Today being a Sunday, I got up a tad early and had a quick breakfast of one those little porridge packets that gives you an instant breakfast of porridge in about 2 minutes. Then it was back in time to give Meg and I a little more cereal whilst we were watching the Sunday Morning (politics) programme. I do not know if the Sky News and BBC studios are very close to each other but they have Brandon Lewis as a government spokesman on one channel with a plethora of bland excuses for the present government’s  performance only to see him a few minutes later on the other channel. Meg and I took the car down to the park and soon made contact with two of our regular park ‘mates’ – Seasoned World Traveller to be followed shortly by our friend from the University of Birmingham. We entered into a long and detailed discussion as to what chain of events would lead to the resignation of the Prime Minister and what actual mechanisms would be used if he literally refused to leave office (there are hints here, of course, of Donald Trump and the White House). Then we started to discuss the Roe v Wade  reversal in the US Supreme Court and this led to a much more detailed discussion of the rights of women, of unborn children, where the line should be drawn between abortion and the preservation of life and so on. Evidently, there was no fixed or final conclusion to all of this but the discussion was intense and non-acrimonious.

After we had got home, we lunched on some beef that had been cooking in the slow cooker in our absence and then settled down to a nice long read of the Sunday newspapers. Knowing that we were going to be out this evening, listened to the Test Match on Radio 5 Live Special and England were making a good fist of chasing a total of nearly 300 runs. They finished off the day with 113 runs yet to score and 8 wickets in hand so that ought to be a straighforward task tomorrow, provided they keep their heads. At 7.00pm we set off in the car for the concert which is going to be held in St. John’s Anglican Church, one of the largest performance spaces in Bromsgrove. Most of the programme is of particular significance, one way or another. Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto was one item which was particularly well played and it always scores highly in our list of emotionallly memorable pieces because our son won his school’s music prize when playing the second movement of this piece. I first heard it when I was in bed suffering from ‘Asian ‘flu’ in 1957 and, at one stage, I think about 60% of the class were ill with it. My dormitory master who was also my art and music teacher smuggled a record player into our bedroom so that we could listen to it for the first time. Another piece was Beethoven’s 6th (the Pastoral Symphony) which again I remember well because it helped to get me through a dark patch when I was a teenager and suffering an illness. The concert was provided ‘free’ but of course most people dropped some money into a collection as you would have paid for a concert performance anyway. After a break for a glass of wine half way through the performance, there was quite a novel ending. The final piece was to be the the Halleluja chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Almost as a piece of fun to round off the evening, copies of the score were handed round and then you had to self-allocate yourself to one of the four parts (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and sing along accordingly. Those who knew the score were encouraged to stand up and to ‘belt it out’ – fortunately for me, there were some very powerful singers who had evidently sung the score several times before standing in the row behind us, so it was quite easy to follow their cue and thus to participate. For a scratch orchestra, the standard of playing was surprising high and the clarinetist was very accomplished. It reminded Meg and I of the famous Jack Brymar who we heard play this concerto in the little jewel of a Georgian theatre in Bath probably some 35 years ago now.

The political fallout from Roe v Wade is still continuing in the USA. I heard one pro-life activist justifying the use of guns as instruments that save lives in the same way tht banning abortion saves the lives of unborn children. One could argue that more lives are lost than saved in the American love affair with the gun and that botched abortions kill people also but these inconsistencies are lost on the absolutely committed. Jo Biden and the rest of his administration are seeking ways  in the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision may be minimised  – we may yet see federal administrators attempting to cock a snook at the ban on abortions but this culture war may continue for decades.

After we had breakfasted on boiled eggs this morning, Meg and I spent a certain amount of time on the net thinking in the broadest of terms about what type of late summer holiday we might like to think about. Some parktime acquaintances of ours had just returned from a holiday down the Rhine and they explained to us that they loaded their suitcases onto a coach in Bromsgrove and the next time they saw them they were on board their cruise ship. So we investigated one of the best companies who specialise in this type of business (‘Shearings’) as the thought of avoiding all of the hassle of security checks in crowded airports seems quite attractive to us, not least as we would not have the trouble of hoisting suitcases all over the place. There were several options of tours of classical Spain that we thought sounded quite attractive until I realised that the tours on offer were for 2023 not this year. So we abandoned that idea temporarily. Then we started to think whether we could visit our familiar old haunts in La Coruña, Northern Spain but even here things have changed. For a start, our preferred airline that flies direct to Coruna only now seems to fly out of Gatwick and not Heathrow. Nonetheless, we could get our preferred hotel at a ‘normal’ price and the flights are more expensive than they were but not massively so, so we are still considering this as an option. I investigated getting to Gatwick by train and I think I can do this in a couple of hops if I can get to Reading and then a direct train to Gatwick.  But when I thought of a train jouney with two or three changes, perhaps I just might be better just taking the car to Gatwick where I think the journey is only about 25 miles longer than Heathrow.  So this is another possibility. I then went back onto the Shearings websites and there are some possibilities of touring the Pyrenees by a succession of ‘Little Trains’ this September. So we are in the position where we might assemble several of our options together and then try and choose the least stressful looking at the journey as a whole.  It might well be that we go to La Coruna for the last time under our own steam this year and then rely upon coach tours (avoiding airports) for holidays from 2023 onwards.

All of this investigation delayed us somewhat so we went down to collect our newspaper by car and then took the car to the park in case we caught in a sudden downpour. Whilst in the newsagents, I saw a flyer advertising a free concert tomorrow night in the local Anglican Church and would enjoy all of the items on the programme. So if we manage to get along to this, I popped in to see our Irish friends to see if tomorrow night we could park our car on their driveway and then we only have a walk for about 200-300 years to the church. They agreed to our request so we got home and cooked ourselves a Saturday lunch of quiche.  To make our vegetables a little more interesting, I had parboiled some little sticks of carrots before we went to the park and then I popped these and some petit pois into a little saucepan which I quickly tossed in oil and I added a spoonful to syrup which makes this mixture somewhat exotic. After lunch which we had taken quite early, I thought that I would seize the opportunity to get the lawns cut today. This was quite a bonus as I imagined that after the showers orf rain we had had today then the lawns may have been too wet. But I did manage to get the lawns cut with only a little smatter of rain two thirds of the way through to impede my progress. Then in the late afternoon we went to church as we always do on a Saturday and returned home to watch a summary of the cricket Test Match whilst we ate a ‘nursery tea’ of rhubarb, yogurt and Neapolitan icecream.  No sooner had we finished this but our next door nigbour knocked at the door with two little bowls of stewed fruit and cream which were absolutely delicious. Our neighbour does this for us on quite a regular basis and we are always delighted to receive her offerings which are always welcome.  

The sequelae of the reversal of Roe v. Wade (legalising abortion in the USA) are still playing out today. The Supreme Court was thought of as a body helping to keep other arms of government in check or balance with each other but in recent times it has become massively politicised. The Republican controlled Senate refused to conduct any hearings into Supreme Court nominees made by Barak Obama if these were of a ‘liberal’ disposition. This paved the way for Donald Trump to propose and have accepted three conservative justices and the Supreme Court is now acting as practically another agency of government. Having overturned Roe v Wade, they now have their sights on abolishing free advice on contraception, single sex marriages and gay rights in their desire to turn the clock back some 50 years. Nedless to say, the whole of American society is deeply polarised by these culture wars that could go on for decades. 

Although it was predicted that the by-election results would not be available until 4.00pm in the morning, I thought I would stay up for a bit. Then Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader tweeted at about 3.00am that they were on the verge of a historic victory so I dozed in the chair until the two results came through. As we suspected, Boris Johnson got a kicking, the bottom line being in both of the by-elections that either Labour or Lib Dem are quite willing to set aside their usual loyalties in order to register an anti-Conservative vote. If this pattern persists and Boris Johnson is not replaced, then there is no way that the Conservatives can form a majority government next time around. Also, no party at all will enter into an alliance with them so the longer term future of a Conservative government must look grim after they have been in power for twelve years. So eventually, I crawled into bed and got up an hour later than I normally would and then our University of Winchester friend, Meg and I had boiled eggs for breakfast – a pattern we have got out of over the years. After breakfast, I showed our guest the video clip that I had of Clive playing J. S.Bach’s  ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring‘  on his trumpet at our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations. Whilst I had got our personal wedding website open at the appropriate page, we also played the audio clips of the anecdote-laden speeches that both Meg and I gave separately at the celebration that was held in Yorkshire for our Yorkshire relatives as they could not necessarily travel for the celebrations we held in the Midlands. After that with may hugs, kisses and photographs taken for the records, our friend got on her way and Meg and I looked at the weather to determine whether we were going to brave a walk or not. It looked pretty threatening so we went down into town by car, picked up our newspaper and then treated ourselves to a coffee in Waitrose. Inside the store, we bumped into our Irish friend who had not seen us for a few days but knew we were still alive because she reads this blog quite regularly to ascertain that nothing dramatic has happened to us. Then it was home to have a lunch of sea-bass on a bed of lettuce which is a lightish but healthy lunch we often have on a Friday lunchtime.

This aftenoon, as I had had so little sleep last night, I allowed myself the luxury of an extended doze on the living room floor.  Then, through the ether as it were, came the news from the US Supreme Court of the reversal of the classic Roe v. Wade which was the judgement in 1973 that legalised abortion across the whole of the United States. Ever since Donald Trump had appointed conservative justices to the Supreme Court ensuring a 6:3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, then it was only a matter of time before Roe v. Wade was reversed as the American right had had this in their sights for the last fifty years. Nonetheless, like the death of an aged relative, when the nws actually came though it was not unexpected but quite a shock all the same. A fair number of states had passed legislation through their Republican controlled legislatures wich was so-called ‘trigger’ legislation in that as soon as they received the green light from the Supreme Court, their own anti-abortion legislation would be immediately enacted. Jo Biden made quite a powerful speech pointing out that the national consensus that had prevailed through 50 years of both Republican and Democrat congresses and presidents was now broken. However, America is now almost completely polarised and the judgement in the Suprme Court having made may last for decades (as justices are appointed for life and you have to wait until several die before it is possible that they may be replaced by more liberal members to revert the balance).

As you might imagine, the domestic political news is dominated by the Conservative losses in the by-elections, the Liberal Democrats having got the biggest swing against the governing power ever recorded. There was a swing of 29.9% to the Liberal Democrats and as the Conservatives had a majority of more than 24,000 and the new Liberal Democrat majority is now over 5,000 then any Conservative MP with a majority of less than 30,000 might be vulnerable in a general election. On the one hand, governments always have swings against them in their mid-term. On the other hand, there now seems to be a determined mood in the electorate to try and get rid of Boris Johnson by any means possible. One scenario is that the 1922 back bench committee change their rules so that the PM can have a challenge against him within a year of the last vote and there are now a sufficient number of Tory MPs frightened of losing their own seats that they are willing to get rid of Johnson as an electoral liability (as they did with Margaret Thatcher, of course).

Today has been the most interesting of days as we suspected that it would. I awoke our University of Winchester guest, who has been staying with us, with a very welcome cup of tea at 7.00am and Miggles, the cat, dropped by for a fishy breakfast. Then I set to work on cooking a couple of monster omelettes of red onion, tomato and mushroom upon which we all dined well. Then our son dropped by and it was not too long before he established with our guest that they were both rail enthusiasts and, in no time at all, they were swapping stories of railway memorabilia, locations of interest to rail enthusiasts and some interesting stories about our guest’s grandfather who was commemorated for his railway work in the station at Okehampton. This was quite amazing becuse we had no idea that this was a shared enthusiasm. The conversation then progressed to shared interests in natural history and in no time at all, we were into the various images of moths, butterflies and caterpillers that had been captured in the past on mobile phones and then put onto websites. So it was a long time since we have had such a detailed and intimate sharing of subjects across the breakfast table. As soon as we felt able, we went by car as far as the local park and I showed our guest the vistas that Meg and myself are used to appreciating every morning. Then, and particularly pertinent in view of our long conversations across the breakfast table, we took our guest to view a special type of memorial which is situated in the churchyard-cum-park of the large Anglican church dedicated to St. John the Baptist. This particular mounument consists of a a large and moving tribute paid to the driver of a locomotive who was killed when his locomtive engine boiler exploded in about 1842. I suppose that might have been a fairly common occurrence in these early days of steam locomotives. There was a long and poignant poem engraved into the monument and it looked as the fireman died the day after his companion and workmate. It is only when you reach the very end of the inscription on the monument that it was revealed that the monies provided for the erection of the monument was provided by the locomotive crew’s workmates (and interesting that any management contributuon to the cost of erecting this monument is conspicuous by its absence) Our friend took a photo of the monument to share with a cousin who was also an avid rail enthusiast. I first spotted this monument which was in rather a run down condition when I first moved to Bromsgrove some fifteen years ago but in the last few years the monument has been removed and restored off-site before being reinstalled. It is perhaps interesting to note how few people in the town seem to know of this monument and traversing the park several times each week, I suspect that the memorial does not receive very many visitors.

After this interesting little venture we repaired to the solace of the coffee bar in Waitrose which we know so well. Our friend is a real Waitrose devotee so this was much appreciated and we just missed seeing Seasoned World Traveller who was on his way to the park. Then after a brief pit stop at home, we journeyed on to Droitwich where we all intended to lunch at one of our favourite eating places in the town. We experienced a certain amount of disappointment, though, as the establsihment that we know well seems to have changed ownership and the menu is somewhat more restricted than we have been used to over the years. Nonetheless, the meal was adequate enough for us in the middle of the day so we returned home after a very hot morning in the sun. We were quite content to rest in the cool of our lounge at home and chat before we ventured out into the garden. Here we refreshed ourselves by drinking either cordial or tea – in my own case, I was delighted to try a beer local to Berkshire whih our friend had thoughtfully brought along for our enjoyment. Then we had a simple ‘nursery’ style tea of bananas and custard before we went indoors to catch up on the Channel 4 news programme.

There is depressingly disturbing news emerging from the USA this evening. After the latest recent episodes of mass shootings with a school and calls for some degree of gun control, then the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution gives people the right to carry a gun outside their home, in a significant new ruling for gun rights. The decision is expected to allow more people to legally carry firearms in some of America’s biggest cities – such as LA, New York and Boston – and is the court’s first major decision on gun rights in more than a decade.

We are all eagerly awaiting the results of the two by-elections held today but it may be 2.00am before we get a glimmer of either of the two contests. The Main Street Media is full of speculation but we will just have to be patient to see what the electorate thinks in these two critical by-elections.

Today, I felt that I needed to do some of my weekly shopping as last week we had missed out on shopping by going on our trip to Chester. I was a little short of ready cash but thought I would go to the ATM in the walls of an adjacent supermarket. Here I discovered that both of the ATMs were either empty or malfunctioning so I did a little tour of two local places where I might access an ATM but with no success. So I went around my regular supermaret only buying the bare essentials to make sure that I had the cash reserves to cover the bill. Later on today, our University of Winchester friend was coming to see us and stay for a couple of nights. It was also the day when our domestic help comes to give our house the ‘once over’ so we were looking forward with some anticipation to the hours ahead. The day was delightfully warm and Meg and strolled down to the park knowing that time was a little limited but aiming to be back before our friend was scheduled to arrive just after 12.00pm midday. We had had a really good laugh earlier in the day when I was explaining to our domestic help the incident that occurred to me when I was a university student.  I had discovered a small lump in my neck which was probably a little blocked cyst  or something similar. I explained that I had somehow got myself into the office of the Professor of Surgery at the University and he agreed to operate on me in a few days time. This he did but as I recovered from the minor operation it became evident that he had ‘missed’ whatever it was he was meant to be removing. When I presented myself again in his office to show that the operation site had missed the cyst by over an inch, he just stared me in the eyes and told me just to forget all about it – which I did. After all, he was the Professor of Surgery but seemed to me to be in his 80’s although according to the web, he was only 61 at the time. He retired from his post some five years after I saw him. I next bumped into him when I was a Census enumerator for the 1971 Census and he was on my patch. I subsequently learnt that he as a lifelong bachelor, he had a reputation for lively dinner parties, made even more so by a pet monkey in his possession which used to swing from the chandelier in his dining room urinating across the table as his guests were eating their dinner. When his guests remonstrated, he used to argue that the urine was biologically pure and they shouldn’t make such a fuss. I was trying to convey the kernel of these two stories to our domestic help who had got elements of the two stories intertwined and she was amazed, so she thought, that the monkey was allowed to perform the operation on me in the first place. We laughed so much at all of this that our sides ached.

Our friend arrived very promptly just after twelve and after we had exchanged some news, I got down to cooking a risotto for Meg and myself, our friend and our domestic help. This turned out to be quite a success and we helped it down with one half of a glass of white wine. Then we set off for Harvingtom Hall which is some seven miles down the road. We have been here several times before and always had a good tour but today was exceptionally good. Our guide was ‘togged up’ in full Tudor dress but was exceptionally knowledgeable and we discovered all kinds of things that we did not know before. The house is famous for being full of priest holes, none of which were actually discovered. One of the most concealed of these (behind a beam which swung on a swivel) I had previously been allowed to get inside but all of this activity is now banned as ‘Health and Safety’ regimes have swung into play. After an incredibly interesting tour, our friend treated us to some afternoon tea in the garden which wounded off a perfect afternoon. When we got home, we treated ourselves to a cold drink of cordial and eventually some strawberries, yogurt and icecream by way of tea. Then we spent a very pleasant evening talking over aspects of our two family histories which at one stage might even have coincided. I knew that my father had trained to be a pilot out in Rhodesia during the war years and our friend told us that her grandfather was an instructor of British pilots in Rhodesia. Although it is conjecture, it is quite possible that these two individuls might have known each other or even that my father was instructed in flying by my friend’s grandfather. All we can say at this stage is ‘Who knows’ as both are long since dead. 

Today started off with what is becoming a regular pattern. When I get up in the morning and before I start to shower and to breakfast, I have started a little routine whereby I use a soft brush to sweep the newly restored path by the side of the house free from holly leaves and holly seeds which fall constantly. Making this into a daily routine is a nice way to get a breath of fresh air and is not at all onerous if done on a daily basis. However, our adopted cat Miggles who evidently has the most acute of hearing will respond to the sound of a soft sweeping brush ‘shwooshing’ along our paving slabs by leaping over our six feet high garden gate knowing that a little tasty treat of a fish breakfast awaits him/her. The cat, like myself, has routines in that it as some breakfast, comes for a limited amount of fondle and then seeks out a space in the sun where a spot of sun bathing can be indulged in. The same pattern will repeat itself in the afternoon particularly if we have been out in the car. The cat will respond to the car’s arrival by coming to greet us and, when I indicate to the cat that it should stand by the (locked) back gate, it takes the cue that the gate is to be jumped over as food treats await shortly. Today being a Tuesday, it is my Pilates day so we went by car to pick up our newspaper and thence to repair to the Waitrose café to meet some of our regulars. We met with some of our pre-pandemic regulars and we got joined eventually by our University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller. I rather indulged myself by telling some traveller’s tales centering around my month long stay in Jakarta, Indonesia when I was teaching a module on De Montfort University’s out-distanced MBA. This was an interesting arrangement as each teacher was ‘the University’ as they taught their module and I was the second person along in the queue.  Once we had several conversations with different groups of friends, we bought a birthday present for our domestic help but as it was her birthday today we took a card and a bottle of wine around today to deposit on her doorstep but her ‘proper’ present will wait until tomorrow which is now her regular day.

A lot of today is devoted to some preparations for the visit of our University of Winchester friend who should be arriving, motorways permitting, at some after 12.00 tomorrow.  I have some plans afoot for us to share in one of my more special risottos which I am going to make with mackerel and some of that ‘low calorie’ rice occasionally to be found in Waitrose.  After. that, we are booked to Harvington Hall, a local Elisabethan Manor House just down the road from us which we have visited several times before but is fascinating for some of its features, more of which tomorrow. I managed to negotiate the website and got three tickets for the last of the ‘timed’ tours of the house which starts at 2.30 tomorrow afternoon. Hence the lunchtime meal  of risotto which can be prepared quickly, consumed quickly  and we can be on way for our afternoon visit. On my way back from my Pilates class, I popped into Asda to get a few things that I know we need and I may well get up early in the morning to do a more regular weekly shop up before our guest arrives. After a delayed lunch and a quick doze, it was time to get some jobs done before tomorrow. The first of these was to get our gooseberries picked before they dropped off the bush. Our gooseberry bushes were quite prolific at one time but their productivity has dropped off a bit and I suspect that the long straggly branches could do with a dramatic pruning which I shall do shortly now that the fruit has been picked. Altogether, I picked 145 gooseberries which gave me  about 650 (two thirds of a kilo) of fruit. Tomorrow, I will stew some of them in a little sugar and although they may be a little tart, the taste of freshly picked gooseberrries is always superb. We will eat them with a dollop of raspberry icecream and some plain yogurt. Then there was dead shrub which needed removing and cutting up for disposal into our garden waste bin. Then I needed to tie up a large branch of one of our very old damson trees which is laden with fruit and well worth preserving but the branch still needed hoisting back into position where it does not  block one of our paths. Finally, I chopped a large chunk out of my neighnours Alchemilla which had started off in our garden but an offshoot of which had been donated to my neighbour’s garden whilst its parent in our garden (donated by our University of Winchester friend on a previous visit) had died.

Today turned out to be one those frustrating days which will be familiar to most of us. In getting my broadband upgraded to ‘Super Fast Fibre’ for the same price that I am paying at the moment, BT OpenReach came to survey the roadways from our property to the BT junction box near the distributor road  which our own (private) residential road joins. The OpenReach team had found a problem which was not uncommon that they could pass a cable so far and no further so they reckoned that their ducting near to a neighbour’s fence was blocked. The BT staff reckoned that this was happening all the time and was quite a common problem. When a concrete fence post is driven in, then the BT ducting is often damaged and when concrete is poured in for the fence post, some enters the ducting, solidifies and a blockage ensues. BT sent out a civil engineering team some days later and they managed to clear the blockages and put a piece of rope through the ducting all the way from the BT junction area to the access point at the side of my house. Today, we were expecting an OpenSource engineer to call and install the fibre optic cable into the house attaching to a new router in the process. According to our calendar, we were expecting the engineer at any time betweem 8.00am and 1.00am but as nobody had turned up by about 11.00am, I started to get suspicious. So I phoned up my internet supplier who could find no record of today as an installation date even though I had been told of today’s date over the phone and had written it onto my calendar. After hurried consultations a date in about 9 days time was specified as the ‘correct’ date so we will just have to sit tight until that happens.  I am sure I am not the first person, or the last, to have waited in all morning for somebody not to turn up. I had made the best of a bad job by getting my accounts up-to-date and ordering a big new ledger book for myself as my existing one is practically full. When I knew that no one was now calling at the house, I made a quick visit into town by car and picked up the newspaper and then into Waitrose for some vital things (such as milk) of which we had completely run out.  This afternoon, the weather was set fair so I toddled around the garden getting some things tidied up before our visitor stays with us for a few days arriving on Wednesday.

Another Boris scandal is in the offing today.  Downing Street has confirmed it was in conversation with The Times around the time the newspaper dropped a report claiming Boris Johnson tried to appoint his now wife to a government role when he was foreign secretary. In a story published in the first edition on Friday night, the paper reported that Mr Johnson attempted to hire Carrie Johnson, then Carrie Symonds, as his chief of staff at the Foreign Office in 2018. But after a telephone call to The Times, it appears that the story was pulled. So it seems that Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary attempted to have his then girlfriend made into his own ‘Chief of Staff’ which does reek of nepotism. It is reported that the post would have attracted a salary of £100,000 but Boris Johnson was given advice to the effect that this kind of appoitment should not go ahead. To compound this story, than any adverse criticism of this manouvre was then stifled by getting the story pulled from ‘The Times‘. I suppose these dodgy dealings are par from the course and may be common place in the vista of politics today but it does make the action of government ministers appear decidedly sleazy if not outright corrupt.

The media this evening is full of the  speculation that after the RMT strike actions later on this week, there is quite a large queue of public seector workers who will also shortly be pressing claims for substantial pay increases. At the moment, the list included teachers, nurses and other NHS staff. In case this sounds like a uniquely UK problem, nothing could be further from the truth. In Eire and many other EU countries, public sector workers who have had their wages held down throughout the days of the pandemic and are now faced  with rising rates of inflation which means that their real wages are, in effect, being cut and they are on the march. There is some talk of conditions approaching a general strike but certainly the discontent is very widespread.

If you thought that Brish politics was fractured, then it is even more so the case in France. In the French Parliamentary elections, Macron needed to to get 289 votes for a majority but only secured 245. A coalition on the left secured 131 votes whilst the combined right is 89. In other words, Macron has almost as many deputies ranged against him as his own deputies but that they are split between left and right who will not collaborate. So France will be entering a very unstable period for the months ahead. 

It is part of my normal Sunday routine that I get up early and then walk down to town to collect my Sunday newspaper. It had rained heavily yesterday and evidently the rain had dislodged some of the moss on my roof which I was anxious to remove from our newly restored patio. As I was sweeping the path near to our back gate, I heard a familiar rustling sound and, sure enough, it was Miggles (our adopted cat) who upon hearing the sound of the sweeping decided it was time to pay me a visit. Mind you, it not my company that he/she seeks but a little dish of premium cat food which is always forthcoming. I thought that the cat had showed a degree of prescience to associated the noise of my sweeping to the fact that food was in the offing. Once we had viewed the early morning politics program, Meg and I decided to go down into town by car as the weather looked a little indeterminate and we did not particularly want to get caught in a shower. So we made our way to our normal bench and wondered if we coincide with any of our park regulars. In the event, we did not, so we decided to walk in the region of the cafe to see of any regulars were having coffee in the park’s own coffee bar. Again, we were not in luck but as we walked back to our car in the top car park, we noticed that a huge branch of a weeping willow that must have been a foot in diameter had been wrenched off by the wind and had completely broken off. I imagine that it will some time with a chainsaw to chop it up into smaller pieces and do whatever is done with the timber from fallen branches. It rather reminded me of the occasion when we motoring in mid-Wales and on approaching Betws-y-Coed we were only a minute or so away from being at the receiving end of a falling tree with which fortunately we did not get entangled. And so it was home for a Sunday lunch that was rustled up from bits and pieces that we had in the fridge and the freezer but nonetheless gave us a tasty meal.

Last night, we promised ourselves that we would treat ourselves to an opera, courtesy of YouTube on the TV. But we started off with a frustrating period when our access to anything on the net was met with the informative message ‘You are not connected to a network’ or similar. I think, but am not sure, that I had activated a ‘Reset’  button but nothing seemed to happen for quite some time. Then, in about 10 minutes, the system indicated that it had made an internet connection so we pressed ahead and found a copy of La Bohème featuring Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni. The singing was of quite a high order although both singers looked as though they were in the mid-to-late stages of their careers. We got subtitles in Italian which was a little interesting in itself as you could match up the words coming out of the singer’s mouth with the actual text. Fortunately, this opera is not exceedingly long so it meant that Meg and I could crawl into our beds at a reasonable time.

The political story which is going to dominate the headlines for the next few days, or at least until  the results of Thursdays by-elections are known, are the three days of strikes timetabled for later on this week. About half of the entire rail network will be affected and the strategy of striking for three days in which trains are automatically out of position makes a three day strike into effectively a five day strike. Besides the transport workers, there are many other public sector unions queuing up for what may well be a ‘summer of discontent’ as wages have been ‘restrained’ for so long. But as the pandemic and associated furlough schemes have been wound down,  so a lack of parity is increasingly evident and all of this is before a predicted inflation rate of 11% hits us. Official data show annual growth in total average earnings reached a 15-year high of 6.2 per cent in the private sector in the first three months of 2022 — while falling to a five-year low of 1.9 per cent in the public sector. There are some indications that both unions and government are itching for a fight. From the government’s perspective, it is quite easy to demonise union leaders and to mobilise public opinion against the strikes. In a week when the government might appear to be on the back foot before voters go to the polls on Thursday, then the government must think of a strike as like manna from heaven. On the other hand, with so many public sector workers in the queue whose wages have been less than the inflation rate for years giving a real-terms pay cut, then the government must feel that it cannot afford to cede an inch to the transport workers. As the strike continues without a resolution, so the government must feel it is quite content to let it run and run if it delivers political advantages for them.

Today is the day when we return home from our mini-break holiday in Chester. Instead of bothering to do any packing last night, I reckoned it is so much easier to pack up when you are coming home rather than planning your outward trip – after all, everything in the romm is to be packed up or thrown away. We got up at 6.15 and basically we were all done and ready to go down for breakfast by 8.00am. We enjoyed our last breakfast as indeed we have enjoyed our previous two but today we felt the need to supply ourselves with a few comestibles for a little break half way though the journey. I made a couple of trips to the self-service coffee machine to fill up our flask and managed to snaffle a few little pastry type things plus a banana which all fitted beautifully into our little jute bag which had been so kindly donated to us yesterday. This little bag is going to be so useful to us when we have little breaks away that I have ensured that it is packed away into our normal ‘going away’ suitcase so that we wil always have it to hand. By the time we had breakfasted and checked out, it was a few minutes before 9.00am so we were pleased to make a prompt start. The first part of the journey was rain-free but the little splatters of rain become heavier and heavier so the second half of the journey was a wet affair.  We were in a bit of a dilemma where to have our mid-journey break because we did not really want to pull off at Shrewsbury services, which is a halfway point in the journey. So we were determined to find a convenient layby just short of the M54 motorway where evidently stopping for any purpose is not allowed. What we found interesting was that just before the clearway section at the end of the dual carriage way, there seemed to be several lay-by areas provided within the last mile or so. Thinking about, the road layout designers must have appreciated that people would want to stop for a variety of reasons before they eentered the M54-M6-M5 motorways network and hence we found about three substantial lay-bys provided within about a mile. Evidently, I have never thought about this before but it worked out really well for us. We availed ourselves of one of the lay-bys some five miles short of the M54 network which had the added bonus that a really colossal refuse bin had been provided for the disposal of travellers’ waste. As we were making good time, we popped by the newsagents so that I could pick up today’s newspaper before we arrived home.

The day was pretty humid and muggy when we got home so we dined on some icecream followed by cheese and biscuits which was more than adequate for us in the middle of the day. Then in a bustle of activity, I made sure that all of our holiday washing was put through the washing machine and dryer before being all put away.  We got out suitcases fuly unpacked and their contents restored to their ‘normal’ homes because, as well as clothes, we always have some items which are useful to us like teabags, a supply of plastic sacks, a range of cosmetics and medicaments and so on. It was very satisfying to get all of these put away before we settled down to a lesiurely read of the newspapers before we get ourselves prepared for chuch when we leave the house at 5.30. It is just as well that we got ourselves sorted and organised today as next week will prove to be quite busy for us. On Monday our broadband is due to be upgraded and on Tuesday, in addituon to my Pilates class we have made an arrangement to see our our pre-pandemic Waitrose freinds but in the park (weather permitting). On Wednesday, our University of Winchester colleague will be arriving for a couple of days stay but we have already got planned out a little priogram of activities to keep us all entertained.

Of course, the big event (in my calendar) next week is going to be the result of the two by elections to be held on Thursday. Wakefield looks a foregone conclusion but Tiverton and Honiton, a Devon rural seat, looks much more 50:50. There seems to be a summer spike of COVID hitting us shortly as the number of infections has risen by 43% in a single week. It looks as though the latest variants of the virus are less severe but more trasnmissible and with the virtual ending of ‘Test-and-trace’ how many of us are walking around and unintentionally infecting others? To be pessimistic, I suspect that we might get hit by something nasty in the autumn and winter months as we may have relaxed our guide far too early. Some commentators are blaming all the Jubilee get togethers for this rapid rise but who can tell?

Friday was the day when we had planned to visit Chester without any other obligations and we were not to be disappointed. We had another marvellous breakfast at our leisure and then set off for Chester, making for the ‘Park and Ride’ system on the outskirts of Chester. This really could not have been more straightforward – we entered  £4 into a machine to give us two inward and two outbound journeys and set off within about two minutes after boarding the bus. The journey into Chester is really quite interesting and we looked at the new building that had evidently been taking place since we last made this journey over some two years ago. But we trod a familiar route, visiting a cafe that we know well which is just inside the Roman walls where we had a coffee and some toasted fruitcake. Then we walked on down to town and made for an Italian restaurant – Sergios – which we know is immediately adjacent to the cathedral. We then did a tour of some of the ancient streets, doing some shopping for a few items as we progressed. But by this time, the sun was getting pretty high and so we were relieved to seek some solice in the cathedral. We particularly like Chester cathedral because unlike many Anglican cathedrals, it is not adorned with too much 18th and 19th century militaria – the military plaques that are displayed are relatively unostentatious and often quite interesting. We eventually found our way to a little chapel that seemed to be dedicated to the Ukraine. There was certainly a classical Byzantine Madonna on display, plus a statue and a crucifix that could have been of Ukrainian origin but there was a map of the Ukraine – evidently not of recent origin – where of course one could recognise many of the place names on it. We lit some candles in remembrance of some of our dear departed relatives. As we were leaving, it was quite touching to see that there were a plethora of Ukrainian ribbons tied onto the railings complete with a collection of little tapestries, many of them with appropiate homilies written and embroidered onto them. One typical example was ‘Albert Einstein was a refugee‘ which gives you a flavour of the type of homilies that were displayed.

Just after 1.00pm we strolled into our by now favourite Italian restaurant and immediately rewarded ourselves by sinking some cool Peroni (Italian) beer. We wanted to eat something that we wouldn’t necessarily have at home and having eaten some very filling pasta and risotto yesterday (which we enjoyed but didn’t quite finish) we decided to vary our choices. We started off with two different starters – a Funghi (mushrooms) for Meg and a stuffed Zucchini for myself. This we intended to share after we had eaten about half each which we often do. Then the menu had on offer a speciality Zuppa di Pesce  which is Italian Fish and Seafood Stew and we asked that we be served with just one portion of this but to be shared between the two of us. This the restaurant did and we both had a wonderful gastronomic experience without feeling over full or bloated at the end of it all. But we had an expected bonus as it transpired that at least three of the staff happened to be Spanish rather than Italian. So we chatted with one waiter who was from Malaga (in Andalucia) and another who hailed from Asturias in the north. Taking one thing with another, the food we were having, the conversations we were having and the whole ambience of the restaurant made us feel as though we were in Spain without being in Spain.

After lunch we made our way through sunny streets to the bus station where we caught the coach taking us to the Park and Ride. When we got back to the hotel, we are were feeling rather hot and thirsty so, rather unusually for us, decided to have a drink of lager in the hotel bar in order to cool off more than anything else. As we were leaving, we entered into a conversation with one of the hotel’s managerial staff asking her, as we often do these days, where she hailed from. She was Romanian and we chatted about when we had heard Romanian spoken on the TV, we were surprised that we could understand a fair proportion of it. The manageress explained how Romanian was one of the most latinate of languages being one of the first territories in the Roman conquests – it’s all in the name, after all. She herself had worked for three years in Rome and told us her Italian was better than her Romanian. She had also worked in the Italian restaurant in which we had just dined. So this was quite a fascinating little conversation. Whilst in our hotel bedroom and  before we start to think about packing, we discovered No. 10 had informed the Northern group of Tory MPs who were having a major ‘red wall’ regional conference that Boris Johnson was on a train to see them whereas in practice he was on a plane visiting Kyiv in the Ukraine. Some commentators have wryly pointed out that Boris Johnson would have a much friendlier welcome in the Ukraine than he would in the North of England – is this a sign that he knows that the Wakefield by-election next Thursday is irrevocably lost?