Today is going being to be our last day here in the Brecon Beacons so we decided to make the most of it. We decided to do today perhaps what we should have done on Day 1 and went to visit the Brecon Beacons National Park Visitor Centre. So immediately after breakfast we set off to find this just off the main Brecon to Cardiff road and up about a mile long purpose built road. When we got to the centre (smaller than we expected) we got some very clear instructions how to proceed on a local walk and we got underway. The two local peaks in the area are Pen y Fan (886m) which is the highest mountain in southern Britain, followed by Corn Du at 873m and Cribyn at 795m, and each year more than 250,000 visitors make the trek to the summits of these impressive peaks. We set off to climb another of the local hills and walked for about a couple of kilometres up a grassy track which would have led us eventually to an iron age hill fort (Y Gaer Fawr). However, we felt that we had walked enough and did not want to lose our way as the grassy tracks tended to fade and reappear so we turned around and made the journey, downhill all the way, down to the Centre. We were surrounded by a multitude of sheep but saw a couple of ravens (or incredibly large crows), some meadow pippits and some red kites. Also on our walk we disturbed a couple of ground nesting birds (larks?) and there was evidence that there must have been a large rabbit population as well. Upon our return to the Centre, we treated ourselves to some hot drinks and toasted teacakes but there were only 2-3 couples using the facilities. We got into an interesting conversation with a lady who was there with her 16 year old daughter and year-and-a-half year old son, who happened to be born on lockdown day – as I had started blogging that day, I could tell her exactly her many days old he was. Then we had a ritual tour around the gift shop where we bought one or two lottle ‘prezzies’ and a few simple guides in case we decide to repeat our trip to the Beacons and can now get off to a flying start. Then we made our way back into Brecon and decided to visit the little cafe with the interesting menu that we discovered only yesterday. The meals that we ordered (a tuna salad and a veggie burger type creation) turned out to be so enormous that neither of us could finish our meals. Nonetheless, we ordered two elderflower pressés as we did yesterday, so we are now 4 bottles to the good of the approximately 27 that we will need to bottle our damson vodka and gin.

After lunch, we made a call to the Market Hall which we had whizzed round and eye-balled a few things last Tuesday. We made a beeline for a hardware store where they were selling heavily discounted goods and bought ourselves a heavy duty skillet pan. As I am now eating a bit more fish (like sea bass) than previously, I hope the skillet pan will come into its own. There are some styles that you do not wash but just keep well-oiled so I will read the manufacturer’s instructions with care. From the same shop, we also bought a really wide yard brush as our recent one, used primarily  to remove leaves and berries, is now practically bald after about ten years of use. Finally, we made our way to a stall where we knew that they were selling some special home venison and juniper berries made pies. We bought three of these, one of these for our domestic help who I am sure will appreciate it – I must take her tips as to what kind of gravy I should prepare to go alongside it. After we got back to the Guest House and we had a little nap, we started packing up ready for the morning. Actually we have gone as far as we can but a lot of stuff actually has to be left until first thing tomorrow morning.

The lorry driver shortage is causing us a degree of concern – but we also wonder what the government is going to do about it. Only a day ago, the message from No 10 and Whitehall was that it absolutely out of the question that visa restrictions could be relaxed so that we could recruit some lorry drivers from mainland Europe. Today, though, the message is changing. The latest line is ‘we have to consider every alternative‘ and it may well be that the government are forced into a U-turn. Of course this is acutely embarrassing for the avid Brexiteers  in the government (i.e. all of them!) as they will be forced to admit that if Brexit had not occurred then the shortages of lorry drivers would be nowhere so acute. Will the Government be forced to eat humble pie?

We slept in a bit this morning which is quite unusual for us, so not waking up until 7.30 we had a bit of a scramble around to get ready in time for breakfast. I also need to write a formal letter for my son to process so I was delighted that I had this MacBook with me (generally used on a desk in the lounge so that I can multi-task by listening to the TV, as well as talking with Meg and blogging) When we got into town, we enountered some strange weather conditions – the weather forecast had indicated that we eventually we were going to have a really sunny day but first thing this morning, we were presented with a kind of drizzle hanging around in the air which made us don some weatherproof clothing. After a certain amount of Googling last night, I discovered the location of the local Information Centre which you would imagine would have a really prominent position and easily accessible psition on the High Street.  Yesterday, we found one of those ornate brass finger posts in the centre of the town but it pointed to the information Centre by indicating the middle of a building. We did locate it, rather hidden down a sidestreet and rather difficult to find – however, the sole person staffing it went out of his way to be helpful. When we complained (mildly) the Centre was a little difficult to find, we got the observation that the local planning commitee would not tolerate a more prominent signpost to it. I think I smell some dirty politics here – but there is a rival National Park Information Centre some way away in a little village called Libanus. Methinks that that is the place to go to get spectacular vies of Pen y Fan, the local ‘highest’ mountain and, I suspect, the start of some good walks. We discovered a completely delightful teashop decorated with a light and modern decor and friendly staff next to a huge town car park that we knew nothing about. So we had our customary elevenses but I had a hot chocolate which was really hot and delicious. We also indulged in a local teacake before girding our loins for another visit to the cathedral which was about a kilometre away up a steep hill. We enjoyed our second and more contemplative visit to the cathedral. On this occasion we stopped to admire the huge 12th century font dated to about 1150 but filled with symbols such as a ‘green man’ which might date the font back to celtic times. We avoided some of the military stuff although some of it is quite interesting e.g. the original colours brought back from the Rorke’s Drift Battles in January 1879, when 11 VCs were won by men from the Brecon area. There is also said to be a sharpening stone where the archers (many from the Brecon area) sharpened their arrows before the battle of Agincourt (but we didn’t happen to see this)

We made our way down the hill back to same cafe where we had enjoyed our elevenses earlier on. We had taken the opportunity to examine their lunchtime menu and they seemed to have some excellent light lunches which we thought we might try. However, neither of us were particularly hungry so we decided to avail ourselves of a carrot and coriander soup accompanied by a scone. Having a chance to examine some of the maps of Brecon (now that we have visited the Information Centre) we now know that there is a huge car park just behind some of the main shopping streets with a supermarket at each end of it. This we knew nothing about until today. On our first day, on Monday, we followed the signs for the first carpark that we saw which had spaces for about 20 cars and have used that one ever since, as we knew it, not knowing or appreciating that evidently all of the locals use the large car park to the rear. We have noticed before, and Brecon is no exception, that you might have stayed in a place for a day or so before you really get used to the ‘systems’ in place for that particular town. Now that we have discovered this huge, and accessible, carpark we shall use it for the rest of our stay here. On our very first day here last Monday we had gone round an almost deserted  Market Hall.This we intend to go round again before we leave because they are selling some local delicacies (I fancy the venison and herb pie) as well as a shop that was selling some good kitchenware at unbelievable prices – and I have my eye on a particularly good skillet pan, as it happens. This afternoon we had a lazy time in our B&B bedroom but, as I blog, I am enjoying watching for the second time the journey of the ‘Flying Scotsman‘ along the Severn Valley Railway line (of which our son knows every inch) 

Today was a day which we had allocated to a sightseeing of the Brecon Beacons so last night I ‘Googled‘ what I hope is to be a scenic route over the Black Mountains which I hope will give us the authentic experience. Meg and I both had a pretty good night’s sleep so presumably a change of locale and some good meals out are wreaking the desired effect. We both had excellent breakfasts for the second day running and by about 10.00 am, we were ready for the off. SatNav-ing just a road number does not get you very far so I thught I would SatNav a village at one end of the scenic route and then another at the other end so that we could hit the correct route over ‘the Black Mountains’  correctly. As it turned out, we got the first part of the journey done OK and then slightly missed the turn off for the critical road which is the A4069. We knew we had gone slightly astray but that did bother trouble us a great deal as I was just about  to enter a new set of coordinates in the SatNav in any car. But just then we spotted a strategically located hotel which looked as though it was in the busines of offering morning coffees so we treated ourself to a cappuccino, a mocha and a nice toasted teacake between us. Then we had a stroke of real luck. We fell into conversation with a couple also taking a morning coffee – he was a bank employee celebrating his 60th birthday and she was a care worker from Indonesia. They knew the area quite well and also the road that we wanted so they encouraged us to follow them up the roundabout where we could turn off into the mountains – and took the same route themselves so that we could follow them. The mountains resembled some of the huge wide passes in the Lake District and I quite enjoyed them but as a driver I had to concentrate upon the road quite a lot. When we came down from the mountains we set a course for Brecon which involved some backtracking of our steps and then having made the wrong call at another roundabout, finished up traversing the Black Mountain in the reverse direction. The mileages involved over the actual tops are actually quite small and we were not unhappy to see the mountain tops again from a different direction. I managed, though, to get betters views on my way back when I was ascending as when you are descending, you do not have a lot of time for sight-seeing when you are concentrating upon the bends on tne way down. There was quite a mist (not unexpectedly) so visibility was not as good as we might have hoped for, given the fine weather over most of the country.

We descended into Brecon at a fairly late hour for lunch (1.30-ish) and I decided to we might try a quirky little establisghment with rave reviews called the Hop Inn Beer and Gin. The reviews on the web showed statements like ‘Takes Tapas to a new level – worth coming Brecon just to eat here‘ and things in a similar vein.  But the craft beer I had was not a touch on yesterday’s down the road and the egg, sausage and chips pedestrian – the lunch time menu was uninspiring. Perhaps, to be charitable, the place really comes alive at night but there was a big discrepancy between what the web reviews led one to expect and our actual experience.  After lunch, we walked into the town to collect a copy of a newspaper (the ‘I’) and after we picked up the car, suddenly realised that we needed to stock up on much needed supplies such as milk and biscuits. I must say, we were rather pleased to get into our own room again and have a bit of a rest and a refreshing cup of own Earl Grey tea.  As soon as we got in, we received a text message fom our son who required a formal letter from me for his own financial purposes – since we joined households together some fourteen years ago, there are occasional joint issues that have to be resolved or untangled. I needed to compose a Word Document which I did ‘in the cloud’ using Google docs but the resulting PDF would only display half the file and would not scroll as  was intended. Eventually, I installed a new PDF reader (Foxit) and also accessed an online Word processing Word clone (Zoho) which I had used before – but it needed passwords, OTPs and the like. But my efforts were crowned with success as I managed to produce the document I wanted, save it OK and get a PDF downloaded onto my computer to transmit onto the son and heir – he seemed quite saisfied with it at the end of the day!

Meg and I spent a good night in our temporary abode last night. The TV and its reception quality in the hotel bedroom are of excellent quality which is also a bonus. In a wakeful period in the middle of the night, I used our iPad to listen to a recording of Brahm’s A German Requiem which I always enjoy hearing but I hadn’t played it to myself for some time. The breakfast arrangements in the Boarding House have been refined to a fine art in the light of the COVID regulations. The proprietor has guests organised into an earlier and a later time so that the breakfast room is not crowded out with individuals and we can keep our social distancing. Meg and I enjoyed a ‘Full Welsh Breakfast’ which was the traditional B&B/boarding house standard and all of the ingredients were locally bought (common for Wales) and beautifully cooked. We will probably have a lighter breakfast in the days ahead but it is now nice to enjoy the full fare on our first day. We remembered the following little story that we recounted to our host after breakfast. The proprietor of the B&B in which we always stayed when we visited family in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, has written a book about amusing incidents that happened in the course of his catering career. Meg and I figure in one of these incidents and it goes as follows. Meg decided to have some boiled eggs for breakfast and enjoyed dipping slices of toast, cut into thin strips, into each soft boiled egg after which they are known as soldiers. As the proprietor was clearing away the breakfast dishes and asked Meg if she had enjoyed her breakfast, there was a natural lull in the conversation over which Meg’s clarion like voice could be heard exclaiming ‘It’s a long time since I enjoyed having so many soldiers for breakfast‘ (after which the whole restaurant guffawed with laughter).

After breakfast, we knew we would have a gentle toddle around the sunny streets of Brecon which we did, making the highlight of our visit a trip to a ‘Savers‘ as we knew that we needed a good few toiletries for our story. For a start, the room is not serviced as part of the COVID regime so we knw we needed some shower gel and hair shampoo, not to mention the toothbrushes which, believe it or not, we had actually forgotten to bring with us (we did find one, extremely low quality NHS toothbrush which we carry round as an emergency in our toilet bag) Still, Meg managed to buy other things such as hair grips and lipstick, without which, of course all modern women would look like Gorgons (dictionary definition: A fierce, frightening, or repulsive woman. …)

I had consulted the internet last night to work out a good eating place for our meal in the middle of the day. We located where this was (at one end of the one of the principal streets) and then went off for a coffee and tea cake for our mid-morning prandials. As we were a little laden up with shopping, we walked back to the car, Sat-Nav’d the restaurant and then let it take us there. I had a magificent glass of local beer (starting with a half and quickly translated to a pint) followed by a chicken, leek and ham pie with mediterranean vegetables whilst Meg had a similarly good lasagne. We felt as though we had dined extremely well, as well as reasonably – on another occasion, we might go back and have a starter and a sweet foregoing the main course.

After lunch, we visited Brecon Cathedral which was a real treat. When we first arrived the Cathedral was unfortunately closed but we ran into a couple of the local cathedral volunteers who opened it up for us. The cathedral started life as a Benedictine Priory and is now regarded as one of the arhictectural masterpieces of mid Wales. The chancel is a superb example of Early English architecture, while the later nave is primarily Decorated Gothic in style. One gets the overall impression of beautifully uncluttered early gothic and we may well go back to enjoy some of the extensive walks around the grounds (about two miles altogether through beautiful woods but a bit much for the late afternoon) and now we know what we are looking at, a second visit to the cathedral and its shop and its tea-rooms might be very much worth while. We could always save it for a rainy day, if we have one.

Well, the day has finally arrived when Meg and I are off on our jolly hols. I got up reasonably early and then did last minute packing, including the MacBook Pro I generally keep in the lounge to blog away quietly in the corner whilst listening to the TV on the one hand and, occasionally, having a conversation with Meg on the other. I made sure last might that I had all of the software I needed properly installed and, more importantly, all of the file structures in the right place. Then we had a quick breakfast and I popped into town as I needed to collect our newspaper, take out an extra supply of cash and replenish our milk supplies. As I was packing the car, our domstic help called by to give Meg’s hair a final tweak before we set off and we finally got underway at about 11.0am. The journey down the M5 and M50 was generally unproblematic and then we had quite a pleasant meander, minly using the A40 which was quite fast in places, until we finally arrined in Brecon just after 1.00pm. We decided to let the SatNav take us on a drive past the guest house with whom we have a booking and then we turned the car around and headed off into Brecon itself so that we could find somewhere to eat. We got the car parked in quite a tight parking space – as you can imagine a historic market town like Brecon built on a hillside does not have great areas of space available for car parking. Nonetheless, we did get parked and in town found a Wetherspoons where we had a lunch of ‘mini’ fish and chips with included drink which served the purpose. Then we had a gentle stroll through the town and visited one or two of the local (charity) shops where Meg bought some necklaces from a ‘hospice’ type shop. Then about 3.30 we ready to head for the guest house.

At first sight, we thought we were going to have another parking hell as there seemed to be little ot no space. Eventually, when the door was answered, we directed down to the traffic lights, then left, left and left again until we finally ended up in a sort of back street with the proprietor waiting for us where he had a huge block of parking spaces for his guests which gained access to the Guest house through hsi back garden. We had requested a downstairs room and, so far, everything seems to have worked out OK. We got connected through the WiFi very quickly and fairly soon got ourselves unpacked, sorted out and eventually treated ourself to tea and biscuits. I am trying to get this blog written and ‘put to bed’ quite early so that we can have a good night watching the telly and then straight off to sleep.

I have just about got my head around the causes and consequences in the price of gas – 250% since the start of the year and 50% since last month alone and four times the price of a year ago. For causes you can take your pick from the following clusters of factors operating together – a cold winter last year, supply problems in the USA following hurricanes, Russia using a bit of muscle to get its pipeline deal approved by withholding gas supplies, a broken connector in the North Sea, poor reserve controls by the UK compared with other societies such as Germany and so on. Now for the consequences. The UK government (or rather the regulator) has allowed a lot of ‘small players’ into the market’ to encourage competition. But unlike the ‘big boys’ they had not learnt how to ‘hedge’ their supplies and with a regulated price, the cost of newly purchased gas is exceeding the price at which it can be sold – and hence they are collapsing like snowballs in June. The regulator moves their customers from a big supplier to aanother but the big boys do not want new customers as they tend to be a bit fickle (not having chosen them) and hence the market ‘churns’ and they switch again. If you had to point the finger at anybody you would say that the UK government has been lax in encouraging competition over continuity of supply,  the regulator has not enforced proper standards of probity on newcomers to the market (did they ‘stress test’ them) and the UK strategic reserves are dire compared to, for example, Germany. No doubt we thought – why build up a reserve when we can always go ‘to the market’ but of coure markets can, and do, go wild on occasion. At the risk if being a little smug, we have just (in the last 2 weeks) arranged a fixed price for our fuel which is both a fixed price for the next two years and saves us   £75 a month.

Today, according to the weather forecasters, it should have been a rainy day in which waves of showers swept cross the country. Instead, we had a  glorious autumn morning although it turned a little cloudy in the afternoon – not that that bothered us a great deal. I leapt out of bed at a fairly early hour this morning in order  to pop down to pick up our copy of the ‘Sunday Times’ (our regular newspaper now on a Sunday morning) Then it was back in time to watch the Andrew Marr show – another fixed feature of our Sunday mornings. After this was over, Meg and I had a pleasnt walk down to the park where the local branch of the Bromsgrove Literary and Philosophical Society were soon quorate with their four members (others get membership by invitation) To be fair, there was a lot of joshing today and not a lot of discussions of things cosmological or political – but we did try and remember who was starring in what film of yesteryear. We announced to the group that they would not see us around around for a few days as we would going on our jolly holidays to the Brecon Beacons in mid-South Wales. So then we returned home to a quick lunch of quiche and the kind of ‘day-before-you-go-holiday’ raid on the fridge where you try and eat everything up and ensure that you have nothing left in the fridge to go off over the next few days.  Meg and I are looking forward to our holidays starting tomorrow and if we have no traffic jams, or parking difficulties we should have a restful time – but there is always a potential for things to go wrong even when holidaying in England. Also, after our last experioence of AirBnB in North Wales, we trust that this experience should turn out OK as it is a conventional guest house attached to a farm but we shall seen find out. The owners have been in touch with us which is always a bit reassuring and, in addition, we now the app installed from Booking.com so that all of the details of the booking are actually stored on our phone which is useful to have. Our domestic help has very kindly said she would pop in just before our departure tomorrow to give Meg’s hair a ‘tweak’ before we set off so that she looks her best for the journey. We engaged in a new style of packing today in which we put everything that we intended to pack into neat piles on the double bed before eventually packing them away into the suitcase.

I know  that almost anything can be reported in a survey but one was reported on Sky News with the following findings. This is that 20% of the adult population would be prepared to participate in the pornographic industry if the price was high enough – this figure increased to a third of the 18-34 year olds if they were paid enough. All I can say about this is that I think that I have ‘lived too long’ but then there are apps which almost facilitate our engagement in the porn industry if that is what you  ‘want’ to do.

A big story is brewing politically on the subject of cuts to Universal Credit. The government at the start of the pandemic had given a £20 a week rise in the UC rate to help people cope with the worst ravages of the pandemic. Anyway, this was always meant to be a tempory measure and the time has now come for its removal. The sum of £20 a week might not sound that much but it could be half a week’s food shopping for some people – and there are fuel rises and the end of the furlough scheme to cope with as well. It looks as though some 800,000 people may be affected of whom 320,000 (40%) are in work and another 30,000 in a mixture of full-time and part-time work. A coalition of senior Tories are planning a Commons motion tomorrow which is only advisory but which could reverse the cut. My guess is that the Governmemnt will press ahead with the cut but ‘stage’ it in such a way that there will be a cut of £10 a week this year and other further £10 next year. The big problem, politically, for the Tories is that some of the voters worst affected witll be the ex-Labour voters in the so-called Red Wall seats who abandoned Labour and voted Conservative to help give Boris Johnson his 80 seat majority. But the whole of the ‘levelling up’ agenda might be put at risk because of the numbers involved. The extra benefit has been claimed by 800,000 people of whom 320,000 (40% are in work) and a further 300,000 in a mixture of full-time and part-time work. These voters could abandon the Tories very rapidly if the UC credit cut affects them very badly.

We had a beautiful fine day today and although a litle cloudy, nonetheless it was a real pleasure to walk out in the autumn sunshine. We struck off for the park where our two regular friends were busy putting the world to rights. Today we were reminding ourselves how the Tom Sharpe (humourous) novels were widely read in the past. It was not an unusal sight in the late 1970’s to be on a train and see an elderly gentlemen quietly reading whilst sitting in the corner of a railway carriage – suddenly,he would be convulsed with laughter  and the rest of the ‘normal’ population had no idea what was going on until they realisd that the elderly gentleman was reading a Tom Sharpe novel. I can’t remember which novel it was – it could be the first named Wilt – in which a colleague murders a rival and disposes of his body in a meat canning factoy in which the body is minced up and sold in sausages and meat pies over the whole of East Anglia.

Having collected our newspaper and then taken out a wad of cash to utilise in our forthcoming holiday we made for home. Today it was a case of liver and onions that we had been promising ourselves for some time now. In the late afternoon, I thought I would consult my computer system as I thought that I might have an old NS&I (National Savings and Investments) number. that I might utilise again in the future. The trouble was that I had forgotten my password and the system that they had was to generate not an OTP but  a recorded voicemail when, if you expecting the call, you pressed the # sign to acknowledge it – but often your phone was not in the number pad screen and by the time you got there it was too late. Even when I set the keypad stage to the default, the # sign only repeated itself and did not work. After three unsuccessful attempts, the system then shut you down and the only alternative was to fill in an online form with questions that I had to guess at the nswer ( e.g. What type of account did you hold?) and then I might, after a wait of several days, be sent to a sceeen where I could generate a temporary password. I even tried a helpline where I was directed to the same online form I had already filled in so if that draws a blank I see some fraught telephone calls ahead when we return from holiday.

We went to church in the late afternoon (part of our normal Saturday routine) and were delighted to see both of our sets of local Catholic friends, including the one recently discharged from hospital following a ‘heart’ scare. Naturally, we were absoliutely delighted to see her in our midst once again but no doubt she is going to take life a little easier in the foreseeable future. We chatted for a while and finally departed after our stand-in priest was regaling us with an account of a particularly difficult baptism in which the 20-month infant was in the most belligerent of moods and managed to take evasive action against the baptismal water which is really the ‘sine qua non’ of the whole exercise.

Tonight the fragility and interdependence of our industrial system is being exposed for all to see. There has been a massive rise of gas prices for a variety of reasons – but Russia is one of them. The price of gas is so high that two fertiliser factories in the North East have ceased production in the short term which also implies a reduction in one of the most impiotant side products which is carbon dioxide. In the absence of this, then pigs cannot be stunned befor slaughter (by lowering them into a ‘sea’ of carbon dioxide) and something similar may happen wih poultry. Food shortages on our supermarket shelves has been predicted in the next week or so ahead as a direct result of all of this. In addition to all of this, we might add into the mixture some recent pandemic effects on the labour market and, of course,  there are also the Brexit effects in the background whose effects are real but difficult to distentangle. I am not sure what the British government can do about all of this but most ‘normal’ goernments would make a release of the strategic stockpile which the government holds against emergencies (such as a really hard winter) Most European countries keep sensible reserves of strategic raw materials but I have an idea that after Brexit the government felt released from these ‘onerous’ regulations and so it is quite possible that the UK stocks of both oil and gas had been really been cut back to the bone. The Sunday newspapers might provide a more in-depth analysis of some of these problems, however.  

The day started well for us when we got a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend who was enquiring whether we were going to be in the park later on today. Indeed we were but after a delayed start (chatting with our domestic help whose day it was today on a Friday) we finally made it to the park. After a lovely chat, we bumped into the husband of our friend who had just recently been discharged from hospital and whose wedding anniversary it was yesterday. We were delighted to get the news that our friend is recovering from her little ‘heart incident’  and was discharged last Sunday. Now, though, she is taking it easy and having to adapt to a slightly lighter routine – I fear that her days of shovelling a ton of topsoil into place before breakfast are probably now over. And so we progressed home for lunch where we were due to try some of the ‘giant’ fish fingers (made of cod)  that Waitrose sell on their fish counter. This turned out fine, particularly when accomapnied by some tenderstem broccoli.

After lunch, I knew that it was time for our damson gin preparation to commence. I have a little record book in which I have recorded my yields from one year to another plus details of the recipes which have proved their worth over the years. In particular, I need to know the correct proportions of damsons, sugar and gin and the quantitites appropriate for each size of kilner jar that I possess.  I have calculated that this year, I m going to purchase three litres of gin and three litres of vodka – naturally, I buy the very cheapest I can find . Having done a tour of supermrkets to assess what prices and quantities were available, I finished off in my local Aldi where I purchased my three litres of gin and three litres of vodka for this year’s manufacture.  I always feel a bit guilty when I take this volume of alcohol through out supermarket tills but it always amazes me when the checkout operators process this lot without so much as a smile or a comment – I wonder of there are lots of people buying this quantity of booze and how they consume it if they are not also in the business of making home made gin-based products.

In the late afternion, I started this year’s preparation of the damson gin (and damson vodka, which I am making for the first time this year.) The fruit has to be prepard by making gashes in each fruit so that the gin/vodka can penetrate the flesh and extract its essences. For this, I use an old-fashioned tin opener which has the kind of blade which might be likened to a chick’s egg tooth but much sharper.I  hold the fruit in the left hand and rotate it whilst making gashes with the implement held in my right hand – if this sounds complicated, it is actuually incredibly efficient and I managed to get all 550 fruits gashed withoin an hour and a half. Then I have to sterilise my kilner jars and I use Boots baby sterlising fluid for this – one bottle lasts me for years and you fill the jars with cold water, add the sterilising fluid and leave it dor 20-30 minutes followd by a quick rinse. Now for the filling itself I use an old yoghurt pot which, if filled to the absolute brim, brings you very close to the 450 grams needed per jar. Naturally, my kitchen scales are heavilg involved in all of this. Then in goes 350 grams of white granulated sugar followed by three quarters of a litre of either gin or vodka. Each jar requires a vigorous shake (to dissolve the sugar) and basically that is all there is to it. I inspect the stock once a week and give each a quick shake but I didn’t do it last year and it didn’t seem to make any difference. All in all, I filled 9 kilner jars with three-quarters litre of spirit which is obviously nearly 7 litres (or practically a gallon and a half if that i what you prefer)   Straining and bottling can be a bit fiddly but that is three months away yet – hopefully, I will have a supply ready for the Christmas festivities. I am about a week later this year than normal – on the other hand, the fruit seemed bigger, riper and with a skin that was less fibrous than past years so perhaps the week or so delay in the preparation will not matter so much. Now I have to make sure that I have an adequate supply of those little wine bottles (and if you go out for the day then things like elderflower pressé get served out of themI.These are about 20cl and like gold dust andI hoard them whenever I see them – I should have prepared enough for about 30 little presents this year.

Today has been a generally fine day – although a little cloudy and overcast this morning,we knew that we would be in for quite a long fine afternoon. This morning, I engaged in my new routine which is to leap out of bed, get dressed in a hurry and than wait, panting, for the Droitwich Waitrose to open at 8.0 in the morning.  I must admit I was about  five minutes late this morning but the store was practically deserted when I got there. As we are going away on Monday, I needed to shop for what is only half a week. I had not made a list but relied upon memory to buy only what was needed as there is no point buying stuff only for it to go ‘off’ and then have to be thrown away later. The Waitrose staff are always very friendly and as my checkout operator came from Monmouth, so we were soon reminiscing about wet Wales could be and generally was. This morning, we were a little delayed by some routine jobs but eventually made it to the park where we met with two of our park regulars. I’m not sure how we got onto the object but we ended with a long and intense discussion of our experience of working in organisations and the qualities that people bring with them which makes them successful (or not) in an organisational world.The discussion might not be everybody’s cup of tea but half way through, we were regaled by a round of chocololates which one of our regulars had brought along – I can’t quite remember the occasion they were meant to celebrate. Eventually, though, we were so late that we had to send a litle text to our chiropodist who was due along at 2.00pm to say that we might be delayed by five minutes  (even though it was two or three) After we had our feet done, I set to stripping the carcass of a chicken of the fragments of meat which we were going to make into a curry. We do not seem to have done this for ages as we seem to have got out of the habit of having a weekly curry – a tradition that dates back  to our student days which is, of course, more than half a century ago.

After lunch and the invitable post-prandial snooze, I knew that I needed to do about three things which was to go by car and collect a copy of the newspaper, do a tour of the local supermarkets to find the cheapest price for 6 litres of gin (or 3 of gin and 3 of vodka, in readiness for my damson gin preparation) and finally mow the lawns which seem to have put on a sudden growth spurt in the last few days. Something had to go and it was the gin-seeking ventures was abandoned – I started to get the lawns done and finished them all off by about 6.30 (in other words, our teatime) We treated ourselves to half a punnet of strawberries just bought this morning and settled down to watch a pretty naff night on th television this evening.

Now that the cabinet reshuffle is into its second day (and into the ranks of more junior ministers), several commentators have put their minds to the task of working what what the sackings and new appointments  mean for the current government. One can quite understand why rank incompetents like the ex-Education secretary, Gavin Wliiamson, were removed without ceremony. According to all accounts he started saying his ‘goodbyes’ before he was actually sacked so that must have taken all of 30 seconds to do. But some sackings today have raised eyebrows – Nick Gibb and John Whittingdale were two competent, middle-ranking ministers who had peformed competently but still got the push.  The analysts are starting to put forward the following scenario. It is looking as though Johnson is getting rid of anyone at least vaguely allied to the chancellor – Rishi Sunak, who may be a challenger to Johnson’s own position. Also, it is now increasingly clear that anyone towards the top the the Conservative Home website ‘popularity of ministers’ poll has either been promoted or retained (such as Priti Patel) whilst anybody towards the bottom has been sacked. It look as though Johnson has his eyes very much on the next election and wants to surround himself with ministers who look as though they might be effective but will constitute no leadership threat to him. It has been noted that Liz Truss, appointed Foreign Secretary on the strengths of negotiating several trade deals  has actually just done a ‘cut-and-paste job on the deals that were originally negotiated with the EU – in others, with no net effect but good ‘optics’ as regards the Tory grass roots. Another analysis is showing that the proportion of the Cabinet who have attended public schools (two thirds) is twice the proportion (one third) in Teresa May’s cabinet – interesting but predictable? 

Today has been an interesting day in all kinds of ways – but first things first. We knew that it was to be a little cloudy this morning but the weather forecast indicated that we might have quite a bright and sunny afternoon which was just as well given what I had in prospect for later on today. Meg and I walked down into the park  and I left Meg, as now is customary, on our favourite bench with a copy of yesterday’s Times.  I knew that I had several errands to perform on the road and the first of these was to replenish our cash supplies with an all too rare visit to an ATM. This having been done, I then popped along to pick up our copy of today’s newspaper and then doubled back to visit our local Waitrose. Here I bought a bottle of Prosecco and also a nice bowl of something akin to succulents which I thought might make a particularly good wedding anniversary plant as our friend had just been discharged from hospital and might need to take it easy for a few days. I thought this little pot would grace a window sill or a place in the greenhouse but would not have to be replanted if bending was out of the question. Whilst in Waitrose, I was greeted by one of our favourite store staff who was not on duty when it was the day of our own wedding anniversary last Thursday. To cut a long story short, we were the grateful recipients of a whole bunch of red roses (in addition to the flowers we were already given last week) and a wonderful box of chocolates as well. As you can imagine, none of this was expected but when I met up with Meg in the park I was burdened with plant, wine, chocolates and newspapers. Meg was chatting with an old lady we know well and who often comes into the park – her husband, whilst alive, was a local authority gardener and the family donated a bench in his honour (upon which we used to sit  upon occasions). So Meg and set off for our journey home but we decided to unburden ourselves en route. I popped round to the back garden of our friend’s house (as they were not in) and left the present of the wine and the plant outside their back door. Then I knocked on the door of our other Irish friends a couple of doors up and presented the lady of the house with the bunch of red roses saying they were from a ‘secret admirer’ (which fooled no-one) We still have a card to hand deliver tomorrow but at least the heavy lifting has already been done.

This afternoon, after lunch, I had set myself the task which i perform annually of picking the damsons from the incredibly old hedge which forms the rear boundary to our garden. Having done this over the years, I have got everything off to a fine art and go equipped with some plastic buckets which I reserve just for picked fruit, a long handled rake to pull down some of the upper branches and a couple of old milk crates which I use in the garden as an instant platform if I need a bit more height. I count the damsons making sure that I transfer a penny from my left hand pocket into my right hand pocket so I do not lose track of the 100’s. This year the crop appeared a little disappointing – the damsons were of a good size and inhabited some lower branches for me but the crop seemed a lot thinner than usual. I would regard 300 as a complete minimum and had only picked 115 (about a couple of lbs). But last year, my neighbour had availed herselves of damsons on the field side of the hedge so I decided that I would do the same but would have to negotiate a barbed wire fence at the bottomn of a slope at the end of the garden. Having got my milk crates in place, I tried to negotiate the barbed wire fence only to take a wobble and a tumble – I finished up like a turtle with my feet enmeshed in the fence but I took great care to fall in such a way tht I didn’t leave any dangly bits on the fence. Once over, I managed to collected 550 damsons in total, well supervised by our friendly neighbouhood cat, Miggles, who always wants to acxcompany me whenever I am doing jobs in the garden. I calculate that I will need six litres of alcohol this year (three of gin, three of vodka) and 3kg of sugar so I will get the fruit prepped tomorrow, However, my shoulder aches from much stretching, as does my left knee (old war-wound), the place on my leg where I entangled with the barbed wire, a few scratches and assorted nettle stings. I am going to traeat myself to an early night complete with electric blanket this evening to recover somewhat.