After I went to bed last night, relatively early, I woke up and decided I would treat myself to a cup of tea and a watch of Sky News. The latter was devoted to Donald Trump engaging in a long and vicious rant on the successes he had achieved after his first 100 days in office. His address to the party faithful was as usual full of invective and bile from which we learned that all illegal immigrants into the US were guilty of drug trafficking and the rape of (obviously) white American women which is why they were being deported despite court orders to the contrary. Then I must have fallen asleep and had the most terrible nightmare in which I was lost in a strange American city in which I had no map and nobody would help me. At every street corner and in all of the shops there were voices that appeared to be multiple Donald Trumps and wandering around this city seemingly for ever, I could not escape. I then woke up and it was one of those occasions when one realised it was all just a bad dream and none of it was actually happening. Evidently the rants of Trump on the TV were inserting themselves into my nightmare which why I dreamed that the whole city seemed to be filled with Donald Trump clones. But I read the following on Sky News this morning that Donald Trump on the campaign trail denied all knowledge of Project 2025, a right-wing plan to tear down swathes of the US government. Written by a prominent conservative think-tank, Project 2025 is a plan to fundamentally reshape America. Its 900 pages set out how a president should expand their power by gutting the federal workforce while abolishing the department of education. For some it represents an anti-woke ‘wish list’. For others it is a fundamental threat to American democracy. A copy of Project 2025 held up during the Democratic National Convention last year. The document got a lot of attention during last year’s election, leading to Trump disavowing its contents and saying it had nothing to do with his campaign. But now – 100 days into his second presidency – we see how much of what has occurred since he returned to the White House looks like the Project 2025 blueprint. The architect of the plan, lawyer and political activist Paul Dans said what Mr Trump has achieved in office is ‘beyond my wildest dreams’. The lessons of history teach us that Hitler came to power using the organs of democracy and then promptly removed any democratic sources of opposition to himself as he created the Nazi party. There is quite a degree of debate out there on the web as to whether comparisons between Hitler and Trump are fair comment or whether this analysis misses the point. Trump’s meandering style of address means that observers are constantly wondering whether to take him seriously or whether we are just seeing a series of rants that will blow themselves out. But what is incontestable is that Trump has issued so many executive orders that a liberal opposition to them does not know where to start, particularly as court orders are regularly ignored and American citizens deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador where they may spend the rest of their lives and probably die.

Yesterday being a Wednesday morning, it was the day in which our domestic help calls around and we also expect a visit from a duo of District Nurses to see Meg. I gave our domestic help a nice surprise by showing her our newly ‘turned around’ study that she had not seen looking as neat and tidy for about the last ten years. Needless to say, I have an enormous motivation to keep it that way and she herself was delighted, not least because it is now so much easier to clean. As it was such a beautiful day, our domestic help and I were resolved that Meg should enjoy as much as she could of the fine weather so having been located in her new, ‘good’ and very comfortable wheelchair, we put outside to enjoy the sunshine, not forgetting that Meg probably needed a sunhat so that did not get over hot. I took the opportunity to collect our daily newspaper and also to buy a birthday card for one of my University of Winchester colleagues. When we were employed, which was some 17 years ago now, there were about five of us who all had birthdays in May. So all of those years ago, and I am going back more than 20 years ago, we all had a joint birthday celebratory meal. It made a lot of sense to have it in the middle of May (as two of our birthdays were on successive days in any case) which happened to be very near the date of my own birthday. We called ourselves ‘The Old Fogies’ and the tradition of meeting still limps on but COVID on the one hand and my continued absence looking after Meg on the other has made it increasingly difficult. I know it is remiss of me but the first birthday in our group is on 2nd May and over the years, although I always send a card, it is very often late by a day or so. So yesterday I bought a card from Waitrose which I addressed in the store and then got into a nearby post box from whence it will hopefully be delivered on time. I pointed out in the card that I was trying this year to break the tradition of a lifetime and get a card in the post so that it will arrive on the due date. Upon my return, Meg was still in the sunshine, and I sat outside and had my elevenses with her. Although Meg’s condition varies somewhat from one day to another, she was very unresponsive from the moment when I first work up this morning at about 8.30 just before the carers arrive. The inclination of the two carers were to keep her in bed the whole time which I think would be disastrous as she would be subject to no mental stimulation of any kind such as a concert on YouTube which is a fairly regular fixture in our day (as well as watching the news programmes) The two District Nurses made an appearance in the late morning and after a grumble about the care workers not removing the sling (which happens to be easy but reinserting it is a nightmare) renewed Meg’s dressing and monitored the condition of other pressure points. After they had left, it was a case of back outside until the two care workers arrived for the late morning call. Then Meg was relocated back into her comfortable chair in the Music lounge and I set about preparing the midday meal which was ham, some roast potatoes and fine green beans. Meg had about two thirds of her portion which surprised me somewhat as I had only managed to get about 2-3 spoonful’s of porridge into her this morning. Each Wednesday afternoon, I have to remember to pull the relevant wheelie bills out for emptying which takes place very early each Thursday morning and it was the turn of the green (paper) bin and the brown (garden refuse bin) The green (paper) bin seemed incredibly heavy and it took me all of my time to pull it to the end of our drive. But it contains masses of past papers from the clear-out of the study which explains why it was so incredibly heavy this week.

As we suspected, the Liberal party came out on top in the elections held in Canada on Monday. It is too to soon to say whether the Liberals have gained enough seats to form a majority government but, in any case, the media are dubbing this as the second election won by Trump as it was his intervention, calling for Canada to become the 51st state of the USA, which caused the swing to the Liberals. Last night, as the weather had improved so much and we are undergoing a warm spell, I decided not to bring the electric blanket into use and also dispensed with the use of a hot bottle for my feet. Although it is too early to say, I think I feel a little better for it and perhaps the use of the electric blanket was not doing me any good. Both Meg and I had little medical ‘contretemps’ yesterday putting our Tuesday venture out to see friends in some jeopardy but it is a case of ‘playing it by ear’ and seeing how we both feel after our breakfast this morning. Yesterday afternoon, our son called round and I was mighty pleased to see him as I had been feeling under the weather but he is to call round tomorrow and we will tackle the not onerous task of removing the empty storage boxes from the top of our bookcases. I have similar feelings this morning upon entering the study that I had when I had got our dining room restored to rights i.e. a feeling of relief that all was now neat and tidy and a joy to contemplate. I do have a psychological trait, which some would call a failing, that if I put things away I completely forget about them and leaving them around is a reminder that I have to take some action. But this is not a good enough excuse, actually, and my study now looks like the workmanlike place it is intended to be. Turning out the study has revealed one or two things I had put away in the past and forgotten about. Apart from the large photo I have discovered of Meg and I standing in front of the Lincoln memorial in Washington, my most precious find is the card addressed to Meg and signed by all of the members of the Erasmus linguist’s group in which she appears to have been a really active and much appreciated member in her day. The little electronic clock which displays the current temperature was also another nice find. When we left Hampshire some seventeen and a half years ago, I think we think we filled three skips of stuff that we wished to throw away and, with the exception of some Christmas tree lights which were easily replaced I have not missed anything that was thrown away. But down in Hampshire, the local tip was not too far away from where we lived and although I made frequent trips there, we did rescue from there a cast-iron tree mug and a Lowry print both of which are in use today.

Knowing that I was still somewhat in a recovery mode after feeling unwell yesterday, I had to plan today’s excursion with some care because I thought that the whole 2½ mile trip was probably over-ambitious. So I texted some friends down the road and was delighted that out Italian friend could see us for a few minutes and this had the bonus of only being a third of my normal distance. She was on her way to a funeral in any case and so we chatted for a few pleasant minutes and then Meg and I made for home. As it was such a beautiful day, I parked Meg in the shade of one of our conifers at the front whilst I sat on our garden bench, having made myself some elevenses. So we stayed here until our friendly carer arrived for a Tuesday sit session. I took the opportunity of her looking after Meg whilst I drove quickly down to pick up a newspaper and the carer very kindly folded a basket of clothes straight from the washer for me. To be fair, she is lightening fast at this job and reckons it is child’s play after doing a mountain of washing for her own family. In the days when I used to take Meg out to Droitwich in the car and we visited the Worcestershire Association of Carers, we often picked up some amazing bargains. One of these was a beautiful boxed set of a dozen children’s classics (such as ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Treasure Island’) I bought this hoping that as Meg’s concentration declined with her illness, she would be able to manage the simpler language and shorter length of a Children’s classic. I think many children might encounter these when they are 9-10 years old but in event, the volumes in the boxed set were beyond Meg. But I was delighted when one of the carers indicated that her children would love to read some of these so I gave away the boxed set with a great of alacrity knowing that it would bring a lot of pleasure to younger readers. Even if the books were slightly too advanced, I suggested to the carer that she might store them away in a safe place and release them for example for a birthday or a Christmas present. After the carers departed I started to think about lunch but I was not inclined to cook a hot meal, So I made a salad based on some already de-frosted mackerel, boiled potatoes allowed to cool and served with salad cream, tomato, cheese and some pickled beetroot. I found the meal very enjoyable and managed to get some of it inside Meg as well after a bit of a struggle. Then I had in mind to cut the back lawn which is now 2½ weeks since the last cut and badly showing it. As some of the grass at the edges was so long and lanky, I even adjusted the mower settings to the second highest height but soon realised that this was unnecessary so reverted to my normal ‘middle of the range’ settings. The engine did not baulk (i.e. choke) with this slightly longer grass length and I am now a little more streetwise when I use the mower. In particular I tend to avoid using the left hand side (with the dodgy repair) under low hanging bushes and the slight enhanced engine speed means that even slightly longer grass presents no especial challenges any more.

Yesterday morning, the care workers were scheduled to arrive an hour later than their normal starting time of 8.00am so I gave myself the luxury of an extra half an hour in bed. I did not have a particularly energetic day yesterday but nonetheless, I had completed the tidying of the study and mowed the front lawns so I was pleased with my progress. One does not normally take much notice of elections in Canada but this time around, there is a stunning difference. When Canada goes to the polls, it might be the second election Donald Trump wins in six months. The US president has transformed Canada’s political landscape, and the ‘Trump effect’ looks like it will be the difference between winners and losers. Tariffs, and his threat to annexe the country as the 51st state, have provoked a surge in Canadian nationalism, and it hass made a favourite of the candidate styled anti-Trump. Step forward, Mark Carney: former Governor of the Bank of England, now Canadian Prime Minister. His ruling Liberal party had been written off as an electoral contender. Canadians had turned its back on the party after a decade in power under Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau. The opposition Conservative Party, under the effective leadership of Pierre Poilievre, grew to a 25-point lead in the polls on the promise of change on the economy, crime and a chronic housing crisis. However, his conservative politics are more aligned with the neighbour in the White House and, in Canada right now, it’s not a good look. So it looks as though Mark Carney, actually very well known to us here in England, may sweep to power in the polls. Polls indicate that Canadians see Carney as a stronger choice to negotiate with Donald Trump. He is a veteran of economic turmoil, having dealt with the 2008 financial crisis and Brexit If he wins, and that is looking more and more likely, the swing from Conservative to Liberal will be the biggest swing in the polls in recent democratic history. We have experienced something a little like this in our own political history, though. It is not often appreciated that just before the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher was the most unpopular Prime Minister of all time. Immediately after the victory, she became the most popular of all time and could not resist going to the country and securing a massive majority. There is nothing like an external threat to unite a country which is one reason why right wing leaders often pursue aggressive foreign policies as it diverts attention from domestic strife at home.

I have just completed a series of computing manipulations upon the HTML files that I had listed all of the files in my study (all 125 of them) and I have ended up with a completely alphabetical list which is what I wanted to achieve. The trouble is that each of the original HTML files was tied to a shelf location but that ordering is now lost so now that I have an alphabetical list I do not know where anything is! However, I have thought of a simple solution which is to go back to my unordered list, give each filename a suffix with its location number and then do the (online) sort all over again. This I have managed to do in little bits and pieces throughout the course of the morning and now I am happy to have an alphabetical list of each of my files and where it can be located. In the course of the morning. I have not felt at all well so have tried to have a very easy and stress free morning – so I have avoided doing things like reaching onto high shelves as I know that a lot of stretching up and bending down cannot be good for you as one ages. In the morning, I filled in the customary web form requesting some additional pain relief for Meg and also informing them that I felt rather unwell but there has been a marked lack of response. But the other day when the district nurses called around, they seemed to be exercised that Meg sometimes only had the visit from one carer when two were allocated and I think that ‘reports’ might have been circulated. In the late morning, I got a call from the social services area team and i tried to give them as full and account as I could. I indicated that the level of care provided by the individual care staff was of a high order but it was frustrating to the care agency itself, as well as myself, when care workers phoned in sick and the planned pattern of care was disrupted. I think I may have poured oil over troubled waters but we will have to see how things unfold in the next few weeks. The difficulties arise from the fact that Meg’s needs are gradually intensifying by degrees but the care package remains a constant and therefore a lot depends on the care and attention of each of the individual care workers.

In the public debates today, I learn that the replacement for the Ofsted inspection regime of schools (which contributed to the suicide of a headmistress when her school was downgraded from ‘Outstanding’ to ‘Unsatisfactory’) is subject to a great expression of concern. The current system was previously criticised for reducing school performance into a single-word judgement. It was described by ministers as creating ‘low information for parents and high stakes for schools’. The one-word judgement is set to be removed. But critics say the proposed replacement offers little real change. Report cards and a new grading structure have been suggested. But many argue these measures are only cosmetic and they fail to fix and alleviate the intense pressure schools are under. Among the coalition’s demands is the creation of a robust, independent complaints and appeals process. Currently, any complaints procedure is largely absent, leaving schools with little recourse to challenge potentially damaging inspection outcomes. ‘Trust in the system needs to be restored’ a circulating letter reads. ‘The rushed and closed nature of the consultation has only made that worse.’

After the funeral of the late Pope on Saturday, one would have imagined that a photo of the ex-Pontiff would have been splashed all over the media. It is true to say that the newspapers have fallen over themselves to give extensive and occasionally flattering photos of Pope Francis but another image has captured their attention and is well represented by all of them. Trump and Zelenskyy are pictured in St Peter’s Basilica just before the funeral and this is a simple ‘one man to another’ with no advisers anywhere visible. Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral. The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be ‘historic’ after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday. The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome following the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. Now no one really knows what Trump is thinking and whether he has had a real change of heart but was just taking the opportunity for a bit of political theatre and grandstanding. Now that Trump is back in the USA and surrounded by his own men, then his stance may change again and very probably will. But Trump is anxious to pull off a ‘coup’ to celebrate his first 100 days in office so the rest of the world is looking on anxiously and probably with their hopes falsely raised.

On the domestic front, we are expecting a spell of really fine weather for the next few days so I need to find a way in which Meg and I can learn to appreciate this. The new wheelchair will help in this because she can sit/lie in relative comfort, perhaps at the front of the house to enjoy the morning sunshine. This week brings with it not only the prospect of 1st May but also a planned power outage when the electricity supply company will turn the electricity off for three hours on Thursday morning but we have been well forewarned about this. Our domestic help has also taken her Spring holiday week off so it will be particularly nice to see her after a gap of a fortnight. On 1st May, it is the local elections and the Reform party are expected to do particularly well this time around. People vote differently in local elections than they do in a general election when they are electing. government but this is the first opportunity for the electorate to cast an opinion of the Labour government on the one hand and Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservative party on the other. Despite the fact that I am normally an ‘election junkie’ and often stay up for the first results to trickle through, I really think that my time is better occupied getting a better night’s sleep so that I am ready for what the next day is to bring. Sky News is bound to be chewing over the results ‘ad nauseam’ on Friday morning so I am sure I can restrain myself until then. Channel 4, I believe it was, had a very well reviewed program on Donald Trump’s first 100 days in power but having followed all of the news of Trump’s activities day by day, I do. not think I can stomach seeing a review of all of this, however well done.

I need to turn some of my attention to some gardening activities but the de-cluttering of the study with the major part completed has taken a degree of priority. With a sudden burst of activity, I have managed to complete the bookcase de-cluttering part but the last bit was a bit tricky. I had a jumble of cables but they are neatly wound in to coils, secured wit a cable ties and then stored in a cardboard box which I prettified so it didn’t look quite so ugly. The second half of the study should be a much easier job as it mainly involves tidying up but I have set myself the deadline of before next Wednesday when our domestic help will turn up. The final job is to dispose of a lot of storage boxes stored on the top of the bookcases but these are normally empty and subject to taking them apart, should be quite easy to dispose of. In the morning, our University of Birmingham came around as he often does on a Sunday morning to have a coffee with Meg and I. In the course of my tidying up activities, I discovered some papers I had written in which I thought he might be interested and we spent some time discussing these (on the topic of the assessment of student work and the calculation of degree classifications). This work is probably quite dated by now as since we were both in work philosophies and rubrics of student assessment have undergone radical change. But in the afternoon, I managed to complete the tidying up of the study, at last, and only have some empty boxes to clear from bookcase tops. I have discovered various pieces of hardware I had forgotten about and some that needed to be junked. One thing I discovered I had was a DVD USB writer which evidently I thought I was going to need to enhance a laptop but it was never brought fully into use. Something else that turned up was a large A4 photo (probably taken normal size and expanded) of Meg and I standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, when I was there for a conference. Meg and I look pretty small figures but that is because the Lincoln memorial is so very large in comparison. Whilst we were in Washington, Meg and I also went round the several of the museums which, as you might imagine, were world class. I also managed to get the front lawns cut as it was a beautiful day and it seemed a shame not to seize the opportunity, even though I was feeling somewhat tired. The weeds are growing pace in various places so I may need to tackle these in bursts of 15-20 minutes when I can.

The news media today was always bound to be dominated by the live transmission of the Pope’s funeral in Rome starting at about 8.30 in the morning. Around 250,000 people gathered to pay their final respects to Pope Francis. This includes mourners who visited St Peter’s Basilica over the last three days to view the pontiff’s body and those attending the funeral service in St. Peter’s Square. Additionally, up to one million people are estimated to have lined the streets to see the procession from the Vatican to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. Some 4,000 police had been detailed for the funeral which was to be attended by hundreds of world leaders. The protocols for the seating arrangements of such world leaders is interesting. The Heads of State are seated in alphabetical order of the their nations according to how their country is called in French. This puts the president of the USA (‘Etats Unis’ in French) sitting between the heads of Estonia and Ethiopia and one imagines that Donald Trump would have precious little to say to either of them. Pope Francis is to be buried in a simple coffin with just the words ‘Franciscus’ (Francis in Latin) and there will be a six mile peregrination across the streets of Rome to reach the Basilica in which he expressed a desire to be buried. It looks as though crowds of Italians and other nationalities will line the route and clap loudly as the coffin passes them. One thing that has been noted on this occasion is that in comparison with the death of Pope Benedict some years ago, non-Catholics have been swept up in the emotion of the occasion and even if in Rome on an accidental holiday, are delighted to be able to participate in the funeral rites. When world leaders gather for occasions such as this, there is also the possibility for ‘brush by’ diplomacy and we learn that the Ukrainian leader and Trump have had a meeting. How much practical diplomacy is possible is unclear but at least it looks as though the two leaders are talking productively to each other. What we appear to have had with the Ukrainian peace plan so far is the USA has almost ‘de facto’ endorsed Putin’s wish list and there is no sign that any pressure is being put upon Russia to get them to stop the daily bombardment and to institute a ceasefire.

After breakfast had been completed, it was time to push Meg down the hill in her new conveyance i.e. the superior specified wheelchair delivered to us last Wednesday. I am delighted by the safety and comfort which the new wheelchair affords to Meg because she now a sculpted seat, better back and leg support and a headrest. The principal enhanced feature, though, that now the relevant framework can be tilted backwards and this eliminates the danger of Meg tilting forward and slipping out of the chair. This chair, the result of superior German engineering, seems to me the BMW of the Mercedes of wheelchairs but the increased size and particularly weight do make it somewhat more tiring to push up the long hill on the way home. The chair is nicely balanced and copes well with dropped kerbs when I need to navigate them. In our journey down to town, we popped into Waitrose to pick a newspaper and some supplies that only Waitrose sells and we then went forward to see our three friends in Wetherspoons. I also bumped into ‘Seasoned World Traveller’ from our park visiting days and we exchanged some pleasant greetings before having pour usual drink and breakfast muffin of bacon and fried egg. After our coffee break, I popped Meg into Poundland where I wanted to see if I could purchase any more of the very useful plastic storage containers I have bought before. Needless to say, the particular item I wanted was no longer stocked but I did buy some more storage containers of an interesting design which I knew would fit the intended purpose. Then, on the way home we called by a new estate agents that was opening in town and they were having an ooening day event involving various ‘freebies’ that were on offer. We accepted the offer of a large bar of chocolate which was being offered free to passers-by in exchange for taking some of their promotional literature. When we got home, though, I was pretty tired from pushing Meg up the hill and promptly fell asleep for three quarters of an hour. Although most of funeral service live transmission seemed to be over, Sky News seemed to have most of it an a repeating loop throughout the day so I heard much of the singing even if I did not watch much of the action. In the late afternoon, my son called me via a video-link so we had an interesting little chat about the things that we both had been doing. I am pleased that even after his retirement, he is still popping around every other day or so to keep an eye on myself and Meg and I expressed my gratitude to him once again for the fact that our daughter-in-law had called around and some so much work tidying up the shrubbery in the front of the house yesterday.

In the afternoon, I filled one of those supermarket fruit and vegetable trays with all of the clutter from the last foot of one shelf. One little find was a cordless mouse which is always useful as spare and which I had forgotten about. Some of the saved items in the clutter will have outlived their utility but other bits and pieces will need to be retained and therefore rehoused in a sensible way. I have had a stroke of good fortune in that several months ago I purchased a set of bamboo socks which came in a beautiful and well made presentation case. I have deployed two of these to house old notebooks which contain some information I really wish to retain and so this has neatened the relevant shelf considerably. There are also some plastic containers with very useful handles of which I purchased several to house my classical CD selection and some of these I might press into use as and when required.

Yesterday the day dawned bright and clear and I hope signals the start of really spring-like weather. The day started off in a little unusual fashion because the workers are arriving about an hour and a half later this morning and this meant that I had the rather unusual activity of a ‘lie-in’ and so I arose at 7.00am rather than the more usual 6.00am. And to compound the problem and make it even worse, I have now just received a message delaying Meg’s getting up time to 10.00am and I have been forced to complain about the unacceptability of all of this which is messing up the planning and organisation of our days considerably. But I needed this lie-in because when I was up for a brief spell in the middle of the night, this spell became somewhat longer when I thought I would just process a few more files to get my study tidy. As I tidy, certain principles have started to emerge. Firstly, I try to ensure that each pile is no more than fifteen files deep. the reasons here are two fold – firstly, fifteen files just sits nicely on the shelf giving space and the ability to search and locate any particular one without undue manipulation. Secondly, in the HTML page that I am devoting to each pile, the number of 15 gives me a nice screenful of information which I can then print off and put in a plastic transparency so I know what is in each pile. I am now just about at the stage where I have sorted out all of the principal groups of files and I have finished up with about nine groups of approximately fifteen in each group. Some of these files have material that is cognate and will not requite much additional relocation. The last group of files is largely IT related content with topics such as HTML tips and tricks I have learnt over the years, quite a lot on file and website protection, some Javascript, some web server (Apache file server) commands which are a bit of a black art and quite hard won knowledge, domain name and website providers and so on. Actually, one of the most useful little tricks that I have developed over the years is to record how to undertake particular procedures such as getting a caption of relevant information onto each photo. I have a fairly large A4 sized notebook called ‘What have I learned today?’ and any new technique I record on the next blank page generally with the day’s date on it. Then I have an index of all of the topics at the back of the book and if I wish to remember how I performed a particular technique which I had learned a year or so ago but had completely forgotten how to do, then I have the procedure all written out for me so I have not constantly re-inventing the wheel. I must admit that with Meg’s illness, I have not had the time to indulge in any of these programming activities recently but my reference book remains invaluable to me. As a very real example, it has taken me quite some time to learn the exactly correct Javascript commands to insert at the bottom of each HTML page telling the viewer the date and time that the file was up[dated and posted. I now have the ‘perfect for me’ code which puts the days into an English format, specifies the day as well as the date, gives the time as well as the date and even self corrects for the operation of BST rather than GMT.

Yesterday morning saw a very attenuated day as one carer turned up at 10.00am and I needed to assist him for some twenty minutes until his delayed second helper partner turned up. But despite this start, we were absolutely delighted that our daughter-in-law turned up and worked like a demon cutting back some of the shrubbery from the front of the house which was becoming quite overgrown and potentially getting in the way of cars visiting the house. I have actually been pretty tired this morning perhaps as a result of being awake for an hour or so during the night. Today, we got to the part of the study where I have stored the papers I have presented to conferences and journals over the years and I threw away a fair quantity of duplicates and one or two items I had saved at the time but could now be jettisoned. I used to take some time and trouble by making my conference papers have an attractive cover by designing covers of an attractive design which were run off on my coloured paper onto a glossy photo paper. These were then covered with plain acetate sheets front and rear and after stapling the spines were bound in a black 2″ wide repair tape to produce a professional looking document. Some of my academic colleagues were somewhat taken aback when I distributed copies of my papers enhanced in this way but one of my foibles was to take a pride in producing a good looking document and I hope that the contents proved to be a as attractive as the covers. The techniques of producing documents were communicated to me by the South African Asian manager of our reprographics department at De Montfort University with whom Meg and I established a firm friendship. New recruits to the university who had not heard of the term ‘reprographics’ for the wholesale production of documents in large quantities would some times mistakenly refer to it as the ‘reproduction department’ which always caused ripples of amusement all round. I now have just one of my four large bookcases left to declutter but I know that in the bottom I used to store things like computer cables and leads of various kinds that will take some sorting out. No doubt, I will discover some junk that can be rehoused and when I have completed this task, I shall have cleared some 72′ of shelving all in all which has taken some doing. The pain of going through lots of material that require sorting and eventual disposal is mitigated by the occasional find of something I thought was lost and is now recovered.

My study de-cluttering activities are proceeding at the rate of one shelf or so of a bookcase at a time. Yesterday, I discovered some duplicates of books (ones in which I had a paper published) so these duplicates could evidently go, releasing some valuable space. Then I started work on the groups of files stored in the bookcase and the procedure follows this routine. I examine the content of the file quickly to see if the whole can be jettisoned and, if so, the actual file envelope retained but with its labels scratched off. In the course of doing this yesterday, I discovered two files with quite interesting content The first was a claim made against an insurance policy for a holiday flight that had been missed. Meg and I were on the M40 flying to Heathrow where there was an evident traffic jam. With police helicopters circling overhead there had evidently been a major traffic incident the upshot of which was that after a delay of more than two hours, the whole section of motorway was closed and the police and road authorities encouraged us to turn around and escorted us off the motorway in a single file going in the ‘wrong’ direction. The flight was well and truly missed but the minute we got home, I booked an emergency flight for the following day. But being stuck in the car for hours on end played havoc with Meg’s back which was in a fragile condition at the best of times and the following day she was in such pain we were in no condition to travel. I claimed against the insurance policy and my claim was refused. Incensed, I went onto the web and found a practically identical case in which, eventually, the insurance company paid out. Armed with this information, I informed the insurance company I was going to take out a claim against them, probably in the small claims court, and armed with the precedent I had found, I would almost certainly win the case. The insurance company agreed but there was a lot of hassle involved with firstly the claim having to be submitted digitally and then again with the actual originals of the documents. I had totally forgotten about this incident, the likes of which I have never heard of before or since. The second interesting file relates to my PhD in which I was reminded that De Montfort University changed its Higher Degree regulations, allowing a PhD to be written around a series of already published papers. The file revealed the information that I made formal application to the relevant committee with approval letters from Heads of School and the Dean on 16th January, 1995. I wrote the PhD and submitted the completed work in December so I had evidently written the whole thing in 11 months. Then followed a gap of three or months or so until the ‘viva voce’ examination in which the principal external examiner was one of the most prominent figure sin the field of public administration in the UK. All seemed to be going well until the examiner made the remark ‘Mike, I looked in vain in your bibliography for evidence of 4th Generation evaluative methodology’- the other two examiners, my supervisor and I looked at each other and it was evident that absolutely none of us had ever heard of this in our lives at all. So I did a bit more fieldwork, incorporated an extra chapter including the afore mentioned methodology, resubmitted the whole and after another three month gap was awarded the PhD in about May of 1997. I was to learn later from another ‘conference buddy’ who was also submitting a PhD late in life that this particular external examiner always made his examinees go the extra mile and do more work so what happened to me was not unusual, after all. But I think the quality of a PhD depends upon the reputation of the external examiner for the thesis rather than the university that awards it so eventually I was more than happy with the result.

This afternoon, I received an unexpected visit from a nurse who, I believe, was sent to us after a referral by the care agency. She needed to check on Meg’s pressure sores and I also gave her the information received yesterday that I help out with manual handling and social care needs if one care worker was present. This I have formally refused to do and the nurse was going to escalate the request that had been made of me as the care agency was not fulfilling its contracted duties of two carers per visit. I fear that there may be organisational consequences that emerge out all of this but I will do my best to pour oil upon troubled waters because I do not want the care for Meg to deteriorate whilst, theoretically, improving the quality. My son and daughter-in-law called round this afternoon – we spent a lot of time discussing the consequences that might flow from the visit of the three district nurses yesterday and a further one today. I think a long telephone call with the care agency manager may be necessary to ensure that any fences are mended because I desperately want Meg to retain the relationships she has made with the care staff over the last year.

A fair spell of warm weather is forecast for the forthcoming week so I must try and make the best of it, whilst I can. Saturday will see the first venture of Meg out in her new ‘super’ wheelchair and whilst I am assured this will be very comfortable and safe for Meg, it might be that the heavier weight is more difficult to push up the hill (going down hill, though, ought to be even easier) Saturday morning is the morning scheduled for the Pope’s funeral, which other things being equal, I would quite like to watch but on the other hand there is a clash of commitments with our visit to see our friends in the centre of town. I showed my daughter-in-law the way in which our dining room had been restored to its former glory ad also the progress I was making in putting right the study. She herself is due to retire at the end of August so is being pretty ruthless about the things to be thrown away between now and then.

After the death of the Pope yesterday, there was no clear consensus on the lead stories of the day yesterday. No doubt, a bit of journalism has hit the popular imagination but Pope Francis is now being called ‘The People’s Pope’ and his concern for the poor and underprivileged will remain his constant epitaph. In death, as in life, the deceased Pope has chosen to be buried in a simple fashion avoiding being buried in the Vatican vaults like so many of his predecessors but instead being buried in his favourite church on a not very fashionable part of Rome with the simple attribution ‘Franciscus’ (the latinised version of his name) If his successor choses to be known as ‘Francis II’, this will be taken as a signal that the reforms initiated by the past will be continued. Nonetheless, some of the ‘vox pop’ conducted both in Rome and in London revealed that some of the Catholic community wish to return to more traditional and probably conservative) forms of Catholicism. On the domestic front, I am now returning to the task of tidying up the bookshelves and removing some of the clutter they contain. The dilemma I face is that in front of the books, I used to have a collection of little but essentially useful things such as receptacles for the receipt of various coins. £2 coins are not as common as they were and I tend to save them these days but always have a collection of £1 coins which I keep in case a coin was needed at short notice for car parking or a shopping trolley – so any new home needs to be both accessible but clutter free. After Meg has gone to bed, I spend a certain amount of time in the study doing things like making sure my accounts are up-to-date, reading emails and so on, I utilise this time to let my mind gradually suggest solutions to storage problems instead of forcing a ‘there and then’ solution. In the days when I was doing a lot of statistical programming, sometimes I used to run into a little problem that needed to be solved. I would literally ‘sleep’ on the problem and it was often the case that the next morning (sometimes whilst having a shower in the morning) my brain had worked on the problem overnight and a solution had suggested it itself. The first time that it happened, I assumed it was just a fortunate solution to my problem but I came to realise that this was one’s brain actually working on a solution overnight. Research suggests that ‘sleeping on it’ can indeed help with problem-solving. Sleep allows the brain to consolidate memories, process information, and identify meaningful patterns, potentially leading to better problem-solving the next day. There is a certain amount of subconscious processing overnight. Some theories suggest that the brain continues to work on problems even during sleep, potentially leading to insights or solutions that might not have been apparent while awake. The subconscious mind may process information and generate new ideas while you are asleep, leading to a more creative solution.

Yesterday morning had long been a date on our planning board when the Wheelchair and Mobility service were due to come along and see how Meg was coping with her wheelchair. The service sent along a technician to work on the wheelchair itself which he did whilst his colleague, an Occupational Therapist who specialised in wheelchair use, engaged herself with getting Meg in her hoist ready to be seated in her existing chair. This pair, who were excellent, understood completely why I had been making ad-hoc adjustments to the chair to keep Meg secure and appreciated how Meg’s lack of body strength meant that her existing chair was not now suited for her needs. They came to the view, fairly quickly, that Meg needed a superior chair and had had the foresight to load an enhanced model on their van. This was a German made OttoBock wheelchair and to my untrained eye seemed like the BMW of wheelchairs. The minute we got Meg hoisted into this chair, we appreciated how suitable this was going to be. It was larger and a framework that enable the whole rear to be slanted backwards (so that Meg could be semi-recumbent if necessary) as well as a sculptured seat, a headrest and generally superior fixtures and fittings. It evidently took some time for Meg to be seated in the new chair whilst assessments were made and some adjustments made as well as giving me instructions how the new chair was to be used. I wheeled Meg down int our Main Lounge to make sure that all angles and doorways could be navigated safely and to cut a long story short, I am completely delighted that this new chair has now been supplied for Meg. It means that I can take her down to town with much more peace of mind and I am happy that if she were to be in the chair for a few hours, which is typically the case on Tuesdays and Saturdays, then she will be so much more comfortable and secure.

In the morning, we awaited the arrival of the District Nurse team and it is anticipated that it will take a couple of nurses to address the increasing problems that Meg is now experiencing. She now has pressure sores in about five or six locations on her body and this is a direct consequence of the fact that she has no body strength or the mobility to adjust her seating positions. The OT who specialised in wheelchairs was very supportive and helpful and all seemed to be well. Then three district nurses arrived in a flurry and, looking at Meg’s newly developing bed sores, declared that they were probably caused by the sling to the hoist which the care workers often do mot remove. They were pretty horrified by this and by the fact that often only one worker turned up when there should have been two. They suggested I phone social services (some hope!) and demand the agency be replaced by a better one. This would have been cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face and just as they were leaving, a solo care worker turned up. The three district nurse vented all of their spleen on this unfortunate individual so this necessitated calls to the manager and a difficult conversation about the care that Meg should have been receiving (and, in the opinion of the district nurses), was not. So it looks from now on as there will have to be a change of procedure so that the sling is removed every time it has been used (which typically it is not, because this is fiddly) and that there should be henceforth a rigid application of the ‘2 carers for each attendance’ for Meg from now on.

After the Pope’s death yesterday and the multitude of tributes that were paid to him, we now enter a period of religion, politics and sheer intrigue. Already there are discussions of who might be the next Pope and the Italians have a special word – ‘papabile’ which is applied to those who are considered to be capable of being elected the next Pope. In this process, although in liturgical theory God-bestowed, there is often a lot of politics involved and often a person who is chosen who surprises is all. This happened with Pope Francis who was not considered to be a front runner but who ‘came up on the rails’ to use a horse racing terminology. I also remember the case of Pope John XXIII who at the time was not initially on the running but was elected as it was thought that he was a ‘safe pair of hands’ but turned out to be one of the most reform minded Popes of recent times. This time around, many new cardinals have been elected from regions and states previously under-represented so nobody is quite sure how these will vote. Insofar as one can discern, the currents of thought at the moment seem to in favour of a candidate who would carry on the reforms initiated by Pope Francis and it could be the case that the person elected will be theologically conservative (to help maintain existing theology) but socially progressive. Donald Trump has announced that he is going to attend the late Pope’s funeral and one wonders about his motivation – I think the last time a serving US president attended a Papal funeral was in 2005. Donald Trump had some differences with the late Pope principally on issues such as climate change and does Trump therefore believe that he is capable of supplying a ‘nudge’ towards whom he considers to be a suitable candidate?

I continued with my study refreshment and one of the changes I have made is already bearing fruit. I have various groups of files located on the tidied-up bookshelves and I am making an HTML page for each group of files. These are then linked together with navigational links to move forwards and backwards between the pages and the first or type of index page indicates in which location the group of files is to be found. I have already run off some three pages of HTML which I put in a transparency and this considerably simplifies the process of finding what I want. So to locate any particular file, I consult the list on top and think that, for example, I might need to consult the fifth file in the pile which is green in colour. Eventually, when the process is complete, I will then have complete lists of the files in the study, and each group of files will have on the top an index indicating which file houses what. I should, of course, once I have a complete list of files in the entire study be able to re-arrange them into a better functional order so that all of the health related files are in one location, the IT/computing related ones in another and so on. My efforts to neaten up the study able borne fruit because I have discovered a little electronic clock I bought some years ago the batteries of which had run out. Fortunately I had some ‘AAA’ batteries to replace the dead ones and although a little fiddly to set, the clock has a mechanism whereby the large screen clicks forward to reveal the date or the temperature of the room so this timepiece has been recommissioned, as it were.

I was delighted that Meg seemed much more lively than she did yesterday, when she slept for most of the day and I was full of foreboding. The care workers and I got Meg nice and secure in her existing wheelchair so all seemed to be well and we made our way down the hill and met up with our three friends in Wetherspoons. It was a beautiful fine spring day and so much of a contrast with the day before when it had been so showery. On our way up the hill, I popped in to see our Italian friend who had previously texted me to tell me about an Easter card she had written for me. We exchanged news about our various ‘gammy’ knees and then I made for home to prepare for ‘sit’ session with the young male Asian care worker in the morning. We lunched on a meal of smoked haddock, potatoes and petit pois where I had some left over from an earlier day’s cooking so this made the meal easy to prepare. In the afternoon, our son called around and it gave me some pleasure to show him the progress I was making in restoring the study to rights although there is still a fair way to go. I asked my son to reflect on the bits of his working life which were likely to ensure way past his actual period of employment because both myself and some University of Winchester colleagues discovered that systems that we had set up decades before in previous places of employment were, paradoxically, still in use.

Britain’s economy will be among the hardest hit by the global trade war and inflation is set to climb, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned – as it slashed its UK growth forecast by a third. In a sobering set of projections, the Washington-based organisation said it was grappling with ‘extremely high levels of policy uncertainty’ – and the global economy would slow even if countries managed to negotiate a permanent reduction in tariffs from the US. Echoing earlier warnings about the risks to the global financial system, the IMF said stock markets could fall even more sharply than they did in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs announcement, when US and UK indices recorded some of their largest one-day falls since the pandemic. Although Rachel Reeves is set to visit Washington to negotiate a better set of tariffs for the UK, it is hard to predict that she will return with any degree of success.

Now that we have Easter Day well and truly out of the way, I must say that I have enjoyed having a selection of chocolates to help me through the day. I offered chocolates to all of the care workers and generally we had a quiet Easter Day apart from the fact that our Eucharistic minister had called around early in the morning, I delayed the cutting of the lawns because having got up about an hour and a half earlier at the weekends as the care workers visit times had been scheduled, I felt rather too tired to undertake that task in the afternoon. Today is going to be quite windy and showery but if the weather brightens up this afternoon, may well attempt the task then. We have not had a really good downpour for ages and hence the grass is not springing up at the rate that it usually does in April. Yesterday, I completed the task of pruning the large group of files which had previously been housed on the floor and have now relocated them to a more rightful place in one of our bookcases where they are more accessible. This task was assisted by removing the dictionaries and associated reference materials to a new location and I am pleased with the result. Last night before I came to bed I had a bit of a brainwave and located a large and heavy box of teaching materials that I really do wish to retain for the time being to an inconspicuous location underneath one of the desks. This in turn has released further space on a bookshelf I not which I can now relocate another group of files that were not where they ought to be. I spent some time composing some linked HTML pages so that when I have filled in all of the details I should be able to put my hand on a particular file pretty quickly. For example, I should be able to peruse my list which I will have on the computer as well as in printed form and locate a file by looking for example, for a yellow folder which is 10th in the list and in a particular bookcase. Of course, it is one thing to set up a system (at which I am pretty adept) but I need to ensure that I keep using it and keep my lists up-to-date and that I keep things much more ship-shape from now on. I have always used differently coloured folders for various documents ever since my teaching days and the habit has stayed with me. But why things were not put away in the first place was because the various locations were ‘full’ so it is important to throw away as much as I can to ensure some empty filing space is always available. Today, I need to go through and prune another set of relocated files so if the morning is a little wet and windy, I will still feel I am making some good progress.

This morning, as soon as the carers had left, I turned on Sky News where the news was flashed about the death of the Pope. Needless to day, this has dominated the news agenda for practically the whole of the day as world leaders have rushed forward to pay their tributes to a man of peace. My own emotions were a mixture of sadness (that a good Pope be taken from our midst) but a degree of happiness that he was suffering no more. He died at 7.30am this morning (which will be 6.30 as the Continent are an hour ahead of us) and I suppose it is obvious to now that the celebrations of yesterday must have been the most enormous strain upon him. An official cause of death is due to be announced this evening but it seems a bit self evident as recently spent five weeks in hospital and, by all accounts, was near to death whilst he was being treated. He was a man of 88 years of age and had already had one half of one lung removed as a young man. Yesterday, he appeared on the balcony of St. Peters. said a few words and then went on a ride in his Popemobile across the square in front of St. Peters. Actually, he was the only one of the recent popes that I would dearly liked to have met and, almost a few years, almost did so. A small bespoke pilgrimage was being organised to go to Rome and Meg and I actually put down a deposit, which in the event was returned to us. The pilgrimage was to be organised by an agent with a lot of inside contacts so a meeting with the Pope in a small group was quite feasible. He was a man of great humility and love for his fellow men and avoided the trappings of office preferring to lead a simple life like some of the inhabitants of Argentina. I knew he was the first Latin American pope but also the first Jesuit pope which amazed me (that it had not happened before) Had he lived and had another decade of life then I think that the issue of gay men and Catholicism would have been resolved and perhaps, even giant steps taken towards married priests which is surely overdue. In the afternoon, the sun started to shine after a dampish morning so I pushed myself and got the front grassed area cut. I knew this had been delayed for a day or so and tomorrow if I push Meg down in Bromsgrove and back, I may feel too tired to make the effort. Meg has not managed much solid food today which is bit worrying for me. Nor did I manage to get any lunch inside Meg either but she did succumb to some small servings of Tiramisu and I will try later to get some solid food inside her not least because I cannot force food and drink on Meg but sometimes the disease process if such that her appetite seems to wane.