The decorators should have finished doing their work today, but the massive task remains to them of moving the huge, but now emptied, display cabinet forward sufficient inches to paint behind it. Then, of course, after the decorators have departed comes the equally large job of restocking the display unit. I have in mind that this is a good opportunity to dispose of much of the historic china pieces which we inherited from Meg’s parents and some glassware as well. I always like to keep in stock some of those large but flattish vegetable boxes in which supermarkets display their vegetables and I have in mind that I might fill these with some of the unwanted china and offer it to any of the carers. Some of them may want pieces for themselves or for family members setting up house and the remainder can go to the charity shops. As well as the china pieces, we have several table decorations (‘runners’ and tablecloths) that tend to come into play at Christmastime but which realistically really needs to go, I remember that when we moved house some seventeen and a half years ago, I adopted the philosophy of only putting into the study the things that I knew that were needed in the newly populated study so perhaps can do similar with our dining room. There are several pieces of NHS equipment which Meg now cannot use so these need to be returned as soon as it can be organised.

Yesterday morning, the world was holding itself in readiness for Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation day’ when it appears that 20% tariffs might be applied to every product imported into the USA (but more for cars). To make matters worse for the UK and the rest of the DEU, Trump’s financial illiteracy is deeming VAT to be regarded as a tariff. The UK government is grinning and gritting its collective teeth, hoping to secure a special arrangement with the USA but the omens are not good. If the rest of world trade is generally disrupted, then in the Trump play book this is a good thing because it appears to his followers that he is shaping the world in his own image. Due to the time lag between Europe and the USA, the full scale of Trump’s measures will not be revealed until later on this evening. But some opposition to Trump is slowly starting to emerge in the USA. A senior Democrat has broken records with a marathon speech on the Senate floor against US President Donald Trump. Cory Booker, a New Jersey senator, began speaking around 7pm on Monday (just after midnight on Tuesday in the UK) and said he intended to disrupt the ‘normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able’. Referring to Mr Trump’s presidency, he said: ‘I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis’ The 55-year-old senator has been speaking for more than 24 hours and 18 minutes – beating the record for the longest speech in Senate history. He remained standing for the entire duration, as he would lose control of the floor if he left his desk or sat down.

The decorators turned up promptly at 8.30 (even before the carers) and promptly got to work shifting our large display cabinet which I had emptied yesterday evening. This they managed to do quite easily, thank goodness, and promptly painted the portion of wall behind the unit and then got it back into position again. Then they needed to spend some time clearing up all of the carpet protection materials that they had put down and then left, leaving (almost) everything neat and tidy. Our domestic help and I put the drawers back inside the unit and I restored all of the liquors and drinks to their normal home but as far the rest of the unit, I am going to take the opportunity to rationalise, throw away, or pass one some of the contents. I was particularly pleased that our domestic help was delighted to receive a present of the entire set of a ‘Ming Rose’ tea service (inherited from Meg’s parents) which she is going to be delighted to use when she has friends in the garden. At the same time, I washed some brandy glasses and some of traditional and modern champagne glasses that I am not going to use. Our domestic help was delighted with these and also with the Carlos Tercero (really old and special Spanish brandy) with which she was going to treat her husband. I restored some of the gardening books (big, heavy RHS tomes) to their traditional resting place but not before making a present of one of them to the District Nurse who called around to examine Meg’s heel. As today was the day when our ‘green’ paper bins have to be wheeled for emptying, I also threw away a couple of Spanish encyclopaedias that I doubt I am going to read as well as some old memorial material for the Arena de Verona, dating back about 40 years which I certainly do not need now. Later in the afternoon, I restored some of the photographs to their place on our shelves and phoned up to try to dispose of some of the NHS equipment which is littering up our dining room. Despite getting through before closing time, they had closed their phone lines down so I must try again in the morning. Our son is due to call around in the morning and between us, we can rehang the curtain pole and put some other things to rights. The electrician is also due to call around tomorrow morning to replace the light fittings he took down so the decorators could do their work. Once I have got our dining room well and truly decluttered and turned around, it will give me a lot of incentive to start on other rooms within the house so that my new de-cluttering zeal will not diminish. Normally, of course, moving house is a good time to de-clutter but we have now occupied this house for 17½ years (the longest Meg and I have every lived anywhere) and when one moves house, this is normally the time to throw a lot of stuff away.

I have been reflecting upon the recent conviction of Marie Le Pen for embezzlement of EU funds as well as the report that Donald Trump is actively contemplating running for a (completely illegal) third term. In particular, the attitude towards law and the legal system is deeply ambiguous. Whereas these rich and powerful right wingers will actively use the law to defend their own property and interests if any of use were to infringe upon their property rights, they take a completely different attitude to the law when they themselves run foul of it. Trump was convicted in a New York court of false accounting practices and now Marine Le Pen of embezzlement, but when found guilty, thee is an immediate cry of political persecution. The point was made on NewsNight last night that these right wingers are not really the nationalists that they claim to be but part of a worldwide endeavour to support each other and to advance right wing causes. So, or example, other right wing leaders have all rushed to Le Pen’s support each claiming that the law has been used by (in Trump’s phrase ‘radical left’) to use the law to achieve what cannot be achieved in the political sphere. In all of this, when convicted these extreme right wingers will never accept the attribution of ‘criminal’ and any conviction is seen as a purely political and not legal movement against them.

Yesterday afternoon, after I had successfully got some dinner inside Meg, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the issue of my ‘sick’ mower had been preying on my mind, I decided t have a quick look at it myself. Having put it on a small stand, I reasoned to myself that it had started to malfunction when the left side of the mower was cutting under some quite spiky bushes so I thought I would look here first. Here I discovered a sort of ‘V’ shaped rocker switch attached to a wire which controlled air flow though the air filter (and hence to the carbureta) and nothing seemed to be controlling it. So I reasoned that it was probably held in place by a little spring which was now lost after the incursion under the bushes. Holding this in one position and then with another holding the mower control lever, I discovered that this rocker switch did indeed control the engine speed so I improvised a sort of rubber band arrangement to approximately hold the switch in the right position. Actually for little jobs like this, I used a couple of those elastic hair bands that are sold everywhere in cosmetic departments and are dirt cheap but I find them more substantial for repair jobs than perishable elastic bands themselves. I did quick mow up and down to ascertain that my temporary repair was holding which indeed it did and it could be that my temporary repair could prove a better solution than the spring itself which could again detach under similar circumstances. I am not the world’s most natural mechanic bit I did experience a degree of satisfaction in both diagnosing and then fixing the problem, not least because the mower is completely available to me at the start of the rapid growing season. I have always reckoned that if you keep on top of the grass cutting in the months of April-June, then one can afford a somewhat more relaxed attitude to grass mowing in the subsequent months.

Yesterday morning, being a regular Tuesday I wheeled Meg to have coffee with our friends in Wetherspoons. We had experienced not a very good start to the day as one carer waited outside for the other and she was about 20 minutes late. So I started assisting the carer who had turned up and was two thirds of the way through the task when the second helper turned up – consequently, everything took place in a bit of a rush. I was a bit worried that if Meg slumps in her wheelchair, she is in danger of sliding out so I really have to be careful she is in the right position before starting out. But we got down all right and although Meg was a little slumped in her wheelchair, we did get her home without mishap. On the way home, we bumped into out Italian friend who invited us in for a coffee but I could not tarry as I felt under pressure to get Meg home in one piece.The decorators dealt me a bit of a body blow because they now decided they needed to paint behind our big display cabinet and could this be emptied please. But this is a huge unit and is groaning with precious class, crockery, liquor in one of the lower cupboards, books, spare table linen and goodness knows what else. It has not been emptied in the 17 years that we have been idea and the packers probably did it when we moved house anyway. So most of the afternoon was spent putting precious glassware into cardboard boxes and I still have three large drawers and a side cupboard to empty. The unit is so heavy that it will have to be completely empty before the decorators can move it even a few inches. In the midst of all of this, a nurse turned up to give Meg and I our COVID booster jabs which she did very efficiently, breezing in and out in no time.

Today is the day when the various utilities are going to increase their charges and mostly increasing at more than the rate of inflation. At the same time, the non indexation of income tax allowances will, via ‘fiscal drag’, draw many more people into the higher tax bands. The pain will become evident in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, my son has enjoyed the first day of his retirement, having retired from his high pressure job in the NHS (which was probably going to be abolished shortly in any case, but with a fair probability it would have to be reinvented under another guise) He has spent a lot of the day both shredding and throwing away stuff which is surely the way to start off a retirement. Soon, I must get into the Swedish habit of ‘Death Cleaning’. Once you reach the end of middle age (or sooner if you feel like it, or later if you’re late to the exercise), you get rid of all the stuff you have accumulated that you do not need anymore — so that no one else has to do it for you after you pass. That’s according to Margareta Magnusson, author of the new book, ‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Make Your Loved Ones’ Lives Easier and Your On Life More Pleasant’ which is to be released soon.

These days, I always seem glad to be rid of one month and to be entering a new one. So yesterday sees the last day of March and hopefully a bout of some spring-line weather for the first week of April. After my little mishap with the mower yesterday (as when cutting under a low hanging bush a twig or branch had jammed into the engine part) the mower started to run at only half speed and I had to struggle to cut the last bit of our back lawn. I could not see anything evidently wrong but in a week’s time I had better haul it on top of our little garden table we have in the back and see of there is anything can I can fix simply. I always reckon that when things go wrong, it is either a simple fix or a more complicated repair so assuming the worst, I wondered what the cost of a new Stiga mulching mower might be. Mulching mowers are marvellous because you do not have to bother about emptying a grass box – the grass is cut once and thrown upwards and then cut again when it falls back and mulched in the grass. Assuming the worst, I investigated the cost of a brand new mower and found that the price is practically the same as I paid eight years ago, so I can only assume it is now manufactured in China rather than Sweden and hence the fact that the price has been effectively lowered. Now I have never had a petrol mower that lasted as long as 7-8 years old nand I think I have had this mower for eight years so is it worth the cost of a £100 repair or am I best just simply buying a replacement rather than spending the money on something that might break down again? I cannot not have a mower for a week or so if the existing one is to be repaired so I am inclined to think I might have to fork out for a new one. Taking the old mower to be repaired and picking it up again if it can be repaired is now something that is so difficult when I need to be with Meg in this stage of her illness so we will have to see what happens next weekend when I attempt to use the mower again.

The news from the United States is that Trump is finally getting annoyed with Putin and letting that irritation show. But there are indications that J D Vance the Vice-President, who has has such a low opinion of the UK and all things European, may well be on a position to succeed Trump and would probably be able to serve two terms of four yeas so we have about 12 years of ‘Trumpism’ effectively – this is a prospect that must fill our hearts with dread unless the Democrats can come up with a saviour which looks unlikely at the moment.

Yesterday morning seemed to be quite a busy one. For a start, the decorating team showed dup, the plasterers having done their repair on our leak damaged ceiling. There was a certain degree of disruption as it was established that the hall was part of the re-decoration schedule, so the carpets needed a special film protection and then everything movable moved to the centre of the hall. In the midst of all of this, the two care workers turned up but about 20 minutes late. One of them had had a fall down the stairs in her own home during the weekend and was limping badly, having badly sprained a toe. So I needed to help out with some of the hoisting activities, and of course I am always willing to lend a hand. After we had got Meg into her special chair, a couple of plumbers turned up ‘to remove the radiators’ The decorators informed them this was not at all necessary as they reach as far as they needed to (and up to the previous paint line) by just stretching as far as they needed behind the decorator. I spent the morning doing some reading and some other necessary chores like reordering some of Meg’s medication before I started to prepare lunch. In the late morning only one care worker turned up and the other (new to me) girl failed to show and the care worker who came was the one with the injured toe. I had seen a crepe bandage in our upstairs bathroom so I offered this to the care worker and showed her (on my hand) how she needed to bind together her toes in such a way that the sprained one was ‘splinted’ against her other toes. She was going to go home and have her mother do this bit of bandaging but, not for the first time, I have offered first aid to the care workers who call at the house in order that we can all of us keep the show on the road. I was relieved that when it came to eating her lunch, although she was slow (half an hour), Meg managed to get most of the dinner I had prepared for Meg actually inside her because she seemed to be slightly more awake and in touch with the world today.

The amazing international news today is that the far right French leader, Marine le Pen, has been found guilty of embezzlement of EU funds. The National Rally leader was found guilty and barred from running for public office for five years. She receives a four-year jail sentence, with two years suspended, although she is not expected to serve any jail time. But most importantly, she is now disbarred from running in the next Presidential election where she had a narrow lead (although it will not place for another three years) It is interesting that these far right parties are not averse to getting and then mis-spending EU funding. The then Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, an MEP for 20 years, was docked half his MEP pay after parliament administrators concluded he had misspent EU funds intended to staff his office. A political group dominated by Ukip – Farage’s former party – was asked to repay €173,000, after an official report said EU funds had been misspent on national campaigns. No doubt Le Pen will appeal and there is always the possibility that the sentence may be reduced on appeal. But if the sentence is reduced to three years rather than five, this might still enough to disbar her from being a candidate in the Presidential elections. No doubt National Rally will cry ‘foul’ but if the judges had taken Le Pen’s possible candidature into consideration, they would have been applying different standards to the politically powerful which would hardly be equality before the law.

Yesterday was the day when we move onto British Summer Time and we face the prospect both of having an hour less in our beds and also the ritual of changing the various timepieces in the house. Some of these adjust themselves automatically but for the rest there is a bit of a scramble around first thing in what is always a Sunday morning. However this year when I happened to be up in the middle of the night, I adjusted all pf the important clocks in the kitchen and also, whilst I was at it, in our Music Lounge so the job was half done by the time I eventually got up. In the morning, I did what many people must have done by waking up to the alarm, switching it off and the immediately fell back to sleep again for three quarters of an hour. I had gone to bed prompt quite promptly the night before knowing that I was to have an hour less in bed but also because of having a round trip of 2½.miles whilst I push Meg to visit friends for a coffee in the centre of town but also because I had dashed around with lawn cutting in the afternoon. But I do not feel too bad this morning so the time spent in a warm bed (I do enjoy the luxury of an electric blanket) had evidently been beneficial. There is still some debate whether we should be actually be bothering with changing the clocks at all if we were to adopt British Standard Time rather than British Summer Time. As it stands, if now is darker in the mornings but we have more light in the evenings. But restoring permanent Standard Time would align our body clocks more closely to natural daylight patterns. Sunrises would occur earlier, particularly in the winter months, providing us with the critical morning light that we need to regulate our circadian rhythms. The EU did try in 2019 to adopt a new uniform standard time but, of course, the legislation failed in the UK and the proposal came to nothing. But I have a feeling that the country would now accept a permanent time zone for the UK. Studies suggest that road accidents, especially those involving pedestrians, tend to decrease in the fortnight following the start of British Summer Time (BST) due to increased hours of daylight. What research shows is what a massive effect on the body and mind, just one extra hour [of sleep] can have. One study cited by the American Heart Foundation found there was a 24% increase in heart attacks on the day following the switch to daylight saving time – however the opposite effect has been identified in autumn, when the clocks go back. In the meantime, I am getting into my Sunday morning routine – when Meg was in a better state of health, I used to leave her in bed whilst I walked down to the newsagent to pick up my copy of the ‘Sunday Times’ but those times have gone nowadays, not least because the Asian shopkeeper who ran the newspaper shop died and the shop passed into new ownership which did not continue the newspaper side of the business. But I used to value these very early morning walks, the only other souls inhabiting the streets at that time being dog walkers and joggers in variety. I now get my newspapers exclusively from Waitrose and they have a Sunday opening hour of 10.00am.

I hear from the religious programmes broadcast on Radio 4 to which I was passively listening whilst getting washed and dressed this morning, I learn that we are now in the period of the festival of Eid which marks the end of the Muslim period of fasting or Ramadan. Two of the Asian care workers, one male and one female, although not being religious nonetheless are about to celebrate the festival of Eid with their families and friends. Eid is a time for the giving and receiving of presents, for special foods to mark the end of a period of fasting and general periods of socialisation with family and friends. So, the young female care worker who called around today in the middle of the day to attend to Meg was looking forward to the rest of the day when she was going to socialise with family and close friends. From what I can tell, Eid does not have a parallel theological significance compared with the birth of Christ (Christmas) or the death and resurrection of Christ (Easter) but in the Northern hemisphere certainly takes on the air of a spring festival. I should have asked either of the care workers to bring me some of their special foodstuffs (the Muslim equivalent of Christmas cake/Stollen) but I did not think about this in time to ask me but it is always possible that they have some left over. Yesterday being a Sunday, I was particularly pleased to have a visit paid to us by our University of Birmingham friend and, of course, I discuss with him the likely course of Meg’s illness over the foreseeable future as well as the non-appearance of Miggles. Being a beautiful afternoon, the cutting of the rear lawns beckons and this only takes one half of the time of cutting the grass in the front. But the mower started to malfunction when I was nearly finished by suddenly running at half speed – I hope this does not indicate it is on its way out which would be a major disaster if this proved to be the case.

An example of the cack-handedness of the Metropolitan police was revealed today. A police raid on a Quaker meeting house to arrest six women attending a protest meeting has been criticised as ‘ridiculously heavy-handed’. The women were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, according to the Metropolitan Police, after attending an introductory meeting to Youth Demand. Quakers in Britain has condemned the arrests and although it is not associated with Youth Demand, the religious group has a long history of non-violent protest. One Quaker was so incensed by the police tactics that he pointedly did not offer any officers a cup of tea, in a very British protest. ‘They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first. This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest. No one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory,’ said Paul Parker, recording clerk for the religious organisation.

Another fine day is in prospect although it is going to start off pretty cold and then to warm up rapidly. In the afternoon the day before, a doctor had called around to see Meg primarily at the instigation of the District Nurse who had called round to see Meg and instantly emailed the doctor. The doctor’s visit coincided with that of the carers so suddenly we seemed to have a house full of people, particularly as a technical person called around to verify that the hoist that is used to get Meg into and out of bed is working satisfactorily and is certified to that effect. The doctor took a blood pressure reading (practically normal, oxygen levels and listened to her chest ) and although Meg was asleep just told me to carry on with no change in pain relief medication for which I had hoped.) Earlier in the day, I had a fairly long chat on the phone with my sister who is in a residential home in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. Without building up her hopes too much, I informed her that I was hoping that the care agency could organise two whole days of respite care for me, one of which I would utilise by going to see my sister. This would obviously entail being out of the house for about 12 hours (7.00am to 7.00pm) and we would have to have a carer in attendance the whole time to care for Meg in my absence. But no plans can be made until the relevant social worker has consulted with their manager and then a decision made over the funding arrangements – thus was it ever so, I tell myself. I am then mentally reviewing the week ahead which will start with the clocks going forward on Sunday morning, Monday is the last day of the month and is the last day of employment for my son who has worked at a high level in the NHS and has planned his early-ish retirement for some time now that the adjustment to his pension has been largely ameliorated by what is known as the McCloud judgement) Although Monday is my son’s working day in employment, there is still some tidying up to done and, not least, his old NHS laptop has to be cleaned up and handed back. Then as the week unfolds, we have the start of a new month (and financial year) so various calculations will have to be done and no doubt plans adjusted. There is also the draw for the Premium Bonds to which to look forward and this may bring either disappointment or a little joy. As the weather may well improve a little, the possibility arises that I might be able to push Meg outside to enjoy an hour or so of sunshine in the garden, but I would need to do some minimal tidying up in the garden before I contemplated such a step. At the very least, the moss needs sweeping off the patio at the back of the house and, possibly, some lawn edging done to make the lawn area look a little more tidy.

I managed to walk Meg down into town this morning, although I think she was probably asleep or dozing throughout the journey. The weather was delightfully sunny with all of the trees putting on their spring foliage but the air temperature was a little on the fresh side. We met up with our two friends as we had hoped to do and whilst I was getting our coffee from the machine, had a few words with ‘Seasoned World Traveller’ from our Sanders Park/COVID sojourns and I gave him a quick update on Meg’s progress. On our way back up the hill, I was joined for the very last bit of the journey by the wife of our Irish friends and she told me that her husband was doing well after a pacemaker had been fitted to him. Now all he has to do is to look forward to a further operation and he is ten years younger than I am. I did not manage to get much lunch into Meg but ‘made do’ with a little chocolate mousse which I knew that she enjoys and managed to ingest with no difficulty. Then, although I was tired, I decided to cut the front grassed area and did a cut one way before a cup of tea. I was half way through the second cut when the carers turned up (this tea time call was scheduled earlier than usual) but I let the carers carry on whilst it took me another 10 mines to get the lawn finished and the mower cleaned up and put away.

The earthquake in Myanmar is proving to very severe as it was a magnitude of 7.7 and only 10km down which is nothing in geological terms. The impact in the aftermath of this earthquake is likely to be severe. Trump’s decision to shut down the US Agency for International Development was already reported to have decimated US aid operations in Myanmar. Its global impact is hard to overstate. American aid had provided 40% of developmental aid worldwide. Yesterday, Trump promised Myanmar aid for the earthquake. In reality, his administration has fired most of the people most experienced at organising that help and shut down the means to provide it. So it may be possible to quantify the cost of Trump’s new policy in terms pf lives lost/not saved. I have a feeling that this will not cut much ice with the majority of the American public but as the months roll by, I suspect that we will have many desperate cries of distress as American welfare payments are cancelled. Already there are ‘town hall’ meetings where members of the electorate meet with their elected representatives and many Republicans ‘on the ground’ are being forced to defend face-to-face the fairly brutal new welfare regime that the Trump era has initiated. The liberal news channels are filming these town hall events wherever they occur but I think the backlash against the Trump regime can only gather pace as hardships intensify. I foresee a wave of suicides as well but of course the Trump regime will brush these aside.

I witnessed a particularly nasty American woman Republican – an avid Trump supporter naturally – about the recent leak of probably classified military information by some of the leading lights of the American administration. The reporter from Sky News was told that the Republican ‘did not care a crap about the UK’ and was, in effect, told to go home and sort out the UK’s problems. Now it is quite rare to see such viciousness shown to a reporter asking quite legitimate questions but, nonetheless, shocking when you see it happening. The modern Republican party in the USA are so in thrall to Donald Trump that not even a whimper of dissent against his policies is heard. Some of the liberal commentators from CNN and MSNBC are indicating that there is a great of opposition to Trump, but nobody dare put their head above the parapet and say so. Meanwhile, Donald Trump himself has snarled that ‘I believe that CNN and MSNBC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party, and in my opinion, they are really corrupt, and they are illegal. What they do is illegal’ during his remarks at the Justice Department. Incidentally, I heard an interesting discussion the other day wondering whether Donald Trump had any idea what was mean by the term ‘illegal’. There are already several injunctions to prevent the illegal deportation of some Venezuelan refugees but the law just seems to be like a troublesome fly to be swatted aside and ignored rather than to be obeyed. The phrase consistently comes to mind, very much in the minds of the framers of the American constitutiion in the American Declaration of Independence that they are seeking to establish a framework of a ‘a government of laws not of men’. This phrase is often associated with John Adams, a remarkable political philosopher, who served as the second President of the United States (1797-1801), after serving as the first Vice President under President George Washington. Adam’s writings are particularly relevant today as he was particularly troubled by unbridled wealth. Shocked by the greed and self-interest he saw during the Revolution, Adams was convinced that the wealthy new American aristocracy—based upon commerce and speculation, rather than land—had to be tamed. And it was John Adams who helped to advance the concepts of the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government and the necessity for ‘checks and balances’ One can only imagine what Adams would make of the present state of play in the American political scene and perhaps, in a few years time, we will all come to realise what a terrible aberration we are currently experiencing. It is quite possible, of course, that America ceases to be a democratic society and becomes a kind of ‘pseudo-democracy’ using as a kind of model the systems of governance that Putin enjoys in modern day Russia. There is in modern day America no middle ground between the current Republican party and the Democrats which makes any sensible legislation required in any modern democratic state to be successfully negotiated through the Congress.

Without wishing to sound too maudlin, I have been undertaking some researches that help explain the sudden disappearance of ‘Miggles’ the cat who had adopted us. I find from the internet that the average life of a cat is some 14-15 years but ‘outside’ cats are subject to much more risk of trauma, disease and injury and their life span is about half that of ‘indoor’ cats. Now Miggles was very definitely an outdoor cat being outside from the first thing in the morning until late at night and I have known the animal for some 7-8 years, feeding it titbits night and morning so it is possible that the cat has only lived the normal lifespan of an outdoor cat. A second hypothesis is that the owners have just moved away taking the cat with them. The fact that the cat’s last appearance was a Friday and practically at the end of the month may lend support to the fact that the owner(s) have moved. Again, the cat and its owners has been ‘homed’ at the same address for 7-8 years and, statistically, it is not improbable that the owners have moved (or split up) and the cat has moved with them. Of these two hypotheses , I feel inclined towards the latter and if it is the case trust that the animal is happy in its new location. I suppose I have to tell myself that Miggles walked into my life some 7-8 years ago, provided much pleasure to myself and the other visitors (principally carers) to the house and has now moved out of my life and I need to be philosophical about this.

The doctor called me on the phone and I shall expect a visit from her this afternoon where we can discuss pain relief and other strategies to make Meg’s life more comfortable. She made a visit in person in the early afternoon and Meg’s oxygen levels, blood pressure and heart all seemed to be fine so the doctor left after telling me to carry on with the good work. I have received some reassuring news from the care agency that they will care for Meg ‘as long as it takes’ and for this I am relieved, as I would not want Meg to pass from one group of hands who know her well and care for her to another group who, however expert in their own way have not developed the relationship over time with Meg and myself. Meg is now asleep for much of the day (which presents its own challenges in terms of keeping her fed and hydrated) but in some ways is making life a tad easier. On a beautiful day like today, one’s thoughts almost inevitably turn to what needs to be done in the garden, but I have to say that apart from regular lawn mowing and a ‘one-off’ blitz in the autumn, this has been somewhat neglected over the past few months. We are approaching the weekend when the clocks go forward, and we all lose an hour of sleep but gain from longer and lighter evenings. Whilst some appliances such as computers adjust themselves automatically, I seem to have a lot of clocks and watches around the house that will need readjustments on Sunday morning.

We woke yesterday morning to a temperature of 5° but one which was promised to rise to 16° so a fine day is on prospect. We are still analysing the fallout from yesterday’s Spring Statement (mini Budget) and one or two things have emerged. The first is that Rachel Reeves is determined to stick to her financial rules, the principal one being that current expenditure is to come out of taxation and should not be financed by borrowing which, in turn, should be used only for investment. The second is that the already disadvantaged will bear the brunt of the nearly £5bn of savings. Cuts to welfare will mean 250,000 more people – including 50,000 children – will be pushed into poverty by 2030, the government’s assessment predicts. Separately, 800,000 people will not receive the daily living component personal independence payment (Pip) – due to tightening eligibility rules. It is almost inconceivable that a Labour government is pushing so many of the population into poverty but the actions of the Chancellor has all of the hallmarks of an ‘Austerity Mark II’ looking like the actions that a Tory government would make and there may be massive rebellions on the Labour back benches when any votes on the statement come to be taken.

I have just been saved from a huge iPhone ‘scam’ which I avoided. I got a text, apparently from my son, who started off by saying ‘Hi Dad’ and then continued to explain that he had just acquired a new SIM card for his phone, having changed suppliers and could I note the new number. Later on the day, I was to do my ‘son’ a favour by transferring quite a large sum of money (£1640) later on that day which I thought seemed a bit fishy and which I declined to do until I had spoken with my son. There was no reply but I knew he was travelling to London that day so there may have been communication difficulties whilst on a train. To cut a long story short, I smelt a rat and did not comply with the request to send the money although I admit I was on the point of doing so. When checking with my son in person, I now know that this was an evident scam, and I am glad that did not fall for it but it just shows how clever the scammers are and how easy it is to fall for such a hoax.

Today has been rather a strange day because we knew that some decorators were due to call round to repair our leak-damaged ceiling in our dining room. The first crew to arrive were plasterers and they busied themselves putting down some protective film in the hallway so that our carpets could be kept clean. Then they are going to proceed by cutting out the damaged section of plasterboard and then to feather in its replacement. There was a team of two principal workers assisted by two lads and they seemed to trail in and out quite a lot, at one stage having to go off to get some supplies. It is always a little unnerving when strangers are popping in and out of your house whilst you are trying to keep out of their way. At one stage, they needed to know what was the shade of the paint on the existing walls so that they could effect a repair with the same shade. We always keep half-used tins of paint and I am pretty certain that I manage to locate the correct tin (of a shade called ‘Buttermilk’) so that they can obtain the correct matching supplies. Having arrived at about 8.00am this morning, the crew logged off at about 3.00pm explaining that they could no further work until the repairs they had effected to date could be dried out, at which stage they would hand over to the decorators. This particular form, appointed by the building society, seem to be used to be working on large jobs (e.g. after a major fire in a house) so this seemed quite a small job to them but I did get the impression as the insurance company were paying that they were spinning out the job for all it was worth. But the firm as a while seems pretty professional and having paid over quite hefty excess premium, the rest of the bill rests with the insurance company.

Now I have to report some rather sad news. Our adopted cat, Miggles, who we are in the habit if feeding at least once a day if not twice a day and who runs to sit outside out front door whenever she spots the red uniforms of the care workers, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The last time I saw the cat was last Friday when he/she assisted me in flattening down the molehills on our front grassy area. Now that it is six days since the cat has been seen, I absolutely fear the worst and wonder if the animal has had a tragic accident or had to put to sleep by the owners. It is true to say that it not our cat but over the past six or seven years, quite a strong bond has grown between us and I am trying not to be desperately upset by the loss. I texted our domestic help who will understand these feelings as she fairly recently had to bid adieu to her aged and sick Jack Russell and I know she was devastated by the loss. Full of optimism, she thought the cat would return but despite the occasional absence of a day or so, the cat has never been absent for so long so I am having to reconcile myself to the thought that Miggles is no more.

Donald Trump is declaring that April 2nd (not April 1st which is ‘All Fools Day’) is to be declared ‘Liberation Day’ when 25% tariffs are to be applied to all cars imported in to the USA . The tariff could have a huge impact on the UK’s car industry, including manufacturers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce. Official data shows that the US is the UK car sector’s largest single market by country, accounting for £6.4bn worth of car exports in 2023 – 18.4% of the total. The UK government has signalled it would not retaliate with a reciprocal tariff – despite pleas from British manufacturers to avoid the tariffs probably hoping that as there is an approximate equality in the trading relationships of the UK and the USA, that the UK might be spared some of these tariffs – but I am not holding my breath.

This morning, Sky News is reporting a most extraordinary security breach by top American officials in the Trump regime. Donald Trump has been urged to fire US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth following the leak of highly sensitive war plans – as national security adviser Mike Waltz said he took ‘full responsibility’ for organising the group chat. The conversation on the messaging app Signal between US officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Mr Hegseth, was leaked to American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was added to the chat in error. They discussed plans to conduct airstrikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, which took place on 15 March. These officials should have been using the specialist and approved security systems for their group discussions but instead were using the popular ‘WhatsApp’ app which is considerably less secure. All of this displays both a cavalier attitude as well as the inexperience of personnel not used to the ways of government. When challenged, they have chosen to attack the journalist who was mistakenly invited to join the group and who seems to have acted with the utmost integrity in not revealing military secrets. They are also denying that any classified material was leaked but which appears, on the face of it, to be an outright lie because plans by the military to bomb a rebel group must surely be classified information. The Democrats are making the most of this incident as well as they should because not a single Republican politician has condemned this crass error whereas, in any normal political world, heads would roll. Meanwhile, our government is in trouble of a different kind. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has had her plans to save £5bn of the welfare budget has had her plans thrown into disarray as the OBR (Office of Budget Responsibility) who have stated that her plans will save £3.4bn and not £5bn leaving a gap of some £1.6bn still to be found. So, in advance of the Spring statement, Reeves is announcing further welfare cuts which again are falling disproportionately upon the poor and the sick. It is no wonder that Labour MPs are deeply unhappy as all of these cuts are not what they came into politics to do and seen to be the epitome of Tory policies. There are also hints that eventually some tax rises are being contemplated which is a sign of desperation rather than anything else – after a week or so of speculation, the full statement will be made to the House of Commons and no doubt, be subject to a torrent of adverse media comment.

We have now received news that a plasterer will call around on Thursday morning to repair the hole in our dining room ceiling that was hacked out by the emergency plumber to locate the leak we experienced over a month ago. So, our repairs are gradually being put into place, and I am hopeful that they can be completed before Easter. The care agency has re-timed some of their visits starting at 8.30am rather than 8.00am in the morning which actually gives me a little more leeway to get some of my routine household chores completed before they arrive. Our domestic help had called the day before and, having breakfasted, I popped quickly down the hill in the car to pick up our daily newspaper. Soon after I returned, the district nurse called around to assess the condition of the ‘Deep Tissue Injury’ on Meg’s heel. She was satisfied that nothing needed doing at this stage but was very helpful in other ways. I managed to have a frank discussion with her on how we were to care for Meg in the foreseeable future, given that Meg now seems to be asleep for most of the time. Having explained how difficult it was to get food and drink inside Meg at the moment, the district nurse gave me a supply of three syringes so that I could get small amounts of fluid into Meg’s mouth when this was needed. She said that she was going to email the doctor and request a home visit so that a doctor could take decisions, in the light of Meg’s condition, as to the most suitable forms of medication and thought that the time might be ripe for the application of slow release pain relief medication to assist when the carers have to handle Meg during the day and when movement of her knees can be painful for her. The district nurse was very supportive and I was very pleased to see her.

The day started off a little gloomy but in the late morning, the sun has started to break through, making for a sunnier day. The major event today was the Chancellor’s Spring Financial Statement in a speech described by commentators as ‘punchy’ but which seemed to be replete with an optimism that seemed to me to be clutching at straws. There was hardly a specific mention in the statement of additional cuts to welfare recipients and even the claim, which seemed to be extraordinary, that the average family has benefitted from a Labour government to the tune of £500 a month. Meanwhile, the Joseph Rowntree foundation reveals that a single person losing PIP and the Universal Credit health element could lose £818 per month but defence spending would be increased by £2.2bn – much of this being spent on armaments that would assist those parts of the economy engaged in supplying the Ministry of Defence. The OBR has downgraded the growth forecasts for next year but increased it somewhat for later years. There was hardly any recognition of the enormous swathe of price increases that would befall us from next month onwards and I imagine that an enormous disconnect between the relatively optimistic, if not exactly rosy, picture painted by the Chancellor and the very real hardships that families will experience across the land. Much of the optimism expressed by the Chancellor relies upon the assumption that planning restrictions will be eased and a massive housebuilding programme of 1.3 million homes provide the much-needed stimulus to the economy. But we know that there are all kinds of skill shortages in the building and construction trades and a major problem in our society is the fact that builders having acquired land will not start to build until they judge that they can do so at a time that maximises their profits. At the very end of the day, we still a big curb on some welfare recipients and a dose of optimism which I suspect is quite a lot of whistling in the dark.

It seems unbelievable to us but Donald Trump seems to be serious about his desire to acquire both Greenland and Canada to make for a ‘greater’ United States. In the case of Greenland, there are vast mineral and rare earth resources that America would really like to acquire, and they have had eyes on Greenland before. It is not likely that Denmark will release Greenland but the Trump regime is about to impose tariffs upon Denmark to attempt to force the issue and it is not out of the bounds of possibility that he might succeed. But the desire to take over Canada and to make it the 51st state of the USA appears to be pure moonshine, and the Canadians will resist for all they are worth. Mark Carney who was the governor of the Bank of England has just taken over the premiership and has called an election in Canada in which its independence is a major election issue. Were they to join the USA, they would probably be a Democrat controlled state with a large number of electoral college votes, not to mention the Senate, so the Republicans would lose power for a generation or more. But this is not going to happen and as in the case of Greenland is a pure case of bully boy tactics.

When I last pushed Meg out in her wheelchair, something seemed a little different about our environment as I pushed Meg towards the main road. Then I realised that the local authority had cut back a magnificent 2.5 metre hedge in the road which we use to access the main Kidderminster Road to a height of about 1 metre or less. Why this hedge which has been at the 2.5 metre height for about the last 20 years and probably way before that should suddenly require such radical surgery is a mystery to me and I wonder what impact it will have on the local bird population. The fact it has been done in late March rather than in April makes me wonder whether it has been done now so as not to run foul of any legislation, but it always distresses me when quite well-established hedges are ripped out or cut back in this way. In the large new housing estate which is being built down the road, a perfectly well established hedge was ripped down by the builders and replaced by a rather inadequate looking fence by the builders and I am sure that the occupants of the new houses would have preferred a hedge to border their properties rather than a fence. As we know from our own experience when a small orchard adjacent to our property was cut down before seventeen houses occupied the plot, it only takes couple of cowboys and a chainsaw to wield all kind of destruction and by the time one is driven to protest or to stop such an act of vandalism the act has been done. In the case of the adjacent orchard, at the time I urgently requested that the local authority Tree Officer call around to give a view on the felling activities but by the time he got round to it in a day or so, the act had already been performed. If the apple orchard adjacent to our house had been in rural Worcestershire, it would have received an automatic protection, but this policy did not apply to Bromsgrove as we found to our detriment. But as I am basking in the fact that I have got my first grass cutting of the season under my belt, I notice that the local authority had performed their very first cut of the season on the local verges so they, too, must have the last week of March in their calendar as the date upon which to re-commence their regular mowing activities. Having said that, I have always had a policy of not keeping my grass too short as we could still have late frosts in April. I did discover that I had some grass seed already in stock so as soon as the weather is propitious (by which I mean sunny but with the prospect of rain in an hour or so) then will go and re-seed the areas left bare by the mole which has rampantly made its progress across the whole of our grassed area to the front of the house.

Yesterday turned out to be quite a busy morning. Meg and I journeyed down the hill and met up with our two regular friends in Wetherspoons where we were especially pleased to see our 90 year old chorister who had made it to our rendez-vous this morning. Our domestic help had come around today as on her usual day tomorrow she was having to supervise the fitting of a new garden fence and we always have a lot of domestic type news to share with each other. As soon as we had returned, I received a text inviting Meg and I to receive a spring anti-COVID injection and despite joining a queue of 17 requested that Meg and I be added to the list when the District nurses administer the vaccine as it is not feasible for Meg and I to attend the surgery. The care worker arrived for the ‘sit’ session and we were soon interrupted by an electrician who was detailed to come round at short notice to isolate the electrical fittings in the ceiling the dining room before the plasterers arrive next Thursday to start the repair following the leak we had a few weeks ago, Then two care workers turned up for Meg’s late morning call so for a few minutes bodies seemed to be everywhere. By the time all of the care workers and the electrician had left it was past 2.00pm and I did not feel like starting to cook our normal lunch of a risotto at that point. So I made a type of ‘quickie’ lunch which was tin of tuna, enhanced with some good dollops of salad cream, butter and Thousand Island dressing and then served on a slice of toast. This as it turned out was sufficient lunch for Meg and myself. In addition to all of this, I took delivery of another oil-filled radiator which I decided to buy to complement the one I bought some weeks ago and with which I am delighted. The circumstances of this latest purchase are rather unusual because I was turning over in my mind whether 2.0kw rather than a 2.5kw heater would serve my needs as it was only two thirds of the price. I needed to go into our bedroom and looked in a bedroom drawer in which Meg and I stored some purses and when I looked inside one of them there were a number of £1 coins (which is scarcely unusual) but also a folded up £20 note in a small compartment in the purse that I had completely forgotten about. Spookily enough, what I found in the purse was almost exactly the cost (to the nearest 10p) of the oil heater I was contemplating a purchase so reckoning that I could buy this for effectively nothing having just discovered the contents of the purse in the bedroom. This heater arrived today and I needed to assemble some casters on it and bring it into use. As the previous heater I had purchased had three heat settings but I had only ever used on the ‘middle’ setting of 1.5kw then I reckoned that this new ater rated 2.0kw should prove to be more than adequate, particularly now that the worst of the winter has passed us by.

As the new week gets underway, I am sure that we are all bracing ourselves for what the Chancellor holds in store for us next Wednesday when she delivers her ‘Financial Statement’ immediately after Prime Ministers Questions. There is bound to be quite an in-depth examination of how much investment is required to maintain our national infrastructure as the fire at the electricity sub-station that knocked out Heathrow last week revealed. I read this morning that the bosses of the National Grid and Heathrow are in a mutual blame game with the boss of the former claiming that Heathrow could have carried out functioning with the assistance of two other sub stations. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular argument is almost immaterial as whatever enemies the UK has must be rubbing their eyes in wonder at how easy it would be to bring the UK to its knees. After all, a well thrown bomb could have started the fire at the sub station with the most enormous consequences. Although we are supposed to have plans to protect our national infrastructure, one does have to wonder whether these have been hollowed out in the past decade or so of first austerity and then post austerity. The omens are not good as I also read the views of an expert that as a society we have not learnt the lessons of COVID and it seems a racing certainty that another pandemic could be on its way within our lifetimes. There is also a lot of speculation this morning that the education budget, once regarded as sacrosanct, may well be the target of future cuts with free school meals in the firing line. The current Labour government seems to be on a kamikaze course at the moment because cuts to the education budget are now being envisaged and this impacts directly, of course, upon both parents and children. With the price rises that are soon to be upon us, I can empathise with the argument that further general rises in taxation may not be capable of being levied upon the population, but I am sure that there must be other imaginative ways to raise money through taxation. Top of my list would be a ‘parcels’ tax as personally I receive a lot of parcels through the post that are ‘free’ but actually paid for with a Prime subscription. Yet a quick search shows that approximately 4 billion parcels are delivered in the UK each year so a levy of £1 per parcel would raise £4bn for a start if it could be organised. There is also a lot of public support for extra taxes on betting and gaming. Apparently, over half of Britons (52%) believe the government should increase tax on online gambling. When asked to rank which taxes should be raised by the government, three-quarters of people said that gambling duty was their priority, above income tax, VAT, inheritance tax, and duties on fuel, alcohol, and tobacco. So, doubling the rate of tax from about 21% to 42% would raise another £1bn. And we have not even stated to talk about a ‘sugar’ tax and taxes on other commodities that kill us. In fact, when asked the population nearly always state they would prefer extra taxation rather than a cut in services but, of course, this brings electoral unpopularity at the same time.

It turned out to be a beautiful and bright spring day, just as the weather forecasters had predicted so I thought when I could seize the moment I would start to mow the lawns at the back of the house which is only half the work of the grassed area in the front. The mower started on its first pull and seemed to be making short work but without much impact on the length of the cut grass. So, I promptly raised the wheel control to position 4 on the 1-5 available and this proved to be a smart move because now the mower seemed to have a lot more impact, but the engine did not ‘baulk’ which is what happens if the grass is too thick for it. I got the whole of the back lawn done in about 20 minutes and cleaned up the mower and got back inside the house and all before Meg’s carers arrived for her mid-day call. As last year’s petrol, laced as it is with fuel stabiliser, seems to be behaving itself. I shall wait until the can is near empty before I refill it but I feel the most immediate priority is to buy some grass seed so that I can start to reseed the many flattened molehills that my furry friend has left me for a legacy. I am trying not to get too upset about these molehills but they have made a mess of the front lawn but fortunately it is the time of year when grass grows rapidly.

Bird flu (or avian flu as it is more correctly known) is rearing its ugly head across the country. Strains of the virus have been reported in poultry and wild birds across the country, as well as a confirmed case in a single sheep in Yorkshire, more than a dozen in grey seals in Norfolk, and one in a fox in Scotland. One person working on a farm in the West Midlands also tested positive. Although there has only been one human case, the government has ordered five million doses of a bird flu vaccine to prevent further spread between humans. Human-to-human transmission has not happened in the UK or Europe since bird flu first emerged in 1997, but experts warn each infection increases the risk of the virus adapting to human hosts – and causing a pandemic.

Last night, after Meg was safely in bed and asleep, I started to watch the Mary Beard series of programmes – ‘Meet the Romans’ The first of the series was fascinating if only to explore the Roman utilisation of slaves. It is true that the Romans subjugated many of the peoples that they conquered and brought them back to Rome as slaves. In fact, the numbers of slaves far exceeded the numbers of citizens, but many eventually did acquire their freedom. There were many different types of slaves, and they could be found in every walk of life in ancient Rome. Domestic slaves were perhaps the most common. Some were educated or highly skilled and, therefore, much sought after. Tutors for children, specialist cooks, and even hairdressers could command high prices. The success of urban life depended on an army of slaves. Many worked in civic positions in public libraries and baths and also in government administration jobs, often alongside freeborn plebeians. At the other end of the spectrum were prostitutes who worked under the watchful eye of violent brothel-keepers. Many slaves were subjected to lives of manual labour. Some helped to run the rural estates of wealthy landowners, while others endured the horrific world of the mines, often digging for precious gold and silver. Here, the incredibly harsh conditions meant that life expectancy could be as low as a few months. But when examines the tombstones that documents the lives of Roman citizens, many had started their lives as slaves and had come from the far-flung parts of the Roman empire. Once they had acquired citizenship, the principal source of social identity, as we know from tombstones, was the occupation that they came to profess.