All eyes at the moment are on the Royal visit to the USA to commemorate the 250 years of American independence and it is probably far to say that both sides were trying to stick to their prepared scripts which might make a faint reference to present disagreements between the respective governments but were emphasising special relationships, unique bonds and all the rest of it. But then Donald Tump decided to go off-piste and refer to the Iranian conflict implying that King Charles was fully committed to the American involvement in the conflict. The British diplomatic team must have been holding their breaths wondering what else Trump would say as our King was trying to keep as non-political as possible. I am sure that the British officials will be so relieved when all of these junketings are over and the King and Queen are safely back home in the UK. I am sure that ing Charles was playing his part as well as he could but with an unpredictable American president almost anything can happen. As soon as this American adventure is over, attention will turn to domestic British politics because all of the indications are that the Labour party will be put to the sword in the local elections in a week’s time and they will lose many of their voters both to the right (to the Reform party) and to the left (the Greens) I suspect that it is quite probable that Starmer may well be toppled at this point, the only massive stumbling block being that there is no evident successor to assume the role of Prime Minister as Andy Burnham, the current mayor of Manchester, has yet to find and win a seat in Parliament. My son called around this morning after his early morning swim and we dissected world politics a little – he has told me about a couple of really informative programmes about the Suez crisis that I really must make time to watch. Perhaps because I was a little over tired I had a rather disturbed night’s sleep last night but the day is dawning brightly with the prospect of first shopping and then a bit more gardening in store in this week which actually is rather a quiet one. Both my son and I are getting ready for two ‘big’ weekends in about ten days time. I am looking forward to my trip down to South Oxfordshire to attend my friend’s birthday party (and it happens to be the anniversary of Meg’s death). On my son’s part, there is going to be a massive school reunion to be held in York where my son can meet up with many of his generation who seem to all have had successful careers but are now themselves approaching retirement age. My son is recalling some of the escapades which are part of schoolboy life and they have even located one of their old masters who is to come along to share in their celebrations (hints of ‘Goodbye, Mr, Chips’ at this point) When you meet people after a gap of decades sometimes people are unrecognisable wheres others look as though they have scarcely aged over their lifetimes.
Aa it is the middle of the week, I make my way down to the Methodist Centre where I indulge in a cup of coffee and a toasted teacake, I was joined by the extremely lively 95 year old who hails from Manchester (and we had both worked in Oxford Road, Manchester in the 1960’s) and has just returned to the UK from Spain where she had lived for many years. This lady has led a very energetic life – in her younger years she had walked most of the Lake District fells and mountains whilst in Spain where he lived near the sea she used to swim across the bay every day to keep herself fit. In fact she has invited me round for a meal when we can both spare the time but she has to fit in another visit to Spain first. I bumped int one of the original coffee crowd who used to meet in the Waitrose cafe. In fact there were six of us altogether and sometimes more when other friends and acquaintances joined in. But Waitrose closed its coffee bar and many of us transferred our allegiance to the adjacent Wetherspoons. `But now three of the original six are living in residential accommodation and Meg, of course, is no longer with us so I am left with one remaining friend from the original group. But we do tend to bump each other on a Wednesday when it is my friend’s turn on the rota to open up the Methodist Centre and get things prepared for the keep fit classes and the coffee bar. After I had spent an hour here I departed to go and do my weekly shopping which, fortunately, is extremely quiet at this time of the week. When I got home, I prepared myself a salad lunch and then watched some of the news programmes. I went outside in the mid afternoon to finally finish off the moss scraping from the patio at the back of the house and it looks so improved. However, I need to get in touch with a firm that will do the necessary re-grouting/re-pointing of the slabs (a lengthy job) before I have the whole thing pressure washed. The remainder of the afternoon was spent going through the newspapers to see if anything needed to be saved before the great ‘throwing away’ of the newspapers where the local authority collects our green bin once a fortnight. This task was assisted by the consumption of ice cream, necessary when the weather is warm. I also made a booking at the hostelry in Alcester which I am going to visit on Friday and anticipate having some of their magnificent home-made lasagne. Alcester is a pretty little Georgian town with lots of independent shops and an array of charity shops which nearly always contain some superb merchandise. In the past, I bought some of Meg’s clothes there and the kitchenware is always well worth a look. The town also contains one of the old fashioned ironmongers crammed to the rafters with all kinds of utensils and kitchen aids which are always tempting and one doesn’t see in the run-of-the-mill supermarkets. In the past, I have bought some of the stationery items as well such as large packs of different sizes of envelopes which I like to have in stock.