The evening before last, I ensured that I had my evening repast strictly at 6.00pm so that I could eat it whilst watching the news and could then go for a little walk in the park at 7.00pm. This took quite a lot of will power because all I wanted to do to stay snug at home and it was rather a muggy day outside anyway. Nonetheless, I made myself do it because there were two TV programmes that I had promised myself to watch as a treat. The first of these was a history of Rome by Sebag Montefiore and it detailed both the rise (and the fall) of the Vatican whose history is intertwined with that of Rome. Two little facts stuck with me as a result of this viewing. In the first place, after the excesses, as they appeared, of the voluptuous paintings of which the highlight was MichaelAngelo’s depiction of the Last Judgement, I had not realised that in the Counter-Reformation, a sense of prudishness had swept across the Vatican. This resulted in any of the genitals displayed by figures created by MichaelAngelo to be overpainted with fig leaves. Following decrees from the Council of Trent in 1563 condemning nudity in sacred art, the artist Daniele da Volterra was hired to paint drapery and loincloths over the exposed areas (where. they remained to this day). The second fact that I learned from the film was that the status of Vatican City as an independent state, the smallest on earth was only fully settled in the Concordat signed by Mussolini after some sixty years of conflict between Vatican and Roman militia. So all of this was very enlightening but then I made myself watch the harrowing account in a documentary entitled ‘Stolen Babies’ of the ways in which the British state was complicit in the forced adoptions of babies born to unmarried mothers in the 1950’s. This was not confined to the UK or even to just unmarried mothers but was part of a wider phenomenon in many countries, including Spain. The phenomenon of stolen babies and forced adoptions up until the 1980s represents a dark chapter in modern history, spanning several countries under various regimes. These systems primarily targeted vulnerable women—such as political dissidents, unmarried mothers, or indigenous families—and separated newborns from their biological parents through coercion, deception, or state-sanctioned theft. The programme shown recently focused on the accounts of the then unmarried mothers and the fact that they were often forced to give birth with no pain relief, given no anaesthetic in any stitching that was required as a ‘punishment’ and then their babies were often removed within minutes of birth. As the film explained, this was a system in which largely working class women gave birth to children who were then handed over to predominantly white, middle class families. The passing of the Abortion Act and more easily available contraception meant that this practice died out as the ‘supply’ of babies radically diminished but the women whose children had been forcibly removed from them carried the feelings of guilt and shame for decades. The devolved administrations on Scotland, Wales and even Northern Ireland issues public apologies but in the case of England, it was left to Keir Starmer to make a formal announcement of the state’s guilt and complicity as late as July of this year – 2026.
I attended my Tai Chi class for the first time for a fortnight and was pleased that everything seemed quite unenergetic on this particular occasion. The Methodist Centre in which the classes are held will not re-open its coffee bar area until next week so after the class, I strolled along to the ‘Gifts of Love’ charity shop that I frequent once a week and can always have a chat with the volunteers who are manning it (as well as supplying me with a cup of coffee) Then I returned home and made a sort of fricassee with some frozen ham ends added to some fried onions and then supplemented by one of those instant veg in a microwavable bag which I use on occasions. After my lunch, there was nothing much on the TV schedules which caught my attention, so I turned to Channel 4 in the catch-up mode and watched a programme on the rise of the far right in the UK. This turned out to be a compelling watch because a journalist from the ‘Hope, Not Hate’ anti-fascist campaigning organisation had infiltrated one of their journalist members into some right wing groups in an attempt to discover the wealthy but anonymous donor who was funding all of these groups. This turned out to be quite an exciting watch as the journalist gained the trust of some of the right wing groups and then posed as a potential donor who wanted to supply funds but had to ensure that his money was not ‘wasted’ The journalist succeeded in his aim of discovering the millionaire donor who denied all of the allegations put to him but nonetheless pulled out all of is funding as the source of funds was no longer clandestine. Then in the late afternoon, my chiropodist called around for my monthly foot treatment and we discussed my holiday trip in some detail. I am trying to maintain my daily walk around the park after a light supper but I am aiming for an hour earlier today to give me a fairly uninterrupted evening. I have spent a certain amount of time making sure that I have all of my U3A (University of the Third Age) commitments appropriately calendared. This week has been quiet but I have two engagements next week and two the week after that and I find that this is just about my limit because were I to engage in even more group activities, this might start to appear a little burdensome to me. After a summer in which I have been spared the weekly ritual of grass mowing, I also think the time is rapidly approaching when I need to refill the petrol can and start on a regular mowing regime again although the grass appears patchy and the only thing that seems to have thrived after the intense hot weather followed by copious rainfall are the weeds. The autumn is a generally a good time when one starts to think of a certain degree of pruning and cutting back but there is quite a lot of that to do in my garden at the moment. As with many of these things, I suspect I need to devote a regular 30 minutes a day to these gardening activities, provided the weather holds up of course. We may well be having another spell of good weather with which to round off our strange summer but the heat cannot be as intense as it was in July.