I awoke yesterday to one of these ‘travelling’ type dreams that seem go go on and on. On this occasion, I was travelling on my own in Spain and was first having to navigate my way through a strange city on foot to find the railway station. This I did and then had to master the complexities of the check-in seemed which seemed more like an airport than a railway station and this task was one in which I was successful as well. Before contemplating the next stage of my journey and deploring the fact that I had left my big Korean style leather jacket behind I then woke up only to fall asleep again and have a dream about chasing a baby sized baby duck-billed platypus through a resort somewhere abroad before I last my quarry. So I was a little late in actually getting up this morning and have to get going quite rapidly as I have a dental hygienist appointment quite early in the morning. I did take the opportunity, though, to order a stock of some of those specialist freezer bags designed to freeze and store portion size portions of soup in the freezer and also started to explore some glass containers available through Amazon as I wish to avoid plastic containers altogether. I read that I despite the health of the president declining few months before the mid-term elections, Donald Trump is pressing on with two building projects, namely the so-called ballroom as well as a triumphal arch. Donald Trump says his proposed 76m (250ft) tall triumphal arch in Washington DC would be converted to become a top-grade military complex housing drones and snipers and storing ammunition. Writing on his Truth Social platform, the US president said he had agreed to the move following a strong request from the military. He also cited national security concerns but did not mention any specific threats. It echoes the rationale he cited for the $400m (£298m) ballroom complex being built on the site of the White House’s former East Wing that has been demolished to make way for the project. The most cynical of commentators are speculating that Trump is building himself a military site bunker from which it will be impossible to extract him as he occupies it once an election has been lost in a desperate bid to stay in power and evacuate the White House. The ballroom venture is already several storeys deep underground and houses a heavily fortified military area (bunker, actually) as well as a hospital with the ballroom merely proving a sort of topping to the whole.
In the morning, I went along to see the dental hygienist who I see every six months and I have been seeing her for about the last fifteen years. She gave me a clean bill of health but I needed to book (and to pay for) another appointment in six months time. Also I have a dental check up every six months which is timed half way through the hygienist appointments which means that one way or another my teeth get checked over every three months. I am glad to be back on an even keel because things went a little wayward in the final months of Meg’s illness. After my checkup, I visited the home supplies store and managed to secure another couple of the straight sided glass containers that are excellent for soup and just happen to fit in one of the shelves of the freezer. I was on the lookout for glass storage containers but although I found a set of storage containers they had no indication of the materials from which they were made and, therefore, no guarantee that they would be BPA free. Even such a claim does not make the material safe, though, as manufacturers often replace BPA with structurally similar alternatives like BPS (Bisphenol S) or BPF (Bisphenol F). Research shows these alternative bisphenols can act as hormone disruptors in a similar way to BPA. For these reasons, I am tending to avoid plastic storage containers however they are described and look out for glass alternatives which are evidently safer but more expensive. I visited Asda and did not find any glass storage containers as such but I did find that Asda now had a stock of Kilner jars for only £1.50 each which I snapped up although the checkout tried to charge me £2.00 for them until I objected that the shelf price was different but the counter assistant took my word for it without checking and charged me the lower price. After I got home, I cooked myself a lunch of sweet potatoes, slices from a frozen beef joint and some mange tout peas but I tried to roast the sweet potatoes after parboiling them which all got a little fiddly. I know know the skins are full of fibre and potassium so I will make life easier for myself in the future. After I had rested, I set about getting the back lawn cut where the grass had grown exceptionally lush and thick after the hot weather and then the recent rain but I suspect that I have left it for a fortnight whereas it could actually do with a weekly cut. I had previously consulted the TV schedules and I have two real treats lined up for myself this afternoon and this evening. First to be shown is ‘Hidden Figures’ which is the story of young black female mathematicians who overcame mountains of prejudice to help America win the Space Race against the Russians (6.20 on Film4). My University of Birmingham friend told me some months ago what an inspirational film this was to watch and I did managed to watch a showing of it in fragments but today I am going to enjoy the full, uninterrupted viewing. This finishes conveniently in time just before David Olusoga’s ‘Finding Britain’s Slave Traders’ on BBC 2 at 9.00pm which will take me up to bedtime and is bound to convey some food for thought and may well confront the indigenous community with some uncomfortable home truths. I have enjoyed the other programmes that this historian has researched and presented which he does in a relatively unemotional fashion but the major political question remains whether and how much reparations should be made in a society where we seem to be permanently broke. I am not convinced that seeking reparations is the correct political response but I think it is important that our history books and school curriculum adequately reflect the result of these researches. One suspects, though, that this easier to say than to da and the writers of history books for the school population have a difficult task on their hands.