Today has been quite a full day, what with one thing or another. Being a Thursday, I got up early and got to the supermarket to get my shopping done in plenty of time. I must say that I had a rather disturbed night last night, primarily because the latest vaccination has given me quite a sore arm. The vaccine Meg and I both received was the Pfizer vaccine – in the past, I think we have received AstraZeneca (on two occasions), Moderna I think and the remainder are a bit of a blur. But my arm was such that when I turned over, I woke myself up so I got up in the middle of the night and got some financial transactions brought up to date and all of this worked out extremely well. I normally set an alarm for 6.15 on a Thursday morning but this morning I awoke naturally at 6.10 only to immediately fall asleep again for another hour. So when I did wake up again, I had a bit of a rush to get myself going and get to the shops on time but all’s well that ends well. As soon as we had breakfasted, Meg and I got ourselves ready to go with a couple of friends to Spetchley gardens (attached to a 500 year old stately home in Warwickshire). Our friend’s daughter had sent me the right address to go to for her parents complete with a postcode for the SatNav. But quite unusually, the SatNav failed completely and dumped me at an address quite some distance from where we wanted to be. But, quite fortuitously, there was a postman delivering letters nearby and so I asked him where the correct address might be. He racked his memory and gave us some instructions that turned out to be absolutely correct. We got there on time and made for Spetchley gardens which was a trip down the M5 but quite easy to find. Having got ourselves into the system, we made straight for the excellent little coffee shop where we bagged a table in the open air and treated ourselves to coffee and cakes. We must have spent a good half an hour in conversation but then went on a wander of the gardens, not particularly wanting to stretch ourselves. We discovered a little chapel which was evidently used as the family ‘vault’ cum private chapel which we enjoyed giving a little explore. By then the frailer members of ur little foursome felt that they had walked enough so we walked slowly back to the car and thence to home. We have got quite a lot of things in common with our new found friends so it could well be that we plan other little trips out in the vicinity as a foursome. We got home just before 2.00pm and I cooked us a light lunch at lightning speed.

As it was a beautiful afternoon, I determined that I would probably give the lawns a cut this afternoon. It is only eight days since the last cut but every extra day over a week seems to make the grass grow like mad. I was just contemplating this when the doorbell rang and it was our chiropodist on her monthy visit. Although she was on our ‘planning board’ I had forgotten to look at it so it was a complete surprise for us. Her parting shot to to us as she left was that I now had no excuse for not doing the lawns so I started at a time much later than normal but managed to get everything done by 6.00 in time for the 6.00pm news and a little treat of icecream for our tea.

Earlier in the day and waiting for us when we got back from our morning out was a 3 CD package of Joan Baez CDs’s. These were very reasonably priced for a 3 CD collection so we immediately put on one of them and were suitably transported. Why Meg and I are so enamoured with Joan Baez was that we followed the records we had made whilst we university students in the mid 1960s. Joan Baez has a very distinctive voice and tended to write most of her own material, accompanying herself on a guitar. She also has the amazing diction so you can generally comprehend every word in the song – these are often of a very wistful nature. One particular track is her rendition of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ – forget about the raucous Animals versiom for here we have the pure diction recorded when she was just 18. The background of the song is as follows. The folk music historian Alan Lomax recorded a version in 1937 by a 16-year-old girl named Georgia Turner. In this context, it is sung in the first person, present tense with the singer lamenting how the House of the Rising Sun has ruined her life. In this traditional folk version, the main character is either a prostitute or a prisoner. The Animals changed it to a gambler to make their version more radio-friendly.

The water industry is finally ‘coming clean’ about its intention to spend £10 billion on cleaning up the UK’s water supplies. But then, it has been making about 800 discharges a day into the UK’s rivers and the sea. The bill for the clean up looks as though as though it is going to come from the pockets of the consumers rather than the profits of the shareholders, needless to say.

We always thought that today was going to be a full day for us both and so it proved. As soon as we had got up and got breakfasted,I needed to do do various financial transactionson on our web accounts and all of this seemed to proceed quite satisfactorily. Sometimes, as last night, these transactions do not proceed as smoothly as they ought if you attempt to do something in the middle of the night, assuming that the system as a whole is going to be quiet but you run foul of various updating and maintenance periods that are running during the night. But having got these financial transactions done as far as I can, Meg and I thought we would seize the opportunity to have a little walk in the park. It really was a glorious spring day, very slightly on the cool side but nothing to disturb us. So we had our coffee and comestibles and had chats ‘en passant’ with one or two regular park users with whom we are acquainted by sight. We knew that we had to get home way before midday so we did not tarry in the park for too long. The principal reason for getting home early was that hairdresser was due to call round to give Meg a perm and this procedure generally takes about two and a half hours. Knowing that this would make our norml lunchtime meal impossible, I raided our larder to make us some tuna sandwiches (tuna mashed with a little salad dressing, some butter, a smidgeon of tomato paste in the absence of any 1000 Island sauce, and finally a little tartare sauce and a spoonful of yogurt). If this sound an odd mixture, I can only say that it works just fine and we prepared our sandwiches and then put them in the fridge, assuming that we would have to eat them in snatches whenever we could. In practice, or hairdresser had performed her ministrations by 2.30 in the afternoon so Meg and I had a fairly hurried lunch and then we set about perusing and signing a document for our solicitor. Then we raced down to our local medical centre (actually a group of a couple of large GP practices with some accretions such as a pharmacy, optician, dentist and physiotherapy) We arrived just about on time for our COVID booster appointment but were not late as we joind a queue of two and, in the fullness of time, received a jab of the Pfizer vaccine to go with the AstroZeneca and Moderna with which we had been jabbed before. Then it was case of racing home and finishing off a letter to our solicitor before we popped into our friends down the road where we prevailed upon them to witness our signatures as was required by the solicitor. We only stayed with our friends for some 5-10 minutes because we were anxious to hand the documents in to the solicitor’s office which we managed at five minutes to the hour before they closed promptly at 5.00pm.

Tomorrow is going to be quite a busy day so Meg and I may well have an early night. Our shoulders are starting to feel a smidgeon sore after our COVID jab so an early night but well be indicated. First tbing tomorrow, I need to go shopping and after that we are picking up some friends to go off to a garden centre for a ‘do’ recently advertised by Herefordshire and Worcestershire Age Concern. We have no idea what to expect but I am sure that the social contact is good for all of us.

Now that we have the local elections, coronation and bank holidays out of the way, then normal politics seems to be resuming with a vengeance. Several issues are coming together the net effect of which is to argue the failing of Brexit. The arguments are going a little like this – the Remainers are saying constantly ‘We told you so’ when the UK has the lowest rate of growth of all of the UK economies and Brexit is authoritatively said to cost the UK £40 billion. For the sake of political balance, the Brexiteers themselves are arguing that there were always going to be some short term costs, that Brexit has not been fully implemented yet as so many EU regulations are still in place and that it will take some time for the full benefits of Brexit to be fully felt. But what is extraordinary is that Nigel Farage himself was on Newsnight recently admitting that Brexit had been a failure. His ‘explanation’ was that Tory British politicians had proved to be as incompetent at managing the Brexit process as the EU commissioners were for constraining the UK economy in the first place. The current Tory party seems to be split into a whole series of factions, some actively supporting Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and desperately hoping they could be restored to power whilst others seem to despise Rishi Sunak, the current Prime Minister. It is said that the current Tory party is undergoing a massive ideological and intellectual crisis at the moment but for many ‘middle of the road’ Conservatives, the next general election is already lost and they are resigned to the fact that they may never again form a majority government.

So Tuesdays have rolled round again. Meg and I did sleep on a little this morning so perhaps the long two and a half session in the hospital yesterday afternoon had taken its toll. Nonetheless, afer we had breakfasted, I telephoned our doctor’s surgery to make appointments for Meg and myself – in my own case, part of a routine monitoring and in Meg’s case to discuss some of yesterday’s results with a ‘quasi’ family doctor. I say a ‘quasi’ family doctor because we seem to have got through to the same doctor several times recently and to this extent this is efficient and saves a lot of time as one does not have to through a lot of back history. Having got this out of the way, we then made our weekly trip down to Waitrose where we met with three of our regular ‘Tuesday gang’. I am afraid that we always make our presence felt because there are generally a few jokes flying back and forth. The one which I dredged up from somewhere this morning was the case of Mrs Jones who, upon seeing her husband laid out in the undertaker’s premises was distressed to discover that he was to be buried in his brown suit rather than his favourite blue suit. On complaining to the undertaker, he told his client not to worry as they had ways of sorting out this kind of problem. But, as she left, she heard the undertaker calling out to his assistant ‘Fred – can you just swap the heads of No. 3 and Number 7’ But who knows what goes in an undertakers anyway? I must say that all of us really enjoy these Tuesday get togethers and actively look forward to them because we know that we are guaranteed an hour of jovial company. As soon as we got home, I received a telephone call from the ‘family’ doctor with whom I had made an appointment earlier on in the day and this helped to clarify a few issues in my mind. And so I then made my way down the hill to my regular Pilates class where, as a treat, because it had my birthday last week, we were allowed to have a few minutes of ‘relaxation’ at the end of the session. This is a little treat awarded to the class members if we have had a birthday in the week when the class takes place.

This week is proving to be quite a busy week, what with one thing or another. I received a text from the daughter of some of our new found acquaintances whether we were going to make a trip to a garden centre that had been advertised recently. Meg and I decided to go on the ‘Nothing venture, nothing gain’ principle so we are making some arrangements to travel together in a little trip out next Thursday. At the same time, I have made a booking at a cafe/restaurant in Droitwich on Friday and it is possible that our University of Birmingham friend may also join us to make up a fivesome. Tomorrow is going to be quite a busy day as well because our hairdresser is calling around in the middle of the day and Meg and I have our scheduled COVID boosters on the calendar for half way through tomorrow afternoon.

Just when you heard another story of the desperate plight of some of our people in our country following the soaring food prices, another thing comes along to shock you. The latest concern is that parents are stealing baby formula, turning to the black market and watering down their babies’ feed as soaring prices drive them to desperation. I have heard a suggestion that perhaps the NHS, cash-starved as it is, might be able to help by offering baby food ‘on prescription’ so that desperate young mothers might not have to pay. It used to said that the wartime hero, Winston Churchill, had said ‘there can be no better investment in life than putting milk into babies’ and, even when our son was born half a century ago there always used to be a supply of (very good) NHS orange juice and perhaps even baby milk as well at a highly subsidised price. But of all course, all of this reeks of the ‘nanny state’ and has part of the Conservative agenda to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’ such help for young mothers has been discontinued for decades. But we are now living in such desperate times, one wonders the supermarkets themselves should cross-subsidise baby milk to make sure that the youngest members of our society should not have the price of political failure.

By today’s post arrived a CD that I had purchased through eBay. It was a CD of Mercedes Sosa, the celebrated Argentinian folk singer and political activist, who died at the age of 74. Sosa possessed a deep, alto voice and a strong sense of conviction, and had a warm, engaging personality. These qualities helped to make her one of the few Latin American musicians who could, over five decades, command a wide international audience. Described as ‘the voice of Latin America’, she was revered as a commentator on the political and social turmoil that afflicted the region. We came to know her through the works of another of our heros, Joan Baez, but her voice was probably superior to even that of Joan Baez (one time partner of Bob Dylan)

We always knew that today was going to be dominated by a hospital appointment this afternoon and so it proved. As we knew that Meg’s appointment was scheduled for 2.00pm, we organised it so that we would have to have lunch and the washing up done in plenty of time so we devoted the early part of the morning to the exciting jobs of collecting our newspaper and making a trip to the garage to fill up with fuel. As it turned out this was quie a wise choice because the cheap petrol station on the way to Kidderminster that we might have relied upon had was temporarily closed when we made our outwood trip. So we got to the hospital about 5-10 minutes before our appointment time but the omens were not good as thr car park was full to overflowing. We managed to find a parking space but evidently many other people had not and there were cars illegally parked all over the place so we suspected that the clinics were going to be very busy. We used to go to a specialist Eye Clinic in Worcester Royal and this had its own specialised building and a pleasant atmosphere. I think this is because in the past there was a specialised Eye hospital which decades ago got incorporated into the main Worcester Royal Hospital. But now in the Kidderminster Treatment centre (as the ‘hospital’ is known), things were very different. We waited practically an hour before we were seen and Meg needed to have a series of tests. I must say that the staff were very caring and solicitous but Meg had to have drops in her eyes, followed by another fairly long wait before a more specialised scan (photographs of the back of the eye) Then we had another fairly long wait before we were eventually seen by a doctor who was as brusque and curt as the nurses beforehand had been sympathetic. The whole visit had taken two and a half hours and although cursory apologies were made for the long wait, Meg was not at her best during the tests after waits of this length. We suspect that we may need another one in about a month- as this particular appointment was catching up after COVID delays, we think it was probably the first monitoring of Meg’s eyes for several years.

As I was perusing The Times for the Radio and TV schedules for tonight’s viewing, I kept on noticing that after several programs, the letters [AD] appeared in brackets. I had no idea what this meant but did a quick Google search and found this this stands for Audio Description and it is a feature built into many modern TVs. It is evidently a facility primarily used those with a hearing handicap but perhaps the facility might be useful to the rest of us when the occasion demands. So I found the option in the Settings section of our Panasonic TV and chose the ‘Auto’ option so no doubt it will appear on some occasions but not others. When I observe this little system in action, I may find it a pleasant addition to my normal viewing or a complete distraction – but at least having found out how to turn it on I can always turn if off again. Whilst on the subject of scanning the schedules, I was delighted to see that on Sky Arts this evening they are having an hour and a half devoted to Pavarotti’s most famous duets. I have just got the TV tuned to this and feel that Meg deserves something after the stresses and strains of the afternoon.

Our near neighbours have re-appeared after a magnificent river cruise which took them to Vienna as well as other places. They had had a wonderful time and pressed a little gift ino our hands being a CD of the concert in Vienna. We did not not have much time to chat but said that we would catch up with each other later, to which we will look forward. We have had an intimation that we will be invited for an authentic Indian curry as soon as they get themselves turned around. For my part, I think I need to revive one of my own culinary favourites which is a fish pie with at least four different kinds of fish (a white fish such as cod, a yellow fish such as haddock, a ‘pink fish such as salmon and some prawns). All of this takes a certain amount of planning and preparation but I tend to make a huge quantity of it and then parcel it up into several portions to keep ourselves and friends around us supplied for a few weeks.

There have been at least a couple of conferences organised by Tory right wingers in the last day or so, one of them funded not by the Conservatives themselves but by an American ‘think tank’ The conference today was extraordinary as Suella Braverman, the home secretary, delved into her own backstory and the philosophy of conservatism – topics more commonly addressed in the race to be leader, rather than by a loyal cabinet minister. But Braverman was interrupted in her speech, as was William Rees-Mogg by Extinction Rebellion or a similar protest group who had somehow infiltrated the audience.

Sunday morning dawned, being the night after the Eurovision song finals held in Liverpool on behalf of the Ukraine. By all accounts, Liverpool seem to have done a very good job in staging the contest and, from what I could tell, things seemed to go without a hitch, electronic or otherwise. Needless to say, the bookies favourite (Sweden) won by a country mile and the UK entry was humiliatingly badly placed – not quite bottom place which was awarded to Germany but second bottom. Meg and I preferred to watch the Thomas Hardy film on another channel for the first two thirds of the show but what we saw of the last portion of it, each entry seemed a facsimilar of the other. I suppose we cannot put the clock back and put the accompanying video presentations back into the box but these seem and more elaborate on behalf of each of the contestants as the years roll by. So the final result came after a two part voting system which has been refined over the years. The Swedish victory was their seventh in the competition as a whole and the Swedish singer was a previous winner so this, too, made history.

This morning, we met with our University of Birmingham friend and spent a happy hour or so chatting. We were bemoaning the fact that in our professional lives and elsewhere, we seemed beset by procedures in which the process has to be followed (presumability to remove elements of variability) but the concomitant of this is that the area for what used to be the area of professional discretion has been reduced and reduced over the years. We particularly discussed an area common to us both in the discussions that were held by Boards of Examiners to award final degree results. This whole area has been so beset by algorithms of various kinds that the discretion that we used to aply based upon years of experience seemed to reduce year by year. Then our friend received a telephone call which meant that he needed to leave us a little more rapidly than planned so we made some arrangements to meet as usual next week.

This afternoon, Meg and I saw saw quite a heart-warmnig film (‘Tea with Mussolini’) in which Maggie Smith and Judy Dench played principal parts. We quite enjoyed this and then flipped over channels to watch the Womens FA Cup Final in which Chelsea scored the one and only winning goal against Manchester United (this being their third victory in three years). This was all too predictable. The men’s FA Cup Final is delayed from mid-May until the first week of June as the World Cup Final in Qatar in the winter has caused quite a bunching of the rest of the football schedule.

For dedicated followers of politics, civil war has broken out in the Tory party. We had the local election result a week ago which was disastrous for the Tories but then of course, normal politics was suspended whilst we had the Coronation of Charles III, the subsequent partying and concerts and the Bank Holiday. But now we are back to politics with a vengeance and the immediate source of the discontent is that Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Minister, has reneged upon the promise to repeal at least 4,000 pice of legislation before the end of the year. In theory, the civil service should have been combing through all of the legislation seeing what could be safely repealed and that which could not – in practice the enormity of this task was such that vital legislation protecting both workers’ rights and the environment could have been lost as the ‘baby is thrown out with the bathwater’. A little appreciated fact is that as part of our membership of the EU, the UK and the Germans, with the tacit acquiescence of the French effectively ran the EU – if there was legislation to which both Germany and the UK were opposed then the policy would be quietly ditched. So a lot of the 4,000 pieces of legislation we actually had a hand in framing and were not sufficiently unhappy with to occasion a veto. And, of course, the UK had negotiated a whole series of opt-outs across several important policy areas. I heard one Brexiteer infuriated that the UK government was not now going to ditch the 4,000 pieces of legislation claim that a lot of the legislation was ‘benign’ which begs the question whether they actually need to be repealed in the first place.

When I survey the planning board that we use to book forthcoming appointments, I observe that next week is going to be quite a busy week what with routine hospital appointments and visits to the house by our hairdresser and chiropodist. Over the years, we have built up a network of these services which are immensely useful to use but occasionally, as next week, all of these appointments tend to crowd in on top of each other. I am hoping that we have a spell of better weather so that I can get out and start to attack the areas of the garden that are crying out for a weeding and a tidy up but we seem to have had so much wet weather in the last few weeks that has prevented me from getting on top of these gardening activities.

When we got up this morning, Meg and I put ourselves in a good mood by listening to some stunning performances on a CD I had liberated from somewhere. These were ‘Best recordings of 2011’ or something similar and some of the artists were incredibly good e.g. Placido Domingo and Thomas Hampton singing the famous duet from Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’. So after this and breakfasting, we popped down into town a little early because after picking up the (bulky) Saturday newspapers, I needed to make a lightning visit into town to get some money out of an ATM. On the way back to the car, I very quickly scanned the CDs in our local Salvation Army charity shop. They were selling the CDs at 50p each or three for £1 but as one of them was a double CD, I actually got 4 for my £1.00 One of them was a collection of the classic piano recordings of Horowitz which could grace anybody’s collection. The other three were a mixture of classical and some ‘crossover’ artists which made for an interesting ‘light’ listening experience. As I type, I am listening to a hymn by the Benedictine nuns of Notre Dame which is out of my usual listening experience, I must say. Once we actually got as far as Waitrose, two of our regular friends were waiting for us and we were soon joined by our University of Birmingham friend. I had taken along some of the amusing birhday cards I had been sent to share the fun around a little and then then we got onto a variety of ‘Travellers tales'( (on my part) and a bit of ‘Did you know what..’ kind of story telling. I did rabbit on a little too long but it was one of those mornings when one story springs from another. After that it was a case of a bit of shop-up for some of the things that Waitrose sells but Aldi does not. When we got home, we had a special lunch as a treat for ourselves. Our domestic help had initially forgotten it was my birthday last Thursday so she raced around to buy some special boef bourbignone which she knows we particularly like, coupled with a sweet of rapberry panny cotta and a bottle of excellent Rioja. I think the idea was that instead of going out, Meg and I could enjoy a magnificent birthday meal at home – which we did. The meal was so good I immediately texted our friend in gratitude and she sent me back a photo of some double chocolate brownies she was preparing as a family treat whilst they wil be watching the Eurovision song contest this evening.

When I consulted the TV schedules for watching when we return from church this evening, I thought there was going to be a real clash – but one we can resolve. Tonight is the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest and I know that the UK song is to be performed last. This show goes on from 8.00 until midnight but of course the voting is often the most exciting part at the end of the evening. In the early part of the evening there is a showing of Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd‘ which we have seen several times before but can always be watched over and over again. So we can have a bit of high culture in the early part of the evening and then switch over for a bit of the ‘boom-bam-a-bam’ type of stuff which characterises practically every entry these days. I have a particular penchant for the more pensive ‘chanson’ type of contribution which is all too rare these days but which was typified par excellence by a past UK No. 1 in 1968 which was Mary Hopkin’s ‘Those were the Days‘ (but not actually a Eurovision winner).

The war in Ukraine may (or may not) be entering a critical phase. Perhaps as part of a general offensive, Ukraine has forced Russian troops to withdraw from the southern flank of the Bakhmut operation ‘in bad order’, highlighting a ‘severe shortage of credible combat units’, according to British military intelligence. Of course, all of this might just be positive Western military spin and the whole of this phase of the war does rather call into mind WW1 in which battles and enormous loss of life were fought over a few hundred yards of terrain. But if the accounts are more correct than incorrect, then the Ukrainians may well take heart from any recent advances, however small, and the stories of low morale amongst the Russian military personnel are neither new or surprising. Very strange things are happening in this war as the Russians seem to have ‘outsourced’ some of the conflict to a group of mercenaries known as the Wagner group which has recently been openly critical of both Putin and the Kremlin. The Wagner group seem to be demanding extra ammunitions or else threatening to withdraw from the immediate conflict zones but one cannot imagine divisions within the ‘enemy’ ranks bodes well for their eventual success. On the other hand, the Russians have had a long time during the winter to prepare defences like trenches in depth – again, very redolent of WWI but the irony of all of this is that the city at the centre of the hostilities (Bakhmut) does not seem to be of much strategic significance in any case.

Today is the day when our domestic help calls round and we are always pleased to see her. This was so particularly so today as she had come along bearing gifts, namely some goodies for us to make a meal inside the house as a birthday treat. Needless to say, this was a wonderful gift and we will look forward to preparing these ingredients for our Saturday lunchtime meal. After we had chatted for a little, we got ourselves ready to trot down to Waitrose where we generally have a coffee with our University of Birmingham friend. But we got a telephone call from him to say he was delayed within the house awaiting a parcel that was due to be delivered later on that morning. Working out the logistics, we decided it would be a better plan to meet tomorrow and that is what we are going to do. We then prepared a flask of coffee and decided we would make a venture into the park – a little walk we have not done for several days now as little things like local elections, coronations and Bank Holidays have intervened. We had our normal elevenses whilst admiring the flowering trees from our normal park bench but then had a pleasant surprise as we were leaving. One of our ‘park friends’ with whom we did get on particularly well particularly during our COVID days espied us from a distance and popped quickly over the grass to make contact with us. We had a very pleasant ‘catch-up’ but we all thought it would be a great idea if we could meet for a longer chat over lunch rather than just a fleeting few moments in the park. So we have agreed a date for a week today in a cafe-bar that we used to frequent in Droitwich and used to serve some very good lunch meals – at least under previous ownership. Anyway, we are going to give it a go again in a week’s time and, even if the food is a little indifferent, I am sure that we will enjoy sitting down to have an extended chat and catch up on the lots of news that we have to exchange with other.

This afternoon, for the sake of anything else, we tuned into the ‘Parliament’ channel on the TV and caught some of the Lords debate on the Illegal Migration Bill. Practically every contribution that we heard was opposed to the Bill and I think that about 80 peers have indicated that they intended to speak. I do not think that speeches in the Lords are time limited and whilst I am sure that nothing as crude as a filibister will be attempted, the contributions of those wishing to speak will take some time. The Lords will no doubt pass several amendments to the legislation which will then return to the Commons. Then the government will have to decide whether to accept any of these amendments or to reject them all out of hand. Then the bill will return to the Lords and we may well have a ‘ping pong’ where the Bill bounces backwards and forwards between the Lords and the Commons. In the last analysis, the Commons will always (and perhaps should) have its way but the whole point of a Second or revising chamber is to get the Commons to think again if the proposed legislation is particularly contentious. As the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke early on on the debate labelling the proposed legislation as ‘immoral’ it is rather strange to hear right wing Tories in the present government claiming that their version of morality has so much more force than that advocated by tthe Archbishop of Canterbury. This one will run and run, I predict.

Our next door neighbour called round this afternoon to let us know that he and his wife will be away for the next eleven days whilst they go on holiday to one of the Spanish islands. At the same time, our newest neighbour from across our communal green area should be returning from a two week cruise of the Mediterranean so we seem to be an island surrounded by holiday makers at the moment. I must admit that there is a chance that we might make a trip to see our friends in Spain in September but at the moment the thought of airports and the hassle associated with them makes the whole concept of holidaying less attractive than it was. We normally head for Coruña in Norhern Spain where our closest Spanish friends live but the flights to Coruña are provided by a small airline called Vueing which only has slots from Heathrow. If we were to fly from Birmingham, we would have to change in Madrid or Barcelona which adds to the length and the ‘hassle’ factor so we will make up our minds a bit later on. If we feel the need for a break, we can alway go and spend a few days in Yorkshire where we can see my sister and other family members. My niece sent me a quick text yesterday wishing me a Happy Birthday and that reminds me that there are other friends that I need to text and see if we can meet up for a lunchtime rendez-vous.

Today is my birthday which always puts you in a good mood when you wake up. I have rigged up one of the ‘boomboxes’ I bought some months ago in the bedroom and did not like very much the CD disk that I kept in the system. So I changed it for another of the ClassicFM CD collection and was delighted that the second piece along was the Adagio (2nd, slow movement) from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. This, I first heard at the age of 13 when my music teacher/dorm master smuggled in into the dormitory of the attic dormitory where there two or three of us were in bed suffering from the Asian flue epidemic of 1957. We were were none of us very ill, as I remember, but at its height as many as two thirds of the class was off with the flu. This particular piece also has a particular resonance for me as my son won the school’s music prize playing it when it was 13. After that, locomotives, photography and girls (in no particular order) displaced the clarinet and what happened to it remains a mystery. Being a Thursday, I went off to do my regular weekly shop and then got back to do a quick shopping unpack, breakfast preparation and getting ourselves ready for our little trip out today to Waitrose. My sister called to pass on some birthday greetings and as she reads this blog regularly she knows all of my routines. I sympathised with a recent fall she has had in the kitchen (reaching for a high shelf) and passed on what I hope was some useful advice to stop this re-occurring. Once we were in Waitrose, I made straight for the cakes section and although I intended to buy a fruit cake, I was tempted into buying a special chocolate birthday cake. Meg and I were joined by one of our Tuesday friends and we shared the chocolate cake out between the three of us, my Irish friend who had just popped into Waitrose and some other cafe regulars. My Irish friend had bought me a wonderful present of a pack of special beers and a glass with which to drink the same. So, after a pleasat morning and chat, we returned home to finish off the meat balls of which we ate a half yesterday but today complemented with baked potato and some mange-touts. After some quite ferocious rain, the clouds rolled away to quite a bright afternoon and even Miggles,our adopted cat, turned up to give birthday greetings (in exchange for some titbits).

At my request, our son has bought me a birthday present of a very well reviewed book (‘Johnson at 10 – The inside story’) and this arrived by today’s post. As I am half way through another book, I have let Meg have first ‘go’ at this book but I suspect that once I get into it, I will read it with a kind of fascinated horror. According to at least one review of the book which brought it to my attention, Johnson exhbited a pattern of oscillating between the demands of his wife, Carrie on the one hand and Dominic Cummings on the other. It seems that often a policy was announced in the morning which, when the staff were trying to put it into effect during the day, was soon to be reversed and countermanded half way through the afternoon. Incidentally, my son and daughter-in-law gave me a birthday card which is of the best I have received over the years. It shows a young boy about 7 years old (looking quite like my son at that age) with a spanner in his hand. The text reads ‘As a child, their Son had learned loads of things from watching his Dad do D.I.Y. Mainly, words beginning with F and B’

There was a most extraordinary outburst by Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament today. It was occasioned by the fact that Kemi Badenoch, The Business Secretary, had announced a significant change in Government policy (not to shred all of the retained EU legislation before the end of the year) in the columns of ‘The Daily Telegraph‘ instead of announcing it first to the House of Commons. Badenoch was summoned to the Commons on Thursday to explain the decision, having confirmed it in an article for this morning’s Daily Telegraph. An angry Hoyle told her it was ‘highly regrettable’ she had announced the move in the press not to MPs. He admonished her saying ‘We are elected to hear it first not to hear it in the Daily Telegraph. Who do you think you are speaking to?… I am not going to be spoken to by a Secretary of State who is absolutely not accepting my ruling’ Over the years, there has been several regrettable lapses of Commons protocol in which policies are pre-announced to the media and the Speaker of the day has got more and more upset about this. But I must say, I have never heard the Speaker use such angry words or give such a strict dressing down to a Government minister before. At the same time, the Brexit wing of the Tory party are furious with Kemi Badenoch because they see the (quite unrealistic) pledge of shredding all of the 4,000 pieces of retained legislation before the end of year as a betrayal of their pure Brexit principles. But the government are worried that some incredibly important environmental and employment legislation might ‘die’ leaving us in a worse situation than before.

Thank goodness we are coming to the end of the gloomy weather that has plagued us for the last day or so. Today dawned fairly bright and clear for which we were well and truly grateful. Today, after breakfast, Meg and I set forth for a little village called Finstall only some three miles distant in which Herefordshire and Worcestershire run a club coffee morning once a month. The village hall is a good location for this gathering becaue it has sufficient parking at the rear and is evidently used as a centre for community activities. It reminds me of the village hall of the small village in which as a 9 year child I was taught how to play badminton and there always seemed to be enough to keep us occupied during the long dark winter evenings. Today we had a general quiz where we were ‘competing’, if that is the right word, against similar gatherings across Worcestershire. Our table, and the group as a whole performed quite well but the last section of the quiz was to supply the missing words of popular (and once popular) pop songs at which we were hopeless. The community activity today was photographs of old Bromsgrove but as a resident for the last sixteen years (only), this was not very meaningful to us. But the organisers are friendly and welcoming and there were about two dozen of us in total which made for a pleasant morning. After that, it was a case of returning home and a lunch of ‘meatballs’. I must admit that meatballs never has good ‘vibes’ for me as I remember that Campbells used to have a meatballs in sauce in a tin which was mainly soy as I remember. But the way that the Spanish make meatbals or ‘albondegas’ is always quite a treat. Typically, they are made from minced beef and pork blended with fried onions, cumin and smokey paprika and shaped into large meatballs with egg and/or rice as a binder that are slowly cooked in a rich tomato sauce made with roasted red peppers and Rioja wine. So if I am offered ‘albondegas’ in what I call a ‘peasant’ type cafe in Spain (good homely cooking) I never turn down the opportunity.

This afternoon, the grass was evidently due for a cut as it is a week now since its last cut and the grass (and buttercups) has well and truly shot out of the ground. The minute I had changed into my gardening clothes ready to do the mowing, a shower opened up overhead. It was one of those occasions where I wondered whether to carry on in the hope (expectation) that it might be a light quick, passing shower. I did carry on mowing the grass and the shower proved heavy enough to make life a little uncomforable but not of the intensity to abandon the mow altogether. I had a particular motive in wanting to get the grass cut today because tomorrow is my birthday and we intend to see some friends in the morning – but then I wanted a more relaxing time in the afternoon. Needless to say, no sooner had I finished the mowing but the clouds rolled away and we had one of those beautiful and glorious late sunny afternoons but of course this can never be predicted. Amusingly, Miggles, our adopted tabby cat came running across the grass to greet me when I was extracting the mower from the garage but the cat sensibly retreated to sit on one of the brick staunchions (which I think they are called) which adorn our porch and meant that the cat could escape the worst of the rain. The cat observed me mowing, had a good wash and then followed me into the rear garden where he/she deigned to sit on my lap and have a stroke whilst I was having my mid-mowing break. I did relent and give the cat a few titbits as a reward for loyalty or patience, I know not which.

The breaking news last night was that Donald Trump had lost a case for sexual harassment taken against him by a New York magazine columnist. The case dates from a decade or so ago but New York has passed some legislation to allow for such cases to be heard. Donald Trump did not turn up to defend himself but his defence was hardly helped by the fact that an audio clip exists of him bragging about grabbing diverse women by the genitals. But a damning feature of this case was that he denied ever having met the woman until he was confronted by some photographic evidence. He then proceeded to argue that the woman bringing the complaint was ‘not his type’ but subsequently mis-identified a photograph of the woman as his first wife. This was a civil case and as such it did not attract a gaol sentence. But the civil damages were put at the best part of $5 million which may almost be back pocket money for Trump. In any case, I am sure that his avid supporters would raise this money in no time at all so the eventual financial pain might be very small. But there are several cases outstanding against Trump including tax fraud and incitement to the invasion of the Capital building two years ago so that it is possible that Trump may suffer a death by a thousand cuts if some or all of these outstanding cases succeed.

Today being a Tuesday, the week reverts to its normal rhythms. I must say that after the excitement of the local election results last Thursday night and all day on Friday, the Coronation on Saturday, our street party on Sunday and a rain-filled tidying up day on Bank Holiday Monday, it is rather reassuring to get back into a more normal routine again this week. The weather today is a fair mixture of sunshine and showers but even so, a lot more pleasant than the totally gloomy day of yesterday. This morning after we had picked up our copy of The Times, we made for Waitrose where we found three of our friends waiting for us – a fairly typical happening on Tuesdays. I told the assembled company a joke in the form of a riddle I had heard a few years ago but had totally forgotten until very recently. This is ‘How does an agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac spend his time?’ to which the answer is, of course, ‘They lie awake all night wondering if there is a Dog’ I admit you have to concentrate little to get the full meaning of this, but there you are. After this, Meg and I go home and I got myself turned out for my normal Pilates class which involves changing into my tracksuit bottoms and then taking down my rolled up Pilates mat and a rucksack with bits of kit inside. The weather on the way down was a little indeterminate but I left five minues earlier to make a slight detour into town to buy a couple of birthday cards. One of these was a week late (which, unfortunately, is maintaining the tradition of the last year or so) whilst the other birthday is tomorrow so I am hoping that putting a first class stamp on it and getting it into the post by 1.00pm is time enough to get it to Oxfordshire by tomorrow. May is quite a heavy month for birthdays because there is a cluster of colleagues from the University of Winchester all of whose birthdays fall in May so I always need to consult my diary in plenty of time to get these cards posted off in time. The two friends to whom I posted off cards today received appropriate cards, one with a ‘cat’ theme and the other with a ‘computing’ theme. However, I must say that many birthday cads these days are very often adorned with glasses of liquor as though on is going to spend the whole of one’s birthday imbibing from morning until night. Although I enjoy a glass as much as anyone, the birthday card writers seem to assume that it is the most important part of one’s day. After I returned from my Pilates class today, Meg and I enjoyed our traditional treat for a Tuesday which is haddock fish cakes and some of those ‘quick cook’ vegetables that only take about three minutes in a microwave. This way, upon my return from Pilates, I get a meal put on the table in just a few minutes.

Tomorrow being the second Wednesday of the month, Meg and I will probably go out to the social event organised by Herefordshire and Worcestershire Age Concern which is held in the village hall of a neighbouring village called Finstall. On our first visit last month, we made the acquaintance of some people who not only worshipped in our church but with whom we shared some common aspects of our biography, both having lived in Manchester for several years as well as having travelled in both Spain and Mexico. We also renewed our acquaintance at the party held down the road on Sunday afternoon but I forgot to ask if they were also going to attend tomorrow. Tomorrow, the theme of the morning is going to be ‘Photographs of old Bromsgrove’ that is not going to be very meaningful to Meg and myself as we have lived here for less than sixteen years but I am sure will be much more meaningful to most of the people there. Who knows what other contacts and potential friends we might make on our visit tomorrow so I think it is a case of ‘nothing venture, nothing gain’

The story of the arrest of those demonstrating against the Coronation continues to unfold. This morning on Radio 4 it was announced that the Met Police had expressed regret at the arrests and an officer had even gone round to the home of the leading light of the ‘Republican’ party to offer an apology. The Met story keeps changing however. At first it was said that the arrests were made under the ‘old’ public order legislation but then it was admitted that the arrests were made under the ‘new’ legislation brought into force a week ago, largely to counteract the efforts of protestors in the ‘Just Stop Oil’ campaign who had been using techniques such as ‘locking themselves’ onto immovable objects to make their point. Later on this afternoon, the story is changing yet again. Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met, says the arrest of six anti-monarchy protesters was ‘unfortunate’ – but insists his officers were seeking to thwart what he describes as a ‘criminal network’ in which tins of paint were to be thrown in the course of the procession. All six were released without charge. But it is interesting how the story of the arrest, the apology and then the further elaboration keeps changing over time.