Today has been an interesting day to date, although following a predictable pattern. Firstly, it is the day when our domestic help calls around and we always enjoy her coming round tremendously, not least for the little household hints and tips that we share with each other. Our help has a very keen sense of internal decoration and things that ‘go’ with one another, so we treat her as our personal design consultant and and are happy to trust her judgement about things, but perhaps more of this later. After we had breakfasted and absorbed some of the latest grim news from the Israel-Gaza conflict, it was time to set out onto the road. We first collected our newspaper and received news of our newsagent, when we picked up our daily newspaper. In the shop was one of the faithful assistants who knows the business well and was actually ‘inherited’ by the present owners, and she gave us the latest news of the newsagent we now regard as a friend. He had had a second spell in hospital getting his lungs in working order after a serious lung infection and is now at home, feeling slightly better but still a little weak from it all. As he is now in his late 70’s and in order to run his business has to get up tremendously early, we wonder how much longer he and his wife will continue to run their business or whether he may decide (and why not?) to call it a day and to sell the business on. We shall see but often these little bouts of illness can cause a reevaluation of life’s priorities and I think it is a ripe old age at which to be still active in business. We then made our way to Droitwich to what is now our favourite cafe and had our mid-morning coffees there in nice and comfortable surroundings. I have a slightly vested interest in going to Droitwich in any case because about 150 yards from the cafe is a large shop run by the Worcestershire Association of Carers (in which I happen to be a member in any case) This shop always contains some interesting bric-a-brac and I think is a cut above some of the normal charity shops. I had my eyes upon on a little plain white ceramic lamp, with a matching shade, which I thought would illuminate a dark corner in our music room. After a certain amount of dithering, I bought this and was absolutely delighted with the results once I had got the lamp in place which fulfils the function I had in mind for it perfectly and has the bonus of a little in-line on-off switch on the cord, which I always find more convenient. But whilst in the shop, I espied a pair of teak hand-made teak candle sticks, some 27cm (10.5″) in height for which I may well have a future use. When Meg is no longer able to attend our local church, then what is termed an ‘Eucharistic Minister’ will call round to the house with a little truncated service, which may well give Meg some spiritual comfort. So I can put these candle sticks when needed on a little table with a lace table cloth and other devotional objects in position and this should help to create the right kind of atmosphere when required. As soon as I got home, I applied some of my precious beeswax to them, left them for some 25 minutes which is the recommended amount of time, and then gave them to a polish which resulted in a wonderfully delicate sheen. So this was an unexpected little bonus and I felt that both the lamp and the candle sticks were well worth the £5 each that I paid for them.

To make our diet a little more interesting, I decided to cook a risotto meal this Friday, which used to be our usual pattern but I have got out of the habit over the months. I think I was trying perhaps a little too hard to cut out excess carbohydrate calories and this is why we got out of the habit of cooking our Friday risotto. However, I remembered the core elements (start off with fried onions, add some chicken stock, the fish which was actually half a pack of mackerel, some ‘arborio’ rice,a cup of petit pois and finished off with a handful of grated cheese). Meg and I were actually delighted with the result so I happily gave a mini-portion to our domestic help who was going to have it as her break once she was half way through her shift in a residential care home which she runs off just after seeing to us on a Friday. Her husband and mother are apparently often asking after us and think that the pattern of going out to have a range of social contacts in 3-4 of the local cafeterias an excellent way to cope with the frailties that Meg has been experiencing in recent months. Today followed a predictable pattern of the James Martin cookery program, one further episode of ‘Outnumbered’ on BBC iPlayer followed by hopefully a period in which I am attempting to get Meg to have a good rest in the afternoons. This is aided today as it is raining cats and dogs outside, the afternoon is naturally dark and this helps Meg to get the nap in the afternoon and from which she can only benefit.

Thursday being my shopping day I engage in my normal routine which is to get to the shops just as they open and then home as soon as possible. It must have been a lighter week this week because I managed everything so much more quickly and then it was a case of getting home, getting Meg up and dressed and breakfasted before we ventured forth this morning. We thought that we make a visit to the drop-in centre provided by the large Methodist chyurch in the centre of town – we visited there for the first time last week and found a couple of faces that we already knew. They have a wonderful concept which they call a ‘Chatter and Natter’ table which is part of a national scheme. Chatter & Natter tables are where customers can sit if they are happy to talk to other customers. Hundreds of venues offer Chatter & Natter tables, in cafes, pubs, libraries, hospitals – anywhere that people can sit and chat over a coffee. The concept is explained on a little information stand which they have on the ‘Chatter and Natter’ table and the whole idea is that instead of individuals being seated at a table by themselves (which of course, you are quite at liberty to do if you want a bit of peace and quiet) then you occupy a place at the ‘Chatter and Natter’ table. I found that this concept works exteremely well even though this was only our second visit because when people joined the table, we found something to talk about in no time at all. We were quite rapidly joined by one of our Waitrose Tuesday crowd who we had a fair idea may well have been there on a Thursday so we carried on where we left off last Saturday. Towards the end of the morning, we were joined by yet another person that we knew who is a fellow parishioner at the church we normally attend each Saturday evening. She, like us, had crossed a denominational divide and seemed to be a regular member of the cafe. To cut a long story short, we are resolved to make a visit to the cafe once or twice a week, hopefully on a regular day each week. Attendance is also encouraged by the fact that a cup of coffee is available for £1.00 and a round of buttered toast for 30p and of course costs are kept low because the whole is staffed with volunteers. There are two parallel halls, one large and one small in which there are ‘Keep Fit’ classes, Mother and toddler mornings and the like so the whole centre is actually quite busy. There is a very large local authority car park immediately adjacent to the Centre if all of the spaces in the Centre are occupied by cars as they were this morning. Meg and I felt that we had a pretty entertaining morning and came home to cook a conventional lunch of quiche and green veg. Afterwards we had a ration of the James Martin cookery programme, today visiting Norfolk and I learned one or two things such as shredding parts of a lettuce to add to a pan of other ingredients bubbling away – that would never have occurred to me.

I do not wish to sound very po-faced about all of this but I read recently of two court cases that really made my blood boil. The first of these was the case of Bernie Ecclestone, the millionaire F1 boss, who has admitted lying (i.e. concealing) monies held in trusts and escaping the attention of the Inland Revenue. Anyone else would have been gaoled but Bernie Eccleston was given a suspended sentence because of his age. I think he eventually had to pay £653 million to the Inland Revenue but I wonder how much of his wealth is still intact, despite the fines that he had to pay. The second case was Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter who has admitted keeping £800,000 from the three books he wrote before he died – despite the prologue of one of them saying the money would go to the charity in his name. It seems that the richer and more famous one happens to be, the less proportionate the eventual day of reckoning eventually becomes. It was not uncommon for judges to remark to miscreants in the lower levels of the class structure that ‘an example has to be made of you’ whereas higher up the class structure, an offender might be told ‘You have already suffered enough’ There are now quite strict sentencing guidelines to avoid such rampant discrepancies but one is still left with the feeling that the very rich, even though found guilty of fraud, do not always receive the penalties owing to them.

The Israel-Gaza conflict is absorbing a tremendous amount of media attention, as you might expect. There is no doubt that the most severe atrocities have been committed by Hamas but the thought occurs to me that may well be that the Israelis have a vested interested in exaggerating the atrocities committed. For example, it is probably that in at least case an Israeli baby has been beheaded but I heard a spokesperson for the Israelis claiming that this had happened to 40 babies, a claim which it it almost impossible to verify. The thought that occurs to me is whether such exaggerations are given the prominence that they are in order that ground offensive currently in an advanced state of preparation by the Israelis can be unprecedented in is savagery?

Today dawned with a band of rain sweeping across the country as the weather forecasters had predicted so we quickly ruled out plans to go very afar afield and instead settled on somewhere local. Our minds were made up for us by a text from AgeUk reminding us of the monthly meeting held in a local village hall. So we made our way there and were entertained, for over an hour, with ‘Memories of Old Bromsgrove‘ which was a topic with which we felt we would not have a great deal of resonance. But the the topics that we tended to centre around were more of the kinds of goods (and sweets) that we remembered from our childhood and evidently there was a lot more common ground in this. We got back at about 12.30 and busied ourselves preparing an early lunch. We had previously been in contact with our University of Birmingham friend who was unexpectedly free later on today so we decided to meet for an afternoon cuppa early on in the afternoon as we have matters of mutual interest to discuss. We did meet in the Waitrose cafeteria only to be greeted by a massive squall of rain when we emerged in the late afternoon, so we were glad to get home out of the wet weather. We discussed with our friends some possible trips out in the days, and possibly weeks, ahead and then went on our own merry ways. There is quite an autumnal feeling in the air at the moment but having July style temperatures in the early days of the month has got ourselves lulled into a false sense of security, no doubt.

Meanwhile, the BBC is involved in a new culture war with the government about whether it should use the word ‘terrorists’ to describe the Hamas militants who have been responsible for the latest Israel/Gaza conflict. A BBC spokesperson said: ‘We always take our use of language very seriously. Anyone watching or listening to our coverage will hear the word terrorist used many times – we attribute it to those who are using it, for example, the UK Government. This is an approach that has been used for decades, and is in line with that of other broadcasters. The BBC is an editorially independent broadcaster whose job is to explain precisely what is happening on the ground so our audiences can make their own judgement.’ John Simpson, the veteran BBC war and foreign corresondent has argued ‘British politicians know perfectly well why the BBC avoids the word terrorist, and over the years plenty of them have privately agreed with it. Calling someone a terrorist means you are taking sides and ceasing to treat the situation with due impartiality. The BBC’s job is to place the facts before its audience and let them decide what they think, honestly and without ranting. Among other broadcasters, neither Sky News nor ITN – which provides news for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 – have fixed policies and let their newsrooms decide on a case-by-case basis. Stories on the Sky News and ITV News websites mainly refer to Hamas militants or fighters, although ITV has also described them as terrorists. So we have a case here which is depressingly familiar that the BBC is attacked by politicians on all sides by those who wish it to use a different terminology – but other broadcasters such as Sky News are following almost exactly the same policy as the BBC without attracting opprobrium. It does appear that the government of the day always seems to want the BBC to toe the government line and therefore have no desire for a truly independent medium – perhaps turning them into the UK equivalent of the ‘Pravda’ and ‘Izvestya’ infamously associated with the former Soviet Union and now carried on under Putin.

Meg and I are trying to settle into a new pattern of spending our days to ensure that Megs frailties do not impinge too much upon our daily lives. We are trying to ensure that each morning, there is a venue (often, but not invariably associated with cups of coffee) after which, if we return home just after 12.00 there is always the Politics Today program on BBC2. We always lunch in the middle of the day and then try to pick some relaxing/entertaining/diverting TV for the afternoon. In this we have been considerably assisted by taking out a subscription to YouTube in which there are often a selection of programs tailored to our own tastes and past preferences. For example, at the moment we are listening to a superb performance of some of the Mozart piano sonatas. During the afternoons, I am encouraging Meg to have a nap or extended rest but this does not happen as often as I think would be good for her. After watching the early evening news, we have our little bits of supper and have then started watching the Sophie Ridge Politics Hub programme which has replaced the Channel 4 news on our preference list. We are then into a pattern of getting Meg ready for bed some time between 8pm-9pm and, if there are any good programmes on after the watershed of 9.00pm, we start to watch that in the chairs we have in our bedroom. That way, if Meg is particulartly sleepy I can quickly get her into bed or she can watch the programme through to its natural conclusion. I would not say that I was completely rigid about these routines but a certain amount of predictbility and order in the day makes Meg’s condition somewhat easier to manage.

Today being a Tuesday, it was time to look forward to the first of our twice weekly get togethers and I arrived in plenty of time to await the arrival of the normal crowd. Even though you think you know people well, new things emerge. This morning, Meg and I arrived in plenty of time having collected our newspaper and news of the health of our newsagent. Then we arrived in plenty of time and started off by pushing tables together (they know us in Waitrose so the staff are not unhappy with us doing this) Then our friends turned up one by one and it transpired that it was the wedding anniversaries off two of our friends i.e. exactly the same date although separated by a few years. We gave congratulations to both of our friends but to be truthful as the husbands of both concerned have Alzheimer’s, then it was not clear if their respective partners had much idea of the significance of today’s date.

The most important thing for us today was a visit that we were due to have made by a nurse who specialises in Meg’s health condition. She was due to see us at 1.00pm and indeed, when we met, she thought she had probably seen Meg at least five years earlier or certainly well before the pandemic burst upon us. We had a very productive meeting and one of the outcomes is that Meg will be prescribed some new medication which may be helpful to her in controlling or moderating some of the symptoms. Time will tell, though, and we shall just have to wait and see what medication. works and what does not. There always seems to be a massive empiricism in the way that the medical profession works these days, very much on the theory ‘Lets try this and if it fails to work, lets try that’ Nonetheless, despite the fact that we had a very successful meeting with the calming words ‘do get in touch with us at any time you need to’ I realised that, although I had a generic telehone number, I did not have an email address to utilise. So I searched the leaflet that I had been given but no email address was evident. I searched the web for the units involved, but again no email address was evident. So I phoned the unit and asked if I could be given the email address of our contact only to be told that individual email addresses were never given out. So to contact the nurse who had been seen us this afternoon, I had to sent off a generic email to the team of which she is a part with a request that it could be forwarded to her. I can sort of see the reason for this caution but it does not help communication from me to them in the short term and I wonder whether they could be somewhat more transparent in their policies – particularly when the ‘How to contact us’ page does not indicate how contact by email is at all possible. We had lunch very late in the day after our extended lunchtime visit and the afternoon was thus somewhat truncated. Nonetheless, we enjoyed aother excruciatingly funny episode of ‘Outnumbered’ in which the harassed mother/wife was trying to to take three hyperactive children, as well as a parent with Alzheimers, to a fun day out to the zoo but all wanted to visit the loo, whilst in the middle of a massive traffic jam. At the same time, the husband was being ‘disciplined’ for racism at the school in which he was a history teacher by making a jocular remark to a Muslim child whose father just happened to be on the Board of Governers – and so on.

So far, I have avoided comment on what the BBC is labelling the Israel-Gaza conflict but after a couple of days, some terrible things are starting to emerge. The first thing that strikes me is the way in which side is completely dehumanisng the other, almost regarding the other side as vermin to be exterminated. So the Hamas fighters who made incursion into the townships in Israel just beyond the Gaza border got to the venue of a youth pop festival and seemed to slaughter everybody on sight – I think up to a total of nearly 300. Those who were not killed in some of the other villages were abducted as hostages including babes in arms. Meanwhile the Israelis are cutting off all water, food and power to the residents of Gaza which must amount to a war crime. This is warfare as we have never seen it before – the rules of war were generally observed with enemy combatants regarded as fair game to ‘kill or be killed’ and whilst tanks and armed soldiers battled it out, civilians were not deliberately targeted. But in the present conflict, it is as though the rules of war had never been promulgated and even describing it as a war is a bit of a misnomer where one side has tanks and armoured vehicles but the other side has none. The rest of the world is watching with a kind of fascinated horror but I have seen no attempt by any side to the conflict to even begin a peace or mediation process of any kind. One can only hope that things do not get worse beore they get better but I am not holding my breath.

Last night, Meg and I watched the Portugal vs. Fiji World Cup match and it proved to be enthralling. The scores were tied with about 10-15 minutes to go but then Fiji were awarded two penalties which put them six points ahead. Then with about two minutes to go, Portugal scored a try which then made them just one point behind Fiji. Portugal then converted this try which gave them an additional two points, meaning that they had secured a victory – their very first in World Cup competition- by a single point. What made the match so gripping is that the viewer really had no idea who was going to win. My sympathies were with Portugal, some of whom are amateurs and nearly all playing in the lower divisions of the French rugby league. Fiji go on to play England in the quarter finals and although Portugal does not progress beyond the pool stage, it does leave the World Cup with a most satisfying win under its belt. They had previously tied with Georgia and at one stage in the match, appeared to be the only team in the history of the World Cup about to experience two draws in the competition.

Today, Meg and I decided we would visit our friendly cafe/restaurant in Droitwich which is never too busy and they have plenty of comfortable chairs as additional recommendations – I think the regulars are the ‘oldies’ in Droitwich in the cafe we have started to frequent recently and where we are treated so well. After cappuchino and home-made scones, we also paid a visit to the Droitwich branch of the Worcestershire Association of Carers who have a large shop quite nearby. It was full of quite tempting things but we confined ourselves to the purchase of a couple of classical CD’s at 50p a throw. We popped inthe Droitwich branch of Waitrose to pick up some supplies and then made it back to view the Politics programme at 12.15. In truth, I didn’t see much of this because the programme was devoted to speeches at the Labour Party conference and then it was necessary for me to start cooking the lunch. This was a straightforward affair of ham, a baked potato, some mange-tout and a roasted tomato and Meg seemed to relish her meal very much. In the afternoon, we got rather diverted by putting on the BBC iPlayer and stumbling into some of the early episodes of ‘Outnumbered‘ which we always found to be achingly funny (the parents always being ‘outnumbered’ by their three children who present them with all kinds of challenges) Then it was a really beautiful afternoon so we spent a bit of time enjoying the warm autumn sunshine by sitting on a bench that we have at the front of the house. Our adopted cat, Miggles, espied us from a distance and came and sprawled on the bench next to us which is quite extraordinary as he is not even our cat. Having enjoyed the sunshine for a little, we then repaired inside and were halfway through a wildlife programme featuring the wildlife of the Serengeti National Park when we received some not very pleasant news by email. We were informed that Meg’s cousin on her mother’s side of the family who had been ill recently and had a spell in hospital had actually died last Friday. Although news of a relative’s death always comes as a bit of a shock and a blow, we had to sit down and work out how old she probably was. Meg’s cousin was an opera singer but almost entirely on the Austrian circuit. Just to make life confusing, her name was Gwyneth Jones but she had to insert a middle name of Maud to differentiate herself from the very famous Gyneth Jones who was probably born at almost the same time and therefore the two singers were exact contemporaries of each other. Meg told me how before we knew each other, she had travelled to Austria to stay with her cousin and must have heard her sing on several occasions. She probably sang in what you might call the second tier of opera houses and her repetoire seemed to be Offenbach, Strauss and the like rather than what is termed grand opera. This news, unfortunately, came as quite a shock to Meg but we had to sit down and work out how old her cousin actually was when she died. We suspect that Meg’s cousin must have been some 8-10 years older and that must have made her late 80’s at the time of her death. Naturally, I sent off an immediate condolence to her daughter who we have met for meals, together with Gyneth on two or three occasions when the pandemic did not get in the way and asked that we be given details of the funeral arrangements as soon as they have been finalised. Meg and I will certainly make the journey up the M6 to Bolton in Lancashire and, fortunately, although the distance is quite long it will be motorway (the M6) all the way so we will certainly make it there and back in one day. In the meanwhile, we have to reflect that as Meg and I are getting older, it is almost inevitable that some of our relatives will be meeting their end before us.

Last night, we watched the Ireland vs Scotland rugby world cup match in which Scotland did not play particularly badly in the opening stages until they were overwhelmed by the technical brilliance of Ireland who were clinical in their execution of how rugby ought to be played. The Irish won the match with great ease and it was not until half way through the second half of the match that the Scots managed to get any points at the board at all. This sets up a quarter final in which Ireland will play the All Blacks which, pitting Northern hemisphere against Southern hemisphere may well be one of the best matches of the whole tournament. This morning, Meg and I ensured that we we were up and breakfasted, absorbing some of the terrible news emanating from the latest war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip. What is absolutely amazing about the whole of this conflict is how it ever managed to occur in the first place. The border between Gaza and the rest of Israel is one of the most fortified on earth, bristling with razor wire, defences in depth and electronic sensors beyond count. But the Hamas fighters had somehow broken through in several places (using paragliders in some cases) and then invaded several small towns in Israel taking hostages in the process, including some Israel Defence Force troops. The psychological shock of all of this is immense and is the greatest offensive movement made against Israel since the 6 day war in 1967 in which the Israeli and Egyptian armies were pitched against each other in what now seems to be quite a conventional style of warfare. The military analysts are puzzling over how the Israeli intelligence services can have taken their eyes off the ball so much that they seemed to have no inkling that an attack of this magnitude was imminent. No doubt, some elucidation will occur in the next day or so but it may well be that there will be unbelievable savagery wrought by each side on the other.

Meg and I had made a prior arrangement to meet with our University of Birmingham friend at a local museum called Avoncroft and we intended to meet in the coffee bar there. We were both somewhat dismayed by the fact that we were denied admission to the cafeteria only and not the other facilities which in our friend’s experience they had been able to do for years but now wanted to charge us £14 entrance fee, so naturally we got into our respective cars and drove away. I was slightly amused by all of this but our friend was annoyed and suggested that the personnel on duty indicate his displeasure to senior management and they revert to their previous policy. We made instead for the sporting centre that overlooks a large lake used for water sports purposes which has a simple cafe but where we can overlook a stretch of water. We must say that we were almost uncomfortably hot this morning in the direct sunshine but nonetheless had a very interesting chat, including opinions on the current war in the Middle East, before going our respective ways for Sunday lunch. After lunch, we watched the last half hour of the Argentina vs. Japan rugby match which was quite entertaining with good rugby played on both sides. Tonight we have the Fiji vs. Portugal match in which my money is actually on Fiji although my sympathies will rest with the Portuguese. After this weekend’s matches, we shall be moving to the quarter-final stages of the tournament in which the quality of the games should improve as the weaker teams have been removed and, of course, everything is a knockout from this point onwards.

Now that I have got Meg’s iphone fully functional again, I am determining how much data I need to buy as I will probably do a fair bit off music streaming on it, not least because I am delighted with the little CD player complete with BlueTooth functionality upon it and so acts as a pair of ‘de facto’ larger speakers. Also I can control which items of music I want from the iphone which is excellent. I have been trying to work out what amount of data I need to buy and fortunately there are some websites and utilities available on the web that allow you you to specify how much time you spent on various phone related activities after which you can make a more informed decision. My best guess at the moment that I may be needing anything between 6GB-8GB of data a month. As Tescomobile is selling me bundles of data which, once the special offers are taken off, should cost me about the equivalent of three cups of coffee a month (my new unit of currency) for 10GB, I am quite content with the SIM I have installed and the facilities offered. I asked our University of Birmingham friend about his own experience but he felt that he was locked into far too expensive a contract until next May which is the earliest at which he feels he can exit it – an experience shared by many, I would think. This afternoon, Meg and I are enjoying a really excellent concert which is Mozart’s so-called ‘Great Mass’which is really enjoyable, whilst getting through the Sunday newspapers and enjoying the bursts of late afternoon sunshine on what is turning to be a brilliant Indian summer for October.

Today is going to be quite a rugby filled day but first we have our little Waitrose get-together to enjoy. After we were up and breakfasted, we made our way through heavy Saturday morning traffic to pick up our newspaper and to head for the cafeteria. Once we got there, one of our regulars was sitting and reserving a place at a table for us and it was later to emerge, in the course of our chat, that she, too, was a regular at the Methodist drop-in centre that we sampled for the first time the other day. Not only that, but in her younger days, she had actually manned the coffee bar within the premises and still, at the age of practically 90 and with some health issues, managed to do her rota and to man the coffee bar when her turn in the rota came up. She was explaining to us how in pre-Covid days, the centre was even busier and with a greater range of food and produce than it it is nowadays. We suspected that afer the COVID experiences, when many of these types of facilities were out of bounds, that all kinds of social events are a little slow to pick up and to get going again. We were amazed to discover, though, that our friend still participated in some of the keep fit classes which we could see taking place in the adjacent space in the hall even though she is practically 90 years of age. In Waitrose as well, we were very touched when one of the young female shop assistants volunteered to help me to get Meg to the front door whilst another gave her a small bunch of flowers to help her on her way. Is it any wonder that we keep frequenting this store whrn we are the recipients of little acts of kindness like all this?

This afternoon, Meg and I watched the Wales vs. Georgia match in the rugby World Cup. Wales won this match which was never really in much doubt but the win was not entirely convincing. At one stage during the second half, Georgia scored two quick tries and it did look as though it might just be possible for Georgia to win. In my mind, they played some quite enterprising rugby but the speed of the Wales wingers finally did for them. Wales scored one try which upon replay, the TMO (who monitors the match via video replays) might have misjudged whether a ball was properly grounded or not. At another stage in the match, deep into the second half, there appeared to be something like a mass brawl with masses of players having an altercation with each other and both teams practically fighting each other off the pitch. So Wales finished top of their pool group but not entirely convincingly.

On tuning into Sky News throughout the day, we seem to be in the middle of yet another war between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The news broke this morning that some 5,000 rockets had been fired from the Gaza strip into Israel and the heavily fortified border may well have been breached in several places. Israel are bound to respond with an overwhelming degree of force and firepower but, as I write, there appears to be hundreds killed on both sides. It does look as though the Israelis have been taken completely by surprise and the media are reporting that this may well be a massive security failing on behalf of the Israelis as it looks as though this attack has been planned for some time. Periodically, they neutralise threats with military operations in Gaza, reducing the capability of Hamas. Breezily, they call it mowing the grass. This is such a rapidly developing situation that it is not possible to predict how things will turn out but there do not apppear to be any natural peacemakers in this process. The latest indications are that this conflict will last for some days but the phrase ‘blood bath’ is probably not an inaccurate term. One interesting twist at this stage is that it appears that Hamas might have taken quite a lot of hostages including some officers from the Israeli Defence Forces but as often happens on a Saturday afternoon, we await a deeper analysis in the Sunday newspapers. There is a talk of a ‘shoot to kill’ policy on each side which actually does make it sound like an actual ‘hot’ war.

Meg and I are planning to watch the first half of the England vs. Samoa match late on this afternoon and then to go onto church, which we normally do on a Saturday early evening, if Meg feels up to it. The really big match which might prove to be the most interesting of the day is going to be Scotland vs. Ireland broadcast from 8.00 this evening. Scotland will probably lose but it will be interesting to see what gallant losers they manage to be against the Irish who are currently one of the strongest teams in the world. We will probably adopt our normal pattern these days which is to get Meg ready for bed before 8.00pm and watch the match in the comfortable chairs we have in our bedroom. This way, Meg can roll into bed at 9.00 if she is very tired or stay up and watch the whole of the match.

We always look forward to a Friday as it is the day when our domestic help calls around and we always seem to have a lot of news to exchange with each other. Today after Meg was breakfasted, I made a lightning visit into town both to collect our daily newspaper and also to visit a local hardware store that sells all sorts of bits and pieces. A fairly crucial nut had fallen off Meg’s wheelchair and as it is integral to the whole structure and not just an extra, it was important that I replace it as soon as possible. Having looked in my collection, I found a nut which almost did the job but not quite so I suspect the nut I found was imperial but what was needed was a metric one. I took the nut from my collection into the hardware store ,found a ‘thingmajig’that it too failed to fit, found a nut in the store that did fit the thingymajig and concluded that this was probably the right size. I spent a total of 8p plus another 10p for an appropriate washer and was delighted, upon my return home, to find that it fitted perfectly. My only regret, now, is not buying two of them as a second nut will probably prevent the first from working loose again.

We decided to revisit the cafe again in Droitwich which evidently caters for an older clientele and treats us like long lost friends. Here we indulged in cappuccino and Meg was treated to some carrot cake. Afterwards, we went up and down a row of little street stalls which is evidently a feature of life on a Friday in Droitwich. I stopped by a stall displaying leather goods and was persuaded to buy both a replacement car key fob case as the zip is going on my current one. I was also tempted into buying a new credit card case as my existing one is home made and showing signs of wear. We then went off to the Webb’s Garden Centre and store where we were due to meet up with some friends for a lunch date at 1.00pm. We coincided in the car park and proceeded to lunch which was adequate without being brilliant. After a morning out and a lunch filled with interesting conversation, we decided to get Meg home to give her a rest as I feel that she really does need to rest as much as she can in the afternoons to keep going all day.

The political news this morning is dominated by the success of the Labour party in the recent Rutherglen by-election in Scotland. As the incumbent SNP MP had messed up big time and been thrown out of the party for riding on public transport whilst infectious with the COVID-19 virus, it is of no surprise that the Labour Party polled twice as much as the SNP candidate. Some commentators are getting very excited about what this means in the forthcoming general election, gifting perhaps a dozen more seats to the Labour Party which may well prove critical. But this is one of these elections where because of the special factors in play, I feel it is rather too premature to read too much into the one victory. All that can be said is that if Labour had not won the seat, then their chances of having a majority in any forthcoming general election must be vanishingly small. In the meanwhile, there was a brilliant, savage and funny cartoon in The Times today which shows Rishi Sunak as a puppet in the hands of a cruelly drawn Suella Braverman who has one hand with a tight grip upon his crutch and the other around his neck whilst Sunak is exclaiming ‘It will take a Braverman than me to shut her up’ Incidentally, as I was leaving the house this morning to pay a visit to the hardware shop, I popped Meg in front of the TV to watch a catch-up version of last night’s ‘Any Questions‘ in which most of the panel agreed that the Braverman language was inflammatory. The Tory transport minister was eventually forced into to the admission that it was not language that he would have used, personally, and Rishi Sunak is giving off the similar vibes as well. I also read that Justine Greening, an ex-Tory minister, is arguing that the recent Conservative party conference abandoned the centre ground and may be ceding the next general election to the Labour party before the campaign has even officially started.

A rather extraordinary survey has just surfaced on the ‘Which‘ website. It claims that Sainsbury’s have taken over from Waitrose as the UK’s most expensive supermarket – this may certainly prove to be a surprise to many. Although I used to be a Waitrose customer in the bad old days of lockdown when I used their delivery service, I have now transferred my allegiance elsewhere. When Meg and I lived in Hampshire, we shopped in our local Sainsbury’s which was so huge that when one looked down the rows of shelves, it seemed like an exercise in perspective towards a vanishing point that we got used to in our art lessons at school. If you forgot an item in the top end of the supermarket, it was certainly a huge trek backwards in order to find it. I must say I prefer smaller supermarkets and am quite prepared to have a smaller range of choice as a consequence.

Thursdays are always my shopping day and I got up reasonably bright and early, making sure that Meg was safely tucked up in bed before I ventured forth. I was fortunate to get to my customary ATM in plenty of time as one of the access roads that has been subject to roadworks during the summer has reopened at long last. But I got to the ATM and popped into Morrison’s supermarket to buy some things for Meg and tinned fruit for our afternoon teas before doing the round in my usual supermarket. When I returned home, Meg was still sleeping or at least drowsy and this gave me time to get the weekly shop unpacked before getting Meg up, washed and dressed and then downstairs for breakfast. We had been looking forward to today for some time as it was the day a long time in our diaries when the specialist nurse who is caring for Meg had an appointment to come around, which she did, with a very bright third year student. Having both spoken to, and been in email contact with, the specialist nurse, I felt that I already knew her quite well but it was wonderful to meet in the flesh, as it were. There is so much more that can be communicated with a face-to-face meeting and we met for about an hour and a half, still only scratching the surface of some issues. She gave me some useful tips and hints and, in return, I managed to show her some equipment that we have been using that may help her care for oher patients. Before parting, I made sure that both of our visitors departed with a bottle of damson gin which I rather had to rush round and bottle for them as there is still a lot of last year’s supplies waiting to be bottled when I have the time (which seems to be never these days)

Last night, whilst Meg was in bed I discovered that we had recently missed the amazing docudrama broadcast by Channel 4 which was ‘PartyGate’ This basically was a long reenactment of the party scenes that led to, and documented, in the Sue Grey report. The programme authors stitched together contemporary footage with some imaginary reconstructions of what the scenes inside No. 10 were probably like, with intercut scenes of how members of the public were obeying the rules and not being allowed near to their dying relatives or even in a close attenadnce at funerals. One review of the programme stated that the drama brilliantly interweaves the permanent in-fighting, complacency and debauchery at the core of government with contemporary news footage, and juxtaposes it with heartbreaking real-life stories of Covid funerals and gigantic fines imposed in comparatively harmless rule breaches – £10,000 for the organiser of a snowball fight in a park in a Leeds, for example. I notice that the liberal minded newspapers rated this production quite highly whereas the ‘Daily Telegraph‘ rather sniffily gave it two stars out of five, not liking I suppose, the flagrant breaking of the rules at the heart of government whilst the rest of us were generally quite compliant. Anyway, I made sure that the household was registred to receive Channel 4 updates and Meg and I devoted the early part of the afternoon thoroughly enjoying it whilst being repulsed by it at the same time.

This morning, I received a Tesco mobile SIM for Meg’s phone which I am going to use after I got a little annoyed with GiffGaff constantly chiding me for when the phone is not used as much as they would like. I have used Tesco mobile before and find whatever credit you put onto an account stays there rather than being expropriated after six months of inactivity which can happen to a spare or emergency phone. Getting the SIM in was child’s play and getting the initial payment fairly straightforward but getting further top ups is proving a little problematic. I think I probably need to wait a day for the initial registration to settle down before I do anything further but so far, things have gone more or less even if not exactly to plan.

The political climate now that the HS2 announcement is out of the way and the Conservative party conference is over is particularly interesting. Rishi Sunak realises that he has to present himself as a ‘Change’ candidate as the country is crying out for a change in its political direction – but to present oneself as the ‘Change’ candidate when you have been in power for so long will no longer serve the purpose. It is interesting that he pointedly refused to endorse the Suella Braverman rhetoric (the UK about to be hit by a ‘hurricane’ of illegal migration)and the HS2 row may well rumble on and on. The line that is government policy is that the UK cannot avoid the spiralling costs of HS2 but by cancelling it and then spending what is to ‘saved’ on other worthy transport projects leaves one scratching one’s head – either the nation can afford it or it cannot. The government argument is that the money ‘saved’ can be spent on more worthwhile projects but some of these have recently been axed by the government in recent months whilst yet others were in the pipeline anyway. In short, a close examination of the HS2 debacle reveals a mass of confusion and inconsistencies.

Today has turned out to be the most interesting of days so far. We knew that the major highlight of the day was going to be the lunch to which we had been invited with friends down the Kidderminster Road. After I had made a quick journey into town to collect our newspaper and some supplies from Waitrose, Meg and I needed to decide how to spend the morning before our lunch date. We wondered whether to make a trip to the park as we have not been for several days now or whether there was an alternative venue to capture our interest. We decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to visit a special ‘drop in’ centre and coffee bar organised by the local Methodist church in Bromsgrove. One of our church friends who we know quite well we had seen yesterday in our local church hall where we had a sort of social afer the service yesterday indicated to us that she worked in the drop in centre on Wednesdays so we decided to give it a go. We took the wheelchair and parked in the adjacent local authority car park before we embarked upon this new venture. As soon as we got in, we got to a table labelled as the ‘chatty’ table and quickly made our number both with our church friend and also with one of the regular Waitrose Tuesday gang so within a minute or so of entering, there were two people whom we already knew. The crowd on the table were quite a jolly and friendly group and we soon got into conversation (assisted by a few jokes) and availed ourselves of coffee at £1 a cup and toast at 30p a round (making a dramatic change from Waitrose). We chatted for quite a long time with a lady who had spent several years in Yorkshire after her husband died but eventually returned to her roots here in Bromsgrove. Later on in the morning, we were joined at the table by a couple of Police Community Support Officers. We learned from them that it is now part of their role to make their presence felt in local community centres and the like and people are encouraged to come to them with their little problems. They probably acted most of the time as a signposting agency and, as I suspected, many of the day-to-day problems with which they had to deal were people with mental health difficulties. I was reminded of an article I read whilst a university student entitled ‘The Police as a Social Service’ and this was an ethnographic piece of work in which policemen were followed around for the study period and most of the time they are actually dealing with issues that could be described as social rather than criminal. The time seemed to fly by and so the time came for us to leave but with a resolve to probably go there every Wednesday from now on. At least, it it a source of additional social contacts with whom we can have some conversations and it will be interesting to see which groups of people we may come across in the future. It may be that there is even more convenient parking available to us once we get the layout of the Methodist centre in our heads.

And so, we arrived home for a few minutes respite before we set off down the road for a lunch date with our friends. They were very solicitous and caring for Meg and we had a wonderful couple of hours in their company, which we always enjoy. We dined on a lovely meal of pork prepared with some delicate spices and served upon rice and with a little salad, followed by home made apple pie and ice cream. Talking of apples, I looked to see how this years crop of apples are doing on the trees planted several years ago on the borders of our communal green area and was delighted to see that we had quite a good crop of really quite large apples (of a variety called ‘Jonathan’ as I recall) So I picked just the ‘low hanging fruit’ and kept some for ourselves taking the rest down to our friends. Meg and I sampled one apple that had been pecked a bit by birds and ate it with some cheese which is a favourite way in which we enjoy apples.

I know today has been a day of big political announcements but I have yet to find time to sit down and absorb the implications of it all. The HS2 leg from Birmingham to Manchester has now been abandoned amidst quite a backlash from northern mayors and former Prime Ministers who all think the cancellation is a colossal mistake. Rishi Sunak is promising to divert the HS2 money to a project called Network North which seems to have been an instant plan dreamed up in the last few days in hotel bedrooms in Manchester and this is intended as a sop to quell the inevitable disappointments. The terminal is now going to be in Euston which was, after all, the initial plan and the political narrative seems to be to argue that connecting up a lot of the Northern cities is going to be better value than a high speed link with the capital. What will be interesting to observe is how big a political backlash there is likely to be (and who knows what the reaction of the City and other institutional investors might be.)