What an interesting day it has been today with lots of ups and downs. With Meg’s health a little frail, we are seeking suitable care packages and we are not getting off to a very good start with some initial hiccups. But after some phone calls and a bit of consultation with family and friends, we are resolving some of these initial difficulties and trust that things might run a little more smoothly from now on. Today we had a calendared appointmment with a technology firm that had been recommended to us by the Worcestershire Association of Carers and I was a little disconcerted when we got a telephone call from their representative – he was hardly a salesman. The system that we are being offered is on a 6 weeks free trial. It basically consists of a electronic box which is installed in our hall and goes by the generic name of the ‘New Lifeline’ service and, as their blurb says, they ‘support independent living providing peace of mind to service users and their families 24 hours a day’ The user has the choice of either wearing a device on their wrist or, as most users prefer, the device is put into a lanyard which is worn around the neck. In the event that the user gets into real difficulties and requires some help, then a call is automatically routed to a monitoring centre which is manned 24 hours a day. From there, a call is put through to whoever is on the system which in this case would be myself (via my mobile) which would alert me to the fact that Meg needed some assistance. Should the button be pressed but no response is made to the monitoring team, then one of the designated contacts will be activated and one way or another assistance will be provided. There is also the possibility of several ‘add ons’ of which the most useful is probably an external key-safe system so that an emergency service given the code number to unlock the safe by the monitoring centre can gain access to the property to offer assistance where needed. There is also a ‘falls’ detector which would be activated in the case of a ‘hard fall’ but not a ‘slither to the ground’ but we are not progressing with this at the moment, although it is a possibility, of course. The technology firm has a long and well established local reputation and the monitoring centre is provided in or by the neighbouring local authority and, after a trial period, there is a monthly charge but it does not seem excessive for the service offered and the peace of mind that is bought. So all of this was happening whilst the Australia vs England women’s semi finals was underway but once the ‘technology’ man had left us we tuned in to the TV and got to the later stages of the first half and just in time to see the first well-taken English goal. Then we shot out of the house in order to pick up our daily newspaper and then we got back in time, to watch the thrilling second half. The Australians equalised with a stunning equaliser, equal in quality with the English first goal. But then the Australians made a bad defensive eror and the English team scrambled a second goal. Finally, whilst the Australians were pressing forward there was an English breakaway and a very well taken third goal so that the English ‘lionnesses’ won the match, and deservedly so, with 3-1 victory.

Meg and I lunched on gammon,baked potato, broccoli and tomato and we tried to scale down our portions so that neiter of us were tempted to overeat. I was expecting a telephone call at 3.00pm in the afternoon so Meg and I seized the opportunity to make a quick trip to the park and get some fresh air. We are now using the wheelchair for Meg and I think it is fair to say that we make progress at least twice the speed as if we were shufflng along. The thing about going to the park in the afternoon is there are evidently ‘morning’ and ‘afternoon’ flows of people and although we might have see some of the regulars when we visit in the morning, the same is not true of the afternoon. Our major activity in the afternoon, though, was to engage in a Skype call with one of my erstwhile colleagues from the University of Winchester. We always seem to have a lot to talk about, not least because we share some common problems in trying to ensure that our respective spouses get the necessary services to support them. This is easier said than done but we aim to share information with each other to our mutual benefit.

There seems to be some kind of ‘Roman’ season available on our screens in the next few days. Tonight, Mary Beard the classicist is strutting her stuff, followed by a series of the history of the Roman Empire seen through the prism of the Coliseum. Then the famous TV. series ‘I, Claudius‘ in which Derek Jacobi played Claudius is due for some repeated showings. Both Meg and I belong to the generation who did Latin at school (and Scolarship Latin in Meg’s case)so we are quite happy to be immersed in these bits of Roman history.

Today was quite a full day. We got up a little late this morning having slept in a little so we had a minimal breakfast because we knew it was the day to meet up with friends in the Waitrose cafe. We met up with a couple of them and I regaled them with a story from our honeymoon. The basic elements were a large German lady with a very décolleté (= low cut) dress in the centre of the restaurant, with a waiter advancing towards them balancing a huge tureen of hot tomato soup on one hand and then, like a cartoon, the way in which the tureen slid off but performed a perfect parabola before depositing its contents right down the German lady’s cleavage. Tje screams were heard around the restaurant and the waitor hovered around with a large serviette with the dilemma of whether to dab or not to dab the lady’s torso. Eventually, a table cloth was thrown around her shoulders and she was led off into the kitchen here no doubt there was a copious supply of acriflavine (if that existed in 1967). So we parted, each intent on doing a little bit of shopping before we indicated to each other that we would meet up again on Saturday morning. Then, as it is my Pilates day, I knew that I was about to have an experimental session whereby I do my exercises at home but using ‘Zoom’ to join with the rest of my regular class mates. At first, I didn’t think the technology was going to work as my Applie iPad kept informing me that the ‘zoom’ link was not recognised by the system. Eventually, I downloaded a copy of the Zoom app (I think) because suddenly the credentials that my Pilates teacher had sent to me by email worked as intended and so I joined the class. I had taken the precaution of acquiring a little foam tablet rest and I experimented with both vertical and horizontal positionings so that my teacher and I could see each other. I hit on the obvious techniques of ‘portrait’ mode for the standing exercises and landscape mode for when we were doing the lying down exercises and so the class proceeded. Meg was not absolutely ‘au fait’ with my entering a class remotely so I spent an interesting hour with half an ear cocked to hear sounds coming around the house indicating that Meg was making some active peregrinations around the house.

We had known for some time that I was due to have a ‘Diabetic Retinopathy’ clinic at 3.00pm. This procedure is part of the routine annual diabetes monitoring offered by our practice and I have had at least a couple of them before with negative (i.e. nothing to fear)results. Basically drops are put into each eye which massively expand the pupils and then, after a wait of some twenty minutes, photographs are taken of the back of the eye with a very sensitive camera. The subsequent results are then interpreted largely by hand by trained specialists but after discussion with the technician operforming the test, this is one of those routine monitoring procedures where AI will make its presence felt over the years. The results wlll be available in some weeks and are sent to the doctor’s surgery and, in theory, to the individual although I do not remember getting my results last year. This procedure is fairly straightforward in itself but the problem is that with impaired vision whilst the pupils are dilated and one’s vision is affected in the short term, then there is no alternative but to be taken there and back by car. So we ordered a texi for the journey down into town and. although the taxi was delayed by 5 minutes, it was good to get to the clinic 5 minutes before our appointment slot. Everything went smoothly and after 35 minutes I had had the back-of-the-eye examination and Meg and I walked slowly to the taxi rank which is not too far away from the surgery. Then it was a case of getting home and a very welcome cup of tea. I had taken the precaution of taking with me a pair of ‘wrap around’ sun glasses hich I only wear on occasions like this and this helped to shield my eyes from the bright sunshine. Our meals were all made a little topsy turvey because of the commitments that we had today. So at lunchtime, we just had a really quick repast of biscuits and cheese whist this evening, we are going to have the fishcakes that we generally have at lunchtime on Tuesdays.

In the United States, Donald Trump has been indicted of attemts to rig the prsidential election in 2020. The evidence against Trump seems to be irrefutable- for example a telephone call which lasted for more than an hour in which he harangued a state official to ‘find’ him 11,780 votes in order to be declared winner in the state election. But interesting in this case is that Geogia is a state, not a federal indictment. This means that Trump, if elected president, could not put aside the convictions as would be the case in a federal conviction. The evidence is not only strong, not to say overwhelming and if convicted Trump could find himself in gaol for five years – and he would be powerless to prevent it. I suspect that this is the case that actually ‘does’ for Trump eventually (and Al Capone was brought to book evenually for income tax evasion)

Today was a day of telephone calls but most of them turned out to have beneficial consequences as we shall see. During the night, when I had some spare time, I composed quite a long and detailed email which was trasnmitted to a group of nurses who can provide specialist help for Meg as I feel that some of her medication needs to be reviewed. At the same time, I utilised the system which allows one to fill a form online and then on the basis of quite a lot of information to request a GP appointmemt. In the meanwhile, we got Meg up, washed including her hair and then breakfasted so we made a good start to the day, Then one of the specialist nurses responded to the email sent during the night and I found a very empathetic and proactive nurse on the other end of the line. We had a fruitful discussion where she was going to liaise both with our family doctor and with the relevant department of social services. After this phone call, we received a very welcome call from our Irish friends just down the road who invited us in for coffee later on that morning. So we picked up our newspapers and then made our way to our friends, who we were delighted to see.In the course of our chat, I received a phone call from one of the practice doctors who thought that Meg might benefit from having some blood tests. Very fortunately, a slot opened up in the afternoon which we jumped at – appointments with a live doctor are not to be spurned these days. We discuss the implications of all of this with our friends and then we shortly received yet another phone call, this time from the relevant department of social services to see if they could call around for an assessment call later on in the afternoon. Our friends had very kindly prepared some sandwiches, coffee and cake which I must say that Meg and I very gratefully snaffled. We had quite a tight turn around but we did not mind under the circumstances and managed to get ourselves sitting in the clinic’s waiting room with just one minute to spare. Meg gave her blood sample and the doctor called us in slightly afterwards to give Meg a quick physical check to complement the bood tests which had just been taken.If certain things get ruled out, then Meg will be referred on to more specialists which is what we want at the end of the day.

Now we began the afternoon ‘shift’ as it were. The roadworks around Bromsgrove which are extensive at the moment made a quick and easy journey home problematic and we had to take us rather a long way round which delayed us somewhat. We got back to our house some 5 minutes later than our appointment time but we were relieved to see the person assessing Meg who again seemed both empathetic and competent. The net result of all these comings and goings is to ascertain what degree of support Meg needs and calibrated against what is available.So far now that pieces of the jgsaw are starting to appear, we feel that some support for Meg may well start to materialise but it is early days yet.

The government is still on the back foot in the story about the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge and the outbreak of the legionella virus. I suspected that there would be some contention about who knew about the virus and who told who and when and this is proving to be the case. If the Sunday Times is to be believed, then the government is claiming that it was not told about the virus until two days after the results were known to Dorset County Council. An asylum seeker taken off the Bibby Stockholm barge following the discovery of Legionella bacteria says the government is endangering migrants and treating them like ‘less than animals’. The latest news about this affair is that it may be several weeks before the accommodation barge is thoroughly disinfected and I wonder whether the vessel will ever truly be safe. A similar state of affairs is often to be found when Norovirus is found on board holiday cruise ships and cruises have to be abandoned once several groups of passengers are taken ill. I have often suspected that once a virus is lodged into all the crevices of anything the size and complexity of an ocean going liner, then it must be almost impossible to eradicate it completely and hence further infections flare up from time to time. One line of thought, though, is that now the government has been in power for so many years and the problem of migrants deemed illegal has been with them ever since they took office, then it would have been possible to have designed and built a purpose facility somewhere on our shores that would have housed whatever numbers were required in decent accommodation. Instead, we have government ministers assessing a series of options in little used military facilities where central government already owns both the land the the buildings. This is being done under conditions of utmost secrecy as local opposition (including any local Tory MPs) can always be guaranteed.

Today being a Sunday, I was looking forward to watching some of the political programs that normally take place from 8.30 onwards but as it now the midst of the holiday season and all of the politicians are off in no doubt quite exotic locations, there were none broadcast. We did not mind this too much as we were a little late getting up as we had a somewhat disturbed night but we knew that we were going to have a rendez-vous with our University of Birmingham friend. Our meeting place this Sunday was a venue called the Jinney Ring Craft Centre which is best described as a series of craft workshops around a huge courtyard together with a large and well frequented coffee-shop-cum-restaurant where we had our morning coffee. There are some water features where youngsters can go and feed the ducks and there is some pleasant rolling countryside. I have taken a photograph of what appears in the distance to be a double headed horse – on closer examination, it is a pair of horses that seem to like to stand together but each facing in opposite directions so that from a distance once could assume one is observing one exotic animal. As we had stayed so long, we had a brief tour of some of the workshops without being particularly tempted by anything so we treated ourselves to another cup of coffee before making for home fairly late in the day. When we got home, we had a gammon joint in the slow cooker so I had to race around to make a Sunday lunch in fairly short order. On this occasion, I saved a bit of time by not making onion gravy but ordinary gravy but we were reasonably hungry when we eventually came to dish up.

This afternoon should have been a fairly quiet and peaceful afternoon but it was not to be. Meg expressed the urgent desire to go and see our friends down the road and actually wanted to walk but I judged that this was probably now beyond her. I have recently bitten the bullet and bought a wheelchair which is quite easy to fold up (once you know how) and got into the back of the car. So I put Meg in the wheelchair and we made our progress down the hill in the new conveyance. At this point, I am aware of how unfriendly and unforgiving certain surfaces can be. Our local pavements often have an adverse camber and are extensively patched making life a little difficult on occasions. Also, one has to look out well in advance for dropped kerbs and plan ones trajectory as it were but we made down the hill to see if our friends were at home. One half of the couple was gardening whilst their spouse was out shopping so we had a brief chat and then turned around for home. Getting back was marginally more difficult but it could have been worse. Meg was starting to get increasingly agitated what with one thing or another but when we got home, we found that a cup of tea, some biscuits and a good serving of Fauré in our music room restored a degree of calm.

We are quite looking forward to tonight’s TV showing. To start off we have a program about the life of Mozart and a concert of some of his music including one of the horn concertos. Very much later on, and perhaps we may need to resort to catch-up TV in the next few days, we have some repeats of some of the outstanding documentary programs by the mathematician, Jacob Bronowski, entitled ‘The Ascent of Man’ This series was lavished with praise when it was first shown in the late 70’s. I believe but some TV executive has saved the series from mouldering in the vaults and it is given a repeat viewing so this is well worth a watch.

The government have decided to make the last week theme of ‘Stop the Boats’ week, which they hoped to pepper with announcements designed to appeal to the populace at large. Actually the government may have misjudged the appeal to public opinion because attitudes towards migrants and asylum seekers is by no means as hostile as the government would like to believe and to foster. But this week has shown that a long term solution to the migrant crisis cannot be solved in a week and the last week has seen both the forced rescue of a boat floundering in the channel with about fifty saved but at least half a dozen lives lost. Also, of course, this was the week when the goverment was forced to disembark all of the recent migrants which they had dragooned onto the accommodation barge floating off Portland, once the virus of Legionnaire’s disease had found in the barge’s plumbing system. I heard a brief comment from I believe the deputy editor of the Conservative Home website to the effect that both wings of the Conservative party were unhappy – the ‘left’ or ‘moderate’ wing of the party on the basis that they disliked the whole of the process of operating the migrant policy and the right wing of the party because they not like the outcome i.e. it was not proving effective. To dissatisfy both wings of the party at once takes some doing.

Today Meg and I woke up early and so we got going in plenty of time. After we had breakfasted, we knew that we needed to make a trip to the Post Office and to save Meg the walk, I left her in the car whilst I shot off to get my business transacted. Fortunately, I was seen straight away and there was no Post Ofice queue which is quite an experience. Then Meg and I made our way into Waitrose were we thought we might see members of ‘the gang’ In practice, our three regular Tuesday/Saturday ladies all showed up and we chatted away, this week on the wonderful subject of ironing. As you might imagine, we had a three way split between those of who never ironed, those who ironed a lot and those who only ironed certain items. We were anxious to get back in time to see the England vs. Colombia Women’s World Cup match and we got back after they had been playing for only 5 minutes. It was certainly a very tight and ‘physical’ game for which the Colombians are renowed or notorious. I thought that their indiviual skill levels were just a notch ahead of the English women and the Colombians took the lead with a delightful and perfectly pitched goal, shot from outside the penalty area, which just escaped the outstretched grasp of the tall England goalkeeper. This was only a few minutes before the end of the first half but the England team pressed forward and in a goalmouth scramble, a bad error by the Colombian goalkeeper in which the ball was not gathered cleanly but was pushed forwards, allowed the English forwards to pounce and score the equaliser. In the second half, the Colombian team started brightly and, to me, looked dangerous especially when they were taking up positions just outside the penalty area. But a second defensive error not quite as evident as the first, allowed the English centre forward to score a well-deserved winning goal about a third of the way through the half. From then on, it was enough for the England team to make sporadic raids into the opposing half where a third goal would not have been impossible but with some ferocious defending at the rear. So did the best team win? I think that a draw, even after extra time, could have reflected the peformance of the two teams but in the event, I was relieved that we were not forced into a situation of a penalty shootout. England now meet Australia on their home turf and I really cannot see the England team, even ‘on song’ as it were, managing to get passed the Australians. But having said that, funny things can happen and the best teams do not always win.

Sky News reports the makings of a huge scandal surrounding the huge accommodation barge designed to house asylum seekers and moored off Portland. Asylum seekers on board the Bibby Stockholm were not told to stop showering or drinking water during their stay despite Legionella bacteria being discovered in the water supply. ‘Stand Up to Racism’, which has been in contact with asylum seekers who were moved from the barge, heard reports that they were notified about the bacteria at 4.45pm yesterday and then given a letter at 5pm. The campaign group claimed there was no one to ask questions of when they were given the news and that they have not been tested for Legionnaires disease. All the recent transferees to the barge have now been taken off and put into other accommodation, presumably the hotels from which they were extracted. Initial reports when the news first broke yesterday indicated that it was possible that the presence of the Legionnaire’s disease infection of the water supply may well have been known about even before the first ‘inmates’ were housed there. If this proves to be the case, then surely some heads must roll. It does look, initially, as though the Home Office were so desperate to make the accommodation barge story appear to be a successful that they discounted the possibility that the barge was in a dangerous condition. I expect that there will be a massive cover-up,not to say obfuscation, that officials knew of the extent of the infection before the first migrants were located there. There is time enough for some in-depth investigation by the Sunday newspapers before publication later on tonight (ready for consumption the following day). Tomorrow, though, I shall follow the early morning politics programs with particular interest and I do hope that the interviewers do their job and do not pull their punches when they conduct the interviews tomorrow. I wonder who the government spokesperson will happen to be but I would imagine that instead of exposing an important senior minister to scrutiny, the government will put up either a junior minister or a back bencher to try the defend the government. But criticism has already come from within the ranks of the Conservative party itself. Former Brexit Secretary David Davis said he believes the bacteria should have been identified sooner. The MP told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: ‘It is really, really hard to understand how, at all layers, this could not be caught early. The primary thing that has been revealed has been the startling incompetence of the Home Office itself.’ Interesting!

Today has been quite a full day even for a Friday. It is the day when our domestic help calls around and there seemed to be lots of things that we wanted to share with her. Firstly, last week she left in my care a rather nicely shaped but rather abandoned cane chair which she was inclined to throw away but which I felt was probably rescuable. I happened to have a spare bottle of Rustin’s stain for light woods and I have given it repeated applications of this to the chair over the last week – until the little bottle was used up in fact. Then I gave it a final polish with furniture polish and decorated it with a little round gold cushion I had located in an old tin trunk we reserve for bedding, pillows cushions and the like. This finishes it off beatutifully and our domestic help was very pleased with it. But it will remain with me for one more week and I will try to enhance the polish a little until such time as she has room in her little car to pick it up. I then showed our domestic help the little group of three ceramic owls I had purchased in the charity shop during the week and again we were commended on our purchase. Then we came to show her the vintage German ‘stein’ mugs we had bought at perhaps one seventh of their actual value and where they have pride of place on a window sill in which the light reflects the colours beautifully. Then when she was sitting down with a cup of tea, I gave her the written version of the blog detailing the passing of Jo and which explains why she was such a significant friend to us. As you can imagine, all of this took a certain amount of time before she could make a start on her cleaning round. In the meantime, I have been assembling together, from my old and current iPad as well as my phone, whatever photos I have of Jo and I will then make them into a little tribute website and, of course, offer them to her son should he wish to use any of them in a photo collage for any ‘celebration of life’ activities which lie ahead of us.

After we had had a minimal breakfast, we made a trip to the Morrison’s superstore in Redditch where our son was getting an irritating little fault fixed on his car before the end of the warranty period. Then he treated us to a breakfast in their cafeteria and this was much appreciated by both of us – me in particular as I normally do not breakfast these days but did not want to turn down the opportunity when it arose. We then returned home and made ourselves a flask of coffee and put together some comestibles before we set off for the park where we were due to meet our University of Birmingham friend by prior arrangement on one of our favourite benches. The weather was beautifully warm and we enjoyed our customary chat in what we must now regard as somewhat transient summer sunshine. I had previously written to our friend explaining what an emotionally troubling week we had had so he was well prepared for all of this. Then we returned home and cooked our traditional fish pie in the oven with some broccoli and tomatoes accompaniment, this being a dinner that we always enjoy. In the afternoon, we spent some time in our music room listening to some quiet but evocative music before in the late afternoon our daughter-in-law called around. We played her one or two pieces that I had learnt on each of the two organs with which the music room (their ex-lounge) was endowed and she thought I made some progress, albeit with one hand. Quite surprisingly, I thought, she had never heard ‘Shenandoah’ before whereas the ‘Barcarolle’ was of course immediately familiar. After the departure of my son and daughter-on-law, I turned my attention to the cane and wicker magazine rack that had been offered to me by our domestic help. I gave this the beeswax treatment and was pleasantly surprised that even on this cane furniture, it gave it a subdued but satisfying lustre. The trick is, I believe, to leave the polish on for a period of som 20-30 minutes so that the bottom layers of the beeswax gradually harden before the very topmost layers are buffed to a sheen.

We have made some social arrangements for the weekend. To complement the Tuesday ‘glee’ club in Waitrose each Tuesday, most of us have a meet up on Saturday wilst we can. I have promised on of our number Michelle Obama’s biography to read as she enjoyed reading that of her husband. Later on in the morning , there will be the England vs. Colombia football match in which I fully expect that we shall finally be beaten – it seems to be the year of the underdogs this year. On Sunday, we are going to meet with our University of Birmingham friend in a local craft centre where no doubt we may find things of interest as well as enjoying our Sunday morning coffee.

Well, after yesterday’s outpourings of grief, today seemed to return to a more normal type of existence. Yesterday, though, we had gone to our monthly meeting organised by AgeUK and had a fascinated illustrated talk by one of our number who had decades of experience scuba diving in the Red Sea off the port of Aquaba. The illustrations were mainly of fish and corals and I have to say were a stunning sight for those uninitiated into the joys of snorkelling. There are also a lot of wrecks in the areas and experienced divers, like our club member, were permitted to make a tour of a wreck so long as they were experienced, part of a team and were aware of the risks. So we had a video clip of a tour round one of these wrecks. At the end of the morning, there was a sort of facilitator person whose function was to act as a sort of liaison and trouble shooter to help members negotiate some of the intricacies of the links between NHS on the one hand and social/voluntary services on the other. This contact was absolutely excellent and she was not particularly surprised to learn of the difficulties we had encountered in negotiating this interface. So she took our details and promised to look into things to see what could be done to improve our experience. There are quite a lot of support agencies provided that one knows about them but obtaining access to what is needed can be a very hit-and-miss affair. The best analogy I have is a large hospital with a lot of specialised departments but no signposting anywhere within it – a patient could find out what they needed immediately by chance or they could fumble along finding one piece of needs meet here and another there, all quite fortuitously This is well known by people working in the service who do their best to provide relevant links but the key word here is that one has to navigate the systems, sometimes with help and sometimes quite independently.

Today being a Thursday, I was off to get some money out of an ATM and then get to the supermarket before the doors opened and everything worked smoothly. Then it was a case of picking up the newspaper, getting home to cook breakfast for Meg and unpacking all of the shopping. We knew that there were various hardware type purchases that we needed to make so we then made our way to Droitwich where, needless to say, we had our cappuchino and teacakes before repairing next door to the Cancer Charity shop. The store seemed exceptionally well stocked with goodies today and we did buy a couple of skirts for Meg as well as a black tie (for obvious reasons) for myself. There was also a ClassicFM quizbook which we thought would be good fun for both of us to have a dabble with when the mood took us but the prime focus of our visit was to get to Wilko, the hardware chain that started life as Wilkinsons as a family firm in Leicester in the 1930’s. We located what we needed, principally a new shower hose to replace the one we have which has finally broken at the point where they always do and some new clothes lines as the one(s) we have in place have unaccountably snapped. There were one or two other items that Wilko stocks and we cannot think of another hardware store that does so we were eager to get round the store before its demise. I spoke with the checkout lady what she knew about the future of the firm and she said that she and her partner (who also worked for Wilko) were being informed on a day-by-day basis but they had had no real news. But on the way home in the car, we heard the sad news that despite the best efforts of the new management team, they had not found a buyer or a ‘white knight’ and the firm was now going to go into liquidation. I find it hard to believe that such an accessible and useful store should bite the dust, like this, but the internet and some cheaper rivals are taking the blame.

When we were in the charity shop, I received a telephone call that an NHS support worker concerned with falls prevention would visit the home to assess Meg’s health status. We had to make a lightning dinner and the person called round at 2.00pm. She was exceptionally sympathetic and had actually grown up in Staffordshie not too far distant from where Meg had her youth. She was incredibly helpful and has promised to activate another couple of links for services that be especially useful and welcome to us. After that, we had to race off to get to a local QuikFit garage to investigate and correct a slow puncture in the front offside wheel. The culprit was identified as a small screw, just over a centimetre in length, which had become embedded in the tyre and was causing the problem. The resultant damage was easily reparable so a brand new tyre was indicated but we were very relieved to get this recurrent and irritating problem resolved for us. I thought I had heard a ‘click-clicking’ sound a few weeks ago and so it proved.

Today was a day that started off in one of the worst possible ways one can imagine. I listened to a voicemail on my iphone which gave me the news that the oldest, and dearest, of my friends had recently died at the age of 96. I suppose one has to say that 96 years olds can be carried away, as my doctor once informed me, by a ‘puff of wind’. But Jo (short for Josephine) was an incredibly significant person in my life and her demise is quite a blow to me. I first met Jo when I was a young civil servant working at the Central Office of Information in London in 1964. My job was part of a team to man an information centre for the rest of Whitehall and I was just the raw office junior whereas Jo was an Assistant Information Officer. Our desks were at right angles to each given the layout of the office and we all worked extremely collaboratively on a whole range of information issues. That particular year – 1964-65 – was an momentous one in information terms as it was the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Simon De Montfort Parliament which is the precursor of our present-day Parliament. It was also the year in which Winston Churchill died and, again, the world’s media were going frantic for every bit of Churchilliana it was possible to find. But the reason why Jo is such a special person for me will now become apparent. She knew that I was attempting to study for some ‘A’-levels completely on my own with no tuition. Jo enquired whether I had a quiet place in which to study, suspecting that a hostal for young male civil servants was not a place in which there was any opportunity for such study. I informed Jo that my principal study time was the 20 minutes of a Tube Journey between Finchley Road and Lambeth North on the Bakerloo line in the morning and again, in the reverse direction in the evening. Jo was a widow with a son who was then aged about 15 but lived with her son in a house adjacent to Heathrow Airport, where her pilot husband had been killed in an air crash. She made me an offer that was hard to refuse which was that I was to accompany her home on Friday evening and then have uninterrupted study time all Friday evening and the following Saturday and Sunday for intensive study for the three weeks just prior to my examinations – she said she would provide me with meals but I could have time for completely uninterrupted study. So this worked out fine but I think her 15 year old son must have wondered what kind of a waif and stray his mother had adopted. Eventually my results came through and as I had had no tuition and not submitted a single assignment, I had absolutely no idea whatsoever what my results were likely to be. In the event, I obtained a Grade A in Economics and a Grade B in Logic and my success in this venture owes a tremendous amount to Jo who had ‘rescued’ me and given me such a wonderful opportunity. On gaining my A-levels, I was off to University but Jo and I have remained life-long friends and she has shared my joys in life such as getting married to Meg, the birth of our son and much more recently a guest of honour at our 50th wedding anniversary nearly six years ago now. Jo was such a talented musician and she had a LRCM qualification in piano regarded as a degree level qualification for the civil service which employed us both. But she also had a strong science background and as well as working in pathology labs was at one stage employed in a facility where she met with, and exchanged some conversations with, Alan Turing, the celebrated mathematician and cryptographer who helped to crack the code of the Enigma machines deployed by the Germans during WWII. This enabled the Allies to have advance knowledge of German war plans and Turing’s work helped to shorten the war effort considerably as well as him being regarded as the ‘father’ of the modern computer. In recent years, Jo and I and our families have been meeting once a year in a little Italian restaurant just around the corner from the British Museum until the pandemic put a stop to all of that. She phoned me up about a month ago and on my Casio keyboard, I played her the Largo from the New World Symphony (which she knew well and sang along to). I had hoped that we might meet up in the next few weeks as soon as we could organise it all but she had felt unwell for a couple of days and then died what I hope was a peaceful and tranquil death. I am not at all ashamed to say that I wept copiously when I got the news this morning and have spent all day trying to cope with my own grief. Goodbye, Jo, and may you rest in peace! How blessed I am to have had a friend like you for the last 59 years and now I have only memories (and some 50th wedding photos, of course)

Today has seen a return of the dreary wet drizzle which we have had with us for most of the day. Once we had got ourselves together, Meg and I had our normal breakfast which is a cooked one for Meg and then looked forward to meeting with some of our ‘gang’ in Waitrose. Once we had braved the drizzle, we were delighted to meet up with our other three Tuesday morning regulars and exchanged our gossip with each other. As I had got some pictures of my newly acquired pottery on my phone, I explained to our friends how I had gone about establishing its provenance. Evidently, I had to photograph them both carefully and get the images in an accessible place on my computer. Then, I now know after advice from my son, that you use Google Images and, if you have photographs of your items, then Google will attempt to find a match for you (I gather this works with people as well) This worked like a dream for me when I tried it last night. Basically, I now know that I have a couple of German made ‘stein’ mugs made by a well known manufacturer (Marzo and Remy), the slightly smaller one dating from the 1950’s and the slightly larger and more ornate one dating from the 1880s. I see from the internet what one firm (‘Etsy’)advertises is that these pair of steins have a market value of up to seven times what I actually paid for them. Although one would be tempted to sell them on at an enhanced price, personally I feel happy with them as an ornament and certainly want to hang onto them, particularly as I now know something of their providence. So this was quite a pleasant and unexpected bonus arriving in the middle of the night. So my account of these little ventures led me onto a discussion of Meg’s engagement ring which we bought way back in 1967 in a little antique shop quite near to Manchester Cathedral, as I remember. The ring is all we could afford at the time between us and the cost was £8.00. It is quite an unusual design and is basically a sapphire surrounded by two small diamonds and then mounted in (rather than ‘on’) the gold band. Several decades later and whilst we were living here in Bromsgrove, the saphire dropped out somewhere and was lost forever. One of our local jewellers was having a huge discount offer on repairs and purchases so I took in Meg’s engagement ring, explaining to the staff that I thought the ring was probably Victorian as we knew that it certainly was not modern. Now the jewellers around here are usually exceptionally knowledgeable as they have probably had their apprenticeship in what is still known as the ‘Jewellery quarter’ in Birmingham. Upon hearing my story, our ring was repaired but the staff explained to us that the ring was older than Victorian. Their best guess according to the kind of mounting that was used was that the ring could well be Georgian. This was probably not recognised in the antique shop where it was bought as they were not specialist jewellers. Naturally, we were delighted with these news and we would never dream of selling it but it gives us quite a warm glow that a thing of such sentimental value might now be even more precious.

The rest of the day has been rather punctuated by long, and important, phone calls. I had made a call to a nurse who specialises in Meg’s health conditions to ask for some advice and when her return call came, I was actually in the middle of my Pilates session. My tutor and fellow class members did not mind when I shot outside the studio to take the call but the reception was not good inside the building so we made an arrangement to phone back on the landline after I had returned home. Now sooner had I returned home when the telephone call came which was very welcome but must have taken the best part of about 40 minutes. My contact had access to files of information on both of us and helped us to acually make contact with the social worker in adult social services for whom we form part of a caseload. She had been trying to make contact with us but this was another long but relatively fruitful phone call from which some positive consequences may flow. Eventually, Meg and I took our dinners which had been served up but not eaten and got to eat them at about 4.40 in the afternoon. So it was a strange afternoon but one where the possibility is opening up of some more proactive help with Meg’s health. I must say that once you do get through the phone/website interface to talk to an actual human, the level of professional concern and sympathy is generally commendable but getting through to have these conversations is quite an achievement in itself.

If any of us were not worried about data breaches, we ought to be so now. Details of tens of millions of voters could have been accessed by hackers who targeted the elections watchdog. The Electoral Commission revealed on Tuesday it was targeted by a cyber attack which allowed ‘hostile actors’ to access electoral registers. No votes may have been tampered with but the database can now be cross-referenced with goodness-know-what so we need to be afraid, if not very afraid.

Meg and I know that we had to make an early start this morning, which we did for a couple of reasons. The most important of these was an an occupational therapist was due to call around with a supply of aids that would help Meg’s mobility and related health issues around the house. We got ourselves breakfasted and then settled down to watch the England vs. Nigeria football match in the Women’s World Cup. This started at 8.30 and we watched most of the first half until the occupational therapist arrived with her gear. We then went around the house, trying out a variety of aids – some we thought might well be useful and we are going to retain whilst others did not look as though they were going to work so we passed them over. The occupational therapist was very conscientious and diligent in her approach and the three of us worked collectively to identify those practical aids that would work and those which would not. So it was quite a satisfying morning and then we settled down to watch the last 15 minutes of the England-Nigeria match. It seemed to us (and, eventually, to the commentators in the TV studios) that the English team were outplayed in nearly every department of the game – the Nigerians just appeared sharper, created more opportunities and looked dangerous near goal although their finishing was not of the highest. Then towards the end of the match, one of the hitherto English stars – Lauren James – got into a tangle with her Nigerian opponent and whilst she was on the ground, trod on her back. Initially a yellow card was issued but after a video review, this was upgraded to a red card which meant instantly leaving the field and missing the next match. There is also the possibility that in a further review, Lauren James may be found guilty of ‘violent conduct’ which, if proved, will be a three-match ban and exclusion from the rest of the competition. Eventually, after extra time, the English team limped through to penalties and promptly missed the first one. But the Nigerians missed their first two and, after that, the English women all put their penalties away with aplomb and hence England were through, not really deservedly, to the quarter-finals on Saturday. I rather felt for the Nigerians who played really well and did have a shove in the back of one of their players in the penalty area not even considered for a penalty, so I think the Nigerians could feel aggrieved about all of this. I suppose they could return home wih their heads held high and reflect that the better team on the day does not always win.

In the odd few minutes I have had in the day, I have consulted the web to see if I can discover anything about the provenance of the two richly decorated ceramic jugs we bought from Age Concern the other day. So far, I have consulted all 124 pages of an online guide to pottery ‘marks’ without any success. I have also trawled through about 20-25 eBay pages of decorated jugs to see if I can find anything even vaguely similar and the answer is that I did not find a single item that even came close to the specimens we have. I have a slight clue in the little monkey heads with a lion type full mane which is a repeated motif on one of the vases might tend to suggest something of an Asian extraction. Another clue is that I think on the reverse is an ankh symbol atop something that might be a chemical balance but it is all a bit difficult to say. I have discovered a Nottingham-based form of auctioneers who say that they will give you a free valuation on the basis of a photograph although you are asked to supply as much provenance as you can which would be difficult in my case. But when I have a chance I will take some photos of the two pieces and see what they have to say about things.

After a period of several wet days, I did feel I must seize the opportunity to get the lawns cut and this I did, successfully, this afternoon. It always amazes me that for every day I leave the grass longer than a week, the grass seems to grow disproportionately so today’s cut was timely. If we have a ‘normal’ rather than a very wet July weather, you can rely upon the rate of growth moderating somewhat but not this year.

The big political issue today has been the way in which asylum seekers are being relocated onto the floating barge, Bibby Stockholm at Portland Port, Dorset. The first 15 asylum seekers are now on board the controversial barge, according to the Home Office – although the government was unable to put another 20 on the vessel. And, contrary to earlier reports that the stay in this ‘barge’ which really resembles a floating prison, would be limited to a few days, the latest news this evening is that the stay may be between six to nine months. How ‘free’ the asylum seekers will actually be is an interesting question and I wonder how many will try to abscond and what will happen to them once they get caught?