So, the night before yesterday, I thought I would go out to the concert held in the Bromsgrove parish church of St. John’s just down the road. The first part of the programme was Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’ which have a mournful, elegiac feel to them and were powerfully sung by a soprano who happens to be married to the well-known local conductor. In the interval, I wandered over to the orchestra area and espied our friend, the Eucharistic minister who was one of the cellists in the orchestra, She was delighted to see me (and I her) not least because she is struggling with a bout of ill-health and I thought that if she had struggled through her rehearsals and the practice, not to mention the actual performance, the least I could do was to give her my support. I got the impression she was very pleased to see me and I bumped into hr husband a little later and I hope to have both of them over for a meal when the coast is clear. In the interval, I had a glass of red wine and started chatting to a couple who I did not know but was not engaged in another group. It turned out that the wife had been a teacher, knew my cellist friend well and was a fellow parishioner in my church but at the Sunday rather than the Saturday service. I mentioned the facts of Meg’s demise and she remembered the details being announced in our parish newsletter. The second half of the concert was one piece which was Bruckner’s ‘Symphony No 7’ which was a piece I had not heard before. This piece seemed to me like an artist applying layers of paint and reminded me more of a tapestry being made than anything else. The piece is long and complex taking 65 minutes to perform over four movements and deploys the use of what are called ‘Wagner tubas’ These are not tubas at all but a bit of a hybrid between a French horn and a trombone and are added to give a real depth and blast of sound in an orchestral piece. After the concert was over I returned home and cooked myself some cheese-laden scrambled eggs on one slice of toast before making some preparations for my trip to Cheltenham to visit cousins the next day. Overall, I was glad I had made the effort to go out last night but it is a slightly Kafkaesqe experience going out to a concert on one’s own on a Sunday evening. But as I explain to everyone that I meet, I must keeping on trying to engage with the world and not just withdraw into a little pit of self-pity. Needless to say, I have been thinking over some of the things I want to convey to Meg’s cousins when we meet later in the day for an extended lunch.

The morning turned out to be a bit nightmarish in more ways than one. I received a message from BT telling me that my new DECT telephone service was due to start. After my son hunted around for the base unit of the phones that we have, my son tumbled to the fact that we needed to register our existing phones on the new router. This we did but with the result that the telephone number we have enjoyed for the past 18 years had now been substituted with a new one. BT were going to issue us with a new piece of kit, free of charge, but we cannot start to resurrect our old number until the new piece of kit arrives on Wednesday and we then inform them that we do not want it a which point they can try and resurrect the old number but not before. This is frustrating but we just have to be patient. Now we come to my trip to Cheltenham to see Meg’s cousins. I filled up with petrol and collected a newspaper and my son and I had already set the coordinates for the Sat Nav. But no voice directions came through the system so by the time I got to Cheltenham, I had no idea how exactly to reach my cousins. Just to make things worse, the journey down the motorway was severely congested and for most of the journey, I had to chug along at 25-30 mph, an accident further down the road causing huge delays. I remembered the way to a suburb called Charlton Kings and then remembered my way to a pub with a large car park where Meg and I had dined with members of her extended family in the past. I then telephoned for help and was rescued by my cousin’s husband who came out in his car and I followed him their house. There I was very warmly greeted by my cousins and after a restorative cup of coffee we sat down to a magnificent lunch. I took the opportunity over lunch to inform them of a few facts about her childhood stay in France of which they were largely ignorant. Then, after lunch I had taken along an iPad with link to the speech that Meg (and I) gave to our Harrogate relatives on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary some eight years ago. My cousin’s husband who is supremely technologically competent managed to get my video ‘AirPlayed’ through his own smart TV set so we could watch the full 20 minutes presentation, the first 10 minutes of which was Meg at her fluent best speaking from memory and with no notes with no signs of the dementia that was to overtake her in the following years. The family were pleased that I had brought this along and now we came to the third objective of my visit. I had taken along a fair collection of the jewellery I had discovered in Meg’s drawer and I laid all of these pieces out on a table. The Meg’s cousins pored over the various pieces before taking possession of pieces that they particularly liked and would complement their own clothing and tastes. I was absolutely delighted that they had done this and so now they have good lasting momentos of Meg and have also taken some pieces which they think the younger members of the family will appreciate. Now it came to the journey home but it only a right hand followed by a left hand turn to get me onto the right road (which I remembered from years back) so all I hd to do was to follow my nose. Despite unclicking a box that said ‘Mute directions’ I still had no directions on the way home but I did not need any as the journey back, once Cheltenham itself is navigated, is simplicity itself.

In the late evening before yesterday, I attended church which is now part of my early Saturday evening routine and several parishioners who I had not previously known came up to me to offer their condolences even though it is now ten full weeks since Meg died. At the conclusion of the service, there was a cloudburst so we all needed to huddle in the porch of the church until the worst of the rain had passed over and we could all make a dash for our cars. Once home, I prepared myself some chicken soup and then settled down to watch the France v. Germany in the Euro football competition. An extraordinary incident occurred about a third of the way through the first half in which a German defender pulled the hair of an opposing French player which resulted in an immediate red card (and subsequent sending off) and a penalty from which the French scored to make the score 1:0. But it sometimes happens in football that a sending off inspired a team to even greater efforts and so it proved today. The Germans equalised with a stunning header and from this point on, it was a tussle throughout the rest of the game. The French, despite being the favourite to take the championship. seem to have lost their belief and did not make many crosses into the penalty area and when they did, there did not seem to be a forward there to make the finishing touch. So, it was no surprise that the game ended at 1:1 even after extra time and then the game went to a penalty shootout. I had felt in my bones that this whole game was going to end in one way. The German goalkeeper made several incredible saves and when it came to the penalty shootout, one always favoured the Germans. They did hold their nerve and always seemed so much more assured and less nervous than the French when it came to taking the penalties and eventually missed only one of their spot kicks before emerging as winners 6:5. The French twice had the ball in the net only for the VAR to spot an offside using the computerised VAR system and thus the goals were disallowed. The French have now been eliminated from this stage of the competition more than any other team in the game’s history whilst the Germans go on to take on Spain in the semi-finals (the other semi-final being the UK versus Italy next Tuesday) So it is interesting that two of the semi-finalists, England and Germany. have made it to this stage of the competition despite it looking at one stage in their respective matches as though they were on the point of elimination. But, as the commentators are wont to say, it is often a case of fine margins that determine the eventual outcome of matches. The undoubted hero of yesterday was the lanky German goalkeeper who produced some stunning saves – and in her personal life she has twice survived cancer which adds a human twist to the whole story.

After I had exercised doing some Pilates routines and then breakfasted, I received a welcome phone from my University of Birmingham friend and we made a joint decision to go, as we did last week, to the local water sports facility based on a huge ex-gravel pit where we sit under cover enjoying a cup of coffee but still enjoy a stretch of open water upon which to gaze. We spent a certain amount of time discussing the attitudes of generations younger than ourselves both towards debt but also whether younger generations felt they had a right to possessions and a life style which, for those of us who are an older generation, we had to work a lifetime to achieve. I have to admit that this is the type of conversation in which only men over a certain age will tend to indulge but my friend and I do think quite alike on many issues. As soon as I was being dropped at home by my friend, upon his departure I was led into a conversation with a very long-standing friend of my next-door neighbour who just happened to be arriving at the same time. My next-door neighbour had informed her friend of my recent loss and as she had been widowed some ten years before, we swapped some stories upon our various coping strategies and this was quite an entertaining, and useful, little chat. Then when I got inside the house I read a text from the cousins that I am to visit tomorrow and was delighted to learn that another set of cousins (the two female members being sisters) were also staying in Cheltenham so we should have a jolly little gathering of Meg’s relatives who were present at her funeral but there is so much more than I want to convey to them. Tomorrow, I am going to take a long a laptop which I trust will give me access to a long video clip of Meg and myself giving some recollections to the Yorkshire branch of the family on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary (and before Meg’s ultimate illness finally took its toll) I also have quite a lot of interesting information about Meg’s childhood to share with the family because I suspect that they do not know very much of it. Finally, I am taking the opportunity to take some of Meg’s collection of jewellery along so that family members can retain a keep sake of her.

Although I have been in two minds about it, I think that I will after all attend the concert in our local church and I have permission from our Irish friends to park on their drive-way so that most of the journey will be by car. Our fellow parishioner who acted as a Eucharistic minister to us is going to be playing her cello on the improvised orchestra so I do feel I would like to go along and give her some support. I intend to take along a cushion as the hard wooden benches can be uncomfortable if the concert is a long one and it starts at 7.00pm in the evening. There is typically a little wine or coffee break in the middle of it in any event, or at least I trust so.

The afternoon before yesterday, pleased with the fact that I had got my two ‘smart’ speakers connected to the new router, I thought I would give BT (my previous internet provider) a quick call to ensure that I did have an old contract with BT and a new contract with EE running side by side. EE have taken over BT and this can make life confusing for people such as myself who have deals with both halves of the now merged business. But I found had a very helpful person on the BT side of the business who confirmed that my contract with BT had now terminated and there were no hang-over bills to pay. But what was so helpful is that when I mentioned that the previous router had been posted back to them, the operative asked me for the tracking number supplied to me on the Post Office receipt so that they she could make a note of it on my file and hence there should be no subsequent chasing of me for the return of equipment as if it did not turn up I would be charged for it. It is early days yet but if I can believe the ‘free’ speed tests available on the internet, I may be getting four times the internet speed I had previously for a lower price. Last night, I was quite keen to watch the Switzerland versus Spain Euro football match. But as the Swiss were so much the underdogs in this match, my support started to switch towards them and I thought that they did an excellent job in repelling the Spanish and did not allow them to play their normal passing game. The Swiss managed to hold out for three quarters of the game and then the almost inevitable couple of Spanish goals ensued and Spain won the game 2:0 without extra time or penalties. Tonight, there will be the last of the quarter finals which is France v. Germany and I anticipate that this will be a marvellous match although, on current form, the French should emerge as the eventual winners. The day dawned today with the storm clouds gathering so it is a ‘touch and go’ decision whether I risk a walk down to town or whether I go by car so that I do not get caught in a cloudburst. My Irish friend from down the road very kindly either gave me or loaned me one of those emergency rain protection packages that used to go by the name of ‘Pak-a-mac’ but I have not had occasion to use this as the Spring had been so dry. But now that we are well and truly into cloudburst weather, I need to ensure that I have it permanently stored in my little rucksack. I am due to meet two sets of friends down in Wetherspoon’s today which is now a regular part of my Saturday morning routine. I am also thinking ahead to next Monday when I shall be taking the car on its first big run (for me) when I visit Meg’s cousins in Cheltenham which is only 39 miles away and quite an easy journey down the M5 for most of it.

I walked down into town today but it was a little humid with small droplets of rain in the air. I met up with two lots of friends between whom I split my time (and locations within Wetherspoons) One of my friends and I discussed the phenomenon which must be known to many people that that after the death or departure of a loved one, there are moments (only lasting about a tenth of a second) when you still feel that your loved one is still present only for the reality to kick in that they are well and truly departed. After I left Wetherspoons, I was tempted down the High Street and actually did venture into the Salvation Army charity shop where I was tempted to buy, and did indeed purchase, a pair of tailored shorts which were attractive to me because they had some zipped pockets out of which vital things like car keys are less liable to fall. When I returned home, as I was cooking some chicken breasts for my lunch, I had a bit of a scour through one of the drawers in the chest-of-drawers where Meg kept her jewellery. I am going to take a selection of this with me when I visit her cousins in Cheltenham this forthcoming Monday. I suppose that not many men or husbands are used to sorting their wife’s jewellery as they leave this to their wives (as wives leave the contents of Toolkit to their husband no doubt) Quite a lot of this is costume jewellery but some items might have slightly more value but I suppose the principal thing is that passing on bits of jewellery is a way of remembering those who have passed on and hence ‘keepsakes’ I sent off some messages and emails this afternoon to keep up with correspondence and appointments and am trying to decide whether I want to go to a concert in our local church to be held on Sunday night starting at 7.00 in the evening (a little late in the day for me but there is no football to contend with the concert)

Sky News is reporting that dozens of people protesting against the ban of Palestine Action have been arrested in Westminster. Similar demonstrations are being held in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro after the group was officially designated as a proscribed terrorist organisation two weeks ago. Protesters gathered in Parliament Square carrying white placards with the message: ‘I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.’ Some were carried away by officers, while others were led away in handcuffs. If found guilty, which seems to be a foregone conclusion, each protestor could face up to fourteen years in gaol. But one wonders what the attitudes of the judiciary might be when middle class protestors do not quite fit into the popular conception of a terrorist according to the legislation that is being deployed against the protestors. As so often, it will be interesting to see what the media as a whole and the political commentators make of these arrests when these matters are discussed on the politics programmes transmitted on Sunday mornings.

The night before yesterday was dominated, of course, by the Euro quarter-finals match between England and Sweden. This turned out to be one of the most memorable matches ever watched. The England team sloppily conceded a goal to the Swedes after a poor clearance in defence and from this point on, the Swedes really dominated the match scoring another goal half way through the first half and could easily have added a couple more. Indeed, a score of 4:0 to the Swedes rather than 2:0 would not have been an unfair result at half-time. The Swedes were quicker to the ball, completely closed England down and completely outplayed them throughout the whole of the half although England did have one shot on goal that was tipped onto the crossbar. In the second half, England played much better looking as though they really intended to make a match of it but the teams were practically equally matched for two thirds of the half. Then the England manager made a couple of inspired substitutions and England scored two goals in less than two minutes, one of the substitutes contributing the second. From this point on, there was a tense finish to the match as the scores were level at 2:2 and so it remained for the remainder of the match and for the thirty minutes of extra time that was played. So now we come to the dreaded penalty shootout in which of the 14 penalties taken, 9 were missed and only 5 resulted in a goal. So, England scored from three penalties and missed at least three but the Swedes did even worse and only scored from two of their penalties meaning that England won the penalty shootout by 3:2. This has been judged the worst penalty shootout of all time by commentators to the game and in some respects, the England team can regard themselves as extremely lucky. I think it is fair to say that the best team on the day did not win the match but England live to fight another day in a semi-final against Italy next Tuesday. The English women really threw themselves into the later stages of the match and picked up a fair share of injuries some minor but a major one to the team captain which may keep her out of the next match. So, as I say this was one of the most extraordinary football matches it was possible to witness and the Swedes, having dominated so much of the match and creating the better chances, must feel devastated. But that, as they say is football and as Napoleon is said to have remarked ‘Give me generals that are lucky!’ Incidentally, there is no proof that Napoleon ever did say this but the saying is often attributed to him.

The day started off fairly bright and sunny but I have no major things scheduled for the day except that my son and I might put our collective minds towards the installation of a new router which EE, our broadband provider, thinks is necessary for us in an updated contract. My son called round and after we had breakfasted together, we set about getting the new EE router installed. This had all of the appearance in being identical with the existing one but it is possible that it has an enhanced chipset within it. The technology seemed to install without fuss and then we set to work making sure that the various devices recognise the new router. We had to supply new credentials to my main desktop and the two portables that I have and this seemed unproblematic. We turned our attention to the two TV sets one in the Main Lounge and one in the Music Lounge but as these are on a kind of network that runs throughout the house via the electric cabling, they needed no updating and still work as formerly. Then I boxed up the old router ready for despatch back to EE whilst my son was simultaneously packing up his NHS supplied IT equipment ready for it to be collected on Monday. I went into town to get the router despatched via the Post Office who just scanned a ‘returns’ QR on my phone but I am being particularly careful with the Post Office receipt I was given in case they deny ever having had it returned. Then having thought I had got everything sorted out, the two Amazon Echo devices I have installed one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom did not work as they still thought they were connected to the former router. The only way to reconnect is through the Alexa app but I had an idea this never seemed to work on my current iPhone but worked perfectly on the previous iPhone that I have retained as a backup. This needed some charge so I left it for a couple of hours and then tried the Alexa app on the kitchen smart speaker. Having got its new password credentials this sprang into life much to my relief as I play it in the kitchen several times a day. Then I turned my attention via the app to the bedroom smart speaker and this recognised the new credentials without my having to re-enter them (so presumably smart speakers communicate with each other via Amazon) Anyway, another tech problem was solved for the day. The football match this evening is going to be Spain vs. Switzerland. Which is a ‘must see’ match. On the one hand Spain is one of the tournaments favourites and may well in the fullness of time prove to be the ultimate champions but Switzerland is playing on their home soil and the stadium is bound to be filled to capacity with fervent supporters. So, as in last night’s football, unpredictable things can and do happen although I shall be rooting for Spain to win.

As the weather systems change after the spell of hot weather, some violent thunder storms are predicted in the next day or so, particularly for the South of England. These may or may not sweep up the country tomorrow but a violent thunder storm with a cloud burst of its accompanying rain would surely be welcome to most of us at the moment. The weather is quite humid at the moment but I may squeeze in a little bit of gardening.

The night before yesterday, before I came to bed, I did a quick check of my bank account which I often do last thing at night and record all of the results in a big black ledger I keep for the purpose. Here was a sort of pleasant surprise because it was evident that the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) had paid some monies into my account some of which would be Meg’s back pension and some of which should be the small proportion which is a continuation of it. But without a letter of explanation which will probably arrive in the next day or so, there is no way of knowing how the figures have been calculated, how much is ‘back’ pension, whether tax has been applied to it and to what dates the monies refer. So I spent a certain amount of time before I went to bed trying to make heads or tails of the figures that had just appeared. As it stands the figures are falling between the continuation of Meg’s pension for three months which is promised on the Teacher’s Pension Agency website but then less than the continuation pension might turn out to be. I shall just have to be patient and wait to see what explanation I am given by the Teachers’ Pensions Agency. I had phoned them last Friday and they thought that I might hear from them within the next ten working days i.e. two weeks of waiting but I am relieved in the extreme that something seems to be happening some two and a half months after Meg’s demise. Some friends of mine have warned me that I might have to wait months rather than weeks for activity on the part of the TPA so I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies. Last night, it appeared to have rained during the night for which again, I and the rest of the country are grateful but we now need several days of sustained rain to return the gardens to a state of normality. In the evening before yesterday, I watched the Norway vs. Italy Euro competition deciding to support Norway which I thought I would support as I imagined them to be underdogs in the match against Italy. To my mind, and perhaps I am being unduly sensitive about this, the commentary team seemed to manifest evident favouritism towards the Italians and hostility towards the Norwegians. The reasons for this I cannot fathom although perhaps it had been judged that the Norwegians had been lucky so far in the competition. But we had a wonderful example of that is often called ‘the commentator’s curse’ when one commentator stated that Italy were now only twenty minutes away from a semi-final after which the Norwegians scored some 10-15 seconds later. Later in the day, we have the England vs. Sweden quarter final in which the Swedes may well prove to be really tough opponents. As the day unfolds, it is my shopping day and under my revised regime I try to hit the shops just after the rush hour traffich had abated and before the shops get busier. My shopping went well and truly to plan in the morning and I find I do not have to rush around with the same frenetic intensity as was my wont because I was anxious to minimise the amount of time when I was out of the house and Meg’s separation anxiety was acute. But there are two particularly poignant moments involved in my shopping ventures. The first is when I go past the shelves where I used to buy products for Meg’s use and these I now have walk on past rapidly. The second moment is when I return to the house with my full shopping bags because Meg was always so pleased to see me on my return and now, of course, I am greeted by the empty chair.

Lunch was quite considerably delayed today for the following reason. I telephoned my son to update him about one or two things and he suggested that I should download and the activate the Inland revenue app to keep control of my finances. This was, of course good advice but turned out to be pretty complicated. In the first place, having download the Inland Revenue app the system needed my Government Gateway credentials to proceed. When I eventually located this, the system informed me that my present Government Gateway credentials had been cancelled as I had not used them for some time. So, I had to download the Government gateway app and then another more specialist app to help you to gain access to the system. This offered the possibility of getting your passport page containing the photograph scanned and this took several attempts before the system accepted the photo of my face. Then my own face had to be scanned to match the passport photo. Finally, the passport had to be held in a particular way against my iPhone so that the embedded chop within the passport could then be read by the installation app. All of this took at least an hour but all of my efforts were crowned with success and life should be easier from this point on. For a start, the Inland Revenue will now log me in directly via the automatic face recognition facility now that this feature has been facilitated but I am still no nearer getting the information concerning Meg’s pension arrangements clarified. No letter arrived by his morning’s post as I hope that it would so I have to be patient for some days more. Later on in evening will be the England-Sweden match which I am sure will be a very tense and hard-fought affair. As is so often the case, I expect that the match will be decided by a single mistake, or a strike of brilliance from either side where the ball just curls inside the net. The winners of this match will play Italy in a few day’s time as well.

One announcement from the political system is that that at the next General Election, 16 and 17 years old are to be given the vote. The consensus view is that it is hard to predict which parties will particularly benefit from this but I would imagine that the Greens will probably pick up a fair amount of the extra votes and the Tories will struggle to appeal to the younger generations as their supporters are much older than the rest of us on average.

When I awoke yesterday, I resisted the temptation to sleep a little longer and got up as quite a bright day beckoned. On consulting the weather app on my phone, it looks as though we are in for a spell of cooler temperatures and a temperature averaging some 16° which will suit me just fine. There are no particular tasks associated with today apart from the usual extended chats with our domestic help and a possible visit to the Methodist centre later in the morning. The newspapers are rather agog this morning with the revelation made to the House of Commons yesterday by the Defence Secretary. After the withdrawal of first, the Americans and then, the British from Afghanistan and the takeover of that society by the Taliban, then the fate of those Afghanis who had assisted the British in their war efforts became problematic. They had often acted as interpreters or as liaison between the British military and the Afghanis but, of course, would be regarded with great suspicion by the Taliban. Britain did grant asylum to a selected few but there were 19,000 in this category. In one of the biggest data leaks in history, all of their details were revealed in an unprotected email and hence their identities and contact details were known and their lives subsequently at risk. To cover all of this up, the previous Conservative government applied for and got a ‘super injunction’ where even the court was held in secret behind closed doors and it was forbidden to reveal the existence of the injunction even to Parliament. This super injunction has now been lifted and the details revealed to Parliament. The British government had run a highly secretive immigration scheme to assist a few of the Afghanis but the total cost of the scheme which has now run for three years and may well have to continue is of the order of £7bn. In view of the sensitivity of immigration, it is not surprising that the government sought to hide all of these details in this way but I think that MPs were truly shocked when eventually the details were released to the Commons. A super injunction is a type of court order in England and Wales that prevents the publication of private information and, uniquely, also prohibits reporting that the injunction itself exists. This means not only is the information (e.g., details of a private life) kept confidential, but the public and media are also forbidden from reporting on the fact that a court has issued an order to keep it secret. This is a really draconian power and these injunctions are only ever sought to protect the already rich and powerful but the shocking feature is that even Parliament is denied knowledge of the events. This may well now change after this revelation but you can see why the past Conservative government wanted to keep quiet about this massive data leak and its political consequences – perhaps even more details will be revealed to Parliament and the press later on today.

After my shower and breakfast, I spent a fair amount of time talking over the details of the new post which our domestic help will shortly assume in the care home for which she works most of the time. I am sure she will be excellent in this new role but of course, every job has its particular challenges. Eventually, I wandered down the hill stopping on a couple of occasions to have chats with acquaintances that I know by sight from my journeys up and down to collect my newspaper. On the way back, I was surprised when a couple that I scarcely know engaged me in conversation and when I communicated to them that my wife had died some nine weeks ago I was surprised when she intimated that everybody along that stretch of road already knew the news. I suppose that I must often have been observed whilst I was intent and focused upon getting Meg up and down the hill but evidently our excursions has been noted. In our conversation, it transpired that the wife of the couple was an AgeUK volunteer and her own father had died of dementia so perhaps she recognised all of the signs. When I got home, I noticed that our domestic help had helped to clear out a bit more of the clutter in our wardrobes some of it Meg-related such as old handbags. Some was going to be recycled back to AgeUK and a lot of packaging materials junked, which was just as well as it is the day for the disposal of general household waste this week. I was not particularly hungry today but I put some bits and pieces into an omelette to get them eaten up. After lunch, I felt that I needed to go out and do a bit of gardening bit most of my energies were devoted to getting the rust of my favourite pair of long handled garden shears to which I gave a bit of a sharpen-up with a special tool that I have. I then tidied up a bit of a tangle before I start on the edging to the back lawn probably tomorrow if it is not too wet. I am looking forward a little to the Norway vs. Italy quarter final which is to be played in the evening but if this match is not as entertaining as it might be, then there always a new series of ‘Sky Arts‘ on the Tate Modern which is probably worth a watch. My sympathies will probably lie with the Norwegians because they may well be the underdogs in the battle against Italy. To take some of the pressure off tomorrow, I might just pop out to access the ATM this evening which generally I do the night before I go shopping because the car parks are generally empty and the ATMs easily accessible. This week is a bit of an ’empty’ one as I have no appointments of any kind whereas next week is going to quite a full one. I have two occasions on when I am going out to see relatives/friends and a clutch of routine medical appointments which asll seem to have clustered next week rather this.

Yesterday was the day when the latest hot spell was due to moderate and it was anticipated that a band of rain would move across the country from west to east. How much rain we will get is yet to be seen but the grass in the gardens is that yellow-brown picture that we last witnessed some fifty years ago in the long hot summers of the 1970’s. The Test Match came to an exciting conclusion and led me to go and check the laws of cricket. The last wicket fell with only 22 runs to spare and the Indian batsman stopped the ball only for the ball to very slowly roll towards the wicket and so this becomes a bowled out. As the ball only just hit the stump and very gently and the bail did appear to fall then this would have been a ‘Not Out’ But the England team went into a wild celebratory mode but I did not actually see the bail fall. Later on, though, when I studied the TV news of the victory, I did see the bail fall as must the rest of the England team. Partisan feelings on one side, the two sides are incredibly equally matched although I think that the England team have held onto one or two really difficult catches and this is ultimately the difference between the two teams. The night before I had watched the Michael Moseley programme on the ageing process where the initial point made at length in the film is that the amount of blood flow and hence oxygen reaching the brain is critical and this explains why some people ‘age’ more than others. I suppose also that this is why walking a certain distance each day (and perhaps swimming also) assumes the role that it does in maintaining a well oxygenated blood supply to the brain. I try hard not to wonder whether if Meg had exercised in middle life, this would have prolonged her life but it is all a matter of conjecture, being wise after the event and applying knowledge that at the time that we did not have. I try to push these questions to the back of my mind but almost inevitably there is always a rather persistent ‘what if’ that keeps coming to mind. There is the point, of course, that trying hard to avoid one cause of death raises the possibility of dying from several other causes which is the ultimate ‘counter-factual’ My son, who is after his retirement from the NHS is taking great pains to get himself fully restored to health and fitness often calls around in the morning after he has had his early morning swim at a health club. When he calls round, he has a bite of breakfast here and is keeping a filial eye on me and we tend to discuss sporting and political events of the day. I gave him an article published in yesterday’s ‘Times‘ where one of the regular staff writers was bemoaning the experiences that she had recently had with her aged mother in hospital and the frustrations that this caused. Although the parallels were not exact, there were sufficient points of similarity for me to understand her ‘angst’ as I had to share similar feelings when Meg had her episode in hospital and despite after tests being declared medically ‘fit’ on the day she was admitted, took another 8-9 days to get her discharged to home where she could be looked after so much better than in hospital. Of course, each hospital differs in its internal organisation and coordination but one is always left with the feeling that NHS is bed-blocking itself, whilst always waiting of course for understaffed social services to make their own assessments of the care packages that are needed.

I walked down into town this morning, making contact with two separate groups of friends in Wetherspoons. The first group were the two old ladies (sometimes three) that make a point of us meeting up in Wetherspoons for a coffee. Our topic of conversation this morning was the way in younger generations of women who were talented but not destined for university would receive a good secretarial education in shorthand and typing. Shorthand was once the ultimate hack for fast note-taking, using symbols and lines to capture words in real time. Punctuation marks are kept to the bare minimum. Only periods and question marks are generally used — the rest are optional. Perfect for journalists, secretaries and court reporters, shorthand turns fast-paced conversations, speeches or interviews into easily transcribed notes. The market leader as it were in shorthand was the Pitman’s system and my mother was trained to us it and even taught the rudiments of it to some of her grandchildren. Our chorister friend used it as a young woman and can still write notes in it which she still does if she wishes to record some facts for her own life story. The trouble is that none of the rest of the family can understand it and eventually with the onslaught of modern technology, it will soon be swept away. We also reminded ourselves that in the 1920’s and 1930’s young women if married had to resign their jobs in the civil service. This procedure known as the ‘marriage bar’ was abandoned in 1946 but it persisted in the Foreign Office until 1973. After the first little group broke up, I then hunted out Seasoned World Traveller and we exchanged some stories about our occupational and social lives in bygone decades, when we were both much younger. Whilst we were partaking of coffee it rained quite heavily but fortunately the showers had passed over by the time I came to walk home. then I had only just about enough time to gather together my things and go down for my Pilates class but I make this journey by car to save time and effort. Upon my return, I made myself a lunch of mackerel fillets, green beans and some tinned tomatoes. Then it was time for a doze and a read of the ‘The Times‘ where the health sections on a Tuesday are always quite informative. There was a particularly interesting article written by a neuropsychologist writing how she had turned theory into practice to help to slow the progression of dementia in her own mother. Naturally, this article gave one a lot of food for thought.

The night before yesterday, I was entertained by a thrilling day at the Lord’s Test match between India and England which could still go either way. The football match between England and Wales had a predictable result with England winning 6:1, going on to play Sweden but the Welsh can console themselves with the absolutely stunning goal that they scored half way through the second half. It looks and feels that the hot weather may be moderating itself just a tad which means that we may have a few cooler days of respite, and even a little rain, to which to look forward. I have been reading on Sky News, with increasing horror, the operations of the US ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agency in deporting so-called illegal immigrants in recent weeks, . In the past month, immigration and customs enforcement agents – known as ICE – have intensified their raids on homes and workplaces across Los Angeles. Since the beginning of June, nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the city, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The previous monthly high was just over 850 arrests in May this year. People being deported who came to the country when they were teenagers and are now in their late 50’s so have children and grandchildren but if they undertake such operations as selling fruit or tacos on a street corner, they are easily visible and quite liable to be picked up and put into detention somewhere. But now the local community is getting organised with mobile phones so that the local residents can come to the aid of the arrested person. Often the ICE subcontracts its operations to masked men with no uniforms or means of identification which is part of the Trump way of doing things. But his Vice President, J D Vance a convert to Catholicism is seeking to redefine what is meant by ‘neighbour’ given additional piquancy because in the Church’s liturgical calendar, on Saturday in Church we given the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ where Jesus was asked ‘Who is my neighbour>?’ So, a dispute is growing between the Papacy and the White House along the following lines. In a letter, Pope Francis in his lifetime argued that Catholic Christians ought to have a fundamental disposition of compassion toward immigrants because Israel was a migrant people who fled Egypt, because Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were exiles and refugees in Egypt (fleeing Nazareth), and because Jesus in his incarnation ‘chose to live the drama of immigration.’ With the recent turn in U.S. immigration law toward the mass deportation of illegals, the Pope signalled his displeasure with this development, declaring that this moment is ‘a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.’ Pope Francis heavily emphasised the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights. To defend the dignity of all people—regardless of their citizen status—and to protect their universal human rights, the Pope argued, was the essence of the common good: ‘the true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all—as I have affirmed on numerous occasions—welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable.’ In other words, good government is determined by how well it cares for the most vulnerable of the world, for ‘an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalised.’ I will be interesting to see how the conservative and Trump-supporting elements of the Catholic church in the USA responds to this one but at the moment, the evident tensions are clear.

The weather being a bit fresher today, I made my way fairly slowly down the hill in order to pick up my copy of my daily newspaper from Waitrose . There I availed myself of the cup of coffee made available to cardholders and then started up the hill. I was delighted to bump into our Irish friend and we chatted for a little before I carried up the hill. About two thirds of the way home, a little ed car drew up alongside me and it was the very chatty Liverpudlian parishioner who I actually met in the Methodist Centre last Wednesday. I had in my knapsack a copy of the eulogy (and résumé of Meg’s life) for which I had given her the web address but I had a paper copy of it in case she couldn’t access it. She was delighted by this and also intimated that she enjoyed reading this blog which she had managed to access. First thing this morning, I had put out a ham joint to cook in the slow cooker so later on the morning did my normal procedure of saving half of it in the freezer whilst slices from the other half were added to some freshly prepared onion gravy which I ate with half a baked potato and some green beans. I had a bit of a doze after my dinner but then girt my loins to go out and give the car a wash which I am trying to make into a regular Monday afternoon job from now onwards. I use a watering can with a long flexible spout to give the car an initial wetting. This is followed by a going over with a long-handled brush, a further treatment with a big car washing glove and then a final rinse off with plain water and a certain amount of drying on the horizontal surfaces. I tuned into what seemed to be a long and rambling press briefing which Donald Trump was giving in the Oval Office of the White House. It may be that Trump has finally run out of patience with Putin’s prevarications over the war in Ukraine Trump is now going to authorise the sale of long-range missiles to the European members of NATO who will, in turn, give their existing stock of long-range missiles to the Ukraine. This is to even up the disparity in strengths between Russia and the Ukraine but whether it bring Putin to the negotiating table remains to be seen. The Russians have been given 50 days before new sanctions or tariffs are applied against them but this is certainly a development to be regarded with interest.

Yesterday, I believe that I successfully navigated the extreme heat that we are experiencing but I made sure that I did not go out when the temperatures were at their highest in the mid-afternoon. I did go to church starting at 6.00pm which is one of my weekly routines by now and, after the magnificent funeral that Meg experienced if I can put it that way, I feel as though I need to continue my weekly visits to the church. Our priest gave us further details of his impending departure and it now appears that he will be leaving us to return to India in the middle of August but will be taking on a tour of a couple of European pilgrimage destinations before he leaves us. At the end of the service when traditionally the priest greets each one of his parishioners, I joked with him that he was only returning to Kerala in India (from whence he hails) to escape the heat of an English summer. When I returned home, there were going to be two televised sporting events to which I was looking forward. The first of these was the résumé of the today’s cricket in ‘Today at the Test’ in which, as a measure of how equally matched the two sides are, the two sides actually scored the same number of runs as each other at the end of their first innings or in other words the scores were tied. Now this is a very rare event at the end of a match and has actually happened on only two occasions in the two thousand odd Tests matches that have been played worldwide. So the rest of the match becomes essentially a one-innings Test match. The next treat along was the Germany versus Sweden in the womens’ football in the Euro competition and Germany got off to a flying start, After about five minutes, I went upstairs to change the trousers in which I had been to church for some cooler shorts (of which I only possess one pair) When I came downstairs, not only had Germany scored but the Swedes had equalised. After that, the Swedes comprehensively beat the German side, eventually winning with a scoreline of 4:1. In this they were assisted by a German fullback who, desperate to avoid a certain goal, pushed the ball away from the goal as though she were a goalkeeper. This unequivocally results in a red card and an immediate sending off followed by a penalty with which the Swedes scored. So, the Germans played most of the match with only ten players and were beaten by Sweden who had never beaten them before. It could be that the Swedes topping their group will now go onto play the loser of the England versus Wales match which is to be played on Sunday evening. So again, in the evening, there will be two sporting events to which to look forward. To avoid the heat of the bedroom, I actually started off my night’s sleep the evening before by going to sleep on the couch in the downstairs living room before crawling in to my ‘proper’ bed at about 3.00am in the morning.

After I had done my customary 15 minutes or so of Pilates exercises and then breakfasted this morning and watched the Lorna Kuenssberg politics programme, I received the customary and very welcome phone call from my University of Birmingham friend, with whom I often team up on a Sunday morning. As we did last Sunday we decoded to make a beeline for our favourite little spot on a Sunday morning in the local water facilities area where we can drink coffee in relative peace whilst also viewing the variety of water sports (canoeing, sailing, kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming) and whilst neither of us has to the slightest desire to engage in such activities ourselves, it is quite fun observing other people struggling manfully on their little one man skiffs and dinghies. My good friend and I talked over a range of domestic, family and health issues as close friends do and the morning seemed to go by in a flash. Wen I was dropped back at home, I was disinclined to eat but treated myself to some ice-cream to cool down before eventually making myself a tuna salad lunch. In the afternoon, rather than watching the Wimbledon’s mens’ final, there were two classic films which I half watched/dozed through. The first was the Ealing comedy ‘Passport to Pimlico’ which is perhaps more interesting as a snapshot of life in late 1940’s/early 1950’s London rather than its humour content. The other film was the classic Robert Redford/Paul Newman classic ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid’ which is best appreciated for its many laconic one—liners. The film ends in a shootout when, injured and faced with a whole contingent of the Bolivian army, the two outlaws decide to make a run for it with all guns blazing and the famous line ‘For a moment, I thought we were in trouble!’ As in the night before, there will be a double helping of sport for me this evening with ‘Today at the Test’ followed by the England vs Wales in the Women’s Euro competition. Here the result seems not to be in doubt as England are ex European champions and Wales are one of the weakest sides but strange things can happen in sport as we noticed in the Germany vs. Sweden match last night.

I have taken the opportunity to look ahead to see if there are any TV treats for me in store this week and have noticed three items. On Monday night there is the start of a series on the origins of humankind which I always find a fascinating subject. On Wednesday, a series of Andre Rieu concerts will start on Sky Arts which I can always either take or leave and then there is the start of the Proms on Friday night which I generally follow each year, although some of the modern innovations designed to attract a younger audience such as film music often leaves me cold. I must say I will be glad to see the back of Wimbledon which has completely filled out the transmission times on both BBC1 and BBC2 and which I feel has an element of overkill.

As I awoke yesterday morning some time before 6.00am., I turned on ClassicFM only to hear one of my favourite pieces which is ‘How lovely is thy dwelling place’ from Brahms’ ‘A German Requiem’. According to the web, in the Requiem, Movement IV is unique for its sweet character as a choral song. For many listeners, this is the highpoint of the Requiem, and it is definitely the movement most often extracted for separate performance. It is a flowing choral part-song in which the chief melody is most often in the soprano part. The text is direct and personal. Meg and I used to listen to this very often and I actually heard it played on ClassicFM only day before. Although the smart speaker, Alexa, had difficulties in finding it, I would request this and then fall asleep to it in the days when I slept on a camp-bed alongside Meg when her bed (actually a hospital bed) was located downstairs. All of this is coincidence, of course, but listening to ClassicFM as much as I do is a slightly two-edged sword as Meg and I used to listen to the same pieces together, ClassicFM being such a staple in our house. We have three days of exceptionally hot weather to navigate and it is interesting to see how many people are solicitous and concerned that I do not suffer too much from the heat. My next-door neighbour, with whom I had a brief chat yesterday, insisted that I drink plenty of fluid and I do have a nice cooling mixture (cold water, with a little lemon barley topped up with tonic water) constantly on hand in the fridge. Even when I was down at the doctors yesterday, the very kindly health care assistant who was taking my readings made sure that I was taking all of the right steps to keep myself safe in the heat. Life will be just little more tolerable today as there will be no building work at the back of me over the weekend so this alleviates the pressure a little on two of the three days that I must navigate. According to Alexa this morning, I should expect a high of 31° later on today and the internal thermometers that I have inside the house are telling me that early in the morning it is already some between 25-27° and this is before the sun has really well and truly risen. One of the big news stories this morning is the preliminary report into the Air India air crash in which about 270 people died. It appears that both of the fuel lines to the engines had been cut off and one pilot was heard questioning the other why the fuel switches had been switched to the ‘off’ position. The other pilot denied having moved the switches but the evidence from the Black Box is clear and so a great mystery remains as to the thought processes involved in turning off fuel switches when you are attempting a take-off. No doubt this will be analysed ‘ad nauseum’ in the media throughout the rest of the day.

The day has turned out to be quite an entertaining one. I knew it was going to be a very hot today so before my walk down the hill, I took with me a flask of iced water and a banana in case I was in need of rapid sustenance on the way home. I travelled to Wetherspoons and ordered my normal repast which is an egg, cheese and bacon muffin where I leave one half of the breaded portion of the muffin to keep my carbs count low. I made contact with one of my Saturday friends and we chatted for a while before I left her to join Seasoned World Traveller whom I agreed to meet so that we could discuss CV’s. He had already sent me a two page CV and I suggested what might be some tweaks and improvements to it overall. On my way down the hill this morning, I noticed that the local large parish church of St. Johns were having an open day and inviting people in for coffee, cakes and a small recital. I would made straight for this if I had not already agreed to meet up with other friends this morning. Today was carnival day in Bromsgrove so the local roads were closed and the (shadiest) part of the local pavements filled with parents and excited children waiting to see the carnival floats process past them. But I made my way into St. John, not last because it was nice and cool. Although the cakes had all been consumed and the concert was over, I stood on the edge of two groups where various explanations were in progress. One was a ‘University of the 3rd Age’ group (which I may well join in future) and the firm of architectural restorers who have been tasked with renovating the church’s steeple were explaining how they were going about their task. At the end of my visit one could go an examine the golden spire and weather vane which had been removed from the very top of the spire and had now been ‘brought down to earth’ ready for restoration. I also stood on the fringe of another group who were having some of the mysteries of the church architecture explained to them so I found out all about ‘rood’ screens in mediaeval churches and their successors. When I left the church at about 12.30 the day was getting incredibly hot and the pavements thick wit excited crowds waiting for the procession of which I saw the first float as it caught up with me (the young children of the first school attached to the church I attend on Saturday evenings) I was extremely conscientious about seeking out every bit of shade tat I could for the journey home and certainly did not try to walk at all quickly in the extreme heat but just ambled back. The minute I got back cooled down with the aid of a fan to cool down the exterior of my body whilst a dollop of ice-cream was used to cool me down internally. Then I waited a good hour before I prepared a salad luncheon for myself.