At last, the run of rainy weather seems to be coming to an end and so we look forward to a brighter day. I must confess that when I got up this morning, I felt like death warmed up and so went in search of some Cold and Flue Relief sachets as I felt both cold and shivery. This did alleviate the worst of my symptoms but not having had a good night’s sleep last night, I seemed to doze during the political programs broadcast on Sunday morning. I made Meg her breakfast and she had it on her knees in front of the TV whilst I sipped my ‘Cold’ preparation. This morning, we had an assignation to see our University of Birmingham friend in Webbs, the large store down the road which defies categorisation. As part of my membership fee which I renewed a couple of weeks ago, we have a card entitling us to a dozen free hot drinks which again I utilised. As I was still feeling a little fragile, I decided to treat myself to a round of toast thus breaking my ‘no carbohydate before 1:30’ rule but they say that one should ‘Feed a cold, starve a fever’ which I did. Meg, for her part, indulged in a huge slice of chocolate cake and as usual, we spent a very happy three quarters of an hour chatting away. When we eventually got home, neither Meg and I felt particularly hungry so we used a pork pie which we had been gifted by our next door neighbours and complemented it with some salad trimmings. To our surprise, we both ate most of our dinner and then we settled down to a range of Sunday afternoon activities. After I had given the newspaper a good read, I gave the bamboo chair I am restoring another coat of Scratch cover. When I have exhausted this little bottle, I will have given the chair multiple treatments and then we have two or three options which I shall discuss with our domestic help when she calls around on Friday. One option is to leave things as they are whilst another is to give a coating of a gloss laqueur which will add a shine to the whole. But a third option might present itself after I bought the set of four cushion covers with an autumn leaf design. I raided an old tin tunk that we have in our bedroom in which we have stored assorted cushions and pillows and discovered a circular cushion which we have evidently not used in decades but can be well and truly pressed into service at the moment. This sits nicely on the seat and the other cushion covers can be utilised to cover the chair back. I think the overall effect is very pleasing but the ultimate arbiter of all of this is our domestic help, whose chair it actually is.

This afternoon, we enjoyed a spell in our music room listening to a CD which I had bought on the internet the other day – this was ‘Renaissance music for inner peace’ and as such it will be complement the other CD of a similar nature that we very often play. So this was a relaxing hour in our newly equipped music room. Whilst sitting quietly, I gave the two decorated jugs that I bought the other day a really minute exmination to attempt to establish some degree of provenance. The bottom of the jugs just indicate ‘1 Litre’ and ‘Foreign’ so this gives no clue. I very rapidly flipped through 25 pages of decorated ceramic jugs advertised on eBay and cannot see anything even remotely similar to the two I have just purchased. If I had to make a wild guess, it would be that the jugs might be of Germanic origin as the style of decoration, although an intricate abstract design, is not dissimilar to the kinds of decoration I have seen on Beer jugs. A very slight clue might be a small decorated motif whih when examined under a magnifying glass could either be a lions head/a gorilla head/a neantherdal head. It would be fascinating to have them examined by a pottery expert who may be able to give an opinion but in the meantime, we are more than happy just to enjoy them for what they are.

Meg and I watched the final between England and Australia women’s netball. As non-expert viewers, it seemed evident that the Australians were never going to get caught and were always 2-3 points ahead in the first quarter (although that finished as a draw) and thereafter gradually pulled away before winning by 16 points with is a huge margin under the circumstances. The whole commentary team on the TV would never admit that the English team were just not good enough and no match for the Australians – it was full of pseudo-technical analysis but nobody seemed to state the obvious.

As a follow up to the story of the prisoner realsed after 17 years in gaol for a rape that DNA analysis shows he did not commit, the powers that be have relented and it is now agreed that the released prisoner will not be charged for board and lodgings for the past few years. But he still has a big fight on his hand to claim compensation which is by no means certain and will probably take years.

Today dawned as a thoroughly wet and miserable day and it threatened to rain all day – and certainly did this morning. We thought we pop into Waitrose for a coffee this morning and bumped into one of our regulars but another two of our Saturday morning regulars may have been deterred by the rain. We spent a pleasant half hour or so, chatting about this and that and the subject of reading matter came up. I promised to let our friend have our copy of Michelle Obama’s biography to read because she had already read Barack Obama’s biography and enjoyed that so I thought she would probably enjoy that of his wife as well. Whenever Michelle Obama used to visit London, she often visited the poorer (and black) areas of East London where she must have been an amazing inspiration for some of those childdren, coming from similar roots herself. After we had done a bit of shopping we decided to go home but via our favourite little charity shop which is ‘suburban’ rather than High Street and where the staff are always incredibly friendly. Moreover, the shop is always crammed full of really interesting stuff as well. I popped into to see if tbey did have some cushion covers and picked up four for less than £2.00. But I must say I was tempted by some ceramic owls that I think could be lit internally with little tree lights but looked quite presentable in themselves. Whilst these were being packed for me, the assistant pointed out two stunning vases that had just been dropped into the shop that morning and as an impulse buy, I bought both of them because I think they will be a very useful addition to an otherwise bare window sill so these were added to the collection as well. When I got Meg home and sitting down with a cup of tea and some biscuits, I gave my new purchases a wash and got them located just where I wanted within a few minutes. Throughout the course of this morning, I have given the bamboo chair I am restoring for our domestic help another quick treatment of Scratch cover remover (used as a restoring agent in this case) When this preparation is first applied, it gives the bamboo a fairly lustrous appearance but it then fades after an hour to a more muted look. I am assuming that after a few more coats, the waxes in the preparation might have built up somewhat but when the improvements have come to a halt, as it were, I shall attempt an actual bit of beeswax on an unconspicuous part of the frame to see if I dare extend this treatment to the whole of it.

Last night in the course of the evening, I heard a rendition of the American song ‘Shenandoah‘ broadcast on Classic FM. For reasons, I cannot fully explain, I have always enjoyed the slow but evocative rhythms of this piece (not too different to the ‘Barcarolle‘ when you think about it). I have a vague recollection of singing this in a public concert put on for/by primary school children as part of some local festival – this may be a part of a false memory syndrome but I have always enjoyed the piece. During the night, in a wakeful session, I managed to locate and download a simplified version of ‘Shenandoah‘ and then practiced it for a few times (evidently very softly on my instruments) I have not got it absolutely right just yet but with a bit more practice, I will probably be able to get the whole thing more or less correct. This afternoon, I have interspersed bits of reading with bits of music pracice and bits of furniture restoration before we went to the station at 4.00pm in order to collect my son from his jolly dog-sitting duties. I got to the station two minutes late and collected my son before delivering him to his own house. My all too frequent slow puncture symbol started to appear in the car so on the way homne, I needed to go and get the tyre inflated and if I drive carefully, it should be OK until Monday when I will go and get it fixed.

There was a story in ‘The Times’ today which warmed the heart. The Fringe events in the Edinburgh festival often attact very small audiences but the other night, one performer put on her act/play to the one person who had bought a ticket and turned up to constitute the audience. The performer tweeted her distress in social media but the following night had a complete surprise. So many of her fellow performers had taken pity on her and had bought up tickets so that on the following day, there was a sell-out and the performance went ahead to a full house. Many of the artist’s fellow performers indicated that performing to an incredibly small audience was the stuff of their private nightmares so collectively, they had taken pity on her and given her the surprise of her life. So I found this story to be quite a heart-warming one when you consider the rest of the dismal news to which we are subject daily.

Today, we had our domestic help to look forward to but so as not to disturb us, she had not rung the front door bell but crept in quietly at about 7.30 in the morning. So when we emerged from our ablutions at 8.30am and ready for our breakfast, our domestic help was already busying herself in her tasks. Needless to say, various cups of tea always help to keep us going in the morning and, as usual, we had quite a lot to talk about. I gave her her a burst of two of three of my favourite organ pieces with which to start off the day – needless to day, the first of these has got to be the opening bars of the J S Bach cantata, ‘Wachet Auf‘ or ‘Sleepers, Awake’ (as it is known in English translation). Then she admired the work of my beeswax restoration of the piano stool which I purchased from her next door neighbour and then we exchanged little gifts of cleaning equipment with each other. We knew that we had an assignation in the park with our University of Birmingham friend and we had hoped that our another park friend would pass by but it was not to be. Instead, we were the attention of several friendly dogs who assumed that we would be sources of food or titbits but we tended to know all of their owners, at least by sight even if not more intimately, so that it did not look as though we were kidnapping their animals. Eventually, though, we struck out for home but our neighbours were having builders in to get a porch built as well as their routine gardeners so there were vehicles everywhere and we found it difficult to access our own house. But at least one of the annoyances that has made our life troublesome over the past few days has disappeared as the gas utility company have finally filled and tarmacked the hole which was occluding our driveway – or at least making life difficult – so we appreciate being able to drive in and out of our own driveway without the need for complicated manouvres.

After lunch this afternoon, I have acquired a little restoration project at which I am trying my hand. Our domestic help had a bamboo stype chair, of quite good construction that had seen better days and she was going to dispose of in the domestic tip. But I thought this was rescuable, given my recent attempts at furniture restoration, so I persuaded her to let me have it for the week to see what I could do with it. It just so happens that I have some Rustins ‘Scratch Cover’ for light woods and reading the list of ingredients (beeswax, carnauba wax as well as a stain) I thought this was well worth a go. So far, I think I have effected some improvements but I will persist with a few more treatments before our domestic help and I will give the whole little project an assessment to work out where we go from here. One idea that I have is that stretch-style chair covers are available at a very reasonable cost so this might be one way in which we can make this piece serviceable once again. I should have taken a photo so that I can assess the ‘before’ and ‘after’ effects so I shall rely upon our domestic help’s memory of how it was before I started work on it.

We have plans to visit our local ‘Wilko‘ store next Monday afternoon as there are rumours that the whole chain, which started life in Leicester, is about to hit the buffers. It has always been one of my favourite hardware stores although I do admit that in the stationery department the shelves seem to have been left understocked on the last few occasions when I have visited the store. But I have always found their kitchen and gardening equipment to be reasonable quality at a fair price so I will be very sorry to see its demise. I am hoping to pick up a few things that we need that can only be bought reasonably there and I am hoping that it does not go belly up within the next day or so.

There is another political scandal which is brewing. Apparently, one in five Afghan refugees being evicted from their hotel accommodation will be homeless and we be presenting themselves as such to the local authorities. The UK promised a safe haven for thousands of people who had to flee their home country as the Taliban swept back into power in August 2021. The majority of those who came over worked for the British government and armed forces in Afghanistan as translators or similar aides and have been living in hotels since arriving. It has hard to see how the government can get any sympathy for denying accommodation to these Afghan refugees, particularly as their lives were under a direct threat when the Taliban came to power and we offered a legal route of immigration to them.

Today turned out to be quite a busy day. It started off with a quick burst on the website of our GP practice to request a telephone consultation which now requires the completion of a form as soon as the system ‘opens’ 30 minutes before the time when telephone queries are accepted. This all worked out well and after giving lots of details, the system appeared to work because the GP most cognizant of Meg’s profile phoned me back just after 9.00pm when I had returned from the shopping. This proved to be a little more problematic than usual because although I had my weekly shopping bags by the front door, I forgot to load them into the car. But when I went the supermarket, I raided the containers of empty boxes and made do with these rather than my shopping bags. Actually, I found that my purchases of milk fitted very snugly into one of these boxes so I shall retain it to make life easier in the future as it releases space in the bags themselves. I picked up the newspapers in plenty of time, got the shopping unpacked, the breakfast all cooked and washed up and then Meg got ready so that we could leave the house just after 11.00 which was our intention. We had decided to pay a visit to our favourite little market town of Alcester some 15 miles or so distant – all seemed to go well until the preferred route was blocked off so we had to be diverted but this did not prove to be too problematic under the circumstances. So we arrived in Alcester to weather that was gloomy but not actually raining and made for our favourite coffee shop. This just happens to be across the road from our favourite little hardware store – called I believe ‘This and That’ This is one of those precious little stores which seem to stock a myriad of things that you have not seen for years and evoked feelings of ‘That would be useful’. We finished up buying £20.00 worth of all kinds of bits and pieces, nearly all of which we actually needed and could very shortly find a use for. I was even tempted to buy a little block of beeswax for which I have no immediate use (apart from furniture?) but the next time I have a ‘screwing’ job, I will certainly aid its ingress with a little bit of beeswax – an old joiners trick. Then we visited a really old fashioned little carpet shop for whom the person in charge looked as though as he was least 85 years of age. In response to our queries about a little piece of carpeting, he shuffled off into the back to emerge quite a long time later with an old sample book from which we extracted one of the samples that I quite liked and which I purchased for the princely sum of £1.00

Then Meg and I got to the hotel on the High Street where we had pre-booked our pensioner’s meal for £8.50. They had a range of about half a dozen ciders so Meg had one of these and I was tempted by half a pint of John Smiths, although there were some local ales as well. We had a mixed economy of meals between us so that we could eat-and-share between the two of us and ensuring that Meg was not overwhelmed by too generous a portion. This meal strategy worked out fine as well – Meg’s should have been scampi and chips but we substituted salad for the chips which is always a good idea. After lunch, it was time to hit the charity shops with a vengeance. In the end we bought Meg four tops all of which we think will suit her down to the ground. We were amazed when we came to pay for them that as the shop in question was having a ‘sale’ the tops were priced at £1 each whatever the original price. I bought a rather smart looking and heavy jerkin which will serve me well in the cold weather but it feels a bit hot in today’s more humid conditions. As is often the case in charity shops, there is a shelf full of CDs selling for 50p each. In the last shop we visited, I scanned the CDs on the shelf and just bought one which was ‘Great Operatic Love Duets’ and I am playing it as I blog. However, I have to say that the recordings are generally the most execrable I have ever heard. One has in mind a soprano of an uncertain age with a red gash of lipstick and wrinkly stockings falling about her ankles whilst the tenor probably has a cumberband that has to be worn below the prominent tummy he now possesses. In fact, listeners to the 1960’s Radio 4 program ‘Round the Horne’ will remember the dialogues between two aging actors (‘Pinky Huckerback‘ and ‘Dame Cecilia Mole-Strangler‘ as I remember) and this recording of worthy of them at their worst. In fact, the 50p I spent is ridiculously good value when I consider the laughs we are getting from such a performance- the Radio Bratislava Symphony Orchestra under the direction of AT&T should have alerted us to the fact that we were not going to get the Vienna Philharmonic. The program notes even go as far as to claim that this compilation is ‘just in time for that intimate Valentines Day occasion’ If I were approached with a proposition from any of the recorded artists, I think I would run a mile in the opposite direction.

Today was an entertaining day. We knew that we had an appointment later on the morning so that Meg could have her eyes checked over and, after breakfast, we picked up our newspaper and headed for the Kidderminster Intermediate Treatment Centre as it is known. We were fearful when we arrived because all of the car parking spaces appeared to have been taken and there were cars parked on yellow lines, squeezed onto grass spaces and, evidently, people in desperation had parked whereever they could, legal or not. This was no real surprise to us and I wonder if the private company that owns the car parking land actually does prosecute patients for non compliance when the available parking is evidently under all kinds of stress. Nonetheless, we managed to find one space and arrived at the clinic five minutes before our appointed time. We had taken the precautions of taking along a flask of coffee and some biscuits because, in the past, we have experienced a total hospital stay of some two and a half hours. Today, though, it did look as though we were going to see the consultant himself which we eventually did after some initial tests on Meg’s vision. We discussed the options for two different procedures, one on each eye and decided to go for the simpler laser treatment that would probably help the condition in one eye and would consider options for the other eye at a later date. As we were not in the hospital for a very long period of time, on the way home we called in our Irish friends wo we knew had been away for a long weekend in Munich. We joked about seeing a video with our friends quaffing beer served by long-haired Germanic maidens with their hair in plats whilst listening to an ‘umpah’ band with much thigh slapping from the leder-hosen clad musicians. This video was in my imagingtaion but our friends did show us another video, complete with music soundtrack, poduced on their iphone so I must find out how to do it sometime.

After a lunch of quiche, I telephoned the dotor’s surgery to attempt to make an appointment to discuss Meg’s medication. I was offered an appointment in a week’s time which I felt was too long to wait under the circumstances. When I wanted a faster appointment than this, I was directed to a website which was inoperative – but only designed to be functional between 7.30 and 8.30 tomorrow morning in which to log requests. Whether this will result in obtaining a doctor’s telephone consultation which is all I require in the first instance, I am at a loss to say but I will try at 7.30 in the morning just before I go shopping and hope for the best. I suspect that this difficulty in getting through to a doctor’s appointment system is the same all over the country and not just in our locality but the difficulty in getting access seems to have intensified since the pandemic. I have a terrible foreboding that leaving aside the ‘worried well’ we are storing up masses of problems for ourselves when those with symptoms cannot get the required access to their GP. On the medical and social care theme, I received a phone call from the technology company to whom our reference was passed recently but we were left with a rather indeterminate outcome with a possible referral to another link in the chain.

This afternoon, Meg rather fancied a walk in the park. This we did and bumped into some people from our church who we certainly not expect to see. We exchanged some pleasantries and then sat on our usual bench for a few minutes until it was time to come home – we just about avoided a rain shower and so home to a welcome cup of tea.

News from the other side of ‘the pond’ is that Donald Trump has finally been the recipient of a further four indictments. Now, the former president,who is seeking re-election in 2024,has been charged with what amounts to an attempted coup. In addition to his other legal woes, he faces four criminal charges relating to attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. The indictment outlines how Trump and his co-conspirators allegedly sought to misuse their authority to subvert the transfer of power and keep him in the White House for another four years. Altogether, the indictments amount to a document some 45 pages long and contains some quite explosive detail. Commentators are of the view that this is the most serious of all the various legal challenges that Donald Trump is facing. Of course, to the avid Trump supporters all of this is just evidence of a witchhunt and are keen to pursue challenges to Hunter Biden – the wayward son of Joe Biden – trying to establish some kind of moral equivalence to the two types of transgressions. The indictment against Donald Trump states :’These claims were false and the defendant knew that they were false. As violence ensued, the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.’ Furthermore there is a further possible indictment coming from the state of Georgia that Trump tried to interfere in the electoral process.

This proved to be a rather different Tuesday to our normal pattern. Meg was feeling very much off-colour this morning and perhaps the encounter with the occupational therapist (OT) yeserday afternoon proved to be too much. So after a delayed start to the morning, I eventually got Meg up and then we went off to collect our newspaper. We did make a visit to Waitrose coffee shop today and were glad that we did because we bumped into one of our crowd who we see regularly and who cares for her husband with Alzheimer’s as well as having significant health issues of her own. She had just taken possession yesterday of a brand new utility scooter which looked, when we admired it outside the store, as though it was going to give a much more comfortable ride and I think one that would last much longer between charges as battery technology has improved so much. We were glad to have spent some time with our friend becasue we think we offer some mutual support and friendship to each other as well as being useful sources of advice on occasions. With this combination of circumstances, I decided to give my Pilates session a miss this week and texted my teacher to inform her of my non-attendance. But although the day started off badly, we had quite a pleasant surprise in the middle of the day. The women’s football team were 3-0 up at half time in their World Cup match in the group stages against China. After we had our lunch, we joined the football pretty promptly and discovered that England had both conceded a penalty and also scored a goal to make the score 4-1. We watched to the end of the match which England won 6-1 with the Chinese actually conceding quite soft goals. The Chinese coaches were pictured with their heads in their hands and a picture of misery, all of which one could well understand. But progressing out of the group stage to the last 16 makes every game a ‘knockout’ game from now on. The English team meet with Nigeria next Monday and I fear they will prove to be much sterner opposition than China.

This afternoon I had set myself the task of applying some beeswax polish and generally refurbishing a Yamaha piano stool which arrived the other day. This piece goes perfectly, as it happens, with the Casio keyboard and the two form a natural unit. The beeswax did not a great deal for this piece of furniture, though, as I suspect that it is a stained modern piece of furniture without having a lot of character to display, unlike the antique piece I purchased the other day. However, I have improved its appearance somewhat and the beeswax polish should help to keep it looking in reasonable condition for some time. I think it is one of those pieces that from a distance looks fine but one can see several imperfections if you observe it vety closely and with a critical eye. But at the end of the day, it is meant to be a utilitarian piece of furniture which serves its function very well so I am not dissatisfied with it. I did go on the web to discover the best way to clean its vinyl top and the answer is extraordinarly simple which is a squirt of washing up liquid in a bucket of bowl of warm water.

Yesterday evening, Meg and I were glued to the television to follow the fifth day of the final test of the series between England and Australia. Australia needed to score 384 in what would have been a very high total for the 4th innings of a test match but their openers had made an impressive start. But then then the English bowlers, Woaks and Mohammed Ali made some impressive breakthroughs and although at one stage it looked as though the Australians could defy history and score the total required, a change in the weather conditions made the ball seam and turn off the pitch and batting became more problematic. But just to show that fairy stories happen, we witnessed the following. Stuart Broad had previously announced his retirement from Test cricket the day before and he had decided whilst he was at the top – and at the age of 36. When batting, his very last blow for England was to hit a 6 which is a fitting way to end one’s batting career. Now on the final day, there were two more Australian wickets to dislodge and Broad managed to capture both of them, the final one being evidently the moment at which England won the match and the series as a whole was a draw with 2 wins each and the Manchester test (abandoned because of rain) declared a draw, althougb in reality England were in an impregnable position. So Stuart Broad ended his career with both a 6 when batting and the capture of the wicket of the last Australian batsman. It is hard to think of an ending to one’s career that could be more of a fairy tale ending than this one. But it was the England bowling peformance (perhaps assisted with a strategic change of ball when the previous one went out of shape) that proved to be the decisive factor.

You are never quite sure what a day is going to bring and so it proved today. It started off with a very interesting, and supportive, email from one of my University of Winchester colleagues who lives in Oxfordshire and whose email indicated some of the sources of help that might be available to cope with Meg’s failing health. So I replied at length, indicating some of the problems that Meg was experiencing as well as some more positive news. She replied with a very full and informative email, full of helpful suggestions and we engaged in a kind of ping-pong email throughout the day. Today we decided to go and visit the Morrison’s superstore in Redditch which is some distance away but at the end of a very fast dual carriage way. On the way, our tyre pressure started to play up again but fortunately, in the garage part of the supermarket, I managed to get some air put in until I can find the time for a visit to our local Kwikfit. In Morrison’s, we had a bit of a race around and managed to buy some tinned fruit for our teas as well as some innovative knee-highs (sort of tights) for Meg. Then we had a not altogether happy experience as we wanted to avail ourselves of some hot chocolate but having paid for this, it was ‘greyed out’ and presumably unavailable in the automatic dispensing machine. So we bought some not very nice milky coffee, not to our taste and not helped by the fact that Meg spilt hers over the table. We then raced home because time was pressing and we needed to get home before our chiropody appointment at 12 noon. In the event, we did not need to rush because our chiropodist was delayed by a good half hour delayed by horrendous roadworks afflicting the main A38 that runs through the centre of Bromsgrove, causing generalised mayhem everywhere. Then after we had both of our feet ‘done’, Meg and I had a delayed lunch and thought we were going to have a quietish afternoon. But the telephone rang indicating that an occupational therapist was available to give Meg an assessment later on this afternoon, so this we readily accepted.

The occupational therapist was very good and supplemented some of the notes with which she was already equipped with notes and observations of her own. The initial focus was on things that might be causing some of Meg’s falls and slithers to the ground so we discussed some things that might help such as risers’ to the chairs in our sitting room. We then went on to assess how Meg coped with stairs, getting into/out of bed and finally toileting and shower arrangements. Altogether the assessment must have taken well over an hour becaue in the course of investigating things in the bedroom, we discussed such things as ‘slip sheets’ (to ease access into/out of bed) as well as some mechanical aids. We turned our attention to the shower and the OT took some measurements for a potential grab rail to be fitted. In the course of these investigations, the OT took Meg’s blood pressure both lying down and standing up. Finally, we discussed the possibility of having a half bannister fitted to complement the full bannister we have on side of our flight of stairs and again a range of measurements were taken. All of this having been done, we made another appointment with the OT who would come along with a range of aids some of which we could try out and others of which might eventually be fitted by the fitting team (after quite some delay, we were informed) I did feel particuarly pleased that eventually Meg was assessed by a competent professional and not just advised of things over the phone and the OT and myself put our heads together to discuss the things that Meg might need (and might not need for that matter)

As soon as the OT had left, we had to make a lightning visit into Bromsgrove to collect our Monday newspaper. Our normal newsagent was closed yeserday and was going to have a delayed opening today as he and his wife were attending a large Asian wedding – we know that the guest list for this can sometimes run into the hundreds. Then it was a case of getting home and having a bit of afternoon tea and then some relaxation with the aid of ClassicFM before we start this evening’s eventful TV viewing. The most important thing is how England have fared in the fifth day of the final Test Match of the series. England need to take all ten Austrialian wickets in one day and this is quite a tall order against the team currently ranked as No. 1 test match team in the world.

There is some breaking news tonight that all of the teaching unions have recommended acceptance of an offer of 6.5% Every major teaching union has now accepted the government’s offer of a 6.5% pay rise and voted to end strikes. This based upon recommendations made by the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). Probably the membership are quite weary of striking by now as well as having lost a lot of pay so perhaps this unhappy period of strife is drawing to a close.

Today was always going to be a slightly different routine. We got up reasonably early and then made sure that we were all ready for the political comment programs starting at 8.30. In the event, though, I tended to doze through both of them so there was evidently not at all that much to sustain our interest. We knew that our normal newsagent was going to be shut this morning as the proprietor was off to a large Asian wedding so we needed to call in at Waitrose to pick up our copy of the Sunday Times together with some extra supplies. This we did and then we set off to rendez-vous with our University of Birmingham friend and another park friend. We received a text that the other park friend could not make our meeting as things had popped up at the last moment so the three of us spent a happy hour chatting before it was time for us to go home for lunch. Once home, I set about cooking the Sunday lunch which was a piece of beef cooking in the slow cooker. Once cooked, we divided it into three parts and one part will be our meals for today and tomoorow – the other two parts, once cooled, will be put in our freezer and used up in the weeks to come.

This afternoon after we had our post-prandial cup of tea, I resolved to put the ‘beeswax’ experience to the test. I had got the three necessary ingredients in place, namely the beeswax itself, some grade ‘0000’ steel wool with which to apply it and some unbleached cotton cloths for the eventual buffing. I followd the instructions I had seeen on a video explicitly, of which one of the most important is to leave the beeswax for a period of some 20-30 minutes after application and before buffing. When I eventually got round to the buffing process, I was delighted with the results. The piano stool handles looked worn and somewhat dull and tired before the treatment and I had followed the advice to only treat a small piece of the piece of furniture at at a time. Afterwards, the handles were restored to a beautiful lustrous appearance which allowed the natural beauty of the original wood, probably mahogany, to shine through. In particular, there was not that ‘deep glossed’ look that furniture polish manufacturers used to deploy (‘a shine too deep to measure’ as the person doing the cleaning measured it with a tape measure!) Rather, the whole appearance of the piece I think was massively enhanced and gave it a rather subtle and ‘well cared for’ look. If the author of the website that I had originally consulted is to be believed, then this treatment may well last for up to five years which almost sounds too good to be true.

I am making some slow progress on my attempts to learn small, easy classical pieces on our newly acquired organ. So far, I can play the relevant parts of ‘Wachet Auf‘ (‘Sleepers Awake‘ so good for an early morning practice), followed by the ‘Barcarolle‘ from Offenbach’s ‘Tales of Hoffman’ and finally the opening sections of ‘Ode to Joy‘ Incidentally, this last piece is a bit of a cheat,really, as all of the notes are next to each other and no sharps or flats are involved so all one has to learn is the starting note and off we go. To these three, I will add the ‘Largo’ from Dvorak’s ‘New World Symphony’ and then I will be in a position to put on a mini-concert lasting the whole of five minutes. I find, as I suspected, that I have not really got the spare time to practice for sustained periods but I tend to do things in little bursts of a few minutes at at a time. I find the time that it takes a kettle to boil is good for a ‘quick burst’ as it were and I actually find it extremely therapeutic and relaxing to have my little tinkles in this way. In the fullness of time, I should really learn how to deploy the left hand for the supportive chords as well as using all of the fingers of the right hand. It is helpful, though, to know when you have got the melody right before I start to incorporate these refinements.

Meg and I were starting to worry a little, but not unduly, that we had not seen Miggles, the incredibly look looking cat who has adopted us, for a period of about three days now. We wondered if the real owners had gone on holiday and had him put in a cattery for the duration of their vacation. But today when we returned from the park by car, the cat recognised us and immediately bound towards us expecting (and not without good reason) that some tasty morsels were in prospect. The cat really did seem exceptionally pleased to see us and broke into quite an audibly loud purr so evidently, there was nothing for us to be concerned about. I wonder to myself sometimes whether this cat might do the rounds and be fed by several neighbours in the locality. This happened in Leicestershire where we used to live and a Siamese cat by the name of ‘Bimbo’ used to work her down the row of houses being fed in each one (and still keeping as thin as a racing snake)

Today dawned as quite a beautiful summer day which makes a change as this July heads for the record books as one of the wettest on record. We had arranged to meet our University of Birmingham friend in our favourite café in Droitwich just down the road and we made a rendez-vous at the just the right time and place. We had a coffee and shared some toasted teacake between us and we discussed some plans for the rest of the summer. Tomorrow morning, I am hoping that the three of us can meet up in the park at our normal bench and, after a quick text, I hope we can be joined by one of our other park friends, together with her trusted little dog. After we parted, Meg and I made for a little carpet shop in the vicinity of the coffee shop where we knew that they had a good range of rugs on sale. When we got there, we found a supply that were too small for our purpose and also some off-cuts that were too large. What we wanted was something in between and the shop proprietor immediately showed us a selection on the other side of the shop which would give us almost exactly what we wanted. So we made a purchase and then headed home for our Saturday midday lunch which today was going to be a steak and kidney pie, done in the oven. We accompanied this with some broccoli and also some carrots, parboiled as batons and then popped onto the floor of the oven with a bit of cooking oil and a drizzle of honey. Then, as it was a fine afternoon, I bit the bullet and decided to get the lawns cut which would normally be done on a Wednesday or a Thursday but which has eluded us so far this week. This having been done, we then had a quiet cup of tea before we head out for church in the late afternoon. Earlier, I experimented a little with putting the new rug into a variety of locations before I settled on a plan where it looked ‘just right’ which is not where I originally intended. Sometimes, a little experimentation with furniture pays off so that things look right in certain combinations but not others.

When we got back home, we enjoyed watching the summary of the Test Match in ‘Today at the Test’ England had a very good day batting and most batsmen scored a significant amount of runs leaving England at the end of the day with one wicket to fall and a lead of about 367. If England manage to get near to a total of 400, then this total will be almost unassailable by the Australian team batting last – but anything can happen in a Test Match. If England win the match, and they are in a good position to do so as things stand at the moment, then the series will be levelled at 2.5 wins each. Australia, though, will retain the Ashes but a win for England will a fitting and just end since the rain prevented England for winning the Old Trafford Test match after two days were wiped out by rain.

The Ukrainian situation is proving to be interesting. Ukraine’s offensive is proving a harder slog than even their most optimistic supporters would acknowledge because the Russians had used the winter to provide defenses in real depth and the disputed area is very heavily mined. So the Ukranian forces are having to advance at a snail’s pace whilst they dispose of mines as they go. On the other hand, there is a new report tonight that Ukraine may have the taking of the peninsula of the Crimeria within their sights and one would imagine that this would prove to be an immense psychological boost if the reports are to be believed. Also Zelenskyy is appearing on the front line and allowing ‘selfies’ to be taken of himself with front line fighters and this must be a morale boost. One cannot imagine any Russian leader anywhere near the font line (hints of the first World War here?) Also, some military analysts are arguing that Putin must be doomed and the more that there are no evident signs of success in the military field, the more that pressures will grow within Russia for his removal.

I now have all of the materials assembled for Meg and I to attempt a beeswax application to some of our new acquisitions, particularly the piano stool. This involves applying the beeswax with the grade ‘0000’ steel wool, leaving for some 20-30 minutes and then a really light buffing with an open-weave unbleached cotton cloth. The buffing has to be light so that most of the beeswax remains as a sort of sacrificial level of protection and the lightest of buffing ensures that the topmost cells of the wax are flattened and made transparent so that the natural character of the wood used in the manufacture of the furniture shines through. This is the theory at any rate. What I am looking forward to is that if I manage to get this right, then another polishing is not needed for a period of up to five years.

This has been an interesting Friday, to date. Today is the day when our domestic help calls around and I was keen to show her my new purchases to adorn our ‘music room’ being the appliquéd owl cushion I bought the other day as well as the piano stool that just happened to be bought from her next door neighbour. We both agreed it was a good acquisition and I told our help (who is excellent at restoring things) what I had discovered recently about the treatment of vintage/antique items with beeswax. I wondered whether beeswax is suitable for veneered as well as original, unveneered woods and various websites have assured me that beeswax works equally well on these surfaces – but then they would, wouldn’t they? I am expecting a tin of polish/paste to arrive shortly so then I can out the claims made on the websites to a practical test.

This morning, Meg and I picked up our Friday newspaper and we made for Waitrose – but none of our regulars was there this morning. I contacted our University of Birmingham friend who, as it happened, was sitting in the local park so he made his way over and we joined together in our friendly discourse. Today we had been expecting a call around at midday expecting to receive a home visit to determine whether there was any technology that would assist Meg were she to have a fall in the house on the (rare) occasions that I leave her unattended. But we received a telephone call indicating that the person who was due to call around wondered aloud whether the technology would be suitable for us and decided to refer us on to a colleague, thus obviating the need for her to call around and make a more comprehensive assessment. I must say I am getting philosophical about referred on from person to person because this seems to be the way in which assistance services are provided by the relevant local authority so I am getting on with organising things for myself which seems to have served me in good stead so far. Nonetheless, we agreed to meet with our friend tomorrow in another location which is our favourite coffee bar in Droitwich.

There has been a very well publicised case of the person convicted of rape some seventeen years ago who has ultimately been found by more recent DNA evidence not to have committed the crime of which he was convicted. The interesting thing about this case is that the various ‘safeguarding’ mechanisms, designed to prevent miscarriages of justice, have all signally failed. Not only did the Court of Appeal not reverse the conviction but, even more shocking, is that the Criminal Cases Review Commission have twice turned down the appeal. The CCRC was supposed to prevent miscarriages of justice after infamous cases such the the ‘Birmingham Four’ and the ‘Guildford Six’ case but a fascinating interview with an expert interviewed by Sky News revealed that the CCRC has now borne the brunt of the austerity cuts imposed by the Osborne regime and its budget has been reduced from about £9 million to £6 million. Paradoxically, the cuts in the budget were started by the Labour government when Charles Clark was in charge of the Justice system and have been carried on even more savagely by successive Tory administrations. But the real scandal which is just emerging is that any claims to compensation for 17 years in gaol may well be subject to huge reductions by the state for ‘board and lodging’ charges over the past 17 years. Apoparently, this is quite a well-known scandal about which nothing has been done and all that it does is to reveal how vindictive the state can be even when it has been demonstrated that an unsafe conviction has left individuals in gail for nearly two decades. So the person wrongly convicted of rape and spending seventeen years of his life in gaol now has another massive problem in trying to claim legitimate compensation but without a counter-claim for board and lodging.

Sky News is reporting yet more potential indictments of Donald Trump which may be forthcoming. He has been accused of asking an employee to delete footage in classified documents as new charges are announced. Prosecutors accuse Mr Trump of scheming with his valet and a Mar-a-Lago manager to conceal the footage from investigators. Video from the property would play a key role in the investigation, as prosecutors said it captured boxes of documents being moved in and out of a storage room. This evidence, which may have been captured and requisitioned on CCTV, plays out in different ways in the American political system. Whereas the Democrats and the American electorate who are not die-hard Trump supporters take in the latest revelations, this adds to the picture of Trump as a serial offender. But to those Republicans who support Trump, whenever new evidence is revealed, this is always interpreted as a witchhunt against Donald Trump and his political standing always seem to increase, rather than diminish, with each new revelation. And there is still the prospect that Trump may be charged with aiding and abetting the abortive storming of the Capital building by his supporters immediately after the last presidential election.