Meg and I were a little tired today after our very enjoyable day out in Oxford yesterday. Fortunately, the roads were not too busy and we made good time both on the journey out and back again. This morning, though, we decided to go down to town by car where we collected our newspaper and then, as it was not getting a little late, we went to the park where we met up with two of our regular park friends that we tend to always meet at the weekends. Today, Seasoned World Traveller and I spent some time discussing the rank folly (in our joint view) of Nancy Pelosi, the veteran Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States making a visit to Taiwan which could only inflame world tensions with China. The Chinese have reacted immediately and strongly to what is perceived as the ‘understanding’ between China and the USA (‘constructive ambiguity’)being breached. The latest move today is that China is withdrawing cooperation with the United States over climate change policies and the cack-handed move by Pelosi may well means that the Chinese and Russian leaders now make common cause with each other. In short, we looks as though we are all going to be losers and the world is now a less secure place. After we had had our coffee and a chat, Meg and I made a visit to our local Morrisons. This is because parking is easy and we needed an item from the pharmacy so it is likely to be cheaper and less bother than going into town. In the supermarket, we also picked up some icecream that we always need in this type of weather, some alcohol free beer (ditto) as well as our pharmacy item. Then it was home to have a lunch of smoked hake that we often enjoy on a Friday. The weather was set fair this afternoon and although the lawns had hardly grown in the recent hot wather, they were a little wispy and untidy. So I got them cut using the last bit of petrol that I had in store – the petrol mower only takes two gallons a season so I must remind myself to get some more before next week.

Last night, Meg and I watched the Sky News debate between Lizz Truss and Rishi Sunak on Sky News. They had an interesting format in that the audience consisted of uncommitted Tory party members. Each candidate had to field questions from the audience for 30 minutes and then Kate Burley fired a series of penetrating questions at each of the candidates. For me the best moment of the night came when Kate Burley put a series of about 5-6 things on which Liz Truss had apparently changed her mind, some historic and some recent, and then asked ‘Could the real Liz Truss stand up?’ She had no real answer to the inconsistencies and resorted to formulas such as the policy to reduce the pay of civil servants in the regions was ‘misinterpreted’ but she could not say by whom. Rishi Sunak came over as sharp, on the ball and pretty dynamic although some of his detractors would say that he was ‘too slick’. The audience had been equipped with the technology that has been around for years where they press either a ‘1’ or ‘ ‘2’ on their device and the results are collated and immediately shown on a large screen. (I used something similar in my last days of lecturing and that was 15 years ago) But when the results were due to be shown, the technology had ‘crashed’ although I do smell a rat here. So Kate Burley asked for a show of hands and my impression was that Liz Truss got about 20% of the audience vote, Rishi Dunal about 60%. Certainly there was a clear and uneqivocal winner. As this was not the result that the presenters had been expecting, I wonder whether the software crash was actual or diplomatic but the show of hands was quite decisive. I doubt that this will cut much ice with overall Tory party electorate who are giving Liz Truss a 30 point lead as the the Boris Johnson-lite candidate. There is a story hat Boris Johnson would probably win the vote if it were left to voters n the constituencies. I am reminded of the classic American debates between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. This was not decided on policies but on candidate ‘appeal’ Richard Nixon needed to shave twice a day but did not and acquired a 5 o’clock shadow which gave him a slightly shifty appearance, The Democrats exploited this tremendously with the attack line ‘Would you buy a used car from this man?’ Richard Nixon carried the soubriquet of ‘tricky Dicky’ thereafter and of course, he lost this election to Kennedy (although he won on subsequent occasions)

Today was a beautiful, bright and sunny day but somewhat on the humid side. First thing I did this morning was to visit an ATM, top up the car with fuel and then race round my local supermarket all in advance of our trip down to Oxford today. We set off 15 minutes earlier than we would have intended as Bromsgrove is experiencing horrific traffic delays at the moment whilst a four-way traffic scheme is in operation as some of the critical junctions in the town centre are being widened (or so I am told). The traffic delays are horrendous and a lot of local businesses are suffering a bit hit as nobody can get near them to spend any money. We stopped just north of Oxford in the car park belonging to a cafe which I used to use when I journeyed down from Leicester to Winchester some 25 years ago as this car park represented the half way point through the journey. We used the SatNav to locate the restaurant in which we were booked at midday before we set about finding a place to park (not easy in central Oxford) We turned up at the restaurant the minute it opened as did our friends who had travelled through Oxford on bike (parking their car on the outskirts and then cycling a couple of miles into the city) We had a pretty good ‘meal du jour’ and a wonderful chat, which is par for the course. We tend not to have coffee in the restaurant where we have had a meal but we search out a more specialised coffee house with the prospect of enjoyable cake also being available. As you might imagine, Oxford was teeming with tourists and we stumbled through crowds of tourists, some of whom were being a guided tour to the Oxford Colleges. As well as these more ‘normal’ tourists, there are are also others who are following the Morse/Lewis/Endeavour trails as these popular television programmes typically use Oxford as their backdrop. Oxford appeared amazingly cosmopolitan with a massive range of accents, dress, hairstyles and the like mingling in the streets. After we had lunched and then located a suitable cafe for coffee and cakes, our Oxfordshire friends have given us some magnificent gifts of eggs (newly laid from their own hens), honey (from their own hives) and finally a book on Beekeeping that our friend had just written. It seems to be a day for friends displaying the books they have written because our friendly newsagent from whom I buy a newspaper every day has a big banner in his window advertising the book that he himself has just written.

When we got home, we turned on the TV and watched the news items concerning the Commonealth Games currently held in Birmingham. This afternoon we had quite a lot of ‘background’ stories explaining how individual athletes and even presenters were performing in these games. Although the games are entitled the ‘Birmingham’ games, it is in fact a West Midlands regional games because many of the venues and the atheletes themselves come from many different parts of the West Midlands. For example, today’s time cycling trials were held in the streets of Wolverhampton and the citizens had come out in their hundreds and even thousands to cheer on the competitors. Compared with similar games that have been held in the past, several themes are very prominent. The first of these is that the paralympics athlete events are integrated into the overall programme so we do not have a pattern, as in the Olympic games, where the able-bodied athletes in one time period are then followed by the paralympic atheletes about a fortnight later. So the Birmingham games are massively inclusive in terms of different classes of athletes but also the LGBT+ communities are finding an incredibly inclusive atmosphere suffusing the Games. The multiculturalism that ‘is’ Birmingham is being shown in many diverse ways, not least in the ways that the street vendors of different kinds of food are finding great opportunities to bring their foodstuffs to the spectators of different events. It is already being said that these are the ‘friendly’ games and there certainly seems to be a fund of good will in evidence at every sports venue around the region.

Tonight Sky News are going to stage a debate between the two Conservative party front runners before an audience of Conservative voters. It is being trailed that the key presenter, Kate Burley, is going to try her hardest to ensure that the candidates actually answer the questions that are put to them. I suspect that she will fail in her efforts, however well intentioned, as politicians seem almost as a class to be programmed to answer a questions that was not actually asked, to be enamoured of a soundbite and despite the fact that they claim that debates are all a matter of policies, in practice the whole debate will be seen in terms of style rather than substance i.e. how well they manage their own self images rather than a projection of policy issues ‘per se’.

The day dawned bright and sunny this morning, although it was still quite a humid day. Today is the day when our domestic help calls around and we are always pleased to see her and to have a chat, not least about the football success last Sunday. I popped down into town to get our newspaper and on the way backed espied our Irish friend taking her grand-daughter out for a stroll in her ‘buggy’. So I swung the car into the access road and we stopped to have a quick chat about things, not least about our very good stay in Yorkshire recently. Incidentally, I have have just had a friendly email from the hotel where we stayed a week ago and where we intend to stay in about three weeks time where, no doubt, they are trying to tempt you into upgrades or additional services. Nonetheless, we have had very good service at a good price from this hotel so they certainly have our loyalty from now on. As the weather was so fine, Meg and I walked down into the park today and, true to form, we found one of regular park couples with whom we exchange news and gossip. One of the things that was exercising us both today was the new developments that are taking place on the edge of the town without a commensurate increase in roads and other vital infrastructure. The official planning view is to encourage us all to ‘walk and cycle’ which advice may be OK for some but absolutely impractical for the vast majority of new houses that are to be built. In the latest development recently approved by the planning committee but bitterly opposed by all of the local residents, a plan was passed that allowed for 370 new houses. If each house had one car (average length of 4.4 metres) then these 370 houses will generate 1.3km of traffic if these cars were put end to end. Each home may well have 2.5 cars (Mum, Dad and teenage children) which again will imply a total traffic queue of 3.2km which is about the total distance from the new development to the centre of Bromsgrove and back again on roads that are already completely congested. The upshot of all of this is that Bromsgrove may be the first town in the country to suffer a total gridlock with nobody going anywhere. When the houses are built and the roads only improved to the most marginal extent, then nobody will be going anywhere soon. In case this sounds melodramatic, about two years ago I had an appointment at the doctors at about 8.20 in the morning and hence walked down into town along the Kidderminster Road. Even then, I found that making a journey on foot was faster than the queue of cars down Kiderminster Rad at that time in the morning and since that time, the traffic situation has deteriorated and I predict that total gridlock will occur when the new houses are actually built. The developers are already advertising that the new houses will appeal to ‘those looking to commute into nearby Birmingham’ which means that the benefit to the local community is already being attenuated.

This afternoon, Meg and I indulged ourselves by watching some of the coverage of the Commonwealth Games that are being held in Birmingham. We saw the final stages of the Mountain Biking being held on Cannock Chase and an English girl was the winner of this. Then we switched to the finals of the Womens heavyweight weightlifting compettition in which an English woman and a Samoan battled it out for gold and silver – the English girl got gold. Of the various competitions we have followed, one theme has emerged which is the depth of the local regional talent and the support that is garnered. As one of the English judo players explained, after his gold medal, that he had the support in the hall of his family, relatives, neighbours, friends, university friends, fellow athletic club members and anyone else who knew him. He pointed out that he actually spotted one of his ex-university teachers in the crowd. So the level of support for individual local athletes must be immense. A second feature that has struck me in sport after sport is that once you take into account skill levels, strength,fitness, strategy and tactics that a lot of the actual game are played out in the mind. Yuu could see this in the weightlifting where in the case of an Indian competitor, their mind and focus was not in the right place when they approached the bar. In the case of the English weight lifting champion, she knew that she had actually lifted heavier in training which means that a particular psychological barrier is already broken. Of course, the athletes always paid tribute to the hours of training and to their families and are already think ahead to greater heights to come such as World Athletics championships and the Olympic Games in Paris to be held in 2024.

Today was always going to be one of those fairly ‘full’ days and so it proved. Tuesday morning is a morning when traditionally we go down and meet with people we know who turn up for a coffee in the Waitrose café. True to form, there were three sets of people there that we know and we actually bumped into a fourth as well – the only difficulty is that I feel I need to spend a little bit of time with each acquaintance, some of whom already know each other but some of them do not. I had taken along with me a double page spread from The Times which both carried a message from The Queen declaring that the success of the ‘lionesses’should be an example to all young women and girls. But on the other side of the two page spread was the dramatic and iconic image of Chloe Kelly who, having scored the winning goal, whirled away, whipped her England shirt off and twirled it over her head until she was embraced by the rest of her teammates. Incidentally, this was amazing and totally free advertising for Nike Sports Bras and, indeed, sales have really taken off since the incident last Sunday. I showed two of the more elderly ladies both what the Queen had said and the example of the young footballer and said that I expected them, in their moments of triumph, to rip off their tops and go dancing through the local parks. The laughter was heard all of the way throughout the store, so much so that the regular staff knew that the Tuesday crowd were back in action again. I then needed to go round the store and buy quite a few things which I knew we needed because having been away last Thursday we had not done a normal weekly shop last week. Principally, one of the things that I needed to buy was a ‘double sandwich’ One of these was for Meg and the other I was going to consume later on. Immediately after my normal Pilates class had ended at 2.15 today, I also had a special eye clinic appointment that I needed to attend at 3.00pm. There was no time to go home in between the two appointments so I made my way to a local park and ate my sandwich. Then I got some money out of a local ATM and also popped into Asda to pick up one or two forgotten items and then went on to my eye clinic appointment. This was was one of these routine monitoring appointments that I have once a year but I was not really looking forward to it. This is because a technician puts drops into your eyes which massively dilates the pupils and then photographs are taken of the back of the eye with a very specialised camera. At tne end of all of this, though, your eyes are sensitive to light and everything appears fuzzy and this effect can last for as long as 4-6 hours. So I walked home in some dark glasses that I had purchased years ago especially for occasions such as this one and then I just to mooch around at home until the effects of the drops wears off. I find this all a little disorienting for the few hours that it lasts but at least it is only a procedure that takes place once a year.

The Truss regime has suffered an embarrassing blow today. It all started off last night when the foreign secretary said she would save £8.8bn by introducing regional pay boards instead of national ones to set salaries for civil servants, reflecting where they lived. This figure was always an obscure one as the total civil service bill is only 9 billion. But this would mean paying government employees in poorer parts of the country less than their counterparts in more affluent areas, such as the South East and London. And experts warned to reach the sum, the plan would have to branch out further than government departments, with the likes of teachers, nurses and police officers also facing lower wages than workers in the South.
However, there has been an instant uproar from Conservative party members and MPs who are arguing that this is the absolute reverse of a levelling up policy. Employees in the public services who are living in the less affluent parts of the country would then effectively receive a paycut in addition to the fact that their pay is being ‘de facto’ cut by any pay rise less than the rate of inflation. When this double pay cut on public workers throughout the country was denounced, the Liz Truss team did the most screeching of ‘U’ turns saying that the policy had been ‘misrepresented’ and it was very promptly abandoned. One has to wonder what the quality of a potential prine minister is going to be when they advocate an ill-thought through policy in the first place and then abandon it within hours.

Today is very much the day after the night before. As you might imagine, the media as a whole and every newspaper is completely dominated by the success of the English Lionesses aka as the England Women’s successful team who triumped in the EUFA finals by beating Germany 2:1. The Queen in a message to the team included the line ‘..You have set an example that will be an inspiration for girls and women today…)’ Given that the scorer of the winning goal, Chloe Kelly, ripped off her shirt in celebration and ran down the pitch in a Nike sportsbra (for which she earned an instant yellow card, being the current regulation for shirt removal), then I think the Queen might have been slightly more judicious in her choice of words. No doubt it will become commonplace for young women to rip off their tops when celebrating any success as they have been informed that the women’s football team have been told by the monarch herself that they have set an example that will be an inspiration etc. etc. My copy of The Times had included a supplement to celebrate what is the first real success we have had since the World Cup final of 1966 (56 years ago) and I am sure that most other newspapers will probably have done the same. The German press, though, have been muted in the extreme and are claiming that they were denied a handball which would, if awarded, could have given them a penalty and probably the game itself. The ‘handball’ in question was during a goalmouth scramble in which the pall was pinging about all over the place and it did look as though the ball had hit the outstretched arm of an England player but neither the referee nor the VAR saw any intent in the incident and let it pass. To the best of my recollection, none of the German players claimed a handball either so this does look a case of ‘sour grapes’ After all, the Brits are used to being denied championship glory after some ‘iffy’ refereeing decisions but then we are quite used to losing – and the Germans are quite used to winning. I suspect that the Germans do not really know how to take defeat very easily – apparently some of the German press are even claiming that that they were robbed of success in the 1966 World Cup Final after all of these years. There has been an impromptu party held in Trafalgar Square this morning where a comment that was made was they the women had spent more time partying than they had playing fooball in th past 24 hours which is almost certainly true.

This morning I experienced a strange incident as I had received a text on my phone saying I had tried to pay someone I did not recognise and could I click a link to ‘resolve’ the matter so that a payment of something over £150 could be paid. I did smell an instant rat in all of this and got onto the fraud department of my bank. This sounds an easy thing to do but took several minutes of hanging on, not to mention going through lots of security filters. Eventually, I spoke with a ‘real’ person and I was quite right not to have clicked the dubious link. The bank official checked over my account and confirmed that no suspicious activity had taken place or was pending and then gave me a specialised email address to which I could forward the suspicious text. This I did and although a certain amount of time has been ‘wasted’ by these activities, at least I did not fall for a scam to which it might have been all too easy to have fallen prey.

This afternoon has been a gloriously sunny afternoon which I have spent in rather an indolent way. First I read all of the footage and some of the back stories to the England success. I have just one fear after all of this adulation because it is reckoned that many honours and no doubt cash will accrue to all of these players. Now honours are one thing and well-deserved, and cash that finds its way into the development of the women’s football game is only to be applauded, but I do worry that showering players with a lot of cash and sponsorships are not a good thing, either for these young women as individuals or as sports personalities. I fear that for some of them, too much cash could be the ‘kiss of death’ and would have to be handled with a great deal of care.

The political scene continues to amuse. Rishi Sunak is so desperate to make up ground on Liz Truss that he has promised to cut income texes before the end of the next Parliament i.e. in seven years time. This must be the crassest of own goals as the Truss team are saying ‘we will cut taxes within seven weeks, not seven years’ which is the evident riposte.

Today is going to be a day dominated by sports news as the Commonwealth Games are proceeding apace and at 5.00pm this evening, England will play Germany in the UEFA women’s football finals. But first things first. Being a Sunday, I collected our newspaper first thing this morning and then Meg and I breakfastd on cereal as we normally do on Sunday mornings. Miggles the cat turned up for a plateful of food for the first time in about ten days so we at least we’re not forgotten. The weather looked as though it was going to threaten us with rain so we decided to play it a little bit safe and go down to the park by car, also making sure we had some rainproof outerwear on in case we were subject to a sudden downpour. As we were a little earlier than is normal, we were not particularly surprised not to bump into any of our regulars. In any case, we needed to get back fairly early because I was due to go to the railway station at about midday in order to pick up my son who had been minding a house for his sister-in-law and her husband in Hertfordshire, which is an engagement which is undertaken every year. After we had returned home and had an early lunch, we watched in its entirety a mixed relay Triathlon. There are four members in each team, two male and two female. Each athlete has to first cold-water swim 300m, then undertake a 5km bike ride and finally run a 2km walk. Apart from these three events following each pther, the competitors have to ‘transition’ i.e. change from event to the next observing very strict protocols about where they should dismount their bike, for example. The England team got off to a flying start and perhaps the gold medal was never in doubt but there is always the possibility of things going wrong such as your bike getting a puncture. Much more exciting was the battle for silver or second place. At on time, the Welsh female runner on the last leg was about a couple of yards behind the Australian runner with the New Zealand runner breathing down her neck and in a good position to overtake. In the event, the Australian and the Welsh runner put on a spurt and put some distance between themselves and the New Zealand competitor. Evntually the Australian and the Welsh girl seemed to be running shoulder to shoulder but eventually the Welsh athlete managed to gain an edge and subsequently with the silver medal quite easily (but somewhat unexpectedly).

Late this afternoon we had the Europan Womens Cup Final between England and Germany. The two sides were very evenly matched but then about half way through the second half, England took the lead with a well-timed lob over the German goalkeeper. But could they hold on until the end of the game? The answer was no because just before the end of the game, the Germans scored a well deserved equaliser. So the game was destined for extra time. Normally in football matches, whoever scores the equaliser goes on to score a final and decisive goal and I was convinced this was going to happen on this occasion. Neither team made much impression upon their opponents in the first period of extra time. In the second period of extra time, England managed to score after a goalmouth scramble from a corner kick which the Germans failed to clear and then the England team had to hang on for about another ten minutes until the final whistle. They did ‘game manage’ this part of the match brilliantly by taking short throw-ins and then making sure that when tackled by a German defender the ball would bounce out for another throw in – all of which wastes precious seconds. So the final scoreline was Englnd 2 – Germany 1 but in all honesty, the game could really have gone either way. It is not that England were lucky to win but that it was a game of incredibly tight margins. The Germans have won this particular competition on nine previous occcasions and when they lost, they seemed to take defeat incredibly hard. The celebrations on the pitch went on for about an hour what with the formal presentations, the parading of the trophy around the pitch, innumerable TV interviews and so on. No doubt, tomorrow morning there will be masses of headlines to the effect that the ‘lionesses have roared’. But some of the football pundits were speculating that after this success, the shape of women’s football in England will have been dramatically changed and we may well see that girl’s football will now be much more prominent in the school curriculum.

The Sunday Times analysis of the Conservative party ‘race’ to be party leader was interesting,in a way. There a huge double page spread given to the contest but one quarter of one page (i.e. one eight of the double page spread) was devoted to Rishi Sunak and the remainder (i.e. seven eighths) to Liz Truss. This is hardly and fair and equal treatment but I suppose the Sunday Times has decided who the winner is going to be and thrown in their weight behind the likely winner. If I were part of the Sunak camp (which I am not!), I imagine I would rather peeved by this absence of equal coverage but politics is not a fair game in any event.

Today is the day of our departure after our ‘mini-break’ which we have enjoyed enormously. We woke up at 6.30 and immediately started packing but it is so much easier to pack up when you are coming home than it is when you are going away, if only because the decisions make themselves – everything in the wardrobe needs to be packed and so on. We were packed up by 8.00 and so had an early-ish breakfast. One of the waitors recognised us and asked if there was anything we required and so we requested some muesli which was missing from the cereals corner. Then it was case of getting everything into the car in stages and we set off a little after 9.00am. We have details of how to get through directly to the reception manager at the hotel in order to organise our little get-together for my sister next month and also have a clearer idea of the numbers of people who will be able to attend so we are now in a position to firm up some of the arrangements that we have put in place. We made a stop half down the motorway and bought some Costa coffee whilst consuming our own food which was a pattern that everybody else seemed to be deploying. The first part of the journey was quite straight forward but the second half was more problematic as we were taking the M42 going around Birmingham which was quite massively congested and we crawled along at a very slow pace. This added about 30 minutes onto the journey overall but we collected our backlog of newspapers from the newsagent and then made for home. As it was a little warm and muggy, we just had a ball of ice-creanm to accompany some apple tarts that we had bought as a ‘hotel bedroom’ snack and this made for a quick and instant lunch. Then we got the washing underway, got our suitcases unpacked and finally put everything away (e.g. our food bag, some of the ‘kitcheny’ things that we typically take with us to hotel bedrooms to make our stay a little more comfortable) So having got all of our systems put to rights, as it were, we are having a relaxing afternoon before we go off as we normally do to church on a Saturday evening. In the background, we have the Commonwealth games on where there are some sports that have not completely grabbed our attention just yet. But what is impressive so far is a huge mechanical 10-metre tall metal bull with the various pulleys and mechanical bits that aid its locomotion visible from the outside. After taking part in the opening ceremony, the bull has been transported to Birmingham City Centre where it is already being regarded as a tourist attraction. I think the original intention was that it would be dismantled after the Games were over but I would not be surprised if it could be kept (and occasionally operated) on a more permanent basis in the city centre.

It has been one of those cloudy days with the very occasional smattering of rain. One does wish that the heavens would open and that we could have a good proper drenching but instead we just have gloom interspersed with very light and inconsequential showers. When we return from church this evening, if nothing else in the Commonwealth Games grabs us, then we may treat ourselves to an opera via YouTube. Now that we have faster speed broadband on tap, then we don’t suffer the buffering delays that we have experienced in the past.

Whilst I have been absorbed in family activities for the last few days, I have not followed political events as closely as I generally do. But there are hints on both sides of the Atlantic that some dramatic political events may be unfolding. There is the possibility, foreshadowed in opinion polls, that the revelations of the insurrection and invasion of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021,condoned by ex-President Trump, may finally be making an impact on Republican voters in the USA to the extent that they may be withdrawing support for Trump to have another run at the Presidency. On this side of the Atlantic, Rishi Sunak is trailing Liz Truss so badly after two other prominent Conservatives have swung behind Liz Truss that there are some suggestions that Sunak might withdraw, rather than risking a humiliating defeat at the hands of Conservative party members. As always, the Sunday newspapers may give a lot of informed insights as to what is happening in the actual campaigns. At one stage, Johnson (like Trump) looked as though he might try and effect a comeback bid there is plenty more ‘dirt’ yet to be revealed, I suspect. The Labour Party is speculating that Liz Truss may quite an easy candidate to beat so they are just sitting back and watching developments with some amusement.

Last night, we attended a concert in Harrogate’s Royal Hall and we have attended a run of concerts recently – two in Bromsgrove as part of the Bromsgrove festival and finally the one last night which acts as the culmination of the Harrogate festival. Meg and I really enjoyed the concert last night, made enjoyable as it was only a few minutes away from the hotel in which we are currently staying. During the interval, we joined the crush for the bar and then got into conversation wih a lady who appeared to be on her own but who was the wife of (I think) a double bassist in the orchestra. By way of opening up a conversation, I remarked that this was the first concert I have attended in this Hall since 1963 which is about 59 years ago. For her part, she let us know that the Wigmore Hall in London runs Sunday morning concerts in which, if you in the know, you can attend and have a glass of wine thrown in for a tenner. Whether this is accurate information or not, I am not in a position to say but it made for a few minutes of interesting conversation. The piece after the interval was Beethoven’s 7th Symphony so in addition to Beethoven’s 6th which I heard recently, this makes for a couple of Beethoven symphonies I have heard in the last couple of weeks. As I have just head two good but not world class orchestras play Beethhoven recently, I think I have formed the view that this composer produces the ultimate stress test for orchestras. I think the combination of multiple tonalties and quite complex entrances at just the right microsecond really sorts out the good orchestras from the world class – this having been said, I still enjoyed last night’s performance immensely but it was over by 9.30pm so we were soon back in our hotel bedroom.

This morning, we enjoyed another magnificent breakfast in the hotel’s quite spacious ballroom which doubles as a breakfast room. As we were going to meet with my sister later on in the day, I decided to wear my special Batique (Indonesian) shirt I had acquired in Indonesia when I did a quick spell in Jakarta at lest 25 and probably some 28 years ago. The trouble is I was somewhat slimmer then and even at the time, it was a slimfit garment. As I was putting it on, a strategically placed button in the centre could no longer handle the strain and it pinged off. I enquired at reception whether they had one of those little sewing outfits that hotels sometimes supply but they had run out. So in desperation I turned my toilet bag upside down and located one of those little kits, complete with spare buttons and a needle, which I must have carrying around with me for decades. Threading an incredibly fine needle is a skill I have lost over the decades – nonetheless I succeeded and sewed the button back on again about which I was pleased but was something I have not done for best part of 60 years. After all of this this, we had a gentle walk into town and stumbled across a fabulous little Italian coffee bar which, according to press reports which they proudly displayed had been voted as one of the finest in the UK some years ago. The coffee bar was run by a couple who came from Malta and Albania respectively and they took pains to prepare all of the food on the premises. Certainly, the coffees were of excellent quality and not exorbitantly priced. After this, we jumped into the car and made for the garden centre just outside Knaresborough where we had arranged to meet my sister and my niece again for a luncheon date together. In the restaurant which is franchised by the garden centre, bookings are not routinely made but you have to get there just after midday. We got there at about one minute past 12.00pm and secured a table for four and had a very enjoyable meal with a lot of conversation about family matters. I was tempted to buy (and actually did buy) a concrete owl to which I took fancy as a garden ornament and I think I know of a good locatioon for it on our garden terrace – despite being cast in concrete, it is a reasonably good looking exemplar so we will see when I get it home tomorrow. Then as we were not far from my sisters house we went home and drank tea all afternoon and caught up again on family matters, making some arrangements for my sister’s birthday treat when we return ‘up north’ in a month’s time. Tonight we were watching TV in our hotel bedrooom and saw Andrew Neil tear into Rishi Sunak which will not have helped him in his leadership campaign one little bit. Mind you, I would hve much preferred the spectator sport of watching Andrew Neil tear Liz Truss apart limb for limb which he probably would have done. As Liz Truss is so far ahead in her race with Rishi Sunak, she turned down the offer of an interview with Andrew Neil so as Basil Fawlty would have said (in ‘Fawlty Towers‘) that is yet another avenue of pleasure denied.

Today is the first day of our mini-break. We both slept quite well in what was an extremely comfortable bed and then we mastered the intracies of our shower system – which was actually very straighforward. Whilst I was waiting for Meg to get completely ready, I was thumbing through some publicity leaflets for events happening in Harrogate ovwr the next few days. There is quite a magnificent Victorian concert hall called the Royal Hall which I have not visited for decades although I used to attend concerts by the Halle orchestra when I could. In fact, the last performance that I remember was one when Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ was being played and the orchestra’s conducter – George Wheldon I believe- walked off the podium when he could not slow the orchestra down when they were playing at too rapid a pace halfway through the piece. There is going to be a concert tonight in which Rossini, Mozart and Beethiven are to be played. I managed to secure some tickets over the internet so Meg and I just have to turn up a quarter of an hour or so before the performance starts in order to pick up our tickets. The Royal Hall is only about 400-500 yards from the hotel so we can walk there with no pressure of time and not have to worry about car parking.

This morning, Meg and I called around to see my sister and one of our nieces and her two children (one at university, one at school) were there as well. We spent the morning, as families do, chatting over some family issues and enjoyed the tea and scones which my sister had provided. Fortunately, I had taken along some quiche for us to have a quick lunch. This was quickly warmed up in the oven and did not seem to have deteriorated much in the journey up north so we enjoyed it with a few salad things my sister had provided. As we approached Knaresborugh this morning through what I called the ‘back end’ approach to it, we went past the street upon I used to live and could not resist a quick look at it.The street used to be terminated by some rough fields and then a golf course but the field and golf links had been sold off long ago to provide additional housing. In our journey to Knaresborough by this ‘back’ route, we noticed a large garden centre which contains its own coffee shop and restaurant. We have arranged to meet there at 5 minutes before midday tomorrow so that at midday my sister, niece, Meg and I can have a quick family lunch with each other and carry forward our discussions of family related issues. Then we took leave of my sister and went to Harrogate by car to visit another niece and her family who had just moved house into a larger Victorian villa not a great distance from where they used to live in Harrogate. In theory, this shoukd have been easy to find but in practice seemed to be a bit more difficult than might be imagined. For some reason, our SatNav system gives the street that runs at the back of their new address when one enters the postcode and I had to make a quick telephone call to ascertain that the SatNav would not take us to a completely erroneous place. We spent a lovely afternoon having tea and biscuits and chatting over the horrors of moving house. We both seemed to have internet horror stories of having to live without the technology whilst our internet connections were sorted out but in both of our cases, we have lived to tell the tale. We admired their lovely house which is on three stories (four if you include the basement converted into work space) so there is now more room for their teenage children to enjoy their adolescent years. Our niece is still continuing with the writing in which she use to engage regularly and she had just discovered that one of her pieces if being ‘long listed’ for for an international award which is a source of some pleasure. We were also pleased to congratulate her upon being her awarded her MA in Literature. We discussed the little birthday celebratiomns I intend to hold for my sister at the end of next month but they will be on a much anticipated continental holiday at the end of next month so unfortunately will not be able to attend. We discussed some anticipated birthday presents for our celebrations and think we shall probably be able to meet again near Christmas time when we make another visit to the family about Christmas time which we normally do. Finally, Meg and I returned to the hotel where we had a little rest before we spruce ourselves up a little before we venture forth for our attendance at the concert this evening.

Today was the day when we are due to go off to Yorkshire for our little ‘mini-break’ The football was pretty exciting last night when the English lionesses (i.e. women’s football team) scored an outstanding 4-0 victory over Sweden who were one of the tournament’s most fancied teams. By the time we had watched all of the victory celebrations now that the England team are through to the final on Sunday, we felt rather too tired to start packing tonight. We reckoned it was better to get to bed straight away and get up at 6.30am in the morning and do the packing we minute we wake up. This we did and it was a successful strategy because we got packed up in plenty of time, so much so that we could actually leave at 9.00am rather than 9.30 which was our planned hour of departure. We collected our newspaper and then set off in plenty of time, having just one pit stop for a coffee half way along the journey. We wanted to hit the little town of Wetherby by just about midday and, indeed, reached there at about 12.05 and we lucky to get one last parking space in the main street that runs through the town. We have a favourite fish restaurant in Wetherby because they open up their upstairs fish restaurant at 12.00 and it pays to get there early as it fills up very rapidly. We avail ourselves of a ‘pensioner’s menu’ where I suspect that the portions are scaled back a little. We had a wonderful and very satisfying three-course meal starting off with a homemade tomato and basil soup, followed by plaice and chips (I forgot to order salad instead but ate half of the chips) and then a lemon drizzle cake served with a huge dollop of vanilla icecream. This is also served with slices of bread and butter and a pot of tea so we felt the two of us had eaten quite royally for less than £30.00. We did not want to get to Harrogate too early to pick our hotel room which is avaialable to us after 3.00pm so we went in search of a plant shop because I had a vague notion that there was one not too far away from the main High Sreet. Eventually, we were directed to a rather super-duper florist where we made some purchases thinking about members of the family we are to meet in the next few days. We still had plenty of time in hand and so found both a quixotic little coffee shop which sold exquisite coffees and some very specialised (but not low-alcohol) beers. Then we found an Oxfam shop where we were tempted to buy a boxed ClassicFM cd set and so we set off for Harrogate.

When we arrived at the hotel, we entered the quite small car park and immediately made for one small space which we espied in one remote corner of the car park. But when we got to the desk and booked in, we mentioned the special car parking facility we had requested when we made our booking and the very helpul receptionist showed us that a space had already been reserved for us (as I requested more than two weeks ago) straight outside the front door. We were delighted to get this level of service, which completely vindicates coming back to this hotel in which we first stayed last December on the occasion of our brother-in-law’s funeral. We got into the room and quickly unpacked our suitcase. As soon as the laptop was fired up, it found the relevant network and we got ourselves online with he minimun of fuss and bother. I am sure it is getting easier these days because I’m sure in the past we had to fiddle around to get ourselves connected but it now seems so simple and straightforwrd as it should be. After I had had a few words with the reception staff, I am going to make contact with one of the managerial team here at the hotel to see if we can make some forward plans for when we visit again in four weeks time. When we come here in August, we are planning to see our friend who is now living in Scarborough on one day whilst we see my sister and members of the family for a little 80th birthday party celebration on the next.

As you might expect, the media is going silly about the prospects of the English women’s football team who have now qualified for the final on Sunday next, when we will have returned home. Tonight is going to to be the second semi-final in which the contestants are Germany v. France. There is an expectation that Germany will prevail as it has won this competition many times before but in all sporting events the unexpected can happen so will watch tonight’s game with some interest.