The evening before last, there was a very good Simon Scharma programme on the TV from 9.00pm-10.0pm so I watched most of it (until I fell asleep towards the end). It was on the well-worn theme of the consequences of the Black Death which in many ways spelled the end of the old feudal order in that workers on the land were now scarce, could demand a higher price for their scarce labour and thus moved to where the work was – which we now regard as a very modern trend. There is not much to smile at these days but I came across one news item which brought a temporary smile to my lips. Donald Trump had disgracefully demolished much, if not all, of the East Wing of the White House to be replaced by a grotesque and hideous huge ballroom. Donald Trump has voiced outrage after a judge ordered a halt to the construction of his $400m ballroom at the White House. US District Judge Richard Leon granted a preservationist group’s request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily halts the construction project on the site where the East Wing of the White House was demolished. The legal action was brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to obtain an order to pause construction until the plan has undergone independent reviews and obtained congressional approval. Whether this judgement is subject to appeal or not is not known but it seems to be one blow for sanity. Donald Trump himself is due to give a ‘major’ speech on the Iran conflict and it looks as though the ground is being prepared for an end to the conflict in Iran within 2-3 weeks. Trump will claim total victory but already it looks as though some key elements of his wish-list will not be fulfilled. It seems quite probable that Iran will retain control of the Straits of Hormuz and, for their part, will be able to claim this as a victory but the situation is confused and changes by the day, if not the hour. Incidentally, it as emerged  that Pete Hegseth, the American ‘Defense’ secretary ordered his financial broker to invest heavily in the stock of arms and munitions manufacturers knowing that as the ‘war’ was announced, the prices of these would soar so this is as plainly corrupt as it is possible to be. I expect that we shall see a pause in war reporting and activities  as the Easter vacation approaches but Israel is itself rampaging through Lebanon. The Israeli Knesset (parliament) recently passed a law indicating that any Palestinian who killed an Israeli would themselves be immediately subject to the death penalty but this would not apply if one Israeli killed another. This is discrimination ‘baked’ into Israeli law and is plainly an assault on democratic values but I doubt whether the legislation will ever be repealed. On the domestic front, I am now keeping up-to-date my U3A (University of the 3rd Age) calendar as I now have three forthcoming events scheduled and I have put these onto a special ‘strip’ style calendar in my living room where it will not get forgotten.

In the morning, I knew that I had a lot to fit in so I ensured that I was ready to leave the house just a tad after 9.00am in the morning to get my weekly shopping done. Then I just dropped the filled bags inside the house and then went off to have my weekly toasted tea cake and coffee in the Methodist Centre. Here I had a pleasant chat with one or two that I have got to know but knew that I needed to get back before my son and daughter-in-law turned up. When I got home, I unpacked the shopping and after my family turned up we had a meal of quiche and some fried leeks. Whilst my family were with me, I consulted with them about the most appropriate iPad to replace my aged model which is now almost nine years old but whose operating system is failing to update. I had already done some preliminary investigations and ascertained for myself that the M4 chip was more than adequate for my needs so I could afford to ignore the later M5 chip used in gaming and heavy computational work. Now the only remaining question is to whether to settle for the 11″ model which is the most popular model size or spent an extra £200 and go for the 13″ model. We conducted some experiments whilst I had my existing 11″ model and my son and his 13″ model and we played the same YouTube clips on each. I was pleasantly surprised  that because of the lower resolution in which YouTube video clips are made available, the display actually looked better on my 11″ model as the images had to be ‘stretched’ a little to fit the 13″ model. So this all makes buying decisions so much the easier when I get round to replacing my iPad but in the meantime there is some rather more urgent plumbing work  to demand my attention. My son and daughter-in-law ten turned their attention  to questions of my diet and whether the meals I was preparing for myself were nutritionally adequate. It is true that over the years I have tried cut back on unnecessary  carbohydrates. At the same time I have been attempting to cut back radically on my consumption of red meat but my family are getting worried that I might not be getting sufficient protein in my diet. I must admit that I had not realised that protein needs go up one the aging process starts in earnest so it probably quite likely that I have been falling quite a long way short of the 80+ grams of protein I need to ingest each day. So my researches  now indicate that eating sufficient protein is  probably very important to me nowadays and there are some of the reasons why. Protein needs generally change as you get older, particularly to address age-related muscle loss, known as sarcopenia. While a general recommendation for adults exists, many researchers and health organisations suggest that older adults, particularly those over 65, may benefit from higher protein intake per kilogram of body weight compared to younger adults to maintain muscle, strength, and mobility.  Protein Needs Change with age in the following three areas. Preventing Muscle Loss: starting around age 40-50, people begin to lose muscle mass. Adequate protein intake helps preserve muscle, strength, and functional capacity. Second, we have Immune System and Healing: as you age, your body may require more protein to support immune function and improve recovery from illness or injury. Finally we have Bone Health in which adequate protein intake is essential for maintaining bone density and strength. So now I have a series of good practical advice to which I will attempt to adhere a constantly  as I can.

The evening before yesterday, I received one of those really heart-warming emails upon the following lines. My ex-University of Winchester colleague, who has invited me to her 65th birthday celebrations in a few weeks time, had visited the pub which is to host her event and they knew that I was one of the gusts and had booked in for the night of the celebrations, the following day happening to be my own birthday. Anyway, at the initiative of the pub, they want to put on a special celebratory birthday menu breakfast for myself and other guests from the day before – they have a Michelin star trained chef who would like to provide the special food (things like ‘Eggs Benedict’ for example) as well as some specially prepared titbits. So, this is something to which to look forward and will help to make the day a little special for me which will be marvellous as on the day before we will collectively take a little time out to celebrate the first anniversary of Meg’s passing. The night before, before I came to bed, I had a quick burst on providing both the Italian and English translations of the Mozart arias which form the substance of my little presentation. Altogether I have five of these to prepare and am not quite half way through the task having prepared the first two and now in the throes of doing quite a long third, being the seduction aria from ‘Don Giovanni’ (included only for the amusing ‘patter’ of the Don himself which I am including in advance of the main aria) This is one of those tasks that I need to do in little chunks when I have a spare half hour or so. Perhaps because I had an early night last night, I actually woke up wide awake at about 3.30 in the morning and was disinclined to get up. So as this is the week before  Easter, I asked the ‘Alexa’ smart speaker I have beside my bed to play a version of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and the version which came to the fore was Harry Christopher and ‘The Sixteen’ which provided a wonderful rendition whilst I  dozed for the remainder of the night. As the week wears on, I shall look out for a performance of either of the Bach ‘Passions’ (Mathew or John) to which I always think it is appropriate to listen on Good Friday. One of the very vivid memories that I have as a schoolboy was preparing to leave my boarding school just before Easter when I was aged about 13 and I heard in our Music Room the closing chorale of Mathew Passion ‘In tears of grief’ in which  the genius of Bach is manifest in the way in which our sobs are incorporated into the closing cadences of the chorale. I think this is a case of once heard, never forgotten. The day is promising to be quite a busy one socially as my son is calling around after his swim, it is the day that our domestic help performs her weekly miracles and I am meeting a U3A friend for a coffee later in the afternoon.

In the late morning, I went down into town for my weekly Pilates class, picking up a copy of my daily newspaper (the last on!) en route. When the class was finished, I came home and made myself a quick lunch of grated cheese and beetroot on a slice of toasted sourdough bread. Actually, I had precious little time because I needed to back in town by 3.30pm in the afternoon for my coffee appointment. We are both going on the coach trip in about 10 days time and are therefore each wondering whether we need to buy for each of us a really lightweight shower jacket because although the weather forecast is set fair when we visit Scotland, it is probable that we will encounter a light shower even if alighting from the coach and starting a sightseeing tour. We may visit a camping and outdoor clothing specialist shop in the area but it may be that we can purchase what we need online which might both be cheaper and save us the petrol money. I have already seen a light and waterproof jacket which I think will suit my purposes but I need to have a further think about this before I press ahead. The UK is entering a tricky diplomatic period in the few weeks ahead because it has been decided that the King and Queen should visit the USA, despite current difficulties,  in order to help to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. I can quite understand the calls from various quarters including he Liberal Democrats that this visit should be cancelled in view of the insulting remarks hurled towards Britain by Donald Trump. But I think more long term damage would be done if the visit were to be cancelled- after all 250 year anniversaries do not come along very often. The visit to the USA is timetabled for late April which gives time for the Trump regime to extricate itself from the Iranian mess. The point I am sure that will be made by the British government is that the visit to the USA is to assist the American peoples, of all political persuasions, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American War of Independence and there are  elements of the ‘special relationship’ (for example, co-operation between the security services) that is still strong and effective and the Trump regime cannot last for ever. When I got home and consulted my emails, I was pleased to see that my application to join the next excursion of the U3A local days out had been accepted and, in late May, we are due to visit Bakewell and Kedleston Hall. Once an event has been advertised than those who have expressed interest are invited to make their payment into a special account and this is assurance that one is well and truly ‘booked’ upon the trip. This seems to be a well tried and trusted system and all one has to do is to turn up in a local car park to be picked up by the coach and transported onwards. So now I have two events to which  to look forward in May, the first being a celebration of a friend’s birthday (and my own the following day) and the second te U3A trip.

A new week is upon us and it looks as though the very cold snap of arctic air that the country has experienced in the last few days might be gradually giving way to some more springlike weather later on during the week. The finer and warmer weather cannot come soon enough as far as I am concerned so that I can get on with some outdoor tidying up in the garden, not to mention the start of the grass cutting season delayed whilst the weather has been so cold. I always like learning new things or tips for everyday living and, this morning whilst I was browsing the news, I came across the following tips from a florist who had been in the business for decades.  Some of her advice I had been following but here it is in full. Generally, if a flower is fully open, it will not last long, but there is no way of knowing for sure how long they will last. There are so many varieties with different vase lives. There are exceptions, of course, to this rule of thumb with hardy varieties such as chrysanthemum. The best way to make flowers last longer is to cut the stems diagonally, place in cool, fresh water, top up the water daily and replace the water every two to three days or so, re-cutting the stems and removing any stems that are past their best. Also, place the flowers out of direct sunlight and away from radiators; the cooler the spot, the better.  We no longer advocate flower food. Our experiments over the years show no improvement in vase life – the steps above are much more important. To cut the stems, you should use a sharp florist scissors or a sharp knife or anything that avoids crushing them. Now most of this advice is sensible except that it would not have occurred to me to keep changing the water and I must admit I have always added the plant food that bought bunches of flowers tend to contain. As the month of April starts to unwind, all kinds of financial consequences will flow at the start of the new financial year. On the positive side, some of our pensions may increase slightly in monetary terms and there may be a slight and very temporary reduction is gas prices. On the other hand, many other utility and other subscriptions tend to rise with the new financial years and it typically happens that any slight apparent increase in one’s income is swiftly wiped out by increases in other bills. For example, my local county Council of Worcestershire is in a dire financial state and has been given special permission by the government  to raise the local rates of 9% which is almost double the average increase of 4.9%, The irony locally is that Worcestershire is led by the Reform party which has found that the statutory responsibility of funding social care for the elderly population as led to unavoidable increases. Rather cynically, central government lets local authorities shoulder the costs and the political opprobrium of rate increases although the funding of care for older people should be a national responsibility even if administered locally.

I was a little late into town this morning but I decided to kill two birds with one stone and pick up my newspaper whilst getting some freshly drawn petrol for the petrol mower. I always buy the highest  grade of fuel (97 RON) hat I can for the mower because I wish to avoid the ethanol in  the more ‘standard’ fuels  which can be as high as 10%. Ethanol can absorb water from the atmosphere and this can to starting and running problems in petrol mowers, so I buy the highest quality fuel I can and also add a special fuel mixture designed to counteract the hygroscopic properties of ethanol if present. Having bought my fuel I returned home and had a quick salad lunch and then surveyed the prospect for the afternoon. The sun came out and although it was a little chilly outside, I decided to give the grass the first cut of the season. This involves some prepping of the mower (oiling the sponge air filter, getting the requisite amount of new oil into the machine, adjusting the blade height for the first cut of the season) However, all of my careful preparations were not in vain as I was absolutely amazed that the mower started at the first pull of the starting cord. In my eight years of mowing with this machine, I don’t recall this ever happening before. After a cut of the green area in front of the houses (approx. 450 square yards), I gave myself a bit of a break and lower the blades one notch to near normal and give a transverse cut i.e. at 90° to the previous one. These days I do not cut the back lawn on the same day as the front lawn in  order to save my energies but that can wait a day or so. It always gives me a great deal of satisfaction to get the first cut of the year under my belt but this is a weekly task from now on and I generally time the first cut around the occasion of my sons birthday but have stayed my hand a little this year as the last few days have been so cold.

I belong to an obscure little organisation called ‘The National Conference of University Professors’ but why most people join this organisation is the for the sale of a meal once a year in the House of Lords generally held in May time. So, the thought crossed my mind but by the time I had taken myself and a companion, paid for the quite expensive lunch, organised train journeys and tax rides across London I calculated that I would not see much change out of £400. Now my very aged iPad is about 8½ years old so I am thinking about replacing it and I suspect that the iPad will give me a lot more pleasure than a day drip to London so this may win out in the end. But I need to work out whether to go for the nearly universal standard 11″ model variant which many commentators is seen as hitting the ‘sweet spot’ between functionality and portability or the 13″ variant. But as both son and daughter-in-law have their own iPad I will take further advice on this.

It is the time of year for the clocks to be put forward by one hour as we enter British Summer Time. Although I went to bed at about 10.30 the evening before, I awoke just after midnight and went to alter all of the house clocks starting in the kitchen. Thos all seemed to go very smoothly on this occasion with no hitches. There are some clocks (like radios) that should have reset themselves automatically and had not at the appointed hour but they had updated themselves when I got up early in the morning. I was quite pleased to learn that I had not been using the correct technique to close down the open aps on my iPad but on consulting the web and running off a document, I have discovered that I should swipe my finger from the bottom of the screen but pause it in the centre for half a second, at which all of the then open tabs will appear as thumbnails and can then be swiped up to be closed completely. My daughter-in-law taught me some of this yesterday but the ‘pause  in the middle of the screen’ was a new technique as far as I was concerned. Although it does not receive much publicity in the UK, the weekend is marked by masses of anti-Trump demonstrations, popularly called ‘No Kings’ (ever since Trump let an image of himself to be propagated across his own media outlets wearing a crown. Tens of thousands of anti-Trump protesters have been attending ‘No Kings’ rallies on Saturday across the US. More than 3,200 events ‌were planned in all 50 states, and organisers hoped it would be the biggest single-day protest in US history. There were rallies in cities including Washington DC, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as further afield in London and Paris, where people demonstrated against the Iran war. Organisers expected nine million people would take part in America this time, after the first two rounds of rallies last June and October attracted five million and seven million respectively. Whether this popular protest will have any real effect is too early to say but when the occasional non-scheduled election does take place, the Democrats seem able to scoop it up. Speaker Mike Johnson is now able to afford just two defections on any party-line vote if all members are present — and in an election year, they seldom are. In the coming weeks, his situation is expected to become worse, whittling down the margin to a single vote. It is the continuation of a dynamic that has plagued House Republicans since President Trump took office in 2025 –  a majority so small that it gives outsize power to any one member who wants to buck the party and it makes governing difficult, if not impossible. Over the course of the weekend, whilst I am out doing my Sunday morning activities, my son and daughter-in-law are packing up their things and leaving the family house in which they have been staying whilst their kitchen was refurbished. I am sure it will give them a lot of pleasure and I know that that some of the available space as been planned to the inch to ensure that certain things will fit where they should. The colour scheme is delightfully subtle and, of course things such as concealed lighting and new splash-backs will make the new kitchen a pleasure in which to prepare meals.

After I had attended the church service in the morning, it was Palm Sunday so as is traditional, we all received a piece of palm folded into the shape of a cross. There was to be no after-service tea and biscuits in the parish hall so whilst in the car I got some funds out of a local ATM, gave the car its ration of petrol, picked up a newspaper and came home to have myself a small cooked breakfast. I knew I would probably go out to a small village near Bromsgrove called Tardebigge where the horses charity were holding their annual Spring fair (or is it ‘fayre’) in the community hall. I went onto the internet to check the exact postcode of the Community hall and was glad I did so as the website informed us that SatNav would give the wrong directions so they gave an alternative set of clear instructions to reach the venue. So in practice by following the instructions this Community Hall had wonderfully ample car parking space and I arrived some 20 minutes after proceedings had opened. I was warmly greeted by the proprietor and the two volunteers with whom I had had coffee the preceding Friday so I as made to feel really welcome. I indulged in some coffee and home made cake and then did a tour of the stalls eventually purchasing several items that I knew would make suitable birthday presents in the future. On one of the stalls, a volunteer had brought along some home-grown plants so after consultation with my daughter-in-law, I purchased a ‘spider’ plant for her. The fair was offering baked potatoes with a variety of fillings so eventually I was persuaded to buy one of these, stuffed with a mixture of coleslaw, baked beans and cottage cheese. This was so huge and filling that  could not actually finish all of it  but in the course of eating this and wandering around the other stalls, I engaged in quite a of conversations with the proprietor and three of the volunteers who I know quite well by now. They were a really friendly and welcoming crowd of people and I was glad that I made the effort to attend and to socialise.  When  got home, there was no need to have any lunch but the whole house felt pretty chilly and I sat and watched the edition of ‘Question Time‘ from last Thursday night. Later in the afternoon there is a good film to be shown on Film 4 which  has been shown quite recently but which I have missed but now is my opportunity to make sure  can view it uninterrupted. I have missed all of the politics programmes that are normally shown earlier on Sunday mornings but no doubt, both of these can be viewed later if the spirit moves me. And I have my copy of the ‘Sunday Times‘ which typically offers some in depth analysis of the week’s news.

The evening before last, I received a pleasant surprise as I has received an email from the trip organiser for U3A to organise a trip to Kedleston Hall and Bakewell in Derbyshire for an amazingly reasonable £20. However one did need an up-to-date National Trust membership to go around the Hall and I went scurrying to my wallet to discover two out-of-date cards and then an up-to-date one. This must have renewed automatically and is one of those occasions when one is glad to have automatic renewal. One emerging problem is that Meg had her own National Trust card and I have not got round yet to informing them of Meg’s demise so I have made a reminder to myself to phone them up on Monday morning to get Meg’s subscription cancelled. I find these trips are quite important to me nowadays and going by coach takes out all of the trouble of navigation and it means there is a coach full of people with whom to interact. The trip is in late May and the system is that you first have to apply to get on the trip[ and, when accepted, go ahead and pay for it. But the Jodrell Bank excursion a few days ago went without a hitch so now there is another excursion to which to look forward. I spent more time than is good for me messing about with audio things for the following reason. Thinking ahead to my little musical presentation in about two weeks time, I wondered whether I might enhance the sound of the speaker in my iPad which are tiny but do quite a good job considering their size. I had in my possession a standalone Bluetooth speaker so I needed to find the right cable for this, charge it up, print off the manual again (fortunately saved and in my ‘manuals’ folder on my desktop) Now I knew I also had a pair of quite powerful little speakers which I had linked year ago onto an old IBM laptop but evidently they need a power supply. This can be provided on a portable basis by a portable power source such as a Power Bank and one of these I had purchased some time ago. I know this worked well with my speakers in the past but I had to work out how to get it charged it up again which meant quite a lot of experimentation with cables of various sizes, some of which looked as though they might fit. Eventually I found one and I have the Power Bank charging up (slowly) but I know it will give me a couple of hours at the very least which will be enough to power the speakers. Whenever I get a new charging cable, I must get into the habit of labelling it up well so it can be matched up exactly – fortunately, the model I had bought in the past gives an electronic display of power actually charged which  seems at first sight to be incredibly useful but I know from what other users have said that these displayed charge levels are often very approximate and often malfunction. But at the end of the morning, I have got the kit more or less assembled together that I know will work and it has given the results that I think I will need in the future. But playing an iPad in large sonorous kitchen with sound that can reflect  off hard surfaces gives a very different result to that found in a living room with a lot of (sound absorbing) soft furnishings.

My son and daughter-in-law left our family home to go and give their own flat a good clean after the installation of their new kitchen and to get some of their pots, pans, crockery and kitchenware into their new resting places. Whilst they were doing this, I picked up a copy of the newspaper and popped into Wetherspoons where I knew that my long standing acquaintance, World  Seasoned Traveller, was occupied having his coffee and consulting his iPhone for photographs. We had a few words and then I proceeded along the High Street popping into the occasional charity shop. Actually I did find a glass butter dish which I wanted to buy (for the storage of cheese) and then happened  across two dog walkers that Meg and I would often see in the park. This couple I know pretty well and the lady hails from Pula in Yugoslavia which I have actually visited on holiday decades ago. I had a quick ‘fish on read’ type lunch and then my son and daughter-in-law turned up, pretty tired after their cleaning activities  and then we are going to be preparing a meal together this evening. My daughter-in-law very slowly and patiently helped me to sort how to make my music website which relies upon links to Youtube will play videoclips without the interruptions of adverts.  I already have a subscription to YouTube but I was not aware how should I access the premium edition of YouTube and then ‘pin’ it so that I could access further links advert free. Some of my problems arose from the fact that one runs tabs in a browser on a desktop but apps in a browser window on an iPad and although the operating systems are similar, they work in subtly different ways. But my daughter-in-law has now pushed me further along a learning curve for which I am very grateful and it means that when I come do my presentations, they should now be advert free. It has been a beautiful afternoon with only a little of a cold breeze but instead of doing outside jobs, I have been dosing myself up with flu and cold remedy to stave off an imminent cold. We are now approaching the start of British Summer Time at which at some ungodly hour in the morning, I need to go round and put all of the clocks forward one hour. Some are easy and some I always have to think about such as how to adjust the clock on our oven which seems to have a mind of its own. I think the time is approaching when we may have a debate about whether we need (DST = Daylight Savings Time) at all. There is now a school of thought that we should put forward our clocks by two hours at this time of year and then stick at that with no further clock changes at all. As so often in these matters, it is a case of the balance of advantages vs. disadvantages but there are times for long established rituals to have had their day and not in tune with modern living conditions.

My next door neighbours have both been in the wars a little as one of them has had a knee replacement and his wife a replaced hip. Consequently, we never quite got round to our Christmas-time get together but our neighbours put together quite a lavish little tea party, which, as it happened, almost coincided to the day with my son’s birthday. So the day before it was excellent to finally have a get-together and I know that my son and daughter-on-law really appreciated this gesture. The installation of the new kitchen in my son and daughter-in-law’s flat seems to be proceeding on schedule and may well be finished by the very end of the week. Meanwhile, though, there is quite a big ‘cleaning up’ job to be done because as units were cut to size and adapted, there was a certain amount of saw-induced fine particles which will have settled everywhere. The one redeeming feature of all of this is that the flat is not very large which means that ultimately the amount of cleaning to be done is limited and will come to a finite end.  I remember from decades ago when Meg and I had our house extended in Leicestershire some forty yeas ago now, Meg and I would come home tired from work and would immediately have to set about cleaning surfaces before we could even start to think about preparing our evening meal. Meanwhile, I am watching the liberal American news podcasts and  in particular, one channel which gives a lot of attention to the health of Donald Trump. According to this podcast, the health of Donald Trump is visibly declining before  our very  eyes. In the last week, we have seen clips of video in which Trump is constantly falling asleep whilst in Cabinet. His frequent outbursts against ‘criminal’ judges (i.e. any judge, anywhere in the US who does not issue a judgment  which backs up the Trump view of the world is immediately labelled ‘criminal’  and that includes some of his nominees on the Supreme Court) There are also signs of some neurological damage to one of his hands and experienced observers seem to be concurring in their view that Trump is exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of a neurological condition such as  dementia. In the Iranian war, he has extended his latest deadline to the Iranians to accept his ‘peace plan’ (unconditional surrender) for a whole ten days which, as it happens, very conveniently excludes the Easter period including  Easter Sunday. This means that Trump can retreat to Mar a Lago over the Easter period  whilst the bombing continues but there is no political process such as negotiating a peace to interrupt the Easter vacation period. After quite a busy last couple of days, I am quite looking forward to some peaceful relaxation over the next day or so and we have the distribution of palms on ‘Palm Sunday’ to which to look forward in my next attendance at church. The weather is unseasonably cold with an arctic blast sweeping over all of the country but we can expect a slow improvement over the next few days. We shall have to wait until next Wednesday until we actually see a burst of anything like spring sunshine.

After we had breakfasted,  made a journey into town picking up some supplies from Waitrose and then popping in, as I normally do at the end of the week, into my ‘Gifts of Love’ horse sanctuary outlet. There I consoled  the proprietor, who I know quite well, on the death of her dearly beloved dog and she has spent most of the week getting over this sad event. One of the regular volunteers was assisting in the shop this morning  and then another of the volunteers came by. Evidently, they all know each quite well so t was not long before the proprietor, two volunteers and myself were sitting around a table having coffee and biscuits and cracking lots of jokes (i.e. not like your normal coffee establishment) This Sunday was going to the their Spring Fair which  is primarily  a money raising event held in the community hall of a nearby village. There were going to be lots of stalls with some selling a wide variety of (home prepared) foodstuffs. I was told that there would be a wide variety of age ranges amongst the volunteers and lots of interesting people with whom to chat so they invited me along  to participate n the activities as I am a long standing patron of their café and have already met with some of their volunteers. I feel well inclined to go along – although tempting to say that a ‘horse sanctuary’ is not necessarily my cup of tea, the opportunity to meet with and to  chat with a lot of the participants and guests is not to be turned down lightly so I will probably go along.

After  we had lunched, my son got a text to say that he fitting of his kitchen was all but complete. So we all decided to go over and have a look at things – my son and daughter-in-law were delighted with the finished product and the fitter/joiner had taken a great deal of care not only with the fitting but occasionally with little adaptations that have to be made as well as more specialist cupboards built from scratch. The joiner had even brought his own wife along so that she could a womanly ‘deep cleaning’ touch to the newly installed units before  the kitchen as a whole was due for a hand-over.  So, the amount of cleaning to be done is now much less than thought and tomorrow my son and his wife can return to their newly enhanced flat and start to re-populate the kitchen with all of normal kitchen pottery, silverware and cooking containers. Last night, I started to watch ‘Question Time’ on the TV but fell asleep towards the end of it.  I shall probably  watch it again on catch-up and then may have an early night before  an early start tomorrow, as I am fighting off a sore throat and cold/’flu symptoms which may have been passed on by fellow family members. So far I have been able to resist these predations of winter but I may have been caught at the very end.  I tend to always carry a supply of flu and cold relief capsules and powders so that I can dose myself up before the symptoms intensify.

A very interesting judgement in a US court emerged late yesterday. The tech giants, Google and Meta were found liable for a woman’s social media addiction in a landmark lawsuit. A jury in Los Angeles found Instagram, which is owned by Meta, and YouTube, which is owned by Google, were responsible for harm caused to the 20-year-old – awarding her $6m in damages. Meta and Google both said they disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal. But it is been seen as a bellwether decision that will inform hundreds more cases against social media companies for creating addictive algorithms. This case has enormous implications for the way in which the social media companies operate and accumulate vast wealth and the judgement strikes at the heart of their algorithms. But it is fascinating that a US jury has found the use of social media to be addictive and potentially harmful to the mental health  of millions of teenagers. Of course, the big tech companies have the ability and the funds to appeal over and over again and no doubt any legal cases may drag on the years. But there are potentially thousands of similar court cases waiting in the pipeline and we may be seeing just the start to a big fight back the power of the large tech giants. Regulatory legislation is being debated in our own House of Commons and Australia has banned the use of mobile phones for under 16’s which is interesting in its own right. To underline this point, the combined market capitalisation of top tech firms—led by Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft—exceeds $12 trillion, a figure higher than the total GDP of every country except the United States and China. I think this is a case where no individual country can take on the might of the huge giants but one hopes that the combined resources of the EU, including for the purpose of this argument the UK, might be able to exert some influence. The day promised to be an exceptionally busy one today as the shopping will have to be fitted in somewhere and there is Tai Chi, an introductory conversational Spanish U3A course and an audiology appointment to be fitted in somewhere. Days occur like this sometimes when there is a cluster of appointments to be managed somehow. In the Iran war, we now have a very bizarre prospect unfolding. The Iranian foreign minister has been spared after Pakistan warns US no one would be left for talks. Israel has taken Iran’s foreign minister off its list of assassination targets after an intervention by Pakistan, a Pakistani official told Reuters. Abbas Araqchi ‌and parliamentary speaker ​Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf were on the hit-list until Pakistan asked Washington not to kill them, who in turn requested Israel to  ‘back off’, the official said. Araqchi has become an increasingly prominent Iranian political figure since the start of the war and the killing of several top Iranian officials. So we now have the situation in which the assassination of top Iranian officials has been halted so that there are sufficiently political important people remaining with whom to negotiate. As Trump is blowing so hot and cold, it is unclear whether we are on the verge of a peace deal or not as Trump continues to issue blood curdling threats if the Iranians do not agree to his own ‘peace plan'(unconditional surrender) but it is not for nothing that Trump has earned the label ‘Taco’ which is a shorthand for the expression that ‘Trump always chickens out’

Later in the morning, I attended my normal Tai Chi class, although I did miss last week’s session. When the class was over, I indulged in my normal coffee and teacake with some of the regulars before I needed to leave to get my weekly shopping done. Fortunately, it was quite a light week this week about which I was pleased if only because I could quickly get things put away and then a quick lunch prepared. This afternoon was to be the first in our Conversational Spanish and was to be held in a local village community centre. Fortunately, I was able to locate this fairly easily using the SatNav and as I had arrived about 15 minutes early, I assisted the convenor in putting out some tables and chairs so that we could have a good round table discussion. As well as myself there were four other members  in the group. One of these was a teacher of French and Spanish who had been teaching the subjects in schools for about 30 years so she was light years ahead of the rest of us. Then there were two other female members of the group who were very much at a basic level but were trying very hard to understand and to keep up, Finally, there was a quietly spoken physicist whose level of Spanish was about the same as mine. I know my own grammatical constructions leaves quite a lot to be desired not ever having been formally taught the language but the conversation flowed easily enough as the occasion demanded. I had the feeling, tough, that my accent and intonation might have been a tad better than that of the school teacher but it is very early days yet. This time around, we were mainly introducing ourselves but next time we are going to have a more thematic chat about holiday experiences in Spain. The village hall we were in was a bit cavernous and one of the heaters had failed so we rather huddled in our coats but we may try and find a venue, preferably for free, which is a bit more conducive to the needs and budgets of a small group (as we need to raise the cost pf the hire of the hall between us at each session) It could well be that we finish up around the table in the refreshment area of one of our local garden centres where we know there is plenty of parking and it is easy to find. After this meeting had finished, I needed to find my way cross-country for a routine audiology check in our local district hospital and this was fairly routine with nothing much to report. Nonetheless, I was very glad to get this busy day behind me and the U3A groups are small then it is important that the group manages to develop and sustain its own momentum so that everybody will be encouraged to continue to participate. Evidently, even if one or two members drop out then the group may not be able to sustain itself so I suppose it is important that each group member tries to give advice, support, assistance and encouragement to each other.

Yesterday was actually my son’s birthday – of course, parents remember  the birthday vividly of their first born (and in my case, only) son. All those years, I actually helped to deliver him as they were short-staffed that night in the maternity hospital – plus ça change! As I remember it, he was born at about 5.23 on a Monday morning. I remember walking back from the hospital, feeling elated and we drank to the new born baby’s heath in the flat I was sharing with my university friends with NHS Orange juice and gin. In those days, new delivered mothers and mothers about to give birth were supplied with excellent orange juice but upon some investigation find that this  practice did not survive for very long after my son’s birth. NHS welfare orange juice was officially withdrawn for young babies on 31st December 1971.The supply of this concentrated, sweetened orange juice, which had been provided to children under five since 1941 to combat vitamin C deficiency, was replaced by synthetic vitamin drops and tablets. All that I can remember was that it tasted very good and the Spring morning and the daffodils in full bloom. Meg was discharged from hospital very quickly as in those days she was regarded as an older mother (at the age of 21!) as most mothers were then aged about 16. Both my son and I got up promptly at 6.00am because I needed to up in plenty of time before my trip out for the day to Jodrell Bank and he needed to motor over to his flat to open up for the kitchen fitters who are making very good progress with the installation of his new kitchen and may be finished in a few days time. An interesting snippet of news from the USA emerged yesterday morning to brighten at least some of our day. The Democrats have won a Florida special election, flipping a state legislative district that is home to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Emily Gregory, a first-time candidate, beat Republican Jon Maples, who had been endorsed by Mr Trump. Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, declared: ‘If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what is possible this November.’ That refers to the upcoming midterms, when the Democrats will be looking to inflict major damage upon the Trump presidency with potential wins in the House of Representatives and Senate. Actually, it is only one of a series of electoral defeats inflicted on Donald Trump but flipping the constituency in which Trump has his stately pile must be especially sweet for the local Democrats. Trump’s hold on reality seems to be more and more challenged these days as he recently tweeted that a CNN poll indicated that he now received 100% support  from the electorate, but the most recent opinion poll from CNN put Trump with an approval rating of 37% and a disapproval rating of 60% If this is sustained until the Autumn mid-term elections in November, then it spells the end of Republican control of the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate as well.

Yesterday was the day of my trip to Jodrell bank so I walked down into town to pick up a copy of my daily newspaper and then made my way to the bus station. The coach arrived fairly promptly and as we set off, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my travelling companion in the seat next to me was the person ho I had met in the Musical Appreciation Group who had worked at the National Lending Library in Yorkshire but some eight years after me. We carried on exploring our joint experiences of working both before and leaving university and the journey to Jodrell Bank flew by in no time at all and we arrived just after 11.00am. The weather was pretty cold upon our arrival and we were given a map which  showed which of the various sites we could visit for free and which we needed to pay £5 per site to visit. I think that some of us, including myself, were expecting some kind of guided tour but instead we were rather left to our devices. By this  stage and after an early start, many of us headed for the coffee shop to regale ourselves before we sampled some of the (free) exhibition sites and films. We left the site at 2.00pm (although originally scheduled for 1.00pm) and then made our way to Nantwich which was about three quarters of an hour away. Here it is was bitterly cold and many of made for a nearby parish church which  was more like a small scale cathedral and reminded me very much, probably because of its use of a local red sandstone, as a sort of miniature Chester cathedral. We admired some of the misericordias (half seats in the choir stalls used probably by choristers inn the past so they could half stand, half sit during long church services) On a local recommendation many of us made for a highly recommended local book store which  also incorporated refreshment facilities. As it as so bitterly cold outside and I had had only one sandwich for lunch. I treated myself to a bowl of soup and a roll which was delicious and many of the party ended up in this particular locale. Then at 4.00pm we started the journey back to Bromsgrove where we arrived just after 6.30 I chatted to the same travelling companion all the way back and again we had an entertaining talk. What was interesting when I asked around several of the other visit members and when I responded to some of the questions that I was asked, it appeared that many of them of they had been widowed then it was a period some 15-10 years ago and not recently. To that extent, I was regarded as a relative newcomer to the group but everybody with whom I spoke seemed very friendly and not at all stand offish. I was a little dismayed that I had taken a little travelling case with me but my coffee flash had leaked into it. When I got it home, turned it inside out and then gave it a good cleaning, it fell to bits in my hands but then I calculated that it was about thirty thee yeas old so perhaps it was not a wonder that the seams had rotted away.

When I awoke yesterday morning, it was to be of those days when, as you look out of the bedroom window, the sky appears to a mixture of grey and a light murky yellow. The day promises to be quite a fine one in the morning once the cloud has burned off but we are to expect increasingly cloudy conditions into the afternoon. Whilst  was preparing my early cup of morning cup of tea, I decided to see what my forthcoming musical presentation would sound like if played on my ancient iPad. To my surprise, it came out as quite an acceptable sound and, despite the occasional advert as we are relying upon YouTube, and a combination of the videoclips accompanying the arias I have chosen and the music itself will give me the overall effect I am trying to achieve. Of course, I will be making the point that my love of Mozart operas is not only a treat for the ears but a visual as well as an emotional journey as each entry is played. I have to admit that playing my iPad in my kitchen gives a slightly different effect as there are plenty of hard surfaces from which the sound can rebound, rather than the soft furnishings of a living room, but nonetheless playing the presentation over to myself reminds me of what I intend to say about each item on the agenda.

Quite a shocking and unusual accident is being reported upon as I write as a plane flying from Montreal in Canada has crashed into a fire truck in La Guardia airport in New York. As the nose of the plan struck the fire truck, the nose of the plane reared into the air and both the pilot and the co-pilot have been killed outright whereas all of the passengers appear to be safe although some are injured. This is one of the most unusual types of aeroplane accidents that I can ever remember as it is often the case that passengers who suffer most badly in an air crash and not the pilots. No doubt many more details will emerge but it appears that the firetruck was responding to a separate incident at the time. One would have thought that a firetruck is more than capable of getting out of the way of a large plane rather than the other way around but we will have to see what emerges. According to the news breaking last night, The American ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is planning to enter every airport in the United States and arrest those they deem to be illegal immigrants almost the minute they step off the plane. There is already  an agency within the US charged with the tasks of ensuring security and it is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within and connecting to the United States. However, the Trump administration has transformed ICE into a practically private army which roams around  American cities to do Trump’s bidding and, of course, it was ICE agents that killed two American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis before the local population rose up and effectively demanded that their city be left alone. What is so frightening about the personnel recruited  to ICE is that they are very heavily armed, are masked to avoid identification, do not appear to have any IDs evident to the outside world  and appear to have been recruited in great quantities from a much increased  budget. Congress is deadlocked  over the issue of the deployment of these ICE agents as the Democrats are trying  to block the funding stream that has allowed so many to be recruited and deployed but Trump’s private army appears to be not an inaccurate description.  To British eyes, this seems absolutely horrifying but the Trump administration and ‘modus operandi’ are actually quite admired on the far right of British politics and one wonders if Reform were to win the next election whether this American import will be replicated on the streets of Britain. I think the time has past when we can say to ourselves that ‘it will never happen here’ as the world appears to be evolving in such dangerous directions. 

After a light salad lunch, my son, daughter-in-law and I continued our investigation into my grandmothers (and hence my mother’s) origins but we have precious little to go on. Part of the problem  is that we not have birth certificates or even town of birth to go on ad there happen to be quite a lot of ‘Alice Maud Ward’s around in the 1890’s. But we have a 1911 census form entry which  we know is genuine as it matches up with some of my grandmother’s writing in a book of poems given to my mother when she was 15 years old. We are currently working on one line of enquiry where it was possible that my grandmother was ‘passed around’ the family because  we have located a record where she may have been living with her grandfather in the Hull area at the time of the 1890 census at the age of 10-11 but I need to contact  my sister to see if she has the slightest fragment of information that might help us in or searches. As with all historical records, it is possible that errors were made at the time the data was collected – we have found a record, for example, where my mother’s name may have been entered incorrectly as’Maria’ rather than Marie and then corrected later as the final type written  ‘e’ does not align with the rest of the name. My son and I very carefully removed a picture of a sailing ship from its frame to see if we could find a provenance or a date but nothing was yielded up so we taped it all up again. In the late afternoon, I thought  I really needed to get on and carry on with 30-40 minutes of patio clearance (scraping moss from between the slabs) so I now have about one half of this job completed. My son and daughter-in-law invested in a good home-produced outdoor reared chicken so this will be the first of many meals that the bird will provide for us in the next few days.

My routine has changed somewhat at the weekends as I now attend  my local church for the 8.30am service, if only because there is the attraction of meeting fellow parishioners in the parish hall afterwards for tea and biscuits. This provides me with the opportunity of meeting with other age groups which I relish and afterwards, I go along and fill the car up with petrol, pick up a newspaper and then call in at my local supermarket where I can utilise their ATM machine as well as purchasing any last minute supplies. Then when I returned home, my son, daughter-in-law and myself started attacking the huge pile of family photographs we had released from some of the storage space in the house. In past decades, one took a roll of film along to a local chemist for development or even sent them away but we approached the task by throwing away any scenes of landscapes that we could not recognise or seem to have any significance for us. But any photos with family members featuring in them we tended to keep but labelling them up and then trying to add a date and, if possible, a location to help explain the context of the photo. Some of the photos detailed Meg and myself astride a summit on some Lake District mountain and my son himself features in many of them. I think that the earliest photo dates from the time that we introduced our son to fell by walking up Skiddaw (about the 3rd or 4th highest mountain in the area) but we ourselves were staying in a little family run hotel on the slopes of Skiddaw in any case. After we had a light lunch, we fell into talking about family  history and we started  to research some details  of my family history on my grandmother’s side of the family. This proving to be quite problematic as we have so little to go on. But we have one or two fixed points and knowing that she died in 1960 aged 81 we can ascertain a birth date. I also have on my computer an image of the copy of the relevant entry made by my grandmother on the 1911 census but this is relatively little to go on. But my grandmother’s two Christian names were very common at the time as was her maiden name and we do not know some basic details such as the town I which she was living or even her marriage date or the first name of my maternal grandfather. My son and daughter-in-law have subscriptions to ancestry.com website to help them in their searches. To try and make sense of some of the very  limited information that we have we are working on the theory that my grandmother may have been adopted at the age of 2 as we can find details of somebody with the same (but fairly common first name and surname) living with another family in the Hull area and this family may have had a child baptised at the same time as, eerily enough, both this family and my grandmother appear next to each other on the register of christenings suggesting that there was a ‘job lot’ of christenings and the families  may have been entwined somehow. This task is like fitting together pieces of a huge jigsaw and it possible that we are making all kinds of false assumptions but we may all be wrong. 

The war in Iran is taking on some new and interesting dimensions. Trump has told the Iranians that if the Straits pf Hormuz are not reopened then the SA and Israel  will attempt to wipe out Iranian power plants. By way of retaliation, the Iranians are saying  that if Americans attack power plants, then Iran will do the same including the power plats of any of the allies. A certain amount of this is just posturing almost for the sake of it but it is always possible in these ‘tit-for-tat’ situations that one side or the other will make a bad miscalculation and the entire conflict spirals to a deeper and much more serious level. The week ahead is going to prove to a particularly interesting one as I have two new social activities in prospect. The most noteworthy one is a trip to the Jodrell Bank telescope where I am signed up for a trip and a tour of the facilities next Wednesday. This is a U3A trip and the coach picks me up from Bromsgrove Bus station just after 9.00am and then we are whisked up the M6 to the plains of Cheshire. In the afternoon we are going to tour the historic parts of Nantwich so it promises to be a great day out. The following day is going to be the initial meeting of the conversational Spanish group and we have been asked to say a little something about ourselves, including our hobbies and interests to get the ball rolling. What will be fascinating to learn is how good/bad/rusty all of us turn out to be. Those who have studied Spanish at school may well have a higher standard of grammatical accuracy to bring to the part whereas I shall just burble along in my self-taught kind of way. We are going to have a colder spell of weather in the next few days because the grass mowing season is upon us but this will have to wait until the end of the week. Of the various groups that I have joined, the one that has proved to be the most popular is the ‘Curry Club’ I think that this group already has well over 30 members and at least two thirds of them have already signed up for a meal in an excellent restaurant in the Droitwich area.  As I have only recently signed up I have not managed to get into the party for the next eating occasion but at least I am in the system for the next time around. After I have experienced the various groups to which I have signed up, I will be able to make a decision  as to which of these I shall continue with but in the meanwhile there is a house to maintain and a garden to get licked into shape. It is also my son’s birthday later in the week but I believe that his wife is taking him out for a special meal in Birmingham when I am out on my trip in any case. I have looked at the longer term weather forecast for the few days ahead and whilst the weather is going to be quite seasonably warm in the early part of the week, it will drift down towards  the end of the week which is just when I wanted the weather to be fine for my gardening activities.