Today is the day when I normally have two commitments, the first being a meeting with the ‘granny gang’ in the Waitrose cafeteria and the second being my Pilates class. We got Meg and myself up, washed and breakfasted and then telephone calls intervened. I was just on my way out when I received a telephone call from Worcs. Social Services with whom I have been trying to arrange a formal assessment for Meg. I sometimes wonder why this should be a complicated procedure but it seems to be. First one passes through a ‘Portal’ system which seems like the electronic equivalent of a bouncer in a nightclub i.e. designed to fend off those who can be transferred off to other services if possible. Then I get through to what I presume is some kind of organiser or scheduler because having taken some particulars I am then going (eventually) to be passed on either to an assessor to a social worker who will then telephone me within a few days to arrange a date when Meg can have a formal assessment. What eventually got the wheels rolling of this particular wagon is the fact that I received a phone call from the ‘Falls Prevention’ team but I had not appreciated that if you were about to fall, or were liable to fall then you were the responsibility of one department but once you had actually fallen, you were the responsibiity of another department whose job it is to scrape you off the floor (unless you are bleeding or injured, in which case you passed onto the ambulance service to be whipped off to A&E.)

Once we eventually got to the Waitrose cafeteria, we had a jolly time with two of our friends who we hope to see again on Saturday morning. On the recommendation of our domestic help and other sources, I went in search of composite meals and chose two that were in date (One Asian, one Asiatic) for our little celebrations at midday on Saturday next. I wanted to get a Chinese one as well but the ones in stock only had a short shelf life in stock so I am going to have to wait until I get some that don’t expire before the weekend. On the way out of the store, Meg was incredibly fragile and, seeing that I appeared to be struggling, a very kindly onlooker gave me a helping hand so that between us we could get Meg to the car (which was only parked just outside the front door to the store in any case) It transpired that she had two elderly parents, both still alive and in their 90’s so she was well used to helping older people to make a necessary journey. I thanked her profusely but did wonder to myself how long I can rely upon the kindness of complete strangers. Once we got home, I put Meg in our Music Room and we watched a bit of telly (on our relocated TV) before I prepared a lunch of fishcakes. I was not sure if I would manage to fit in a Pilates session but, in the event, Meg was in too fragile a condition to be left so I left a voicemail of explanation for my Pilates teacher. Later on in the afternoon, she texted me to say that she was ‘gutted’ that I was finding attendance at the class so difficult after I had been attending her class religiously for about ten years or so. I am going to box and cox with arrangements so that I can get half an hour’s exercise in next week if not the complete hour. Earlier in the day, I received a wonderfully supportive text from one of my fellow Pilates class mmembers (we go back about 10-12 years, I think) saying she had read some of these blogs and offering condolences and support. I thanked her profusely for all of this and hope that we can meet for a cup of tea in the afternoons if the time can be spared. But other people have such busy lives and their own family concerns that have to take priority.

Half way through the afternoon some church friends popped around by prior arrangement – I had put things on our planning board and then forgotten to consult it. The husband suffers from dementia and was getting increasingly agitated after only a few minutes. So our friends stayed for about half and hour but I managed to pass on what I hope is some useful tips and telephone numbers. It may be that they can call around once a week or once a fortnight to provide some mutual support. This evening, there are some classic comedy programmes on BBC4 so I am hopeful that I can Meg all washed and ready for bed before they start so that we can both have about an hour’s relaxation before we start to have an earlyish night. I need to go shopping first thing tomorrow morning for a variey of reasons so an early night tonight and an alarm call for about 6.15 in the morning is in order. After some thought and measurement, I have ordered a bigger screen TV for Meg and I to enjoy in the Music Room. This is Toshiba technology, is a somewhat out-of-date model with an appropriate price reduction but with five years warranty from John Lewis so I thought that this particular package was too good to miss.

Today has been such a different day to yesterday, I am delighted to report. Whereas Meg was exceptionally ‘wobbly’ from the moment she woke up yesterday morning, today she felt a smidgeon better which is all to the good. During the night, I had sent a long-ish and heartfelt email to the Admiral Nursing team who I have to be an excellent source of support. Today, I received a phone call from the nurse who has been allocated to be our principal link with the team and who, in the fullness of time, will come to pay us a visit. Our contact was as supportive as ever and the thing she does which is particularly useful is that she somehow manages to get the email we have sent her detailing all of our woes actually into the hands of the GP. I suppose that this is what one might ‘wheels within wheels’ but I do mind how she does it as long as it is effective. This is followed up by a phone call to the GP surgery which does add a degree of prioritisation to the web-based request that we make for a GP appointment. We had particularly asked that a GP call round to the house and, lo and behold, we got a telephone call indicating that a GP would actually make a house visit between 1.00 and 2.00 other things being equal. We had been considerably heartened yesterday by a telephone call from our good Irish friends who live down the road and who had invited us for a coffee at 11.00. Whereas yesterday, I thought it would have been impossible to have got Meg into the car, today is what the Spanish call ‘otra cosa’ or another thing. Accordingly, after breakfast we bundled Meg into the car and went to collect our newspaper and then to see our neighbours, having a good chat with her French neighbour en route. We spent a wonderful hour and a half with our friends and Meg’s spirits were lifted considerably as a result. I must admit that I did have a lacrymose moment in the middle of the night, when one is not at one’s best, that if the doctor decided to hospitalise Meg and if she was not then judged to be well enough to be discharged back in to her own home, that that might be the last night we spent together after 56 years (practically) of marriage. Once we got home and had a refreshing drink, then one of the practice GPs turned up and did the range of tests you might consider such as blood pressure, heart amd lungs, palpating the abdomen etc. He then observed Meg getting up from a sedentary position and being very wobbly in the process. His judgement was that she was lacking in ‘inner core strength’ which is a judgement from which it was not possible to dissent and was going to make an onward referral to occupational therapy and perhaps also physiotherapy. This may well be treating symptoms rather than causes so who Meg fell so often yesterday may never be fully known.

As our friends had already given us some sandwiches as extended elevenses in the morning, Meg and I did not feel the need for a full scale lunch. So we treated ourselves to a bowl of icecream as it was quite a warm and sunny day. We FaceTimed my sister who had sent me a text message of support after she had read of our tribulations in last night’s blog and I was happy to update her with the news that the doctor had called and that Meg felt somewhat better than yesterday. We exchanged details of the experiences of packages of support that we had received (or rather not received) which differed markedly beween Yorkshire and Worcestershire. The principal difference seems to be that if have had a spell of hospitalisation, then upon discharge there is almost a ready-made package of support which follows once you are at home. But this is not the case for Meg and myself and we are starting to approach social services from a very different angle. My sister is very supportive of me and of course, our circumstances vary but we both struggle to discover why packages of support should be available in one county but not in another. Afer our long and supportive videocall, I
tried to activate what I was thought was a live link with the so-called ‘Enablement’ team only to be told that our case was now regarded as ‘closed’ and we should apply to an area social services team. This we did, only to be told that Meg’s falls did not come within their perview so they would refer us on to a ‘Falls Prevention’ team from which we have heard nothing as the afternoon progressed. Eventually, I got back to Worcestershire Association of Carers who I think were a little horrified by all of this buck-passing and promised that they would make a reference for a social needs assessment on our behalf.

I had one thing that worked out well for us today. Now we are using the ‘Music Room’ much more, we have inherited my son’s ex-bedroom TV which works perfectly but is only 13″ across and 8m away. Yesterday, I bought an extension ariel cable of some 15 metres which means that we can view this little telly in a position much closer to our usual chairs and this worked like a dream. We may treat ourselves to a bigger and better TV in this room now that we have the aerial access issue sorted out for ourselves.

Today has been quite a day, what with one thing or another. It did not get off to the best of starts because Meg required quite a lot of attention to get her up and dressed this morning. Even after a good night’s sleep, she is still exhibiting a lot of fragility and this is having all sorts of consequences. Eventually, I got Meg up, washed and dressed and made progress downstairs but we had a simple breakfast. I started watching the new Trevor Philips hosting of a politics program on Sky News starting at 8.30 and some parts of this seemed quite good but other parts of it I dozed through. The principal contribution of note was Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequeur, who was commenting upon the crisis caused by the aerated concrete used in a lot of schools from the 1950’s to the 1980’s and which now stands in danger of imminent collapse. This problem has been known about for some time and is like a slowly ticking timebomb for the government. The Department for Education (DfE) has newly identified 104 schools and sixth forms with problems, but it is understood a full list of them will only be released when all parents are informed and mitigations are in place. Initial press reports indicated that about 150 schools and colleges might be affected but there are some indications that this in itself might be a gross underestimate. During the day, I have seen an interview with a prominent Conservative member of the Public Accounts Committee promising that a survey of all of the potential schools affected might be completed ‘by the end of the year’ i.e. in four months time. So, it would not be surprising if the number of affected schools might rise considerably. There is an even more alarming dimension to this story, revealed by today’s Sunday Times. That is that scores of public buildings caught up in the crumbling concrete crisis are also likely to be riddled with deadly asbestos. Experts fear that the presence of RAAC also increases the danger of exposure to asbestos which kills 5,000 people a year in the UK. If this proves to be the case, then we are not just talking about the ‘remediation’ of a few concrete panels but the complete rebuild of a school. The dangers of asbestos are not to be underestimated. Whilst Meg and I were working at Leicester Polytechnic, we worked on the top two floors of a building called the James Went building. On the first floor, electricians undertaking routine maintenance work discovered the presence of some crumbling asbestos and this evidently required expert removal. The way that this was done was to completely seal off rhe affected floors and then put the whole of the area shrouded in thick industrial plastic under negative pressure i.e. air was gently blown in so that any asbestos fibres would be contained within the insulated area. To monitor that no escapes of asbestos fibre were taking place, a series of monitors were placed on every floor of the building. But when the system was put into operation, every monitor lit up like a Christmas tree indicating that there had been a regular escape of asbestos probbably over the years. So the whole building was evacuated as though there had been a major fire and according to the rest of my recollection, it probably took at least a year if not a year and a half to remedy the problem. So all of the staff offices were vacated with half eaten sandwiches and the like whilst specialist teams of operatives, complete with breathing apparatus, were designated to go and search for some of the critical files and student records. The disruption to the work of the Polytechnic was extreme as various departments, including our own, were relocated to temporary office accommodation whereever it could be found in the proximity of the Polytevnic and as staff, we all had to go to our doctors and request an X-ray to indicate that none of us were suffering from asbestosis, even though the results of this do not show up for about 30 years.

And so we revert to the domestic difficulties I have been facing today. Meg has lost the ability to stand unaided so it has been an ‘interesting’ day with four absolute falls, three just about saved in the nick of time because I happened to be in very close proximity, one glass smashed on the kitchen floor and one and half cups of tea spilt in our living room. During the night, I will contact Admiral nurses and first thing in the morning report all of this to our doctor who I suspect will do very little. I have received a very supportive email from one of my ex-colleagues from Winchester whose flat on the South Coast had been put at our disposal and which we intended to make use of for a night or so to help us celebrate our 56th wedding anniversary in one week’s time. But this is now out of the question for self evident reasons. One of our friends down the road invited us round for coffee tomorrow morning so I gave him a quick update on what had been going on. As things stand, it may be difficult even getting Meg into our car so trips to the park might be off the agenda for the foreseeable future. We will have to see what tomorrow might bring.

Today started off in an interesting way. Last night, during the night, I did a little experiment to see if I could still access Amazon Music on my main MAC computer in view of the fact that I now added a Single Device subscription to my Amazon account. The short answer is that I could, so I decided to expand this line of experiment to see if the same was true of Amazon Music accessed through my iPad. I found out that I could not but it was worth a bit of experimentation in any case. Finally, I played a track on the Macbook (laptop) which I have in the lounge and played a Mozart sonata which is very well known – Rondo Alla Turca or Turkish March. After I played this for about a minute to test that all was playing well, I left Amazon Music and could not believe my ears when the same piece of music could be heard in the distance – coming from our kitchen, actually. The explanation is simple enough but extraordinary in that ClassicFM was playing the same track at exactly the same time. This really was the most extraordinary coincidence but it has happened to me on one other occasionally within my memory. Eventually, we made it to the Waitrose car park and then inside the store where Meg and I treated ourselves to a bowl of porridge (less calories than a round of toast) topped off with blueberries. Two of our regular three old ladies were there, the enemy of sciatica detaining one of our number. Whilst I was feeling in a loquacious mood, I reminisced about life in the 1950’s and how all women used to keep a length of what was then called ‘knicker elastic’ in their handbags. This was because at some time in their lives, all women had experienced the failure when their knicker elastic broke and they could be left with the knickers falling about their ankles in the middle of a shopping street. According to the etiquette of the time, you should step gracefully out of the fallen garment, roll them up neatly and put them into your handbag and then go in search of the nearest lady’s loo (spending a penny in the process to gain access) where you undertake a temporary repair sufficient to get you home. Whist on the subject of knicker elastic, one of the most embarrassing commercial transactions occurred shortly after Meg and I were first married and living in a masionette in Manchester. In the units below us were some little stalls and we hunted out a little Asian lady wo knew kept a haberdashery stall. We asked if she had any knicker elastic and she did indeed have some which she indicated was 1½d a yeard. Actually, we said to her, we only needed a foot for some repair job or other but the lady replied that she would sell us a foot if that is all that we required. She carefully measured out 12″, rolled it up and put it into a little brown paper bag. The price was ½d so we offered her a penny and got ½d by way of change (this is about one fifth of the modern penny, by the way) Even Meg and I felt a little embarrassed by the whole transaction. The other little story that I told was a traveller’s tale when Meg was out in Spain doing an Erasmus trip and I was flying out on my own to join her. The chap occupying the seat next to the window it transpired was a native of Galicia (called a Gallego) and he was a farmer. I was anxious to improve my Spanish so we chatted to each other for the whole of the flight. Towards the end of the flight, the Gallego farmer suddenly put his face close to mine and uttered the immortal words ‘You really have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen’ The point of this story is that I may have no propensities at ‘pulling’ women but give me a gay Gallego farmer and that is altogether a different cup of tea.

When we came to leave, we had probably been sitting for far too long and Meg was very wobbly on her feet. A very kind stranger assisted Meg and myself getting to the door of the store whilst I went to collect the car into which Meg managed to slump. When I got her inside the house, she fell again (or rarher slithered) so I managed one way or another to get her to her feet and with the aid of a walker got her down as far as our living room. I texted my son with these happenings and I was relieved when my son and his wife popped over to see what assistance they could offer to Meg. Whilst I had the two of them in the house, we made some plans for a joint celebration of our wedding anniversary next Saturday. We have decided as Meg’s condition is a little unstable at the moment to celebrate at home with a Waitrose Indian meal which we will buy from the Droitwich (bigger) store during the week. Meg and I missed church this afternoon for the first time in years but, of course, there are quite a lot of holiday absences at this time of year so we probably will not be missed.

Today started off in the middle of the night, if you know what I mean. As I suspected, whilst I was playing about familiarising myself with Amazon Music, after a lot of promptings to take out a subscription and repeatedly pressing the ‘No’ button, eventually by mistake I had pressed the ‘accept’ button which meant that after a grace period of 30 days I would be charged £10.00 a month to access this service. As things go these days, this is not a great deal of money and we will be listening to a lot of classical music on Amazon music but I was unclear how much you get for ‘free’ without a subscription and therefore how much extra the £10.00 a month buys for you. But then I discovered that if I only wanted to play Amazon Music on one device (i.e. the TV with its FireStick) this was available for £5 pcm which did seem OK to me. I price everything in terms of ‘cups of coffee worth’ and for the sake of one and a half cups of coffee a month, this was quite acceptable and so I started to try to get my subscription changed. This proved to be so difficult, not least because the option to change to the lower rate was ‘greyed out’ and therefore unavailable. Eventually, I got onto one of those ‘chat’ aids which always gave me a somewhat oblique answer to what I was trying to do. I suspect it is a series of Artificial Intelligence inspired responses fired at you with intervention only by a human at a late stage. But to cut a long story short, in the middle of the night I managed to get my existing subscription of £10 a month cancelled, a £5 a month ‘Single Device’ subscription put into its place and so I eventually got to bed a happy bunny, making sure that the changes I had made seemed to register OK both on my desk computer and also on the TV FireStick app.

Today, our domestic help calls round and, of course, I always have things to show her. In particular, I wanted her to see the newly acquired Marzi and Remy steinware which arrived yesterday and now forms a collection of three (one larger one dating from the 1880’s and two slightly smaller pieces dating from the 1960’s) She thought I had made an excellent purchase as the three form a nice type of ‘unity’ and the light naturally falls upon them from a side window in our Music Room. I had also rearranged some other ornaments so that that ‘owls’ are together in one room. When our domestic help arrived, I helped her get settled in with her cup of tea by playing ‘Shenandoah‘ to her which I now nearly always play note perfect. After our breakfast, I got a telephone call from one of the doctors in the group practice in response to the web form that I filled in to request a telephone consultation and she indicated that she would prescribe some medication which may prove helpful to Meg in the afternoons. But she seemed somewhat cautious as sometimes the medication that they prescribe can make things worse rather than better but nonetheless some new pills should arrive in a few days time once they work their way through the system (we have our medicines delivered to us through the Lloyds system which is a boon) Then we made our way to the park, where we met up by prior arrangement with our University of Birmingham friend. This friend is keen to expand his circle of acquaintances and has joined several walking groups which sounds to us to be a very good idea because, in the course of a long hike, it always possible to find a kindred spirit. But the first walk at 8-9 miles long seemed to be rather demanding but you never know what you are letting yourself in for until you try it. So we gave our friend every encouragement to keep on walking and we trust in the fullness of time, he finds a congenial set of companions.

This afternoon, Meg and I listened to classical music streamed through our TV, courtesy of Amazon Music. Be delving around in some of the menu systems, I found it possible to access a list of the entire contents of the album which is called ‘100 Best Classics‘. Whilst Meg was busy listening, I was also passively listening but at the same time making a text file of the song particulars. A simple ‘cut and paste’ did not work when the screen contents scrolled upwards so I was reduced to getting a screenful of titles (of the order of 5-7 at a time) and then pasting them into a text file and text editor that I use reguarly for my blog. This was a little fiddly but ultimately rewarding because I finished up with a paper copy that ran to several pages long.I emailed the list from my laptop via email to my main computer from whence I could acquire a printed copy.

There is a massive scandal afflicting the schools which is just now seeing the light of day. More than 150 schools throughout the country have got to take steps to repair their buildings if afflicted by a specially light (and weak) form of concrete called RAAC – Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete. The problem seems to have been known about for years and warnings were issued to schools some months ago. But making schools close only a day or so before the new term (instead of the start of the long summer vacation)points to government incompetence in the extreme. Also, slashing the school building program to one half of what it should be to ensure safety are the chickens of austerity coming home to roost with a vengeance.

Today has been quite a day, as it happens. During the night when I just happened to be up and about, I idly turned on the Amazon FireStick that my son and I had been manfully trying to install yesterday but without any success. We left the system chugging away with a message on ‘Now registering..’ or something similar but as nothing seemed to be happening, we assumed it was stuck in an endless loop of some kind. But when I tried the system in the middle of the night, the registration seemed to have worked and now I could start to explore some of the facilities. To check all was going well I actually watched the Jacob Bronowoski ‘Ascent of Man‘ episode which looked at the contributions of both Newton and Einstein. I had not fully appreciated that Leibniz had come up with the notion of the differential calculus at the same time as Newton and, in some ways, his thought processes were ahead of Newton in that he did not think of both space and time as immutable constants. I needed to update the BBC iPlayer and the system also downloaded some software updates but all in all, I feel very relieved that I now have some of the functionality of a ‘smart’ TV at a fraction of the price. When after a bit of snatched sleep, I got up in order to go shopping, Meg was feeling quite unwell so she required a bit of sorting out before I put her back to bed again to sleep whilst I went shopping. But going shopping about half an hour later than usual was quite beneficial to me and the store seemed very quiet as it now some minutes after the normal opening time. I espied one of those little ‘folding stools’ which are actually incredibly useful and made a gift of it to my son upon my return. Once I got home and unpacked my shopping, I gave my sister a FaceTime call as it is her birthday today. She seemed to have lots of birthday greetings from other family members and bunches of flowers had appeared as well. One of her daughters is going to take her out for a meal today and I think that another of her sons is doing something similar tomorrow so I was pleased to see the family are rallying around. But we had a long conversation about Meg’s health and my sister expressed her concerns about the developments that I managed to convey to her. She seems to have quite lonesome weekends so I am now resolved to give her a call on Sunday mornings which I shall to build into a weekly routine so that we can give each other a bit of mutual support and comfort as we grow old gracefully together.

Just before we lunched, a workman came round and, as a result of the occupational therapist’s visit of a couple of weeks ago, it had been decided that a grab rail fitted into the shower would be a good idea. The chap who came round was so skilful and neat in his work and we chatted about things going in Bromsgrove whilst he fitted the grab rail – so skilfully and so quickly. There was also a suggestion that we might have a half bannister on the ‘other’ side of our main staircase but Meg seems to cope with coming downstairs much more easily than going up. So after some deliberation, we decided not to avail ourselves of this option and I suppose we can reactivate the service should we need it in the months and years ahead. It is always interesting watching a skilled craftsman at work and although I had been worried that his drill might crack the tiles when the holes were drilled, this did not happen and the grab rail seemed to be fitted in no time at all. Then we cooked ourselves a quick lunch of some vegetables, supplemented by the remainder of last week’s joint cut into small pieces and served with pasta (for Meg) and cream crackers for myself.

During the early part of the afternoon, we amused ourselves (if that is the right word) using the ‘Alexa’ built-in voice command system which is a feature of our updated Amazon FireStick. The frustrating thing is that last night, when I first had the system installed, I had clicked upon some Classical Music options which purported to give on demand the most popular and admired classical pieces of all time. But I tried a variety of voice commands but never managed to get back to the options that I had utilised in the middle of the night. A bit more playing around with the system is no doubt called for such that I think we can get the musical offerings that we actually want. But Meg was happy listening to favourite operatic arias whilst I busied myself with writing some much needed emails. In the late afternoon, I was delighted to receive, at last, a piece of Marzi and Remy pottery will be a companion piece to the two oher pieces I bought about a fortnight ago. I had secured this additional piece for the same price that I paid locally and was not unhappy to pay the postage so that we have, practically, a matching set of Marzy and Remy steinware.

This morning dawned quite bright and fair and we had several plans for the day ahead. Firstly, my son and I struggled to implement a new and updated Amazon Firestick which adds all kinds of channels to one’s TV. I have one of these appliances which is several years old now and suffers from an occasional ‘buffering’ problem. When this occurs, whatever program you are watching freezes and you have to reset and restart the system as a whole. It does, however, remember the point at which you get stuck and so you see the whole of the programme that you are watching, albeit with an interruption. The new Firestick seemed to get so far and then got in to an endless loop of some description at the point where the account is being registered. My son and I struggled with this for the best part of an hour but eventually, we ran out of options. On consulting the web, it seems that being stuck in an endless loop is a phenomenon which seems not infrequent so I will study the advice which is given and we will both have a try again of this in the morning. If that fails to work, it will have to be a case of complaining to Amazon and requesting our money back.

As it was quite a fine morning, Meg and I went out on the road. It is my sister’s birthday tomorrow and although I had purchased a birthday card, I wanted to ensure that it got delivered on time. Our post office is now a counter in our local branch of W H Smiths so I parked the car in such a way that we are pretty sure that we have caught the post which is collected at about midday. Then Meg and I made our way into the park and enjoyed a burst of sunshine whilst we drank our coffee in the park, surrounded as is usual by a fair collection of toddlers on their bikes and dogs of every shape and size. When we turned home, I got busy preparing the lunch which was going to make use of some donated runner beans. These were actually donated by the neighbour of one of the church congregation that we see regularly so we know they are fresh out of someone’s garden or allotment. I steamed them as I would any other veg but then as we had the oven on for a quiche,I stirred in some little shreddings of ham and baked them in the oven with a dousing of olive oil. This is a very Spanish way of eating both peas and beans although in their case it would be a bit of chorizo. In any event, I thought it would make the beans a little more interesting. I also prepared some ham and cheese sandwiches as well as some tuna sandwiches for our guests later in the afternoon. In preparation for our friends coming round by prior arrangement at 3.00 in the afternoon, I threw together some collections of biscuit and cake in readiness for the afternoon. As I had a few minutes spare before our guests arrived, I shot outside and got rid of some pretty big weeds which had grown tall by the side of our access roadway and were proving offensive to the sight. When our friends arrived, we showed them first into our Music Room where I explained how we had gradually furnished the room. I gave them a rendition of ‘Shenandoah‘ on the Casio keyboard followed by two quick bursts of the ‘Barcarolle‘ on the two manuals of the organ. We spent a jolly few minutes whilst I explained to them how the Music Room helped us to relax particularly in the afternoons and with our favourite CD of Fauré. A CD also arrived by today’s post of ‘Renaissance – music for inner peace’ which I trust we shall enjoy playing in the days ahead. After our sojourn in the Music Room, we went off to the lounge and had our cups of tea and what the Anglo-Indians perhap called ‘tiffin’ and we told our friends the various interactions that we had had with social services, some of which had worked out quite well and some of which had not. We also discussed some of the options for Meg’s forthcoming eye treatments as our friend had recently had cataract surgery and was in a very good position to offer us some very useful advice, particularly as in her professional life she had been a nurse/midwife. After a very pleasant afternoon, our friends left and Meg and I scoffed whatever were the remains of the food for our afternoon tea.

The reasons for the massive disruption to the SATS air traffic control system are slowly starting to unravel. The finger of suspicion was put upon a French flight plan which was erroneous and with which the system could not cope – and therefore the system was shut down for safety reasons. But this is not an unknown scenario and there are also suggestions that better storage systems and backup systems that actually worked well would have given flight controllers more time to locate and isolate the source of the problem. In the meanwhile, the disruption has gone on for days and travellers may well be hundreds or even thousands of pounds out of pocket wth the airlines reluctant to pick up the bill as it ‘was not their fault’

So Tuesday has come round again, which is a day to which we always look forward when we meet up with the ‘gang’ in the Waitrose cafeteria. I must say I am quite pleased to get the Bank Holiday out of the way so that now we can get on with the normal rhythms of life. But the British feel pretty hard done by as there are no more public holidays between now and Christms which is quite a long stretch. I think some families may make a little thing around November 5th/Bonfire Night although the americanism of ‘Trick or Treat’ seems to have undergone a creeping takeover in the past two or three decades. Today, though, we had normal kind of discussions which are sometimes music based between one of our group whose son works in the recording industry whilst with another we talk about vaguely Labour party politics as she has campaigned for them in the past. When we parted, we did a bit of shopping and then got home to prepare for my Pilates class, later on in the day. This week we were going to try a somewhat different pattern as I had decided to go there and back by car which would save at least half an hour of walking time. Then, in order to keeo Meg ‘company’ whilst I was out of the house, now that we had got our DVD player working to our satisfaction we put on a DVD of Bryn Terfel and Cecilia Bartoli in concert at Glyndebourne in 2000. In theory, this should have worked all right but the best laid plans of mice and men..when I got to my class, there was nobody in the studio as our instructor was on holiday. As I have not managed to attend a class for some two weeks now, I might have known about this week’s holiday as the class would have been reminded of our instructor’s absence. So having paid my car parking fee for a couple of hours, I returned home and we cooked ourselves a lunch that was so much earlier than would normally be the case on a Tuesday. Yesterday evening (or it may have been the wee small hours of the morning) I had made a counter offer to get 8 opera DVDs for the sum of £26 with postage paid. This offer had been accepted by the vendor and they were all operas which Meg and would have enjoyed in the past so we are more than happy to play them again when we get them. There is a theory behind all of this bout of purchasing in that whilst I am out of the house doing my Pilates (which I am loathe to give up as I have been doing it for about twelve years now) then Meg may well be able to enjoy a little concert whilst I am out of the house and this will help to provide some diversion.

We had a quiet afternoon this afternoon in our Music Room to which we often retreat to provide an alternative to our main living room. I have also ordered a couple of relaxing DVDs, one being Mozart arias and another being more contemplative Renaissance type music but these will not arrive for a few days yet, given the Bank Holiday and the vagaries of the postal system. I read a rather interesting article about John Eliot Gardiner, the pre-eminent baroque music specialist who has almost single handedly brought some of the finest performances of baroque composers to the attention and admiration of the wider English public. But he is now in his 80’s and has indulged in behaviour (being rude, if not abrupt, to singers who do not meet up with his own exacting musical standards) which is now out of kilter with the times. In the past, the great conducters could be ruthlessly autocratic and they largely got away with it as their intemperate outbursts were excused because of their ‘artistic temperament’. But ‘The Times‘ article written by a critical admirer, argued that these ‘old school’ conductors are now the dinosaurs of the musical industry and behaviour in which they indulged in decades gone past is no longer tolerated. An amusing, but terrible, story is associated with Sir Thomas Beecham who certainly did not mince his words. On one famous occasion, his impatience got the better of him amd he shouted at one lady cellist ‘Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands of men – and all you can do is scratch it’ The lady cellist left the stage in tears and I think was never heard of again after this public humiliation. I suppose the story is true and not apocryphal but who knows? This afternoon, Meg and I indulged ourselves yet again with listening to the Joan Baez concert recommended to my ex-Pilates friend a few days ago and she (and we) enjoyed it. I still have to find out if I can get a permamnent recording of this retransmission on our own PVR but I think the technical knowledge of a son and heir might be called for to help me out in this. As Groucho Marx used to say ‘A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.’

I do not want to sound excessively curmudgeonly but I do not look forward to Bank Holidays these days. Principally, one never knows which shops are open or closed and to compound the confusion this morning, our newsagent is away on holiday for a week so I will have to go on the road to hunt for my newspaper (which is already prepaid as I have a supply of vouchers) Not knowing what supermarket was going to open, I made for the BP petrol station where they have copy of ‘The Times‘ or rather they had one as I purchased the last copy. After that, it was a case of going to the park somewhat earlier than we normally would and we bumped into on or two park acquaintances ‘en route’. I am now getting the folding of Meg’s wheelchair, which can be a little tricky, sorted out and once Meg is sitting in it, afer the effort of the initial push, it runs pretty smoothly and does not present any problems even over the slightly uphill sections. Once we had drunk our coffee and eaten our comestibles, we returned home and had a lunch of cooked gammon, broccoli, baked tomatoes and a baked potato. All was very tasty and we got lunch all eaten and washed up by well before 2.00pm. I had experimented a bit with our DVD-cum-PVR which I have not used for some time to play an opera DVD but after a few false starts, I eventually got it to work as I wanted. We played for ourselves the Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko version of ‘La Bohème‘ which was a filmed version and gave us a lot of enjoyment. I must have seen it one or two times before but have not played this DVD for quite some time and hence there were some things that I had not noticed before. Firstly, the captioning was extremely good and comprehensive so there were several little touches which I not fully appreciated before as sometimes the subtitles are cut to an absolute minimum. Being a film version, the film director allowed himself the occasional use of a video flashback (to the early and most romantic parts of the Rodolfi/Mimi love affair) Also, and I assume this was not a technical hitch on our DVD, when MiMi was near death dying from consumption, the director altered the colouration of the film so that it became black and white, reverting to colour when Mimi had a little revival just before she died. This film is a real weepy and I feel that the acting performance of everyone, including Musetta who plays the role of ‘tart with a heart’, was absolutely excellent. Now that I have got this going, we may treat ourselves to an opera 2-3 times a week until such time as we have run through our stock which is admittedly not very extensive.

The big story this afternoon has been an outage or a technical failure with NATS – the National Air Traffic Control system- which controls all of the flights into and out of the UK. So far, there is an estimate that some 500 flights have been cancelled and the numbers of passengers affected must be in the hundreds of thousands. The disruption is bound to have massive knock-on effects as aircraft are not where they are supposed to be thus affecting future operations. Meanwhile, presumably, there are aircraft flying around in stacks all over the UK taking hours and probably wasting fuel in the process. At this stage, nobody is saying what ’caused’ the technical glitch but but is interesting that it has happened on one of the busiest days in the year for holiday flights. Without being an expert in computer systems, particularly those concerned with managing our airspace, it seems to be that there ought to be an instant ‘failsafe’ system in place such that if one critical part of the system is affected, the backup system should take over within seconds. When the full story of this failure is told, if it ever will be, then the answer will almost certainly point to a lack of investment in critical infrastructure which is a story that we can replicate across many sectors of UK society as a whole. We have got so used to running systems that are pushed to within an inch of their life, then these failures are bound to become more and more frequent.

It looks as though the Spanish ‘kissgate’ affair may be nearing a resolution, of sorts. The Spanish FA have been meeting all afternoon and I would be amazed if they did not dispense with the services of their president forthwith. But the endgame may be a little messy because there have been reports that the Spanish player who was the recipient of the unwanted ‘kiss’ (in other words a sexual assault) should institute her own proceedings for assault and this may take up to 15 days to go through the complaint and possible prosecution process. The most bizarre twist to all of this is that the mother of Luis Rubiales, the president of Spanish football, is instituting a hunger strike because she feels that her son is being unduly hounded by the Spanish media, not to mention Spanish public opinion as whole.

Today being a Sunday, Meg and I always have a rather different routine but as we are in the height of the holiday season, the normal politics programs are also off-air for a week or so until the politicians return from their breaks. There are two stories that seem to be well worth our attention at the moment. One of them is the Nadine Dorries saga after her much delayed (and anticipated) resignation whilst the other is the claim, much disputed by the Home Office, that some of the internees of the barge hired to house migrants and asylum seekers were showing symptoms of Legionnaires Disease as a result of their stay upon the barge. These stories I will follow up in the newspapers no doubt in the days ahead. Meg and I decided that we would make a trip to Webbs for our Sunday morning coffee. The establishment was pretty full as many people make a treat to have a breakfast there on Sunday mornings and yet others have an early lunch. We were warned of long delays but actually we had the Sunday newspapers and did not have to wait too long for two mugs of delicious hot chocolate (part of the free tariff of drinks that we get as a part of our membership) followed by a croissant for Meg and toast for myself. Afterwards, we decided to have a wander around the Hobbycraft shop which is a ‘shop within a shop’ at Webbs and we were amazed at the variety and abundance of craft type things that could be bought there. I was looking for something that might engage Meg’s attention and improve some of her skill sets and although we were tempted by a ‘painting by numbers’ package, we eventually decided against it and came away empty handed. Upon our return, we cooked a lunch of gammon, primo cabbage and baked potato – the cabbage was pretty tasty and I wonder whether keeping the cabbage in the fridge helps to sweeten it up a little and convert some of the starches into sugars (this works particularly well with parsnips as all vegetable gardeners are well aware how much parsnips taste when thy have a hard frost on them but this can be simulated by putting them in a fridge).

This afternoon we engaged ourselves in one of the simplest of past-times which is ‘together’ completing a 60 piece puzzle. Of course I remembered from my childhood years that first you located all of the straight-edged pieces and particularly the corner pieces because you than had a framework from which to work. You would have thought this was unproblematic but what to do with the ‘straight edge’ pieces that were left over? It transpired that the puzzle makers had decided to included a mini puzzle together the main puzzle but this only bacame evident to me later on. The jigsaw was a ‘Thomas the Tank Engine and friends’ which include about three engines, a bus, a car, some people, station paraphernalia and so on so it was quite a jolly time getting it completed. This I did and was particulatly pleased to discover that no pieces were missing which I suppose is always the bane of a puzzle completer’s life. So now we have two puzzles completed and I am trying to encourage Meg to rediscover these skills which she must have had as a child decades earlier. Later on this afternoon, we are all geared up to watching the France v Australia rugby match which I hope lives up to expectations. This evening we will be rather spoiled for choice because there is some Mozart at the proms followed shortly afterwards by the world athletics from Budapest which has proved to be quite an exciting competition.

After last week’s success in the World Cup, Spain and Spanish football ought to relishing their success. Instead, the whole week since the match has been sullied by a most extraprdinary row. The Spanish football federation president is refusing to step down from his role following backlash over his behaviour at the Women’s World Cup final. Luis Rubiales has been heavily criticised after kissing forward Jenni Hermoso on the lips following Spain’s victory last Sunday – but he will not be going quietly. All the powers that be from FIFA to the Spanish goverment are doing their hardest to make Rubiales resign for his atrocious behaviour, which probably amounts to a sexual assault. But by refusing to go quiety, the row drags on and on and Spanish football as a whole must feel that their deserved victory now appears tainted. I am pleased to see that the English lionesses have added their support to their Spanish opponents but it seems extraordinary that this row has dragged on as long as it has.