It is unequivocally spring like when I awoke yesterday morning to a clear blue sky and a temperature that will eventually rise to about 13° which is not quite as warm as a few days ago. This weekend is one of the weekends in which the Methodist Centre holds a general ‘get together’ for those who are on their own. The format is generally a coffee occasion for the entire group which can number as many as about 60-70 of us and this is then followed by a talk, film or presentation given by someone who local links in the area e.g. a local historian. The talks are not always a great deal of interest to be fair but it is a good opportunity for acquaintances to meet up with each other and to make new contacts. I anticipate that my trans-Atlantic friend with whom I had coffee during the week will attend and I think that one of the people attending will also be part of the coach holiday I am to undertake in April. Yesterday, I put some finishing touches to the presentation I am going to make to the recently formed Classical Music Appreciation group which is in about three weeks time and ran through some of the video clips I had assembled with my daughter-in-law. She made the observation that each of the clips was on various aspects of love (youthful, sorrowful, anticipatory) and I suppose she was correct in her observations which gives me another angle or discussion point when I come to make my contribution. At the moment, I know everything that I intend to say about each piece but it is all in my head and not written down but this is fine. Of course we do not know at this stage how the dynamics of the group will develop and when we all share our musical experiences with each other it will be in a very different way but I am hopeful that we can both share and also learn from each other as the meetings go by. But we have only had an introductory meeting so far so it is early days yet. It is interesting that our group is about 12 members strong but the Curry Club membership is already bursting at the seams and it seems that the next meeting of this will be of the order of two dozen of us (half a restaurant full?) in an Indian restaurant which has a very good reputation locally. The other group which I have joined but not yet attended is Conversational Spanish and this again should prove to be interesting when we eventually convene and share our (fumbling, no doubt) experiences with each other. It now appears that the UK is being sucked, step by step, into the Iran conflict as news has emerged that as a country we are now going to allow the Americans to use British bases as a springboard or staging post for their own operations. I feel that the cautious approach of our own Prime Minister has been judicious so far but we may now be entering a phase when we are seen as an active ally of the United States and therefore our military assets will be regarded as legitimate targets to attack. It will be interesting to assess the mood of the House of Commons when the government approach will be subject to a critical scrutiny and assessment. For example, the shadow of the Iraq intervention by Tony Blair when ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were found to be non-existent but just rhetoric has not been forgotten, or forgiven, by a large swathe of Labour MPs.
The talk given at the Methodist Centre today featured a presentation of photographs on the theme of ‘Island Hopping by Camper Van’ The couple who presented it had evidently been very keen coastal path walkers in their younger days and their photos featured the remote islands and headlands off the west coast of Ireland, Crete and some of the more remote and inaccessible Greek islands and finally the Orkneys and Shetland Isles. The illustrated talk turned out to be a little more interesting than I thought it might be and I had visited some of the Orkneys in a round Britain cruise decades before. One of the audience is coming on the coach trip to Scotland and she very kindly had brought along with her a history of the hotel and its environs for me to read before the holiday starts in early April. After I returned home, I made myself a salad lunch and was delighted to see that my daughter-in-law had busied herself with some much needed weeding and hedge cutting at he front of the house. After lunch and as the weather was fine, I decided to make a start on the moss and weeds that had made rather a mess of our patio at the rear of the house. I had neglected doing this routine gardening whilst Meg had been so ill and was gradually fading away and I do not regret for a moment spending as much time as I could by her side. As it was, even getting the lawns cut proved to be quite a difficult logistical exercise the summer before last. So although I have no regrets, the day of reckoning is approaching and I have made a start on the quite massive garden maintenance task in front of me. In the afternoon, I split my activities into two sessions of work and got the moss and large weeds removed. Now I am starting on the longer task of removing the finer weeds and moss between each of the paving stones and this I will continue by doing at lest 30 minutes a day until the task is completed. Then the patio will need a good re-grouting followed by a specialist cleaning, but I will take advice on which way round I ought to organise these activities. In any case, lawn mowing will start next week so I need to get supplies of lawn mower oil and fresh petrol organised. Once the lawn mowing season starts, it becomes a once-a -eek job because the very act of cutting the grass releases a hormone which encourages further growth and of course we have the longer days, some Spring sun and the inevitable April showers to assist rapid growth.