Yesterday, the day dawned a little cooler than usual and I got up just after 6.00am wondering what the day was going to bring. It is quite difficult to know what outerwear to don for my morning walk. Conscious of the fact that a sudden shower might be imminent, I put on some kind of waterproof but the air is so humid at the moment that I find that after my walk up and down the hill I am quite clammy with sweat and even have to change my short and underclothes on occasion. I am sure that the secret is one of those really light but ultimately ‘breathable’ fabrics you can buy so I might need a trip to a camping shop or the men’s outfitters in Bromsgrove to get something like this. The problem does not arise when the weather is colder and sharper but we are living through quite humid days at the moment.
The Trump and Epstein story rumbles on and, from the point of view of Donald Trump, will not just go away, Donald Trump has claimed billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein ‘stole’ prominent accuser Virginia Giuffre and other young women from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Ms Giuffre (who has now dead) became a household name after she sued Prince Andrew for sexual abuse in August 2021 – saying he had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by his friend Epstein. Prince Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement with Ms Giuffre but has repeatedly denied the claims and has not been charged with any criminal offences. Donald Trump made his remarks about Ms Giuffre as his administration has faced growing pressure in recent weeks, including from within his ‘MAGA’ base, to release files related to Epstein after he promised to do so during his 2024 presidential campaign. This story seems to get worse and worse for Trump and his MAGA base which had been promised full disclosure of the papers related to the Epstein case once Trump assumed office are now being denied the same and the movement is fracturing over the issue. I follow the latest twists and turns via some news channels available on YouTube and whilst the issue is not discussed very much on this side of the Atlantic, on the other side of ‘the pond’ there is a continuing interest in the story. The polling organisation have performed an ‘end of term’ report on the Labour government after a year in office and the figures very broadly say that about only 30% approve of the Government’s performance but 50% disapprove. The cost of living remains the biggest grumble but immigration is one issue that may drive some ex-Labour voters towards Nigel Farage’s Reform party. In all of this, the Conservative party remains in the doldrums so here we have a situation in which the electorate are not enthusiastic about either of the two major parties and we are entering a period of very fractured politics which may persist for some time.
Later in the morning I met up with old Pilates friend from years ago. The thing is that we go back a long way (probably 9-10 years) and use to lie on adjacent mats in our Pilates classes. As we had had both taught maths or statistics then we both had something in our occupational lives in common and we often joked with each other using our shared knowledge. Seven years ago, we both had to undergo surgery at about the same time and we used to speculate with each other whether our we pass each other on a hospital trolley at some time. We did give each other a lot of mutual support at the time. mainly by text message and we both recovered from our problems. When my friend needed to move to a class on a different day so when we did meet up with each it was like ‘ships passing in the night’ At he height of COVID, though, she discovered a public footpath which ran near the bottom of our garden so she came along to help me celebrate with a glass of champagne – I needed to serve it to her across a barbed wire fence in a seed tray attached to a long pole which is the nearest we could get to each other. But since then, we have both lost our spouses, my friend about five years go and me some eleven+ weeks ago. So, we had a lot of practical, social and emotional things to talk to each other about and we stayed chatting over our cup of coffee for over two hours. My friend is going to off to the Sidcup folk festival next week and is engaged in a lot of things when she returns but we will try and squeeze in another coffee. On my home I stopped off at a charity shop and bought a covered coffee container which I may use to give me a supply of cold drinks during the night. Then I bumped into my Italian friend and we spent a good 20 minutes chatting in the sunshine on her garden seat. She is trying to sell her house and then intends to move away to live near to her daughter which is a source of some sadness for me. I was so late when I got back as it was about 2.30 so I made myself an omelette filled with onions and tomatoes and served on some salad. Then I very virtuously cut the grass on the front greened area although to be honest it had hardly grown an inch. To my very pleasant surprise, I have a plum tree in the front which had one long prominent branch sticking out and practically touching the ground. It was laden with plums and I picked fifteen really big, ripe and juicy specimens and I estimate it is about 2lb of fruit. And not a single had been attacked by wasps which very often happens with particularly ripe and juicy fruit. Amazingly enough, there dd not seem to any more fruit on any other part of the tree but I am glad about this year’s crop – I seem to remember I did not get anything last year but fruit trees are like that sometimes. I also have a few apples coming along but bot as many as a few years ago.