I went for a walk on my own in the park the evening before last to give me some fresh air and a little gentle exercise. Upon my arrival in the park, I was greeted by three police cars who were just leaving – apparently having had to deal with some unruly teenagers. They had released what were described to me as ‘fire bombs’ which are joke items often called ‘smoke bombs’ or ‘stink bombs’ and are novelty items designed for harmless pranks rather than actual destruction. They release a cloud of coloured smoke or an unpleasant odour when crushed, lit, or dropped. I suppose it is the start of the long summer vacations and bored adolescents were responsible but I did two circuits of the lake and then came home. The news media was dominated by the news of Andy Burnham’s cabinet as posts appeared to be filled one by one. The wings of the Labour party had a candidate each (Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood) and by appointing either to the crucial role of Chancellor, Burnham would have risked alienating one large portion of the party another. To solve this dilemma, Burnham appointed John Healey who was the well established and well-trusted figure who had resigned as Defence Secretary when he failed to secure sufficient funding for Defence so now in charge of the nation’s finances. The boot, as they say, is now on the other foot. In the morning, I spent some time chatting with my son who called around after his swim and also with our domestic help who was recovering from a bout of sickness and then it was time for me to journey into town and to attend my Pilates class. I intended to wear the over-sized shorts bought recently n a charity shop but my domestic help promptly insisted that if were to wear them I would be the laughing stock of the town so after the obligatory photograph had been taken, I obliged her and I changed into a more conventional pair of shorts. In my music lounge, I discovered a little pile of about six illustrated children’s books written and illustrated in such a way that a child between the age of 4-6 could have the bedtime story read to them by a parent and as the children got older, they could have course read these story books for themselves. There was one charity shop in Droitwich which always had a marvellous selection of such books and as Meg’s dementia progressed, I used to read these stories to Meg and she could look follow the illustrations as I fead. I think that these stories gave Meg quite a lot of pleasure until her cognitive powers had diminished completely and coming across the pile of books gave me some pangs of sorrow, particularly as I flicked through the pages of her favourite ones. My domestic help was more than happy to take this collection of books where they might come into useful for the dementia sufferers in the residential home in which she works as the entertainments manager.
When I returned home, I cooked myself a portion of risotto which I rescued from the bowels of my freezer, after which I was contacted by my American fiend who has having a new TV installed by John Lewis. The TV set appears to be working correctly but I am not sure that the internet connection she has (via Sky) is working very well or even at all. So I suspect that some traumas might lie ahead whilst we get the internet connection sorted out and my friend is not well informed about matters technological so it is difficult to give advice without looking at the whole setup. I am unsure how to help my friend out of this dilemma and I suspect that a joint visit to the EE shop or the our local TV retailer on the on the High Street may be the next step along although we could always trawl the net for an independent installer to diagnose and then fix my friend’s system. In the afternoon my friend came around to give me a progress on her TV installation and afterwards we went for a walk in the park to clear our heads and to discuss TV and related issues. At the very end of our walk, we fell into conversation with a chap who was loading things into his car and at this time of night, people are very relaxed, friendly and wiling to engage in all kinds of conversations. Initially talking about cars, we discussed the benefits of a daily walk and it transpired that the person with whom we were taking intended to undertake the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain, probably joining the French route. It looked as though he was going to fly to Madrid and then join a more organised group where they would walk 25-30 kilometres a day and stay in the designated hostels along the route. I explained that my friend and I intended to visit Santiago de Compostela if our predicted holiday to Spain next February proceeds without a hitch. Later on this evening, I am going to have a video-chat via WhatsApp with one of my University of Winchester friends whose wife, as it happens is very poorly. We typically chat about once a month and like to provide each other with some mutual help and support where we can. I was delighted that my friend and his wife had managed to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary which is a milestone that not many couples achieve. I think that the published statistics show that the percentage of couples who achieve a 50th wedding anniversary if of the order about 7% which means, of course, that 93% of couples do not as death, divorce and separation take their toll. I must admit that in the last day or so, I experienced a little twinge of sadness when I reflected how interested and excited Meg would have been about the accession of Andy Burnham to Downing Street. Meg and I spent six very formative years of our life in Manchester as we had both been to university there and then studied for our Masters there. I also spent a couple of years teaching in a College of Education in Manchester and it is inevitable that we should continue to have feelings of affiliation for the city in which we had met each other, been to university, bought our first house there, have our son born there and worked in vacation jobs in the Manchester factories (as well as the Tiffany’s nightclub)