Today was the type of day that I would describe as ‘glowering’ in that it was generally overcast with just some slight bursts of sunshine that did not seem to last very long. But there seemed to be a very strong and blustery wind which made any kind to the park an unpleasant prospect. We were a little late this morning because, as is normal on a Thursday, I had got to the supermarket to go shopping and all of this worked out as planned. One of the joys of Aldi is that after the food shopping has been done, there are always the ‘central aisles’ in which there are a variety of household and hardware type goods (probably remainders from high quality manufacturers) in which you are never quite sure whether you find something useful. Last week, for example, I bought from the central aisle one of those incredibly useful garden ‘Flexi Tubs’ as Amazon calls them – needless to say, they had practically all gone by today which is typical for incredibly good bargains which shoppers are wont to snap up. Today, I was wondering whether it was possible to buy some more pyjamas for Meg as the ones we bought about a month ago have proved to be excellent. Today, though, I picked up what is advertised as a children’s ‘athlete’ suit  and looking at the size of the garment which would fit a 13-14 year old child, I was sure they would double as an extra pair of pyjamas for Meg. So I took a chance and bought them and they have proved to be an excellent purchase insofar as we can tell – let’s hope that they survive their first immersion in the washing machine without shrinkage tomorrow morning. After we had unpacked the shopping, neither Meg nor I felt inclined to go on a trip to Droitwich as it was so windy and unpleasant. Instead, we went by car and treated ourselves to a coffee in the newly opened coffee lounge in our local Waitrose we have now started to frequent once more. I bought a few things I had forgotten in the morning shop and then it was home for a lunch of quiche.  

Friday (tomorrow) is the day when I routinely cut our grassed areas, both the communal areas to the front of the house and our own private lawns to the rear. Whulst my trusty ‘Stiga’ (Swedish) mulching mower does a wonderful job, I also bought some years back an extremely light weight push mower (about 7 kg in total). As well as being a backup in the case of a total failure of the petrol mower, I have in the past used my lightweight push mower to cut one of the long borders which can prove tricky when two of the wheels are on the grass and the other two overhang the edge. I have been doing some research on the exact differences between conventional rotary mowers  and the new generation of  lightweight push mowers and this is what I have discovered (from the web) A reel ( or push) mower cuts grass like a pair of scissors. It has blades that spin around a central axis. The spinning blades create an updraft that causes grass to stand up straight for cutting. As the grass meets the cutting bar, a blade comes down to chop it. A reel mower can either be a push (human-powered) or powered (petrol, electric), although push reel mowers are more common around home.  A rotary mower is what most people think of when they think of petrol or electric mowers. It has a single blade that spins around to cut the grass, like a helicopter. The blade whacks at the grass to cut it. When it comes to comparing the actions of these two types of mower at the ‘micro’ level, then the push reel mowers literally cut the blades of grass whereas the rotary mowers just whack it, by rotating a blade at high speed. A ‘clean cut’ is undoubtedly better for the grass than just a ‘whack’.  When I come to clean up the push mower, I appreciate how very sharp the blades actually are and if the mower is properly adjusted (which mine appears to be) then you can actually cut one sheet of paper as though you were cutting it with scissors if it is inserted at the appropriate point between the spinning blade and the base blade. So overall, I was very pleased with my ‘pre-preparation’ of the lawn this afternoon and hope that I can continue to repeat this procedure week by week, time and weather permitting of course.

I have just watched the Sky News interview of Putin’s press spokesperson with Mark Austin and, of course, it is incredible to watch a Russian spokesman so wrapped into their ideological world that they are trying to argue that Ukrainian actors played the part of dead people whilst the Russians were busy patrolling the streets – according to the Russian account, Ukrainian ‘Nazis’ have committed all of the atrocities in the Ukraine. Meanwhile, some breaking news is that the UN General Assembly has just voted to suspend Russia from UN Human Rights Council.  

Today was to all intents and purposes the typical April day with many showers followed by bursts of sunshine. In view of the variable weather conditions, Meg and I decided that we would pay our visit down into Bromsgrove by car. On our way down, we popped off a new wire brush for the benefit of our friend who  was busy restoring one of the pair of flower stands that adorns our local church. Most churches, irrespective of denomination involved, tend to be a blaze of spring flowers with which to adorn the church over Easter and this year, Easter Sunday falls on one of the latest dates possible. Having collected our newspaper, we then paid a visit to Waitrose and, in particular, which has just re-opened fully after bing closed for the best of two years (to be fair, it did open  for a short period in between lockdowns) But now it seems to be one of the few cafes in the Waitrose network that has been reprieved. We were pleasantly surprised  to see the cafe was practically full and we got the last available table. By happy chance, on the next door was our old park friend, Seasoned World Traveller, so we had a fascinating conversation over a whole range of subjects – we spent a good half an hour and perhaps even more in the most conducive of surroundings. Neither of us would have appreciated being rained upon in the park so it was wonderful to be back. One of the staff who knows us particularly well gave us a little ‘Welcome Back‘ present of one of the small Waitrose hessian bags which will prove tremedously useful to us as it just the right size to accommodate our newspapers and one or two small items of shopping. Then we returned home and had extensive chats with our domestic help who has swopped her normal Friday day for today. She and her husband are due to go off to Venice shortly to enjoy a delayed wedding anniversary trip – as they actually got married in Venice, they are hoping to retrace some of their steps and experiences from their wedding/honeymoon days. We are hopeful that they will get away in time as I have just read in The Times that there has been chaos at Manchester Airport with the director resigning and walking out in the midst of airport chaos and the police are having to step in to restore a modicum of order. But as our friends are leaving from Bristol airport and not one of the large metropolitan ones, and so perhaps the omens are set fair for an uneventful trip. We have promised some interesting photos once they are safely there.

This afternoon I thought I would pop out do a bit of gardening, but everytime I was thinking about it, there seemed to be an imminent shower and the subsequent sunshine did not last for very long. Eventually, I decided that even if the sun was shining, the gound was likely to be soggy or even downright muddy so I decided to write off all thoughts of gardening for the day.

The latest Omicron virus figures are hgher than ever and the latest rates show that 1 in every 16 people in the country are infected by the virus. The infection is by the mildest version and some peopke have no symptoms or just the slightest sniffle to indicate that they have the virus. Evidently, we are in the phase of the pandemic where we are ‘learning to live’ with the virus but to withdraw the free availability of  the lateral flow tests appears to be premature by at least a couple of weeks. Whilst the economy can still function as barely infectious personnel resume their work roles, the possibilities seem to be immense that a new variant might well arise. There is no law of biological viral evolution that indicates that one mutation of the virus should prove to be less dangerous i.e. able to generate a severe illness, than another. Therefore it is quite possible that we are living in a ‘fool’s paradise’ and another variant of the virus might be around the corner to bite us severely in the behind.

Tomorrow, whilst it is our normal shopping day, we may take the opportunity to make another little visit to Droitwich is about some seven miles away from us. Droitwich has several attractions for us, not least the Waitrose and Wilko stores both of which we like to visit but also some congenial coffee shops and interesting charity shops.  There is also an ‘Olde Worlde’ type teashop which every Thursday puts on a magnificent roast dinner – these are so popular that space is limited and one has to book to ensure a chance of a meal. So we shall see how we feel in the morning but Droitwich is always a pleasant little toddle for us and has the advantage of being quite compact which cuts down on the amount of walking that Meg has to do.

Tuesday is my Pilates day so we always have a somewhat earlier routine on a Tuesday. Nonetheless, we made a fairly early start walking down to the park a little earlier. I had previously picked up our newspaper in the car as well as some milk from Waitrose so Meg and I had a leisurely walk in the sunshine but with a little cooling wind. In the park we met up with our octogenarian intrepid hiker who, according to his trekking routine, is half way up or down the Grand Canyon in his latest app which simulates his walk for him (all organised by his medic daughter-in-law) On our way back home, we were a little delayed by bumping into some of our church friends who we have not seen for about a week or so. We were delighted to chat over gardening related things but we had to take our leave fairly quickly in order to effect my quick Pilates turn around. After my Pilates session and a traditional (for us) lunchtime of haddock fish cakes,  we idly wondered if there was anything remotely interesting on the TV. We noticed that there was a going to be a showing of Peter Sellars in ‘The Pink Panther‘ and although I watched the first 20 minutes or so of it, I found it strangely unfunny after all of these years. So I engaged in a little cleaning job which was a little irksome for me. This morning, I had delivered my high quality long-handled patio weeding knife. But when I took off the tightly wrapped black plastic wrapping, there were some strange black marks that spoilt the appearance of the otherwise beautiful ash handle. Whether this was a result of the manufacturing process, or the wrapping or even the transportation who can say, but it was not very pleasant to take delivery of a new item which you immediately have to clean. I used some cream cleaner and I  thought the stains would be surface deep and easy to remove but that was not the case. Afterwards, I treated the shaft with some teak oil to preserve its natural sheen and then a WD-40 treatment of the cutting edge so presuming we have a fine day next Friday, I can then put it to its first use. In the late afternoon, we were due to FaceTime some of our old Waitrose friends but we got some messages to the effect that they had contracted COVID – so we sent them our good wishes and trust that as they are quite well vaccinated-up then any affliction might only be a short-lived one.

The news from Bucha, the town in the Ukraine now abandoned by the Russians, is truly horrifying. It now looks as though victims were tortured whilst some had limbs hacked off. Several corpses with bound hands and feet and then signs of fatal bullet wounds to the head and chest have been discovered. The Russians, for their part, have been showing the images of the bodies lying in the streets of Bucha but with the caption ‘Fake News‘ in bold red type all over the images. The Russians are claiming that the ‘bodies’ were just actors who were ‘playing dead’ and had simulated wounds cosmetically applied to them as part of a Ukrainian propaganda push. However, this claim is easily shown to be the nonsense that it is because the West had access to satellite photos showing bodies lying around in the streets for days, and perhaps even weeks, well before  the Russians departed. All wars exhibit some elements of depravity but these must rank high in the annals of atrocities once the final story is told.

We were having an interesting discussion in the park the other day whether Putin suffers from the ‘little man’ or ‘Napoleon’ complex i.e. the theory that leaders of less than average stature are unduly aggressive in their behaviour patterns. There are several problems with this popular analysis. Whilst it is true that most political leaders tend to be of more than average height,  the likes of Putin may be relatively smaller than the average leader but not necessarily markedly different from the rest of the population. Putin, for example, is 5’7″ which does not make him of incredibly short stature. It could be argued that the relative absence of height has marked psychological correlates (including the need to achieve, for example) but all of these explanations are a little too simplistic. There used to be a parallel argument about the effects of an extra ‘Y’ chromosome and criminality but all of these types of arguments suffer from the same fundamental logical flaw. That is there may be an equal proportion of leaders of less than average stature/men with an extra ‘Y’ chromosome that do not exhibit any particular behaviour patterns. In fact, multiple regression analysis tends to show that many of the attributed effects of an extra ‘Y’ chromosome can be attributed to a lowered intelligence level. So perhaps that puts all of those types of argument to bed for the time being.  

Meg and I both slept in this morning for a reason we cannot discern – after our early morning cup of tea, we both fell asleep again for about three quarters of an hour. I tell myself we must have both needed the sleep. The day opened as a ‘grizzly’ kind of day with a sort of sky I would describe as ‘glowering’. Meg was not feeling too well this morning so after our cooked breakfast, I walked down to collect the newspaper on my own. Afterwards, I took the opportunity to pop into Waitrose because there were several things that we can only buy at Waitrose so we have to do without until I make a special trip. So I lugged a bag of fairly heavy shopping up the hill and was pleased to get home and have a nice, but delayed, cup of coffee. As I have almost finished my big edging job, I am motivated to keep this edge to the lawn in good condition so I went on the web and treated myself to what is described as ‘Long handled patio weeding knife’. Although I could have bought cheaper I ensured that I bought myself with a long handle (160cm), from a recognised make (Kent and Stowe) and with a warranty that they say lasts for 10 years. The point about the long handle is that I know from experience you get a lot of leverage and it saves a lot of back-bending – I am hopeful that because of its design and quality, all I have to do on a weekly or fortnightly routine is to pull the knife immediately adjacent to the kerbing and I should be able to maintain the edge in pristine condition right throughout the growing season. I started to wonder whether I had any tools that would assist me in this task and I knew that several years ago, frustrated by several long handled tools that keep falling over in the box in the garage in which they were located. I had bundled several of these tools toegther with some tree ties and generally forgot about them. When I examined this bundle again this morning, I discovered a wonderful implement I never knew I had. I have no idea what this kind of implement is called but from a basic ‘L’ shape there is the equivalent of a half circle removed (approximately orange size) but with a sharp edge. I suspect that this implement is designed to pull through the ground and to slice through small but hidden roots but this is only a conjecture. I took this newly discovered implement and together with a small, liberated hoe and my trusty garden edge shears I gave them all a good cleanup with a brillo pad, then an oiling with WD-40 type oil to keep rust at bay and finally gave them all on a sharpen using a Spear and Jackson ‘5-in-1’ blade garden blade sharpening tool. This latter even had a tiny phial of a specialised rust-resisting oil complete with applicator sponge that resides within the body of the tool itself and is accessed by a plastic screw. I think the idea is that any tiny shards of metal created by the sharpening process can be wiped away and the oil keeps your tool in a rust free condition.  

Whilst thinking about keeping my tools in good conditiion, I reminded myself when I used to teach Sociology to College of Education students from 1969-1971. As it transpired, lecturing was quite a disconcerting experience for me as I  taught in the college’s one tiered lecture theatre in which even the first row was a step above ground level. This was the hey-dey of the miniskirt and every single teenage girl wore one – but what was especially disconcerting was that as each girl occupied a seat and then crossed her legs (which they all seemed to do) then by looking straight ahead of me I could see the colour of each pair of knickers all across the front row. It is slightly difficult to explain Marx’s theory of dialectic materialism when faced with this distraction. On one occasion, I was letting a bit of social anthropology creep into a lecture and was desperate to avoid the use of the use of words ‘tool’. Eventually hesitating when I wanted to use the word and substituting ‘implement’ or a similar synonym my mind raced ahead of me and I thought that I had better grasp the bull by the horns as it were. So I thought I had better say the word ‘tool’ at some point – what came out ‘And so there is a general cultural prohibition of handling the tools of the opposite sex’. I may have giggled or smiled just after I said it, but what ensued was a pandemonium of laughter from which it took minutes to recover.  

On a more serious note, I did finish all of my edging including cutting the grass back from two access manhole covers associated with our BioDisk system which I need to keep clear of grass and weeds in case the maintenance engineer needs to lift either of these covers to inspect the correct workings of the system.

Today was one of those bright and clear days when it had evidently been very cold overnight and there had been an air frost overnight. So it was reasonably cold when I popped down to get our Sunday newspaper before returning home in time for the Sunday politics programme. I understand that Laura Kuenssberg, the ex-chief BBC political correspondent is going to take over as the permanent presenter of this programme now that Andrew Marr has moved on. So I suppose we will have to get used to a series of political interviews in which punches get pulled and really penetrating questions are avoided. Those who do ask penetrating questions like Emma Barnett tend to get moved on. After breakfast, we decided to take the car down to the park and in the park we met with our Irish friends (who we happened to have a chat with yesterday) Having exchanged our news, we strolled up to our normal bench and drank our coffee. Then our two park friends, University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller, hove into view and we chatted exchanging news of the week (usually a comibination of COVID news, interspersed with politics) We were joined by another couple we know well and then we made our way home for Sunday lunch. Today, I was cooking a gammon joint oin the slow cooker and to complement this I prepared a carrot-and-parsnip mixture, mashed with a big knob of butter and a touch of yogurt and this all got served with some tender-stem broccoli. So although Sunday lunch always takes a little longer to prepare, we tend to take whatever joint we are having and to freeze one half of it. This way, we consume enough ‘red meat’ to keep us healthy but we keep our overall consumption within healthy limits.

After lunch, I was determined to get out and carry on with a little bit of gardening. In particular, I wanted to do another section of the lawn edging of the communal green area alongside which runs our communal roadway. The lawn edging is quite a complicated procedure and involves taking a six feet section, edging with lawn sheers, using a specialist edging tool on the ‘lawn side’ to cut off any deep roots, then utilising an old bread knife that I have saved for this particular purpose and finishing off with one of those more specialist tools used to weed in between the stones of a patio. I then finish off with the edging sheers at an almost horizontal angle and finally all of the grass cuttings are gathered up with a gloved hand. In case this sounds complicated, it is but then I tend to develop these techniques and ways of utilising my hand tools but then I forget the procedures if I have not utiised them for a year or so. In such cases, I need to do what I do when I have discovered how to do something on the computer and that is to write it down so I don’t forget it, in a specialised ‘Gardening’ book I keep for the purpose. Once I have got things put right for the season, it tends to require relatively little maintenance – tomorrow, I have the final third of the entire length to finish off.  

The news from the Ukraine is particularly grim this evening. Images have emerged of Ukrainian civilians lying dead on the streets of Bucha with residents saying the victims were killed by Russian soldiers without any apparent provocation. Vladimir Putin’s forces have been accused of ‘genocide’, but Russia has denied its troops killed civilians. Bucha’s mayor, Anatoliy Fedoruk, said more than 300 residents had been killed. Ukrainian prosecutors have found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv and 140 of them had been examined, prosecutor general Iryna Venedyktova said. Reports have indicated that some bodies have been found in which the vistims were bound hand and foot and they were then shot in the back of the head. This is undoubtedly a ‘war crime’ but who exactly gets prosecuted under these circumstances – can individuals be sought out and identified in the chain of command who could eventually be prosecuted? A lot of evidence is currently being collected to be used in evental war crime charges but I fear that it may take years (if ever) for a successful prosecution.

It seemed quite a bright and cheerful day today and we were in a good mood as we contemplated the rest of the weekend. As we were having breakfast, we turned on ClassicFM on the kitchen radio, which is quite normal for us, but when it came to a ‘tumpty-tum’ type of Strausss walz which is not really our cup of tea, we flipped onto Radio 3. Quite by accident, we landed on a programme which, first thing on a Saturday morning, is called ‘Record Review‘ (I think) The musiciologists were discussing what they considered to be some of the finest recent recordings of Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’ which, as it happens, is probably our favourite opera.This programme turned out to be absolutely facinating because they were taking each of the individual aria, discussing its context and then playing what they thought was the finest of the recent recordings. As we know the opera very well, it was an extraordinarily good listen to experience the dissection of each aria by the musicologists  and we listened in rapt attention until the program concluded. So this was a bonus way to start the day.  By this time, we were a little late so Meg and I went to collect the newspaper by car. Then we parked in the bottom carpark in the park which meant that we were allowing ourselves a much longer walk around the lake. We had our normal coffee and comestibles and then, on the way home, we parked for a minute outside the house of our Irish friends. We were soon spotted and then the four of us had a brief chat to catch up on the week’s news and our various comings and goings. We got back to the house just in time for the 1.00pm news on Radio 4 which on a Saturday is always followed by ‘Any Questions‘.  There was an interesting discussion amongst the panellists (followed up by the subsequent programme which is ‘Any Answers’) dominated by the two big issues of the day, namely the cost of living crisis on the one hand, followed by the bureaucracy concerning the issue of visas to Ukrainian refugees on the other.

This afternoon, I had set myself to at least make a start on a little gardening job. This is to edge and neaten up the edge of our communal green area which borders our access road. I know there are 20 yards of this as evidently when the roadway was laid down, measures were still in feet and yards (and not metric) as each kerb stone is 36″ long. I managed to achieve about a third of the total this afternoon. The task is not as simple as it sounds as I like to ensure that the grass abuts and does hang over the kerbstone so this generally involves using a succession of implements in a sequence such as an edging tool, conventional edge clippers and even a knife which is run down the inside of the kerbstones. Once it has been done for the season, it should be relatively easy to keep it in good conditiuon, but as always, the first cut of the spring is always the worst.  When I had finished this, I was going to give myself a treat which is to watch the Wales vs. Scotland Women’s Six-Nations rugby. In th first half, the Scots were dominant with a lot of possession and some really fast line speeds. But in the second half the positions completely reversed themselves. About 5 minutes from the end, the scores were tied and then the Welsh scored a try which they converted. But then the Scots came back hard and were within an ace of scoring a try after the clock had gone red  but a ‘play’ was still in process. All ended in tears for the Scots when a pass went forward but it was one of those matches that could have ended in a tie, or a Welsh win, all the way to the final whistle.

There seems to be a lot going on for the Sunday newspapers to get their teeth into tomorrow. On the Ukraine front, it looks as about 30 areas around Kviv have been recaptured by the Ukrainians. A Red Cross convoy is still attempting a mass evacuation from Mariupol but whether they will be successful is too early to say. A Tory MP has had the whip withdrawn for ‘inappropriate behaviour” and Rishi Sunak is having to defnd his wife’s massive investments in Russia. Partygate rumbles on – but will the press manage to discover any of the identities of the Downing Street  staff who have fined? Meanwhile, people are taking to the street in many of our major cities whilst the citizenry protests against crippling cost-of-living increases. Tomorrow may well prove to be a good read if any of our press get their teeth into any or all of these stories – but it won’t be the first time that the Sunday press fails give the issues the coverage that they deserve.

Today is the day when traditionally schoolchildren, as well as others, used to play ‘April Fool’s‘ tricks upon each other.  I get the feeling that this is done far less than used to be the case in the past but I am reminded of one of the greatest hoaxes of all time. The authoritative BBC current affairs was Panorama and they always chose a subject for the program of great topical interest.  The presenter was the eminent broadcaster, Richard Dimbleby, who added a great air of authority to whatever he did. The 1st April, 1957 fell on a Monday and this was a Panorama broadcast day. From somewhere came the idea that Richard Dimbleby would do a report on gathering in the spaghetti harvest from a field full of spaghetti trees. The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools’ Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs programme Panorama, purportedly showing a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family ‘spaghetti tree’. At the time spaghetti was relatively unknown in the UK, so many British people were unaware that it is made from wheat flour and water; a number of viewers afterwards contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. Decades later, CNN called this broadcast ‘the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled’. No doubt, this can be viewed on YouTube to see a clip of the full story but many, many people were convinced for years afterwards that spaghetti grew on trees.

Today the weather was as variable as yesterday although just a tad warmer, as the wind was a little less cutting. In view of the very changeable weather conditions, I collected the newspaper by car and then Meg and I went down to the park by car rather than our usual walk. This was just as well because having had our coffee on the usual bench, it was no weather to be sitting about and the park was practically deserted in any case. So we got home to cook a traditional Friday midday meal. This week I had bought some smoked hake from Aldi last Thursday and preparation and cooking was minimal as all that was required was to wrap the fish in tinfoil and then bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes. This turned out to be absolutely delicious – I served the fish with a knob of butter and some horseradish sauce – I think I first ate horseradish sauce with smoked meat/fish at a holiday in Austria and it is rather a good combination.  So I am hoping that this will be a regular ‘line’ at Aldi and not just a one-off.

Straight after lunch, it was lawn cutting time. Although the weather seemed OK when I started, some flurries of either sleet or snow threatened but unfortunately these clouds  were quite soon swept aside. The lawn mowing was unproblematic for the second week in a row but the grass is now down to its ‘regular’ height so all I have to do I to keep up a good weekly routine from now until 5th November – my traditional end of the mowing season. After I had finished the routine mowing, I turned my attention to the lightweight handmower I occasionally use instead of the main mower fur cutting edges and tricky areas around trees and shrubs. This particular model had an adjustable little back roller which is adjustable by the means of spring loaded spigots. All was fine at one end but the other was more free floating so I was not sure if a securing bolt had dropped off without my knowledge. I set myself the task of fixing the errant end in a fixed position (as I don’t intend to keep on adjusting it) so this involved hunting threw a tin of old screws to find a screw that would double as a spigot. I managed to find one that was marginally too small in the thread so I improvised by wrapping some back tape round it to make the thread ‘bite’ At this stage, I must say that one man’s ‘bodge up’ is another person’s ‘innovative solution adapting whatever materials one has to hand’.

Tonight there are a variety of report concerning the situation in the Ukraine. One the one hand, it does appear that the Russians are withdrawing troops from around Kyiv and it may well be that they have determined that they cannot, and will not, attempt to take the Ukrainian capital. On the other hand, they are probably concentrating and redeploying their forces in the east of the country in the Donbas region (principally but not excusively Russian speaking). Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross are desperately trying to deliver aid to the southern port city of Mariupol where 5,000 have been killed and 170,000 are still trapped and struggling without food, water, or electricity, according to the mayor. It has failed today but is hoping to organise a convoy of coaches tomorrow (Saturday)

Thursdays are the days when we get up early to go shopping and I was waiting outside the door of the supermarket at a minute or so before 8.00am as planned. Now that I have started (again) to go to this somewhat smaller supermarket, I know where everything is to be found but there are always one or two things we would like to have which are not stocked. One particular ‘treat’ in Aldi once the main food shopping has been done is to wander up and down the cenral aisles which are stocked with a variety of household and gardening type things. Today, I  succumbed to temptation and bought one of those 40 litre garden tubs that are worth their weight in gold when it comes to gardening clearance tasks becasue it minimises the amount of time you are up and down to fill the main gardening compost wheelie bin. When I got home, I checked the price I paid against the price that Amazon is charging and was pleasantly surprised that the Aldi price was about 60% what you pay for an equivalent product from Amazon. What tends to ‘go’ on these tubs are the handles, particularly if you snatch at the handle when full. 

Well, we knew that the weather was going to worsen today and so it did. To be honest, it was not universally bad but one of those days when there is a sharp shower following by an intense burst of sunshine. Knowing how variable the weather is, Meg and I decided to take the option of collecting the newspaper by car, which we did. Then we drove to the top entrance of the park and made our way to our normal bench. Needless to say, the park was bereft of children, dogs, dog walkers and the like and only the most foolhardy of walkers ventured out.  But no sooner had we sat down than we were assailed by an icy blast with a considerable wind chill factor – accordingly, we drank our coffee as quickly as possible and then immediately struck for home. We had a curry meal in the freezer so we supplemented this for our midday meal.

This afternoon, I intended to go out and do a little ‘finishing off’ of the border I had cleared yesterday. No sooner did I look out of the window after lunch, though, but a snow shower hove into view  which was eventually followed by some bright sunshine. So I had to wait until a suitable moment came along when I judged that the showers had now passed us by. What I had in mind to do today was to take yesterday’s border and creae a deep ‘V’-shaped edge to it by taking a spade- full of earth and then throwing it forwards rather than just turning it over. This way, in theory, you  end up with a fairly deep ‘edge’ to the border in which any grass cutting from the lawn shears falls into the ‘base’of the ‘V’ from whence they do not have to be collected but can just be pushed down into the soil by the lawn shears where they will rot. If this sounds complicated, it is because I am always trying to develop techniques which, in the long term will bot save time and does not add unnecessarily to the organic matter to be thrown away. The second little task I did this afternoon was to take a trusted and very light weight push mower and to do the ‘fiddly’ areas around bushes and the border edge itself so that, when I do the main mowing tomorrow, the task will be so much easier. The theory of this is fine if the grass is relatively short (which it is not, just yet) and if the grass is not too wet and ‘clingy’.   As it was, the task proved a little bit harder today than I had bargained for but as a ‘dual-cut’ technique, it seemed to work very well when it was difficult to heave the very heavy battery-driven model of lawn mower I once had through tight and fiddly spaces. I suspect that my task may have been made slightly more difficult becase one of the lightweight mower’s roller adjustment screws seems to have gone AWOL (in other words dropped off) so given a few spare minutes, I shall have to see if this can be fixed somehow.

There is a certain ‘gung-ho!’ atmosphere in the media tonight with reports that the war in the Ukraine may be approaching a turning point as it appears evident that Putin may well have overreached himself. There are multiple stories to the effect that Putin faces a mutinous army and a cadre of officials who dare not speak ‘truth to power’. But I suspect that many of these stories are part of a ‘psychological ops’ campaign by the west. The difficulties in ejecting the Putins of this world from power are immense (think of Robert Mugabwe in Zimbabwe) and I personally think we would all be better off if we were to think of a campaign in the Ukraine which might be a long war of attrition that last months or years rather than weeks.

Today was going to be a day of self-imposed deadlines, as we shall see. There were two factors that governed today, the most important being trying to see if I could get a 36′ foot garden border dug over before the rains took over. But a second deadline, very much associated with Wednesdays, was that it was PMQ’s (Prime Minister’s Questions) at 12.00am today.  So I popped down to get the daily newspaper and made a lightning visit to get some of the things I always seem to run out the day before I go shopping first thing on Thursday morning. Meg and I strolled down to the park where we chatted with some of the regulars (mainly dog walkers). One very persistent dog even insisted on dropping a ball at our feet, desperate for it to be thrown in order that it could be retrieved. When at first we didn’t comply, the dog brought  the ball even nearer to us in case we hadn’t got the hint. Eventually, I succumbed and kicked it away to the dog’s evident delight. Meg and I managed to get home in time for the Boris Johnson show but I honestly wondered why I bothered. As the police had handed out at least 20 ‘Fixed Penalty Notices’ to Downing Street staff, subsequent to their evident ‘partifying’, then there appeared to be an open and shut case of Boris Johnson having lied to (or misled) the House of Commons when last December he had repeatedly denied any illegalities. But somehow the opposition and Keir Starmer never manage to land a particularly telling blow and with 79 MP’s behind him cheering his every utterance, one wonders whether Boris Johnson would be equally successful if he just stood up and answered ‘Blah! Blah! Blah!’ . Even when asked a direct question about his own venality, Boris Johnson does seem to have an ability to return to an ‘ad hominem’ (personal attack) to roars of approval from the benches behind him. It is at times like these that I despair for the democratic process.

Having consulted the weather app on my iPhone, I know that there was a 30% chance of rain by 3.00pm so at about 1.45 I set about my digging task with a vengeance. What was to slow me down somewhat was the fact that I had to contend with several underground tree roots from the hawthorn and the field maple (‘acer campestre‘) so these had to be navigated with a degree of care, just turning over an inch or so of soil when the roots impeded. Needless to say, my work was well supervised by Miggles the cat who first climbed half way up a tree to impress me and then sat impassively at the start of the border just to check that I was doing a good job. I was planning to get finished by 3.00pm this afternoon but the smattering of rain arrived about 15 minutes too early and I had to rather hurry my last 20-30 spadefuls. Nonethess, I was very satisfied to have got the job finished and I am going to wait until we get a burst of late afternoon sunshine (which is not uncommon) to administer a dressing of lime to help to ‘sweeten’ the soil before I contemplate what to do with the border. The way I feel at the moment is that I will let the earth and lime settle a little and will then rake it to a fine tilth. Then I think it is a case of a row of leafbeet, a row of beetroot and a row of leeks, all of which should be quite easy to tend in the weeks ahead.

There is a report circulating this evening, albeit from an American political source with a commensurate ‘spin’ , that ‘ Putin’s military chiefs are too afraid to tell him the truth’. However, it is reported that the Russian leader feels he has been ‘misled’ about the country’s failures on the battlefield in Ukraine. According to the official, information on those losses and the impact of sanctions is not being fed to Mr Putin ‘because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth. We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions, because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth‘  the official said on condition of anonymity. Before we triumphically crow about the superiority of western liberal values, practically the same comments could have been made about ex-President Trump i.e. that none of the Republican Party would tell him to his face that he had substantially lost (rather than won) the presidential election. Perhaps, in bygone days in the USSR when there was a more collectivist rather than individualistic style of leadership, members of the PolitBureau might have been a restraining influence upon Putin. But once a leader in any political system acquires and weilds a tremendous amount of centralised power, it is almost inevitable that alternative and more cautious voices are not heard.

It was another fine day today so I am keen to make progress with the gardening as soon as it can be fitted in. I went off into town to collect the newspaper, which once accomplished, meant that Meg and I could just walk to the park without the additional journey to the newspaper shop for Meg. It was certainly a cooler and more overcast day and we can feel that a change in the weather system is underway. It started to brighten a little half way through the morning so we were pleased to get home in good time so that I could get an hour’s border clearance in before lunch. We had our traditional Tuesday afternoon lunch of fishcakes which were as satisfying as usual and then, after a swift coffee, I was off out again to complete the gardening. I just managed to catch a little snatch of the memorial service for Prince Philip, and although it seemed ‘touch and go’ whether the Queen could make it on this occasion, I was very pleased for her that she managed to do so. The service was cut down to size to make it not too overlong for the monarch and some sensible corners were cut e.g. she entered Westminster Abby through a side door to cut down on the amount of walking and she leant on the arm of one of her grandsons (Andrew?)  to take her seat and upon leaving. Ever since Prince Philip awarded me my MSc at the back end of 1969, I have always had a soft-ish spot for Prince Philip if not other members of the Royal Family. I suspect that Prince Philip’s gaffes, non-PC utterances and other sayings could well fill quite a voluminous book. One of the more polite ones was his exhortation to British industry to ‘get your finger out’ – this in response to an appeal to raise British productivity which always seems to have been lagging behind the economies of our competitors.

Today if there hadn’t been wars and Royal events to divert the public, we know that 20 letters were to be received about by about 20 members of the Downing Street staff and although the identity of the recipients has not been revealed, it seems as though Boris Johnson is not among them. One has to say ‘yet’ because all of the indications are that Scotland Yard is going to be concentrating upon the ‘low hanging fruit’ i.e. the apparently ‘open and shut cases’ where there is no real dispute and, having submitted questionnaires to the police, the recipients must have been expecting them.  Receiving a ‘fixed penalty notice’ in this way in not a criminal offence but could become one if you were to refuse to pay the fine. I suspect that the decision to send Boris Johnson a fixed penalty notice or not will be taken at the highest possible level in view of the political sensitivities involved. Would it go as high as the Commissioner of Police who is currently serving out her notice or her acting deputy one wonders?

And so for the final tranche of gardening that I had set for myself this afternoon. I intended to set myself a couple of hours with a tea break in the middle – as it happened, I achieved my objective with two minutes to spare. Needless to say, I was ably assisted by Miggles the cat, who at one point sat about two feet in front of the patch upon which I was working but with a tail in the way of my trowel. Needless to say, I had to move the cat’s tail out of my working area at which the animal took the point and found something else to do. The weeding having been done, I have two options open to me. The first which I was a little tempted by, was to purchase some forest bark and spread over the border which would look tremendous. However, how successul it would be at weed suppression is another question. I will probably go for the second alternative which i have tried before and has worked well in the past. This is to dig the whole with the aid of a particular type of spade with a pointed blade which I have found particularly useful in the past for accessing tricky areas beween shrubs and trees. I must say that I am rather fond of digging and find it so much easier than hand weeding. In addition, I absolutely love the appearance of newly dug soil. I tend to keep the spade-fulls of soil fairly intact and chunky as experience has told me over the years that weed seeds find it more difficult in this type of terrain. Besides, if you have done the digging effectively, then many of the weed seeds at or near the surface get buried a good 6″-9″ under.