Today proved to be the most beautiful day so Meg and I were looking forward to our walk in the park. First, though, I needed to go and do my weekly shopping and I arrived a minute or so before opening time. However, as it was a Friday (instead of my usual shopping day on a Thursday) there was a queue of about 8-10 people of which I was the No. 2 and evidently Friday is a much busier shopping day than my usual Thursday. I thought I would treat ourselves to some sea bass to be served on a bed of a simple salad but this was to come later. Meg and I had a plesant coffee and comestibles and when we had finished these, we went in search of sone of our park companions. In the vicinity of the cafe we came across Seasoned World Traveller and actually quite an interesting discussion on the accuracy of domestic (rather than clinical) blood pressure monitors. I have decided to purchase a new one as there was such a large discrepancy between the results I got with testing myself at home and the results when taken by the Health Care Assistant yesterday. I discovered that there is a list of NHS approved ‘home’ monitors and having consulted the list I chose the one at the top of the list that came out as the ‘Most recommended‘ in the NHS list and seemed to have a very high proportion of favourable reviews. Having said that, I am slightly wary, not to say cynical, about a host of glowing reviews, because it is well known by now that these are capable of manipulation.  

After lunch my son and I negotiated a new package with our broadband provider. To be honest, we need to wait until an engineer comes to assess whether our property is capable of being wired up with a new fibre optic cable and only when we get his report do we know if an upgrade to our broadband is feasible. A new router is being provided by our broadband provider and all we have to do is to pay for the postage to our house. Although the broadband supplier is saying that fibre optics are being rolled out in your area, we are not sure whether this is feasible down what is a private road when the cabling was laid down about 17 years ago. When the telephone call with our broadband supplier had been completed to our satisfaction, I needed to get the lawn mowing done. Before I could start on this, though, I received a text from the Community Pharmacist of our GP practice indicating that as a result of the blood sample taken yesterday (and analysed probably by computer in the last 24 hours) one of my medications could now be discontinued. I got in touch  with our practice but this took a long wait of about 20 minutes or so. However, I requested that I be given a full copy of the blood serum analysis and was informed that I could pick up a copy today if I could get to the surgery by the time they closed at 6.30. So the minute the lawns had been cut, it was time for a swift cup of tea and then a lightning visit by car to pick up my results. I had a rather curious but quite amicable exchange with a receptionist as she was handing over my results. As I handed over a list of the dates when I recording my weight reduction programme, the health care assistant said she would scan these and affix them to my medical records. The doctor who received my test results had evidently seen these scanned results and indicated that as I looked as though I had some ‘unexplained weight loss’ perhaps I should seek a consultation with the practice in case the ‘unexplained’ weight loss was an indication of something more serious!

Boris Johnson’s latest manoeuvrings make one almost gasp with disbelief. He has rewritten the Ministerial Code so that ministers will henceforth not be expected to resign for breaching the code.  Johnson has also blocked his independent ethics chief, Christopher Geidt, from gaining the power to launch his own investigations and has rewritten the foreword to the ministerial code, removing all references to honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability. All of this at a time when he himself is under investigation by the Privileges Committee for misleading Parliament. Labour and the Liberal Democrats accused Johnson of rigging the system to ‘get himself off the hook’ ahead of the inquiry and one has to be amazed at the constitutional propriety of rewriting the rules when you yourself are under investigation. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP and chair of parliament’s standards committee, said the weakening of the system was ‘appalling’. He writes “The new ministerial code is a disgrace. It means that the tiny semblance of accountability disappears. ‘If you break the rules, just rewrite the rulebook’ is the motto of this despicable government”

Today was always going to be a different kind of day because I had a clinic appointment at 9.10 which rather set the running order for the day. So I set off by foot and collected our daily newspaper before making for the clinic appointment. Things are somewhat different now as last time I was anyway near the building, there were burley security guards, masked up, making sure that nobody could get in unless they had absolutely firm appointments. I remember having quite an argument at the height of the pandemic as I was trying to make a doctors appointment and was not allowed into the building to do it. Instead, one had to hang onto the end of a telephone and wait for 20-30 minutes to get an appointment in 2-3 weeks time. However, today was routine monitoring, neglected over the last two years and I received two pleasant surprises. The first one was that my blood pressure measurements, when taken with ‘proper’ equipment, showed that I was only about 10% above normal rather than the 40% which my home monitoring equipment was showing. I am now thinking that the unit I have at home is too cheap and not sufficiently clinically accurate so I think I had better pay somewhat more money and get something that approximates to clinical accuracy. The second pleasant surprise was that I asked the Health Care assistant who was taking some of my readings and asked if she could do a really accurate height measurement for me. This she did and it was good to read off the result, clearly indicated in a little magnified ‘window’, that showed my true height differs by about 0.004m from the attempts we made at home to measure my height accurately. I need to point out that this really is a two person job – measuring your own height lying down is easy but inaccurate as you are ‘longer’ when lying down because you do not experience the compression effect on the vertebrae when you are standing up.  After I got home, Meg and I decided to have a little trip out to Droitwich  to give us a change of scene. We went to our usual coffee shop where we indulge in cappucino and a huge toasted teacake shared between us. Then it was a quick whizz around the adjacent charity shop, then Wilko which is pretty close by to get some cosmetic and cleaning products and finally into Waitrose to collect some things that we know we can only buy there. Then it was home for a quickly prepared lunch of quiche and some accompanying vegetables.

After lunch even though the weather was a little gloomy and windy, I thought it would be a good opportuniy to plant out the two Clematis plants which I bought a few days ago to replace the venerable old clematis at the corner of the house. I made a little ‘pit’ into which I sunk a ceramic pot and then planted out the two clematis plants using a combination of the existing soil and a bag of topsoil which I had already standing by. The new plants had some bonemeal at their base which is very slow acting but I also incorporated some chicken manure pellets I had in stock so that should give a boost of nitrogen to get them growing awy quickly. Then I turned my attention to a little trellis work we have at the back of the house and planted a perpetual sweet pea in it. This, too, had been waiting for an opporunity to get it planted so another good job done. I had wanted to make a start on applying some Danish oil to my new outside broom to weatherproof it so this will have to wait another day.

Today, the Chancellor has announced a £15bn package of measures designed to assist all members of the population, and particularly the poorest, to cope with the crisis caused by an inflation rate of 10% and fuel bills that may well triple by the autumn.   The most significant part of this package is that one third of it will be funded by a ‘levy’ on the additional profits of the energy companies – in other words a ‘windfall’ tax. Most commentators are of the view that this package of measures upon which the Treasury have been working frantically have been timed to appear the day after the Sue Gray report into partygate. In this way, No. 10 wants the country to ‘move on’ and not concentrate on the continuing fallout from the report. Three or four additional Tory MPs have now announced that they have no confidence in Boris Johnson but the total number who have done this  falls a long way short of the 54 letters that are needed. If an abortive attempt is made to attempt to unseat the PM and it fails, then no further attempt can be made for at least a year. Hence many unhappy MPs are ‘staying their hands’ until there is a strong tide running in their favour (unlikely at the moment) and an evident successor appears on the horizon.

Today was the day when the Sue Gray report was rumoured to be published and Sky News broke the news at about two minutes past 9.00am that the report had indeed been received in Downing Street. From this moment on, the media airwaves were evidently going to be dominated by the revelations of the report and after Boris Johnson had answerd a routine PMQ, the time came at 12.30 for Boris Johnson to answer questions on the report. As we have come to expect, there was a period of quasi-contrition soon to be replaced by Boris Johnson going on the attack suggesting that Keir Starmer, himself under police investigation, should have resigned by now. After about half an hour in which the Tory benches (apart from one or two brave souls) seemed to offer tacit support to the Prime Minister, the green benches occupied by the Tory party seemed to rapidly empty leaving only the ministerial teams in place. One shot of the House of Commons was particularly revealing becase it only seemed to show one or two back benchers in place to give support of ]ohnson.

The Sue Gray report itself would appear to be fairly damning but fails to point a loaded gun at the Prime Minister. It does point out that parties went on much longer than they should have done, that there was evidence of excessive use of alcohol and one member of staff being sick, two Downing Street personnel having a fight (called an altercation), a child’s swing in the garden being broken. Quite amazing was the revelation that cleaners and security staff were abused by the revellers when it was time to move them on. One particurlarly newsworthy incident is the fact that in one message after a ‘bring your own booze’ party to which 200 people were invited in May 2020, Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principal private secretary, said: ‘We seem to have got away with [it].’ So there seemed to be widespread knowledge of the illegalities of the gatherings. Political commentators are also pointing out one massive ‘hole’ in the report. One of the infamous events was the so-called Abba party, held in the Downing Street flat on the occasion of Dominic Cummings leaving Downing Street, where there was evidently much loud music and stampings of feet that sounded like dancing. Sue Gray started to investigate this event but then stopped short when the Met began their investigations. The Met issued no fines after this event and there is some doubt whether it was properly investigated or not. There are also persistent rumours that senior staff filled in the police questionnaires with the barest minimum of detail lest they be incriminated which was a remarkably successful tactic as the majority of fines were handed out to junior staff and not to their bosses. When the Met did not investigate further, Sue Gray concluded that it would be inappropriate for her to investigate this further and so one of the most extreme examples of partying might not have been fully investigated at all. Boris Johnson’s defence in the Commons was generally to say that he was present for only short periods of time, that he genuinely believed that he was acting as a good employer by turning up to pay a tribute to departing staff and that rather than resign he had much more important work to be getting on with to fulfil the government’s agenda, not least with the economic crisis. A package of measures is being rushed through the Treasury in the hope that these can be announced tomorrow, but cutting short any criticisms that might follow the evelations in the teport. Critical, though, is the view of the 1922 bachbenchers committee of MP’s who will be making the crudest of political calculations whether Boris Johnson is an asset to them and can help them to win the next election or a liability for them and is therefore likely to lose it for them. About 60% of the population are of the view that Boris Johnson should resign over partygate but it could be that the ‘albino greased piglet’ as Boris Johnson was depicted in a particularly vivid cartoon may have escaped yet again. An interesting question for the Met is why when some people in a party received fines, the entire gathering did not receive a fine. If it was illegal for any person, then surely it must have been illegal for all of the attenders at the party? Later on this evening, it may well emerge what the mood of the 1922 Committee is liable to be but it does appear that journalists are much more likely to hold the PM to account than his own MPs. From accounts of the meeting of the 1922 committee meeting this evening, it appears that Boris Johnson had ‘struck the right tone’ with them and his support remained high amongst the recently elected ‘red wall’ MPs (Conservatives who won the seats traditionally held by Labour) The older generation of Tory MPs were less likely to give Boris Johnson the benefit of the doubt, however.

As Tuesday is my Pilates day, we know that we have to manage our time quite carefully. We knew that some of our pre-pandemic Waitrose acquaintances had started to frequent the coffee bar again since its reopening about a month or so ago. We called in at our friend along the Kidderminster Road where we had our little tea party yesterday as I had taken along some slippers to wear and forgot to change into them. I had left them behind me so I called in to collect the same, thinking that I had better not get into the habit of leaving items of clothong in the houses of French widows.  As soon as we entered the Waitrose store, we met up with our acquaintances and sat down to make a foursome. Then we joined by another mututal pre-pandemic acquainatnce and that brought us up to five. The female members of the party were each handed some flowers by the Waitrose staff – when flowers go over their sell-by date thay tend to given away to some of the stores oldest and most regular customers. In addition, one of the assistants that I know particularly well excitedly pointed me in the direction of the shelves where concentrated fruit juices were shelved. I had requested through her that the manager start to stock some beet juice which Meg and I have started to have as a regular part of our diet. This request had evidently been complied with and had worked its way through the system so I now have a regular supply on tap withut having to roam around the other Bromsgrove supermarkets  to find it. Then my friend from the park Seasoned World Traveller occupied the next table and I have not bumped into him for a couple of weeks now so that we rapidly got up to speed on the ‘partygate’ developments, each of us trying to speculate what the next developments were likely to be and speculating upon the role played by the Metropolitan police. It was just as well we had taken the car down to Waitrose because just before we left there was a pretty heavy shower and we would have been drenched if we had made our regular walk on foot.

Today being my regular Pilates day I walked down at the usual time and was delighted to discover that the health scare which my Pilates’ teacher had suffered last week turned out to be just that i.e. a scare. and not a suspected stroke. But it still took a four hour wait in Worcester Royal’s A&E to get this diagnosis. After my class, we dined as we always do on a Tuesday on haddock fish cakes which seemed particularly delicious today for a reason I cannot discern. After a brief rest, I was eager to start work on clipping up the pile of Elaeagnus branches that I had left lying at the top end of our communal green area. I suspected that this job was going to be done in two tranches but suddenly the pile seemed to diminish rapidly so I got it all done in one day with just a certain amount of clearing up of leaves to be done tomorrow.

Westminster is still full of anticiation for the Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ to be delivered in the next day or so. As you might expect, there is a sharp division of opinion concerning the photograph that shows Boris Johnson proposing a toast to a departing colleague. In the photograph, are several other personnel (with faces blurred out) but evidently no social distancing has taken place. In the photograph, there is a table laden with bottles of booze. The Johnson loyalists are saying that this is just a ‘work-related event’ and thus falls within the rules applicable at the time whilst the majority opinion (all of the opposition and a few Tory MP’s) maintain that this is clear and evident proof that Johnson lied to the House of Commons when he said that no parties took place on that day and that all social rules had been observed (it is evident, from the photograph, that they were not)  In advance of the publication of the Sue Gray report, The Times reports that Boris Johnson had asked Sue Gray to pull the whole report as most of the findings were in the public domain anyway. If true, this would be a clear attempt to influence the outcome of the ‘independent’ report. No. 10 denies this furiously – but then, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Three individuals have told the BBC that they witnessed regular rule-breaking events during restrictions of 2020 and 2021. According to their testimony, staff crowded together with some sitting on each other’s laps at parties. The fact that Boris Johnson was present and did not tell the party goers to disperse was taken to be a tacit acknowledgement that their attendance at these events was quite legitimate. A lot more will emerge in the next few days, no doubt.

Today was an indeterminate sort of day with us being unsure how the weather was going to pan out. We knew that we were going out to tea later on in the afternoon so I shot into town to collect our newspaper and to pop into Waitrose where I needed to buy a little ‘prezzie’ for later on this afternoon. At the same time, I shot into Poundland in order to replace the dog-collar which I have mislaid. In case the question arises why I should require a dog-collar (i.e. something to put round a dog’s neck rather than a clerical garment) the explanation is as follows. When I walk down to the park every day, I carry our flask of coffee and other comestibles in my trusty rucksack. This has a slight tendency for the straps to slip off my shoulders, particularly if I am wearing something remotely shiny. The solution to this is to have  small leather strap that ties together the two straps so that they do not have a tendency to wander. I have used a specimen of dog-collar bought from Poundland some months ago but it has gone ‘walk about’ so I needed to replace it. The new one works just about fine and it means that it is easier for Meg to link arms with me and not fall when we walk down the road. The park, as we suspected, was pretty deserted and so we were not surprised  to see only one of our regular acquaintances. Then we made our way homewards, preparing a fairly lightish kind of lunch as we suspected that our calorie count was going to be radically increased this afternoon. Just before lunch, I spent about 20 minutes pruning back some of the errant branches of an Elaeagnus shrub which stands at the corner of our roadway and is threatening to get well and truly out of hand. My neighbour and I are going to tackle it properly when he returns from holiday but in the meanwhile, I snipped back some of the branches that vehicles were likely to brush against if no action had been taken. I kept all of the branches in a fairly neat pile at the corner of our communal grassed area and tomorrow, presuming the weather is fine, I will wheel up our garden refuse bin and chop the branches into smaller pieces in order to dispose of them.  

This afternoon we went out to tea with the French widow with whom we have become friendly in the last year or so. At the same time, our two lots of Catholic friends who are very near neighbours were invited along side so we formed a merry little group of six. Our French friend had hoped that we could have a nice little party outside but it started to spatter with rain so our friend had moved to ‘Plan B’.  She has a double length garage but the portion nearest to the garden has been made into a sort of garden room so we all sat down for tea inside the house as it were. We had a lot of jolly conversation and as our friends had just returned from Oberammergau in Austria, we had a lot of travellers’ tales. Meg and I had gone down the road by car which is just as well because shortly before our tea was concluded, the heavens opened and we had the kind of downpour you typically associate with May/June. No doubt the gardens will appreciate all of this water  and I was glad that I had got my outdoor jobs done before the heavens opened. When we got home, I assembled the parts to a 36″ soft brush to which I have treated myself. This should help to make short work of keeping our newly refurbished patio in good nick as well as the never-ending job of keeping the holly leaves at bay which fall at the front of the house.  

Tonight  a photo has seen the light of day which shows Boris Johnson with glass held aloft evidently making a toast at one of the Downing Steet ‘parties’ The other faces have been blanked out but it is evident that social distancing is not being observed. Moreover, this photo has emerged at one of the gatherings when Boris Johnson had categorically told the House of Commons that no party had taken place for the date in question. Whether this photograph is one of those which may well be published in the Sue Gray report when it sees the light of day is unclear at this point. However, when matched up with Boris Johnson’s categorical denial that such an event had taken place, then this is the nearest to a ‘smoking gun’ to have emerged so far. There is an interesting observation in The Times today which indicates that junior staff were told to be truthful when questioned by the Met and were subsequently fined whereas some of their superiors and their political masters were much less forthcoming and tightlipped on the advice of Conservative party lawyers on the assumption that the Met would have to go after them which they generally did not. So many of the senior staff seem to have got away scot-free.

Today being Sunday, I walked down early in the day to collect our Sunday newspapers. At this hour of the day (8.00am) the only people out on the road are dog-walkers and joggers, all of whom are intent on their particular activity rather than chit-chat. As I treated myself to my weekly ‘concert’ on my ancient iPhone, the second track along was Bach’s cantata ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring‘ This is quite significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was one of the pieces of music that Meg and I had chosen when we got married nearly 55 years ago. Secondly, I remember well the morning after I knew that I had been awarded my PhD way back in 1997. I always used to have some Bach playing on my computer when I switched it on in the morning. and this track started to play. I was suddenly overcome with emotion and burst into tears – more of relief than anything else. Thirdly, our good friend Clive who had been taught the trumpet in a Salvationist household when he was about 10 years old was still playing the trumpet some 75 years later. Clive came along to our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations and played this piece for us. This was of particular significance because at our wedding all of those years ago, the cantata was sung by a very good friend of ours, Austin, who was training to be an opera singer. I have lost contact with Austin over the decades and he was about ten years older than me, then there is quite a fair chance that he is no longer alive. But here was a neat kind of symmetry in that the cantata was performed for us by close friends at the original celebrations and again fifty years later.

After the Sunday politics programme, Meg and I walked slowly down to the park. On the way down into town, we had quite a long chat with our Italian friend who was busy making her immaculate garden even more immaculate until we interrupted her. Then when we got to the park and had our elevenses, our University of Birmingham friend strode into view and we chatted at length about the Rick Stein programme which we had seen on TV last night in which he was extolling the virtues of the sights (and even more the food) of Cadiz which is a city we have visited before. After we had put the world to rights, we made for home and on our way out of the park, we bumped into our Intrepid Octogenerian Hiker who we have not seen for a few days. He was just starting one of his many trips around the park when we coincided and, as always, I marvelled at how fit he keeps himself by keeping to his regime of about 9-10 kilometres a day at the age of 88. Then it was home for lunch and some tasty beef accomapnied by tender-stem broccoli.

After lunch, I set to and gave all of the newly weeded gravel areas in our front garden and adjacent roadways a good soaking in PathClear, a weedkiller, which should keep everything looking shipshape for at least the next three months and probably longer. Of course, with walking up and down the roadway every day I can now despatch a weed whever it ventures to raise its head from now on.

I have been reflecting upon the ways in which politicians in general, and Boris Johnson in particular, survive whatever particular difficulties they happen to be in by ‘kicking the can down the road’ At one time, when Johnson’s premiership seemed to be in peril the word on the street was waiting to see how many letters calling for a leadership context would be submitted to the chairman of the 1922 (= Tory backbencher’s) committee. When this revolt seemed to fizzle out, the Tory backbenchers were saying ‘Let us wait for the results of the local electons in May’. Then it was a case for waiting for the Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ Then this had to be forced into abeyance when the Met decided to investigate. Now that the Met investigation has been concluded, it may well be a case of waiting for the full publication of the Sue Gray report which is expected this week. If this fails to deliver a knockout blow, no doubt people will be saying that it might be better to wait until the results of the two by-elections due next month. And so on and so on. Then of the course the war in Ukraine has happened which has enabled Johnson to pose as a Churchill-type figure and the focus of the political gaze has altered. It is often forgotten that Margaret Thatcher was the most unpopular Prime Minister of all time immediately before the Falklands War but became the most popular Prime Minister of all time after its successful conclusion. Not for the first time foreign affairs have helped to distract from unpopular policies on the domestic front – authoritarian right wing leaders across the world  have typically used the fight against an external enemy as a useful distraction from unpopular domestic policies.

Today dawned quite a cloudy day but no rain was forecast all day and there was the promise of sunshine  later in the day. In fact it was fairly warm and almost muggy and one would not have been surprised if thunderstorms had threatened. But there were none on the radar and none forecast so we looked forward to a day when we could walk and complete some gardening. Once I had collected the newspaper this morning, Meg and I set off the park at a gentle pace and after some chats with dog-owners that we know by sight, we were joined by our University of Birmingham friend. As we had not coincided for quite a few days now, we were delighted to see him and we chatted about a variety of things, including holidays that we both might make, separately, to various parts of Spain and when we might undertake such trips. After a long chat we said we would meet again tomorrow in the park and we wended our way home. To go with the quiche that we were warming in the oven, I decided to put together a type of ‘melange’ of vegetables which consisted of a gentle fryup in some good oil of peppers, onions, tomatoes and a few frozen French beans that I had  steamed to tenderise them. I let these cook for some time until the onions were almost caramelised and the results were so good (to my taste) that I may well repeat it another time. If I had need to, I could have put in a dollop of brown sauce or even some a splash of onion relish but in the event the result were delicious enough not to need further enhancement. I must confess I also wanted to try out a new ceramic saucepan I was tempted to buy when I was last in Aldi and I reckon that. new one is overdue as I do not think we have bought a new saucepan in 15 years. Anyway, this new one is absoliutely excellent as after my fry-up, it just took a quick wipe with some kitchen paper, a dip in some hot soapy water and it was cleaned up like new in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.   Straight after lunch, I got to work to finish off the semicircular gravel bed which lies at the front of the house and which badly needed a radical weeding. By the time this was done, we had our afternoon cup of tea and then I thought that I would finish off a complete weeding of the roadway which constitute the principal access way to the Close in which we live. Now that all of this is completely weed free, then tomorrow all of the work I have done in the last few days will be finished off with a good soaking of PathClear which should keep us all weed free for several months. Now it was time for a weekly visit to Church which is a regular commitment for Meg and myself each Saturday afternoon.

There is quite a ‘briefing war’ going in around Downing Street at the moment. The Sue Gray report into ‘partygate’ is due to see the light of day early next week. This report has been said to be ‘independent’ but it now transpires that Boris Johnson and Ms. Gray have already had a meeting about the contents of the report some time ago. No. 10 first suggested that Sue Gray had asked for the meeting – if Boris Johnson had instigated it, then this would be tantamount to an attempt to influence the contents of the report. This was then denied by Sue Gray but it is now clear that the meeting had been organised by ‘some’ officials in No. 10. One way or another, Opposition politicians and many independent observers are bound to smell a rat. The Labour Party is calling for full transparency  of what appears to be a secret meeting and one has to wonder what was the purpose of the meeting. As it is, both parties are manoeuvring to try to demonstrate their independence but I suspect that some of the beans may well be spilt by some of the inside analysis to which we can look forward in tomorrow’s Sunday newspapers.

My newsagent was telling me that are some plans for Bromsgrove to close off some its streets and to host an impromptu ‘street party’ to celebrate the Queens Jubilee in a couple of week’s time. This does not sound to be exactly our ‘cup of tea’ as it were and I am not sure I want to engage in jollities with lots of people on the High Street. This feeling is intensified a little as about a couple of days ago I received a text to say I had been in contact with a Covid infected person. I immediately did a lateral flow test on myself which tested negative but it seems strange to get the text out of the blue and when the pandemic has lost it sting.

The day dawned somewhat gloomy and I imagined that it would be raining on and off most of the day and this would alter what I intended to do. In the event, I popped down into town to collect my newspaper and by the time I got home, it was raining on and off to make life a little miserable. We decided to go into town by car, neglecting our walk, and decided to treat ourselves to a coffee in Waitrose.   When we got there, we were delighted to see two of our pre-pandemic friends in there that we have not seen for well over two years. The husband of the pair has memory problems and of course, things have not got better over the past two years. Nonetheless, we had quite a lot of ‘catching up’ to get on with and I was amazed how well the wife who is 88 was caring for her husband despite having her own  health issues to cope with. They tend to visit the cafe on Fridays, as indeed they did in the pre-pandemic days, so we will probably get in the habit of making a trip to Waitrose every Friday from now own to rekindle a friendship. Then we popped home and we organised a fairly early lunch of smoked haddock risotto to see if it would be possible to get a lawn mowing done. At the start of the day, I had written off all mowing until tomorrow but I knew from my weather app that we ought to have a window of opportunity open to us between 12.00 and 4.00pm. The gods must have smiled upon us because we did have a window where the rain held off and it was real bonus to get our lawns cut today as earlier in the morning, I thought it was pretty certain that we would be rained off.  After our post-mowing cup of tea, I thought I would make a start on the hand weeding of the semi-circular gravel bed that occupies a position in the front of our hopuse. Just as yesterday, the weeds were not particularly easy to remove as it was a case of finding the tap root and ensuring that the weeds got taken out root and all – which actually sounds easier to say than it is actually to do. Nonetheless, I managed to get about two thirds of this big gravel bed weeded and, in turn, they will get a good dose of PathClear once the weeds have been removed and the weather is propitious. All being well if the weather is fine, I can finish this off tomorrow.

There is a certain degree of astonishment from both of Boris Johnon’s supporters and detractors, that the Metropolitan police have concluded their enquiries into the Downing Street ‘partygate’ with a sum total of 126 VPN (Fixed Penalty Notices) issues but no further fines for Boris Johnson or any other politicians. Altogether, twelve officers worked on the investigation full-time and others were brought in when required. They investigated events on 12 days but only ended up fining people for eight of those days. There is a certain of jaw-dropping at the fact that Boris Johnson was not fined again and that those who received the fines seemed to be fairly junior staff who were presumably told by their superiors that an ‘event’ was to be held and the Prime Minister might be in attendance. One line of thought is that that inadvertently, the Met may have helped Boris Johnson because as their investigations proceeded, the whole issue ‘cooled’ and dropped out of the public gaze whilst other events (the war in the Ukraine) intervened to save Boris Johnson’s skin. This gives a further twist to the cartoonist’s view of Boris Johnson as a ‘greasy albino piglet’ who can successfully evade/escape any attempt to capture him. We are now waiting the full publication of the Sue Gray report which is expected some time next week. Although some who seen an initial draft claim that the language is ‘stomach-churning’ the report is probably written as other official documents tend to be which is a factual statement of what happened and when and whether the finger will be pointed at any of the senior Downing street staff or their political masters remains to be seen.

I am trying an experiment to germinate some parsnip seeds. A selection has been put into neat rows on kitchen paper and then kept moist (with an occasional spray of water) for as long as it takes. The trouble is that parsnips are easy to grow but quite difficult to germinate but when/if I get them going, I am then going to keep them going in a system which I have devised (toilet rolls filled with compost) This way, ought to keep the roots long and straight and they can be planted out in their toilet roll holders without needing to be thinned, the toilet rolls should rot away into the soil and we should be left with some lovely long parsnip roots in the autumn. We shall see.

Today dawned bright and fair, which was a relief for me as I have several outdoor jobs lined up to get done today. First, though, having got up a little early I got to my local supermarket at just before 8.00am and was the first to get through the doors as they opened. Then it was a fairly routine shop-up followed by my collecting my newspaper as I was in the area. Then it was home for a quick breakfast and an unpacking of the shopping. Whilst I was waiting for Meg to get herself ready, I had a stroke of good fortune. Since I have had our patio cleaned up so that it looks like new, I am anxious to keep it that way but I know that this is threatened by fairly large clumps of moss that have accumulated on the bottom edge of some of our roofing tiles. I have as part of my gardening equipment, an exceptionally long bamboo cane constructed by lashing three long bamboo canes together with cable ties. At the end, I have a little wire hook arrangement shaped a bit like a curvy ‘L’. When I constructed this tool several years ago, I had used it to ensure that a climbing clematis that I had could make some progress through some of our bordering holly trees. This tool worked very well for the purposes for which it was constructed. Rather than getting rid of it, I had stored it down the side of the house (on the mid-wall brackets holding the drain pipes where it was well out of the way) Anyway, as a type of experiment, I wondered how far up the (dormer) roof I could reach with my home made device.  I was delighted to say that the moss only needed a little tickle to detach from the tile and fall either into the gutter or over the side onto the patio. I immediately swept up the fallen moss with a very soft long handled little brush that I have  and the net result was that I had cleared about three quarters of the side of the house that was worst affected for only about 20 minutes of effort.  This means that if we have we have the anticipated heavy downpours in the next day, the amount of moss that will will tumble down will be minimal and easily dealt with.

After this (and in fairly high spirits) we set off for the park for our daily walk. Sitting on the park bench, we had several chats with some of the park regulars where we know each by sight even if we are not on first name terms. Then it was case of a gentle walk home for lunch  which was to use up a small portion of gammon and some spring greens that needed using up. This turned out to be surprising tasty even though it was just using up ‘odds and ends’. I had a little project for the afternoon which was to finish off weeding the ‘other’ side of the communal roadway. This sound to be s simple task but in practice it was complicated. This is because of the type of weed growing on the gravel was generally quite a flat and spreading type of weed that had established long roots as the plant burrowed through the gravel searching for moisture and nutriment. So it was not just a case of pulling the head and and leaving the rest of the root system to regenerate but rather giving the gravel rake with a weeder and then hunting for a tap root so that I could pull out the weed roots and all. In order to prevent me having a bad back  on what could be a backbreaking task, I adopted a technique of lying on my side with my hip on a foam kneeler and then attacking the errant weeds that way. At the end of the day, I am pleased to have a good ‘root-and-branch’ job done and in the next day or so, I shall use some ‘Pathclear‘ on this gravel to keep things OK for the rest of the season. My next door neighbour returned home from work and gave me words of support and encouragement – when they return from holiday we are going to tackle an overgrown ‘Elaeagnus‘ shrub which is overhanging one of the corners in the roadway serving our houses. My weeding task completed, it was then a case of washing down the rest of the garden furniture  residing temporarily on the lawn and putting it back into position on the patio. Several bits of gardening ‘clobber’ which is in constant use and I tend to store around the sides of the house have now been relocated to some decking much further down the garden where they are ‘out of sight, out of mind’ with the overall intention of keeping the patio area clutter-free and easy to maintain (by clearing away moss, leaves and the like)

Today was the day when we were meant to be going to Leamington Spa to have lunch with our De Montfort University (Leicester) colleagues but unfortunately this had to be postponed as the (very aged) mother of one of our colleagues had died so evidently funeral arrangements had to take priority. Our domestic help called around today rather than Friday and we are always pleased to see her and exchange news of families. One of her sons, training to be a jockey, had won his first race the other day so there were a lot of interesting photos to be shared. The weather was cloudy but fairly bright so Meg and I looked forward to a pleasant walk down into the park. We were speculating whether the park had got a little busier than was the case a year or so back and we surmised that people might have got used to using the park during the pandemic (lots of fresh air, exercise, ability to avoid others) and having got into the habit had changed their life style. So we walked back at a lesiurely pace and immediately got to work throwing together various bits and pieces into an impromptu salad. As she was a little late coming to us this morning, our domestic help was happy to help us consume the salad which she really enjoyed and polished off in no time at all. Our domestic help is thinking of getting her patio professionally cleaned so we found a local firm who happened to be only about a couple of miles or so from where they live so she was going to get a quote from them this afternoon. After lunch, I knew that I wanted to tackle the weeding on the other side of the communal roadway but as some of it is in almost perpetual shade, I knew that removal of the weeds (particularly of the creeping kind) was going to be more difficult. In the time limit I had set myself, I managed to get about three quarters of the whole length completed leaving  a more difficult section to be finished off tomorrow. As it was ‘brown bin’ (gardening refuse) emptying day tomorrow, the bins have to be out at the end of the roadway this evening so I took the opportunity to remove  some of the ubiquitous holly leaves which are littering up the side entrance to our property.

On the political front, it looks as some kind of ‘U’ turn may be on the cards. The government has consistently resisted the move to tax the anticipated profits of the big energy suppliers (oil companies) to help to supply some relief to ‘ordinary’ consumers. However, this is an evident source of revenue that costs the government nothing and even the oil companies are admitting that they did not have to ‘do anything’ except sit back and received the extra revenues from the higher prices. As all of the opposition and even some government backbenchers are calling for a one time levy, it will be interesting to see how, or if, the government effects a change in policy. At the moment, they are are repeating the mantra that ‘no measures are ruled out’ There is also some local political news with an interesting twist. In Staffordshire, some HS2 (High Speed 2) protestors have taken to tunnelling their way across part of the projected route. To counteract this, the contractors are using their own tunnellers, presumably to dig their own tunnels. Does this mean that we shall have underground battles between groups of tunnellers? And how does one group of tunnellers combat another? The imagination boggles.

Later on this evening, a heavy band of rain is due to sweep across the Midlands so I have had to ensure that some of the equipment left lying round on the lawn until it gets put back onto the newly restored patio tomorrow evening is basically waterproofed. Just out of interest, I managed to locate some photographs that we had taken of this property nearly 15 years when we moved in  and, in particular, to look at the colour and condition of the patio as it was when we moved in. Now, we have a series of quite interesting colours and we can discern some five or six different colours that have been used in the patio construction. Having been cleaned, it looks pretty impressive (and even more so after a shower of rain). As it was, our domestic help thought that the whole of the old patio had been removed and replaced by a new one. So now, without being neurotic about things, I am taking measures to keep everything looking pristine. I think the crucial thing is a constant brushing with a soft bristled brush so that the surface is not damaged. I already have a leafblower which I am using more and more, even though I only get about 10 minutes or so out of the battery unit until a recharge is necessary.