Now that the summer is well and truly passed and autumn is upon us, I have a somewhat new venture before me. Most of the weekdays are filled with activities of one sort or another with Pilates, Tai Chi and visits to some of my favourite coffee drinking venues such as the Methodist Centre. The weekends are another matter altogether, though, as apart from a regular attendance at church early on Sunday mornings, there is no other evident highlights to the weekends. Most of my friends and acquaintances are off seeing  their family at weekends in any case so I felt the need to see what local attractions were open to me during the Autumn. So I a determined to make the best of my National Trust membership which always be relied upon to have a cafe generally with a good heart-warming home made soup to sustain one in the middle of the day. So I am developing some new routines to occupy myself at the weekends during the forthcoming weeks and already have a little programme of events mapped out for myself. Firstly, though, I intend to make Saturday afternoons my ‘soup making’ day and I am going  to try and make these in variety, not least because if I am stuck for a meal during the week, I always have something to hand. This weekend, for example, I am preparing a curried parsnip soup which I am sure I will really enjoy and have already ensured I have the parsnips to hand. Next weekend, though, I will probably devote to making pumpkin soup as the severe drought has caused the pumpkins to mature early this year so we may start to see pumpkins in the supermarkets a little earlier than the traditional month of October. So Saturdays being taken care of, we still have Sundays to negotiate but I have a little programme mapped out for myself. I intend to visit a very local National trust property this weekend whereas next weekend, my son and I are going to traverse the length of the Severn Valley railway. The weekend after that happens to be the weekend upon which Meg’s 80th birthday would have fallen but I have arranged to see some of our very oldest friends from Leicestershire on that occasion for a ‘catch-up’ meal which is fortuitous. For the following two weekends, I have National Trust properties lined up to visit one of which is Edward Elgar’s birthplace only acquired a couple of years ago by the National Trust (which perhaps explains why it hasn’t come into my purview before) Once October is out of the way, the Christmas markets start and I have discovered that the one in Birmingham starts in early November so this might be one for my futures calendar. Although it is not a day out, the political news from the mid-term elections to be held on Tuesday, November 3rd is bound to capture my attention as some of us have been following these potential developments avidly for months. But November will hold some other attractions for me. International rugby’s new competitive cross hemisphere tournament features the twelve strongest nations in the sport, and stars the best players in the world, all competing to win rugby’s newest silverware and titles. The Nations Championship commenced in July 2026, having been created by Six Nations Rugby and SANZAAR through a landmark joint venture, transforming the July and November international rugby windows into a single competitive tournament every two years. I read that ITV has secured the terrestrial viewing rights to this so that, too, can be added to my calendar of interesting forthcoming events.

This morning  had its share of frustration because after I had received a letter from my doctor requesting me to make a further monitoring appointment, I was stuck on the end of a phone for 40 minutes whilst advanced from No. 5 to No. 1 in the queue. But this got done eventually  and I ventured forth to fill up the car with petrol and to acquire a copy of my daily newspaper. I then visited  the ‘Gifts of Love’ cafe where  chatted awhile with the volunteer helper and some other regulars and then set forth on the High Street with the aim of discovering some glass jugs in which to store the soups I intend to make. I was fortunate with one of my choices of shops because they regularly have donations of kitchen ware and I acquired three large jugs which would hold over a litre of soup each and then a Kilner jay from another store. Although my house is overflowing with books, I did find a ‘must have’ book which I acquired for only £2.00 but which originally sold for £30 some years ago.  It was commissioned by the AA and is entitled ‘Walks Through Britain’s History’ and is organised thematically, for example History, Science, Industrial Archaeology and so on. There are descriptions of 108 attractions and then a coloured map with detailed instructions of how to access the guided walk. This will probably make for some fascinating reading but of course whets the appetite for venues in the locality. For example, the book was probably worth buying just for the description of the environs of Edward Elgar’s birthplace which is on my ‘to visit’ list in any case. So I think I am going to really enjoy poring over this book not only to inform myself but also to look out other venues to make a trip. After I got home and made myself a delayed lunch of a prawn omelette, I consulted the web for some advice how to clean up the water jugs I had just acquired. I found a very homely American website where the author explained how to resurrect and make good dozens of old storage jars that she had acquired. I followed her instructions and after a quick swirl of washing up water inside each one then followed her advice to soak them all in a bowlful of warm water laced with some cider vinegar for half an hour. Then they are cleaned using washing-up liquid in the normal way before being well rinsed, dried and put away for future use. Putting together recent purchases and acquisitions from charity shops, I now have about eight capacious and sparkling glass containers ready for the onslaught. Last week, I deployed the Tefal soup maker on a ‘trial and error’ basis but I have located and printed off the English pages pf the relevant manual to ensure that I am doing things correctly. A few days ago, my kindly neighbour gave me some of the apples that had practically fallen off the apple tree in his garden so I am going to stew some of these and have these with some custard as a warming tea this evening.

After the exceptionally hot summer and then the welcome return of some rain to restore our lawns and gardens, one might have thought that our weather troubles were  over. But there is a disturbing report this morning to the effect that we need a lot more rain to restore water levels to normality. Above-average rainfall is needed across England for the next seven months for all areas to recover from drought by spring 2027, according to new research. The Environment Agency (EA) stated that despite some wet weather during the first half of September, almost three-quarters of England remains in drought following an exceptionally dry spring and summer as well as a succession of heatwaves. It says around 120% of typical rainfall is needed between now and April for all areas to be considered out of drought. So perhaps the message needs to be put out that we need to be careful about the way in which we use water. I know that in parts of Australia where rainwater can be at a premium, houses are designed so that water can be used several times e.g. already  used water can be stored and used to flush toilets. The older generation in our society used to understand this as I can remember my mother talking about ‘good’ water which was hot water that had been used for one purpose but could be saved and used for another. Now whether my mother was correct in her usage of this term is subject to some doubt. Historically, many communities also believed that drinking good water from pristine local springs directly contributed to good health, vitality, and even upright character, contrasting with ‘bad water’ that was thought to cause illness or sluggishness. On this subject, I remember an occasion when, as a teenager, I was going camping with my best friend when I lived in Leeds. We were walking through the little village of Lofthouse near Harrogate. One of the things that lodges in my memory is the inscription which we found as a stone inscription on the Lofthouse Parish Water Trough and Fountain, a public monument and war memorial located in North Yorkshire, The inscription read ‘If you want to be healthy, wealthy and stout, use plenty of cold water inside and out’ and is a traditional temperance rhyme and a humorous variation of Benjamin Franklin’s famous ‘healthy, wealthy, and wise’ proverb.  In these more health conscious days, you could rephrase this to read ‘healthy, wealthy and thin’ and make it rhyme by using the phrase ‘without and within’ It is strange the things that remain lodged in one’s memory but for some reason, I have never forgotten this one. Even when camping, one was taught to walk for a fair distance up stream from one’s water supply which was typically a nearby stream to ensure that the water supply was not contaminated upstream by a dead animal in the water. There are still some isolated dwellings in our country and, as we would imagine in Wales and Scotland that rely upon what are termed ‘private’ water supplies and these may number as many as 1.0-1.5% of all properties. As a mental thought experiment, I have wondered myself what would be the consequences if the Welsh had managed to keep control of their own water supplies and not have them plundered in the past to serve communities like Birmingham. Some research as uncovered the fact that Water travels roughly 73 miles (117 km) from Wales to the Frankley Reservoir in Birmingham through the Victorian Elan Valley Aqueduct. Now if the Welsh had managed to keep control and to charge for this and other water supplies, then the Welsh economy would have been a lot more buoyant than it is at the moment. And to extend this argument even further, water is a growing source of global conflict, acting as a trigger, weapon, and casualty in disputes worldwide. According to the Pacific Institute, water-related conflicts reached a record 420 incidents globally, driven heavily by increasing climate pressures, population growth, and war. Just to round off these ruminations on  water supplies, on the occasion of our 40th wedding anniversary, Meg and I indicated our wish for no presents but we did invite people to make a donation which eventually was destined for a water project in Sudan, administered through CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas Development) 

After attending my Tai Chi class, I spent some time on the ‘Chatty Table’ where the conversation ranged over a huge variety of subjects and we marvelled again at the 90+year old lady who has just relocated from Spain and she reminded  us that she used to swim in the open sea every morning from one end of the bay to the other at which news we could not fail but to be impressed. Afterwards, I went to a local homewares based store, hoping to find some Kilner stores in which to store my soup making at the weekend. I was not surprised to find that none of these were in stock but I did purchase a couple of straight sided glass containers with bamboo tops each of which would hold a couple of pints (well over a litre), When I am next on the high street, I will also see what pickings are available in the charity shops but I think I probably have enough glass storage jars in stock for the immediate future.  I had an unfortunate clash of coomitments in the afternoon as a doctor’s monitoring appointment where I need to give blood  samples clashed with my Conversational Spanish class. At the doctor, my blood  pressure was taken, I was relieved to see that it was practically  the same as when it was taken in June. As one’s arteries become less elastic with age and hence blood pressure rises, I wondered if the generally accepted ranges were recalibrated to take account of age. The web revealed the information that as a general goal, many doctors accept a systolic target of 130–150 mm Hg for adults aged 80 and older to balance heart protection with safety from dizzy spells. Active and very healthy older adults may have stricter goals and safely aim for under 130/80 mm Hg if they tolerate it well and I was pleased to be only a smidgeon outside these stricter limits. But in a couple of weeks, I shall have the full array of my blood results and this may, or may not, reveal the need for further medication. Even though I do not feel particularly inclined, I think I shall probably make a visit to the park and do a couple of circuits of the artificial lake which is a distance of about 1.67 kilometres or just over a mile.

It seems remarkable to me as I flip the calendars to the next day as part of my early morning routine that we are now entering the second half of the month of September. The year seems to be racing away with us but fortunately we still have the prospect of some fine autumn days in front of us and we still have some five or six weeks before the clocks go back towards the end of October. Last night, I watched the ITV programme ’70Up’ which was tracing of a cohort the progress of people who had born in the late 1950’s through their lives and many of them were now hitting the age of 70. So, the great experiment begun by Granada Television in 1964 is over. That year, Seven Up! introduced the viewing public to 14 primary school children – 10 boys and four girls from a range of backgrounds – who would become part of an ongoing documentary project that returned to film them at regular intervals and interrogate the truth of the Jesuitical motto ‘Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man’. As people reflected upon their lives, I was struck that many if not most of them had experienced some divorce or family disruption in the course of their lives and as they had lived their lives some of the doubts and insecurities they had experienced in their very early youth had persisted with them throughout their lives. From what I can gather from an interrogation of national statistics on the internet, only about 6% of couples stay successfully married for 57 years which is the happy position in which Meg and I found ourselves before Meg’s death in 2025 so I need to feel especially thankful for this when I am in a reflective mood. A fairly busy day is in prospect today because I am particularly  pleased that the ‘chatty table’ in the Methodist Centre should be resuming its normal role in my mid week routine after the summer break and then some weekly shopping needs to be fitted in  followed by an early lunch and then a Classical Musical Group UA meeting in the early afternoon. I have also been supplied with the topic that the Philosophy Group is to consider in about ten days time and that s to explore the extent to which society can tolerate intolerance itself. The two eminent philosophers in this field around which the discussion will run are Karl Popper and John Rawls but a quick consensus view is that if intolerant groups refuse to listen to reason and choose to use force or violence instead of argument, a tolerant society has the right to suppress them. I am sure the discussion will be a fascinating one and I suspect that most of us will form the view that a ‘line must be drawn’ but how and where to draw the line is a very knotty problem to which there can be no complete answer. But this question is not a purely academic one because we are seeing the rise of the right wing interest groups practically every weekend in our communities so we have the practical problem of determining at which point and how do the police protect free speech and the right to demonstrate on the one hand with the prevention of harm and distress on the other. These are often questions of judgement – for example is the wearing of black clothing including face coverings a threatening happening (as  I personally think) or is the expression of a democratic right? Watching the film on the depiction of events commemorated in the Bayeux tapestry, I reflected upon the fact that a concept like ‘Freedom’ would be interpreted very differently by the Anglo Saxons of 1067 (one year after the Norman Conquest of 1066) than it would today and even in contemporary America.

During the morning, I visited the Methodist Centre and had a chat with two of the people that I know there, one of them dating back to the days when a group of us used to meet regularly to have coffee in Waitrose but times have moved on, Afterwards I did my weekly shopping remembering to buy a good supply of parsnips and some curry powder because I intend to make a parsnip soup this Saturday afternoon. I have bought some extra flavour enhancing ingredients such as creme fraiche and some coconut milk so I think making the soup this weekend should be fairly easy. After I done the shopping and put everything away, I was a little pressed for time so I had some of the carrot and coriander soup that I made for myself last weekend. Then I needed to go off and attend the Classical Music group which took up the whole of the afternoon. We listened to a piece first broadcast on the radio about the development of the piano and then using whatever technology was available to us (mobile phones, Bluetooth, Spotify) played to each some of our favourite piano pieces. Then we had as a discussion point the ways in which female composers and performers had very often had to hide their light under a bushel and did not get the recognition to which they were entitled, Fanny Mendelsohn and Clara Schumann being two of the best known examples. We also shared information with each other about craft fairs and other concerts  in the next few weeks. We learn this afternoon that some of the tectonic plates of the worlds global system seem to be shifting. The president of the European Commission has backed proposals for Canada to become the EU’s first associate member. Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Wednesday she wanted to work on opening the door for Canada, which would involve closer ties on various key sectors. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week spoke of seeking a unique alliance with the EU. The country currently faces tense relations with the US, compounded by an intensifying dispute over trade. Without mentioning US President Donald Trump by name, von der Leyen said offering Canada some sort of EU membership was “not a partnership against anyone else, but for our common strength”. Actually, strange tough it might sound, Canada and the UE do share a minute border as Canada shares a small land border with Denmark (via Greenland) on Hans Island, which was officially divided between the two countries in 2022. So although no one is sure what an ‘associate status’ might mean, it is now evident that Canada shares a cultural heritage with Europe which is fast vanishing n the relationship between Canada and the USA under the Trump presidency.

We have an indication this morning of the amount by which our state pensions are likely to increase next April. The figures pertaining to September are used to calculate which of the ‘triple Lock’ figures are to be used in the final calculation which is published next month. The state pension will likely rise by 3.9% next year, according to provisional data published this morning by the Office for National Statistics. Weekly wages grew by 3.9% on average between May and July, the reporting period used in the government’s triple lock calculations. The rate looks all but certain to be higher than CPI inflation, which under triple lock rules would mean the state pension rises by that amount next April. The policy ensures it rises by either 2.5%, inflation, or average wage growth, whichever is highest, each year. The inflation rate considered is the average Consumer Price Index measured in the year to September, the results of which are published on 21 October. The Bank of England forecasts inflation will peak at 3.2% this year in October and November, meaning September’s figure would be lower still. Meanwhile, I have a little  domestic trouble looming, centering upon the Toshiba TV I purchased about three years and has given excellent service since then in our Music Room. But the Toshiba system  asked whether I would accept an ‘updating’ to which I reluctantly agreed with a degree of trepidation because when systems start to go wrong, it is often immediately following an upgrade. The software bundled with the Toshiba has always seemed to me to be outdated and certainly ‘behind the curve’ and so it proved to be on this occasion. Having updated itself, the software kept on asking me to upgrade even though on occasions  decided to accept the ‘Later’ option and I must have done this about ten times in total. Then the night before last, I tried to tune into the ‘YouTube’ app which now refused to accept my credentials. I tried several times to tune in using the code given to me on the TV screen but without success. I then turned my attention to the BBC iPlayer which; likewise, refused to accept my credentials. With a heavy heart, I realised that if the Toshiba software was so outdated and not fit for purpose, then I would not be able to get the functionality of YouTube and the iPlayer which are very important to me. I knew when I bought the TV that it was an ‘out-of-date’ model but I know from John Lewis that they do not deal with Toshiba models anymore, presumably because of these unreliability problems. So I started to think very reluctantly that  would have to ditch this TV and think about replacing it which I certainly had not planned or budgeted to do. I tried on about half a dozen occasions to load the YouTube app only to get the message ‘we have a problem’ (almost undoubtedly triggered by the abortive upgrades)  I tried on one last occasion  even though my bed was calling me. YouTube then responded with a different log in screen and eventually recognised my credentials but it itself seems to have been upgraded and has a somewhat different look and feel to it. Also, my historical preferences seem to have been lost, jumbled or overwritten so I might have to remind myself how to eliminate the history and start all over again. Later in the morning, though, I remembered how to do this so something approaching normality has been restored. But such was my relief to get things sort of working again, that I stayed up later than I should and consequently I am somewhat tired this morning having lost hours of precious sleep.

Later in the morning, both my weekly domestic help and my son called round and naturally, I always enjoy extensive chats with both of them. I outlined them some plans that I have for the forthcoming weekends now that autumn is upon us and we need to make the best of whatever good weather remains available to us. I consulted my National Trust handbook and have located a couple of places where I can spend the day out, even if alone, to make the weekends something to which I can actively look forward. There is a stately home nearby called Hanbury Hall and although I have visited it a couple of times in the past. I haven’t been recently so this has gone down on my list. It always amuses me that often the outbuildings that used to be the stables are now converted into cafes or eating places and it quite common for them to provide a good hearty homemade soup with some crusty bread which will be quite sufficient for me in the middle of the day. Also not a great distance away is Elgar’s birthplace and residence, now turned into a museum and this I have never visited  before but is again on my list as it is is detailed in the National Trust handbook. So that takes care of a couple of weekends and when I discussed my plans with my son, we have decided to have a day out together no the Severn Valley railway which he knows like the back of his hand. In the past, we have had an arrangement which works pretty well where my son pays the relevant fares for an all-day ticket and I pay for all of the breakfasts, lunches and beer that we consume during the visit. Now that the summer holidays are well and truly over, I have written off to some of our oldest Leicestershire friends that Meg and I used to dine with whenever we could and typically meet in a little village with a good dining place between Bromsgrove and Leicester to try to minimise the distance that we both have to travel. In a similar vein,  have also texted some of Meg’s cousins who live in Cheltenham and hope that we can arrange either a Sunday lunch here or a meal in Cheltenham, whichever suits us the most. So I am setting up various little weekend excursions that will probably take us into mid-October. To assist in my soup making activities which I intend to be a regular Saturday afternoon job from now on, I realise that could do with some good glass (rather than plastic) containers for when I make soup in quantity. After my Plates class, I went down to Asda to see if they had a supply of Kilner jars and, of course, when I perused the shelves all of this type of glassware was sold out. As September is the time of year when many might  engage in fruit and preserve bottling, I am not particularly surprised  and did find a couple of straight sided glass containers with wooden lids which  think will do the job just as well. I particularly want to utilise only glassware for the soup storage, but the containers had just bought seemed to be of an incredibly light glass (which it is these days) so I was hoping that I not purchased polycarbonate items in error. I consulted the web and apparently polycarbonates does deform slightly under pressure and does not chip whereas it does shed micro-plastics. The label on the bottom of my recent purchases did refer to the instruction that, if chipped, the items should not be used and from this I infer that I actually bought glassware as I intended.

We awoke yesterday to very gloomy skies and a stark reminder that the autumn season is well and truly upon us. The weather forecast indicates higher temperatures during the day but in the meantime we have to wait for the heavy cloud to burn off. Although the Proms have finished their season, the BBC broadcast a retrospective in which they explored some of what might be considered the highlights of the season. So we saw another rendition of the classical guitar ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ which is very well known to most Spanish people and I think rapidly better known and appreciated here in the UK. I also enjoyed the Mozart horn concerto – we used to play these in our car when we transported our son to his boarding school in York over forty yeas ago. This week I have a meeting of the U3A Classical Music group to which to look forward and one of the items we are to discuss is the emergence of the piano and also the ways in which female composers often had to subjugate their own identities in order to get their work acknowledged and played. In the political agenda, there is particular consternation about the two huge donations of £36 millions each totally £72 million given to Reform by crypto-currency billionaires. The issue is to be debated in the Lords and despite much huffing and puffing, it does look as though these donations were kept within legal bounds as the donors ensued that they were ‘living’ in the UK at the end of last March. At election time, there are strict rules about election-related expenditures but no limits on the ammounts that can be donated out of an election period. The established political parties are concerned that this volume of money means that Reform can have a full-time paid organiser in each constituency in the country which, in terms of the mechanics of the election such as leafleting, could bring Reform considerable advantages where other political parties rely upon voluntary contributions and run their campaigns on the proverbial shoestring. Anther concern is whether the American style big money politics is soon to be visited upon the UK and there are some political commentators who observe what they perceive to be the malign influence of MAGA (Make America Great Again) in the British political scene. The liberal commentators frequently report with a certain amount of glee the mess that several Reform councillors make up and down the country when the inexperienced but ideologically committed come across the realities of local government. Although committed to the elimination of waste, most of these councillors find that most of the local authority budgets are swallowed up in the provision of care for the inform and elderly and are committed to expenditures which they are obliged by law to make and thus their freedom of manoeuvre is very severely limited. County councils face the highest burden, spending roughly 86% of their net revenue expenditure on social care and this leaves precious little resource for anything else. Central government lay down the legislative framework and the minimum standards to be maintained but they leave it to the cash-strapped local authorities to implement, knowing it is the local authorities who have to carry the political opprobrium when need is unmet or there are service failures.  But is not only adult social care that is potentially bankrupting local authorities. Eight in 10 councils warn they will become insolvent over mounting deficits related to the cost of supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, a new survey by the Local Government Association suggests.  The LGA said cost pressures reflect a sharp rise in need for support. There were nearly 640,000 Education, Health and Care Plans as of January 2025. The number has increased each year since their introduction in 2014.  Councils are firmly committed to upholding the entitlements of all children and young people with SEND but are clear that the system needs urgent reform so children and young people receive the high quality support they need and experiences are improved for families. There are only some special  accounting procedures that prevent councils from running out of money. Local authorities cannot actually go ‘bankrupt’ in the way that a company or an individual can. Instead, they issue what is known as a section 114 notice. This is a report from the council’s finance officer that they believe that the authority is about to incur expenditure that is unlawful according to the Local Government Finance Act 1988. Expenditure can be unlawful for various reasons. But the primary reason why most authorities issue a section 114 notice is because they expect their expenditure to exceed their income for a particular financial year – which is not permitted under the 1988 Act. This is the situation locally in which Worcestershire is all but bankrupt. Worcestershire County Council (WCC) approved an 8.98% council tax increase for the 2026/27 financial year. While technically just under 9%, the council had originally applied for central government permission to raise rates by up to 10% due to a severe budgetary crisis. Ministers ultimately capped their maximum allowable increase at 9%, making Worcestershire one of only three local authorities in England granted special dispensation to bypass the standard 4.99% tax cap.

I spent a quiet day today doing my finances as I needed to keep my records up-to-date I am contemplating going out to visit a National trust property as admission is free to NT members. In the course of my investigation of local places to visit, I did find a local vineyard in Worcestershire which seemed tempting until I discovered that they were going to charge £40 for the tour and were going to include one glass of wine (no doubt at minimal cost) as part of the tour. But perhaps to compensate for a quiet day, there are going to be two interesting programmes broadcast in the evening. The first of these is going to be an in depth investigation of the Epstein affair which refuses to go away in the US as well as over here. I learnt today that a couple of survivors were not allowed to attend the Republican mid-term convention in  the last few days as evidently die-hard Republicans did not want to be put on the spot about the files that their own Department of Justice is refusing to release, despite the Epstein Transparency Act. It is sometimes overlooked that this is a not a purely American scandal as Epstein’s paedophile operations crossed many borders. The French police, for example, have been denied access to the files even through some of the girls were transported from France and the British authorities have received a similar lack of cooperation when it comes to the case of Peter Mandelson. Thee second programme this evening is to be a documentary exploring the history and background stories surrounding the Bayeux tapestry which has been loaned by the French to the British museum authorities where it will be displayed until July, 2027. I gather that tickets are already sold out for the remainder of 2026.

The evening before last was devoted to ‘Last Night at the Proms’ which is always somewhat nostalgic as it seems to mark the very end of the summer. Given that it is 250 years since the Declaration of American Independence, there has been a heavy US theme to this years music and the ‘Last Night’ was no exception. A tribute was paid to Dolly Parton which was wholly appropriate given her recent death and her impact upon modern American folk music. As they did last year, the organisers were anxious to include contributions from each of the nations of the UK and so we got the two verses of ‘Danny Boy’ Now the first of these is very well known but the second hardly known at all as it is a call from the grave to those left behind. After last year’s Prom where I learned about this for the first time, I have committed this second verse to memory and recite it each day before Meg’s little memorial in our Music Room so the rendition of it at the Proms was somewhat poignant for me as one might imagine. I had devoted some time in the evening before resurrecting my soup making skills, enhanced by the soup-maker which I have not used in the hot summer months. I thought I would  start off with carrot and coriander so I had already purchased a big bag of carrots. The recipe I decided to follow in my ‘Soups’ book called for 1.2kg of carrots so I prepared these together with an onion which I then parboiled. But then I realised that this was far too much for one filling of the soup-maker, so I ended up doing it in two batches which suited the ‘maximum’ line on the soup-maker. The recipe called for the addition of some creme fraiche and, naturally, some coriander. Although  I had bought some fresh coriander with the soup-making in mind, I was not convinced that this would provide enough across the two batches so I raided my store of herbs and found some coriander seeds, some of which I ground up in a mortar and pestle. For my supper in the evening, I took about a third of the total and then heated it up in a saucepan adding the coriander and the creme fraiche at the end which seemed to be the right  thing to do. The overall result was quite pleasing and I enjoyed it, although there is a certain amount of clearing up to do.  Now I have two jugs of soup in the fridge, one of which I will have as part of my Sunday lunch and the other during the week. I needed a bit more creme fraiche than I had bought but I had substituted sour cream anyway.  I wondered whether I could extend this with some plain Greek yogurt so I consulted the web and soon found out this was quite a sensible thing to do as the two products have a similar consistency and tangy flavour and the suggestion was to combine them in a 1:1 ratio which is actually what I had already done. This information is useful to me as I will probably use this combination a lot in my soup-making activities in the weeks ahead. I have already decided that next Saturday will be devoted to a parsnip soup  which I will enhance with a bit of curry powder. Again, the web tells me that this is quite a common addition to the preparation of parsnip soup so that I will do. The week after that, I will devote to a winter vegetables chunky soup (swede, carrot, parsnip, potato) and then for the week after that, I will try and emulate what my daughter-in-law was excellent at making and that is pumpkin soup. I know that a little tip is to use coconut milk which adds natural creaminess, rich body, and a subtle sweetness to soups, making it a great dairy-free substitute and I happen to have some  stock in any case. I am running short of glass containers for my excess soups and I have an aversion to storing this in plastic lest the subtle flavour gets impaired so next time I am in a charity shop and see some glassware jugs or containers, I will enhance my stock of them.

After church this morning and delighted that the Parish centre was open again for teas and coffees, I spent a pleasant 20 minutes or so chatting with a young mother together with her husband and 15-month-old child. I can remember the child as a babe in arms so not very long ago but the child was now of the age where he could make a few tentative steps from the arms of his father towards his mother. I quite like talking to the younger members of the congregation as otherwise I would only be speaking with members of my own generation for the rest of the week. Then I went and picked up my copy of the Sunday newspaper, got the car washed and then set about doing quite a lot of cooking for a post-birthday Sunday lunch with my American friend who has not been very well of late. I was cooking some sweet potatoes which after par-boiling and roasting, I then mashed up with some butter and sour cream before  serving this veg up with some sprouts to accompany the gammon joint that had been slow cooking in the slow cooker. We seemed to have a mountain of washing up to do but fortunately this was a task shared between the two of us. After lunch, we engaged in watching some episodes of ‘Downton Abbey’ (my friend’s choice). When it came to my choice of viewing, we watches the last two episodes of ‘Pilgrimage’ where a diverse group of seven (including two Muslims, one of Jewish faith, a Catholic, a convinced Christian and a couple of agnostics) Although a little formulaic in the way in which the programme is constructed, the Pilgrimage route chosen was one of the Camino de Santiago trails that started in Austria and trailed through Switzerland. My friend and I found the programme to be quite inspirational and totally appropriate to a Sunday when it was originally transmitted. As well as a physical journey (which can be pretty arduous upon occasions) the group members explored their feelings about faith and by the nature of the programme, the journey was a journey in self realisation and self exploration in which the group members learn a lot from their each other until their pilgrimage has to end after twelve days. After my friend had returned home, I got the excellent news that one of my great nieces had successfully completed the required half marathon in the ‘Great North Run’ She had been in training for this and although approaching the total distance in training had never actually run this distance before until this morning’s achievement. She was being sponsored for a lung charity but I need to ensure that my sponsorship money gets winged over in the next day or so.

We awoke yesterday morning to the news that the Reform party has received a massive donation from an overseas source. Reform UK has received a £36m donation from British cryptocurrency billionaire Ben Delo – making it the largest single donation to a UK political party on record. Mr Delo said he was making the donation to create ‘a level playing field’ with other parties and ensure that Reform is given a ‘fair fight at the polls in the next general election’. The donation makes him Reform’s largest donor ahead of fellow crypto entrepreneur Christopher Harborne, who donated £9m to the party in August. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Delo said: ‘Unlike the people who express mock concern for the health of our democracy while doing everything they can to keep it as a cartel, I want a fair fight and a level playing field. My conclusion from Reform’s recent troubles is that they should spend less time trying to raise funds to compete on equal terms and more time preparing for government’. Now whether this counts as a legal donation or not depends upon the credentials of the donor. There are currently no restrictions on the amount of money UK-based donors can give to political parties. But Labour previously introduced a £100,000 cap on donations from British citizens who are living overseas or have recently returned to the UK. Sheffield-born Delo, who has already donated £4m to Reform, has previously said he will move back to the UK from Hong Kong to continue his backing for the party. Last year, Delo was given an unconditional pardon by US President Donald Trump over a breach of anti-money laundering laws at his crypto trading platform, BitMEX, to which he had pleaded guilty in 2022. Sums of this magnitude must surely break the spirit of the legislation designed to ensure that ‘foreign’ money does not influence British elections but probably it is too late to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Later on in the morning, I will attend the latest ‘free’ orchestral concert to be given in our large Anglican church, St. John’s, which overlooks the town. This church acts as a source of unofficial municipal concert venue for the town and the arrangement is that the concert is provided ‘free’ in exchange for coffee and cakes afterwards and a donation to the church funds. I always enjoy these concerts and ensure that I take a cushion with me as the church benches can prove to be a little too hard if the concert is of any length. I will probably go down and park in the nearby Sanders car park and as I have attended such events before, I sometimes bump into people that I know by sight, probably from the U3A fraternity. During the past week, we have witnessed a strange incident where most of the plane flights across the country were grounded for the best of a day whilst there had been a serious breakdown in the national air traffic control system. It has now emerged in the weekend edition of the Financial Times that a military aircraft entering ‘spurious’ flight data into air traffic control led to a system outage that grounded thousands of planes this week. Four sources have told the paper that a flight plan submitted by a military aircraft led to a shutdown of British skies for several hours, causing a ‘meltdown’ within the wider air traffic control system. The incident has led to ‘strained relations’ between carriers and National Air Traffic Services, the paper writes. I wonder if the Ministry  of Defence could be sued for the millions of pounds for the disruption caused but I suspect that I know the answer to this question.

My son called around to see me after his little sojourn with his wife and mother-in-law in Swanage and we had a pleasant chat over matters domestic and political. I left for town shortly before 10.00am to pick up my newspaper and some last minute supplies and then headed towards the church where the concert is to be held. There  is a flight of fifty stone steps which gives access to the church from the town and in my younger days, I used to see f I could get up them, two steps at a time under about 50 seconds. But those days are now long gone but I settled into my pew, together with a cushion, some 20 minutes before the start. I  was acquainted with some of the U3A membership were at the concert which was about an hour long. The concert comprised of two pieces, one by Mozart and one by Haydn and were musical jokes. Some of the jokes would only be properly understood by musicologists but some were self-evident such as the brass section (horns) going and off doing entirely their own thing instead of supporting the main melody played by the strings. The Mozart piece, for example concludes with a resounding discord where every section of the orchestra is playing in a different key. After the concert was over, I acknowledged several of my U3A friends and acquaintances and then had a coffee and cake with  a fellow Classical Music member, and we chatting about her career as it progressed through nursing and what we felt about the fate of the Assisted Dying Bill which failed to pass through Parliament yesterday. Then I popped into the Asda supermarket for one forgotten item that I may need for the lunch time meal tomorrow. This evening is going to be taken up with the Last Night of the Proms and I never fail to be surprised by how quickly this comes around each year. I always feel that this musical offering signals the very end of summer for us, even though we may have more sunny weather in prospect. I started to watch the epic film of Lawrence of Arabia which has some superb cinematography but after watching about an hour of it I stopped as other cooking duties are calling for my attention. In the political sphere, the £36 million given to Reform has just been matched  by another crypto billionaire so this means that £72 million has been pledged to Reform in the last day or so, I cannot help but feel that these vast amounts of money will only act to the detriment of our political system. After all, what do these large donors expect to see for their money if it is economic and social policies that support their business interests? Some countries ban large donations and fund the political parties in their societies directly from their taxpayers but there are so many vested interests to suggest that would never even be on the political agenda in the UK.

When yesterday dawned, we were filled with reminders that this was the 25th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. Rather like the death of President Kennedy, most of us can remember what we were doing at the exact moment that we heard about the attacks. Personally, I was standing on the platform on Winchester station waiting for the train to convey me homewards when I heard fellow passengers discussing what had happened during the day. Perhaps as an indication that our lives had changed for ever, an interview was broadcast of a Muslim woman who explained that a huge cloud of suspicion fell over her whenever she engaged in a simple action such as reaching into her handbag for her mobile phone. No doubt the media will be replete with programmes discussing the lasting effects of 9/11 but I shall have to wait until I pick up my newspaper to take my pick – or to watch something else. Yesterday morning, when I tried to pick up my copy of ‘The Times‘ I found that Waitrose had no newspapers at all and the pattern was repeated at the local petrol station which I use as a fallback in these situations. As I have prepaid for my newspaper via tokens and can, theoretically, claim back the individual cost in practical terms one just counts it as a loss. Yesterday, I was pleased that the coffee bar area of the Methodist Centre had reopened after its summer break so I was able to enjoy a coffee with my bank manager (male) friend after my Tai Chi class. After that I had a generally quiet day recovering from my walks of the day before when we visited Shrewsbury but then in the evening we had another of our monthly Curry Club meals in a local Indian restaurant. This was generally quite entertaining but after we arrived, it was discovered that the establishment did not serve any alcohol so one of our number had to dash around the corner to the local Waitrose so that those of us who wanted it could enjoy some liquid refreshment of either beer or wine. The next meal is already advertised for a date in early October and this is going to be held in a newish Indian restaurant along the Bromsgrove High Street that I do not think any of us have experienced before. A lot of yesterday seemed to be keeping abreast of medical appointments – for example, I have a routine monitoring telephone appointment at 8.45 the following  day. However, when this anticipated telephone call did not occur, I looked again at the appointment letter and reading it more carefully discerned that the telephone conversation was this date but in September, 2027 i.e. year’s time. The advice given  on the web is to check with one’s GP that this is not an administrative error but I doubt that GPs will be able to throw any light on the matter. I did respond to a text to get booked in for a flu/COVID jab, but this  delight will not happen for about three weeks. Having got the main weekly shopping done yesterday, I think I will devote some of the day for another foray into a local supermarket to buy some ingredients to make some warming winter soups in the soup-maker. I think that mushroom soup, winter vegetable and perhaps carrot and coriander are top of my ‘must buy’ list at the moment.

I went fairly late down into town this morning but was relieved to get my newspaper whilst in Waitrose someone who recognised me from years back enquired after Meg. Then I strolled along to my normal ‘Gifts of Love’ and had my normal coffee but avoided any cakes or sweetmeats. As I was on the road, I drifted into one or two charity shops and purchased some little heart-shaped dishes that I can certainly utilise for little sauces and condiments. I also attracted by, and actually purchased, a little fine bone china figurine that turned out to actually a Royal Doulton and was part of a  range manufactured since 1997 by a very famous designer. I have in mind this can be a marvellous little gift on a suitable occasion. I finally made my way to the Asda supermarket where I was minded to buy some vegetables for my Sunday lunch and bought some carrots (with soup making in mind) and sour cream to go with the sweet potatoes which will go with the gammon joint that will be cooked in the slow cooker on Sunday morning. When I returned home, I felt disinclined to eat as I had eaten my fill in the ~Indian restaurant the evening before so I decided to delay making a meal in the middle of the day but thought I would cook myself a prawn omelette in the early  evening before  I sit down to watch ‘Today at the Test’. The breaking news in the afternoon is that the House of Commons has reversed an earlier decision and voted against (by 16 in a free vote) the Assisted Dying bill that has divided opinion so very sharply. I think what might have swayed the final vote so much in the debate is the fact that hospice care is so very patchy across the whole of the country and its funding is similarly uneven. I suspect that MPs may have the Canadian experience in mind where what started off as a reasonable piece of legislation drifted into a situation where the lack of suitable end-of-life care nudged people towards an assisted dying solution. Meanwhile in the United States, where the news of the Trump presidency becomes increasing bizarre, the latest wheeze is to offer every member of the population $5,000 dollars if the Republicans manage to stave off defeat in the mid-term elections to be held in about seven weeks time. There are nearly 270 million American adults, meaning a $5,000 payout would cost the US government some $1.3 trillion. Questions have begun to be raised about whether his plan is feasible – especially as prices rise in the US, partially as a result of the war that the US and Israel started with Iran in February. And of course the legality of all of this seems very open to question – would the Supreme Court be called upon to adjudicate? The news that emanates from the Trump regime almost defies imagination but in looks as though J D Vance, the Vice-President, is positioning himself to become the Republican candidate when Donald Trump completes his term of office at the end of 2028.

Included in the tour of the gaol in Shrewsbury, now turned into a museum and open to visitors, was one part of the gaol which we could visit but those of a tender disposition were excused this part of the visit if they wanted. We were taken to a special room constructed atop a flight of steep iron steps which was the room where executions took place. Evidently, the noose and the gallows were all in position but the trap door upon which the prisoner would have stood had been removed so one could view the height to the bottom of the building.  The technology of hanging was detailed for us by our guide who was himself an ex-prison warder. The condemned person (typically male) upon being led into the room would have a hood placed on his head, his hands would be manacled behind him and his legs would be strapped together once he was in position. Then the trap door would be released and the execution would be over very rapidly. The length of the rope used had to be quite carefully calibrated to the weight of the prisoner – evidently, if the rope was too long, then the prisoner could just walk away once they had ‘landed’ whereas if the rope was too short, then the vertebrae that cut through the spinal cord would not be displaced and the execution would have ben a botched one. Now I happened to know some of this information already because a professor of Economics at Leicester University used hanging as an ‘amusing’ illustration of a statistical principle. This particular professor, Ronald Meek felt that the whole quantitative revolution in Economics had passed him by so he taught himself the necessary statistics and then wrote an amusing and somewhat off-beat introductory text in statistics. Meek wanted to illustrate the principle that lay behind regression which is what occurs when one has two sets of data about a case (say, age and height) and this data is then plotted. It is possible to draw  a line through the data (called the ‘least squares line’) in which the sum of the squares formed by dropping a perpendicular onto the fitted line is at a minimum and the line through the data becomes ‘the line of best fit’ and is can be described mathematically as a regression line and takes the form of y = a + bx. The whole point of doing this is to be able to make sensible predictions given a data set – for example given the predicted temperature for the following day and other information on the level of economic activities, then those responsible for generating electricity for us will know how much electricity to be generated for the needs of the following day by utilising a set of regression equations. Evidently, it is economically important to get this right as if too much electricity is generated than precious fuel such as gas is wasted whereas if not enough electricity is generated, then we have ‘brownouts’ (reduced voltage) or even disconnections. To illustrate his statistics book and to teach the principles of regression, Meek discovered some carefully calculated tables in which a hangman of bygone days had assiduously calculated the exact length of rope of rope needed for a variety of body weights in order to perform the ‘perfect’ execution. Evidently, this was intended to be an amusing rather than a macabre example but it has helped to reinforce the principles of regression equations in my mind in any case. Nowadays, we would not rely upon looking up a series of tables but we would rely upon a regression table in which we plug in the body weight of the intended victim as one variable and the equation would give us the exact length of rope required. So this explains why I know a little about the calculations that lay behind the hangman’s art (or science) Now we come to the bit of information that I found fascinating. We are perhaps accustomed to reports of terrible deaths in which inmates put to death in the electric chair in the USA can sometimes be seen to be writhing in agony for up to half an hour whilst they endure the most agonising of deaths, typically witnessed by the near relatives of the murdered person. Now the prison authorities in this country have realised that a condemned person must be in a state of absolute terror upon being led into the execution chamber so we were asked to estimate the amount of time that the condemned person would be in a mental torment before the actual moment of their death. After we had given our estimates which was generally of the order of 5 minutes, our guide (himself an ex-prison officer) gave us the answer – a well conducted execution could be performed in a total of 12 seconds which would minimise the amount of distress to an absolute minimum. Our guide quite then surprised us by telling us that most prison officers were opposed to capital punishments. They had seen too many cases in which a person had been hanged who was subsequently found to be innocent. As a case in point, the last person to be hanged in Shrewsbury gaol was in 1961. A well-known drunkard of very limited intelligence was discovered near the scene of a murder, and he had blood on hisface probably as a result of his own bar room brawling. The police followed the directions of the man’s neighbours and easily secured a conviction for murder, but it transpired later than the murder had actually been committed by the man’s brother. So the prison warders know that mistakes can, and are, made particularly if the police are under massive pressure to obtain a conviction but of course the death penalty cannot be reversed after the event.

After I returned home pretty exhausted in the early evening. I watched the Channel 4 news and then managed to catch on the BBC iPlayer the edited highlights of ‘Today at the Test ‘ being the last in the series of England vs. Pakistan. The English bowling was superb and the visitors were dismissed for about 133 runs. England made 453 in reply so have built up a commanding lead and Pakistan were 52 before rain stopped play, probably for the day. The Pakistan touring team are troubled by all kinds of internal dissensions but they have discover a young fast bowler who managed in his first over in Test cricket to dismiss the England captain Joe Root. I may not be able to watch the highlights of the second day of play until later as a Curry night beckons in a local Indian restaurant to which I have committed myself so I am hopeful that I happen to find myself seated next to some conducive dining companions.

As I awoke yesterday, I could not but remember that it would have been the date of my 59th wedding anniversary and I thought that day might be a little  difficult to bear emotionally. But I was due to be on a U3A trip to Shrewsbury gaol for all of the day so that this will help to divert my thoughts. As it was, I had set the alarm so as not to oversleep but got up and turned off the alarm 15  minutes before it was due and got going with my normal morning routines. Getting up to speed with the political news of the day, I read this morning that the normally rock-solid Republican state of Texas might be wavering in its support of Donald Trump. One factor uniting both right and left in the state is the emergence of huge data centres which are enormous consumers of both water and power and are springing up everywhere but appear to be universally unpopular. The other Texas factor is the price of beef as Trump has done a deal with the import of beef from Brazil and Argentine do the detriment of American producers. Ironically, the EU has rejected the import of beef from these two countries despite the surplus because those countries  do not meet the safety standards on the use of antibiotics. The anniversary of 9/11 is fast approaching as are the many celebrations of this macabre anniversary as will be 25 years after the event. But Donald Trump has recently  caused a great deal of offence amongst 9/11 survivors as at a recent memorial gathering he released a host of several  memories of the event that were obviously a tissue of lies.  He claimed to see the second plane strike the  twin towers from Trump Tower but the sight lines are such that this would have been impossible. In fact, he was on TV bragging about the fact that with the twin towers collapsed, Trump Tower would now be the tallest building in New York. He also claimed to send a 100 of his construction workers to help out with the disaster and to have contributed $10,000 dollars but there is no evidence that either of these claims are true. In fact, so pronounced his Trump’s narcissism and false memory that he is actually claiming that he himself was pulled out of the rubble by two emergency workers whereas he was in fact in a TV studio miles away. So these very evident lies are now causing a great deal of offence amongst the families of those who died in the disaster and is even more evidence, if more was needed, of his deteriorating state of mind. But such is Trump’s hold upon setting the agenda of the Main Street Media that none of these evident falsehoods are being given the  denial that they deserve. The anniversary of 9/11 is now two days away and we will be subject to a barrage of recollections about the events of that terrible day. Meanwhile, our British institutions seem to be disappearing day by day as there is news this morning that Monty Don is to step down as the presenter of Gardener’s World after 23 years of presenting the programme each week on the BBC. In fact, many viewers will recall not only Monty Don but his faithful dog which often featured in the programme. Monty Don’s most famous faithful companion is his golden retriever Nigel, who became a beloved fixture on BBC Gardeners’ World before passing away in 2020 and must have been one of the most well-known dogs to grace our TV screens.

As my family are away in Swanage, I walked down the hill to collect my newspaper and then stopped off to have a coffee before completing my journey  on foot to pick up the coach for the outing to Shrewsbury today. I arrived at the pick-up point some 17 minutes before the planned departure time of 9.00am but the coach was already three quarters full.  I sat alone for my journey because everyone else was already in a dyad or triad of friendship groups but a travelling companion would have been nice. Such the scale of the roadworks ere in Bromsgrove that it took the coach practically half an hour to reach the outskirts of the town where we picked the motorway system to covey us northwards along the M5/6.Once we got there about an hour and a half later, most of us made our way to the tearoom so that we could refresh ourselves before the tour that we knew was going to be an hour long in duration. The prison was firstlaid out in the 18th C but was subsequently rebuilt by the Victorians with the principal architect being Thomas Telford no less, probably because of the vast amount of iron work deployed in its construction.  Early public executions began in 1795 and continued until 1863 and they appeared to be exceeding popular attracting huge crowds of onlookers. The gaol was only closed in 2013 having been in use for some 220 years as a county gaol. Our guide was an ex-prison officer who had worked there and could therefore add a lot of first-hand accounts and local ‘colour’ to his account, of which more later. After the tour was open at about 12.00pm we were all issued with a map of Shrewsbury and told to entertain ourselves for the next four hours until the pickup time of 4.00pm. Many of our number (but not myself) had done a lot of research about the town but we were left to navigate an extremely hilly town by ourselves. This is one part of these U3A excursions which I do not enjoy when a map is thrust into our hands and we are told to fend for ourselves and whilst many of the more intrepid of the party enjoy these particular challenges, I for one would not be averse to a little shepherding. So the prison was on the edge of the town and so a walk was in prospect before we could enjoy the sights and sounds of the town. I teamed up with a couple of the group who had joined us from the Redditch branch of U3A and we fond a little bit of local park where we could consume some of the things we had brought with us. Fortunately, they had prepared some sandwiches for themselves and I had myself taken along a flask of coffee and some jaffa cakes which I had bought but not taken with me on my trip to Yorkshire.  Then we had a communal fish about as my two companions wanted to have a walk near the river .Eventually, we managed to locate this but found ourselves on the ‘wrong’ side of the river where we really needed to locate the riverside walk and the only thing to do was to retrace our steps towards the prison ad then to renavigate from there. This we did and hunted around for  a ‘staircase’ of some 60 stone steps that we were assured would take us down to the river but even the local shopkeepers seemed unsure about this to give us some more precise directions. At this point having walked down and up through the slopes of the town my left knee was hurting so I let my two new found companions go on their own way whilst I sat on a wall and contemplated how I was going to fill my time. After a rest on the wall, I found the  steps that led to the river and enjoyed a riverside walk but could find nowhere to sit down for a break so I occupied the rest off the day with a fiendish Sudoku until it was time to. catch the coach home.