Today was quite a fine day – although a little overcast, it was still quite a pleasant start to the day.  When the post arrived, it contained some of the warning stickers (advertising the presence of CCTV in the vicinity) which had not been anticipated until Thursday or Friday. As these had arrived, they promptly got put into position onto two of our concrete uprights and secured with some really heavy duty tape which should help avoid the ravages of any wet weather. 

Meg and I decided to make an earlier start than normal because we always need to get back in time for Mike to depart in good time for his Pilates class. We particularly wanted to get a good walk in today whilst the weather remains mild-ish and before the ice and frosts intrude. In the park we met with our Intrepid Octogenerian Hiker who had completed about 7km of his 10km daily routine and also another younger friend who we meet quite often but not as regularly. Then of course we had to make our way home quite rapidly so that Mike could get changed and go down to the weekly Pilates class. On the return home, we had quite an innovative lunch. We both enjoy kippers but they have to cooked with a degree of care so that they do not smell out the house with a cooking spell. This time around, though, we took the expedient of cooking the kippers by a ‘boil-in-the-bag’ method which does minimise the cooking smell. We had these with a new type of ‘quasi-rice’ which is on the market but which contains beetroot and some other plant-based foodstuffs but which do not carry the calory overload associated with conventional rice. This all turned out to be quite a delicious meal and certainly one which we will repeat next Tuesday when turn-around times are tight and we have to cook a meal in a hurry. 

There is a very interesting COVID story which is starting to hit the airwaves this evening. The nub of the story is that the AstraZeneca virus may be helping to protect the UK population in an interesting way. The chief executive of AstraZeneca explains why hospitalisations in the UK might be less than in Europe despite the fact that we have an average of approx. 40,000 new infctions every day.

He argues that  ‘both the antibody response and the T-cell response were important factors in the body’s immune response to a virus….Everybody’s focused on antibodies, but antibodies you see them decline over time.  What remains, and is very important, is this T-cell response and as soon as the virus attacks you, they wake up and they come to the rescue and they defend you. But it takes them a little while, so you may be infected but then they come to the rescue and you don’t get hospitalised.’  This is all quite interesting stuff and it may that a positive ‘spin’ is being put upon the effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine which, of course, has several competitors. For a reason about which even the search engines is unusually opaque, the AstraZeneca vaccine has not been authorised for us in the USA. But from what I can gather, they have ‘given’ away 4 million does of the vaccine to their neighbours (in Canada and in Mexico) and have an option or may have purchased another 60 million doses. So I can only infer that the USA Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) are operating a ‘not invented here’ syndrome which may have the effect of protecting some of their home-made vaccines. It may be that the Americans are being super-cautious because of the reported, and very rare instances of blood clots associated with the Astra Zeneca vaccine. But the incidence of blood clots is incredibly small. For the vast majority of people the benefits of the vaccine vastly outweighs the risks. By the end of April, according to the UK medical regulator, the MHRA, 79 cases were identified, and 19 people died. This was out of a total of more than 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which has been given in the UK at that time. And the incidence of blood cots is less than associated with widely available contraceptive pills (made, of course, by American manufacturers) Forgive me if I ‘smell a rat’ in all of this but I am sure that a degree of ethnocentrism is involved in all of this – it seems bizarre in the extreme that a vaccine is judged good enough for one’s neighbours and for export to every other part of the worl but not for your own population. What must be remembered is that the US government authorised the first trials of the oral contraceptive not on its own population but  on a population of Puerto Rican women in the mid 1950’s – a population that happened to be black, local and compliant enough to be ‘leaned upon’ by the American medical authorities.  Need I say more?

Today was going to be the kind of day that the weathermen predicted – a very clear blue sky and a temperature that had dropped from about 14° to about 7°. We both felt a little tired today, perhaps after the long journey of yesterday so we were determined to take things easily and decided to go by car to collect our newpaper and to visit the park.  In the park, we met with a couple of our older Irish friends who we first met and drank damson gin half-in,half-out of the garage last year in the house of mutual friends last Christmas Eve. We were observing the lockdown regulations at the time and hence we were half-in, half-out of the garage but determined to make the best of bad job. Here we are, though, nearly one year later. No sooner had we said goodbye to one set of our friends when our Intrepid Octogenerian Hiker strode into view and again, we expressed our admiration for his hiking ventures. What Meg and I had not fully appreciated was that via the app on his smart watch, he could pretend to be undertaking all kinds of exotic walks, after which he could collect a medal. He said that at the moment, he had a shelf-full full of medals which I am sure are fully deserved. Once he has completed his morning treks, he goes home for a coffee and what-have-you and then turns out again in the afternoon to do another 2km to complete his minimum of 10km for day. And all of this in an 88-year old, as well. Whilst we were in the park we got a telephone call from our central heating engineer who explained to us the problem with the delay in replacing our dripping kitchen tap. He has to get an invoice from his local suppliers and this has to be sent to the manufacturers who will then issue a replacement part – but as you can imagine, all of this will take some days yet.

Although we were going home by car, we pulled up outside the house of our Irish friends because there  were a few things about which we needed to chat. He had heard via his wife who reads our daily blog of our problems  concerning the new building work next door. He also had a problem with a neighbour’s building construction where gutters had threatened to intrude and so he was sympathetic to our plight as he had encountered a very similar problem in the past. In the late afternoon (and after dark), we received our new external security camera which we are going to deploy on a tree which conveniently overlooks the portion of path which we wish to protect. So this will have to get fixed tomorrow morning. In the meanwhile, I have some additional CCTV warning signs arriving in a day or so. These I can stick on some MDF and attach to the fence so that anybody who attempts to work on the fence on our side will have been well and truly warned that they are caught on camera.

Late on this afternoon, I got the communication from the bank which looks after our Resident’s Association affairs which will allow me to complete the safeguarding procedures online. This looks complicated enough – one’s code is necessary to be sent another OTP code as well as one’s own username and password (which I have forgotten) so I am going to devote an hour or so tomorrow on this and see how I get on. I am somewhat fearful that I will get so far along the procedures and then a little ‘something’ (a forgotten detail) might trip me up but ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof’. Tomorrow is going to be the kind of day that has to be carefully negotiated.

This afternoon, the most extraordinary speech ever made by a British prime Minister has hit the airwaves. He was addressing the CBI conference and the speech was even more shambolic that that of Teresa May at the Conservative party conference when all of her election slogans kept dropping off the wall. This afternoon, Johnson seemed to have total lost his place, swore and then tried to improvise. He went on a rant explaining the virtues of Peppa Pig and then compared himself with Moses coming down from the mountain with the equivalent of the 10 commandments. He is also trying to justify the government’s new approach to social care which means that ‘poor’ people might have to sell their houses to pay for their care but ‘rich’ people will manage to keep about 80% of the value of it. There may be some Tory rebels in the vote taken later on tonight but with a majority of 80, anything less than a really massive rebellion will mean that the Government will get its way. But this is yet another election promise broken and impacts worse on the newly won ‘red wall’ seats where ex-Labour voters may have cheaper houses which will have to be sold to be used up to fund their own social care. 

As we expected, today was a fine and bright day. The jet stream has apparently ‘kinked’ the other way and this helped to release the cold artic air which is now descending over the most of the UK. The temperature is declining from a run of several days when it has been greater than the average but now we are expecting something a bit lower than the average which means we are in for a  cold few days. Following the incursion into our garden from the neighbour who is building himself an extension absolutely flush with the boundary line, I have now decide to invest in a security camera and the appropriate signs. Fortunately, there is a nearby tree that will provide the best possible fixing point and when it arrives it may help to deter any further incursions. I have emailed a surveyor who did some work for us when we had to determine the exact position of our fence line, requesting that we employ him to give us an expert opinion on our options. All of this equipment should arrive fairly soon so I hope it is not too long before we have a fully installed security system.

I walked down through the clear, champagne like air to collect our Sunday newspaper this morning and treated myself to my weekly ration of Mozart (‘Exultate, jubilate‘) and Bach (the double violin concerto) These two pieces alone are enough to lift the spirits,not that they needed much uplifting. Then it is a watch of the Andrew Marr show as usual and when this over, we made our preparations for our lunch date to see our friends in South Oxfordshire. We have worked a slightly different route for us and it all worked incredibly well. We had a stop about two thirds of the way down for a quick cup of coffee from our flask and then we proceeded to out friends, arriving one minute before the appointed time. We had taken a little ‘prezzy’ with us of a display of flowers in a little watering can and this immediately took pride of place on an outdoor table where it was just the kind of winter outdoor decoration they liked for that location. Our friends had invited another fellow academic for lunch as well. He was of Dutch heritage but was a citizen of Canada and enjoyed travel around Europe so we had a lot to chat about. He was very good company so together with our friends, we really had the most enjoyable meal and enjoyed lots good food, fine wine and interesting conversation. 

Part of the way in which we do things as a family is to have a whiteboard on which items are calendared on a day-by-day basis. This serves the deal purpose of looking at commitments (usually medical appointments) at a glance and it also means that w all know what each other is doing in the days ahead. What is amazing, though, is that when we look at next week, we have an absolutely free week so we may take the opportunity to go ‘down the road’ to Longbridge where a huge Marks and Spencer store has been built on the site where British Leyland/Austin Rover production line turned out MG’s and Rovers. What I hadn’t realised was on this site during World War Two, over 3,000 aircraft were also produced at Longbridge – including the famous Hawker Hurricane, which won around 60% of air victories in the Battle of Britain.

We have started vaguely to think about Christmas, now that the month of November is two-thirds over. Having had a traditional Christmas tree for years, we just might do the absolutely unthinkable and get an artificial tree this year, perhaps going for a ‘silver’ one which we would decorate with coloured lights. I haven’t made my mind up on this and there is plenty of time yet to do the necessary. One of  the abiding memories that I have of going to primary school in immediately post-WWII England, as children we were deployed crayoning in little strips of paper to make paper chains. These were glued together but seemed to be perpetually falling apart.  I think that in those days when everything, including paper, was in short supply you had to make your own decorations because I do not think you could actually buy such things in the shops (I am thinking about 1951-52 – not that I shopped for anything except ½p sticks of ‘Spanish’. Liquorice is a constituent of the root of the liquorice shrub which grows wild around the Mediterranean, including Spain. … Hence the term ‘Spanish’ has been traditionally used to refer to sticks of liquorice root sweet enough to be sucked as they are (I have found out from Google). Years ago, there used to be a slogan ‘Put Christ back into Christmas‘ which I think is a bit rich as the origins of the mid-winter festival are undoubtedly pagan and Christianity has conveniently latched onto it and colonised it with the Christmas story.

Today started in quite a dramatic way but first I need a few words of context. My immediate next-door neighbour in the new estate which now occupies the area in which there was an ancient apple orchard is forever thinking of ways in which his house can be improved. For example the whole of the garden has been replaced with an artificial grassed area with a bar (adorned by a union flag in one corner of the ‘garden – I kid you not) and every type of children’s playground equipment one can imagine -trampolines etc.) The ironic thing about all of this is that one of the plans for the development of the land next door involved the creation of a public playground for children. Whilst this proposal was defeated, the same effect has been created in a private house because all of the local children have flocked to it as though it were a public park – way in excess of the 2-3 children who actually live next door. But this is a digression. During the summer, our next door neighbour has completely transformed the garage into another living room. In order to store ‘garagy’ type things, he has decided to create a ‘structure’ (hard to describe it) which is like a long, thin extension to the house all down one side. This has been built absolutely up to the boundary line – the existing fence has been removed and the new structure is now built within a millimetre of our fence posts. In the last few days, some rafters have started to appear – before this, I had no idea whether it was going to be a flat topped structure or not. On inspecting the new structure from my side, I have worked out that it is going to require some water shedding arrangements in the forms of guttering and once affixed, these would certainly constitute a permanent traspass onto our land i.e. they would be built on land that does not belong to them, as any guttering must extend beyond the extension wall and that is built, let me remind you, 1mm from our boundary line. Now when I woke up I discovered that three workmen were in our garden erecting soffits or similar to the side of the new erection. I quickly donned some gardening trousers and a gardening jacket and went outside to challenge them and ask them what they thought they were doing! About a month ago, I had given permission to one of the builders to come onto our land to point their brickwork – to have refused might have seemed churlish. The next door people have taken this to mean that they have an automatic permission to jump into our garden and do whatever work they want. I informed them in no uncertain terms that I had not granted them any permission to enter my garden – they said that one of the number had called round and asked for permission in the last few days (surely a try on) and I informed them this was certainly not the case. I also indicated that I could not tolerate the intrusion of any structure e.g. guttering that strayed beyond their building line land onto our land. They were reasonably apologetic and said that they would construct a valley gutter presumably within their own building line. I am not sure exactly how they are going to do this despite consulting the internet but that is their problem – unless of course whatever they do finishes off shedding water onto our land which then becomes our problem. I had been contemplating asking the planning authority to come and check on what was being done  but this might take some time and building work might carry on apace. However, a warning shot has been well and tried shot across their bows and they seemed to disappear from our garden as quickly as they came. I have considered sending them them a formal letter complaining about their trespass  and indicating that any further transgressions would result in calling police/surveyors/lawyers in some combination, but I am staying my hand for the moment because a formal letter could be construed as a ‘dispute’ with a neighbour and this would might be problematic were we to sell our property in the future. Neighbour disputes should be disclosed as part of the sellers’ property information form (also known as a TA6 form) and this is a legal requirement. More on this as it develops, no doubt.

This afternoon, before going to church, I had to undertake a routine MRI scan in one of the local hospitals. This is quite a lengthy procedure wth masses of loud clanking as huge magnets send pulses through your body which can build up a detailed picture of the soft tissues within your body. This procedure took about an hour and half in total and I had to race home, avoiding the streets blocked off to faciliate the Bromsgove ‘Opening Christmas Lights’ celebrations but I made it back and got us to the church on time.

Today started off as a typical Friday as it is the day when our. domestic help arrives to do her stuff. We always stop what we are doing for a chat but today we had a slightly different routine as our help typically gives Meg’s hair a bit of a ‘titivate’ as it now some days since our hairdresser called to give Meg a perm. As we happen to look out of the window I espied our especially friendly cat who as adopted us (Miggles) and whom I presumed dead as I had not seen him/her for about 10-12 days. I espied Miggles two gardens away running along the top of a garden fence (an adept skill) so I raced downstairs and prepared a little bowl of titbits which I do keep in store. Upon rattling her bowl on our ourside metal table, the cat appeared within seconds and devoured the titbits (which is about normal) After a lot of stroking and exclaiming ‘Miggles – where have you been?’ all I received was a brief ‘Miaow‘ which did not tell me a great deal. The cat has definitely fattened up a bit so I suspect that there may be another household on his/her extensive rounds who rewards the cat with copious amounts of food. I did supply a bowl of water some of which was lapped up so I suspect that the animal may have been both hungry and thirsty. I now wonder whether we will receive regular daily visits again or whether the visits may becomee a lot more sporadic. I realise now that the semi-grieving through which I went was probably misplaced. I have just read that basic instincts govern felines, so your house cat may go missing for hours or even days at a time. Usually, a cat wandering off is due to curiosity, hunting, or territorial instincts. Cats like to explore their terrain, which could keep them away from home for a while.

We made a telephone call to our University of Brmingham friend and we arranged to meet in our local Waitrose. When we got there, we formed a foursome with Sesoned World Traveller and enjoyed a coffee and cakes together (although I avoid cakes in favour of a slice of brown bread toast, served with Marmite. When I did our weekly shopping, I bought a four-portion of sea-bass which we often eat on a Friday. I persuaded our domestic help and our University of Birmingham friend to share the sea-bass with us. I was delighted when they both accepted my invitation because the sea bass is incredibly quick both to cook and to serve (on a bed of sweet salad) and we treated ourselves to some half glasses of white wine for our guests and a smidgeon of La Gitana (the Gypsy girl) which is a particular form of Manzanilla – a type of dryish fino sherry. So we had an impromptu little luncheon party and our domestic help realised that she had bumped into our University of Birmingham friend once before as they were buying a coffee in the pavilion down in the park. So all of that helped to brighten up a dull but not particularly cold November midday. 

We had a lazy afternoon, with a good sustained read of the Times. But as I was preparing a simple supper for us, I heard on the news on the radio that the veteran broadcaster, Andrew Marr, was to leave the BBC after a career of some 16 years.  Apparently, in a training video for the BBC he is reported to have said ‘When you join the BBC, all of your critical organs are cut off and preserved in a jar of formaldehyde. Then you pick them up again on the day that you leave the BBC‘   Although not the most penetrating or pugnacious of interviewers (unlike Andrew Neil), one has to admire his ferocious work rate. As well as the Sunday morning Politics show, he is also a prolific author – and I notice that I have an (unread) copy of his ‘A History of the World‘ sitting on my bookshelves and I am sure I have others such as ‘The Making of Modern Britain’.  According to a quick search on Google he is the author of some 60 books in total. He also chairs the programme on Radio 4 programme ‘Start the Week‘ on Monday mornings. He is to join LBC and I think he is also scheduled to present a programme on ClassicFM where he will be interviewing guests from politics and the arts.

Days after Austria imposed a lockdown on the unvaccinated, it has been announced that a full national Covid-19 lockdown starts on Monday. This would last a maximum of 20 days and there would be a legal requirement to get vaccinated from 1 February 2021 and is a response to record case numbers and one of the lowest vaccination levels in Western Europe.

Today was a typical and non-descript November day, alleviated by the fact that the temperatures are fairly mild. We are told, though, that the jet stream will bend away from us exposing us to a blast of cold arctic air from Sunday onwards. We were a little late getting to the park this morning as I had engaged in an early morning shop-up at Waitrose in Droitwich, getting to the store at about 7.55 and actually being let in about 2-3 minutes later. The way back, though, was marred by the most horrendous traffic jam. There had been some kind of multiple crash in the Droitwich area so the polce had intervened, countermanding the traffic lights and attempting to manage a queue of traffic about a mile long. The proximity of the M5 junction only complicated this situation so the journey back home took about 20 minutes longer than I would have anticipated. When Meg and I eventually got to the park, we fell into conversation with a lady dog walker with whom we had conversed before. I had evidently spoken to her about my soup-making activities and I told her about my recent successes and failures. Then we got onto the subject of fell-walking about which we were both evidently keen and we were soon swapping stories about our experiences in the Lake District, Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons. She was explaining to us how her dog (a Staffi?) had developed dementia  at the age of 11 and had to be reminded how to do certain things e.g.how to drink water when it was thirsty. I really didn’t know that animals suffered dementia in the same way that humans do and I wonder whether the causes are the same. According to our NHS website, Alzheimer’s disease is thought to be caused by the abnormal build-up of proteins in and around brain cells. One of the proteins involved is called amyloid, deposits of which form plaques around brain cells. The other protein is called tau, deposits of which form tangles within brain cells. There was a report in the Times a day or so that some scientists have found a way of attacking these rogue proteins in mice – but of course it is a big step to humans.

The principal political news today is the abndonment of the Midland to Leeds branch of HS2. This had been forecast by the Sunday Times and, one suspects, that a certain amount of ‘leaking’ and ‘news management’ has taken place in order to lessen the impact of the announcement. As I indicated in last night’s blog, it is the case that one has to examine the number of marginal ‘red-wall’ (i.e. ex-Labour, now Tory) parliamentary constituencies in the North Midland and Yorkshire to understand some of the cynical manouvering behind the announcement. These seats will experience the disruption of the construction work but none of the benefits as the new HS2 line would have passed through them. Any government really serious about HS2 would have started with a fast Manchester to Leeds line and then proceeded southwards rather than the other way around.

There is a story in today’s Times that I am finding it hard to believe but almost anything bizarre that emerges from our not-fit-for-purpose Home Office is no longer a source of surprise. The plan is that when asylum seekers land upon our shores, they will be immediately shipped out to Albania whilst their claims for asylum are considered. The costs including accommodation and flights will cost the Home Office £100,000 per refugee. The theory behind this scheme is that refugees will be deterred from the prospect of trying to get imto the uK once it becomes known that they will have to spent perhaps years in Albania – a country not noted for its liberal tendencies. Having rejected a similar approach once before, presumably the Albanian government are  tempted by the £3 billion that they might make from the UK government if you multiply up the latest published figures for asylum seekers (31,000) by £100,000. In the same report in the Times, it was also indicated that asylum seekers could refuse to go to a third country as this would be contrary to international law. So I wonder what inducements or sanctions might be applied to asylum seekers who refuse to go to Albania? I have also read somewhere that this problem is becoming a prominent issue ‘on the doorstep’ in the ‘red wall’ seats according to some Tory canvassers – presumably, a degree of racism found in these types of communities finds a cost to to the Home Office budget of £3 billion quite acceptable. When I consult some Home Office budget figures, I discover that the Home Office has a budget of £67m for asylum support costs and for asylum system transformation so the proposed £3.1 billion means that this estimate will have to be increased 45 times over. I wonder what the Treasury will make of this? The story has hardly made any prominence in the UK press to date – is this because it is too mad to call out?

Today was always going to have a different kind of timetable because our energy company (which we have just decided now to use) are going to have our smart meters updated today. We already have some smart meters installed but not the very latest versions that send readings directly to the energy utility, thus obviating the need for any meter readings. We have been given a time-slot of any time between 8.00am and 5.00pm but we will get a phone call some 30 minutes beforehand so that we can be ‘at home’. I decided to walk down into town early because I needed to collect my newspaper and get some money out of an ATM. All of this worked out well and I got home in plenty of time before the anticipated phone call came through. My installer was a young Asian lad  who seemed exceptionally conscientious and meticulous about everything he did. Naturally, as is common these days and no doubt following a protocol, smartphone snaps were taken of all critical things such as exisiting meter readings and then we were left without power for about 50 minutes. We had to ensure, of course, that all of our computers and other consumer units were switched off and I was a little worried that the alarm system of the house might not function correctly after an interruption to the power supply and that the central heating boiler would similar survive a power down.  In the event, both worked perfectly when power was restored and the various computers and other devices within the house power up again so I am now left with a system where I can check what electricity has been used (at 10 second intervals) or my gas consummption (at 30 minute intervals). Now we are just left waiting for our central heating engineer to call around and install our replacement kitchen tap and although promised at 4.00pm, we still have a no-show two hours later. Today, though, has generally been one of those days when everything has gone well as opposed to those days when Sod’s Law prevails (‘if something can go wrong, it will’).

At last, Boris Johnson has tried to draw the sting of the ‘sleaze’ allegations against him and his government. He has finally admitted the Conservative ex-minister at the centre of Westminster’s sleaze row broke lobbying rules – two weeks after the prime minister encouraged a bid to save Owen Paterson from a House of Commons suspension. Under questioning from a Commons committee of senior MPs, Mr Johnson acknowledged that Mr Paterson had ‘fallen foul of the rules’    on lobbying. ‘I think it was a very sad case but I think there’s no question that he had fallen foul of the rules on paid advocacy as far as I can see from the report’ the prime minister told the liaison committee.

Despite the best efforts of our vaccination authorities, it appears that a full ‘4th wave’ of the COVID virus is hitting many European societies. Angela Merkel, the outgoing German Chancellor , is reported as sayting that the 4th wave of the virus is hitting Germany ‘with full force’ as the seven-day infection rate hits a new peak for the 10th consecutive day. Mrs Merkel told a congress of German city mayors that new infections were higher than ever before and the daily death toll was ‘frightening’. The central government and leaders of Germany’s 16 states are due to meet this week to discuss new national restrictions. There are also concerns that Germany’s renowned Christmas markets could be cancelled for a second year running.The question that must remain is whether the UK can ever gets its infection rate below a certain level (of about 39,000 new cases a day) whilst the threat from other European societies remains.

The inflation rate has today hit 4.2% and shows many signs of increasing rather than decreasing. The big economic question is whether this rise in the inflation rate is just a ‘blip’ which like a wave might pass out of the system or whether it will generate further inflationary rises in the future. I have just read in today’s Times that gas prices rose by 17% in one day yesterday. Without wishing to sound smug, I am incredibly glad that about two weeks before the current fuel price increase hit us, I had decided to change my energy supplier and got a rate fixed for the next two years. Having said that, and perhaps inspired by the newly installed consumer unit for the smart meter, I am starting to look quite hard at appliances that are left on (TV on standby) and to turn off unnecessary lights when I see them. I do have an old ‘standard lamp’ where I have just downgraded the bulb from a 100 watt to a 60 watt version without a great diminution in available light. My optician tells me, though, that as you get older, your eyes probably require more light rather than greater magnification so it is a temptation to put in more powerful bulbs in various places.

Today was a Pilates day so we needed to make a fairly early start to ensure that we got everything done on time. We collected our newspaper and made our way to the park where we ate our comestibles on one of the ‘lower’ park benches. As we leaving the park, we ran across our acquaintance, the Intrepid Octogenerian Hiker who was just completing his second lap of the park. We knew that he generally put in about 7km doing his regular tours. What we failed to realise was that after coffee and a bite of lunch he started off aagain to get another 3km under his belt (making 10km for the day). We were in plenty of time and we managed to get home with a good ten minutes or so to spare. This just about have me enough time to change into my track suit bottoms, grab my pilates things and pop some fishcakes to slow-cook in the oven for us whilst I was away. As I was returning from my Pilates session, a van was appraching the house who was the plumber/central heating engineer who had installed our kitchen tap now leaking vigorously even though it was only about 18 months old. After one look at the tap and examining the name of the maker, it was immediately pronounced ‘faulty’ and as it had a five-year warranty on it, there was no problem with it being replaced by a similar unit. After a quick call to his supplier, we were informed that we could have a whole new tap under the warranty which was reasonably good news. It has to be ordered first and then fitted secondly and who pays for the fitting charge is a moot point (the manufacturer, the central heating firm or ourselves) – however, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Normally, I do not comment on TV programmes but today I want to make an exception. Last night, when we consulted our TV schedules, we noticed that there was to be a production of the opera Rigoletto by Verdi, to be performed on Lake Constanz in Austria. What we actually witnessed is hard to describe in a few words but I will try. The set was ‘avant gard‘ in the extreme, with a giant clown’s head the size of house plus a huge hand and cuff to complete the scene. If I were to tell you that the mouth and jaw opened to form one balcony as did the two eye sockets (once eyes had been removed), the nasal cavity and the top of the skull providing additional performance areas. The singers had to be ‘miked up’ and transported from one part of the scenery to another by balloons, aerial wires and good knows what else. The rake of the ‘stage’ was so extreme that some of the circus performers who constituted the chorus  would fall off and into the lake with a loud splash. (whether this was by accident or by design I cannot tell) Gilda, the heroine was left stabbed and hanging in a sack over the stage whilst the assassin, Sparafucile’s daughter was attired as a knife-throwers assistant, doubling up as a  dominatrix and ‘helped’ in her some of seduction scenes (where she lured victims to their deaths at the hand of her father) by a bevy of ‘helpers’ who had exposed breasts the size of pumpkins – and often more than two as well for good measure. Shall I go on? This spectacle was performed before an audience of 7,000 people at a time with no intervals in the two hour performance. One had to view and listen to this with a type of split brain – one half listening to the music and remembering the plot whilst the other half was looking at the aerial antics of the cast members as they were whisked from place to place (you could see their safety lines at times). Did I mention that some of the circus performances were dressed as chimpanzees! And that the clowns head was eventually transformed into a skull by losing its eyes (I think I may have dozed a bit at this point)

The political scene was amazing today. Boris Johnson announced today that he he was going to suggest a ban on practically all second jobs, particularly those where MPs acted as paid political consultants or lobbyists. This announcement was made  at the exact second when Keir Starmer was announcing that the Labour party would legislate for a ban on such jobs. Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley Johnson, has been accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour towards a would-be MP (saying to the prospective MP for Romsey that she would have a magnificent seat whilst slapping her across the bottom) Ant the Yorkshire leg of the HS2 (from the Midlands to Leeds) is now being abandoned, although this was heavily trailed in the Sunday Times on Sunday) One wonders how many marginal constituencies lay along the route, now abandoned.

Apart from being the start of another week, I am driven to reflect upon the fact that when today is over (being the 15th of the month) then half of the miserable month of November will be over. I suppose it is a truism to say that as you get older, the days seem to fly past at an increasing rate and personally the date to which  I look forward at this time of year is 21st December. This is because after this date, the days are starting to get longer again by 1-2 minutes a day and even though there is bad weather yet to come, at least the days are getting (imperceptibly) longer. Meg and I knew that we needed to visit the High Street in Bromsgrove to get Meg’s spectables adjusted in our local opticians. This they do on ‘while-you-wait’ basis and it only takes a minute or so. After this I called in at Waitrose to replenish a few supplies and then we made our way to the park by car. As we parked in one of the more distant car parks, I could not help noticing a chap who seemed to be pointing his camera at the bare trees. I assumed that he had a app on his phone that identified the trees by their shape and foliage – I know that apps exist like this for plants and shrubs so I assumed that the chap I noticed was doing a similar thing for trees. As I approached him, he was very friendly but he showed me what he was actually doing which was to control a  drone he had just purchased with a controller that had on it a screen (to show what the camera on-board the drone was showing) The drone was apparently quite small its camera showed magnificent aerial views of the park which showed all of the trees in their autumn finery. We even manipulated the camera so that the two of us (the drone owner and myself) could be seen as minute pin pricks standing in the car park. I wondered aloud what were the implications for the privacy of individuals with the operation of drones such as these but the drone-owner assured me that to operate a drone like this was beset with a host of restrictions and regulations about what one could and could not do. It is said, of course, that Amazon are experimenting with drones and it may not be too long before a combination of a drone assisted by AI (Artificial Intelligence) will start to drop parcels for us just outside our front door.

As it was a Monday, lunch was easy to prepare as had one half of yesterday’s gammon joint so all we needed to do was to microwave soome baked potato and green-stem broccoli to go with it. After lunch, there was a little sweeping job which I needed to do at the back of the house. Our roof on the easterly side seem to accumulate little bundles of moss on the roof titles which eventually drop off and litter up our patio. Sweeping them up was a simple little job which I did when the daylight was just starting to fade. Then it was brought home to be quite forcibly that Miggles, our adopted cat, has not been seen for over a week either in our back garden or anywhere in the vicinity.  I am forced to the view that given the territorial nature of cats and as Miggles was adventurous in the extreme, I could only conclude that Miggles was no more. According to Google predation of cats by fox is extremely rare and it is much more probable that Miggles has come off worst in the fight with another cat, not to mention a road vehicle. Having given us hours of pleasure since he/she walked into our lives, I can only conclude that he/she has now walked out of them. As  Miggles often made an appearance at dusk to observe what I was doing (and snaffle a few titbits, I have to say), then I felt a few pangs of separation thinking that in all probability Miggles would never be seen again.  I write this without wishing to sound mawkish or over-sentimental but I do have a good series of photos and one or two videoclips to bring back some memories.

And now for some interesting ppolitical news emerging from the USA. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has surrendered to the FBI to face criminal charges for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the US Capitol riot. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on one count of contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a deposition and a second count for refusing to provide documents in response to a subpoena. He is expected to make his first appearance in federal court later on Monday after being taken into custody.

Today being a Sunday, I leapt out of bed (fairly) early as I collect my newspaper first thing on Sunday mornings. On my way down, I was ‘spotted’ by a coupele of Jack Russell terriers that were being taken for their morning walk. They used to belong to my old friend, the trumpet player Clive who unfortunately died about a year and half ago. But the dogs recognised me and came dashing forward barking (as is their wont) but with thir tails wagging ferociously by way of greeting. I walked with Clive’s daughter-in-law for a hundred yards or so until our paths diverged and we chatted about the jobs we had lined up for ourselves as autumn tasks in the garden. I treated myself to a little of Mozart’s ‘Requiem‘ on my trusty aged iPhone (used as an MP3 player) and got back just a little late but before missing too much of the Andrew Marr show. Today is the day after the ending of the COP26 Climate Change conference held in Glasgow. All seemed to be heading for a world ‘phasing out’ of the coal industry until the China and the India, at the very last moment, forced a change in the draft treaty so that ‘phasing out’ of the coal industry became a ‘phasing down’ which weakens considerably this particular commitment. The conference, as it was hosted in the UK (in Glasgow) was chaired by the cabinet minsiter, Alok Sharma, who could be seen fighting back the tears as he was forced to accept the Chinese/Indian amendments of the draft treaty at what might have been the 59th minute of the last hour of the conference. I have not seen any particular comment upon the way in which Sharma has performed his role but to chair an international conference and to try to achive consensus amongst twenty-five thousand delegates from 200 countries attending and around 120 heads of state must call for a degree of political skill. This might do him no harm at all in any leadership stakes that the Tory party might eventually have when (if?) they get tired of Boris Johnson.

On our way to the park, a car drew up alongside Meg and I and it was a friend of ours from church who manned one of the craft stores – she was giving us a little spiced ginger cake to enjoy in the park. We thanked her effusively and then met up with a gaggle of our park acquaintances where we engaged in some mutual joshing as well as some more serious conversation. Eventually, though, we started to get a little chilled with standing around so we made for home, knowing there was a Sunday lunch to cook. This is always a bit more work on a Sunday because we tend to slow-cook a joint of meat (unsmoked gammon today) which we always divide into two, once cooked, and save half for another week. This is obviously part of our strategy not to overdo the amount of meat that we eat but it has the exceptionally minor consequence of our doing our miniscule bit to save the planet (by minimising the methane production associated with the rearing of animals for domestic consumption) This afternoon, we really enjoyed watching the English women’s rugby team win their match against Canada by a score of 51-12. Actually, this score flatters England and the Canadians proved quite a tough prospect – this brings the running total of the England women’s rugby team  to 17 wins in a row. Next week’s match will be against the USA who may prove a tougher nut to crack. Incidentally, the match commentators on more than occasion apologised for the bad language uttered on the pitch, although I must admit I didn’t actually catch any of it.

The latest COVID news has some interesting twists and turns. Austria is putting all unvaccinated residents into lockdown from midnight on Sunday, the government has said. Anyone over the age of 12 who has not been double-jabbed will only be allowed to leave their homes for work, school, exercise and buying essential supplies. Part of the explanation for this is that Austria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe and an infection rate of 775.5 per 100,000 people compared with the UK equivalent of  348.7 per 100,000. The other interesting bit of news is that there seems to be a cross-over between climate change deniers and vaccine-benefit deniers. COVID-19 conspiracy groups who have attempted to undermine efforts to bring the pandemic under control are increasingly sharing climate change misinformation. One suspects that ‘climate change denial’ came before vaccine denial but now there seems to be a mutual feedback. Only a few days a group of women protestors stood by the side of a busy roundabout in Bromsgrove (where traffic was forced to slow down) with rediculous anti-vaccine sloganser written on them. I did my bit by shouting ‘Murderers!’ at them as I walked past them (on the other side of the road, I hasten to add)