First, I must apologise to regular readers of this blog if normal service has been disrupted for the last couple of days. With the aid of the very competent lady who rents me the webspace and gives me an excellent service at reasonable prices, we identified the source of the problem as a domain name that had expired. Normally, these are set to ‘auto renew’ at the end of the period for which they are bought, generally 1-2 years, but in this case the domain name had actually expired. It looks as though domain providers and web space providers do not immediately cut you off when this sort of thing happens, which must be quite frequent, for there is a grace period during which things are resurrectable. Once I had paid my dues for another year, it took less than an hour for normal service to be resumed for which I was truly grateful. I am now taking steps to ensure that this does not happen again and am reassured that the text version of this blog which I maintain in case disaster strikes (as I had thought it had last night) was available so that not all is lost. So all’s well that ends well. My sister in Yorkshire who keeps track of my comings and goings telephoned me a lttle distraught that she could not access things as normal but now we have got things back to normal again.

Today is the day when I normally do my shopping first thing and then we were scheduled to go down to South Oxfordshire for a luncheon date with very old and sincere friends. I took along with us a little pressy of a ‘butterfly box’ which is designed to give a good home to butterflies as they develop. The same firm also produces parallel products, one for bees and one for ladybirds but our friends keep their own bees so I thought that taking along the ‘bee’ version might set up some create problems down the road so was best avoided. The journey was uneventful until I turned off at a junction too early from the main road down a road I thought recognised and got into quite a tangle along narrow and twisting Oxfordshire lanes. Eventually, getting somewhat lost, I just had to retrace my steps back to the main road until I found the correct turn off point that I recognised. When we got to our friends, I explained how we live our lives day by day and then detailed the various transactions that we have had with social workers and other health care professionals. Then we sat down for a wonderful lunch of soufflé and salad, followed by some exotic home made icecream and mince pies. We left our friends at about 3.15 and I thought that we would probably get to the main A34 distributor road that goes around Oxford in the daylight. Then the traffic problems started. For a start, there were some major roadworks in the Botley interchange on the outskirts of Oxford and this must have been compounded by an accident of some sort as we witnessed a procession of blue-lighted vehicles. We crawled our way to the M40 probably spending the best part of an hour and a half going 20 odd miles. As soon as we reached the M40, as we had been delayed for so long and still had about 60 miles yet to go, Meg and I decided it was prudent to call off at the first service station we knew about which was five miles along the M40. This service station was one of those I regard as a nightmare as you leave the motorway and then the services seem to be off a roundabout, off a second roundabout and sometimes even a complex junction thrown into the mix. I really dislike accessing these service stations at the best of times but it is a bit more stressful in the dark with lorries whizzing all around you. Eventually we got to the service station and I put Meg in the wheelchair and attempted to access the disabled toilet for her. Naturally, this was locked so the instructions on the door indicated that one needed to backtrack and ask the staff at W H Smiths for the key. The young man behind the counter explained he was new so had to make a telephone call to find out where the key was located. But eventually we got Meg and myself in to the toilet OK and used the facility before doing all of the actions in reverse returning the key, accessing the car and getting the wheelchair folded away and then navigating our way back to the M40. So all of this took quite a chunk out of the journey. All in all, the 93 mile journey had taken up some three and halh hours start to finish and although we were relieved to get home, I suspect tha we shall feel shattered in the morning. After a cup of tea and some fruit and yogurt, I got Meg into bed as fast as I could as I suspected that by now she badly needed her bedrest. Having said all of that, Meg stood up to all of the tribulations of the day with a resilient spirit and I think it is true that the kindness and hospitality of our friends easily outweighs whatever travel difficulties we might have had. Mind you, if it had been snowing or excessively wet, then I think that would have added to our stress levels considerably.

Today we got up rather late and it was one of those days where we had to pack quite a few things into the morning. Having got ourselves up and breakfasted, we immediately made our way to Finstall village hall where there is a meeting organised for us by AgeUK, meeting as we do on the second Wednesday of every month. The activities organised for us were quite jolly really because it was a kind of musical ‘bingo’ where Chistmassy type songs and tunes were played and we had to guess things like the year of the recording, identifying the title of the film from the music clip and so on. This was to the accompaniment of cups of tea/coffee and some mince pies. All in all, we had a very successful day because we seemed to win three of the mini-competitions and won some token prizes of chocolate but we promptly gave away two of these as a run of success like this is not very natural for us. We finished promptly at 12.30pm and then made a couple of detours in order to pick up our copy of ‘The Times‘. At 1.00pm we were due to be visited by the couple of nurses who specialise in Meg’s condition and they were due to make a scheduled visit today as, indeed, I hope that they will continue to do on a monthly basis. I had run off some little biographical notes for them both which I believe will help them to understand Meg’s condition. These two healthcare professionals work in adjacent offices and evidently liaise with each other about Meg so that is really joined-up care. When they call at the house, as they have a couple of times in the past, we have a routine where one of the nurses sits with Meg and gives her some care and attention whilst the other consults with me (out of Meg’s earshot, in another room). Today, we had what I consider to be a particularly helpful little session. One of the nurses was able to give me some practical advice how to cope with Meg’s condition whilst the other was offering some practical assistance to Meg. Between the two of them, I am gradually learning a few new little things and acting upon some of their suggestions so that between the four of us, we are getting to a situation in which caring for Meg becomes a tad easier.

This afternoon, Meg and I started watching a film but quite recently, switched to some music which was a little more to Meg’s mood this afternoon. One piece that was played, of which we never tire, is the ‘Barcarolle‘ from Offenbach’s ‘Tales of Hoffman’ The rendition that we are offered on YouTube is, I believe, a performance by a full French orchestra and the ‘Barcarolle’ is sung by a couple of sopranos, one a mezzo, whose voices blend together absolutely perfectly. Also captured is the wonderful slow rythmn of the waves lapping against the gondoler (as that is the origin of the Barcarolle in the first place) It never ceases to amaze me how Hoffman who one would normally rate as amongst the first rank of composers, could have composed such a stunningly beautiful piece. In fact, the beauty of it absolutely moved Meg to tears on this particular playing of it and I must say that I know how she feels.

After all of the hype and anticipation of the vote for the revised Rwanda legialation last night, in which Rishi Sunak was practically putting his premiership on the line, the government finished off with quite a sizeable majority of 44. It looks as though not a single Tory MP voted against the bill (as several had threatened) but a goodly number of some three dozen looked as though they probably abstained. The major battle for this legislation is now to be at the Report Stage. This is normally delegated to a smaller committee but in view of the importance of this legislation, there is going to be a ‘Committee of the whole House’ At that stage, several quite critical amendments will be tabled which many of the diverse groupings on the right of the Tory party will vote for but which the ‘One Nation’ group of centrist MPs have indicated would be totally unacceptable. In short, the ‘can has been kicked down the road’ and the real battles are going to re-commence in the middle of January. One can only speculate whether between now and then, opinions will harden or whether they will soften. As MPs often take the occasion over Christmas to consult with their constituency parties (who often themselves hold a Chtistmas ‘party’ for their own faithful) and Tory constituency parties are always to the right of the parliamentary party, then I suspect that the battle lines are being prepared for the resumption of hostilities. It rather does put you in mind of mediaeval battles, or even the war in Ukraine, when all the fighting stops amidst the fog, mud, slush and snow of the winter time whilst the armies prepare for the resumption of the real hostilities in the spring when the weather improves and the days lengthen.

Today, one of the songs played that we had to identify was ‘Que sera, sera‘ or, in translation, ‘What will be, will be’ This song has a particular resonance for me because it was popular in the summer of 1956. At that time, our family was contemplating a temporary dissolution whilst I went off to boarding school in Bolton (Lancashire) whilst my mother was going to Newcastle to train to be a teacher, my sister was to attend the Bar Convent in York as a boarder and my grandmother was to stay behind in Harrogate. So at that time during the summer, we all wondered, in our own ways, what the immediate future was going to bring.

Today, we break with our usual pattern of seeing our friends in Waitrose because we were scheduled to have an important meeting with our social worker, accompanied by some other health professionals at 10.00am this morning. Naturally, we were all sitting in place at the appointed time with our best bib and tucker until our two visitors arrived. The meeting was somewhat inconclusive but our social worker had suggested a few extra episodes of care for Meg which we are going to trial for a couple of weeks to see if they achieve the desired objective. After our visitors had left, Meg and I decided that we would treat ourselves to a little trip to Waitrose where we knew that we were too late to meet with our regulars but we always interact well with the staff in any case. When we arrived, there was a very old lady whose daughter brings her quite regularly to the cafe but who had experienced quite a severe nosebleed. One of the staff was acting as a quasi-nurse to the old lady holding her nostrils together to staunch the flow of blood with a degree of success. In the meantime, the daughter and other staff members were trying to summon other medical assistance from I know not where. When things had calmed down a little, I asked the staff member (who I know well) if she could give the same assiduous attention she had shown to the elderly lady to a small cut on my finger but was given very short shrift. As Meg and I were having our coffee, our Irish friend who we had seen yesterday popped by – she must have been doing some shopping in the store and espied us. So we had a quick ‘debrief’ upon the outcome of theis morning’s proceedings this was a welcome little chat. As we were leaving, we were offered a crusty loaf which would have gone out of date and would have been thrown away – this sometimes happens in Waitrose as I suspect that the staff, like ourselves, do not like to see completely good produce thrown away. When we got back home, we had our (normal for us) fishcakes and microwaved vegetables and settled down for a quiet afternoon.

Our plans for the afternoon were a little disrupted for a variety of reasons. Meg needed some medication after experiencing some anxiety which is, unforunately, is not an uncommon pattern these days. But then we received a phone call from the specialist nurse who looks after Meg and who was scheduled to call around tomorrow afternoon. It looked at one point as though this scheduled visit was to be replaced by a telephone conversation but I was delighted to know that the specialist nurse and the other health professional who works in an adjacent office could both call again at midday. We are always delighted to see these two and I think they are really doing their best to provide a little joined up care. The trouble is that little care is actually joined up these days and the professionals have their work cut out to ensure that things do not escape their attention where one service interacts with another. I spent a certain amount of time writing to our social worker to provide her with some background information which might explain to explain the ‘rugged individualism’ that we exhibited before the social worker. Although it sounds hard to believe, Meg used to make independent journeys to France as a young teenager. As for myself, I attended a boarding unit of a grammar school in Bolton, Lancs. This involved the catching of four trains in a sequence followed by a bus journey and then a walk of about a mile. After being shown the journey once, I undertook this same trip every half term from the ages of 11-14. I wonder, today, how many parents would feel complacent about letting their 11 year old undertake a journey of four inter-connecting trains followed by a bus journey and then a longish walk? Following this theme of ‘rugged individualism’ I also pointed out that I had experienced an episode of cancer in my teens with no emotional or social support of any kind (my mother not even visitng me when I was resident in a hospital undertaking radiotherapy treatment). I then studied for my ‘A’ levels completely independently, receiving no tuition of any kind. The same pattern was to repeat itself for my PhD gained at the age of 52 but researched and written in a record part-time mode of 1-2 years. So I was reflecting to the social worker that in both of our lives, we had done everything for ourselves and generally received good results which might explain explain a few things nowadays.

Politically, all eyes are turned to the outcome of the vote on the Rwanda legislation to be taken at 7.00pm tonight following a day’s debate in the House of Commons.There are no less than four groupings of MPs on the far right of the Conservative party and the indications are that they are in no mood for compromise, wanting the legislation to be tougher. In the meanwhile, the more ‘centrist’ Tory MPs belong to a group called the ‘One Nation’ group and they will only support the bill if no compromises are made to the Tory rebels. So the outome of tonight’s vote and of the premiership of Rishi Sunak absolutely hang in the balance tonight. I have a feeling that several of the rebellious right wingers may decide to abstain or to vote through the bill through gritted teeth thinking that they may be in a better position to force amendments at the Committee stage of the proceedings. The right wingers are rather full of their own self-importance and were scheduled to hold their own news conference after a breakfast meeting with the PM, leading one Sky News commentator to observe, perhaps in an unguarded moment. ‘Who on earth do they think they are?’ So interesting viewing tonight.

Today was quite a full day for us. Once we had both got ourselves up, washed and breakfasted we started to think about the bits of shopping that we needed to do this morning. We intended to visit Droitwich which is one of our usual ventures for a Monday morning – at least, the weather is enjoying quite a mild stage at the moment. We made a visit to the major Aldi store in town to buy some things that were out of stock in the smaller supermarket in which we generally shop. Fortunately, they had plenty of supplies of what we wanted and then we hit the road to Droitwich. En route, we needed to pick up our copy of ‘The Times‘ which we did at a large Shell garage on the road. Then we called in at Waitrose just to use their ATM machine within the store and then finally got to our friendly cafe in Droitwich where we had our normal ration of a large bacon sandwich between the two of us and a teapot of tea. Once we were sufficiently refreshed, we struck off in a slightly different direction to visit the Cancer UK Charity shop that we used to frequent when we took our coffee in another establishment. Here we had a quick look around and did not see anything immediately to our liking but we did pause before a large display of charity Christmas cards. Our thoughts have not really turned to this annual task just yet but we are starting to receive a small stream of cards day by day from those who are better organised. When selecting Christmas cards, I like to buy cards with a strongly religious theme for relatives and friends who would appreciate them, cards stressing peace and international collaboration for internationalist minded friends and acquaintances and a variety of cards for everybody in between. I have a particular dislike of what you might term ‘jolly robin’ type cards or those with ho-ho-ho Santas on them and try to choose cards that are tasteful and look well designed. Whilst looking around, I mentiond to Meg that I was looking for cards with a religious type theme and a very helpful lady overheard my remark and found a pack of cards with a vaguely religious theme (images of a stable) We got into conversation and she told me that she played the piano and took some piano lessons but was still a bit weak on her left hand. I explained how I had recently purchased both a Casio keyboard and an organ and was practising some simple classical pieces which I both enjoyed in themselves and were quite easy to memorise. It is amazing who you meet in the most prosaic of circumstances. After this, we proceeded along to the Worcestershire Association of Carers to see what they had in offer. I had in mind even a Christmas jumper for myself but found nothing that was remotely tasteful but I did find quite a warm and high quality gilet type of garment in a very subtle shade of blue which I purchased for Meg.

Whilst we were having some coffee earlier in the day, we had received a telephone call from the secretary of the consultant whose clinic I was due to attend this afternoon for a regular annual monitoring check. My appointment in a local hospital this afternoon was to be postoned because the consultant himself could not take the clinic for ‘compassionate’ reasons. So I texted our friends down the road and we agreed to have a little tete-a-tete earlier on this afternoon. This is because tomorrow morning, we are going to be visited by our social worker and the manager of a care agency at 10.00 in the morning and we felt that we needed to take the advice and support of our friends who are very knowledgeable in this area and know just what questions to ask and what observations to make. We were provided with some delicious little sandwiches and had the most useful of chats, in the course of which I received a telephone call from the manager of another care agency with whom we have been put in touch and who may well prove to be exceptionally useful to us.

Last night, after Meg was in bed, I updated the little website that I maintain of the quality furniture we have acquired and renovated over the past few months. I also added some paragraphs of commentary about the provenance and particular feaures of each of the six pieces and then sent the whole URL of the website to my University of Winchester friend to ask his opinion of the same. He was very complimentary about the whole of this little project but it is now at at an end given that our Music Lounge is now completely furnished and needs no further additions. I did a very quick totting up of my total expenditure on these six pieces and it comes to about £160. It is just possible that I have been remarkably lucky or else in the right place at the right time but each individual piece is worth anything between five and thirty times what I paid for it. This run of luck must surely come to an end and, of course, I shall not be putting temptation in my own way by any further searches.

Today dawned as one of the wettest and most miserable days imaginable and having made our early morning cup of tea, we promptly fell asleep again. However, we both felt that we had a good night’s sleep which is particularly important for Meg. By the time we had got ourselves up, washed and breakfasted, we had even missed the Lorna Kuenssberg show so we listened for a while to Trevor Philips on Sky News. Then we received a telephone call from our University of Birmingham friend to indicate that he could not see us this morning so we set up a coffee date for 2.00pm in Waitrose, one of the few places that we can guarantee to be open on a Sunday afternoon. This left us with the prospect of how to fill the morning but we were not too unhappy about a stay in the house as it seemed to be raining cats and dogs outside. Almost by accident, we stumbled across an ITV programme hosted by Alan Titchmarch called ‘Love your Weekend’ which runs for the best part of a couple of hours. This was a very gentle form of TV but we found it pretty engaging nonetheless. When we first tuned in, Keir Starmer was being interviewed not as a ‘political’ interview per se but more as a reflection upon his own life and times. After that there was an interview with Penelope Keith including some of the funniest clips from ‘The Good Life’, including the one where Margot refused to wear a Christmas party hat made from a copy of the ‘Daily Mirror‘ but would consent to one if it happened to be the ‘Daily Telegraph‘. After that, there was a feature on non-alcoholic cocktails to try at this time of year which was interesting enough. I must say that the presentational manner and even timbre of the voice of Alan Titchmarch is well suited to this type of magazine format (and I even like the same style when I hear him as a presenter on ‘ClassicFM‘). We had put some beef into our slow cooker to cook throughout the morning but we felt as though we needed to change our plans. So I relocated the beef from the slow cooker to the conventional oven and, this way, we could have a Sunday lunch and just about get things cleared away before our afternoon coffee date. We got down to Waitrose to see our University of Birmingham friend at 2.00pm and arrived just about five minutes late. As we had not met for a fortnight and we had a fairly eventful time during the past few days, we had quite a lot of catching up to do. We both scoped out for ourselves the various activities in which we were both engaged and then made tentative plans to meet each other next weekend.

After a very pleasant chat we got ourselves home, we got ourselves home and fortunately the rain had stopped. We started watching a YouTube showing of Brahm’s ‘A German Requiem‘ and were really enjoying this when the dreaded ‘buffering’ problem emerged when the program seems to freeze and the only thing you can do is to tune away and then tune back in some minutes later. I wonder whether YouTube might be more prone to this on Sunday afternoons when there is a lot of demand for downloaded video. On consulting the TV schedules for this evening, there is going to be a showing of one of the classic versions of ‘Pride and Prejudice‘ from 6.00pm until about 9.00pm. We think that we may do under these circumstances is to get Meg all prepared for dropping into bed but watch it together in the comfort of our normal lounge where a gas fire supplements the central heating during a spell of cold weather. This means that Meg may go to bed an hour later than normal but if she can stay awake and is enjoying it – otherwise, I can always bundle her up into a warm bed and carry on watching it myself downstairs.

The next week is going to be quite a busy one for myself with one thing or another so we may not be able to follow all of the political news with our usual intensity. We think that Tuesday is going to be a critical day because Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, will probably start to give evidence to the COVID-19 enquiry. Tuesday as well is probably the date then a critical vote on the revised ‘Rwanda’ legislation is going to be taken in the House of Commons. A few days beforehand, there is intense speculation whether the rebels on the Tory Right will stage an out-and-out rebellion or vote for the bill through gritted teeth and reserve their fight for the Committee stages of the legislation. I think that many people have forgotten how Boris Johnson was faced with a similar problem when trying to get Brexit legislation through the Commons. His solution was brutal but simple, namely to withdraw the whip (i.e. throw out of the party) any who did not agree with the legislation and in this way many outstanding and extremely competent members of the Commons (David Gauke, Anna Soubrey for example) were effectively despatched. Of course such MPs still remain MPs and might feel inclined to force a vote in the House of Commons effectively bringing an end to the present government and precipitating an early general election. But the very hackneyed expression comes to mind at this point which is, simply this : ‘Do turkeys vote for Christmas?’

The situation in Gaza seems to become more dire with every day that passes. We now have the prospect of mass starvation ans an almost complete breakdown in the social order. Now that the north of Gaza has been so heavily bombarded and the citizens encouraged by the Israelis to flee to the south of Gaza, these areas are also subject to the most severe bombardment. I think I saw an estimate recently that about one quarter of the entire infrastructure of Gaza has already been destroyed and the Israelis unless constrained by the Americans may try to fight on for months yet. Another, terrible alternative is that there is hand-to-hand fighting actually within the tunnels that the inhabitants of Gaza have dug all over the place. The loss of live is almost too terrible to contemplate and, of course, some of the casualties are bound to be the Israeli hostages that Gaza is keeping hidden in the tunnels.

After I had got Meg to bed yesterday evening, I wrote a fairly long and candid email to one of my Hampshire friends – we are in constant contact with each to give each other emotional and practical support as both of of our wifes are absorbing a lot of our attention these days. My friend gave me a call late in the evening which I am always pleased to accept following the email I had written to him earlier in the evening but then Meg woke up and I needed to get her settled back in bed again (which I did, successfully) Having made a cup of tea this morning, I thought I briefly heard the sound of our front door bell coming vaguely through the ether. I was not mistaken and it was actually the Worcester-Bosch engineer who had made us his first port of call. I needed to open the back gate to let him in and,evidently, I was delighted to see him. He was with us about an hour, replacing the upper air vent, the pump, some seals and the drooping front lower door as well as giving the whole boiler a service. I texted the good news to our son, on his way to see his wife’s mother and also my friends down the road who knew that we had been without heating and had offered whatever help was needed. Our son opined that I probably had the equivalent of a new or at least reconditioned boiler with which judgement I agree. Meg and I treated ourselves to a steaming bowl of porridge this morning and then put both the hot water and the central heating onto a ‘continuous’ setting for the next few hours to heat the house up and to encourage the system to replenish itself. Then we ensured that we were down at Waitrose promptly at 10.30 in the morning where we met up with two of our friends (both of whom are coping with ill husbands) so we had a bit of a ‘moanfest’ to each other and shared with each other the various traumas of the week. We had to inform them that next Tuesday we were going to have to miss our regular get-together because we have a meeting arranged with the social worker which we did not want to rearrange and is going to be quite an important meeting anyway. We got back home at 11.30 just in time to coincide with the Eucharistic minister who visits us from our local church and, as is usual, have a few minutes of spiritual uplifting as well as a general chat which is always a source of enjoyment. After she had left, it was time for us to start to think about and to prepare the lunch which was the haddock pie not consumed yesterday but which we accompanied by a melange of onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and some petit pois.

After lunch, we caught up on a bit of Sky News and there was a particular ‘Saturday’ style slot which we really enjoyed. The presenter of the ‘Politics Hub’ on Sky News at 7.00 each evening, Sophie Ridge, was putting on a programme featuring political cartoons of the year. The programme featured three guests and they ranged over ‘political cartoon of the year’ as well as ‘political cartoonist of the year’. Each year, Peter Brookes, the political cartoonist of ‘The Times‘ publishes a series of his favourite cartoons, taking one for each month of the year. Peter Brookes’ cartoons are savagely and brilliantly funny and he has a technique of tying two current political events or stories together into a single cartoon. In ‘The Times‘ supplement published towards the end of December each year, Brookes adds a brief paragraph of explanation, detailing the context of the paticular cartoon and this is incredibly informative in case one had either inadvertently not seen that particular cartoon or, even more to the point, failed to grasp the complete sigificance of the two intertwined stories. I must confess I often have the image in my mind of what might be an interesting political cartoon but a complete inability to draw means that this is another career ambition which has had to be abandoned.

This afternoon, Meg and I resumed our viewing of the film ‘Passage to India‘ which we can view by courtesy of Amazon Prime video. Although I may well have seen this serialised some decades ago, I could not remember the plot lines. But we were gripped by the second half of the film and our enjoyment was enhanced both by a stellar cast and also the quality of the cinematography. In fact, I think the defintion and the colour rendition makes this cut-price Toshiba the best of the TVs that we have in the house that I am almost tempted to junk or present TV in the bedroom (probably about 7-8 years old and showing its age by now) and substitute another Toshiba. However, I am sure that we have other priorities at the moment. Next week, we are going to have a particularly busy week culminating with seeing our friends in Oxfordshire towards the end of the week and with engagements every day of the week so a quiet day getting ready for this might be called for. At the moment, Meg and I are just basking in the glow and warmth of our recently restored central heating system after enduring some privations in the last couple of days.

When I caught up with the texts that had been left for me on my iPhone, I discovered that Worcester-Bosch, the manufacturers of our central heating boiler, believe that they have found a slot for our boiler to be repaired some time tomorrow, Saturday. This was confirmed by two live calls this morning, the first to confirm the contents of last night’s text and the second to take some payment before the engineer calls around. Friday morning is when our domestic help calls around and I was delighted to show her our newly acquired classic leather armchair which got delivered to us during the week. I had given the leather, already in good condition, a treatment with our ‘Leather Silk’ spray and was delighted with the result. Our domestic help agreed with us that the chair fits nicely into our our overall scheme and seemed to think it was our best bargain acquisition yet, with which judgement I am inclined to agree. Meg showed off her injured eye and received a hug for her efforts. After that we had breakfast and then contemplated where we were to go this morning. As we often do on a Friday, we set off to Droitwich calling ‘en route’ into a garage en route where we were fortunate enough to pick up the last remaining copy of ‘The Times‘ Then we were fortunate to find a parking space relatively close to our cafe of choice which was quite a lot more quiet than of late. The staff, who we know well, made a bit of a fuss of Meg when they could see she had experienced a fall and had required some patching up – the bruise around her eye which developed in intensity a day after the event is now starting to fade but is still evidence of her past misfortune. The Catholic lady who we know well was off on her way to do some childminding of grandchildren in Spain for a week but gave us some very useful advice how to cope with Meg’s developing care needs and said that she would speak to us further on this subject when she returns in about a week’s time. Meg and I indulged in our normal treat of a teapot full of tea and one bacon butty shared between the two of us. I informed the staff that we had forgotten to pay the last time we called in so we needed to make sure that we paid all of our debts before we left this morning. We were running a little late this morning so we did not tarry or be tempted to visit charity or other shops which is our wont but made straight for home, not least because we needed to have a few words of ‘debrief’ with our domestic help before she had to dash away to do her major job today. Meg and I did not feel like our normal full scale meal this lunchtime so we treated ourselves to a couple of boiled eggs and ‘soldiers’ of toast which was certainly meal enough for us on top of the bacon butty. Our consumption of boiled eggs reminds me of a funny incident that occurred in the B&B dining room in which we used to stay when we visited Harrogate. The owner has become a personal friend and wrote a book about his personal experiences as a B&B owner in Harrogate. He offered Meg some boiled eggs for breakfast, accompanied by toast ‘soldiers’ and after Meg had consumed this, enquired whether or not they were to Meg’s liking. Meg replied, in what happened to be a lull in the normal burble of conversation in a dining room that ‘It is a very long time since I have enjoyed so many soldiers at breakfast time’ This created a moment of extreme merriment in the assembled guests and the anecdote has found its way into the proprietor’s book to be memorialised for all time.

This afternoon, in the absence of any central heating until tomorrow at the earliest, we needed to keep warm so kept ourselves in front of a gas fire in our lounge. Sky News was showing the funeral service for the Irish lead singer of ‘The Pogues’, Shane MacGowan, which had all kinds of interesting elements to it. The most extraordinary thing was when a collection of objects associated with the life of the singer was held up for the congregation to observe and to reflect upon. I do not know if this is a common practice in funerals in Ireland or just an innovation in this case but the whole ceremony seemed almost like a quasi-state funeral, attended as it was by the President of Eire itself. Afterwards, we caught up on the Thursday night transmission of ‘Question Time‘ which I had largely seen last night but which Meg had slept through.

A shocking image has emerged from the Israel/Gaza conflict of scores of Palestinian men, stripped to the waist, shackled and blindfolded. This image showing the extreme humilation of those captured is sending shockwaves around the Arab world. But military commentators in this country have observed that that is what the military do and the British would have done the same under similar circumstances. If left in this condition without clothing for an extended period of time, this would constitute a war crime but so far the Israeli Defence Force has not denied the veracity of the images but not made any comment on it either, so far.

Today has been quite a day so far. We got up somewhat earlier after Meg in particular had had a good night’s sleep for which we were both duly grateful. I then departed to do the shopping, first calling at an ATM to collect some weekly money and then filling up our car with petrol (which happened to be its first time it has been refuelled) One little feature that I particularly like about the display in our new car is the very clear petrol guage which is a straight line of 10 little indicators – as the fuel tank is 40 litres then each divison is 4 litres which is about 0.8 gallon. After completing the food shopping, I make a sweep by our regular newsagent which has been closed for over a week now so I am rather fearful about what is happening to our newsagent and no real way of finding out. I got home at 9.00am amd then proceeded to give Meg her breakfast before getting her washed and dressed and ready to face the world. One hour later, a care assistant turned up, according to the schedule, who is the first person that we had of a succession of carers and this gave me a little bit of space to get the shopping unpacked and put away and then I got ready to hit the road again again to visit another supermarket which will supply me with the items that are not stocked by my supermarket of choice or things that I had forgotten this morning. One thing that struck me in particular is that one item that I buy regularly for Meg each week was £4.00 in Aldi but exactly double that in Morrisons so this is a bit of a shock to the system when normal supplies are not on the shelves.

The rest of the day has turned out to be a little more traumatic that we would have wished. We noticed that our central heating boiler was both empty of the water which needs to be at a particular level and was also dripping some water. We sent a couple of urgent messages to two different phone numbers with our regular central heating engineer who lives (and whose business) is only about 1km away from us.To our dismay, we got a message back to say that they were incredibly busy but they would try and call around next Tuesday. But perhaps in response to our second message and in view of our proximity to the firm, the doorbell rang and it was one of the sons who are employed by the business. This firm had installed our Worcester-Bosch boiler about six years ago now and we have always regarded this product as super reliable, But we were to receive some bad news that there was a serious fault with the boiler and water had sprayed all over its internal parts – the only solution was to make a phone call to Worcester-Bosch themselves to have the boiler repaired under warranty. But this is when the bad news started. A call to Worcester-Bosch indicated that the waiting times on the phone would be in excess of an hour and I think the call eventually got answered in just under an hour. Then the really bad news is that no engineer could be sent around until next Tuesday which from today means five days without central heating or hot water. I indicated in the strongest possible terms that my wife was a vulnerable person in her late 70’s and with a range of health conditions and a wait of this magnitude was unacceptable. The contact at the other end tried to be emollient and after words with his supervisor is trying to see if they could give us any degree of priority but, as he explained, it is a ‘first come, first served’ basis and this time of year with cold weather and just before Christmas is one of unprecedented demand. So we are left as a fall back that we have an appointment scheduled for next Tuesday but that some efforts would be made to see if we could possibly be accommodated before that date. So we may well have to wait until Tuesday so it is a case of ‘hoping for the best but preparing for the worst’ Looking on the slightly brighter side, we have a house well stocked with food, a lounge that can be heated with a gas fire, a bed which has the benefit of an electric blanket and we will have to do whatever washing up needs to be done with the benefit of water boiled in a kettle.

Today, Meg and I have been watching the Boris Johnson 2nd day of evidence and he has faced a variety of questionning – some of which managed to find their mark. On some issues, Johnson issues a half apology along the lines of ‘With hindsight we would have done x or y differently’ but on what we now know as Partygate, Johnson comes out swinging. His evidence to the enquiry was that ‘the version of events that has entered the popular consciousness about what is supposed to have happened in Downing Street is a million miles from the reality of what actually happened’ which is a jaw-dropping inability to acknowledge what so many photographs and personal testimonies to the Sue Gray enquiry have revealed. This absence of contrition may well come back to bite him. But the major talking point of the day has been the turmoil in the Tory party given the resignation of the Immigration Minister, Robery Jenwick. He and Suella Braverman only need 29 MPs to rebel and the PM’s Rwanda plan falls. Meanwhile, the sight of the factional infighting within the Tory party on the subject of immigration has been described by one commentator as a ‘death spiral’ which may well prove prophetic.

The significant event of today was to be a procedure upon one of Meg’s eyes to be conducted in the local community hospital so all of our planning and activities today were focused on that appointment which is quite early in the afternoon. We breakfasted and so on at a slightly later hour, both having slept in a little which was pretty useful for both of us given that we have lost some sleep over the past few days. We got ourselves off to the Methodist coffee club where we enjoyed tea and teacakes at a very reasonable price but did not avail ourselves of sitting on the ‘Chatter and Natter’ table as there was no one around that we immediately recognised and we had to keep an eye on the time in any case. Just as we were leaving, we got a phone call from the social worker who was evidently responding to a long email that I had sent her yesterday evening in response to a prompting by the doctor. I have to say that the meeting with the social worker that has been fixed for next Tuesday may prove emotionally traumatic for both of us but we will cross that particular bridge when we come to it. Having got back from our coffee break, Meg and I were glued for a little to watching the Boris Johnson evidence to the COVID-10 enquiry – I would dearly like to have seen more of this but the lunch had to be prepared so that we could make the journey in plenty of time to the local hospital. There Meg’s eye was treated with a special laser treatment which she seem to carry off with aplomb and no visible distress. I,though, was obliged to wear a special pair of dark glasses in case of any laser rays strayed whilst in front of the machine. So we got Meg back home before dark, which was a bonus for us. I got the bins out ready for collection in the morning and we carried on watching the Johnson evidence. Meg was hurling epithets at the sight of Johnson and I am sure that these sentiments chimed with many of the bereaved families well in evidence both within and also without the enquiry centre. Later on this evening, we will no doubt get a full and edited summary of the Johnson appearance and performance, briefed as he was by some of the expensive lawyers that money can buy paid for by the Cabinet Office!. The one early point that Johnson made that had me spitting teeth was that Johnson was arguing that the BSE (‘Mad Cow’ disease) episode had greatly exaggerated the potential number of deaths, which he could very clearly remember but, very conveniently ‘could not remember’ arguing that COVID was also likely to be a gross exaggeration (which it was not).

In the late afternoon, we received a very welcome invitation to visit our friends in Oxfordshire for a pre-Christmas meal and invitations such as these are always wonderful to receive. We started off trying for Monday (routine checkup for Mike), could not make Tuesday (social worker visit), Wednesday was also fully committed (pre-planned visit from Meg’s specialist nurse) and finally settled on Thursday when we have a pre-arranged call from the doctor but can probably get this accommodated just before we set off to Oxfordshire. At this time of year, of course, we have always to have an eye on the weather not to mention the traffic conditions but the present cold snap seems to have moderated somewhat and we have a brief respite of a few days before the next adverse weather hits us. Apart from the intense media interest on the COVID-19 enquiry, the government has today published its ‘Emergency’ legislation designed to rescue its Rwanda policy of exporting asylum speakers to the African continent. The legislation is designed to overcome legal challenges e.g. by declaring in the legislation that ‘Rwanda is a safe country’ but for the life of me I cannot see how declaring something in an Act of Parliament causes it to become somehow true. The bill will pander to the Tory right wing who want to see us leave the European Court of Human Rights (nothing to do with the EU but set up after WW2 with the active involvement of Winston Churchill no less). The government is trying to steer a middle course by not withdrawing from the Court but by declaring it will not abide by some of its rulings. How this will work, I do not know but I do not see the proposed legislation getting through even our own House of Lords without significant watering down which will infuriate the right of the Tory Party even more. The extreme Brexit/erstwhile UKIP party who have now transmogrified themselves into the right wing of the Tory Party are the people that an ex-Tory PM (John Major) once described as ‘bastards’ and forced them to back down with a ‘back me or sack me’ ploy which tactic Risho Sunak would not dare to deploy because he probably realises he would be quickly toppled. Now that I have our Music Room exactly the way I want it with a complement of comfortable or restored furniture, I feel a little bereft. I no longer have the excuse of looking out for a charity shop saying that I am just looking for one thing or another. However, I will say that having got such extraordinarily good results from the ‘Leather Sik’ leather polish which I have utilised recently to such good effect that I have been tempted to supply myself with the parallel product, made by the same manufacturer, but designed for vintage wood furniture. The reviews seem to be almost universally good so I have a supply coming in a few days time which I have no doubt can be well utilised in our recently restored ‘Captains’ chair which Meg uses every day in our hall to help her don her outdoor clothing.

We always look forward to Tuesdays as it is the day when we meet up with our friends in the Waitrose cafeteria. But first, I had a little delight in store for myself. When Meg and I were out on the road in Bromsgrove High Street nearly a week ago, I popped by chance into the AgeUK furniture shop where they had on display a rather magnificent ivory leather traditional armchair. This was even been offered at a price which had been reduced but, with Meg’s concurrence, we decided to go ahead and buy this because Meg has a very wonderful, and comfortable, leather armchair which is very snug and inherited from my son but my own seating arrangements have hitherto been considerably less comfortable. So the new armchair was delivered yesterday and I gave it a quick dose of renovating polish, of which I still have a supply. I did up-end the chair and discovered it is an Italian make of chair by a firm with the name of Rosini (one ‘s’ which seems a little unusual) Consulting the web, I discovered that new models sold by this manufacturer have a guide price of $720 and the chair I have just purchased looks in practically brand new condition. But having renovated it last night, I did not actually start to use it until this morning and I must say that I am more than delighted with our purchase. It fits well into our colour scheme, is superbly comfortable and fulfills all of the needs that I could ever wish for it. It is not a reclining model but this is of no consequence but from my reading on the web, it is evident that the materials used in its construction really are of the highest quality with some small but extremely stlish wood trim and leather that looks as though it has hardly had much wear at all. So this completes the furnishing of our Music Room because I can think of nothing else that I either want or need to make everything complete.

This morning after a disturbed night, I needed to write a Web-based application form to request a telephone conversation with the doctor to discuss Meg’s condition – after several abortive attempts at establishing contact, I eventually got a phone call from a GP at about 6.00pm tbhis evening. The advice was not particularly helpful given the scale of the problems that Meg (and I) are facing but in the short term I have been used to double the low initial dose of some medication and to write a long email to the social worker who is looking after us to explain in detail what our current circumstancs happen to be. On a happier note, when we eventually got to Waitrose this morning after an attenuated night’s sleep, one of our number had a bowls match and another an appointment with an occupational therapist this morning but we were delighted to spend some happy time with the third member of our little group. She had very kindly acquired for me the contact details of an ouuteach organiser at the Methodist Centre who is trying to establish a supportive club each Thursday mornimg. I need to write to her giving her our full support and indicating that if she were to be successful, we would be enthusiastic and regular patrons of any new service. We shall see our friend again on Saturday, all being well. Later on this morning, one of the care workers detailed to call around to release me to undertake some Pilates showed up. She happened to be the fifth different face we have seem on five occasions but today I felt too tired and worn out to actually undertake any Pilates so I stayed with her and Meg during her two hour stay. It turned out that she orginally from Peru and as our son had spent a year at a Mexican university, we developed a range of some interesting conversations. My Spanish, which I have not had the opportunity to speak for quite some time, came back so we had some intereting little conversations some in English and some in Spanish and Meg managed to contribute to this when her memory recalled the words. So whether we shall see this person again is an interesting question but it did make the two hours actually fly by, particularly as I needed to stay close to my mobile to get a telephone consultation phone call which seemed to quickly go to voicemail after only two or three rings which was frustrating in the extreme.

Later on in the afternoon, Meg and I delved into Amazon Prime and we started to watch the David Lean production of ‘Passage to India‘ This had a stellar cast but we decided not to watch the whole of it in one go but rather split it into two halves. So at what we hope to be an appropriate juncture, we exited our viewing and hopefully will pick up the rest of it in a day or so. The cinematography and views of India are stupendous and we found that this film actually absorbed us for much of the later afternoon. We then caught up a little on the Sky News current affairs transmission before we start to have our evening spot of a light tea and then a viewing of the Sky News Sophie Ridge program of the Politics Hub which we enjoy each day and watch for as long as we can before it is time to think of our bedtime preparations for Meg which often take about an hour.