Well, it was certainly an interesting start to the day. Yesterday, we experienced a slight domestic disaster when Meg had a stumble in our downstairs toilet, the upshot of all of which was that a crucial little plastic bit broke away from the retaining pin making the while caboodle not really functional. It was going a little astray in the first place so I remembered that I probably had the box from a similar replacement toilet lid that we had fitted several years ago now. To my surprise and delight, I found that I had a complete replacement unit which saved me having to go out on the road to source one. Then all we had to do was to remove the old unit and replace it with the new one – easier said than done. I got so far and then got a bit stuck but very fortunately, my son was on hand to complete the job so that we had now a functioning unit again. My role was confined to holding the lid upright so that it did not fall down during the fitting process and to shine our (powerful) torch on the work area so that we could get the job done effectively. As happens in many walks of life, if we had to do it again we could do it in a jiffy but the first time one is working one’s way through a set of instructions and this always a bit iffy but we got there in the end. I suppose that many toilet lids other than the most basic ones contain the following feature, which is that you give them a gentle nudge from the upright position and they qietly and slowly close themselves without clattering or banging. The make was a Croydex which was a well-known brand of seat and I am not sure from where we bought it from in the first place.

After this had been fixed, it was time for us to have a rendez-vous with our University of Birmingham friend in the Waitrose cafeteria and we spent a happy hour chatting and also conversing with some of the regulars who seem to be there on Fridays. Normally, we meet in the park but after the experience of yesterday when Meg and I got thoroughly soaked, it was a case of ‘Once bitten, twice shy’ so the cafeteria was the better option. Friday is the day when our domestic help calls around and we always seem to have a lot of news to impart to each other, today being no exception. Our domestic help is a great source of assistance to us and we try to help each other with all kinds of little domestic things that go way beyond the call of duty. I generally buy one or two things that are easily available in Aldi but not usually else where and vice versa. We tend to have a fish pie lunch on Fridays (born of long tradition of ‘fish on Fridays’ dating back to our schooldays) and we complemented this with some tenderstem broccoli and a quick microwave roast of some plum tomatoes, enhanced with a little garlic mayonnaise. After lunch, we tuned into James Martin and today were entertained to a few stupendous views of Granada (with which we are familar) and then an interesting way of cooking fish (sliced into thin slices) which not have occurred to me in any case. James Martin’s cooking is always interesting but of course all of the outdoor cooking implements are always just to hand. He always seems to utilise a very sharp broad bladed culinary knife to prepare and dice all of his vegetables so I am wondering whether this might be a useful thing to ask Fr. Christmas for a little nearer to the date.

One gets used to a certain degree of political chicanery but the last day or so has seen the evolution of a new policy which seems to break all previous bounds. This week, Rishi Sunak made a surprise speech announcing delays to a number of key Conservative pledges aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But the amazing thing here is that certain items have been delayed or abandoned that were not even policy on the first place. Pride of these must be the pledge not to put a tax upon meat which was never part of a Conservative political agenda in the first place. One wonders where this will end, when politicians promise to put an end to ‘unpopular’ measures that they never intended to introduce in the first place.

Meg and I watched the rugby in the late afternoon, and specifically Argentina vs. Samoa. At the start of the match, it was a bit hard to predict who might turn out to be victorious. In the first half the Argentinians established a 10 point lead but the second half was a dour battle between the two sides with Argentina coming close to, but not actually scoring. But then against the run of play, Samoa scored a late try and if they managed to do this again the last five minutes of the match (not impossible), they might have won the match. So the last five minutes actually turned out to be pulsating and almost nail-biting. Tomorrow, though, will see a clash between Ireland vs South Africa as well as England vs. Chile will be quite a day.

Today is my shopping day and I was happy that I managed to get everything done whilst Meg was still in bed. As she was up several times during the night, I was relieved to see that she was staying in bed until I got back and slowly unpacked all of the shopping before cooking the breakfast for her. Whilst yesterday was wet all of the day, today seemed to be a beautiful day but appearances can be deceptive as we shall shortly see. I made up a flask and some things to eat and then progressed through the park, pushing Meg in a wheelchair. On the path, we met up with one of our regular ‘park’ friends that we used to see on an almost daily basis during the COVID days when the park was our lifeline. We had not seen each other for quite some time and we learned that our friend, who is not in good health and a wheelchair user, had been in hospital for a three week period and was still recovering from her hospital stay. We indicated that our trips to the park were less frequent than they used to be for a variety of reasons but it was nice to see her and to have a chat. Our friend went on her way and then we made for our usual bench and started to drink our coffee. Then within seconds, the heavens opened and we started to experience a really sharp and intensive shower of the sort that can wet you really thoroughly within seconds. Just to make matters worse, I was just receiving a telephone call which we had to terminate incredibly quickly and then dive for cover under the branches of the nearest large tree. Meg and I got soaked through but we had to stay there for a good 5-10 minutes until the intensity of the rainstorm had diminished considerably and we could make our way back to the car. This we did but, of course the minute we got home, we needed to strip off all of our outer layers of clothing and more besides, so that we could get ourselves dressed in some dry clothes. Once this was all done, we needed to get warmed up with a hot drink and then it was time for us to cook lunch. This turned out to be the kind of lunch which is quite typical for a Thursday when I made a sort of fry up of vegetables which were then served on some pasta (for Meg) and some cream crackers (for Mike)

After lunch, we received a telephone from one of the volunteers who works for AgeUK. We are trying to find some type of companion for Meg to perhaps sit with her for a little period of time on some afternoons but all of this may prove to be a little problematic and may not be possible. One of the volunteer organisers is going to perhaps pay us a visit and make some kind of assessment whether Meg could benefit from the voluntary services that may be available but we are rather in the lap of the gods until this happens. But we have been in text contact with one of Meg’s cousins with whom we have made an arrangement to visit Cheltenham to have a family meal a week on Saturday and to this, we are looking forward very much (but as we are both fairly ardent fans of Welsh rugby, let us hope this does not coincide with an important World Cup fixture)

So far, I have failed to comment on the Russell Brand affair but the latest revelations tonight have spurred me into comment. In the latest allegation, a woman says Brand exposed himself to her, then laughed about it on Radio 2 show. It strikes me that puffing up the egos of presenters and making them into ‘super stars’ as it were was almost inevitably going to lead to a situation in which some of these individuals (not all) must have felt themselves to be above the law or not subject to any kind of control or restraint. If we were to examine the context of the Brand comment in the latest allegation, Radio 2 was desperate to attract a younger audience and to be appear a bit more ‘edgy’ and ‘cutting edge’ and therefore probably let Brand get away with things which, upon a more sober reflection, should have never seen the light of day. The BBC is conducting its own investigation and it is apparently the case that in any tape of a Radio show which is pre-recorded, this has to be listened to someone in the BBC with editorial responsibilitie and adjudged to be compliant or not. But it is interesting to reflect that in the 1970’s there was an incredibly relaxed ‘zeitgeist’ surrounding some broadcast content. About a year or so back, a series of programmes were broadcast on the theme of ‘What they said in the 1970’s and then showing them to modern audiences – who viewed/listened with their eyes agape. In one infamous example, there was an advert in which a young woman was seen sauntering through a corn field exclaiming ‘I want to be – RAPED!’ One is amazed that anything like this was broadcast but indeed it was, to modern day astonishment.

Today started seemingly raining like cats and dogs and, indeed, it appeared to be like that for the rest of the morning. We had made a fairly early start to the day getting up and breakfasted but as the weather was so bad, we were not really tempted to go for a walk or a venture anywhere. I did brave the elements in order to make a quick dash out both to get a newspaper and to get some supplies from Waitrose. Then Meg and I had a lesiurely elevenses-at-home today. On a day like this, there are certain features of the day to which we look forward and one of these is the Politics programme broadcast at 12.15. To a large extent, this programme was anticipating what is expected to be a major climb down on several key ‘green’ targets such as the date upon which all petrol only driven cars will be phased out. The discussions are rather akin to that which you get on election nigt before any results actually roll in. But there is a strong suspicion that both Downing Street and perhaps Conservative Central Office have got their defense lines prepared in depth. The kinds of arguments that are being deployed go as follows. As a nation we have to be severely pragmatic and not saddle people with costs (e.g. for a heat pump replacement for their gas boiler) which they cannot afford. Also, it is necessary to take into account what the popular support for green measures to likely to be. There is masses of pure politics at work here. The Tories have consistently been about 20 points adrift in the opinion polls and are desperate to find policies with broad appeal which will claw back some of the lost ground. ‘Rowing back’ upon a green agenda, the Conservatives believe, will appeal to would-be Conservative voters and particularly to the ‘red wall’ seats (one time traditional Labour held seats which the Tories won at the last election with the promise that ‘Brexit means Brexit’) But where this cynical advantage of electoral advantage will come to pass, I am not so sure. It it true to say that the full costs are adopting greener policies have only been hinted at by both major political parties and certainly not spelled out in any detail. Industry is a lot more equivocal about the proposed changes. It is said that industry wants (and needs) is a long term and stable investment climate in which long scale decisions are to be taken. For example, the modern car industry which is predicated upon electric cars as the only direction of travel are not throwing up their hands with joy at the prospect of delaying the date when petrol cars are to be phased out for another five years from 2030 to 2035. But as I write, Andy Street, the Conservative elected mayor for Birmingham and the West Midlands in general is not agreeing with the latest rowing back on green targets. It looks as though the Labour Party may well decide to reverse wharever ‘reversals’ the Conservativees put into effect just before the forthcoming election.

Today after we had lunched, we tuned in the James Martin program which featured the way in which paella is cooked in industrial quantities in Andalucia (and, I believe near the town of Nerja which Meg and I know quite well) The paella is cooked in huge pans over open fires (fuelled by ex pallet timbers) and the featured restaurant, 600 meals a day were provided (as a cost of about 6.5 Euros per head and you could actually ask for seconds if you were not full after it) In the James Martin program, it showed the elderly proprietor overseeing each part of the cooking process and the overall quality was pronounced to be excellent. If Meg and I ever get to that part of the world again, this will be something for us to try. After this, we watched a rather silly but still enjoyable ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ after which it was time for me to attempt to get Meg settled down so that she can have a good rest to soothing images and music on YouTube.

At 4.00pm in the afternoon and by prior arrangement, one of my ex-University of Winchester colleagues and myself had arranged a ‘Skype‘ chat with each other. By an extraordinary coincidence, we are both caring for wives who seem to share a similar set of medical problems although the causes vary in each case. My friend and I share a lot of infomation with each and attempt to give each other mutual help, support and advice. But we also have shared experiences dating from the time when we both started off our teaching careers in Manchester (in different institutions and timescales although the colleges in which we both taught were only about a couple of miles apart). After our video call was terminated, Meg and I enjoyed watching the Italy-Uruguay rugby match in the World Cup. Uruguay was 10 points in the lead at half time but the Italians (‘Azurri’) quickly overtook them in the second half and eventually won by quite a handsome margin of 38-17. I really did want Uruguay to do well against a ‘first tier’ team such as Italy and they put on a brave show but their inexperience was bound to tell in the end.

Tuesdays are a day to which we always look forward because it is the day when a little gaggle of us meet up in the Waitrose cafeteria for a chat and some mutual support, also including some very mordant black humour. Today, we got onto the eternally jolly topic of funerals and several of our funeral stories were exchanged with each other. One that I contributed to the discussion when on the occasion of the funeral of a beloved aunt of Meg’s, her (brain-damaged) son not being fully aware of the fact that he was at his own mother’s funeral started off the proceeedings by shouting out ‘Goood old Millie’ when his mother’s name was first mentioned. The rest of the proceedings, conducted by a very adept Methodist minister, ended with the son shouting out, at the end of he service ‘Well prayed, Vic’ The old congregation was in tears, some because of genuine grief but the other half because they were helpless with laughter. After we made our way home, I had already made the decision that I thought I would need to give my Pilates session a miss today because of other priorities within the day. We needed to have an early lunch, which we did, of fishcakes and steam-in-the-microwave veg which was absolutely aequate for our needs. Then after lunch and our post-prandial drink, we watched some of the news headlines and then I started what I thought was an important routine for Meg this afternoon. The hairdresser who has been coming to us for years is scheduled to come to us at 4.00pm this afternoon and it is not uncommon for her to be late as appointments overrun. This afternoon, she is due to give Meg a perm which is rather a lengthy procedure so I thought that it was important that Meg had a good rest well before her visit. So I got Meg sertled down on the settee and encouraged her to have either a doze or a sound sleep whilst, courtesy of YouTube, we can observe some stunning images, accompanied by some soothing music. Under the circumstances, I trust that we will get into a routine similar to this most afternoons and I think this will help Meg to manage her frailties somewhat better.

One of the news stories breaking today is that Birmingham City Council is, in effect, being put under special measures as it is effectively bankrupt. The immediate claim upon the city’s finances has been the fact that female staff have been underpaid for years, if not decades, and the bill to remedy this is of the order of £1bn. A compounding factor has been the failure of a big IT system and the fact that tthe local authority has to endure some swingeing cuts to its budget over the years. This sitution is most acute in Birmingham but not unique to it and several other local authorities are said to be in a similar plight. Of course, from the viewpoint of a Tory central government, all of this is like ‘manna from heavan’ as they can argue that it is is Labour incompetence and financial mismanagement that has brought about the present situation and thereby hope to generate much political capital over this. There are also hints that incredibly valuble assets such as Birmingham International Airport and the National Exhibition Centre might need to be sold off (to the sharks no doubt waiting and circling in the water) and this could cripple Britain’s second city for years, if not decades.

It is not often that a government minuster gets a real roasting on the Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme but this does happen occasionally, including this morning. On the programme this morning, Nick Robinson told Barclay (the Health Secretary) that the move to practically ban junior doctors and consultants from he picket line ‘risks worsening already bad industrial relations between ministers and medics’. The health secretary insisted the new law was necessary in the interests of patients, and said the doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) would face fines if its members still went on strike in defiance of the rules. Nick Robinson said: ‘You didn’t plan to do this just a matter of weeks ago. You didn’t think it was a reasonable thing to do then and you’re doing it now. So presumably you’ve changed your mind about the BMA. Have you decided this is a battle to the political death, that one side or the other is going to win and you’re determined to fight them?’ Barclay replied: ‘It recognises the fact that there has been an escalation from the BMA.’
But Robinson told him: ‘It’s recognition of the fact, Mr Barclay, that you have no answer to the strike 181 days since you had talks.’ A clearly-irritated Barclay was clearly annoyed about being taken to task in this manner but one has the suspicion that when the dispute is eventually settled, which indeed it must be eventually, there will be ‘blad blood’ between Tory Ministers and the BMA that might take many years to resolve. The longer this dispute rumbles on, a fight to the death will continue but the Scots solved this problem by coming to a workable agreement weeks ago. Of course the very heart of the dispute is how much of a pay cut the doctors are willing (unwilling?) to accept, given the past rates of inflation and the below inflation pay settlement that has been proposed.

Monday morning is always the start of a new week to be sure but we do not have a routine associated with it. I am sure that a century ago, it used to be the case that one wore one’s Sunday best and consequently Monday was often ‘wash day’ so that items could be washed, cleaned and ready for the next weekend if need be. Last night, whilst Meg was in bed during the later evening, I came to watch the rugby and also explored some of the facilities available on our newly acquired second TV. But, first of all, the rugby. It should never have been in doubt that England should eventually beat Japan in a game of rugby but the Japanese put on an extremely spirited performance. In fact, by half-time, if memory serves me correctly, England were only leading by a single point. As the BBC Sports channel revealed, England edged closer to the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals, but did little to impress in a scrappy 34-12 win over Japan in Nice. Lewis Ludlam forced his way over from close range for the only try of a first half littered with England errors. Early in the second half before a fortuitous try from captain Courtney Lawes, after the ball had bounced off the head of Joe Marler, gave England some breathing space. This was a truly remarkable incident and one I have never witnessed before in the years since I have been following rugby. As England were making advances towards the try line, there was a very evident ‘forward pass’ and this was so self-evident that both teams seemed to stopped playing for an instant. But what had actually happened is that a backward pass had bounced off the head of Joe Marlar and this is not regarded, within the law of the game, as a forward pass. An England player touched down and after consultation with the video referee, the pass was awarded. After this bonus try, England really did seem to play some more imaginative rugby to the extent that they actually secured a bonus point for scoring a total of four tries, the last in the dying seconds of the game. So we have now had our fill of rugby until Wednesday at the earliest. The second feature of the evening was a degree of experimentation with what is now available to us on our new (and for that matter, existing, telly) I had initially resisted all thoughts of taking out a subscription to YouTube in order to get rid of adverts but was then tempted by the fact that one could get a ‘free’ month before taking a subscription which then amounted to about the equivalent of one cup of coffee a week (which is how I measure things these days) One thing that YouTube does, probably as it is owned by Google, is to keep a record of recently watched programmes so that they can be accessed again. High on the list is a really outstanding Glyndbourne production of Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’ with some outstanding singers such as Benjamin Luxor, Ileana Cotrubas, Kiri te Kanawa and Frederica von Stade who I always think of as the absolutely definitive ‘Cherubino’. I have discovered some comedy programmes (and stories behind comedy programmes) and am currently playing one of those really ‘relaxing’ slow videos of beautiful countryside vistas whilst a soothing piano is being played in the background. I am experimenting a little with this to see if Meg can have a sleep each afternoon because I am petty sure that her body needs this and anything I can do to induce a state of relaxation and natural rest can only be a bonus.

I must say hat I particularly enjoy the contributions of Ed Conway on Sky News who often reports on economic issues but whose official title is something like ‘data analyst’. Certainly, his reports are data rather than opinion led which is surely a good thing. Today, the ex Prime Minister, Liz Truss entered the political fray again arguing that getting rid of Boris Johnson was surely a bad idea. But the Ed Conway analysis runs as follows and is certainly more nuanced. The economy was still recovering from the pandemic, from lockdowns and the supply chain disruption that ensued. The public finances were in a particularly weak position, with the national debt having rocketed higher to finance the furlough scheme. Britain, in other words, looked vulnerable. There were bombs buried throughout financial markets. But here’s where things get less flattering for the former PM, because there’s little doubt that what pushed the UK over the edge was the behaviour of Ms Truss and her team. Tonight, though, we are due the second instalment of the Laura Kuenssberg series ‘State of Chaos’ (and yes, I quite like the ‘double entendre’ in the title) This is detailing the Brexit imbroglio and the second episode is broadcast today. Although not a great fan of Kuennsberg, I thought she did an incisive job in the first episode which whets the appetite for the second. She interviews many of the key players which includes advisers, civil servants and several others regarded as key players and although one has already lived through these times, it is still quite revealing to understand how events unfolded, even though it is all still quite recent political history.

Today being Sunday, we pop into our Sunday morning routine. What with one thing or another, we had a rather disturbed night but no matter because we needed to face what today has to bring. By the time we had got ourselves up, dressed and ready for breakfast, we popped into our newly equipped Music Room where I got Meg some cereal to have for her Sunday morning breakfast. Meg was eating her breakfast and watching the Lorna Kuenssberg politics program where she was interviewing the Foreign Secretary. The only real thing that I remember from this interview was that the Overseas Aid budget had been cut from £15bn to £12bn a year (and one suspects that to many on the right of the Tory party, they would prefer it to be nil unless, of course, it was aid with strings attached to the ultimate benefit of the British economy). Expenditure on overseas aid has been reduced as a result of the pandemic from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5% of GDP. In addition, the current government has raided the overseas aid budget to the tune of about one quarter (£3bn) to finance the migrant and refugee crisis. This means that in the last few years, the amount of aid being given to the poorest countries has been reduced from £15bn to £9bn which is a dramatic fall. Eveen the Foreign Secretary was forced to concede that this cut in the aid budget would have consequences but his counter-argument was that the money that was being spent was now spent in a much more effective and targetted way (which sounds like a ‘civil service type of argument) Apart from this item, I must confessed that I dozed throughout the rest.

We had agreed that we would meet with our University of Birmingham friend at a kind of outdoor sports centre in which people engage in canooing, kayaking and similar pursuits but in which there is a cafe overlooking what I suspect is an artifical lake. This is called the Aztec Adventure Centre and spectators are welcome – in practice, most come along just to have a coffee overlooking a local stretch of water. When we arrived, the café was not yet open and our friend had forgotten our arrangement, until prompted by a quick phone call. I took Meg along in her wheelchair, the better to negotiate the walkways to access the cafe which was not actually open at the time at which we arrived. There was quite a cold wind blwoing across the water, so after our coffee we went inside to escape some of the colder blasts. Our friend and I then engaged in a long and some might say, arcane, discussion about the role of statistics in researches presented in the typical PhD. In particular, I knew that one of my erstwhile colleagues at De Montfort University had been failed his PhD because it was argued that he had used the wrong statistical test and in this long and protracted argument he came off the loser and was failed his PhD which, I suspect rankled with him for the rest of his life particularly as he subsequently wrote a statistics primer for students. There are two very broad classes of statistics – one being called ‘parametric’ statistics where the population assumes the shape of what is known as the ‘bell shaped curve’ and the other broad class being known as ‘non-parametric’ statistics. The whole argument revolved around the extent to which could depart from the assumes of ‘normality’ for the parametric statistics still to be legitimate and to be valid or, at what point, the departure frm ‘normality’ is such that a non-parametric category of statsitics should be deployed. One can see that there an area for disagreement and debate about how far, and to what extent, a departure from ‘normality’ is to be tolerated to invalidate the use of parametric statistics. Meg very widely dozed off throughout this particular discussion but our University of Birmingham friend and myself had very similar thoughts and approaches to this problem. We both concluded that the degree of understanding of this issue could be quite small, even amongst supervisors of PhD students, let alone their supervisors and examiners, and from this discussion, we went on to share our experiences of the PhD examination process.

In the rugby World Cup, the match of the day was Australia vs. Fiji (Fiji had recently in the warmup matches beaten England and Wales only beat them narrowly in the World Cup). Fiji beat Australia for just the third time in their history as they blew Pool C wide open with a thrilling win at the Rugby World Cup. It really was an entertaining match and I think it fair to say that the Fijians seemed to outplay Australia in every department of the game. It was the first time they had ever beaten Australia in the World Cup as well and the celebrations around the stadium, and I imagine in Fiji itself, was something to behold. So after the thrilling match this afternoon, this evening it is going to be England vs. Japan. England ought to win this game but nothing is certain in this World Cup as the smaller nations are often playing well above what their world rankings might suggest. I speculate to myself whether the Japanese being such a rule-governed society will infringe the laws of rugby less than the English – we shall see.

So we run into a Saturday morning routine this morning and, having washed and breakfasted, it was time to make our way to the Waitrose cafeteria to meet up with our friends (as we did last Saturday on the celebration of our wedding anniversary but here we are one week further forward) We met up with our regular meeting with the three older ladies. After our customary chat, we bought som lime and mint cordial which Waitrose have on offer and to which we have become a little partial. Then it was a case of getting home and starting to think about our Saturday midday meal. Today, we were finishing off the remains of a large family pork and apple pie to which we added some broccoli and a special mixture of my own. The mixture was one onion, one sweet pepper and one tomato and once this was nicely softened and blended in the saucepan, I added a little tomato source and just a tad of sweet chilli sauce to add a little piquancy to the whole. This all worked out creating a very tasty meal and although Meg thought she not be able to manage it all, in fact she did.

Now that we have our new TV installed and Alexa activated, we are now starting to enjoy some of the other services on offer. Having got ourselves logged into YouTube (eventually), we then started to look at some of the relaxation videos on offer. These are generally of the mountain stream/forest/seaside nature but some are based upon the concept of the ‘Cosy Cafe’ whilst many of them seem to feature campfires (one of them being the sort of campfire you might have at the entrance to a cave in millenia gone by) Many of these are quite interesting, not to say relaxing and no doubt if you found one on one’s laptop you could bookmark it and return to it time and again. Although I although I seem to have seen a variety of these on the TV, the selection seems to alter each time I switch on an I can never seem to get back to the ones that I particularly liked (but no doubt there is a way which I shall discover). But the highlight of the middle of the day was that we just happened to be tune into YouTube when they were broadcasting a live performance of ‘The Messiah’ direct from the Sydney Opera House in Australia. The performance really was of the highest quality and I must say tht I enjoyed it tremendously both in the bit that we saw before lunch and its continutaion afterwards. There were three little moments that stood out in my mind, the first being a beautify rendition of ‘He was despisèd’ which Kathleen Ferrier almost made her own. I said to myself that it was a case of beautiful contralto singing but when I looked at the images on the TV, it was actually a counter-tenor. The second thing that I noticed was what appeared to be an exceptionally small sized trumpet, smaller even than he cornet. I did a little investigation on Google and discovered that this actually what is known as a ‘piccolo’ trumpet (being to the trumpet, I suppose, what the piccolo is to the flute) I discovered that the piccolo trumpet is recognisable for its small size and high pitch, making it a very specialised instrument that is mainly used in Baroque-era music. Distinguished by its shorter tubing length, its compact design produces brilliant and piercing tones with a bright, crisp sound. So now I know. I also saw what I now know to be a renaissance lute with the neck turned at sharp angle to make it more playable I suppose. After the performance ended with the traditional ‘Allelujah Chorus’,it looked as though there was going to be an encore of some kind and, indeed, one of the solists came out to give a rendition of ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’. Then there was a modern harpischord continuo and some oher arias followed for which we did not stay tuned in. I found this to be very enjoyable as I could simultaneously read my weekend copy of ‘The Times’, listen to the music and occasionlly glance up at the TV as the occasion demanded.

Wales met Portugal in the World Cup this afternoon. Actually most of the Portuguese players seemed to play for French clubs but some as low as in the 4th division. The game went the way that many of these type of fixtures seemed to go in this tournment. There was no doubt that Wales was going to win (but they only secured the bonus point for their fourth try after he clock had turned ‘red’) Wales played very much below their their potential whereas the Portuguse played the game of their lives – and in many ways played the more enterprising and entertaining rugby (which was a pattern that we also saw in the France vs. Uruguay match) This makes the whole tournament so much more entertaining – and the interesting thing is that the ‘best’ rugby seems to come from the minnows of the game rather than the well-established rugby nations, who you would have thought should have performed very much better than they did against inferior opposition.

We always look forward to Fridays and with good reason because it is the day when our domestic help does her weekly cleaning duties and, as we have not seen her for two weeks as she was taking her summer holiday, we had a lot of news to catch up on. Last night, I got ‘Alexa‘ activated on our new TV. Our domestic help showed us to access what I think is technically called ‘slow TV’ which are generally tranquil scenes of lakes, campfires and cafes which you can watch until what we really want to watch is scheduled. I think we shall use these quite a lot whilst having a cup of tea if there is nothing else on the TV to occupy one’s interest. Last night, Meg went to bed a little early and I watched the France vs. Uruguay game which was so entertaining. It was never in doubt that France would emerge the winners of this particular game but the French played somewhat below themselves and the young Uruguay team played excellent and exciting rugby making the whole match a delight to watch. Later on tonight it is going to be New Zealand (All Blacks) against Namibia which really is a David vs. Goliath type contest. Nonetheless, it should be entertaining and one wonders by how many points the team from Namibia is going to lose.

This morning, whilst our domestic help was keeping an eye on Meg, I was charged to go to a local hardware stock to get some replacement LED type bulbs as, until today, I did not the opportunity to get the types of bulbs required by some of our lighting units. Some of these have been failing but I have not had the opportunity until today to get out of the house and purchase some. The assistant within the store was very friendly and made sure that I good supply of what was needed and then they got fitted the minute we got home, which was all to the good. Outside the hardware store, I bumped into one of my fellow Pilates class members who had offered to pop by one afternoon for a chat and this is something to which I am sure that Meg and I will look forward. I am going to return to do another half session next Tuesday so that I can keep my participation in the group going, albeit at a somewhat reduced level for the time being.

Today, Meg and I had our by now traditional Friday lunch of a haddock and cheese pie, eaten with some mange-tout and baked tomatoes. We then tuned in to what is becoming a daily treat which is the James Martin culinary programme which also acts as a mini-travelogue for various parts of the Spain. James Martin always focuses upon that which is the regional speciality and today he was visiting Extramadura (a part of Spain practically unknown to most Brits) and, naturally, spent some time extolliong the virtues of the ham which comes from acorn-fed pigs, often adjudged to be the finest ‘jamon’ in the whole of a country noted for the quality of its ham. When this program finished, Meg felt as though we needed a breath of fresh air so we thought we might make a journey to Droitwich and walk by the side of the canal there, as it was a beautiful fine afternoon. But getting to the car, I had forgotten to pack the wheelchair and the late afternoon rush-hour traffic was particularly heavy in any case, so we cut our losses and made for a very short walk in the park, availing ourselves of the nearest park bench to the car and the only one that Meg can now manage if not in a wheelchair. I am thinking of ways to help Meg’s frailties, such as they are – many elderly people in practice have a doze as they are in their 70’s and 80’s. I am still coming to terms with the practical steps that I can undertake to help Meg as she is now quite frail. One thing which is relatively easy to organise will be to make sure that she always has a good nap, if not a sleep, on an almost daily basis. In theory this should be easy to organise if I can make Meg comfortable on our settee with the lights off, blinds drawn and some soothing music in the background. Another practical measure is making sure that Meg gets into bed in the correct orientation i.e. North-South versus East-West. I think I may have found a solution to this because I am going to organise a ‘step stool’ that I happened to have in another part of the house. Then with some judicious use of some intermediate steps, I think I may be able to get Meg into bed much more easily than proved to be the case last night but tonight may be a critical test whether my adaptations will work (as they generally do)

Sky News is reporting tonight that after years of strife, weak and corrupt governance, corruption and negligence, the Libyan authorities were simply not up to preparing for or coping with a disaster of this magnitude – and it is the Libyan people who have been killed, or left displaced in their thousands. It is being reported that this is a disaster of biblical proportions with an estimate of 11,000 deaths in the Libyan city of Derna alone.

Last night, in the middle of the night, I wrote a long and detailed account of Meg’s frailties for the benefit of social services from whom we were expecting a visit later on in the day. Meg and I have been anticipating this visit for several days, not knowing exactly what was going to be in store for us, later on in the day. But, as it is said ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast’ Thursday is my shopping day and so I relieved the ATM of some cash and popped into the Morrison’s supermarket which was practically deserted at that time in the morning to buy some knee-high socks for Meg. I was quite fortunate in obtaining the supplies that I did and then I returned home at just after 9.00am with Meg still soundly in bed. THen it was a fairly leisurely case of getting Meg up and dressed before breakfast. THen the shopping needed to be put away and all of this took some time so it was all fairly late by the time we came to contemplate a trip onto the road. It was all a bit rainy and miserable so I wondered if I could find a coffee shop open in the suburban street where the AgeUK shop is located. I popped into the shop and bought a couple of really inexpensive items but they did not really have in stock what I was actually looking for. Then we shot back home and had our delayed elevenses at home, not managing to find a little coffee shop with adjacent parking. We then cooked a lunch which I suppose is best described as a chicken fricasée starting with an onion, peppers and peas and concluding with some bits of fried chicken seasoned with a peri- peri sauce. This turned out to be a nicer than might have been expected and Meg ate most of hers.

We got lunch eaten and the washing up just about eaten when I received a mobile call from the social worker who we were expecting in half an hour but actually turned up half an hour early. She tried her best to be helpful but, at the end of the day, I am not sure what we quite got the assessment that we had anticipated. I gather she was a bit appalled that we had the brush off from a unit that should have been able to get Meg some better medication. One suggestions were made for services for us to try out but at the end of the day, I am not convinced that there was anything on offer which really fitted our needs. So at the end of the day, it might be that Meg and I try some of the suggestions offered to us but without being convinced that they might turn out to see more trouble than they are actually worth. A further reference was going to be made for some physiotherapy but the last encounter that we had in this direction was not particularly helpful as we had some exercises recommended to us on a worksheet which I do not think addressed the core issues of a pattern of repeated falls. I do not wish to sound unduly negative at this juncture but perhaps I was hoping for a little more than was actually on offer.

The Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, is trying to ‘sell’ a new policy on the perennial problem of migration. Basically, he is going to have a robust policy on the people-smugglers by regarding them as terrorists. But to put this policy into effect, he needs to ‘nudge’ the Labour party policy so that it aligns more with an EU approach., This may involve a trade-off where the UK accepts a certain European quota of migrants in exchange for robust, collective action against the people smugglers. The liberal press such as ‘The Guardian‘ are regarding this as going to war with the people smugglers whilst the right wing press is portraying this as giving the green light for even more migration from the shores of the EU. I have a feeling that this issue will rumble on and on and will become practically the sole focus of the general election campaign which has practically started already months early. In face, the EU referendum campaign as I remember the closing stages was nearly all about ‘hordes’ of migrants from or via EU countries and there was the famous poster which tried to imply that the entire population of Turkey, not even an EU member, was eligible to enter the UK.

Now that we are through to this part if the week, the rugby World Cup is starting again with a vengeance. Our son phoned up giving me details of how the rugby is being broadcast tonight but on rather an obsscure ITV channel but as I had half forgotten about it, this has brightened my evening somewhat. Now that we are at this stage of the week, then I can look forward to several more nights of rugby – the last match that we watched which was Wales vs. Fiji turned out to be really exciting and let us hope that more is in store.

There is a hint tonight that the Government are considering scrapping the final leg of the HS2 project (broadly Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe) and, if this proves to be the case, it might prove to be the worst of all possible worlds with only one half of a high-speed line to the North actually built making a mockery of the whole project.

You can never be quite sure what a day is going to bring and today was no exception. Meg and I had a fairly lazy start to the day but we knew that our University of Birmingham friend was due to pick us up at 10.30 in order to undertake a pre-planned little trip out to Droitwich. It was a beautiful day today and a nice one to be out on the road. After a brief trip to pick up our newspaper, we made our way to the cafe in Droitwich that we had planned to visit – and were greeted almost like long last friends once we stepped inside. This independently-run cafe does work very hard to ensure that the ingredients for its offerings are shopped for freshly each day. We treated ourselves to cappuccinos and toasted teacake and were joined half way through our repast by the very friendly assistant who had been so helpful helping Meg into the car the last time we called. In the course of our conversation, it emerged that she knew Anne Jones, the previous women’s Wimbledon champion, who occasionally was a patron at the same club of which our University of Birmingham friend is a member. Somehow or other, we got talking about refugees and it emerged that the cafe assistant had befriended a young Afghan refugee and helped him on the road both to a legally settled status as well as further education and training so that he could make his own way in the world. Eventually, the young Afghan refugee told the assistant that he had actually known her for longer than he had known his own mother and regarded her now as his newly adopted family. When you hear the rhetoric coming from members of the government, it is really quite inspirational to be told stories such as this. We introduced our University of Birmingham friend to the cafe assistant and as well as the Anne Jones connection, it transpired that we both knew Harrogate quite well as that was the town in which I spent my youth and where the assistant attended the Great Yorkshire permanent show ground in order to sell some of her wares (skin preparations) As we were leaving the cafe/restaurant, a little container was pressed into our hands containing three buttered and jammed scones for us to enjoy as afternoon tea. I suspect that we will now be turning up as regular customers if we get treated as well as this every time. Not being part of a chain and not on the immediate High Street, we do get the impression that the cafe works hard to greet and retain its regular customers so I suspect that our allegiances will now start to transfer. This cafe also has the facility for me to pop Meg inside whilst I go and get the car parked so this is an additional recommendation.

Meg and I have discovered a series on TV which we think we are going to enjoy tremendously. It is on for an hour most weekdays and is really a culinary programme but is called ‘James Martin’s Spanish Adventure‘ Although the programme is not meant to be a travelogue, it is really very informative and stimulates all kinds of memories of Spain for us (some of them a little painful as it is not at all clear if or when we shall return). We then started watching half way through a film of ‘The Young Winston‘ which we did not watch through the end because afternoon tea beckoned. As we had been given some scones by the cafe this morning, we thought we would eat them up whilst listening to ‘Choral Evensong‘ I have lodged in my memory this is typically broadcast on Wednesday afternoons at about 4.00pm and I remembered about it in time this afternoon. After our tea, I judged that Meg was getting somewhat over-tired and out-of-sorts so I took her down to a darkened room where I am encouraging her to have a doze. I think that many people in the mid-seventies and onwards have a little doze in the afternoon. I wondered what the bulk of evidence suggested about such naps and discovered the following. ‘For most people, napping in the early afternoon when your body experiences a natural circadian dip, is the best way to catch a few winks without disturbing the sleep-wake cycle. There is no consensus on how long you should nap. Some experts recommend naps should last no more than 30 minutes‘. Having said that, excessive napping is probably not a good idea but I think that perhaps I need to get Meg into a more regular napping mode.

I have been considerably saddened by the loss of the hardware and household store, Wilko, in the last few days. But a list has been published of the stores that Poundland intends to take over and I am half pleased to discover that the Droitwich store is on the list. What is not clear at this stage is whether Poundland are just acquiring extra High Street presence and will only continue to sell the cheap, plasticky goods for which Poundland is noted. An alternative is that they attempt to take over many of the ‘Wilko‘ lines but somehow I feel that this is probably not going to happen.