Today is our shopping day so I set the alarm to ensure I was up early and shopped by 9.00am which all went very smoothly. Last night, having just acquired and given a treatment of furniture polish to my newly acquired piano stool, I decided to Google to discover what was the best treatment might be for vintage and antique furniture. ‘En passant’ I have discovered that the term ‘vintage’ is applied to furniture which is at least 40 years old whilst ‘antique’ referes to furniture at least a century old. But the two terms are often loosely applied and used interchangeably. I did run across one website, admittedly written by a professional who had a vested interested in selling his own brand of superior beeswax, which was extremely informative. This expert argued that application of oil-based furniture sprays was nearly always a waste of time and could make matters worse rather than better in the long run. The solution to renovation was in three steps as follows. The first of these steps is to wash the piece with some drops of washing up liquid in a pail of warm water and to immediately dry off with a towel. The second stage seems counter-intutive but goes as follows. One needs a supply of grade ‘0000’ steel wool which is actually incredibly fine and this is then ‘charged’ i.e. loaded with some beeswax preparation. The polish-laden steel wool is then carefully applied to the surface to be treated and then left for about 20-25 minutes. The theory behind all of tbis is that practically all of the polish is applied to the wooden surface – any other system would have the polish soaking into the surface of the cloth if you were choosing to use a cloth in this way. It is then particularly important that about 20-25 minutes is left for the beeswax to harden and to soak in. The expert comments that most people get things wrong at this stage by putting on a cheap oil-based furniture polish and then immediately wiping it off before the polish has had a chance to do its work. The third and final stage requires a buffing with a cotton-rich fine weave cloth applying the minimum of pressure. The idea here is to minimise any heat and to ‘polish’ the very top layer of the beeswax polish deployed leaving the reminder of the applied polish to penetrate the wood, preferable in the direction of the grain. If all of these procedures are performed as detailed, then according to the expert the piece of furniture so polished should be good for up the next five years. Certainly the demonstration on the video clip looked extremely convincing but the author suggests that only the best quality of beeswax should be used and here the prices are generally beyond the point at which people feel it is worth buying the product. I recounted this story at length to our friends wondering if had any similar experience with older furniture. He, in turn, recounted to me how his experience as an electrical engineer had helped him to repair an induction hob that had suddenly gone ‘bang’ He also told us about the ‘Men in Sheds’ venues in the locality which encourages men of a certain age to join with others to repair and create as the spirit moves them.

This afternoon, Meg and I had a scheduled lunch date in deepest Worcestershire at a farm shop and restaurant neat Evesham. The SatNav did an excellent job in guiding us to the spot and we arrived there two minutes before the appointed time. We sat outside with our friends who had brought their dog along on the understanding that he would be allowed to accompany us. Meg and I had a wonderful beef stew which was incredibly tender and tasty and although served with some crusty bread, we minimised our consumption of this to keep our carbohydrate count down. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours or more with plenty of free-flowing conversation and one of our friends went up to purchase some coffee but surprised and delighted us all by arriving with portions of cake that doubled up as sweet. We could well have lingered for a long time in the farm shop as they had a magnificent collection of spices and delicattessen type goods, all of which looked very tempting particularly is one was tempted to buy as a treat for a special occasion. We had a very pleasant drive home but the temperature had climbed quite a lot since this morning so we treated ourselves to a bowl of vanilla icecream. Later on we shall treat ourselves to ‘Today at the Test’ hoping that the traditional mid-order English batting collapse does not occur.

Today was always going to be quite an attenuated day because we knew that our hairdresser was due to call around at 12.00pm so we needed to ensure that we were ready and waiting for when she came. Early this morning, I idly perused ebay which will often list things based upon your past searches for anything that might interest you. I have been on the lookout for a week or so for a piano stool to accompany the other stool I purchased the other day so that, in the fullness of time, Meg and I may be able to sit side by side and pick out tunes together on the organ. I was amazed to discover that quite a nice piece was on offer and in Bromsgrove as well, starting at a very reasonable £5.00. I worked out the maximum that I was prepared to pay for this piece and noticed that there were two other bids. I waited until about 90 seconds before the auction was due to end and then put in my bid in which I was eventually successful with a winning bid of £7.50. Upon sending a message to the seller, I was amazed to discover that not only could I pick up the piece later on this afternoon but it also just happened to be sold by the next door neighbour of one of our friends. Our hairdresser turned up rather late because she had been delayed by horrendous traffic jams all over Bromsgrove. Actually, we are being very badly effected by this because the whole of the road to which our drive gives access is closed off to practically all traffic whilst it looks as though a new gas main is being installed. Just outside our drive, we have a deep hole dug with the gas main exposed but with the workers nowhere in sight. So it takes some manouvering out of one’s own drive just to go anywhere at the moment and to make matters worse, having dug the holes the company responsible for the work seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth – I wonder if they are off digging holes in front of other people’s driveways as I blog. I waited at the end of the drive to guide our hairdresser in after which we both had our monthly shearing. After we had lunched a little late, it started to rain a little so I did not start to cut the lawns but Meg and I had a wonderfully quiet early afternoon listening to Fauré and the Brahm’s requiem in our newly equipped music room amd this had the desired effect in making Meg feel calmer about the world. In the late afternoon, we set off to collect the piano stool and although it was spotting with rain, we managed to get it into the car without it being rained on. Then my ‘low type pressure’ symbol came again which necessitated a trip to the garage and an inflation of all of the tyres. I have a supicion of a slow puncture in one of the tyres so I must go and get it resolved in the next day or so.

Having got the piano stool home, now is the time for a good examination. I gave it a good clean with washing-up liquid and a sponge type cloth and then applied some furniture polish to it, before a final buffing with kitchen paper. On a complete examination of it, it is a nice, without being an excellent, piece of furniture. It complements the standard lamp besides which it sits as they seem to be made of a very similar wood and certainly is a useful addition to the other furniture in the ‘music room’. Now that this piece is in place, I have almost completed the total complement of furniture which I intended for the room.

On the regional news tonight, pride of place is being given to ‘Ozzie the Bull’ This large, mechanical bull was originally constructed for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham a year ago. The original intention was to have a completely temporary arrtifact which, in theory, should have been dismantled after the games were over. The 10-metre creation, which was designed as a homage to the city’s contribution to the Industrial Revolution, has been rebuilt by a specialist team of designers and engineers and is now on display at Birmingham New Street station. But ‘Ozzie’ (named by the public after the local Black Sabbath singer, Ozzie Osborne) has found its way into the affections of the people of Birmingham and it was decided to replace some of the ‘temporary’ parts with more permanent ones and to find a permanent home for it. Today that home is the concourse of Birmingham New Street station. Ozzy’s eyes will light up, his head will move and his tail will swish as he roars to commuters. His performance is set to last for several minutes and will be repeated hourly between 10am and 8pm for the first ten days. The whole I think as well he may breathe some smoke at the same time. After the Commonwealth Games, Ozzie had some months in a car park but there is some useful affection for this permanent reminder of the very successful Commonwealth Games. The whole artifact is a great reminder to the Birmingham metal-bashing and engineering industries and is already attracting large crowds to witness the offical unveiling which has taken place today.

So Tuesday has come around but with a slight difference to our normal routine. I have no Pilates class today as the school holidays have started and consequently my Pilates teacher is away for a few days with her family but normal classes resume next week. In the meantime, we have our usual meeting-up with friends in the Waitrose café and a good laugh was had by all – at one stage, we were (mock) threatened with being thrown out for riotous behaviour. (In actuality, we know that the staff enjoy us coming in because it makes then feel that the old pre-pandemic atmosphere is returning) When we got home, I finished off a little craft activity in which I have been engaged and then we had our normal lunch of fishcakes, to which we always look forward. This afternoon was a quiet affair in which I eventually made contact with Amazon over an item for which I thought I had been charged the wrong price. In practice, although there had been a reduction in the current price rather than the one I actually paid, the difference was a source of confusion because I thought I was being inappropriately charged. But in the end, my attempts at a telephone call proved abortive but I managed to get through to one of those ‘virtual assistants’ where the matter was cleared up for me. Although part of me wishes that I did not rely upon Amazon so much, I must say that once you have got plugged into their ‘Prime’ membership and get deliveries gratis, then their service and their returns policy are generally excellent.

Now that the summer holidays are about to start, thousands of British holiday makers are caught in a dilemma. Do you head into an area where there is the strong possibility, if not probability, of a raging fire in your holiday destination or abandon the idea of the family holiday? Some tour operators are still flying holiday makers out to Rhodes whereas others have cancelled their flights. As you might imagine the insurance situation is somewhat tangled – if you have booked a complete package of flight plus accommodation, then refunds are more possible but the situation alters if you book a flight and then arrange accommodation separately. The weather has been so miserable in July and some families have been deprived of holidays for so long that you can well imagine the attractions of a holiday in continental Europe. On the other hand, it is possible, as some tourists found the other day, their airline has flown them into the airport and then they have to go straight into an evacuation centre if their hotel has shut up shop. The British do seem rather addicted to their holidays whatever the circumstances but I can imagine that many will now decide to holiday in the UK if there is a glimmer of better weather to come.

Although electric vehicles seem to be the future, there is a major problem with the charging infrastructure. The problem is not that there are not enough charging points across the country, which is bad enough. The Faraday Institution, a battery science research group, says that the UK is going to need at least five gigafactories by 2030 to meet domestic demand, and twice that number by 2040. So, even though electric vehicles represent the future of the car, the UK has a long way to go before the revolution happens here. But a more significant problem is that the national grid has to be able to deliver electricty to these charging points. There are stories that in some parts of the country, the charging points are in place but not yet connected to the grid, the infrastructure of which has to be upgraded. One can quite see how the hybrid models are achieving the popularity that they are because the small engine is designed primarily to charge the battery whilst one is on the go – the next time we change our family car, then the hybrid route is the one that we shall travel. One factor that may help to mitigate the availability of charging points is that with smart technology, it is quite possible that the nearest charging points are shown to you over the car’s display systems and perhaps in a year or so, you may be able to book your ‘slot’ automatically at a charger so as not to be left with the nightmare of several cars wanting to access a limited number of charging points and huge waits within one’s journey as a consequence.

On the TV the other night, they showed again the first two episodes from Jacob Bronowski’s ‘The Ascent of Man‘ which was first broadcast some 40 years ago. I started to watch this with a degree of sceptism as I felt that more recent anthropological fossil finds would render the whole work obsolete. But I was incredibly impressed with the erudition and clarity with which the introductory programs were written and a quick search on the web revealed the expressed view that this series was perhaps one of the finest documentary series ever broadcast. I now look forward with interest to watching the rest of the series unfold, dated though it might be, as Bronowski was such a charismatic writer and presenter.

Today dawned in the by now traditionally gloomy fashion. Both Meg and I myself feel a little ‘knocked out’ this morning and we are wondering whether we might be suffering from a cold virus. Why I mention this is because both my son and his wife are suffering from very bad colds at the moment and, as the doctors like to say, ‘there is a lot of it about’ Certainly, last night I felt very snuffly not having had a cold as such for months or years but these symptoms have abated somewhat for me this morning. But Meg felt a little poorly, so I encouraged her to stay in bed awhile whilst I got myself up and showered. Then after I had my, by now minimal, breakfast, I shot out of the house to collect our newspaper and to collect an item from Poundland of which I had need. When I got home, I made Meg some tea and I had my mid-morning coffee and then I showed Meg my latest acquisition. After visiting Poundland, I had made a lightning visit into the Salvation Army shop just next door to it and my eye fell upon a range of cushions which were on sale. But I immediately spotted a ‘stand out’ item which was a cushion complete with cushion cover and a very original design on it as it has a an owl applique-ed (if this is the correct term)onto it and complemented with a series of little owlets on the rear of the cushion. I gave it a spongeover and then discovered that the cover was removable and had been used to cover a complete smaller cushion in a quite high quality red fabric. So into the washing machine it went together with some other items all being washed on a cool wash with some extra spin so as soon as it is finished in the dryer, it can take its pride of place in our music room, where there is a location just tailor made for it. To help Meg come round a little, I sat Meg in one of the armchairs and then put on some incredibly soothing choral pieces (a lot of Fauré). To complete the aura of relaxation, I retrieved a little lavender aromatic candle which I lit and then Meg and I had the most a most wonderful, and soothing, half hour. Even so I say it myself, I am very pleased with the vareity of pieces with which I have furnished our music room. On one side, there is a ‘black and white complemented with blue’ theme, as we have our Panasonic music centre as well as our Casio keyboard and the various covers which I purchased recently complement the black and white of the instruments perfectly. On the other side of the room, the pride of place is taken with the double manual organ which is my pride and joy. Next to that I have a tall wooden standard light which casts just the necessary degree of light on the various instrument keys that is a feature of this type of organ whilst on the other side is the little mahogany table which I spent some time restoring. All of the furniture on this side of the room tends to be darker shade quality woods which form an incredibly harmonious blend with each other. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I popped into our lounge and ‘liberated’ the little plaster/plastic bust of Mozart that has been in my possession for years and which I probably purchased in Salzburg when we visted it decades ago. This little bust of Mozart, some 11cm in height, now sits on the corner of the organ and I hope that he approves of my efforts to master the instrument. Incidentally, Mozart labelled one of his most famous piano concertos (either 20 or 21) as ‘just for beginners’ which rather points to his own supreme master of the piano from a very early age.

Meg and I did not feel particularly hungry so we made ourselves a simple rice meal to finish off our ham from the weekend. No sooner had we finished our meal but I got a telephone call that turned out to be quite long and complex. After my making touch with Worcestershire Association of Carers, there had evidently been an onward referral to an Occupational Therapist who was doing what she could to make an assessment over the telephone. After all of this, she concluded and with some justification, that Meg probably needed a home visit so that she could be seen in the flesh, as it were. I am afraid I could have told them this in the first place but the experience of the past two or three weeks or so is that encounters with social service departments generally start off, and sometimes completely end with, a telephone call but in the end, people have to be seen to be properly assessed and there is a limit to what can be done by phone.

To further bring our politics into disrepute, two recent nominations by Boris Johnson have taken their seats in the House of Lords. One wonders what advice (or services) was offered by Charlotte Owen, the 30 year female recipient of a perage to deserve such an honour, because the vast majority of the political elite have never heard of her – and she can stay as a legislator in the upper chamber for the next half century.

Today being a Sunday, Meg and I usually get up and watch the political programs whilst having our breakfast on our knees. But we both overslept a little this morning, so the politics programs got a miss. Instead, we breakfasted in the kitchen and then prepared to go out for our morning assignation. We picked up the newspaper and then headed for Webbs which is a large garden and I suppose what you might call a domestic furnishings centre. We always used to have a Webbs member’s card and this we used to use typically at Christmas time when Webbs run a scheme to offer members a Christmas tree at a heavily discounted rate. The scheme is that you pay the ‘full’ price of the tree but are then refunded with the cost of the tree in Webb’s vouchers. On addition, Webbs run a recycling scheme once the Christmas tree is ready for disposal. I hunted around for my card which I had not used in ages but eventually found it. When we got to Webbs, I approached the Customer Services Desk to work out whether my card was still current. As it happened, it had expired last Autumn but I quickly got it renewed with the bonus that a Member’s coffee card is offered to you with a dozen free drinks available on it. We met up with our University of Birmingham friend, exactly as planned and had a very pleasant coffee and chat. Neither of us had been to Webbs for quite some time but we have to say that the service we received was excellent. For a start, our next door neighbour was on duty on the Customers Services Desk and promptly got my card renewed for us. The restaurant staff were very welcoming and attentive so we felt that we had a good customer experience and will probably return on other Sundays. We discussed when we might meet for a luncheon date with each other and then departed for our respective Sunday lunches. After we got home, I made some onion gravy in which I heated some of the slices of a ham joint I had cooked last month and saved half of it after cooking. This we had with some green beans, tomatoes and baked potato before we settle down to a conventional Sundy afternoon of newspaper reading and occasional sessions watching athletics on the TV.

The fallout from the surprise victory when the Tories retained the Uxbridge and South Ruislip parliamentary seat last Thursday continues. It now seems that the Labour party high command have met with Sadiq Kahn the mayor of London and architect of the now infamous ULEZ (Ultra Law Emissions Zone) and a policy rethink is underway. The next few days will reveal whether the policy is to be completely abandoned (unlikely) or radically refined (more likely) but this, by itself, is not the particular source of worry to the Labour Party. But what is concerning them is the fact that the Tories successfully focused on one key issue to the exclusion of everything else (the so called ‘wedge’ theory defined as a political or social issue, often of a controversial or divisive nature, which splits apart a demographic or population group.) The Labour Party fears that despite all of the concerns about the cost of living, mortgage increases, the fragile state of the NHS and so on can effectively be sidelined if a political party finds one particular issue in a particular constituency which really manages to divide and confuse the opposition. The feeling is that this may be unlikely across the whole country but if sufficient ‘wedge’ issues are found on a constituency by constituency basis then this may be sufficient to deny the Labour Party victory at the general election whenever it comes.

Meg and I had been looking forward to watching the final day of the Test Match at Old Trafford where England were in an extremely dominant position but needed some time to complete the job – which was almost a foregone certainty. We are now left in a situation where the rain-affected match is technically regarded as a draw which means that England cannot now win the series and thus the Aussies have won the Ashes. Even at this stage, there are mutterings that this is the most unsatisfactory to end a match. In County Cricket, where the rain in England can affect many county matches there is a complex method known as the ‘Duckworth-Lewis’ method for determing who the winner ‘ought’ to be in the event that a match has to be abandoned. Named after the pair of statisticians who came up with it—Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis—the system is a formula designed to calculate corrected totals after an interruption. I am wondering whether this – or a variant of it – might be used to determine the outcome of Test matches when so much time is lost because of weather or other conditions. Tonight, Meg and I will no doubt watch ‘Today at the Test’ with a heavy heart knowing that there is no exciting cricket, or indeed an England win, in prospect. On the other hand, there may be some very informed discussions with commentators and ex-captains (such as Michael Vaughan) whose discussions tonight might set a climate of opinion as to what might happen in the future.

Today dawned as a miserable, wet and drippy day which threatened to last all day long. After we had got ourselves up and breakfasted, Meg and I made tracks for Waitrose, via our customary newspaper shop. I joked with the proprietor that the wet weather was probably the result of a malign influence of some ancient Australian deitities who were were conspiring to ensure that no play was possible in the Test Match, thus forcing a draw and giving the Australians the series (as this is a ‘must win’ match for England) Meg and I sat in the café having our coffee in isolation because none of our usual friends turned up. We were not totally surprised by this as one of our friends only tends to venture out when the weather is not inclement and another is having a bout of rheumatism to contend with. Nonetheless, we gave everybody a good half hour or so and then decided to call it a day. No sooner had we reached our car, then we got a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend wondering if we were available for coffee. Naturally we were, so we trundled back inside for our second drink of the morning and then had a wonderful pleasant chat with our friend when he turned up a few minutes later. We had quite a deep conversation when we were speculating whether some of the phrases that had been adopted some years back such as ‘post modernism’, a social ‘narrative’ and so on had the same meaning for all of the people who adopted the phrase. We shared the view that often people might use a phrase but not be entirely sure how it should be used or even what it means. A case in point is the word ‘decimate’ which had the specific meaning, in ancient Rome, of killing one of every ten soldiers, as a form of military punishment. There are, it must be said, some problems with the argument that this is the only correct meaning today. A problem is that even if decimate did refer to the practice of killing one of every ten soldiers in Roman times, it did so in the service of Latin, not English. We have many words in English that are descended from Latin but which have changed their meaning in their travels. We no longer think of sinister as meaning ‘on the left side’ even though that was one of the word’s meanings when it existed in Latin. So when our friend and I were in agreement that the word ‘decimate’ had strayed from its original meaning, it has to be argued that often words do travel away from their original meaning to their current one. So ‘decimate’ is very often used today to indicate that a large proportion of a population may have been been destroyed such as ‘the epidemic of avian flue decimated the tern population of the island’ (not actually true, but that is not the point) Eventually, the hour had come for us to depart but we agreed to meet tomorrow in a different venue just down the road to give is a bit of change where no doubt we will find an equally esoteric topic of conversation with which to amuse ourselves. Meg and I made tracks for home and cooked ourselves a steak and kidney pie for our Saturday lunch. We always tend to have a quiet afternoon on Saturdays as we go to church in the late afternoon.

Meg and I are quite glad that the Proms have resumed since this gives uf some relaxing listening in the evenings when we can either pay attention to the concert and/or read at the same time. There seems to be a bit of a Beethoven ‘fest’ at the moment because last night they played Beethoven’s 5th symphony. When I was the unofficial ‘leader’ of the second violins in the school orchestra we seemed to constantly to be playing the finale to Beethoven’s 5th. We must have sounded terrible becaude when I hear a proper recording it is played so much faster than ever we achieved in our school performances. I must at the age of 13 been able to play and read the music perfectly adequately but I had completely forgotten all of this. In my present organ-practising mode, I am still trying to ‘lock’ into position the notes that I see on the score in front of me with the actual keyboard keys. But I do have something to assist me. Immediately after I had acquired the organ I did scour the web and managed to secure a cut price complete set of organ tutors. The first of these had complete inside the front cover a set of cardboard templates that one could cut out and carefully place into position at the back of the two manuals so that each note was actually labelled. These days you can get buy as a tutorial sticker for learners little stickers to label each note but these run the risk of messing up one’s keyboard so this little cardboard template (think of a small size toblerone triangle with appropriate notches for the black keys) are an absolute bonus for me at the moment. I have now got fixed in my memory the opening sequence of the Bach cantata ‘Wachet Auf‘ but still have to learn the trickier sections that follow.

Today, or even the wee small hours of the morning, was when the results of the three by-elections held on Thursday would be announced. Initially, it was said that the results would not be announced until about 3.00am which then become 4.00am so having watched the initial part of the panel discussions, I resolved to make myself a cup of cocoa and then go to bed. Then, much earlier than anticipated, the results of Somerton and Frome were announced quite a lot earlier than anticipated. The Liberal Democrats announced at the start of the evening that they had won this seat and, indeed, they took it with a large majority. But their candidate was a local woman, a farmer’s daughter and local councillor who had been acting almost as a ‘de facto’ MP in the absence of the disgraced Tory who held the seat so it was no real surprise that the Liberal Democrats resumed their traditional presence in the South West of England. For the Lib Dems, winning Somerton and Frome is their fourth consecutive by-election win this parliament, a feat not achieved since the days of Paddy Ashdown in 1992-1997. It has given the Lib Dems belief that they can rebuild in the West Country, having been nearly wiped out by the Tories after five years of coalition government in 2015. And then, shortly after this result, the ex-Boris Johnson seat was announced (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) and this was quite a surprise as the Tories held onto the seat with a majority cut from 7,000 plus to 500. But the result became a lot less surprising when one was appraised of the back story. Apparently, the whole of the by-election campaign was dominated by one local issue which was the implementaion of the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) charge, affecting all motorists except those with totally electric cars, and costing motorists a £12.50 daily charge. This charge has become deeply unpopular, even though it is an extension of the policy for inner London first introduced by Boris Johnson. But central London has the Tube and fiendish car parking charges which between them serve to deter motorists using their car in central London but the outer suburbs are a different matter altogether. All of this presents quite a dilemma for the Labour Party as supposedly marginal outer London seats may be ‘saved’ for the Tories by the unpopularity of the ULEZ charge associated with the Labour major of London, Sadiq Kahn. To my mind, though, this problem is easily solved with a modicum of political intelligence. Acknowledge that motorists need a period of transition (say 7 years) to adapt to the new zone and then have a heavy subsidy in the initial years tapering to practically no subsidy in seven years time. In the meantime, many of the older cars will have been traded in for electric alternatives and then in seven years, the problem will have resolved itself and no more expenses will have been incurred. It is just possible that the Labour party is starting to think today about such a ‘solution’ as the shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry herself a London MP, is already calling for a rethink. After all of this excitement, I dozed a little until the result of the Selby and Ainsty result came through just after 4.00pm. This turned out to be quite a stunning scalp for the Labour party because I intially thought it might be a very marginal victory – in the event, a majority of more than 20,000 was turned into a win by more than 4,000 and this, the Labour party is claiming, is the largest majority ever overturned by the Labour Party in its history. In addition, the new MP is only 25 and the ‘baby of the house’ which is generating some snide remarks by some on the Tory benches. But an an alternative commentary is made that the youngest MPs are often those who have made quite a profound contribution to the House of Commons and a young Charles Kennedy comes to mind. In the end, this Yorkshire result may well turn out to be much the most significant result of the three by-elections and probably the one of the three that has the most predictive ability for the forthcoming general election. Selby is the Conservatives’ 249th most vulnerable seat and losing in a rural Tory stronghold like this will make Tories with majorities of 15,000 feel very unsure.

More political news is that the report that technical experts have now recovered the messages on Boris Johnson’s discarded mobile phone. But although all of the relevant messages have now been recovered, it is the case that a ‘security check of this material’ was now required by the government, so ‘the timing of any further progress on delivery to the inquiry is therefore under the Cabinet Office control’. So one suspects that there may be be some back office skulduggery before the complete set of messages is handed over to the COVID enquiry who had demanded this material in the first place. We may now be entering a politics free zone for the next few weeks as Parliament will be in recess, the politicians will be off to their favourite holiday haunts and the rest of the political system will remain in the hands of duty ministers who have to hold the fort in case a crisis blows up in the meantime.

Today was always going to be an interesting day for Meg and I although it proved a little tiring as things worked out. After we had got ourselves up and breakfasted, we started our journey to South Oxfordshire where we were due to lunch with some of our oldest friends. We picked up our newspaper and all was well on our journey until the point at which the A34 intersects with the M40. The traffic was so heavy at this point that we were practically queuing on the motorway in order to leave it. We were not long into our journey when I received a telephone call which was Bluetoothed from my phone onto the car’s audio system so I was able to press a button and respond to the message. This was quite an important one because after the blank starts I had drawn yesterday and my calls for help from a friendly adviser within Worcestershire Association of Carers, I was actually contacted by a member of the social services team who is going to call around in a week’s time to assess what technology might be useful to us to help out with Meg’s health. So this phone call was gratefully received and I was glad not to have missed it – and to make contact with a human being rather than a voicemail box and/or a website. As we were proceeding along the motorway, I received one of those irritating low tyre pressure warnings. As the last time this occurred was only a few days ago, it might be that I have a slow puncture somewhere. We called in at a service station and fortunately there was not a queue for the airline so we just checked this out and then had to go through the rigmarole of reinitialising the low pressure warning light which does not disappear once the tyres are the correct pressure and this procedure is a little fiddly on this model of a a Honda. This meant that we were 15 minutes late for our lunch date but given the length of the journey this did not inconvenience our hosts. I had taken along a bottle of Uruguayan Alabariño white wine which turned out to be pretty decent when we sampled it immediately. The other source of satisfaction was that I had also brought a little bay tree I had purchased for our hosts and I knew they would be able to find a space for it somewhere in the garden. As it happened, they already had a little bay tree but it had just turned up its toes and died so the plant I had taken along with me was a welcome replacement. We dined out in the garden which is always pleasant and there is one particular feature which we always find fascinating. This is because where our friends live there is a local settlement (if that is the right word) of some red kites which are now breeding very successfully in the area. The kites with their magnificent eyesight have quite quickly learned that if any titbits of meat are made available to them in residents’ gardens they can swoop down and have a quick meal. So this happened today when some of the leftovers from the meal were put on a special birdtable and the red kites swoop down, avail themselves of it and fly off, all in the twinkling of an eye, as it were. Just before we left and having regaled our hosts with a little video of our new music room and its collections of electronic organs, I prevailed upon my guests to let hear the opening bars of J.S. Bach’s ‘Wachet Auf‘ (Sleepers Awake) whch I have been practising and now commtted to memory.

We set off for home at about 4.00pm in the afternoon but as go around Oxford and got towards the M40, the queues started. So we had one of those portions of the journey where you proceed for a little at 20mph and are then stationery. Of course none of this is helped by the fact that various crash barrer upgrades are taking place along the M40 and this too, slowed things down. We go home after a two and a half hour journey and immediately regaled outself with some tinned fruit and icecream. Also, one of our particular delights is to watch the highlights of the current Test match between England and Australia on ‘Today at the Text’ which is edited highlights. One of the particular sources of surprise and pleasure was to watch one of the Englnd openers (Zac Crawley) score 189 which should help to put England in a commanding position in this ‘must-win’ test match. We are hoping that the bad weather does not swoop in and turn a deserved vistory into a draw. For this reason, I think that the England team are actually trying to score runs quickly and build up a good score, battling both the Australians and also the British weather.

Tonight, if I manage to stay awake long enough, the results of the three by-elections should come through in the wee small hours of the morning. If they produce some exit polls predicting the results, then this will be good enough for me and I already have a bottle of my favourite, and non-alcoholic, brown ale resting in the fridge but yearning to be opened on a suitable occasion.

Today our domestic help called around after a break of about 12 days and we were particularly pleased to see her and seemed to have a lot of things to chat about on both sides. Meg and I breakfasted fairly late, having spent a lot in chatting before we actually got around to eating after which I made a lightning visit to the supermarket whilst our domestic help was busy working around the house. We are doing things in a slightly different order this week as tomorrow, Meg and I are due to make a trip to see our friends in Oxfordshire and as this is a longish journey, I did not want to make a long day even longer by shopping first thing tomorrow morning. We are quite well provisioned at the moment so I only needed to do a light shopping. To take down to our friends tomorrow, I intended to take down a chilli plant laden with developing chillis until an email revealed that our host already has masses of these already so I thought I had better move onto a ‘Plan B’ So instead I bought a little bay tree which can always be tucked into an odd corner of the garden and is useful (in cooking) as well as being ornamental. I also bought some Uruguayan Albariño which might be excellent or mediocre. Albariño is a wine grown in North Western Spain and is drunk in great quantities to accompany the abundant seafood in that part of the country. Meg and I do not have well developed tastes in white wine and have never rated in highly when we drank it in Spain. But a year or so back, we bought a bottle in Waitrose (in the UK) and it was stupendous so we will have to see how this Uruguayan version shapes up if our host offers us some tomorrow.

Having got the shopping done and then our lunch cooked, I decided to make a telephone call to a part of Worcestershire Social Services to which I had been directed in an email. At this point, though, a familiar story unfurled. The email indicated that any referral had to be through a specified route and then one was given the (preferred) option of the ubiquitous website and then a telephone number. Trying to contact the person whose name I had been given sent me to a telephone number which automatically redirected to a personal phone which then went straight onto a voicemail. So having given my message and followed the instructions I was faced with complete silence so whether my message has been received is a moot point. So then I tried the website and filled in a form which then informed me that my application to make a direct referral had been received – but no indication whether it was acceptable or when I would get a reply. Later, though, I did receive a reply to my registration form trying to sell me someone I may not need – so I am not a happy bunny at the moment. Incidentally, one sometimes hears that when particular cases of child neglect and cruelty hit the media, it is sometimes said that ‘concerned neighbors heard the baby’s cries and relayed their concerns to social services’ I ask myself how on earth they ever got through to talk to a human to express their concerns because under the pressure of low and diminishing resources and soaring demand, our welfare services seem just to erect barriers to bounce off demand.

On Wednesday evenings, I take the refuse bins out to the end of our access road so that the refusal disposal vehicles can empty them first thing in the morning. I usually take out my neighbour’s bin as well and he reciprocates by bringing them both back in the afternoon. Today, we just happened to coincide and spent some time in discussing the outcome of a public consultation exercise which some building developers were hosting in order to gather opinions on a huge new housing development. This is going to be 430 houses and the intention is that they re-route the major lane that connects us to the Kidderminster Road with a meandering curvy road, making its way through the yet to be built estate and full of chicanes and traffic calming measures to reduce speeds down to 20mph. Whether all of this is actually going to happen or not, I do wonder. When we lived in Leicester we were frequently told that the broad green area separating two lanes of a dual carriageway was the designated route for an inner ring road – but this was planned in the 1930’s and they only got round to it about 80 years later on. However, the bad news from our point of view is that the next phase of development is scheduled to start absolutely at the back of our present house and one shudders to think about the noise and disruption whilst this takes place around us. I suspect that nothing will happen for a year or so but I am refusing to get too upset about these developments because there is very, very little that can be done about it. Local residents can object as much as they like but the local authority is always thinking of the potential increase in the rateable revenues that extra housing might bring as well as potentially extra revenues to be spent in the town itself.

Today being a Tuesday is the day to which we generally look forward as it is the day when ‘the gang’ generally meet in Waitrose for our weekly, or even twice weekly, natter. Today, though, we were confined to just one friend in the café as one of our number was having her boiler serviced and another had a bad bout of rheumatism that was keeping her confined to the house for a day or so. We were just on our way out of the house when we received an important telephone call from Worcestershire Social Services. As it is difficult to make the appropriate contacts, I did not want to do anything that discouraged the call so we did delay our venture out of the house whilst I received some inportant information. It looks as though one referral has led to another referral who, in turn, are suggesting yet another referral and navigation of an online form before you eventually get through to the heart of the service that you require. I suppose all of this makes sure that trivial enquiries do not get beyond the first ‘fence’ as it were and we know that Social Services are under the most pronounced of pressures but it certainly ensures that to make the contacts that are needed, it takes a certain amount of patience, persistence and comprehension of the system in place all in equal measure. I have, though, received an email with some important contact details contained within it so tomorrow morning I shall attempt to get the wheels in motion. Incidentally, my Waitrose friend who herself is suffering from a long standing health problem and is caring for an aged husband with dementia, informed me that if I was expecting some help from an occupational therapist, I might have a wait of several months and it was probably best to approach them with very low expectations that anything much might be provided.

After my Pilates class this midday, we always have a fairly swift lunch of fish cakes and easily microwaved vegetables but typically we do not eat until about 3.00pm so the afternoon is often quite attenuated. This afternoon, there was nothing on daytime TV to attract our attention but a day or so ago, there was a late night repeat of the story of Georgiana, Duches of Devonshire (‘The Duchess‘) We saw this when it was broadcast several years ago and it was released as a film in September of 2008. Even after 15 years, the story was gripping in places, poignant in other places and in the best traditions of a costume drama (but I think the original film was based upon a book of that name and the portrayal of events was probably pretty accurate) So Meg and I were quite diverted by this offering this afternoon which I accessed via the BBC iPlayer. In practice, we have to make a mental note of things that we want to watch and use the iPlayer to view those programmes that are generally broadcast late or in a clash with something that we do want to watch.

I read an item with a wry smile late on this afternoon. Two giant cruise ships that were set to house 1,000 asylum seekers were unable to find anywhere to dock and have been returned to their owners, a senior source told Sky News. In June, Rishi Sunak announced the government acquired two more vessels, alongside the Bibby Stockholm barge – which arrived in Dorset today – as part of continued efforts to cut down on hotel bills of £6m a day for those coming to the UK via small boat Channel crossings. There is a bit more to this story than meets the eye but ‘being unable to dock’ sounds interesting. Wherever ships, barges or what have you are commandeered by the government to house asylum seekers, there is always an enormous amount of opposition by locals who argue, with some justification, that other local public services cannot cope with the additional strain. Sometimes, though, the opposition is unadulterated xenophobia. There was a rumour that a hotel local to us might be used to house asylum seekers and there were local voices to the effect that the barricades had to be manned to prevent the incursion of what was said to be ‘murderers’ and ‘rapists’
Meanwhile the government’s flagship bill on ‘Illegal Migration’ has passed through the Lords and will shortly receive the Royal Assent. But already the UNHCR is arguing that the Act when it comes into force will be a ‘de facto’ breach of international law so no doubt, before any asylum seekers are actually removed, there will appeals to the international courts to test out the legalities of all of this.

From ‘across the pond’ comes the news that Donald Trump has been notified that he is a target of investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This notification often comes before an actual indictment and a trial, if any, may well be months or even years away. Meanhile, Donald Trump is becoming the firm favourite of the Republican party and the more legal challenges that appear, the more it seems to build up his popularity with sections of the Republican party. But this there is no evidence that the ‘middle ground’ of the American electorate will be convinced by Trump on a second occasion were he to be actually to secure the republican party nomination.