of Europe’s largest local authorities, with the results reflecting wider political fragmentation across England. Labour was expected to take significant losses in the all-out elections in Birmingham, where 101 seats were up for grabs. The council has been plagued by a series of problems in recent years, from the declaration of bankruptcy in 2023, subsequent cuts to local services and the ongoing bin strike – images of rubbish piled on the city’s streets have made headlines across the world. The local authority, which is responsible for a £4.4bn budget, has so far lost more than 30 Labour councillors, and gained 21 Reform and 11 Green councillors. None of this is a great surprise but governing UK’s largest local authority will be a headache as it is certain that the Greens would never lend any support to the Reform party. I wonder whether the Greens may help to support a minority Labour administration  but the situation has yet to clarify and there may be tense local negotiations that lie ahead.

So, I knew that there was a certain amount of running about to be done this morning, but I got my newspaper collected, money taken out of the ATM and the car fuelled ready for the journey and given a jet-wash. When I returned home, I judged it to be prudent to give my fridge a good working over because  I was fearful that some foodstuffs might be going ‘off’ So I had a good throw away of all kinds of things in my fridge leaving it pretty empty but at the same time I gave all of the shelves and baskets a thorough clean. As the weather is getting warmer and I will be having minimal food from the freezer for the next 2-3 days, it seemed a sensible precaution to take. I ate up some curry that I had been storing for the last few days and then settled down to watch the Women’s 6-Nations rugby. The first match was England vs. Italy and after a poor start, the Italians made a better match of it but were no match for the English team. Then I started to do some packing in advance of my trip tomorrow but broke off to watch the Scotland vs. France game as well as having my feet done by the chiropodist who was scheduled to call around. This evening is going to be a quiet evening in front of the TV and then an early start tomorrow morning. I have to be careful, though, to take everything with me that I intend as I hope to show some photos illustrating Meg’s life on my laptop if a suitable opportunity presents itself probably some time tomorrow evening. The crunch match in the rugby promises to be England vs France next weekend and this will be very evenly matched but I think the French might have the slight edge over the England team. My chiropodist reminded me that the World Cup is starting on June 11th which is now only a month away. It will be hosted in a variety of venues across the three countries  of Mexico, the USA and Canada and as they are 6-8 hours behind us, I wonder when the transmission times might  be in the UK. No doubt, the Sunday supplements will shower us with timetables and transmission times in a week or so.

I had busied myself the evening before last in preparing the final version of a special ‘Grace Before Meals’ which my good friend in Oxfordshire has asked me to prepare for her own celebrations in a couple of day’s time. She evidently wanted something a little out of the ordinary and tailored to the occasion but I did find a template which I managed to extend and to convey exactly the range of sentiments that I felt were appropriate to the occasion. Then at my friend’s request, I transmitted them to a mutual friend who is going to act as MC for the day and thus has the words in his pocket in case anything delays me. To check out whether I had got the appropriate words and tone, I sent the completed article to my niece who is a stalwart of her local Anglican church and she gave me the reassurance that I sought. I was just on the point of going to bed when I got a rather unwelcome telephone call from my American friend with whom I was going to visit Harvington Hall down the road and then have a birthday dinner. But she was feeling unwell so the two engagements are having to be cancelled or at least put on hold for several days until friend’s health improves. These things happen so I am being philosophical and will probably now engage in a ‘normal’ routine for the end of the week where I see my friends in the ‘Gifts of Love’ horse sanctuary and peregrinate along the High Street. Today is the day when the local election results will continue to pile in during the day as only about one third of the councils were starting their counts yesterday evening. So later on today, I can slump in front of the TV and soak up some of the results as they come through. Last night, the Reform party was doing particularly well as had been anticipated and this was largely at the expense of the Labour Party which is already in the throes of a much extended ‘post-mortem’ analysis. At this hour in the morning, Reform had gained about 350 seats, Labour had lost about 250 and the Tories had lost about 160. The respected Sky political correspondent, Beth Rigby, is telling us to anticipate a ‘rainbow’ coloured set of results across the country as we can now expect some Reform led councils but many going to ‘NOC’ which is ‘No Overall Control’. My plans for the next day or so ahead are now a little fluid but I need to pack an overnight case, ensure that I have all of the photos of Meg and music in place so that I can display them when the opportunity presents itself and I also intend to give the car a good wash at the newly discovered ‘do-it-yourself’ car washing station in my local BP garage. In many ways, I will be more than happy when I get the one year anniversary of Meg’s death well behind me and of course this is fast approaching. But I am so relieved that on this first occasion I will be surrounded by supportive friends.

Later on in the morning after I had digested some of the election results, I received a telephone call from my American friend explaining that she had a doctor’s appointment mid-day. I was able to convey the really good news that having contacted Harvington Hall to cancel our joint booking, they were incredibly sympathetic and offered to give me a visit on the strength of the tickets for which I had already paid at any time in the foreseeable future and so my friend and I were delighted about this. By the morning’s post, I had received an invitation to tax the car using an on line system and thus proved to be an incredibly quick and easy process and must have taken me all of two or three minutes. Then I ran off the very emotional second version of Danny Boy which is often recited at Irish funerals. This I have committed to memory and like to say it in front of Meg’s photo and ashes. It is a remarkable piece of poetry in which the person who has died is calling from the grave to eventually be reunited with the person from whom they have been separated – and I can just about get to the end of the eight line stanza without breaking up emotionally. After I popped into town, I frequented my ‘Gifts of Love’ charity shop and then did the round of some of the other charity shops where I bumped into my Irish friend. As she reads my blog on a daily basis, she was fully up-to-date with all of my planned tooings and froings and we made an arrangement to have a coffee together some time in the forthcoming week.

The afternoon has been dominated by the election results. The most dramatic results have been in Wales where Labour has been relegated to the poorest of third places between Plaid Cymru, (the nationalist party) and Reform in a newly constituted electoral system. It looks as though the Labour Party will now only hold 10 of the 90- seats in the new Welsh Senedd (Senate) and the first Minister of Wales has lost her seat (Eluned Morgan) had lost her seat and has resigned. The results for the Labour Party are being labelled as beyond catastrophic, and it seems hard to think how they can claw their way back into power. In Scotland, though, the SNP (Scottish National Party) has retained power but has now has Reform snapping at his heels in many parts of the country with Labour a poor third and the Conservatives absolutely nowhere. In England, Reform has been sweeping up votes from Labour in the North and from Conservatives in the south. In the broadest of terms, Reform now has won about 1000 seats through England and goodly number of councils whilst Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats are all hovering about the 500-seat mark . Labour has lost power in Birmingham which has now moved to ‘No Overall Control’ We are now moving into a situation in which parties in councils where there is ‘No Overall Control’ have to decide who is going to go into alliance with whom. In many cases, no one will enter an alliance with Reform and sometimes Labour, Greens and Liberals stitch together an alliance to outvote Reform so the position is anything but stable.

The evening before last was an evening dedicated to the U3A Curry Club in which we turn up to a designated curry house in the vicinity. We actually attended one practically in the centre of Bromsgrove, just off the High Street where it is easy to park in the nearby Waitrose car park at no charge as the meal was timed to start at 6.00pm. I approached last night’s meal with a certain degree of trepidation as, on occasions like this, you are never quite sure  by whom you will be seated next and consequently whether you are going to have a pleasant evening or not. I arrived at one minute before the appointed time and was invited to join a table of five and as I had a corner slot, this turned out to be propitious because I could turn to my left and enjoy one conversation or to my right and chat with people on the adjacent table. The attendees were nearly all female who had known each other for years but we had some interesting chats about family history to which I was able to contribute (as some of my own family history is quite colourful) My heart did sink at the point where the conversation flowed around the topics of photographs of each on a recent excursion to Yorkshire which they had put on Facebook (to which I refuse to have a subscription) But fortunately, the conversation took another turn and I think an enjoyable time was had by all. The system that pertains is that each individual has to keep a careful note of what they ordered and then pay for it, individually by credit card which makes payment at the end a long and slow process. Personally, I would prefer the system which generally pertains when I eat out with the ‘Old Fogies’ that we take the total for the group, divide by the number of people and then add on a collective tip. I have just read an extraordinary story on Sky News which I am going to have to simplify enormously. The guts of the story is that American oil producers have refined the process of ‘fracking’ to a fine art sending American oil production into the stratosphere. The geopolitical consequences  of all of this is that American can now attack the oil producing areas of the world (such as Iran) without fear of disrupting oil supplies in making the rest of the world ‘de facto’ dependent upon America rather than the traditional sources of supply. How this analysis squares with rising pump prices for petrol in the USA I cannot say but there must be processing time lags as part of the system.  So Trump was emboldened to take on Iran and not fear any of the consequences. In the Iran conflict, something very strange is happening because it may be that the USA is walking away from the conflict claiming total victory and reliant upon the fact that a subordinate media eco-system will not reveal the actual situation which is something approaching a ‘score draw’.

As it is local election day, there is a massive amount of speculation concerning the seats that the traditional parties, and particularly the governing Labour Party, will lose. The significance of tis is that local councillors provide the ground troops for a general election campaign by stuffing envelopes, knocking on doors and general canvassing. When a political party loses this amount of voluntary support, then the consequences run much deeper than the actual loss of seats on the local council. Keir Starmer is bound to be the ultimate loser in all of this and he is, as the local parlance goes ‘a dead man walking’ and as soon as Andy Burnham gets a seat in Parliament (not a foregone certainty) then a viable challenge is in the offing. The afternoon turned out to be quite a busy one. Firstly I had my Spanish conversation class and we allowed ourselves to roam freely over mainly American political matters and anywhere  else where the conversation took us. Upon returning home, I needed to reply to a text from my American friend who needed advice to join a Social media health group (I advised against) My friend has kindly donated to me some of her old white cotton tee-shirts which I am going  to cut up into the appropriate sized squares to provide good cleaning clothes for my gardening tools.Then as I have been designated to say the formal Grace at the meal on Sunday, I needed to get my skates on and get it prepared. I found a general one in rhyming couplets but no overtly religious overtones, so I have expanded and amended this so that it fits the needs of the occasion.  My friend wished me to send it to another friend who is acting as an MC for the occasion and so he now has a copy of ‘The Grace’ in case I am unavoidably detained. But my friend particularly does NOT have to have sight of it so that when it was read out there would be a surprise on the day. As I have never done this before, I hope that what I have finds favour but I have tried to ensure that no one would offended by any of the sentiments contained within it. (I will try it out on my American friend tomorrow when we have a meal together to see what she thinks). Talk about ‘You read it here first!’ – I blogged just yesterday about the possibility of mergers and acquisitions in the banking sector and I have just read today that Santander UK has completed its near £3bn takeover of TSB in what it said marks the single biggest investment in Britain’s banking sector for more than 15 years. The culture of the two institutions is a little different and the merger or takeover might not work. One thing that is certain is that I believe that it will take years to get the two banking interfaces aligned with each other and I would not be surprised if they were just run in parallel with each other for a couple of years or even longer. Meanwhile, I intend to have a nice quiet evening untroubled by election results will not start to roll in until the wee small hours of the morning. The media is often in a frenzy at this point because there is nothing to report until several hours after the polls close but they feel the need to add to the speculation about the demise of the two party system in General (and the demise of the Labour Party in particular)

It took me a little time to get going this morning because I was delighted to see my son who had been away for a few days helping to celebrate the 80th birthday of his mother-in-law in Watford and hence communing with his wife’s family. We both have a lot to catch up on and are having really interesting and busy weekends in prospect. My son is destined to go to a rather massive school reunion in York and some of his contacts will have been known to him for at least the last 45 years. I think the whole event is being coordinated by one of their fellow pupils from The Mount school who has been an events coordinator in the past so should know what she is doing. I am looking forward excitedly to my days away next Sunday (a birthday party of a dear friend) and my own the following day on Monday. All of this coincides with the one year anniversary of Meg’s death (which falls on 10th May) but which occasion will be alleviated by being in the company of long lasting and loyal friends. I have sometimes dipped into this blog to see what was happening a few days before Meg’s death and it was evident, even then that she did not have much longer on God’s earth. She seemed to be sleeping nearly all of the time as her bodily systems were gradually closing down and I recorded that all I managed to get her to ingest was a few drops of water delivered by a special little syringe that the nurses had supplied for me as an ‘end-of-life’ care kit. Although a sad occasion to look back upon,  Meg seemed to drift away surrounded by family and friends and surrounded by as much care and affection as it was possible to imagine – so, in every ways, what Catholic theology taught  to me as an adolescent boy as  a ‘good’ death (although that is rather a meaningless concept when you are aged about 13-14 ). Later on today, I have the delights of a U3A curry Club to which look forward, followed by conversational Spanish on Thursday and a visit to Harvington Hall (followed by a birthday meal) with my American friend. So I have quite a busy few days ahead of me.

Donald Trump’s latest scam (apart from perhaps an undignified retreat from the Iranian war) is to try to get $1 billion dollars to provide ‘security enhancements’ for his proposed glittering new ballroom extension  to the White House. Trump has repeatedly says that the oft-quoted figure of $400 million would be provided by private funds but now the Republicans are trying to smuggle through a $1 billion subsidy via an obscure financial regulation. It is, of course, possible that some Republicans might break ranks at this point and be bold enough to vote against this latest Trump folly. I also saw the latest cognitive test that Trump supposedly ‘aced’ and it seemed so comparatively simple that I am pretty sure that individuals at the early stages of Alzheimer’s could pass it.  Knowing that I was going to be away for some of the weekend, I had a very light shopping week this week but one luxury (or is it a necessity these days) is to buy a bottle of some of the highest quality Extra Virgin Olive oil available  in my local supermarket. The brand that I bought comes out as reassuringly high in the independent tests of the ‘good’ olive oils and there are various things for which to look out such as to ensure that it is from an identifiable crop(i.e. not blended) with a crop number and a PDO (Italian Certificate of Origin) denomination. As well as using this olive oil in cooking, I also drizzle it on some toasted sourdough bread instead of butter and sometimes provide a bit of extra flavour by a smidgeon of tomato purée or some Marmite. So this is the information I have managed to glean about it. Castel del Monte PDO Terra di Bari Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a high-quality, cold-extracted oil from Puglia, Italy, featuring a distinct, fruity flavour profile dominated by the robust Coratina olive. It is known for its intense, spicy, and slightly bitter taste, making it ideal for drizzling on soups, pastas, salads, and grilled meats.  The Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) ‘Terra di Bari’ indicates it is produced in the specific Castel del Monte region of Puglia, ensuring quality and traceability. The flavour profile is intense and fruity with notes of green tomato and artichoke, finishing with a peppery, bitter, and piquant sensation. It is predominantly made from the Coratina olive (around 90-100%), with smaller amounts of Peranzana or Ogliarola sometimes included. It is regarded as excellent for robust dishes, such as raw on vegetables, legumes, bruschetta, and red meat. Aldi’s ‘Specially Selected’ brand is highly regarded for its value and quality, and is often praised as a, ‘perfect low-cost alternative’.  Although Thursday is the long anticipated date for the local elections and the polls generally close at about 10.00pm at night, the results will take a long time to trickle in. Some councils will not bother to start counting until the following day (Friday) in any case. So although I do admit to being a bit of an election junky, I cannot see the point in staying up too late to only get a partial result. Because  of the fragmented nature of the vote, exit polls are not generally undertaken unlike a general election  where the results of an exit poll is usually announced within seconds of the actual closure of the polls, I think that a goodnight’s sleep is probably a more sensible use of my time. But when the results  are finally sufficiently comprehensive to make an informed analysis, the UK may find itself waking up to the death of the Conservative-Labour hegemony and a patchwork quilt of multi-party politics with Labour and Conservatives losing a lot of support to Reform (on the extreme right), the Greens in the left, the Liberal Democrats  in the moderate centre as well as the nationalist parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  with a smattering of independents (generally disillusioned Conservatives) for good measure. Once we take very low voter turn out into effect,  this makes the actual mood of the nation even harder to discern apart from a general feeling of ‘None of the above’ in the minds of many voters.

I was relieved to see that the weather was somewhat better when I awoke yesterday morning after a good night’s sleep. The media are collectively celebrating the 199th birthday of Sir David Attenborough by showing some of his classic films and I did rather get absorbed in one of them last night. He was following the social life of a group of chimpanzees and, in particular, how the alpha male asserted his dominance not just through physical shows of strength but also by entering into political alliances with other males who could make allies at times of conflict. What absorbed me was the fact that some of the younger males turned on their leader and attacked him, leaving him severely wounded and practically dead. Then the troupe of chimpanzees moved on desperately searching for water but some of the female members of the group came and attended to his wounds by licking them. Although left for dead, the group leader gradually regained some strength and made a six mile journey to catch up with the rest of the group where he could re-assert himself but disguising how wounded he had actually been. I was reminded of Churchill when the Tory party grandees actually propped him up in front of the Conservative party conference to say a few words even though he had suffered a stroke. The same used to be said of the former Soviet leaderships where some of the old stalwarts were propped up by colleagues even though half dead themselves. Last night, I made a booking at Harvington Hall which is an Elizabethan manor house famous for its priest holes and only have 6-8 miles distant from us. I am taking along my American friend as she has never seen it before and is intrigued by what she has read about priest holes but never actually seen one before. Harvington Hall in Worcestershire houses seven remarkably preserved priest holes (secret hiding places) designed by Nicholas Owen. While some were uncovered by inspectors over the centuries, the ingenious, hidden spaces — including one in the bread oven and another under the grand staircase — were highly successful at protecting Catholic priests during the Elizabethan era. This week is going to be quite a full week and an even fuller weekend so I am preparing myself for a Curry club meal with U3A members with a Conversational Spanish the following day (for which I do. not feel very well prepared) I have just read a very interesting analysis of the ways in which Bank account customers are switching. Bottom of the pile comes the Halifax (which has lost 25,000 customers) followed by own bank but the great winner has been Nationwide which has attracted 64,000 new customers. Of course domestic banking is only part of the activities of most banks but one wonders whether we shall see  spate of acquisitions and mergers ahead. Most High streets used to sport at least three or four banks but as the banks have switched to online services, some of these branches have been disappearing faster than he proverbial ‘snowballs in June’ Following major closures in early 2025—including Lloyds (May 7) and Halifax (May 29)—Bromsgrove High Street has lost four banks in three years. While Santander was set to become a counter-free branch by June 30, 2025, and Barclays/NatWest previously closed, few traditional, full-service branches remain. A permanent Banking Hub is envisaged but may not see the light of day.

My Pilates class was held as usual this week and there are a regular group of only four of us (three females and myself) and we regularly have a laugh and a joke with each other. As might be imagined, we have our little celebrations and rituals one of which is to have a period of relaxation once or twice within the six week block. But if any of our number have a birthday in the week of the class, then as a treat we all have a relaxation session in that class. As a reminder to myself, I must remember to take along some cakes or other goodies to share with class members. After my Pilates class, I returned home and had a lunch of kipper fillets (from a tin!) and salad and then thought about getting the back lawn cut which is a much quicker job than actually the large green area in front of the house. This having been done, I then settled down to await the arrival of my American friend who had promised me that she was going to pop around in the late afternoon for a spot of afternoon tea. As so often happens on occasions like this, we had nothing to dash home for and so having indulged in a lot of opera the other day, in the early evening we thought we would treat ourselves to a spot of ballet and so finished off watching some of he better excerpts from ‘Swan Lake’ Although ballet is not my first love, I think I might hunt out YouTube to see if there is an classic film of Nureyev and Fonteyn dancing together. By all accounts, the chemistry between the two of them was instant and mutual and I would be surprised if that was not captured on some archive film. Rudolf Nureyev, a legendary Soviet ballet dancer, defected from the Soviet Union on June 17, 1961, at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, seeking asylum in France to escape restrictions on his artistry and life. Fearing imprisonment by the KGB upon being ordered back to Moscow, he broke away from his minders with assistance from French police and friends. Key Details of the Defection:The Incident are that while the Kirov Ballet was departing for London, Nureyev was told he had to return to Moscow to perform at a Kremlin gala. Realising he would likely never be allowed to travel or dance freely again, he asked for asylum at the Paris airport. While presented as a Cold War blow to the Soviets, historians suggest his defection was prompted by the desire for artistic freedom and to live openly as a gay man, which was suppressed in the Soviet Union. Nureyev was sentenced to prison in absentia by Soviet authorities, though he went on to have a glittering career in the West, dancing with the Royal Ballet and later directing the Paris Opera Ballet. He did not return to his native country until 1989. Nureyev’s defection is considered one of the most dramatic in Cold War history, removing one of the Soviet Union’s greatest cultural assets.

You could almost predict that yesterday was a Bank Holiday in the UK because we awoke to anther day of overcast and cloudy weather – it looks as though it is going to be heavy cloud with 20% chance of rain or drizzle during the morning followed by light cloud and a dry afternoon. It is just as well that the day is going to be devoted to domestic jobs and that I am not planning to go anywhere this Bank Holiday. After I been to church yesterday and visited the garage to pick up my Sunday newspaper, I was in the vicinity of one of those ‘Home and Garden’ type stores and as it seem quiet, I decided to pay it a visit. I actually purchased quite a few things that were not originally on my list but were focused around the activities of keeping my gardening tools sharpened, cleaned and well oiled. I located eventually some ‘Brillo’ pads for which I have a particular fondness as I know that are excellent in removing light rust deposits from gardening tools. Whilst I was in the cleaning and gardening sections, I bought some mixed fibre cleaning cloths, abrasive pads and stainless steel scouring pads. I also succumbed to the temptation of buying some of those gardening gloves that are fabric on one side but rubber based on the other and which are excellent for gripping (and hence removing) weeds and I also saw a deep stainless steel trowel which I would not normally be tempted to buy but this one was ridiculously cheap and Indian-made so that went in my shopping basket as well. There is a point to all of this because if the weather was really fine, I would be inclined to do some ‘proper’ gardening but as the weather is overcast, I may well spend half an hour outside siting on the garden bench getting some fresh air but renovating some of my gardening tools such as lawn edging tools and lawn shears. The Bank Holiday is destined to be a quiet and more domestic days but the rest of the week will be quite busy for me what with one thing or another. The day before, my American friend had come round and enjoyed a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner that I had cooked for us but around this we fitted in a viewing of the most beautiful bits of the Puccini opera of ‘La Bohème’ and then we let YouTube select some other operatic arias for us according to its own algorithms and these we enjoyed, including a fair bit of Pavarotti as you might expect. So I suspect that my friend was exposed to more opera in one day than perhaps in her entire lifetime, but we found the combination of the meal and the operatic offerings enjoyable and relaxing (although not everybody’s cup of tea!) Quite by chance, I discovered in a little visited drawer in the bedroom some items of jewellery that Meg had probably not worn for at least thirty years. Amongst these were some crosses on a chain and some clip-on earrings so I was more than happy to gift these to my friend (as I hardly knew they existed, I had no great emotional attachment to them).  I assured my friend that Meg would have been delighted to know that some of her jewellery was being worn and appreciated instead of just being stuck in a drawer for decades.

In the late morning, I went down by car and was relived to get my newspaper as usual, yesterday being a Bank Holiday. On the spur of the moment, I decided to pay a visit to Asda to see if they still did their own brand of WD40 oil which they do not. But they did stock a WD40 substitute called GT86 and they were selling in at three quarters of the price available through Amazon except that they were selling it at full price at the automatic tills So I was forced to complain at the Customer Service who agreed that a lower price was displayed on the shelves and they refunded me the difference. I got home and after a brief rest made myself cut the front greened area which really did need it. As I was cleaning up the mower afterwards and disposing of the spent GT86 spray can, I noticed that this company was advertised as a WD40 company so I wonder if the product, which appears identical, comes off the same production line. But they are often sold next to each other in any case.  I had a fish-on-sourdough bread lunch after which I watched a David Attenborough programme on the extinction of the dinosaurs. I did a few outside jobs which included  a light pruning of the lavatera outside out back door and which necessitated a lot of chopping up into smaller pieces before disposal in our brown wheelie bin. I applied some teak oil to the wooden handle of the new trowel  I bought myself the other day and now I am keeping some of my cleaned up and ready-to-use hand tools in a (new) seed tray which I am keeping indoors out of the rain but readily accessible when the gardening spirit moves me.  Flipping through the TV channels, I chanced upon the last five minutes of the black-and-white war film ‘Sink the Bismarck!’ made in 1960. I have seen this film before but what was striking about was the look of sorrow on the faces of the British crew as they saw the Bismarck sink beneath the waves. What a contrast to the triumphalism on the occasion of the sinking of the ‘Belgrano‘ in the Falklands contest or the reactions of the Americans today in Iran. Of course the British sailors were acutely aware that it could have been their own ship that was in danger of being sunk as the war had only ended 15 years previously. In the current Iranian conflict, both sides are claiming that they are in complete control of the Straits of Hormuz. The Iranians are claiming to have hit two American warships with missiles which claim the USA is denying completely. I keep being reminded of the dictum that ‘in wartime, the first casualty is truth’ as we are now in the era of claim and counter-claim. With the emergence of AI, each side to a conflict can no doubt generate whatever images it wants to feed to their own home populations.

Yesterday as I awoke, it was one of those yellow-grey murky sorts of days which sent me scurrying towards the weather forecasts to see what kind of day was in prospect. It looks as though there is a 25% chance of cloud, gloom and drizzle throughout the day with the rain intensifying in the afternoon with the possibility of thundery showers. I awoke just about 6.00 and got up as today was one of my ‘early’ days when I go to church and leave the house at 8.00am so I need an early start. I am very conscious that this week a year ago was the last week of Meg’s life and I do look back on this blog and see how things were shaping up a year ago. Meg was evidently semi-comatose and in some pain with her legs being in the same position all night and I recorded that when the two experienced care workers got her up, they actually had tears in their eyes. Somehow or other, we had got Meg into her super new wheelchair and I opined that this might be the last time in which she was taken for a walk out of the house – and so it proved to be. I recorded a minor triumph in that I got Meg to ingest a few spoonfuls of porridge and afterwards not only trundled her down to Wetherspoons but also did a quick flash around a couple of shops. I think that Meg was probably asleep or half asleep the whole of the time but later on in the day, I managed to get a few spoonfuls of a chocolate mousse inside her. It rather reminded me of the experiences that you have when you have a young child and you are encouraging them to take solid food and every spoonful is regarded as a triumph. Although the weather is going to be pretty grim for most of the day, I have my friend coming round so we are going to enjoy ‘La Bohème’ together and then have a traditional meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding whilst my friend has hunted out some of that specially bred kale called ‘Cavolo Nero’ and which according to some of the blurb available on the internet is one of the ‘healthiest’ foods on the planet bursting with minerals and vitamins. The political programmes this morning (which I don’t have time to watch) will, no doubt, be full of prognostications for the forthcoming local elections. Scotland will be voting  to select MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) using an a form of proportional representation known as the ‘Additional member’ system and Wales is voting in another form of PR designed to eliminate tactical voting but nobody is quite sure how this is going to turn out. It looks almost certain that the traditional Labour dominance of Wales is due to come to and end and Wales will have to get used to a multiparty system comprised on Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists) and Conservatives bringing up the rear. No doubt all of this will be fully dissected after the actual voting has taken place next Thursday but next weekend, I shall be away for birthday parties (my own and a friends) but I shall have more pleasant things on my mind.

When I attend the service on a Sunday morning, there is always a news letter which contains details of parish affairs on one side and the liturgy of the day upon the other. It is nearly always the case that the Mass is said to honour the memory of a particular person, and I noted that the Mass next Sunday morning is to be offered for the repose of Meg’s soul. There must be a system where the editor of the newsletter brings this item forward but it certainly brought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye. After the service, I chatted with one of the church ‘elders’  and the parish priest makes himself available by having brief chats with his parishioners. He told us that in his last parish in Coventry they often had 2-3 funerals a week and sometimes even more so even as a young priest he had officiated at many funeral celebrations. If time had permitted we could have happily swapped amusing funeral stories but I informed one or two of more acquaintances that evidently would attend the 8.30 Mass next Sunday being the actual anniversary of Meg’s death but would be making haste immediately afterwards to go to Berkshire for my friend’s birthday celebrations (and my own, the day after). After that it was my normal routine where I get some living money out of the ATM and pick up a copy of the newspaper from the garage. When I returned home, I cooked myself a breakfast of a poached egg on a slice of sourdough toast and then got to work processing the beef joint which I had cooking in the slow cooker during the morning when I was out. Turning to the Domestic political agenda, the charismatic leader of the Greens, Zak Polanski who is himself Jewish, has run into a tremendous row with the police. Polanski had re-tweeted a post which appeared to criticise the arrest protest in which the assailant of the two Jewish men in Golders Green was seen lying on the ground having been tasered by the police (presumably legitimate under the circumstance) but being repeatedly kicked by two officers (presumably, not part of the standard police restraint procedures) Polanski has apologised but the sweep of public and media opinion seems to be that we should turn a blind eye to the kicking of a prone suspect by police officers. I suspect that no action will be taken against the police officers but it is disturbing to witness police officers departing from the highest standards of professionalism that we expect of them. If this were America, we would say ‘normal for the USA’ but of course we pride ourselves on higher standards in the UK. We have a real political dilemma how to respond as a society to the recent stabbings and the rise of evidently overt anti-Semitism. The knee jerk response is to say ‘ban all marches in support of Palestine’ but this would be a massive blow to the operation of our rights to freedom of speech and to demonstration. Two facts stand out which the majority of the marchers are completely peaceful and do include some Jewish peoples themselves. But is an unfortunate fact that these large demonstrations are undoubtedly highjacked by forces of both the extreme left and the extreme right  and the police themselves are called upon to make a judgement where freedom of expression ends and the expression of antisemitism begins. If I might pose a question (to which I do not know the answer) is a poster proclaiming ‘Free Palestine’ antisemitic?  Consulting the AI element of Google, I get the following reasoned argument. Whether a poster proclaiming ‘Free Palestine’ is considered anti-Semitic is a subject of intense debate, largely depending on context, intent, and accompanying slogans. Many interpret ‘Free Palestine’ as a call for human rights, an end to the military occupation of Palestinian territories, and self-determination for the Palestinian people. In this context, it is generally considered political speech rather than anti-Semitism. For many others, the phrase is interpreted as a call for the dissolution of the State of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state. When it implies the removal of Jews from the region or denies their right to self-determination, it is viewed by many, including the ADL, as anti-Semitic. The slogan becomes explicitly anti-Semitic when it is used to harass Jewish individuals, threaten synagogues, or hold Jewish people globally responsible for the actions of the State of Israel. When ‘Free Palestine’ is accompanied by phrases like ‘From the river to the sea,’ it is widely seen as a call for a single Palestinian state covering the entire territory of Israel, implying the destruction of Israel and thus often interpreted as a form of antisemitism. In summary, the slogan itself is not inherently anti-Semitic, but it is frequently used in ways that cross the line into antisemitism by targeting Jewish people or advocating for the destruction of Israel.

So having bought my new trowel from the hardware shop yesterday, I thought I would be very clever and condition the wooden handle to soaking in some cheap corn oil which I keep in the kitchen if I need a cheap oil for oiling purposes (e.g. for my kitchen shredder which is often forgotten about) So I put the trowel handle down in a narrow glass of oil and left it outside for abut a day. Then I consulted the web to inform myself about oiling the wooden handles of gardening tools to keep them in good condition. The advice that I got on the web was that I was doing exactly the wrong thing as these oils are non volatile, can go rancid over time and can oxidise and break down creating a bad smell. Unlike drying oils, cooking oils do not harden, creating a surface that attracts dirt and becomes unpleasant to hold. All the advice is to use a specialist oil such as linseed oil, Danish oil, teak oil and so on. The difficulty is that these oils can cost several times more than the implement they are designed to protect and one has to wonder if they worth while unless you have a real quality hand tool to protect. So I looked in my garage and happen to have some teak oil around so I have decided to let the cooking oil treatment soak in for about a day and then finish  off with a really good protective volatile oil as all of the sources of gardening advice recommend. It is always a good idea to clean and oil tools after every single use but normally one is quite weary after a session’s gardening and one is desperate to get inside and have a well earned cup of tea. But now that I am well and truly back into gardening mode again, I am filled with good intentions to keep my gardening tools in good condition. I used to find that  the old fashioned soap-filled ‘brillo’ pads were excellent in removing a light rust or staining but I find these much more difficult to find in the kinds of shops that I frequent and I am loathe to make a special journey just to find them. Having said that, they are always useful to have in stock, not least if you have a burnt pan in the kitchen to re-condition but a short term expedient are those foam pads with an abrasive side that can be laced with some cream cleaner. I suspect that the old fashioned engineers used to make constant use of the proverbial ‘oily rag’. Engineers and mechanics traditionally used an oily rag for cleaning greasy machinery, protecting metal parts from rust, and applying lubricants or finishing oils, with old cotton clothing favoured for being lint-free. They also serve as a staple for wiping hands and managing service fluid spills in workshops. Key reasons for using an oily rag are that a lingering layer of oil from the rag protects metal surfaces, tools, and equipment from moisture and oxidation, They are an inexpensive, reusable, and efficient tool for wiping down machinery and removing oil residue. White rags, in particular, allow engineers to see metal shavings or dirt in hydraulic fluid, aiding in diagnosing equipment problems. I wonder if these old fashioned skills and practices are now dying out completely? For this reason, I never throw old white cotton vests but deploy them when I can remember as garden tool cleaning aids. I am also asking some of my close friends if they can cast any abandoned cotton clothing in my direction for the same purpose.

The morning turned out to be reasonably entertaining. Having picked up my newspaper, I made a quick saunter into Wetherspoons where  I thought I would meet up with ‘Seasoned World Traveller’ from my park-roaming days and we exchanged a few pithy observations about the state of world politics. A day later than is normal, I turned up at  my ‘Gifts of Love’ cafe where I bumped into one of the volunteers who I know quite well and another  whom  I may have seen before as she worships in the same church as do I. I generally purchase enough car parking time for a couple of hours and this gives me time for a slow peregrination up and down the High Street. I was just on the point of purchasing a shirt in exactly my size and the colour I would have chosen when I realised it was one of those without buttons on the sleeves but relied upon cufflinks – this being the reason it wasunsold, I suppose. I then purchased a floor cleaning preparation that I know that my domestic help particularly likes also bought of the ex Marks and Spencer ‘Harvester’ range of butter dishes with covers  which I intend to use for the hard cheeses that I buy. Having texted my American friend, she accepted my invitation to come and share a roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner with me tomorrow i.e. quite a traditional Sunday meal and we will prepare the veg together. I had promised to play her a copy of the Puccini opera of ‘La Bohème’, courtesy of YouTube, and have found a production in which the stage design was by Franco Zefferelli and Mirella Freni sings the part of Mimi. I am by no means an avid watcher of TV but the offerings this weekend seem particularly dire. I have the stimulating choice of watching  hours of snooker on one channel with ‘Top of the Pops’ from 34 years ago on another and, of course the mindless game shows. Even some of the films date back to the 1940’s and it no wonder that TV watching is declining into an almost death spiral. These days, I am often quite contented listening to Classic FM and giving the newspapers a slow read although I have bookcases of serious books into which I ought to get stuck. Looking along my bookshelves I found a book I never knew I had by Francis Wheen entitled ‘How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the World’ I opened it at random and found some  passages in which American politicians berated those who they thought were doing them harm – in this case the Japanese. But the book was written in 2004 ie. 22 years ago and could have been written by Trump yesterday  – I even found the phrase in it to ‘Put America First’

So there is something rather special now that e have actually arrived at the month of May. This for me, and I suspect for many others, is a month of intense social activity in which birthdays feature prominently. When I was working in the University of Winchester, it occurred to many of my close colleagues that five of us had birthdays in this month and so it seemed sensible to pick a day in the middle of the month and to have a joint celebratory birthday meal. We started doing this about 21-22 years ago now and have tried to maintain the tradition over the years if it is at all possible. Two of us (including myself) have birthdays practically in the middle of the month and we have generally organised a meal in the middle of the month in the Winchester areas. I dubbed the group of us as the ‘Old Fogeys’ and as erstwhile colleagues, we sometimes chunter on about how excellent things were when we were in harness and how terrible they are now. We each of us have personal news to convey to us and, unfortunately, with the passage of time a very few of us have gone to meet our Creator and most of us, whilst keeping ourselves pretty fit are bearing some of the ravages of time. We tried to have another meeting before the Autumn started so that we could eat and meet twice a year but COVID and other national exigencies has generally reduced our meetings down to one. Of course some of us are now approaching the age when we have 80th birthdays to celebrate (my own being last May year) and the tradition is being kept alive by the special postponed 60th birthday party (now a 65th birthday party) being thrown by one of our number in about ten days time in a gastropub in the Berkshire area to which I am looking forward tremendously. This month is going to be especially poignant for me as my wife of nearly 60 years, Meg, left us on 10th May last year, the day before my 80th birthday (with exquisite timing, so that my birthday celebrations were not adversely impacted) But there are lots of other things going on as well. In the forthcoming week there are two U3A (University of the Third Age) events taking place and about a fortnight later, we have a coach trip organised for us to go o Bakewell in Derbyshire and also a viewing of Kedleston Hall which to National Trust members is a ‘free’ visit. Now that the weather has improved, I am sure that many of us will seize the opportunity to hold little impromptu garden parties in our own houses – once I have my patio professionally restored to some of its former glory and I am not so ashamed on my neglected back garden, I will also almost certainly invite all and sundry to visit so that we can enjoy the fine weather. It will also give me an incentive to do some judicious clipping back and restoration of some of the flower beds. I always used to reckon that if you were on top of the gardening activities in April-June, then the rest of the year was plain sailing but if anything happened to disrupt getting the garden into good shape during these three months, it was very hard to catch up during the rest of the year.

The day started off with some lengthy telephone calls with my Bank as they had intercepted a possible scam raid upon my banking account which their own fraud department had intercepted. Nonetheless, it took the best part of an hour and half to completely get the issue resolved which we did, after which I went to collect my American friend for our trip out to Alcester.  The weather was glorious and we spent a delightful time ‘doing’ a selection of charity shops before we finally alighted upon one of those ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ type of shops that sells a whole range of ironmongery and household requisites. My friend was absolutely bowled over by this store and we spent quite a lot of time in it and I finished  up buying some stationery, a sewing kit of threads and needles to help to reattach some missing buttons and a very reasonably priced trowel. We visited the local Anglican church which has roots back to the 12th century and we enjoyed the simplicity of the interior. My friend and I were minded to light candles for our loved, departed ones but there were no candles available to be bought (next time, we visit, we will bring our own little tea lights) But they did have a delightful little ‘prayer and intentions’ tree in which  worshippers could write their messages and them affix them to one of the branches of the tree (which I did) Then we managed to repark the car into a designated space and went for our lunch where I had not been for a couple of years but where the waitress remembered me (and I was pleased that I remembered her first name as well) Afterwards we hit the charity shops again and I found a 100% glazed cotton shirt by Next and superior to the run of the mill shirts in that it actually had insertable collar stiffeners and was exactly the right collar size. From another charity shop I espied a glass decanter which I thought would be useful to me for middle-of-the-night drinks in and, egged on by my American friend  who had spotted a minute chip, successfully negotiated the price down from £3 to £1. We then made our way home on what was a blazing afternoon and enjoyed some of our own flavours of ice cream in the garden. After a bit of a rest, my friend enjoyed a light tea of melon, brambles and original Greek yogurt  and than watched the catch-up edition of Question Time before I ran my friend back to her own house after what had been a really delightful day for the two of us. The Bank Holiday looms ahead for both us and neither of us has much inclination to roam very far afield so we are going to keep in touch by text and then decide what other little ventures we might undertake once we have got our various domestic tasks undertaken.

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.