Meg and I had a good night’s sleep last night, which was very good news for the two of us. Yesterday, I had a rather inconclusive consultation with one of the GPs from our practice because I wondered whether there might be some medication to help Meg sleep better given that she is awake all of the day and is tending to have rather broken nights of sleep. The GPs seem reluctant in the extreme to prescribe any kind of sleeping tablet and made the suggestion, that I considered a little fatuous, that I try to keep Meg entertained for an hour after she had been put to bed at 7.30. Nonetheless, I tried to follow the advice of the doctors and after Meg had been put to bed, I rigged up a little bedside table upon which I placed one of my laptops within an easy viewing distance. Sitting also by the side of the bed, I managed to get the Sky News Politics Hub programme that runs from 7.00pm-8.00pm running via the internet. When this was concluded, I followed it up with the repeat of Channel 4 news which is broadcast an hour later 9 from 8.00pm-9.00pm (on Channel 4+1) So I followed the doctor’s advice and managed to access these two programmes which would be normal viewing for us in any case. By the most supreme of ironies, Meg fell asleep within minutes of my accessing the first programme and stayed asleep all during the night as well. But as a ‘proof of concept’ I was pretty pleased that I got this ‘diversionary tactic’ in place and tonight will be even more critical as England are due to play their final group stage match this evening, the broadcast kickoff being from 8.00pm.

This morning, Meg and I trundled down the hill to meet up with our usual Tuesday crowd. We knew that we had to get back in time to coincide with our carers which we did with about half a minute to spare. One of the carers was due to stay on for a two ‘sit’ stay with Meg whilst in theory, I go off and do Pilates. But I got Meg and the carer installed outside the back of the house as the weather was so beautiful together with some soothing cold drinks before I departed for town. There were two things I needed of which I managed to avail myself of the first whilst the second was ‘out of stock’ – these things are always annoying when I have made a special journey to obtain the same and access to the shops is so limited for me. But I got home to find Meg and the carer engaged in reading some children’s books and they seem to have had a reasonable time together. As the weather was so warm this morning, cooking was the last thing on my mind so I had already taken some frozen mackerel out of the freezer and then threw together a mackerel salad which Meg and I ate outside. The carers made their mid afternoon call ridiculously early which extend the time that Meg as to spend between now and bedtime but we got Meg comfortable in front of the TV and we are watching a bit of a Mozart piano concerto this afternoon. I am expecting a delivery of certain items from Amazon which I could do with this evening but they are indicating a delivery time between 5.30 and 7.30 which may be a bit too late for me to bring them into use. One of the anticipated deliveries is an extra pair of blackout curtains which I could really do with this evening but I suspect will arrive a little too late. Tomorrow we need to prepare ourselves for an early start (vagaries of the scheduling of the care company) but we are also anticipating a review visit by the Social Worker who has not seen us for several months now and the manager of the care agency. There are a few things to be discussed but I trust nothing too contentious at this point of time.

Tonight, England are playing in the final in their final group game against Slovenia. After the pedestrian and somewhat faltering start that England have made so far, the English fans and the English public are hoping that England play with a bit more fire in their bellies. It is only when you observe the approaches of other countries to their football do you realise how cautious and indeed boring the current English game happens to be. The Scots were beaten with only 20 seconds to spare the other evening after ten minutes of injury time. A very similar occurrence happened last night when Croatia were playing Italy. Although the two sides seemed fairly evenly matched, it is probable that the Croatians had the edge. But then there was an Italian break away in the eighth minutes of injury time and a stunning Italian goal was scored which resulted in a rather unlikely Italy win. Croatia now come bottom of their group and are eliminated but of they had managed to hang on for a few seconds more and not have a crucial lapse of concentration, they they might still be in the competition as part of the last 16.

The Tory High Command have finally decided that will disown their two candidates caught on trying to bet on the timing of the General Election before its announcement where they are arguing an ‘error of judgement’ rather than a malfeasance. But it looks as though this latest revelation of Tory sleaze might be finally being reflected in the opinion polls although we may have to wait for a day or so before we can be a bit more definitive about this. One of the dropped Tory candidates is vowing to fight on and to clear his name but a dog fight between a local candidate and the Central HQ must be music to the ears of the opposition parties. We have today received a manifesto from the Labour Party which is a bit late as it is only nine days before the election and the postal votes were sent out about a week ago. But this is part of a pattern – as long as I can remember, the Tories have got their manifesto out first and the Labour party manifesto is always on the late side.

Today very much feels like the morning after the night before. Yesterday evening, I semi-assembled the blackout curtains which I have bought for our downstairs living room/bedroom hoping that by cutting out the dying rays of the sun, it might induce Meg to get to sleep when the carers put her to bed at 7.30pm. I had ordered some blackout curtains at a reasonable enough price but found that they were not quite wide enough so have promptly had to order some more. Then I ordered an expanding metal pole upon which to hang the curtains but as the whole of this arrangement has to be at least 10′ long, it is cumbersome in the extreme to get it into position even lodging on our existing curtain supports. Last night, though, should have blocked out 80% of the bright sunlight and I have now decided to keep the whole caboodle in place rather than carrying on with my original plan which was to erect and dismantle it each day. Although Meg seemed to fall asleep reasonably quickly, I got to bed at shortly before 11.00pm (after watching Scotland lose by a single goal to Hungary with a breakaway goal scored in the 40th second of the tenth minute of injury time) But Meg was awake at this time and stayed awake for the next hour and a half until she had been made comfortable which procedure takes the best part of three quarters of an hour. Eventually, I crawled into my pit only to be awoken by Meg at 4.40 in the morning thus cutting my available sleep time considerably. I was very relieved to see the care workers when they did turn up at 8.00 and I was thoroughly relieved to have them take over, being a bit like a bear with a sore head. I contacted our GP surgery to see if I could request some medication to help me to get to get to sleep and even more to stay asleep and have to fill in a form to get a telephone appointment. When the call did come through in the late morning, the response was as I expected but not what I wanted to hear. The doctors seem extremely reluctant to prescribe any sleeping aids and argue that when they work they serve to get people off to sleep but will not necessarily keep them asleep. So basically, I have to think of my own solution to the problem. The only thing that the doctor did suggest was that although the care workers should put Meg to bed at about 7.30 I should endeavour to keep her awake so that when she does go to sleep, it will be for longer. the doctor’s ‘solution’ was to entertain Meg with a TV or something similar to divert here for some hours. This sounds very simple but given the layout of our room is not at all practicable as the TV is un-viewable from the angle of the hospital bed in the other half of our ‘L’-shaped lounge. I have today ordered an extra 15m length of coaxial cable to see if I can bring into use a small portable TV that Meg could view whilst propped up in bed but this will not arrive until probably late tomorrow so we may have two more nights in which I am going to have to induce Meg to sleep throughout the night.

Today being a Monday but quite a sultry and humid day, we decided to visit the park in the mid morning and this little visit worked out fine but we did not meet (or really expect to meet) any of our normal park acquaintances. We got back in plenty of time for the carers and the (unproductive) telephone consultation with the GP and then proceeded to make a lunch out of yesterday’s beef and some cauliflower I had in the fridge. To avoid the cauliflower smelling out the whole of the kitchen I boiled it with quite a lashing of brown sugar on top of it and then served it with a packet of cheese sauce which I was pleased to find in my stock cupboard. This turned out to be absolutely delicious and much nicer than I anticipated that it would be, the only downside being that I promptly fell asleep after reading my portion of feeding Meg hers.

Earlier on this morning and this afternoon, we have been watching a programme made by Deutsche Welle’ which I have discovered is the German equivalent of the BBC World Service. What was being offered to us today by ‘DW’ was a magnificent hour and a half documentary over the influence and playing of Beethoven’s 9th symphony across the world. In one Asian country, perhaps Japan, it is performed each year with a cast of 10,000 singers and the political impact and use made of this work is stupendous. This is one of those films that one can watch again and again as there are all kinds of facets to this documentary which can be explored over and over again. This afternoon, we anticipate that we may be able to enjoy a spell in the garden now that I know that the weather will be fine. After a fairly humid and close start, the sun is going to break through and there is every indication that today we shall have the highest temperatures of the summer so far, as the country as a whole is ex[experiencing a ‘mini’ heat wave. Again, this is due to the changing position of the jet stream which seems to govern so much of our climate these days.

Politically, we are now in a position where there are now less than ten full campaigning days to go before the General Election on July 4th. Personally, that date cannot come soon enough and I am waiting for the ‘bomb shell’ which is bound to explode in the days before the election is actually held. My son and I have joked with each other that the revelations of further Tory sleaze in which prominent Tories, including their own campaign director, have been accessed of betting on the date of the general Election on the basis of ‘insider knowledge’ – the political equivalent of ‘insider trading’ could have planted by the Labour Party. These revelations are going to keep dripping through for the next few days but I suspect that all kinds of ‘surprises’ e.g incriminating bits of videotape or interviews held years ago that might prove to be useful as a type of hand grenade to be lobbed towards the enemy. The latest attack line of the Tories is to argue that Keir Starmer is associated with the policies of Jeremy Corbin, the left wing Labour leader, on the grounds that they were in the same shadow cabinet together. I am not sure that this will cut much ice with the electorate as a whole but is used as a constant attack line together with the accusation that a Labour government will undoubtedly put up taxes.

So today being a Sunday, we enter into our Sunday morning routines which this morning started 40 minutes earlier than we would have liked because the scheduling of the care workers was timed for 7.20 rather than 8.00am. Nonetheless, with the light mornings, we awoke shortly after 5.00am so entered our morning routines about an hour earlier. Two friendly and jolly care workers, both with families (so it shows they are of a certain age by which I mean they have acquired several years of experience which, to my mind, is very important) turned up this morning and got Meg up and going. Then it was a case of getting our breakfast of porridge and toast down us and then I shot down to our local Waitrose to pick up my copy of the newspaper. Normally, I have a quick glance around to see if I can avoid the predations of the car park attendants who penalise those who have not paid the relevant charge and then see if I can sneak in for is essentially a two minute stay within the store. But as from tomorrow morning, Bromsgrove council are about to change their policy so that people can have a half hour parking without charge which will be excellent for those people like myself who like to pop into and out of the store. Once I had collected the newspaper, it was almost time for the Eucharistic Minister to attend from our local church and as we have not seen her for a couple of weeks, her visit was even more welcome than usual. We got told a horrible hospital story involving the death of a near relative which I will not go into for the moment but entering hospitals these days does not always mean that you will emerge intact. Then it was time for us to prepare our coffee and comestibles ready for a journey down to the local park. We were just on the point of departure when our University of Birmingham friend phoned and we coincided on our ‘normal’ bench and had a very happy hour of discussions, as is our pleasure at the weekend. Then we had to make the journey up the hill and I was conscious of the fact that we did not dare to leave our carers outside and we made it with one minute to spare. In the meantime, I am reflecting that I have about another week left of trundling along with our trusty little wheelchair that has served us so well for the past several months but I am hoping the somewhat bigger wheels on the new chair when it arrives will serve their purpose.

We lunched together on some beef which I had roasting in the slow cooker for several hours this morning. When I cook a joint like this, I take the cooked jaunt and immediately divide it into two halves, one half being for immediate consumption and the other destined for the freezer so that we can have it on a future occasion. To save time, I just did a baked potato, a tomato and some sugar snap peas with the same and it was very tasty, Meg enjoying it pretty as much as myself. Now I am going to report on an exceptional happen chance of good fortune, or the avoidance of misfortune, that has happened to me. When Meg and I started to bring into use the lounge which we now call our Music Lounge, I needed to somehow bring the TV into the end of the room where our armchairs are located. Rather than asking an aerial technician to install a new aerial point, I hit on the expedient of buying an extra long TV cable of some 15 metres in length which effectively transfers our TV viewing from one end of the room to another. So far, so good but I have noticed in the last week or so that we are getting a lot of digital dropout on Sky News which is a channel we actually watch quite a lot these days. I did not know whether the fault in the TV reception on Sky was a TV problem or an aerial problem but I resisted one solution which was to retune the television. To see if the problem lay in the aerial I tried a little experiment on a small portable TV and found that Sky News worked perfectly at the other end of the room. Seeing that it did, I came to put the correct aeriel leads back into place. Then on the floor in the midst of other cabling I noticed what seemed to be a spare aerial lead which, upon connection, worked perfectly. So after all, the cable I must have been using was connected to nothing at all so the TV must have been working without the benefit of an aerial which I find hard to believe. At the end of the day, though, I now have access to Sky News which I thought I would have to forego just before the culminating days of the election campaign. Needless to say, I am now a very happy bunny and am still left a little puzzled how the wrong cable had been connected in the first place.

It seems remarkable that only eleven days out from the General Election that the Tories appear once again to be mired in sleaze. We now have a total of four prominent Tories who appear to have bet on the likely date of the election before it has been officially announced, two of them being candidates in the election. It may be that even more names might come to light in the next day or so and prominent Tories such as Michael Gove are now saying this has the appearance of another ‘partygate’ in which it appears that rules which must be obeyed by the many are ignored by the Tory few. And now another embarrassing snippet of news has come to light. One of the prominent aides to the Home Secretary when addressing a gathering of Young Conservatives in April has been recorded as saying that the Rwanda policy (of deporting asylum seekers there) is a ‘crap’ policy – and even the Home Secretary in his former days used similar disparaging terminology in the past although he now sees fit to deny this. That these allegations are now seeing the light of day must be a nightmare to the organisers of the Tory election campaign – although the chief of the campaign is himself one of the accused.

A few days, whilst idly looking on eBay on the perennial subject of wheelchairs, I came across an exemplar which had had wider and taller wheels specially added to it and I thought this would suit us down to the ground. The wheelchair was being sold in Hagley which is a village about 12 miles distant in which we were interested in buying a house in our house hunting days. I negotiated a discounted price with the seller who seemed a friendly sort but he informed that another buyer might be calling round to view the product but he would inform me whatever happened. I told him I was very interested in this wheelchair as I could collect it quite easily whilst a carer was looking after Meg but then I was informed that it had been sold to the first buyer. Last night, I again perused what was on offer and found another model with larger wheels at the back. A rapid internet search informed me that models like this were easier to push so I decided to make an offer for it. On the eBay system, it gives you a range of offer prices (approximately 15%, 10% and 5% lower than the asking price) So in the middle of the night, I made an offer and wondered what the morning might bring. When I consulted my system, I discovered that this item had 47 people viewing it in the last 24 hours so I thought to myself that when we returned from our morning coffee meeting, if the seller had not replied I would purchase for the full price. But to my considerable surprise and delight, my 15% discounted price was accepted. In addition, a special brand new pressure relief cushion by a well known manufacturer of such products was being offered as part of the deal. Now that my offer had been accepted, I thought I would see how much the specialised pressure cushion was worth and was amazed to see that the full retail price was actually more than the price I eventually paid for the wheelchair. It is as though I had paid full price for the pressure relief cushion and got the wheelchair thrown in gratis. Naturally, I have had to pay postage and packing on top of all of this and the whole caboodle will take about a week to arrive. But it seems a reliable make and I can even download a manual for the model involved which might prove very useful for little adjustments and running repairs. So all in all, I had a great feeling of satisfaction at having secured this product and trust that it will the journey up and down the hill a little less bumpy. Some sections of the pavement are made over in that kind of rougher style rather than smooth tarmac which I think is cheaper to supply and to lay and which provided better grip for pedestrians in icy conditions. But on my journey down and up the Kidderminster Road I am constantly having to negotiate these rough patches of tarmac to avoid too many jolting sections. Today, as an experiment I tried using a pair of gardening gloves to ease the pressure on my fingers which tend to up up white after the pressure of the uphill climb. However, we had a nice friendly chat with our normal Saturday crowd. The cafeteria was quite full today because it is the Saturday of the Court Leet (a mediaeval tradition) when the great and good of the town get dressed up in vaguely academic looking gowns and march to various locations in the town centre. We returned home in just about the right space of time before the late morning carers came to call later which I busied myself preparing a rather different kind of lunch. This was quite an ample Spanish omelette (stuffed with onions, peppers, tomatoes and the remains of the ham from yesterday) complemented by some salad type things bought from Waitrose. As soon as we got lunch prepared, eaten and washed up after, I thought I would try and squeeze in getting the front lawns cut before the earlier than usual mid afternoon carer’s call. I had Meg sitting outside at the edge of the grass so that she would not suffer from separation anxiety and I raced around to get the lawns cut. The two carers – nice young people – turned up 15 minutes earlier but they did not mind sitting on the outside bench whilst I completed my mowing which would have been finished on time if the carers had called at the scheduled time.There are two interesting political stories emerging in the airwaves today. The first of these is Nigel Farage arguing that the western expansion of Nato was tantamount to inviting a Russian retaliation, evidenced by the invasion of Ukraine. Practically all the political parties have condemned Farage in the roundest of terms, opining that Farage is ‘de fact’ condoning the Russian invasion. But whilst many political leaders in the height of an election campaign are seizing upon any stick with which to beat an opponent such as Farage and the Reform party, I wonder whether any political leaders in the West have ever considered the facets of European history in which the USSR was at war with Germany and lost 20 million of its citizens in the process. My comments are not meant to condone the actions of Putin in any sense but I think political leaders in the West need to think how the presence of Nato is seen as so threatening to Russia. The two areas of Ukraine which the Russians ‘de facto’ occupied were populated by Russian speakers who felt that their long term interests were not particularly accommodated within Ukraine when it became independent after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The second interesting story this afternoon is the ‘revelation’,if indeed it is one, that Starmer laid a series of ‘traps’ for Boris Johnson making him deny that COVID transgressions were taking place. Starmer is claiming that he anticipated that Johnson’ first instinct was always to lie and to lie again and it was the very fact of these lies to Parliament that would eventually lead to the downfall of Johnson, as indeed it did.

Last Wednesday, our domestic help had called around and whilst she was cleaning our Music Lounge and bobbling around in the vicinity, she could keep an eye on Meg thus releasing me to wander up and down the High Street in Bromsgrove to buy supplies of cosmetics and the like. As I passed the AgeUK furniture shop, I had a quick pop inside and espied what I think is called a tub chair on sale for less than £10.00. Probably at that price it was a PU (polyurethane leather) which is considerably cheaper than the real thing and so often used in furniture manufacture. But it would serve the use that I had in mind for it which is to access the laptop in our living room whilst having somewhere to rest my arms when I am not actively typing. As I sat down in the chair to test it for comfort and general suitability, an elderly couple approached me and asked if I was all right. They must have discerned a generally exhausted look on my face and my flopping into the chair and wondered if I had been taken ill all of a sudden. I reassured them that I was fine, paid for my purchase and arranged for delivery (at a price) the following day which was yesterday. In the late afternoon, I decided to give the chair a once over as I always do with newly acquired pieces of furniture. I first gave it a thorough wipe with one of those general purpose wet-wipes but was pleasantly surprised to discover that it seemed to bear no surface or shop grime whatsoever. Thereafter, it was a simple job to spray it with a general purpose silicone based leather spray (about which users used to rave on Amazon), pop a couple of cushions into its cavernous seat and then bring it it into use as I intended. The chair released now has taken a place by Meg’s bedside so I can sit and chat whilst having our early morning cup of tea. Last night, I am pleased to be able that Meg slept like a baby in sharp distinction to the night before. I am thinking that perhaps the spell of fresh air that we had in the garden in the late afternoon might have been beneficial. So whilst Meg was abed, I started to watch the football. On the end, I could not believe how lack lustre the England team happened to be after a 1:1 draw with Denmark which the football pundits were predicting would be an easy victory. It was not surprising that the team was booed off the pitch at the end of the match. The lack of enterprise was vividly illustrated when in the last five minutes of the game when every effort should have been made to secure a last minute victory, the England team were engaged in sideways passes to each other whilst in their own third of the pitch – hardly the way to secure a victory. Some commentators have seen a pattern here as in the last Euro football competition, a narrow 1-0 win on the first game was followed by a draw in the second game in the series. It is no wonder that I much prefer to watch Rugby Union these days. The Italy-Spain match, which I dId not watch, was by all accounts the kind of match that one expects in the Euro finals.

This morning I texted our University of Birmingham friend to inform him that we would be in Waitrose cafeteria for about three quarters of an hour. By happy coincidence, he was free for just about this period of time as well so we had our normal pleasant chat together. I bought some of the special low alcohol lager which is sold in the store and which I can occasionally drink without feeling guilty of excessive alcohol consumption, as it is only 0.4% but a superb flavour. Then we got back home just before the carers were due to arrive as I had a cunning plan to shoot off to our local Morrisons supermarket to buy some forest bark substitute which they had on special offer. This material is advertised as ‘Weed Control’ and is similar to forest bark being made with a mixture of wood shavings and bark ‘fines’ No doubt the suppliers of this kind of material need to be ecologically conscious these days but I reckoned that if I got a supply in whilst could, then whilst Meg is enjoying the garden I can be doing some gentle garden maintenance jobs. What I hoped would be a simple transaction turned out to be complicated as it needed a (male) assistant to carry one of the bags into the store to check the bar code (after a wait whilst person after person was buying lottery tickets) but eventually I finished up wit six bags of product loaded into the car. Meg and I had a salad lunch with a tin of ham which I like to keep in stock for occasions such as this and the salad was very tasty. Then, Meg and I enjoyed a spell in the garden as we intend to do when the weather is fair for us these days and I got the forest bark substitute unloaded from the car and ready for use. The very kindly and sympathetic nurse who specialises in Meg’s condition phoned up half way through the afternoon and, as always, she gave me some useful advice and tips how to overcome problems we have been having. After our spell in the garden, I sat Meg in our lounge with a copy of the Dr Michael Mosley book which I had purchased recently (‘Just one thing – how simple changes can transform your life’) which I am pleased to say that Meg is dipping into and seems to be enjoying. I thought I would buy this book as a sort of fitting reminder of how much good work Dr Mosley must have wrought throughout the world and I am still immensely saddened when think about the circumstances of his untimely end, dying of heat stroke and exhaustion on a Greek island.

Last night was not a very restful evening for the pair of us. Although Meg was put to bed some time after 7.00pm, she did not finally settle off to sleep until 12.45 the following morning. I also had to remake the bed with Meg in it which is not an easy task so despite being Meg being in bed for over five hours, she did not fall asleep as is sometimes the case. This in turn meant there were several things that could not get done whilst I was attending to Meg during the course of the evening and consequently, I was pretty tired from the moment I was woken this morning which was just after 5.00am in the morning. But now that we have the garden tidied up somewhat and the weather seems to be set fair for a few days, I am going to experiment a little later on today with wheeling Meg out of the front door and down the passageway which houses the rubbish wheelie bins down the side of the house. I have done some detailed measurements and I think that with a centimetre or two to spare, I may be able to negotiate a way through so that Meg can access the back. If this proves possible, and I shall find out later on today, then it is possible that Meg can get nice fresh air and enjoy the garden whilst I can do a little bit of edging and other tidying up within a short distance from the house. This morning is my shopping morning and the sitter that we normally have to enable me to do my shopping is a very amiable psychology graduate so I was happy to leave Meg with the sitter who was reading to her one of the two books I bought for Meg yesterday. One of the pleasures of shopping at Aldi, which I do, is the famous ‘middle aisle’ which contains all kinds of hardware items often sold at quite a considerable discount. This aisle will house a whole range of non food items which, to use an Aldi phrase, will be subject of taw principle of ‘Once it’s gone, it’s gone’ and I enjoy a little saunter up and down it once the food shopping is effectively completed. In the aisle today, though, I discovered some of the quite familiar plastic clogs which go by the grade name of Crocs but at a price of slightly more than a fifth what I paid for recently. The Crocs I bought yesterday seem to be of a reasonable quality but I think that although they are a standard size 8, they may be ever so slightly too small and have a slight tendency to pinch my toes. But the Aldi version, also a standard size 8, seems to be the best part of an inch longer and so subsequently fit me that much better. I don’t really mind having two of these sets of clogs because one set I can keep exclusively for garden and outside use whilst the others will act as slippers. I have started wearing this new footwear because our chiropodist who called round recently found and treated some quite deep cracks on my heels and urged me to get some new footwear to keep my feet in a reasonable state.

Whilst being quite politically engaged, I am finding that the current election seems to be carrying for weeks too long. Apparently Margaret Thatcher always kept her campaigns to about 4-5 weeks and not six weeks as we are enjoying at the moment. And Harold Wilson, the one time Labour PM called and won an election which was only three weeks long. It looks as though Rishi Sunak had reasoned to himself that a six week champaign would enable the Tories to catch up with and perhaps overhaul the Labour lead which has been constant for many months now. So it does look as though Rishi Sunak has badly miscalculated and only confirms the impression that whilst being accomplished at the level of manipulating spreadsheets and the like, he has a poor ‘political’ brain and miscalculates on some key issues as we observed in the D-Day fiasco. There are some more sophisticated political polls published overnight which are suggesting that we might have a Labour majority of over 200 which would be the biggest ever for them whilst the Tories might be reduced to about 100 or less which, in turn, would be their lowest ever. We are not talking here about mass conversions to the ranks of the Labour Party. Rather, it is how the vote will break at constituency level which is critical. It looks as the Reform party may take away sufficient votes from former Tory voters to allow either the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats to benefit. The Liberal Democrats themselves may be extremely successful in the South of England in former Tory strongholds whilst a SNP collapse in Scotland will add to the tally of Labour MPs. To this we can also add in the factor of tactical voting – it really does appear that the electorate as a whole are heartily fed up with the present government and will do almost anything to ensure that Tory candidates are defeated. Another scandal is brewing this afternoon and this is the news that high ranking Tory officials and protection officers, including their Director of Campaigns are being investigated by the Gambling Commission for apparently having bet on the date of the forthcoming general election perhaps being in possession of the actual date so that they knew the result of the bet before it was placed. Michael Gove when confronted with this news apparently said that he was ‘lost for words’ and it all adds up to the terrible smell of corruption and sleaze surrounding the modern Tory party. Maps have been published today which purport to show that the predominantly ‘blue’ i.e. Conservative constituencies of the last general election won by Boris Johnson with a majority of 80+ will be replaced by a red and orange patchwork where the swathes of ‘blue’ have all but disappeared. The election campaign now has less than two weeks to run (I am pleased to say) and whilst the absolute result is almost a foregone conclusion, I suspect that three important factors will come into play. One of these factors is the numbers of people turned away at the polling booth because of the lack of Voter ID. Another is a general apathy which may affect the turnout particularly if it looks as though the result is a bit too predictable. And finally, the Tories can always rely upon a swathe of ‘secret’ Tories who will never declare their allegiance to the Tory party but still will vote that way on election day itself.

Today has been quite an active day what with one thing or another. Wednesdays are the days when our domestic help calls around so this is always a source of much pleasure for us. Last week she brought along a beautiful soft toy for Meg’s enjoyment which is a female bear complete with a little dress on called ‘Angela’ (as that was the name of the very kindly lady who donated it to us on the understanding that it would ‘go to a good home’) But I also seize the opportunity whilst our domestic help is cleaning our Music Lounge and its environs so that I can leave Meg for some time whilst I do some critical shopping on the High Street. Today there were several things to be done, apart from visiting an ATM, principal amongst which was to call in at our local friendly cobblers who was busy repairing my leather hat for me. This has an ornamental band which gradually becomes unstuck and tends to drift off but our cobbler thought he had the right gear to put a few stitches in strategic locations to hold the band in place. Then I took the opportunity to buy a flower vase from a charity shop, a birthday card for our domestic help and some children’s books for Meg for her perusal. The thing about children’s books is that the illustrations are of equal importance to the actual text so one that I actually bought (about a puppy being lost – and then found – in the snow) is beautifully illustrated. When I consulted the bibliographical details, as I suspected there were two authors, one responsible for the text and the other for the illustrations and I image that the art of the illustrator is so much more demanding than that of the actual author. But the principal activity that engaged me this morning were a couple of ‘gardeners’ who came along to blitz our back garden for us which was getting very overgrown and had not been touched for a year i.e. since the more acute stages of Meg’s illness. Our principal gardener was actually the partner of one of our care staff who had taken a look outside at our garden and recommended her partner to do the job for us. Actually the pair worked like demons starting at about 9.30 and the principal gardener’s assistant was actually a roofer who was acting as second man for the day.They explained how they often worked with each other when a two-man job was needed and I was very impressed by what they managed to achieve. In my mind’s eye, I thought the garden would look pretty terrible after everything had a severe cut back and the bushes might look denuded. Instead, the results were very impressive and I had some 2-3 feet of foliage cut back from all over the garden. We had identified a location near to our compost bin which would act as a repository for the cut vegetation as they would cheapen the cost considerably rather then chopping it all up and then carting it away. I was particularly pleased that they had several pots which I had growing near the house (a bay tree, two lavender trees, a huge ‘Lavatera’ and one or two others) and with a careful eye rearranged them in various locations around our terrace (which was itself prettified somewhat) and the overall effect was better than I dared imagine. Having done such a good job, I was delighted to be able to offer them some more work in the autumn when the garden needs an end-of-summer pruning and a general tidying up before the onset of winter. The last time I was in Waitrose, I had spotted some of my favourite low alcohol beer which has the most excellent flavour despite being low alcohol so I was able to offer each of them a very refreshing drink as it had been very hot and thirsty work for the two of them. I am now in the position that Meg can enjoy the back garden if I can find a way of getting the wheelchair over the thresholds (the patio door surround and a large stone step) But I did manage to get through to the OT service, requesting they they make on onward referral to the’House Adaptations’ scheme which they said they would do. I am wondering whether a ramp or two or some other adaptation might make Meg’s access to the garden so much more feasible and we can then enjoy the garden for the remainder of the summer. For my part, I am resolved to keep the immediate environs – the parts within eyeballing distance- neat and tidy with a little bit of work perhaps even once a day assuming that Meg gets off to sleep and does not require any supervision in the evenings (which is the case sometimes)

All politicians relish (or should it be fear) the photo-opportunity and this is typically done to death. Why the politicians readily accede to the wearing of hard hats, bakers aprons and so on is beyond me but I suspect that they want to show that they are a ‘man/woman of the people’ – but the donning of protective headgear and particularly hard hats seems to be ‘de rigeur’ Rishi Sunak wished to establish his credentials with the farming community and was faced with offering food to a flock of sheep. The Tory publicists no doubt wanted a nice ‘cuddly’ image of Rishi Sunak surrounded by adoring sheep. But the image that they actually got was one sheep seeing what was on offer from the bucket and then refusing it whilst he rest of the flock turned their back on the Prime Minister and promptly run away. The mental image was delightful, the sheep being quite easily taken the place of the electorate who were turning their backs on the Tory. The Tory press corps and publicists put their hands over their eyes in horror as this image can no doubt be used in Labour Party election broadcasts and goodness knows what else. Not really using social media that much, I wonder if this image has gone viral at all?

Today being a Tuesday, Meg and I look forward to meeting with our Waitrose friends. The care workers were scheduled some three quarters of an hour later than usual so Meg and I needed to have a fairly rushed breakfast before we set forth down the hill. Fortunately, the weather was reasonably kind to us but I had clothed Meg in quite a substantial fleece as well as a waterproof in case the weather suddenly turned nasty upon us. When we got to the supermarket, only one of our friends was in evidence but we had a happy and extended chat before it was time to leave. I bought from the store some absolutely excellent low alcohol lager brewed I am not sure where but the brewers have managed to present a beer of tremendous flavour but only 0.4% alcohol so I tend to buy it whenever I see it in stock. Some of this beer will for my own indulgence when there is an interesting football match to peruse but a couple of bottles I will put at the disposition of the gardeners as and when they turn up to blitz the garden. After we had returned from our morning walk, the late morning carers came to perform their duties and then the Tuesday sit carer (ostensibly for me to go off and do Pilates) came along for her session. We chatted for awhile and then I cooked our lunch of fishcakes and the carer, very kindly, gave Meg her lunch whilst I was busy eating my own. This is the same carer who is often here with us on a Tuesday and she is very kindly and understanding if Meg is having a more depressed or agitated experience when she is here.

So here we are two weeks and two days to go before voting day in the General election and the Tories are still languishing in the polls. Evidently, the Tories now realise that something dramatic needs to take place (or be engineered) to save them from oblivion. One strategy is self evident and that is to ‘play the ball and not the man’ i.e. intensify personal attacks upon the character of Keir Starmer to try to convince the electorate that electing this political leader as a Prime Minister would be disastrous for the country. Although this might satisfy the emotional instincts of many Tories, as a strategy it is fraught with dangers. One of these is that attacks of a personal nature do not tend to go down well with the electorate. Another danger is that a tit-for-tat attack upon their own leader might prove counter-productive for the Tories as Rishi Sunak has hardly had a brilliant campaign so far. One is always tempted to repeat the old political adage, previously discussed in this blog and slightly adapted to attacks upon leaders, to echo the line that ‘If they stop telling lies about ‘X’, then I shall stop telling the truth about ‘Y’ But the other major plan that is being worked upon is to persuade Boris Johnson to enter the campaign with a vengeance. It is said that Boris Johnson is being drafted in to woo wavering voters amid a growing threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. The former Prime Minister has signed tens of thousands of letters to people who supported the Conservatives when he led it. Tory strategists are concerned that many of the voters who backed the party for the first time in 2019 will abandon the party for either Reform UK or Labour. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage has claimed his party is ahead of the Conservatives in much of northern England and the Midlands. But the Conservatives have also held discussions about Mr Johnson appearing on the campaign trail to boost the party’s fortunes. Although this story is being given a degree of prominence in at least one of the right-leaning dailies, I do not think myself that Johnson will allow himself to be drafted in. Whatever one thinks of Johnson, it is probably the case that he has quite a shrewd and calculating political brain and realises that embracing a cause which to many appears to be lost is no way to advance one’s own political ambitions. So my reading of the situation is that Johnson will carry on flirting with some of the Tory analysts but not actually agree to a very active campaigning role. After all, he may recognise that memories are long and whilst he may be adored by some, it is probably the case that he is reviled by a much larger number with memories of ‘Partygate’ (alcohol fuelled parties in Downing Street at the height of the pandemic) very much to the fore. At this rate, it’s not impossible that the Conservatives will collapse behind both the Liberal Democrats in seat numbers and Reform UK in the popular vote.nBut the stage may be being set for something neither funny nor implausible: the return of the most self-centred, dishonest and scurrilous politician our country has ever seen (Boris Johnson), according to one commentator.

Today is the last day upon which voters can ensure that they are registered to vote in just over two weeks time. It is acknowledged that the requirements for voter ID (mainly in the form of a photograph) may effectively disenfranchise a very large number of people. As many as eight million people face being disenfranchised at the next election due to an electoral registration system which is neither effective nor efficient, says the cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in a recently published report. The Tories knew what they were doing when the new rules were brought in as the unregistered tend to be the young, poor, ethnic minority status and so on giving a relative advantage to the old and settled who predominantly vote Tory. Keir Starmer is reported today as possibly instigating a review of the Voter ID rules were he to be elected Prime Minister and in a very tight election, the impact of these missing voters might be critical. In the local elections held recently, we know that at least 13,000 were effectively turned away and in a General Election this figure will be very much higher. The Tories have certainly learnt from the Republicans on the other side of the Atlantic who have practising and refining subtle (and not so subtle) forms of voter disenfranchisement (typically of poor and black voters) for years now. I expect that this issue will assume a lot more prominence as the campaign enters its last two weeks and there is a realisation that it is too late to secure one’s vote in the fortnight that remains to us.

This morning, we wondered for a moment how we were to spend our time but decided that we would follow the pattern of recent days and make for the park. Last night, I am pleased that Meg seemed to have had a more restful night. This may have been due to a natural tiredness but we also have a couple of bolster type arrangements which are designed to ensure that youngsters (and elderly people for that matter) do not fall out of bed and these seem to helped to prevent Meg’s legs from straying out of the reaches of the bed which is one of our problems nowadays. Buoyed by the success of this, I went onto the net and promptly ordered another couple so what they arrive, that ought to keep Meg fairly secure in her bed. I am reminded in my youth there was a very popular bed called a ‘LiLo’ and many families including our own possessed one. The technology at that time consisted of four long tubular panels arranged side by side. We learned the trick of inflating the outer tubes as hard as they would go but under inflating the two inner most panels. This as I remember keep you enormously snug and secure during the night and I think that when I went on a Scout Camp, everybody possessed one of these (which prevented the cold of the ground hitting you) with a sleeping bag on top. After we had breakfasted I made my customary lightning visit to collect my newspaper but today a car park attendant was conspicuously checking cars for legitimate parking tickets so I needed to comply with my 50p worth so as to avoid a fine. One of the delightful partners in Waitrose who I know every well and is well aware of Meg’s frailties pressed a bunch of roses into my hand which is so very gratefully received. Once we returned home, it was just a case of doing the washing up, preparing the coffee and wheeling Meg down the hill making a journey only about two thirds of the distance that it would be if we to carry on to the Waitrose store itself. It was a beautiful summer day in the park with just the slightest hint of a breeze.On our way, we passed by the house where our Irish friend was busy mowing the lawn so we had a quick word about our various afflictions and promised that we would get together whenever we could to exchange notes. Once home, the late morning carers arrived and did their bit and I then busied myself preparing our midday meal. We had just about got this over when our friendly chiropodist turned up to give attention to our feet. I had developed some cracks in my heels and the chiropodist helped me to provide some remedial treatment. She examined my low slung casual leather shoe I use as slippers and thought that the seam at the back might be causing me some problems. So we gave me some special fabric to alleviate things in the short term but then I need to go onto the web to find an almost exact replacement for the shoes that I want. No sooner had the chiropodist left but our son turned up to see us, bringing us a present of some lemon cheese after he and his wife had taken a quick break in the Lake District to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Our son told us about the new restaurants that had opened since the last time we visited Keswick and it seems that the whole town is gradually becoming a little more cosmopolitan. Meg and I always lodged in and around Keswick in our Lake District walking days and it is certainly a town for the dedicated fell walkers.

Yesterday, our neighbour called around to explain that he was going to be away on holiday for the next two weeks. Apparently he and the two carers had been on the doorstep for a good ten minutes ringing the doorbell but I was so dog tired I had fallen asleep in the chair and the doorbell failed to rouse me. I have relocated the doorbell chime unit into our Music Lounge so this does not happen again. Last night, when Meg was asleep, I dared to watch the first match in which England were playing with Serbia as their opponents. The England team had easily the best of the first half, dominating it completely and scoring a very good goal from the head of the (almost local) hero Jude Bellingham. But in the second half, the Serbs really came alive and stepped up a gear which made the whole of the second half quite a tense affair. One hard shot on goal looked a certain equaliser but the English goalkeeper just managed to deflect the shot over the bar. But the commentators are saying that ‘a win is a win’ but certainly not as convincingly as the Germans and the Spanish.

The political news today is the launch of a type of manifesto by the Reform Party. I actually think they are ought to be called ‘the party for voters who think the Tory party is not sufficiently nasty’ but I am not sure that their policies (reducing immigration to a net zero in which those coming in exactly match in number those emigrating) have been subject to any kind of detailed scrutiny. The kind of comment I have heard so far is that Reform is never going to form a government so we do not need to concern ourselves with their policies. But one has to admit that Farage is a superb publicist or rather self-publicist and has the capacity to make it look as though complex problems can have really simple solutions. His solution to the problems of the NHS is to turn it something like the French, insurance based model which he argues gives much better results for the same amount of money. I am not sure that the experts at the Kings Fund (experts in NHS organisation and functioning) would agree and it would take at least ten years to reorganise the whole of the NHS even if it was considered a good idea.

Today being a Sunday, we enter our Sunday routines but today revealed some surprises for us. Our care agency was having some staff difficulties, primarily due, I think, to staff illnesses and so we were informed by text late yesterday evening that we would only expect one carer this morning and could I be called upon to assist? As it turned out, the care staff member who turned up was one of the must reliable and trustworthy ladies with whom I get on well so we formed a good team together but get Meg up, washed, dressed and hoisted into her chair. Then it was the Sunday morning Politics programmes to which I always look forward but which I very often sleep through and today was no exception. Evidently, the programmes today were election oriented but I did get the perception that the Labour Party, being consistently about 20-21 votes ahead and is therefore regarded as a front -runner is subject to more sustained and detailed scrutiny than the Tories and the Reform party seems to get hardly any critical examination at all. As soon as these programmes were over, I made my customary lightning visit in town to get our copy of a Sunday newspaper and then upon my return where I wheeled Meg into the kitchen where she could observe me doing the washing up and preparing our coffee elevenses. Then we made our way to the park, trying but failing to make contact with our University of Birmingham friend. It was quite a nice day down in the park and after we were had been sitting in the park for half an hour, we were approached by a lady and her very friendly dog that we used to meet in the park regularly in our COVID expeditions. This lady is a very friendly and homely type of person and it turns out that we knew her son pretty well who has acted as a general handyman for me repairing gutters and even constructing some steps into a lower area of the garden christened ‘Mog’s Den’ (sadly now, massively overgrown as I have not had the time to get down into it for a year) No sooner had our friend left us and we were preparing to leave than we met up with another acquaintance who has the most incredibly good looking labrapoodle type dog, almost resembling a sheep. This acquaintance had some rather bad news to convey as his partner has advanced and inoperable lung cancer and all kinds of unpleasant sequelae are now developing as consequence of all of this. We would have liked to have stayed and commiserated a little longer but we had to be on our journey so as not to be late for the late morning call of Meg’s carer. Then we ran into the wife of our Irish friends from down the road and learned the sad news that her husband has been diagnosed with a serious illness which helps to explain why we had been in contact for a week or so now. However, we promised each other that we definitely meet to update each other on the various things that had been happening to us but again, we rather had to receive the news and then hurry away up the hill, again to ensure we were back in time for Meg’s carer. We did make it back in time but only with about two minutes to spare and had just about cleaned up the wheels of the wheelchair ready to be wheeled across the carpets within the house. So we had received two instances of unpleasant news about illnesses in our friends and acquaintances but I am afraid that is all too familiar a story in this day and age.

We lunched on some chicken pieces made into a stew with the benefit of a thick chicken and vegetables soup purchased from Aldi and this gave us a very copious meal with plenty left over for tomorrow.This afternoon it seems to be gloriously sunny Sunday afternoon but after a venture out in the morning, we tend to have more relaxing afternoons. The political news this afternoon is best summed up by an analysis that I have recently that the Tories fight with Farage is a fight to the death over the future of UK’s centre-right politics (although perhaps more accurately, the future of the whole of the UK right) The manifestations of this fight are strange to behold. For example, Penny Mordaunt the other day in the seven-way party debate tore into Labour’s tax plans relentlessly but did not have a single word of criticism of Farage or his policies which is surely a massive threat to the Tory Party. This might be because of a realisation that after the inevitable defeat, there may be a regrouping of the right in this country and although Reform might want to absorb remnants of the right wing tendencies in the UK scene, there are some elements of the present Tory party who want to do exactly the same with Reform. We will probably end up with a situation in which Reform has a goodly number of votes but only 1-2 seats in Parliament, helping indirectly to ensure the election of a Labour government by drawing critical votes away from the Tories. The Tories instead of attacking Farage and Reform directly have resorted to the tactic of warning of a potential Armageddon, as they see it, if a Labour government is elected with a landslide majority. This is tantamount to recognising that defeat is inevitable and the election is already lost and won (as Farage is claiming that it is).

Yesterday, I wondered whether to watch some football but just turned on the TV to watch the Spanish score two quick and well deserved goals against Croatia which meant that I was spared the more tentative football at the start of the match. Tonight England are playing Serbia and the German police are assuming that the militant fans on both sides will be out to cause trouble either inside or outside the stadium. It looks as though some well known militants have successfully got over into Germany and I think it will take a lot of good policing to keep the two sets of fans apart. I would be amazed if England were to win because we seem to have a national talent for talking up our football only to discover that we are not a very good footballing nation these days. So I am expecting a defeat tonight and not will gutted if this actually occurs.