As I awoke yesterday, there was nothing more exciting to which to look forward but a visit from our hairdresser in the morning and another call by our chiropodist in the afternoon. But these two people have been tending to Meg and I for at least ten years now and it is so useful when they visit the house. But in the evening before, the doorbell rang and it was an Asian lady who lives around the corner. When they first moved into their house several years ago, we made them welcome with a bottle of wine and we have remained on these ‘good neighbour’ terms ever since. She apologised that no member of the family had attended the funeral but they themselves seem to have been going through some horrendous family traumas involving a couple of twins being born early and then only surviving a matter of hours as they were deemed too premature to survive (and there were no premature cots available in any case) This lady had brought around a donation for CAFOD which I need to add to some others and then hand on to the undertaker. Apart from this, I located an old little hardback book in which I used to record the petrol consumption of a newly acquired car. I always used to do this when I acquired a new car but then ceased to record after a little. But this little book had several pages already marked out so I rebadged it with those little stick-on letters with which I sometimes label record-keeping books so it is all ready for new car when it comes into my safe keeping. On the domestic political front, more than 120 Labour MPs have signed a ‘reasoned amendment’ to block the PM’s benefit cuts, Sky News understands. Minister Luke Pollard yesterday said the government is in dialogue with their concerned backbenchers about making changes to the policy but if the government did not make some amendments to their policy then they would surely be defeated. The problem for the government is that the welfare budget is soaring but making cuts to it is going to leave thousands of disabled people in real distress. The way round this problem is to keep the benefits for existing claimants and to make the policy increasing difficult to access for new claimants but this does not generate the savings in the short term which are necessary to stop the budgets ballooning out of control. It looks as though discussions are taking place before a crucial vote is taken but the Labour government is acting as though it was a conservative one to the dismay of many of the younger generation of MPs who say they did not come into politics to bash the disabled. This has all the hallmarks of the dispute over the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance (from which I feel Meg suffered for a start) and will probably run and run unless the government bows to the prospect of a massive back bench revolt and refines the proposals.
In the morning, I set myself the schedule of walking down the hill, picking up a few groceries and a newspaper and then returning home before my hairdresser appointment. In the event, it was an eventful walk. Immediately round the corner I bumped into some near neighbours and informed them about Meg’s death but they had already heard of it. Then immediately down the hill, I bumped into another lady who was a relative of Clive, the trumpet player who played at our 50th wedding celebrations but who died just before COVID some five years ago. I informed the lady of Meg’s recent demise but she had herself just lost her own mother to a tongue and throat cancer just over two weeks ago so she was having to cope with a funeral as well as her house which she is in the process of selling. We hugged each other both of us knowing how the other felt coping with the grieving process. When I got to Waitrose, I made my purchases and then bumped into the elderly Irish parishioner who had very kindly led the ‘bidding prayers’ for us at Meg’s funeral and he has a delightful soft Irish brogue. Also shopping was one of my ‘Tuesday and Saturday’ friends who I will see on Saturday in any case. Upon walking up the hill, I espied my Italian fried and almost caught up with her but she was being picking up by a friend so we just waved to each other. In the late morning, our hairdresser turned up and she was telling me a story about how when she went on holiday to the island of Kos in Greece, she got into conversation with a person who knew her when she was a baby of 18 months and had actually played with her older brothers and hence knew our hairdresser’s family. It is, as they say, a small world. My son turned up, as he said he would and we lunched on a sandwich of ham on a rye bread and then waited for our chiropodist who turned up thirty minutes early. As well as seeing to my feet, the chiropodist also treated a toe nail of my son’s that had been injured in a sporting accident but which she had treated before and gave another treatment as part of the service.
As I promised myself, I went outside in the late afternoon and completed the weeding of the gravel area surrounding the bench in the front of the house. I had to contend with some ants which are always prevalent when the weather conditions are hot and dry and I think that one or two might have taken some revenge on me for having been disturbed. When our domestic help was helping me to clear up some of Meg’s things we came across a blue cotton overall that I think I must have bought about ten years ago with gardening and handyman jobs in mind. Anyway, I donned this and it meant that I kept my clothing basically clean despite the dust thrown up by the weeding. The area at the front of he house was what greeted a visitor when they come to visit the house so I am particularly pleased that I have this looking in a better state. Once basically weeded, it is a comparatively easy job to keep it in good condition so tomorrow I need to turn my attention to the back of he house so that I can bring our patio back into use without feeling ashamed of it.