Last night, we watched the Ireland vs Scotland rugby world cup match in which Scotland did not play particularly badly in the opening stages until they were overwhelmed by the technical brilliance of Ireland who were clinical in their execution of how rugby ought to be played. The Irish won the match with great ease and it was not until half way through the second half of the match that the Scots managed to get any points at the board at all. This sets up a quarter final in which Ireland will play the All Blacks which, pitting Northern hemisphere against Southern hemisphere may well be one of the best matches of the whole tournament. This morning, Meg and I ensured that we we were up and breakfasted, absorbing some of the terrible news emanating from the latest war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip. What is absolutely amazing about the whole of this conflict is how it ever managed to occur in the first place. The border between Gaza and the rest of Israel is one of the most fortified on earth, bristling with razor wire, defences in depth and electronic sensors beyond count. But the Hamas fighters had somehow broken through in several places (using paragliders in some cases) and then invaded several small towns in Israel taking hostages in the process, including some Israel Defence Force troops. The psychological shock of all of this is immense and is the greatest offensive movement made against Israel since the 6 day war in 1967 in which the Israeli and Egyptian armies were pitched against each other in what now seems to be quite a conventional style of warfare. The military analysts are puzzling over how the Israeli intelligence services can have taken their eyes off the ball so much that they seemed to have no inkling that an attack of this magnitude was imminent. No doubt, some elucidation will occur in the next day or so but it may well be that there will be unbelievable savagery wrought by each side on the other.

Meg and I had made a prior arrangement to meet with our University of Birmingham friend at a local museum called Avoncroft and we intended to meet in the coffee bar there. We were both somewhat dismayed by the fact that we were denied admission to the cafeteria only and not the other facilities which in our friend’s experience they had been able to do for years but now wanted to charge us £14 entrance fee, so naturally we got into our respective cars and drove away. I was slightly amused by all of this but our friend was annoyed and suggested that the personnel on duty indicate his displeasure to senior management and they revert to their previous policy. We made instead for the sporting centre that overlooks a large lake used for water sports purposes which has a simple cafe but where we can overlook a stretch of water. We must say that we were almost uncomfortably hot this morning in the direct sunshine but nonetheless had a very interesting chat, including opinions on the current war in the Middle East, before going our respective ways for Sunday lunch. After lunch, we watched the last half hour of the Argentina vs. Japan rugby match which was quite entertaining with good rugby played on both sides. Tonight we have the Fiji vs. Portugal match in which my money is actually on Fiji although my sympathies will rest with the Portuguese. After this weekend’s matches, we shall be moving to the quarter-final stages of the tournament in which the quality of the games should improve as the weaker teams have been removed and, of course, everything is a knockout from this point onwards.

Now that I have got Meg’s iphone fully functional again, I am determining how much data I need to buy as I will probably do a fair bit off music streaming on it, not least because I am delighted with the little CD player complete with BlueTooth functionality upon it and so acts as a pair of ‘de facto’ larger speakers. Also I can control which items of music I want from the iphone which is excellent. I have been trying to work out what amount of data I need to buy and fortunately there are some websites and utilities available on the web that allow you you to specify how much time you spent on various phone related activities after which you can make a more informed decision. My best guess at the moment that I may be needing anything between 6GB-8GB of data a month. As Tescomobile is selling me bundles of data which, once the special offers are taken off, should cost me about the equivalent of three cups of coffee a month (my new unit of currency) for 10GB, I am quite content with the SIM I have installed and the facilities offered. I asked our University of Birmingham friend about his own experience but he felt that he was locked into far too expensive a contract until next May which is the earliest at which he feels he can exit it – an experience shared by many, I would think. This afternoon, Meg and I are enjoying a really excellent concert which is Mozart’s so-called ‘Great Mass’which is really enjoyable, whilst getting through the Sunday newspapers and enjoying the bursts of late afternoon sunshine on what is turning to be a brilliant Indian summer for October.

Today is going to be quite a rugby filled day but first we have our little Waitrose get-together to enjoy. After we were up and breakfasted, we made our way through heavy Saturday morning traffic to pick up our newspaper and to head for the cafeteria. Once we got there, one of our regulars was sitting and reserving a place at a table for us and it was later to emerge, in the course of our chat, that she, too, was a regular at the Methodist drop-in centre that we sampled for the first time the other day. Not only that, but in her younger days, she had actually manned the coffee bar within the premises and still, at the age of practically 90 and with some health issues, managed to do her rota and to man the coffee bar when her turn in the rota came up. She was explaining to us how in pre-Covid days, the centre was even busier and with a greater range of food and produce than it it is nowadays. We suspected that afer the COVID experiences, when many of these types of facilities were out of bounds, that all kinds of social events are a little slow to pick up and to get going again. We were amazed to discover, though, that our friend still participated in some of the keep fit classes which we could see taking place in the adjacent space in the hall even though she is practically 90 years of age. In Waitrose as well, we were very touched when one of the young female shop assistants volunteered to help me to get Meg to the front door whilst another gave her a small bunch of flowers to help her on her way. Is it any wonder that we keep frequenting this store whrn we are the recipients of little acts of kindness like all this?

This afternoon, Meg and I watched the Wales vs. Georgia match in the rugby World Cup. Wales won this match which was never really in much doubt but the win was not entirely convincing. At one stage during the second half, Georgia scored two quick tries and it did look as though it might just be possible for Georgia to win. In my mind, they played some quite enterprising rugby but the speed of the Wales wingers finally did for them. Wales scored one try which upon replay, the TMO (who monitors the match via video replays) might have misjudged whether a ball was properly grounded or not. At another stage in the match, deep into the second half, there appeared to be something like a mass brawl with masses of players having an altercation with each other and both teams practically fighting each other off the pitch. So Wales finished top of their pool group but not entirely convincingly.

On tuning into Sky News throughout the day, we seem to be in the middle of yet another war between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The news broke this morning that some 5,000 rockets had been fired from the Gaza strip into Israel and the heavily fortified border may well have been breached in several places. Israel are bound to respond with an overwhelming degree of force and firepower but, as I write, there appears to be hundreds killed on both sides. It does look as though the Israelis have been taken completely by surprise and the media are reporting that this may well be a massive security failing on behalf of the Israelis as it looks as though this attack has been planned for some time. Periodically, they neutralise threats with military operations in Gaza, reducing the capability of Hamas. Breezily, they call it mowing the grass. This is such a rapidly developing situation that it is not possible to predict how things will turn out but there do not apppear to be any natural peacemakers in this process. The latest indications are that this conflict will last for some days but the phrase ‘blood bath’ is probably not an inaccurate term. One interesting twist at this stage is that it appears that Hamas might have taken quite a lot of hostages including some officers from the Israeli Defence Forces but as often happens on a Saturday afternoon, we await a deeper analysis in the Sunday newspapers. There is a talk of a ‘shoot to kill’ policy on each side which actually does make it sound like an actual ‘hot’ war.

Meg and I are planning to watch the first half of the England vs. Samoa match late on this afternoon and then to go onto church, which we normally do on a Saturday early evening, if Meg feels up to it. The really big match which might prove to be the most interesting of the day is going to be Scotland vs. Ireland broadcast from 8.00 this evening. Scotland will probably lose but it will be interesting to see what gallant losers they manage to be against the Irish who are currently one of the strongest teams in the world. We will probably adopt our normal pattern these days which is to get Meg ready for bed before 8.00pm and watch the match in the comfortable chairs we have in our bedroom. This way, Meg can roll into bed at 9.00 if she is very tired or stay up and watch the whole of the match.

We always look forward to a Friday as it is the day when our domestic help calls around and we always seem to have a lot of news to exchange with each other. Today after Meg was breakfasted, I made a lightning visit into town both to collect our daily newspaper and also to visit a local hardware store that sells all sorts of bits and pieces. A fairly crucial nut had fallen off Meg’s wheelchair and as it is integral to the whole structure and not just an extra, it was important that I replace it as soon as possible. Having looked in my collection, I found a nut which almost did the job but not quite so I suspect the nut I found was imperial but what was needed was a metric one. I took the nut from my collection into the hardware store ,found a ‘thingmajig’that it too failed to fit, found a nut in the store that did fit the thingymajig and concluded that this was probably the right size. I spent a total of 8p plus another 10p for an appropriate washer and was delighted, upon my return home, to find that it fitted perfectly. My only regret, now, is not buying two of them as a second nut will probably prevent the first from working loose again.

We decided to revisit the cafe again in Droitwich which evidently caters for an older clientele and treats us like long lost friends. Here we indulged in cappuccino and Meg was treated to some carrot cake. Afterwards, we went up and down a row of little street stalls which is evidently a feature of life on a Friday in Droitwich. I stopped by a stall displaying leather goods and was persuaded to buy both a replacement car key fob case as the zip is going on my current one. I was also tempted into buying a new credit card case as my existing one is home made and showing signs of wear. We then went off to the Webb’s Garden Centre and store where we were due to meet up with some friends for a lunch date at 1.00pm. We coincided in the car park and proceeded to lunch which was adequate without being brilliant. After a morning out and a lunch filled with interesting conversation, we decided to get Meg home to give her a rest as I feel that she really does need to rest as much as she can in the afternoons to keep going all day.

The political news this morning is dominated by the success of the Labour party in the recent Rutherglen by-election in Scotland. As the incumbent SNP MP had messed up big time and been thrown out of the party for riding on public transport whilst infectious with the COVID-19 virus, it is of no surprise that the Labour Party polled twice as much as the SNP candidate. Some commentators are getting very excited about what this means in the forthcoming general election, gifting perhaps a dozen more seats to the Labour Party which may well prove critical. But this is one of these elections where because of the special factors in play, I feel it is rather too premature to read too much into the one victory. All that can be said is that if Labour had not won the seat, then their chances of having a majority in any forthcoming general election must be vanishingly small. In the meanwhile, there was a brilliant, savage and funny cartoon in The Times today which shows Rishi Sunak as a puppet in the hands of a cruelly drawn Suella Braverman who has one hand with a tight grip upon his crutch and the other around his neck whilst Sunak is exclaiming ‘It will take a Braverman than me to shut her up’ Incidentally, as I was leaving the house this morning to pay a visit to the hardware shop, I popped Meg in front of the TV to watch a catch-up version of last night’s ‘Any Questions‘ in which most of the panel agreed that the Braverman language was inflammatory. The Tory transport minister was eventually forced into to the admission that it was not language that he would have used, personally, and Rishi Sunak is giving off the similar vibes as well. I also read that Justine Greening, an ex-Tory minister, is arguing that the recent Conservative party conference abandoned the centre ground and may be ceding the next general election to the Labour party before the campaign has even officially started.

A rather extraordinary survey has just surfaced on the ‘Which‘ website. It claims that Sainsbury’s have taken over from Waitrose as the UK’s most expensive supermarket – this may certainly prove to be a surprise to many. Although I used to be a Waitrose customer in the bad old days of lockdown when I used their delivery service, I have now transferred my allegiance elsewhere. When Meg and I lived in Hampshire, we shopped in our local Sainsbury’s which was so huge that when one looked down the rows of shelves, it seemed like an exercise in perspective towards a vanishing point that we got used to in our art lessons at school. If you forgot an item in the top end of the supermarket, it was certainly a huge trek backwards in order to find it. I must say I prefer smaller supermarkets and am quite prepared to have a smaller range of choice as a consequence.

Thursdays are always my shopping day and I got up reasonably bright and early, making sure that Meg was safely tucked up in bed before I ventured forth. I was fortunate to get to my customary ATM in plenty of time as one of the access roads that has been subject to roadworks during the summer has reopened at long last. But I got to the ATM and popped into Morrison’s supermarket to buy some things for Meg and tinned fruit for our afternoon teas before doing the round in my usual supermarket. When I returned home, Meg was still sleeping or at least drowsy and this gave me time to get the weekly shop unpacked before getting Meg up, washed and dressed and then downstairs for breakfast. We had been looking forward to today for some time as it was the day a long time in our diaries when the specialist nurse who is caring for Meg had an appointment to come around, which she did, with a very bright third year student. Having both spoken to, and been in email contact with, the specialist nurse, I felt that I already knew her quite well but it was wonderful to meet in the flesh, as it were. There is so much more that can be communicated with a face-to-face meeting and we met for about an hour and a half, still only scratching the surface of some issues. She gave me some useful tips and hints and, in return, I managed to show her some equipment that we have been using that may help her care for oher patients. Before parting, I made sure that both of our visitors departed with a bottle of damson gin which I rather had to rush round and bottle for them as there is still a lot of last year’s supplies waiting to be bottled when I have the time (which seems to be never these days)

Last night, whilst Meg was in bed I discovered that we had recently missed the amazing docudrama broadcast by Channel 4 which was ‘PartyGate’ This basically was a long reenactment of the party scenes that led to, and documented, in the Sue Grey report. The programme authors stitched together contemporary footage with some imaginary reconstructions of what the scenes inside No. 10 were probably like, with intercut scenes of how members of the public were obeying the rules and not being allowed near to their dying relatives or even in a close attenadnce at funerals. One review of the programme stated that the drama brilliantly interweaves the permanent in-fighting, complacency and debauchery at the core of government with contemporary news footage, and juxtaposes it with heartbreaking real-life stories of Covid funerals and gigantic fines imposed in comparatively harmless rule breaches – £10,000 for the organiser of a snowball fight in a park in a Leeds, for example. I notice that the liberal minded newspapers rated this production quite highly whereas the ‘Daily Telegraph‘ rather sniffily gave it two stars out of five, not liking I suppose, the flagrant breaking of the rules at the heart of government whilst the rest of us were generally quite compliant. Anyway, I made sure that the household was registred to receive Channel 4 updates and Meg and I devoted the early part of the afternoon thoroughly enjoying it whilst being repulsed by it at the same time.

This morning, I received a Tesco mobile SIM for Meg’s phone which I am going to use after I got a little annoyed with GiffGaff constantly chiding me for when the phone is not used as much as they would like. I have used Tesco mobile before and find whatever credit you put onto an account stays there rather than being expropriated after six months of inactivity which can happen to a spare or emergency phone. Getting the SIM in was child’s play and getting the initial payment fairly straightforward but getting further top ups is proving a little problematic. I think I probably need to wait a day for the initial registration to settle down before I do anything further but so far, things have gone more or less even if not exactly to plan.

The political climate now that the HS2 announcement is out of the way and the Conservative party conference is over is particularly interesting. Rishi Sunak realises that he has to present himself as a ‘Change’ candidate as the country is crying out for a change in its political direction – but to present oneself as the ‘Change’ candidate when you have been in power for so long will no longer serve the purpose. It is interesting that he pointedly refused to endorse the Suella Braverman rhetoric (the UK about to be hit by a ‘hurricane’ of illegal migration)and the HS2 row may well rumble on and on. The line that is government policy is that the UK cannot avoid the spiralling costs of HS2 but by cancelling it and then spending what is to ‘saved’ on other worthy transport projects leaves one scratching one’s head – either the nation can afford it or it cannot. The government argument is that the money ‘saved’ can be spent on more worthwhile projects but some of these have recently been axed by the government in recent months whilst yet others were in the pipeline anyway. In short, a close examination of the HS2 debacle reveals a mass of confusion and inconsistencies.

Today has turned out to be the most interesting of days so far. We knew that the major highlight of the day was going to be the lunch to which we had been invited with friends down the Kidderminster Road. After I had made a quick journey into town to collect our newspaper and some supplies from Waitrose, Meg and I needed to decide how to spend the morning before our lunch date. We wondered whether to make a trip to the park as we have not been for several days now or whether there was an alternative venue to capture our interest. We decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to visit a special ‘drop in’ centre and coffee bar organised by the local Methodist church in Bromsgrove. One of our church friends who we know quite well we had seen yesterday in our local church hall where we had a sort of social afer the service yesterday indicated to us that she worked in the drop in centre on Wednesdays so we decided to give it a go. We took the wheelchair and parked in the adjacent local authority car park before we embarked upon this new venture. As soon as we got in, we got to a table labelled as the ‘chatty’ table and quickly made our number both with our church friend and also with one of the regular Waitrose Tuesday gang so within a minute or so of entering, there were two people whom we already knew. The crowd on the table were quite a jolly and friendly group and we soon got into conversation (assisted by a few jokes) and availed ourselves of coffee at £1 a cup and toast at 30p a round (making a dramatic change from Waitrose). We chatted for quite a long time with a lady who had spent several years in Yorkshire after her husband died but eventually returned to her roots here in Bromsgrove. Later on in the morning, we were joined at the table by a couple of Police Community Support Officers. We learned from them that it is now part of their role to make their presence felt in local community centres and the like and people are encouraged to come to them with their little problems. They probably acted most of the time as a signposting agency and, as I suspected, many of the day-to-day problems with which they had to deal were people with mental health difficulties. I was reminded of an article I read whilst a university student entitled ‘The Police as a Social Service’ and this was an ethnographic piece of work in which policemen were followed around for the study period and most of the time they are actually dealing with issues that could be described as social rather than criminal. The time seemed to fly by and so the time came for us to leave but with a resolve to probably go there every Wednesday from now on. At least, it it a source of additional social contacts with whom we can have some conversations and it will be interesting to see which groups of people we may come across in the future. It may be that there is even more convenient parking available to us once we get the layout of the Methodist centre in our heads.

And so, we arrived home for a few minutes respite before we set off down the road for a lunch date with our friends. They were very solicitous and caring for Meg and we had a wonderful couple of hours in their company, which we always enjoy. We dined on a lovely meal of pork prepared with some delicate spices and served upon rice and with a little salad, followed by home made apple pie and ice cream. Talking of apples, I looked to see how this years crop of apples are doing on the trees planted several years ago on the borders of our communal green area and was delighted to see that we had quite a good crop of really quite large apples (of a variety called ‘Jonathan’ as I recall) So I picked just the ‘low hanging fruit’ and kept some for ourselves taking the rest down to our friends. Meg and I sampled one apple that had been pecked a bit by birds and ate it with some cheese which is a favourite way in which we enjoy apples.

I know today has been a day of big political announcements but I have yet to find time to sit down and absorb the implications of it all. The HS2 leg from Birmingham to Manchester has now been abandoned amidst quite a backlash from northern mayors and former Prime Ministers who all think the cancellation is a colossal mistake. Rishi Sunak is promising to divert the HS2 money to a project called Network North which seems to have been an instant plan dreamed up in the last few days in hotel bedrooms in Manchester and this is intended as a sop to quell the inevitable disappointments. The terminal is now going to be in Euston which was, after all, the initial plan and the political narrative seems to be to argue that connecting up a lot of the Northern cities is going to be better value than a high speed link with the capital. What will be interesting to observe is how big a political backlash there is likely to be (and who knows what the reaction of the City and other institutional investors might be.)

Today has been a very interesting day with quite a lot of ‘out of the ordinary’ things happening. As it was Meg’s birthday, we knew that today was going to be out of the run of the ordinary and so it proved. After we had got up quite early and breakfasted, Meg opened her cards and the presents we had received to date. Although we do not normally attend church services midweek, today was going to be an exception. It had been announced that today was going to be a special annointing of the sick and elderly known formerly as the ‘Sacrament of the Sick’ In Catholic theology, this sacrament used to be known as ‘Extreme Unction’ or more popularly the last rites but today seemed to be a special mass annointing day, as it were. Normally there would be about a dozen members of the congregation attening church on a weekday but today the church was pretty full with numbers similar to a Sunday morning congregation. The priest moved around all of the members of the congegation giving a special annointing to those who required it which was practically everybody in attendance. After the service was over, there was going to be a special bun-fight in the parochial church hall and it was a marvellous experience to feel part of a community again as we have worshipping more or less regularly over the past four years. Our absence for the last week or so because of Meg’s frailty had been noticed and so we received a particularly warm welcome. We renewed contact with a particularly vivacious Liverpudlian (Catholic Irish) who can talk the hind legs of a donkey but who made the very welcome offer to perhaps come along and visit Meg in the future. If my memory serves me correctly, she knows exactly where we live because I think that she used to be friends of our former next door neighbours, both of whom have now sadly passed away. On our way home, we popped into some of our friends along the Kidderminster Road and received from them an invitation to come around for lunch tomorrow. This invitation we gladly accepted as we have got quite a lot to catch up on and we always enjoy their company tremendously. When we got home, there was yet another goody bag stuffed full of presents for Meg so this makes three in total. In addition, Meg had some jewellery from me bought yesterday and we also unpacked the large ornate jug and the flower vase which we were tempted to purchase yesterday and which have already found homes on our fireplaces and window shelves. We lunched on a simple lunch of fishcakes which is our normal Tuesday fare but it was just as well to have a lighter lunch as we had rather indulged in some rather nice cake in the parish hall earlier on this morning.

We tuned in to Sky News as is customary and the Conservative party conference is being covered in great detail. We listened to the speech given by the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, whose every utterance is designed to further a future leadership challenge after the next election is (probably) lost by Rishi Sunak. As one might expect, the audience gave almost rapturous applause to every piece of rhetoric which was deployed to the full. One thing that struck me as particularly funny (or depressing) was her diatribe against the ‘liberal’ left intent on destroying the country where it was declaimed that they even tried to call Margaret Thatcher a racist. In view of the fact that Thatcher’s views pronouncements were often characterised as racists when she claimed that the indigenous population was being ‘swamped’ with migrants. I found the following commentary on the Thatcher observations when I was trying to provide evidence for my observations on Thatcher. Her 1978 intervention did not mark a change in policy – the Conservatives had taken a hard line on immigration since she became leader in 1975 – but it had an immediate short-term effect on public opinion. After her comments, a survey by National Opinion Polls recorded a dramatic surge in support for the Tories, who jumped to an 11-point lead over Labour, who they had previously been trailing by two points. A year later, the Tories won the general election, while the National Front, which had stood a record number of candidates, failed to win a single seat and collapsed amid bitter recriminations.

Yesterday, I was tempted and did actually buy a small cassette player which was not only cheap but had good quality speakers and had BlueTooth installed. I find that I can play tracks from my iPhone as well as getting almost anything that takes my fancy from Amazon music (after a search). This is proving to be quite a useful little addition to our supply of musical devices and despite the absence of an instruction manual, it will do anything that I want it to do for the price of a couple of cups of coffee (which is my unit of currency these days). We have a shrewd suspicion that our next door neighbours might have returned from holiday after their venture around ports Hispanic (including our favourite of La Coruña) so we must grab the opportunity when it presents itself of sharing experiences over a cup of afternoon tea.

We had no particular plans for this Monday morning but we got ourselves up and breakfasted first. Then I popped down into town and was relieved to see that our regular newsagent now had his shop open again this morning. His wife informed me that her husband had had a bad chest infection and this necessitated a short stay in hospital. He had returned home in the middle of last week but was very much in a resting and recovery phase at the moment. I asked his wife to send on my very best wishes to him and my hopes for a speedy recovery. Then Meg and I thought we would visit the cafe/restaurant in which we used to eat quite regularly in Droitwich but it has the advantages for us that it fairly accessible from the main road once we have got the car parked and relatively wheelchair friendly with a ramp. They treated us very warmly once we got inside and in fact one of the existing clients saw me struggling slightly and so opened the door for me. Once inside, we made contact with our regular assistant within the cafe but she needed to depart quite soon. We had our normal fare of cappuchinos and toasted teacake which was fine as always. But when we came to depart, it having been left dropped that it was Meg’s birthday tomorrow, a little box of chocolates and a birthday card was pressed into our hand. We exchanged some pleasanteries (and a joke or two) with some of the regulars and no doubt we will become one of those ourselves as we intend to keep on visiting at least once per week. Where we had parked the car on the main road, we had noticed last time that there a shop with a very wide frontage devoted to Worcestershire Association of Carers of which I happen to be a fairly long standing member. I managed to get Meg over the threshhold on this occasion in her wheelchair and the shop seemed to be quite well stocked with goodies. We bought a necklace for Meg tomorrow which no doubt she can wear when we go out and I also was tempted to buy a couple of decorated vases in which I am sure we can accommodate flowers either of the transient variety or even of the permanent kind if we happen to be in a suitable store. These were carefully wrapped for us and instead of unwrapping them today, I think we can leave them until tomorrow as they function as quasi-birthday presents. We got home some time afer 12 in time in watch the 12.15 Politics Today programme which is evidently encamped within, and reporting on, the Conservative Party conference.

As I have remarked before, the lawns seem to grow at a great pace in present weather conditions and so I thought, whilst I was in the mood, I would give them a cut since it is about ten days since the last. I try to get the lawns done in three 20 minutes tranches so that I can keep an eye on Meg in the meantime. I managed to get the first cut of our communal green area done before lunch and then I made ourselves a lightning lunch of ham and easily microwaved vegetables. Then after a little pause to get my breath after lunch, I completed the cutting of the front lawned area before coming in for a well-earned cup of tea. I received a telephone call from the ‘LifeLine’ company which supplies and monitors the communication cord that Meg wears around her neck in the case of falls and I was pleased to be able to report to them that I was delighted with their service. After the the free trial period ends, I shall need to pay to continue the service but the charges are quite reasonable, all things being considered. After that, it was a case of dashing round the back lawns which always seem to be thicker and more lush than out in the front. Nonetheless, this got done and the mower duly cleaned up and put away. I think that there might only need to be two or three more cuts before the end of the season.

By this morning’s post, I received the order of service from the funeral of my old and dear friend, Jo, who died in August at the age of 96. I read the euology provided by her son with a lump in my throat and her son’s own reminiscencies and judgements of his mother resonated with my own feelings and emotions. The missive arrived just before we went out to Droitwich and I intended to read this out to Meg whilst we were sitting having our coffee. However, I thought the better of this and brought it home and will read it out to Meg at a more propitious time. In the late afternoon, there was a knock on the door and I was delighted to see an old ‘park friend’ with whom I had been in email contact during the night. We have arranged a luncheon date for this Friday in Webbs which is only just down the road and pretty accessible for us. Our friend indicated to us he was now part of a volunteer group, rewiring a 1953 corporation bus in a local transport museum, so this may just test his skills to the full.

And so Sunday has come round once again but with the additional feeling that this is the first of the month. I did mutter ‘White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits’ to my wife but she assumed that I was talking my usual nonsense. After our ablutions, I got us sitting in the Music Room where we listened to the Laura Kuennsberg political program amd she was interviewing Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. She pressed him as far as she could to give an unequivocal answer to the fate of HS2 in which it has been heavily briefed that the Birmingham to Manchester link is going to be axed, making a complete mockery of the whole project. In response to this question, Sunak relied upon a formulaic form of words in which he declaims ‘We have spades in the ground’ which is meaningless and, of course, does nothing to answer the question. One of the studio guests was the impressionist, John Culshaw, who when asked his opinion of the interview said what the rest of the population must be feeling i.e. a master class in how never to respond to a direct question. Culshaw was then asked, and obliged, to give impressions of both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer which he did with great aplomb.

We were unsure what arrangements we were going to have this Sunday but after a quick phone call with our University of Birmingham friend, we decided to have a coffee and elevenses at Webbs garden stores, just three miles down the road. We collected our copy of the Sunday newspaper from Waitrose and then made for the eating area in Webbs, which is always tremendously busy on a Sunday morning and an evident meeting point for friends and relatives, as well as having an area where young children can bounce around on a variety of toy things. We reviewed the events of the last week with each other and somehow got onto the subject of the sexual behaviour of young couples. At this stage, I inadvertently uttered one of the funniest ‘bon mots’ for a long time. I was deploring the recent trend for couples to have sex with each perhaps on a first date and before they had even established that they particularly liked each other. I expressed the view, probably taken over from my Catholic upbringing, that I thought a young woman’s body should be a temple ‘and she should not allow access to it from any young man, willy nilly’ Incidentally, I thought I had better check on the current interpretation of the phrase ‘willy nilly’ and discovered the following. Although we more commonly use it nowadays to mean ‘haphazardly’, the origin centres around the first meaning. The early meaning of the word ‘nill’ was the opposite of ‘will’, as in ‘wanting to do something’. In other words, ‘nill’ meant ‘wanting to avoid doing something’. So, combining the two words – I am willing, I am unwilling – expresses the idea that it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other! We had a very enjoyable chat for about an hour before we decided to strike for home.

Just before lunch, we put on ‘YouTube‘ and stumbled into a concert that was being given by Anne-Sophie Mutter, with the proceeds going to the Ukraine. This sounded excellent but then lunch intervened, so we did not listen to it all the way through. Lunch was very easy to prepare today, as it happened. Meg’s cousin who we visited yesterday had prepared too much casserole for the four uf us to consume at one meal so she gave us a plastic container with the excess and we were delighted to eat it up for lunch today with only some broccoli to prepare and to eat alongside it. As it was, it was pretty filling and we didn’t quite finish it all. After lunch, we started to watch an André Rieu concert from the principal square in Maastricht. This was a themed concert, entitled ‘Love in Maastricht’ and I am not sure what time of year it was filmed although I know that these Rieu concerts are sometimes held over the Christmas period. This was a concert unlike any other that I have seen filmed. Before each piece, there were some words of explanation and context. Before one aria, for example, a young Brazilian soprano was explaining how much she missed her boyfriend and then fabulously attired and made up for the role as Madam Butterfly she sang the aria as though to her missing boyfriend. There was some fascinating cameras shots as members of the auduence were picked out, some of them with their eyes glistening with emotion and others evidently transported by the piece. There were lots of shots of couples exchanging kisses with each other and even three heavily pregnant members of the orchestra were interviewed as part of the performance. There was an explanation of the Strauss ‘Blue Danube’ walz which is not always to my taste but the whole concert was quite an emotional and compelling view. Whilst on this subject, I read an absolutely jaw-dropping piece in today’s Sunday Times which was describing how ill-behaved some modern theatre audiences were in this post-Covid period with what used to be occasional bouts of drunkeness, aggression and boorish behaviour not just an isolated occurrence but almost an everyday event with which theatre personnel are having to deal.

Today we started off quite early as we got up early, had a cup of tea and then went to sleep again for a couple of hours. Last night, after Meg was safely tucked up in bed, I started to watch the New Zealand vs. Italy rugby match but as it was such a one-sided competitiopn, it was no real joy to watch and so I abandoned the effort just before half time when the score was about 45:3. I did, though, succeed in getting the video that our domestic help had taken of a panoramic view of our Music Room with me playing the Casio keyboard to accompany the video subsequently uploaded to one of my websites. I then had to remind myself to get the video to run automatically via the META tag in the header section of an index file and then made sure that this worked successlly as well. Then I explored the browser connectivity of our recently acquired Toshiba TV and although this was the american computing community might describe as a little bit ‘kludgy’ I got the address of my music system stitched into the browser so that I can play the video back at will through the TV. Once I got into bed, though, Meg was having rather a disturbed night which did not help my sleep pattern very much. This morning, after I got myself up and showered and Meg’s ablutions performed, it was a case of getting downstiars a little late and then having some breakfast before we set off to see our friends in Waitrose. We could stay for a strict half hour before we needed to set off knowing that we needed a fillup of petrol en route. After we refuelled, I deployed the post code of Meg’s cousins into the SatNav in order to navigate correctly to our destination. I was a little dismayed when the system could not recognise the postcode so entered the address via the house number and street name and was relieved when the system now recognised the address. We got to our cousin’s house in Cheltenham about fifteen minutes before we were due and Meg’s cousin was out in the street waiting for us. As soon as we got there, I queried the case of the equivocal postcode and it transpired that in a WhatsApp message a ‘fat finger’ had intervened and a digit in the postcode was out by one – explaining its non-discovery.

Once we got inside the house and knowing that these cousins of Meg’s are quite tech savvy, i wondered if their smart TV could access an internet address. They managed this quite carefully and in no time at all, we were displaying the little music video on our cousin’s TV. We also had the opportunity to explain how we had built up the collection of musical pieces bit by bit and why this is now quite an important part of our lifespace. And so we proceeded to lunch which was absolutely delicious. Our cousin had prepared a casserole for us which was basically little squares of pork cooked, I believe, in cider and served with some of those little bijou roast potatoes and some green beans. We had taken along some wine so we had a really enjoyable meal over which we discussed, at great length, the various afflictions which were affecting both Meg and her nearest cousin who is now living with a daughter in Derby. It appeared that some of the interactions we had with social services seemed identical, despite the fact that we were talking about very different local authorities and we discussed lots of practicalities in a frank and informative way in only a way that close family members do. We are resolved, though, to keep in much closer touch with our cousins so that through information sharing, we can be as helpful and supportive to each other as it is possible to be. By the late afternoon, it was evident that Meg was beginning to tire so we started the journey home which was very uneventful. We are are only 39 miles apart and most of that is the M5 motorway, the only more problematic section being a circumnavigation of the Cheltenham one way system to get to our destination in the south of the city. After we had returned home, we watched the second half of the Fiji vs Georgia rugby match over a relaxing cup of tea but we are actually in some anticipation of the Scotland vs. Romania match scheduled to start at 8.00pm this evening. We will have to organise getting Meg ready for bed before the match starts and then Meg and I will probably watch the first half of the match in armchairs in our bedroom before I settle Meg down and I will conclude watching the second half of the match downstairs.

I know that one should not gloat and as Denis Healy, the veteran Labour party politician used to observe that ‘In war, the first casualty is truth’ but some interesting news has emerged this afternoon. It is being reported in Romania that there may have been a violation of its own air space and that a Russian fighter plane might have been shot down by their own side. The full account of all of this might emerge a little later but, as usual, the Sunday newspapers may provide slightly more in-depth detail and analysis.

We always look forward to Fridays not only because it is the end of the week but we also have the chance for a long chat our domestic help who is also so useful to us on a Friday. We were not sure what our plans were going to be this morning because normally we see our University of Birmingham friend on Friday mornings but we did not have anything specifically planned for this morning. After a quick telephone call, we established that he had another commitment this morning but we would meet for afternoon tea this afternoon. On the recommendation of our domestic help, we decided to make for Barnt Green which is a suburb of Bromsgrove with a range of good coffee shops, charity shops and independent stores (including one of those old fashioned ironmongers where you go inside and wonder how you had ever managed for so long without this gadget or that piece of pottery) We found a parking place which was quite unusual because parking is always at a great premium along this particular High Sytreet and then got Meg safely bundled into a wheelchair, which we tend to use quite a lot these days. The pavements were at a bit of a camber and not particularly well maintained so pushing the wheelchair was not the easiest of jobs. Nonetheless, we found a coffee shop where people were enjoying the weather outside the shop whilst they drank their coffee and we found one unoccupied table at which we ordered a cappuchino coffee and a toasted teacake. We spent a pleasant few minutes here and then made our way along the High Street, in search of charity shops. But we were fortunate to find a Tesco Express where I could dive in and get my daily copy of ‘The Times‘ and next door to it there was an ATM and for both of these faciliuties I was well and truly grateful as it saved a lot of searching around. We did locate one charity shop which had quite a small frontage and I doubted tht I could Meg over the threshhold. So whilst Meg stayed outside, I shot inside and located quite a very tasteful ‘per una’ top which Meg can wear tomorrow when we visit cousins and I also took the opportunity to buy a birthday card in anticipation of next Tuesday. Then Meg and I had a bit of a rest before I persuaded our domestic help who was a photographer in an earlier life to take a little video of us on her iphone. I wanted the video to show the various pieces of kit which now populated our music room whilst I was playing a piece (the ‘Barcarolle’ from ‘Tales of Hoffman’ on my Casio keyboard) and this all worked more or less perfectly apart from the fact that my fingers hit a couple of adjacent keys at the end causing a discord. But by an extraordinary piece of good luck, our photographer had just managed the sequence of shots I had wanted her to video when I finished my piece so we established a perfectly synchronised ending to both of our activities. I wanted this to show to Meg’s cousins tomorrow when we visit them on the presumption that a picture, and even better a video, is worth a thousand words.

We had our normal fish pie lunch for a Friday and then we allowed ourselves a burst of the ‘James Martin’ cookery programme which tends to show interesting shots of Spain en route. We had to leave this early because we had planned to meet for our afternoon tea in Waitrose at 3.00pm but were a little dismayed when we found the cafeteria had closed up for the day when we arrived. So we trecked over to another coffee shop which was quite pleasant and where we indulged in tea and some cakes. We got into converation with a couple we have often met in Waitrose before but typically on a Sunday. They regaled us with a long and involved story concerning their beloved little dog who had some very neurological condition and upon whom they had spent what to me appeared to be a small fortune. We had an interesting afternoon out and then returned home where I played some relaxing music and videos for Meg’s benefit. Tonight is going to be the New Zealand vs. Italy rugby match and although this ought to be a walkover for the All Blacks, unpredictable things can happen in this World Cup.

Meanwhile, the waves from the Braverman speech rumble on. Around a dozen Tory MPs, including ministers, have complained to the chief whip about Suella Braverman’s recent speech on immigration and refugees. Some have told the BBC her remarks were offensive, divisive and inaccurate. It is not the first time, MPs say, that there have been concerns about the home secretary’s tone. It is unclear exactly what will happen as a result of the complaints but it is expected government Chief Whip Simon Hart – who is in charge of party discipline – will relay the concerns to the prime minister. This is always going to be a dilemma for the Prime Minister as he is loathe to do anything that might offend the right wingers within the modern Conservative party. This was the wing of the Conserbative party that John Major called ‘bastards’ and eventually made them back down with a pledge to ‘back me or sack me’