It was one of those indeterminate mornings this morning when you were not quite sure how the day was going to turn out, weather-wise. We did not rush for our morning walk having spent some time having a pleasant chat with our daughter-in-law who was busy cooking (or at least preparing food) whilst our son was out at a ‘Diesel Gala’ in the nearby Severn-Trent Railway. Our decision to go down into town was vindicated as the heavens started to open again and we would have got quite a soaking if we had walked all the way. Having picked up our newspapers, we paid a visit to Waitrose from which we needed to pick up one or two cooking ingredients for our daughter-in-law and whilst we were at it, we bought a Cornish pasty to act as the basis for our midday meal. The afternoon was a little attenuated because we usually get ready to go to church at 5.30 which is part of our normal Saturday afternoon ritual.

We knew that today was the day of the FA Cup Final which is something that we do not normally follow, unless there are special reasons to watch it. The Cup Final is typically played on a weekend very close to my birthday and today the finalists were Chelsea vs. Leicester City. Whilst not particular supporters of Leicester City, we did live in Leicester and its environs for 26 years so it was quite easy for us to become Leicester City fans for the day, reinforced by the fact that Chelsea have won the FA Cup some nine times but Leicester have never won it in the entire history of their club. The match started at 5.30 which was just about the time we left to go to church but when we got back home we turned on the TV to discover to our delight that Leicester City were leading 1-0. There was about 30 minutes left to play so this was well worth a watch. They replayed the Leicester goal several times and it really was a stunning strike, struck from a distance and aimed like a rocket into the top corner of the net – their goalie did not stand a chance. The Leicester goalkeeper, Schmeichel, pulled off an absolute stunning flying save some 10 minutes before the end of the match, saving what would have been a draw. Then there was a sustained Chelsea onslaught as you might expect and they did in fact ‘equalise’ with only 1½ minutes left to play. When the goal was scored it did look as though a Chelsea forward was offside – in the subsequent VAR (video replay) then at the moment that the ball left a Chelsea mid-player’s foot for a long ranging pass then the Chelsea forward was offside by some centimetres (about a player’s foot worth it seemed to me) So the ‘equaliser’ was declared invalid and Leicester went on to win amidst signs of absolute delirium (even by football standards) amongst the few Leicester supporters who were  allowed by the COVID unlock-down experimental rules to attend the match. It goes without saying, this result gave us particular pleasure – particularly  as Leicester must have been rated as very much the ‘under-dogs’ before the match.

Earlier in the day, I had engaged in a little bit of computing work in which I think my efforts have been crowned with success. A week or so ago, I had found a Microsoft Outlook ‘clone’ called OEClassic which is a standalone program (i.e. not part of Microsoft Office 365) and which seemed to install and run beautifully whilst preserving all of the classic look and feel of Outlook which for many of us was the de facto standard with which we used in the decades when we were at work. OEClassic (as well as Outlook itself) allows you to not only install a default program but allows for several ‘identities’ when you could install additional copies of your email client or even completely new ones. The point of this, I suppose, is that in a family computer it would be possible for Mum, Dad and each child to have their own ‘identity’ and associated mailboxes  so this would be a way of making sure that everybody’s emails did not collide with each other. A day or so, I had successfully installed another secure mail client  called TopMail as another identity. Today, I took another even more secure and comprehensive email client called Posteo and successfully installed that. You have to get into the documentation of each client to understand the port numbers for both receiving mail (IMAP) and sending mail (SMTP). Then there is a certain amount of tweaking to get things right – if you try and fail, then a ‘Log file‘ of errors helps you to ascertain what you have got got wrong so that you can tweak it and get ir right. Now that I have now got to this stage, I have the inputs/outputs of each of my three email clients all available as separate identities in OEClassic. Things can often go wrong in installing and tweaking programs like this so it is particularly satisfying when you get things to work correctly.

We are still in our gloomy period but at least we are not being actively rained upon at the moment which is beneficial for us. Our domestic help arrived this morning, as is usual on a Friday morning, and we exchanged news of various domestic comings-and-goings which affect all families. Earlier in the morning, I had emailed the daughter of the cousin of Meg’s that we anticipated going to visit in eight days time In Bolton, Lancs. The effect of the email was to say ‘You know the situation best on the ground – let us know whether we ought to pay a visit or postpone it’ and when the situation clarifies, then we shall know whether the visit is on or not. I must admit that I paid particular attention to what Boris had to say at the PM’s COVID-19 briefing this evening. The whole question revolves around the Indian variant of the virus and, in particular, its degree of transmissability. The government scientists seem to believe that it is already more transmissible than other COVID-19 variants and it is quite likely that this will become the dominant variant of the virus in the UK. The particular point of concern appears to be this – if the tranmittability turns out to be high (say 50% higher than the Kent variant) then we could be in for a particularly bad spike which could well surpass even the peak of last January – and this would overwhelm the NHS this time.There are a few ‘India’ variants, but one called B.1.617.2 appears to be spreading more quickly than the other two in the UK. Sources say it is now being seen in lots of places, with few cases linked to travel, and numbers have been ‘grossly underestimated’. The government is seriously worried as the press conference was called at short notice – and then delayed for half an hour. When Boris Johnson was using phrases such as ‘hard choices may lie ahead‘ and ‘I must level with you‘ then it is clear that the ground is being prepared for some choices that are politically unpalatable. When we read inside stories that say that there have been serious disagreements within Whitehall, then this evidently an argument between those who believe ‘we should follow the date not the dates‘ (i.e. probably members of the scientific community) and those who argue ‘we should follow the dates, not the data‘ (members of the Tory right wing who would be absolutely furious if Boris were to depart from the unlock down timetable now). So we have a situation in which next Monday’s easing of restrictions may well occur but an end to the total lockdown at the end of June is now looking more and more unlikely. We are in for a classic race between the Indian variant on the one hand and the rate of vaccinations on the other. It now looks as though the gap between the vaccination periods may be reduced from 12 weeks to 8 to  boost (short-term) some levels of immunity in the general population although the latest scientific evidence seems to indicate that for all vaccines, a 12 week gap between the first and second doses of the vaccine has proved to generate the highest levels of immunity. Another inside story runs as follows:

The decision to delay putting India on the red list of countries, from which travel is heavily limited, and the decision to implement this not immediately but with a gap of just over three days – during which thousands of travellers from India entered the country amid a surge of demand for flights.. will prove to be a grave error.

If this latter story proves to ‘have legs’ as the journalists say, then this inaction may prove to be as costly as the decision to delay a lockdown at the very start of the pandemic. If we have learnt anything in the last few months it is that swift, bold and decisive action – whatever the political consequences –  nearly always turns out to be a better course in the long and and vice versa.

We had a bit of a disrupted afternoon for a variety of reasons. Although we have a ‘house planning board’ so we know what activities are taking place on which day, we had forgotten that our chiropodist was due to visit shortly after 2.00pm. After we had had our treatments and some foot advice for Meg, we had a delayed lunch – only to fall asleep and miss a ‘Zoom‘ appointment with some of Meg’s relatives. We sent off an email of apology and are going to rearrange the same for a few day’s time. Then after our tea this evening, we FaceTimed one of our closest Winchester colleagues and our conversation went on for an hour and a half – time rather flies when we get going. 

Now that we are at the end of one week and starting to look forward to another, inevitably we are starting to wonder what the next few days holds in store for us. If the weather takes a turn for the better, we can start to plan who we are going to see and in what sequence. We have stopped compiling the list once we have got to seven but could no doubt extend it even more.

It really was a very gloomy day today – it looked as though it might rain nearly all of the day and so it proved to be with periods of gloom, interspersed with spatters of rain, followed by quite a downpour from the evening onwards. We have our deliveries from Waitrose on Thursday mornings so this always makes us a little later than normal in the morning. But upon reading my emails, I had some really good news from an ex-colleague from the University of Winchester. Some five years ago, he had suffered from a leukaemia type complaint from which the survival rate is only 30%-40% over five years. Anyway, the five years is now up and my colleague is delighted. He quoted with great approval the dictum of his consultant that ‘There’s no point in curing you if you don’t live a full life….. You can now go away and die of something else.’ So we are all celebrating the good news and long may it continue – perhaps it won’t be too long now before all of the ‘Old Fogies‘ can meet face-to-face and celebrate in the usual fashion.

Today, as Meg and I walked down into town we were trying to remember various family relationships and the connection between them – we wondered if some sections of ‘Meg’s family’ are a little vague about other members of the family. We were trying to work out the exact relationships between ‘x’ and ‘y’ and now we think we have solved the conundrum – at least to our satisfaction. Meg is the first cousin of one family member when traced through Meg’s mother’s side of the family – but also first cousin to another family member when traced through Meg’s father’s side of the family. Now how well these two branches of the family have attended family events in the past is a little unclear to us but when we are next in contact with any of the relevant family members it will be interesting for us to sort out how well each branch of the family is cognisant of the other – Meg is, of course,  the point of articulation between these two branches of the family and the relationships are by marriage. Does this make for ‘second cousins’ or ‘cousins once removed’- having come from a small (i.e. not extensive family and my mother was an only child) then these sorts of relationships are always a bit of a mystery to me (not that I let it bother me one little bit)

When Meg and I got to the park, we were somewhat later than usual but the park was pretty deserted as everyone was dodging the rain. We did, though, bump into one of our park regulars and had quite an interesting discussion about politics and political systems – although we come to our discussions from different philosophical traditions, we are just about coinciding in the middle as it were but no doubt will work out exactly at what points we can agree or disagree when we are not completely rained off. I was speculating to myself whether in discussions of this type one should not seek to dissuade the other party of the falsity of their position but rather the veracity of one’s own.. That’s another discussion point for the next time we meet.

We were in contact with one of Meg’s cousin’s daughters via email to work out how the impending house move is going. It turns out that one house is sold but the new house will not be ready for occupation for about another three weeks until some more legal work has been completed. So tomorrow, we are going to have a ‘Zoom’ meeting when no doubt we can get all of the up-to-date information. It shouldn’t be too long now before we can make a lightning visit over to Derbyshire for a family re-union.

Quite by accident this morning, I stumbled across a mega-secure email client called ‘Posteo‘ and this I am in the process of investigating. Evidently with no income from advertising, a service like this has to be financed through  a subscription only service. I had a quick look at it this morning and it seemed incredibly comprehensive (e.g. with forwarding facilities and so on) so I decided to invest my 12 euros for a year’s worth subscription to see how it works out. If one so chooses then every incoming and outgoing email is encrypted, including the headers, that would make unpenetrable by practically every hacker on earth. But is there a ‘back door in’ for civil authorities trying to track down terrorist or paedophilia type communications? This I don’t know but most of the reviews (and consumer reaction) is incredibly favourable so I will give it a go for a few months to see how it works out. An email account like this is quite useful if you are asked to give an email address for anything you might buy over the net. If you have some aliases (and TopMail give you unlimited aliases) then if you are liable to get spammed you can delete the alias and all of the spammer’s output goes into a black hole (i.e nowhere near your main email account!).

Today, we very much had the feeling of ‘the day after yesterday‘ We had such a wonderful day out on the Severn Valley Railway with family and friends, so today inevitably feels like a bit of an anticlimax. We are always a bit delayed on each Wednesday morning because we have to complete our Waitrose order in time for delivery the following day. In addition, I was sorting out (successfully) a little glitch I had in installing and running a secure email client I had used years before called ‘TopMail‘ and whose virtues I am just rediscovering. This morning, I popped into Waitrose as though it was my local corner shop and bought some milk and also ‘on spec’ a tin of Haggis which is always a bit of an unknown quantity. We then made our way to our normal bench in the park, the black rain clouds having rolled away and giving us some pleasant spring sunshine. We got into conversation with several dog owners not least because some of the pooches under their control think that there may be some food in the offing and come bounding over to see you, with eyes and mouths wide open in anticipation of titbits. Eventually, we made our way home but we were very late at this stage and knew we were going to be quite busy later on the day. At 4.0pm in the afternoon, I was due to Skype one of my ex-University of Winchester friends but between us we could only get Skype working somewhat sporadically (with good vision but very poor sound).  Nonetheless after struggling with the technology  for about 15-20 minutes, we made the best of a bad job and exchanged lots of gossip about computer-y type things. Then promptly at 5.00pm we FaceTimed some of our ex-Waitrose friends and thanked them profusely for the magnificent slab of cake that they had so thoughtfully baked for us in time for Tuesday. We knew that we had to be finished  by 5.00pm because all four of us in the house were due to meet with a financial advisor who was due to advise us on some joint financial matters in which we all have an interest. So we finally set out to watch the evening news starting with Channel 4 at 7.0pm in the evening. In truth, we have quite a busy afternoon not having time even to barely glance at our two dailies, collected earlier.

It looks this evening as though Boris Johnson has bowed to a certain amount of Parliamentary pressure and agreed to a public enquiry into the whole of the pandemic. The track record for proceedings of this type do not bode well – the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq way took seven years to complete from the end off the war until publication date whereas the ‘Bloody Sunday‘ enquiry took some twelve years to complete. For a government desperate to play for time then an enquiry that takes ten years to complete (11 years from today) could be the best of three Parliaments away. The major interest comes from the fact that key witnesses cab be interviewed under oath, document trails including emails have to be revealed and so on. But the political danger can be minimised by the passage of time and the fact that memories can fade and the public may feel that the issues have moved on. So it is probable that Johnson can wriggle through from any structures that might ensue, particularly if the vaccination campaign continues to be a resounding success.

As from Monday next, some of the lockdown restrictions are due to be raised. The principal item which concerns most of us is that some indoor events will noy be allowed, subject to some continuing restrictions. For example:’Indoor hospitality will reopen, which means that pubs, cafes and restaurants can once again serve indoors. They will not have to serve a substantial meal with alcoholic drinks; nor will there be a curfew. Customers will, however, have to order, eat and drink while seated.’ What this means in practice is that not only individuals but also friends can go for a meal together. So from next week, there are a variety of things that we can do, subject to the vagaries of the weather of course. We may well go to Droitwich and a favourite little eating house that we go to there and we can do various little bits of shopping that we need to do in  a shoe shop and a general-purpose hardware type store – Wilko – that sells all kind of reasonably priced toiletries, stationary and other useful household things! 

Today has arrived at last and we knew that it was going to be quite a busy day as it was Mike’s birthday. After breakfast and a very pleasurable opening both of cards and presents, I  popped the various plants that my family had bought for me on the plantstand outside my study window and then went down in the car to pick up our newspapers. This having been done (and learning, incidentally, that my newsagent’s wedding anniversary is exactly the same as ours), I then popped into our local Waitrose. I had already prepared a birthday card for the store (four years old!) and all of its associated staff and this I handed over, as well as a bottle of homemade Apple juice (i.e. non-alcoholic) which I hope that staff will be able to share whenever they have a mid-shift break. I then turned the car homewards and picked up Meg and my son and we made our way to Kidderminster station (or rather the preserved railway station of the  Severn Valley  Railway line). There we got plugged in to the well worked out procedures to cater for passengers in this almost post-pandemic situation. After our bar coded documentation is handed over, we are issued with a wrist band which we wear all day and which allocated us to our unique carriage compartment. This has evidently been cleaned for us and we were left with a plastic bag for own rubbish and a bottle of sanitiser for our use throughout the day.The train left on time at 11.00 am and takes an hour and a quarter to get to Bridgnorth in Shropshire. Our son who knows every inch of the line (having undertaken Driver Experience Days driving Class 50 diesel locomotives several times up and down the line) was evidently on hand to give us expert commentary of different facets of the line. As the train passes over the West Midlands Safari park, we had more than a fair glimpse of some of the rhinos who roam there. In our own carriage, we finished off the bacon butties and coffee with which we had fuelled ourselves with in the refreshment rooms at Kidderminster station immediately before our departure.We arrived at Kidderminster, just about on time but with glowering skies and some spits of rain. We decided to walk up into the town in search of a watering hole that would serve us beer and some hot food and found a good place in one of the streets off the High Street which our son had remembered and which gave us good shelter from the drips of rain which were around us. We had to wait a fairly long time for a food but we did not really care as we had so many matters of mutual interest (generally on the subject of engineering matters and particular types of engines found in planes, ships and trains) We then wandered back down through the town and fortunately the sun had now come out to grace our day. We finished up in a beer tent (adjunct the usual ‘Railway Men’s Arms‘ which may reopen again shortly) where we topped up the alcohol quotient in our blood before tumbling into our allocated carriage. There we treated ourselves to a drink of coffee (from our own flask), a slice of lemon drizzle cake (courtesy of one of our friends) and a box of delicious dark chocolate truffles (courtesy gift from Waitrose as of this morning). When we come to reflect upon the day, we have had an absolutely marvellous day out with family/friends and would certainly seek to repeat this again at an early opportunity.

This evening, we had a special Zoom meeting organised by one of my University of Winchester colleagues and involving three of my former colleagues as well as Meg and myself. Basically we all enjoy each other’s company so in normal times we tend to meet up once or twice a year (calling ourselves ‘The Old Fogies‘) and enjoy a good meal followed by a drink in a pub often in the Winchester area. We are trying to see if we can meet up again with each face-to-face and so we think that a date in July might be OK. Basically, having waited for 15 months, it shouldn’t be too hard for us to wait another two months which might fly by quite quickly now. 

We are now making arrangements to meet with Meg’s cousin (ex-opera singer) and her daughter some time in the neat future. As it stands it looks as though a week on Sunday may be the best available date! Now that the lockdown is easing, I am sure we are all scrambling to meet with each other. I am saying to my friends that I am scouring the local bookshops for old encyclopaedias which may have a designation of ‘How‘ to ‘Hug‘ in case we have forgotten how to do this.

Today was one of those days, weather-wise, when it was very hard to predict exactly what kind of conditions one was to endure. Before our walk, I read my emails as is usual and was delighted to receive one from our university flat-mate and life-long friend who hails from Sri Lanka (Ceylon in our day). It was not particularly surprising to get such an email because our birthdays happen to be be on exactly the same day (ie. tomorrow) and therefore it is easy for us both to remember. I sent off a reply, giving our friend some more up-to-date news, informing him of Meg’s medical problems (as he may be suffering in a similar way) and pointing out to him this blog so that he could thoroughly bore himself with all our comings and goings in the last 419 days. We then got a reply in which our friend indicated that he had been bi-polar for 35 years (absolutely unknown to either of us) but it was kept under control with medication. So we finished off wishing each the best for tomorrow and I said that we give him a toast if we happened to be anyway near any alcohol tomorrow. When Meg and I set off for our walk, somewhat delayed this morning, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. By the time we got to the park, however, the black clouds had rolled over and whilst sitting and having our coffee and biscuits the heavens opened upon us and we got quite a wetting (but were not drenched to the skin as could have happened if it happened to be a cloudburst which is not unusual at this time of year). As we walked down to the park this morning, we came across our long-established Italian friend who had bought me a bottle of something (as it is a present it remains unopened until tomorrow). On our way to the newspaper shop, we were intercepted by our oldest Waitrose friends who again had bought me a bottle of something and also baked a special cake, divided into four quarters to drink with our coffee when we are on the train for our expedition tomorrow.  Having picked up our papers, we decided to pop into our local Waitrose to remind them of tomorrow’s date.The store opened exactly four years ago tomorrow (which is one of the reasons why I always remember the date).On that occasion, four years ago, I wanted to be the first person through the store doors when it opened but in the event, I was beaten to it by a rather pushy young woman in her 30’s – nonetheless, I am proud to wear my status as their second oldest customer. Several of the staff I knew remembered the date but they didn’t think that the management had got anything special organised for them. As their second oldest customer, I intimated that the staff should remind the current manager of the significance of the date and reward all of the long-serving staff with a bottle of Champagne (or Prosecco) – this they promised to do but also thought I should grace them with a visit tomorrow. I will take one of our blank (useful for any occasion) cards and give the whole store (and its staff) a suitable greeting tomorrow.

By the time we got home for our lunch, it was already past 2.0 pm so we had to make ourselves a lightning lunch (which is happening quite a lot these days) We raided our emergency supplies (ie a tin of chicken) and this having been heated up in the microwave we then served it on a bed of onions, green papers and a dollop of pesto and then the whole was served on a bed of cauliflower rice. So the whole meal took about 10-15 minutes to prepare, which is just as well given the lateness the hour.

Not last summer but the summer before, I had constructed a special kind of plant-pot holder. This is designed so that we have a display of potted plants on the same level of my study window – when I look out, instead of seeing the blank wall of my neighbour, I can see a wonderful display of whichever plant I have acquired. This arrangement took quite a long time to construct and, it must be said, is strange to look at but it fulfils its purpose very well. But last summer’s plants had died off so I needed to get the plant pots off the stand, pull out and dispose of the dead plants and their roots and then preserve all of the ‘good’ soil, ready for any new plantings. I did this afternoon because it is just possible that I might acquire a colourful pot plant tomorrow so I wanted the staging to be all ready for it. As I was finishing off my preparations, there was a tap on the window and there was our domestic help who had called round with a few more goodies for us to enjoy tomorrow and in the days ahead!

Today being a Sunday, we were on our normal Sunday routine which involved me getting to the newspaper shop early and then getting back in time for the Andrew Marr show at 9.00am. At this hour on a Sunday morning, the only people you happen to meet are joggers, often in pairs, and as they are watching their breaths, they generally do not relish any type of a conversation. Instead, we each make do with a grunt (if that!) as we pass in the street. After we had watched the Andrew Marr show and breakfasted, Meg and I walked down to the park in the most beautiful spring sunshine. As we walked down we saw one of our Italian friends and spent a few happy minutes with her and then we met some of our Catholic friends and we exchanged our thoughts on the current political situation (we largely think alike on such issues, as it happens). Eventually we got to the park where we really enjoyed the spring sunshine. We take down with us every day a National Trust portable stool which is incredibly light-weight and seems a little like a walking stick but in which you can pull down the seat and you have a three-legged stool. We use this every day to act as a little table whilst I pour the coffee and it always attracts a great of admiring comment from the various passers by, many of whom know us by now. We met 3-4 of our friends (with whom we generally coincide at about midday) and exchanged some stories. Then we reluctantly made our way home as we know there was a Sunday lunch to cook but we felt we had a very enjoyable and entertaining morning as the fine weather encouraged us to stop, linger and chat.

Sunday afternoons are generally well occupied with newspaper reading but today as result of late declarations and a lot of  analysis of the recent elections, we let this wash over us during the afternoon as well. We sometimes tend to watch the Parliament Channel at about 6.00pm on a Sunday because they have a repeat of Question Time which is first broadcast act about 8.30 each Thursday evening.  As this had been Election Day and therefore no results had been announced, we thought we might give this program a miss but thought we would give it a try for 5 minutes or so. But one of the programme’s panelists was John Bercow, the ex-speaker of the House of Commons, and he was extremely erudite and well worth listening to. So we stayed with the whole of the programme which, ss it turned out, was particularly interesting this week in both the questions asked and the analysis offered.

As I woke up early this morning, I judged it not worth going back to sleep again so I went on to my IBM ThinkPad to explore some new possibilities. As Windows 7 is massively insecure, I am going to confine my ventures on the web to the absolute minimum but I was speculating to myself whether it was possible to access the internet but without using a browser. I know that in the text editor which is my favourite editor for the MAC it is possible to just type in the full address of a website (complete with its http://) and then just click on it and this link will take you straight to the URL. So I wondered if there was a PC equivalent and after a bit of searching through bulletin boards and queries, I discovered that I was not alone in seeking for a text editor (nothing as full blown as a word-processor) and eventually settled upon NotePad++ ( a free program but which does exactly what I want) So now for my ‘regular’ visits to websites that I know about (e.g. some of my own) then I have them in a simple computer file and click the link. This worked very well and I realise that I am actually using the browser (because whether the browser gets its data from the keyboard or from a clickable link, the end result is the same and it has to ‘do its stuff’ to locate this on the internet). Anyway, I figure that this method will cut out key logging problems and means that as I am not actually firing up the browser then this might make the process a tad more secure (but I may be completely wrong on this point). I then realised that as my new browser Pale Moon is essentially FireFox and it accepts most of the early extensions written for it, whether it would be possible to locate and add on FireFTP – an FTP client which is incredibly concise and works very well. But Firefox dropped it in their later versions as it didn’t fit their latest profile but I managed to locate it, install it and run it to my satisfaction. Having installed it, I didn’t know where it actually was but Pale Moon has a clickable list of options when you click on the Pale Moon name and there, lurking at the of a section called ‘Developers’ was the program I had just installed. So yet another bonus for a little bit of playing about.

When we woke up this morning it was evidently raining quite hard and carried on splattering for most of the day. A quick look at the Weather app on our iPhone confirmed that there was an 80% chance of rain all day so we certainly did not rush to walk down through the rain. In conditions like this, it is always a tight call whether we walk in the slight drizzle but at the risk of the heavens opening and us getting completely soaked through or whether it is more prudent to go by car. In the end, prudence prevailed and we made our way to the paper shop by car. When getting back into the car, I must have put the control in my back pocket and sat upon it because the car mysteriously opened every window and then its ‘moonlight’ roof as well. Mystified as I was by all of this I set about closing all of the open windows and the ‘moon-roof’ and a semblance of order being restored, we made our way towards the park. On our way there, we were behind a car and I said to Meg ‘Is that a nodding dog on the back window of that car?’ As it turned out, it was a dog that happened to be nodding rather than a nodding dog (= toy!) if you get my drift. We parked the car and were just making for the band stand when our University of Birmingham friend turned up – he had been in the park for some time and we were very pleased to see each other. By this time the rain had stopped but our friend always has a spare towel in his rucksack (as do we) so between us, we managed to wipe the park benches dry and then sat down and had a really pleasant chat. I can never remember exactly the subject of our conversations but we seem to flow easily from seemingly disconnected topic to the next. As we are all going out on a joint birthday trip next Tuesday, it was just as well to make some last minute arrangements and timings – for example, Severn Valley Railways requires us to attend some 40 minutes before the departure time in order to comply with some COVID-19 precautions. 

When we got home, we had a traditional Saturday lunchtime treat of some Waitrose sausages which we always enjoy. Then we settled down letting the trickle of election results flow past us whilst we were gently reading. Many of the results were completely predictable eg. the County Council where I am living (Worcstershire) showed the Tories increasing their representation in the County Council whilst the Labour Party had another atrocious night. But apparently the Liberal Democrats picked up a seat in Bromsgrove which is quite a coup for them (in a strongly Conservative town). Nationally, there were one or two surprises. Cambridgeshire County Council went to ‘No overall control’ which was very much against the prevailing trend. In the West of England mayoral election, Labour had a rare success securing about 60% of the vote and taking the mayoralty I think from the Tories.  In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has been remarkably successful increasing the SNP seats by just failing by 1 seat to secure an overall majority (64 seats out of 129 – one more seat was needed for an absolute majority). However, Nicola Sturgeon can still claim that a majority of those casting voted have voted for there to be a vote on independence as some 8 Green MSP’s have been elected as well (and they are even more strongly pro-independent than the SNP) Meanwhile the Labour Party is full of recriminations as the Deputy Leader, Angela Raynor, has been made the sacrificial lamb and has been sacked – despite the fact that the maladroit planning all came from the office of the leader (Keir Starmer) and not his deputy. So the Labour Party is turning into a vicious fight with each other – so what changes?

Still fine-tuning my IBM ThinkPad, I have been looking around for a browser/search engine which as a very small footprint i.e. is a very low consumer of resources such as RAM as I have so little to play with compared with a more modern machine. I have settled on a little browser called Pale Moon which is basically FireFox without a lot of the extra bits added on and optimised so that it works best in 32-bit  mode (i.e. older hardware like mine) For a search engine, I am using DuckDuckGo – behind the really strange title is a browser dedicated to making sure you cannot be tracked when you are surfing the web and therefore nasties are far less likely to come your way. So far, I have had a limited play with Pale Moon but as it loaded both my blog and one of my websites in about 1-2 seconds, i.e. practically instantly, then this is exactly what you want in a browser which you are going to use for the very occasional foray into the internet  i.e. not browsing as such but going to a known site such as one of my own websites. More about this tomorrow!

So we had a beautiful, spring-like day today and it was a delight to walk down into town when we eventually did. Our walk was a little delayed so I left Meg on the ‘top’ bench (i.e. one of the three that overlooks most of the park and hence one of our favourite perches) chatting with one of our regulars who espied us from afar and whizzes along at a fantastic speed in her battery-driven wheelchair. On my way through the park, I chatted with another of our regular group, mainly about computing-like things as were talking about email clients, alternatives to Microsoft Office and so on. Having collected our newspapers, I made my way back through the park and now we had a little congregation of about 5-6 of us who seem to coincide at about the same time of day in the park. On the way home, we were pleased to have a little chat with an elderly French lady who we know quite well (neighbours of some of our Catholic friends). She recently lost her husband who was pretty aged and had been very ill so we agreed that he was probably in ‘a better place’ right now. The funeral arrangements had gone quite well but of course the numbers were very restricted in these COVID-19 lockdown days. We intimated to the French lady (who I think has taught French in England for several decades during her working life) that we would be delighted to have her round into our garden to drink either tea or champagne according to our mood. We have only had conversations in the street but would welcome the opportunity to share some of our life experiences with each other. When Meg and I used to go on holiday regularly to the South of Spain with the Saga group (catering for the over 50’s) we often found it fascinating to have extended conversations with various people that we met about their life and careers. Everybody we met seemed to have such a fascinating ‘back history’  and I am sure the same is probably true of the people we meet here in Bromsgrove. And we had yet another cbat with our Italian friend on the way home – it was certainly the right kind of weather fo stopping and chatting all the way home.

We had to have a lightning lunch of cheese and biscuits because we had booked a fitting service for some clothes in the Longbriege branch of Marks and Spencer. Longbridge is where the assembly track to the Austin mini used to be and  the site as a whole is now dominated by some large retail outlets and social housing. It makes the days of strikes in British car factories in the mid 70’s seem so incredibly distant – well, of course, it was half a century ago.

The political news this evening is almost completely unprecedented. Firstly, the Tories have won the parliamentary bye-election in Hartlepool with a massive majority (taking approximately two thirds of the vote in what had traditionally been one of the safest of Labour seats) This is the first time the Tories have gained this seat since its creation about fifty years ago. The explanation is not had to find. Election analyst professor Will Jennings, of the University of Southampton, said the 2021 results showed the Tories were ‘making largest gains, and Labour feeling most pain, in areas that voted strongly for Brexit.‘ Conservatives are hoovering up Leave voters Prof Jennings said. ‘That’s the stomping ground where the Conservatives are doing really well.‘ In terms of a broader analysis of the British political scene is is quite remarkable that a party should be in power for about 11 years and then make massive gains in the heartlands of its opponents. I am not sure whether this has every happened before in British political history and once would have to delve into political history books to find a parallel. All of the voters who voted Brexit/Leave seem to have fallen completely into the lap of the Tories. Added to this, of course, we have the ‘rally around the flag’ sentiment concerning the successful implementation of the vaccination regimes . To give a pithy illustration of this, the leader of the Conservatives in Walsall (where the Tories made enormous gains) was asked why the Conservatives had done so well in Walsall. For a local politician campaigning on local issues, his answer was revealing: ‘Well it’s all down to Boris Johnson and the success of his vaccination campaign‘ Enough said! In the meantime, the Labour Party seems to have strengthed its position in Wales and in Scotland, the SNP have also gained ground – whether enough to form an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament it is too early to tell. It does look as though, right across the UK (excluding Northern Ireland where there were no elections) that members of governing parties (Tory in England, Labour in Wales, SNP in Scotland) have generally reinforced their position. Is this a vase of ‘rally round the flag’ as the pandemic crisis is starting to recede?

Today seemed quite a nice bright day, albeit showery, in the morning. We were a bit delayed, as we are often are on a Thursday with our Waitrose delivery and the arrival of our domestic help as  we always seem to have a lot of news to catch up week by week.  So eventually we got to walking down to the park and, for a change, the weather was very pleasant although a tad cold for us. Whilst Meg sat on the park bench, I went off quickly on my own to collect the newspapers – in the meantime, when I returned, Meg had been joined by our friendly octogenarian who walks at least 10km a day come hail or shine. Then on our way home, we bumped into our Italian friend who we have not seen for quite a long time (but she had  seen the backs of us as we beetled down the hill one morning) Anyway, more pleasant chats for us both but it was very late when we go home for lunch. Fortunately, I managed to raid my store cupboard for one of those tins (chicken, steak) that we tend to keep in the cupboard to raid ‘in case of emergency’. So we managed to make a pretty fast risotto which was just as well as we tend to share a little of it with our domestic help. After lunch and a doze, the weather looked set fair so the lawnmower beckoned as it is now a couple of weeks since the last mow. Fortunately the rains held off and the grass got well and truly cut -as the gardening books often say ‘Choose a fine day to…‘ (as though one could)

The political news last night and again today was quite interesting, particularly if you are of  cynical frame of mind. There are the Tories 10% ahead of the Labour Party the day before some of the biggest elections which we are holding today (some having been held over from last year, postponed because of COVID-19). Suddenly, eager to make a mark with the more Brexit and xenophically inclined sections of the electorate in the so-called ‘red wall’ (i.e. Labour seats in largely declining industrial areas) and handed to them on a plate was a fishing dispute with the French off the territory of Jersey.  The British government immediately sent two warships to the area, which immediately generated headlines such as ‘Boris sends in the warships‘ and similar headlines. It is a well known ploy of right wing governments to have an aggressive foreign policy, almost deliberately picking fights with enemies to ‘unify the nation’. But in this particular case, it is evident that Britain sending warships to defend ‘our’ fishing industry against the French is bound to create waves of approval, particularly from the more Brexit-inclined portions of the electorate. You could not have handed a ‘gift-wrapped’ bonus to the Government on the very eve of an election if you had tried. I am trying to fully understand the rights and wrongs in this situation. As I understand it, no Jersey fishermen have been allowed to land any of their catch in France so they are one casualty of Brexit. The French, on the other hand, have traditionally fished all around Jersey (it is only 14 miles from the French coast). However, under the Brexit agreement, their rights are guaranteed but the Jersey authorities are demanding proof from each particular trawler skipper that they have ‘traditionally’ been fishing in the area which sounds a bureaucratic nightmare. However, after a flurry of ‘gunship diplomacy’, it does look tonight as though the Jersey authorities and the French are sitting down to thrash things out in a relatively cordial fashion but I suspect that this is one of these loose ends from Brexit will rumble on and on.

Whilst I must admit to being an ‘election junky’, tonight is going to be an exception. Normally, I stock up with several bottle of Newcastle Brown ale which it is always my intention to slowly consume throughout the night as the election results roll in. The theory is that I will be celebrating if the party I support is winning or gaining seats or to console  myself if the parties I support are actually losing. But this evening, there will be nothing to keep me from my bed. In the first place, the Tories are about 10% ahead and reportedly 17% ahead in Hartlepool which I think has only been Tory on one occasion in the past century. Anyway, 17% behind on the day before the election makes the prospects utterly dismal for the Labour Party. Many of the councils will not start counting until Friday morning and some are even delaying the start of the count until Monday (because of the difficulties that COVID-19 creates for the count, presumably) So I suppose when the polls close at 10.00pm tonight and when the political analysis programs start at 12.00pm, probably there will not be much meat to chew over apart from some exit polls that may well have been conducted.