We woke up this morning to a really bright and beautiful morning but not one we could enjoy in the usual way. We were somewhat delayed this morning by the arrival of the Waitrose order which had to be unpacked and then put away. We were aware of the fact that Mike had an appointment for a CT scan in the Kidderminster treatment centre (some 14 miles day distant) at midday – so we needed to alter our routines somewhat. We went down in the car to pick up our newspapers and then had to pop into Waitrose in order to return a garment to John Lewis via their Waitrose network.  Actually, this bit worked pretty well as the original delivery note contained a returns address and a QR code. All we needed to do is to get onto our John Lewis’s account get a RMA code, then include it in the packed and readdressed parcel and hand it in to Waitrose. I already had an email acknowledging the safe receipt of the returns package back into the system and a refund will no doubt shortly follow. The we went back home by car and had some elevenses in our front garden (delightfully sunny). I then went by car to Kidderminster and got there about 10 minutes early, got scanned very quickly and was back home at only a few minutes after 1.0pm. In the afternoon, we decided to make a trip out to Marks and Spencer’s in Longbridge (on the site of the old Austin assembly line) to do some clothes shopping for some much needed items for Meg and then got home in the mid afternoon. It was a glorious day and we had to forego our normal walk to the park but hopefully, the high pressure system will persist for a day or so yet so we have a nice clear day tomorrow, all being well.

There seems to be something going wrong with our various friends computer systems at the moment. Some of the regulars who we FaceTime or Skype seem to be having a variety of computer problems which means that we haven’t been able to communicate with each other over the last few days. The modern technology is wonderful when it works but systems can be a nightmare if things start to go wrong – we are hopeful that these problems will soon be  sorted out so the we can start to chat again.

There is a World Climate summit organised I believe by the Americans in which various leaders are appearing to pledge allegiance to new emissions targets. To get the ball rolling, as it were, Jo Biden has agreed to cut greenhouses emissions by 50% by the year 2030. The interesting question is whether both China and the USA as the earth’s two biggest polluters will be able to generate the changes needed in our whole economy and ways of living to achieve meaningful objectives. One suspects that the Chinse government, once it puts it’s mind to it, might be in a better position to deliver than the Americans. The Americans are apparently concerned that the Chinese might be a long way ahead of them in the deployment of solar technologies. Whilst some argue that  as the Chinese who have access to cheap capital and labour, then it is no surprise that they dominate some 60& of the available market in ‘solar’ technologies’. But a better explanation of China’s success in solar is that the energy industry prioritises low costs and China excels at cost-cutting and scaling — not just from cheap resources but from a superior ability to innovate manufacturing processes to drive down cost and scale quickly, known as process innovation. One also wonders whether Jo Biden can push the necessary legislative procedures through Congress at the moment as there are so many vested interests still in the energy industries.

The Greensill affair rumbles on with revelations that David Cameron lobbied the Treasury so much that he was in danger of morphing from ‘Dodgy Dave’ to ‘Desperate Dave’ as he sought, repeatedly, to get the Treasury to favour the firm which was now employing him (and which eventually went bankrupt) At the same time, Boris Johnson has been revealed as almost being at the beck and call of James Dyson (vacuum cleaner manufacturer who was an ardent Brexiteer but who eventually took his business off to Singapore to lower his costs) What is some concern to some senior civil servants is that Boris Johnson shows himself as being susceptible to exchanges of messages via WhatsApp – as such, these are not ‘meetings’ and therefore are not subject to the Ministerial code of accountability and so on. The combination of these types of stories seem to ensure that the Tory party seem to be the absolute party of sleaze – not that they care as the public does not seem to mind so much apparent sleaze as the Tories are so far ahead in the opinion polls. It is a strange world!

Today started off as quite a gloomy and overcast day and the temperature seemed to have dropped markedly since yesterday. We had plans to make a little trip this afternoon so we hoped that the weather would gradually improve in the afternoon. Knowing that we were going to make a trip out, having collected our newspapers we popped into our local Waitrose for two purposes. We had made some online clothing purchases for Meg from John Lewis and organised delivery (at no charge in our local store) Although the order was theoretically ready for collection on late Thursday afternoon (and hence, Friday morning actually) I got a text to say it was ready for collection this morning, which was very welcome. At the same time we picked up some sandwiches and biscuits ready for later on in the day. We had organised a fairly early lunch for ourselves and set off for Coughton Court (a nearby National Trust property) by 2.00pm, having had to call off and fill the car with petrol. As it happened, we got to our destination, guided by SatNav about 25 minutes before our timed entrance but we were still greeted with open arms and allowed in. By this stage of the day, the weather had brightened considerably and once having negotiated our entrance we went straight to the outdoors cafe, not least for the pleasure of having an outside snack once again conscious of the knowledge that we were helping the National Trust finances anyway (admission being gratis for National Trust members) Then we went on a most pleasant woodland walk, encompassing a walk by the river Arden and feeling ‘at one’ with nature. A particular feature of Coughton Court which has impressed us greatly is their use of natural materials to enhance the nature of any walks you undertake. Thus at various information points, the message was provided  by the expedient of writing the message (black paint, white background) on the ‘slices’ taken from a large tree which had fallen (imagine slicing a carrot and you will get my meaning) Also, any large branches are used to provide natural edging materials for the paths in the woodland walks so the whole experience is an incredibly naturalistic one. Having got most of the way through our intended trip we espied a strategically placed bench upon which we gratefully sat ourselves. We had taken a couple of portable chairs with us because we know from experiences in the past that suitably placed benches can be short supply so we had equipped ourselves not only with portable chairs but also a tarpaulin in case we needed to camp out on the grass. So we sat and drank coffee, ate some absolutely delicious rice cakes coated with an orange and dark chocolate topping and observed the distant rooks – and a flight of birds that seemed to soar a little like raptors but which we couldn’t really identify. So we had a delightful day out, only encountering the normal rush hour when we returned to Bromsgrove at about 5pm in the afternoon. 

As indicated in last night’s blog, the two crucial decisions that I was expecting today actually came late last night. Looking firstly at the collapse of the plans for a European Super League for elite football clubs, it looks as though ‘fan power’ from below has caused the whole project to collapse – demonstrations at grounds all over the county displayed the sentiment that the ‘beautiful game’ was being expropriated from them. The government having said that it was going to create an enquiry into the whole affair, it is not going to abandon it but is probably using this as an occasion to engineer some changes in the structure of the industry in the UK. It is interesting to note that no German clubs were involved, nor could they be, as fans are entrenched much more in the ownership of their clubs. Whether any of the elements of the German model can be used in the UK is a moot point as so many British clubs are now owned, or controlled, by oversees companies, owners and entities. (As an aside, the Brexit slogan of ‘take back control‘ is particularly apposite here but not from European institutions but from other varieties of an aggressive and rootless capitalist model that can buy and sell football clubs whatever the ultimate wishes of their fan base. Who ‘owns’ a football club – the fans ‘morally’ or the large commercial interests ‘legally’?) 

The second interesting question is the ramifications of the ‘Guilty’ verdicts in the George Floyd case in the USA. The view is being strongly expressed that this court case is only the start of a very long road for the institutional racism which permeates American society (or at least American police forces) to be addressed. Of course given the American legal system there is still a long process of appeals to follow and a gap of eight weeks before sentencing so the verdict is one one battle in the course of a very long war. Some of the ramifications of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement are washing up onto UK shores as well because black people in the UK justice system are probably not treated as well as they should be.

Well, I suppose it is some kind of landmark to have reached day 400 in these blogs – who would have thought I would pass this milestone when I started well over a year ago. Today was always going to be a ‘chewy’ kind of day because in the morning I had to finish off helping our gardener finish off lowering the height of the golden privet hedge which surrounds i.e. screens our BioDisk. This was accomplished on time and when we sat on our front garden bench and surveyed our work we were pleased with the result i.e. the hedge is delightful (it wouldn’t be the first time gardeners try to lower the height of a hedge and its gets wavy or sloping) Now it is this size, we are going to give it a bit of a tickle with some Growmore fertiliser or perhaps some Blood Fish and Bone.Our gardener was pleased with the result as well and we think that the bare top may well have greened over in 3-4 weeks time as we have pruned this particular privet at just the right time of year. Of course we could do with a skyfull of rain because at the moment, the earth is starting to look incredibly parched. So to recoup on a little bit of time, we took the car down into town and collected our newspapers and then went onto our normal ‘top’ bench expecting to see our University of Birmingham friend. After some three-quarters of an hour, we reckoned that he was not going to turn but as soon as we got to our car, another park friend with whom we had been chatting caught up with us and told us our friend was sitting on one of the lower seats, also looking and waiting for us. What hadn’t helped is that the local authority had erected a temporary tent type arrangement whilst they are doing some work on a drainage pipe or something similar – as it happened, this tent completely obscured or view each from the other and hence we missed. Anyway, we caught up with other and had a few jolly moments of conversation before making our way home. We won’t see each for several days now as we off to Coughton Court (National Trust property) tomorrow and our friend is engaged in tennis matches here and there so we will probably not see each other again until Saturday (quite a long time for us park regulars!)

In the mid afternoon, I thought I had better get to work mowing the lawns, even though the fine weather had suddenly become rather overcast and gloomy. Still, I got the lawns all done in good time as I like to keep a regular weekly schedule at this time of year. Just before I started on the lawns the doorbell rang and it was a computer technician bringing me a reconditioned HP laptop. Although it is not a very highly ‘specified’ machine, even when new, it does have Windows 10 on it, 4Gb of memory and a hard disk sufficient for my needs. The idea is that I run my statistical software on this machine as well as resurrecting my PhD written in  very old version of Word and needing modern machine to access it. When I was offered a laptop like this for £99.00, I thought that the offer was too good to miss so the machine duly arrived. Naturally, I haven’t had time to play about with it yet but the technician helped my get my Outlook email account up  and running. We both of us had a quick bash at running my Dos-based statistical software without a great deal of success – it looks as though I may have to get a DOS-emulator on the machine as thought I was going to play a DOS-based game. However, I am sure this has been done lots of time before so it will just take a little playing about time.

We are just on the brink of two big news stories breaking in the next day. One of these is going to be the jury returning to give their verdict in the George Floyd case in the next day (probably) and there is a lot of tension in the air to see what result is going to be returned. Anything other than ‘Guilty’ is likely to start the most intense black backlash right across America (as to British eyes, this is an an ‘open-and-shut’ case) but we shall have to wait and see.(Stop Press: Guilty on all 3 counts)The other more domestic issue is the case of the new ‘European Super League’ where it appears that at least two of the six English clubs (Chelsea and Manchester City) are on the verge of pulling out of the whole scheme – which might start to collapse in the same way that a stacked pack of cards does once you remove of the critical ones. Stop Press: Al 6 English clubs (led by Chelsea) have now pulled out of the proposed new Super League – which is now effectively ‘dead’.

We always knew that the pattern of day was going to vary from the norm today and so it proved. By a prior arrangement, our gardeners who help us with ‘big’ pruning jobs were going to come along and reduce the height of the the privet hedge around our BioDisk by anything up to a half. Accordingly, I went down into town by car in order to pick up our daily supply of newspapers and that went fine – I got back in time to help our gardener after Meg and I had had a quick breakfast. My role was to act as a ‘gardener’s mate’ and as the cutting was being done, I was on hand to dispose of the privet cuttings in large 1-tonne sacks. We managed to get half of the job done today and second half will have to wait until tomorrow. After our gardener left for the job he had booked  for the afternoon, Meg and I had a light lunch and then we walked down to the park in the mid afternoon. The light on the trees shows the park in a subtly different light to that we get in mid morning  and evidently the visitors to the park differ as well. As the weather was so fine, we actually saw quite a distribution of sun-dresses on display in the park this afternoon – a sight we have yet to behold on one of our morning walks. After we got home, we enjoyed a nice cup of Earl Grey sitting on our bench at the front of our house which receives a full blast of afternoon sun.  As I walked around our garden over the weekend, I realised that there some areas where I really need to get to work, clearing out some weedy patches before the rains come (which they inevitably will) and any latent weed seeds go absolutely mad.

As I anticipated in last night’s blog, the story about a footballing European Super League has really taken off and hit popular consciousness. It is interesting to see that fans, politicians, footballing authorities and the like all seem to be united against this new ‘plan’. The driving force seem to be American owners and American investors who are using the model of the National Football League in the USA to erect  similar structure (i.e a fixed group of clubs with no promotion or relegation). Not being a particular footballing fan, I do not pretend to understand the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of all of this but whose who do follow football much more closely than I all seem to be appalled. The word I have used most often is this whole debate is ‘greed’ and it is interesting that the people most interested in promoting this new League seem to be investors as the share prices of some of the elite clubs who may join any such new League has actually arisen. We may see periods of internecine conflict as it is quite possible that any players playing in such a Super League may be banned by UEFA (European football authority) from representing their country in European competitions. 

In terms of  the evolving political scene, it is interesting to see that India has now been added to the ‘red’ list of countries i.e. travellers from a country have to be quarantined immediately on entering the UK. This is no doubt related to the fact that the ‘Indian’ variant of COVIFD-19 may well be causing quite a degree of private concern. It appears without being unduly technical, the Indian variant of the virus appears to incorporate a double mutation which makes it more likely that it can evade some of the defences afforded by our vaccines whilst at the same time having increased transmissibility – some epidemiologists are suggesting that it could become the dominant strain before the end of June (not too far away)

Here in the West Midlands, there is a fascinating contest for the post of mayor – both candidates (Andy Street, the incumbent Conservative mayor and Liam Byrne, his Labour opponent) both agree the result might be incredibly tight. There are two competing ‘narratives’ only one of which will prove to be correct. One narrative is that the traditional Labour voters only abandoned Labour because they didn’t care for Corbyn and they wanted to ‘get Brexit done’ and therefore they will return to the fold. The alternative narrative is that these traditional labour voters are now within the conservative camp and are unlikely to return. The election itself is on Thursday, 6th May and whatever the result is will probably have quite a degree of significance for the national as well as the local political scene because it will be a test of whether remnants of the ‘Red Wall’ of traditional Labour seats still exists or whether Boris Johnson and the present Conservative party have actually ‘captured’ this important part of the electorate.

Today being a Sunday, I walk down to the newsagents on my own first thing in the morning, treating myself to a little concert of my trusty old iPhone as I go. Then it’s a case of having some breakfast on our knees whilst we watch the Andrew Marr (politics) show at 9.00am. At least we seem to have the overkill coverage of the royal funeral out of our system and, perhaps, nowadays we are starting to see the resumption of ‘normal’ news items and political discourse. Meg and I enjoyed a pleasant walk down to the park this morning where, after a little wait, we made our contact with some of our regular friends and we chatted about what we are all going to do in the week ahead. Compared with past weeks, this is going to quite a busy week for Meg and I but, no doubt, we will treat each day as it comes.  On returning home, there was a Sunday lunch to prepare and although we had some beef cooking in our slow cooker, there always seems quite a lot to prepare such as onion gravy as well as the heavy cooking vessel to clean out. Eventually all was done and we started to look forward to a lazy afternoon, reading the Sunday newspapers which, as you might expect, were quite full of details and analysis of the funeral of Prince Philip in St. Georges’s Chapel, Windsor, yesterday afternoon. In the eary part of the afternoon, my daughter-in-law was busy planting out some seeds and, in particular, some sunflower seeds on the one hand and sweet peas on the other. Sometimes, these get sown a little too late but we trust with the fine spell of weather we have just had, the timing is just about right. However, I think we are all starting to feel the absence of a proper rain-shower by now. It seems to be weeks now since we have had a really proper downpour and the gardens, whilst looking very colourful at the moment, are surely in a state when a sky-full of rain would be appreciated. Tomorrow our gardeners who come about once a month are coming by for a special  attack on a large privet hedge we  have surrounding our BioDisk. This has grown enormous over the years and its width as well as its height is making it difficult for us to keep it under control.So we are going to reduce its height and girth by about between a third or a half  and I am sure that were will be quite a volume of material to dispose of. We are resigned to the fact that our hedge might look pretty ravaged for a while but then we can rely upon some new growth to give us a green top once again.

There is a news story on the Sky news channel tonight which indicates that we may be on the brink of a European super league in football. This would ‘cream off’ the biggest and the most successful football clubs but it is said that it would have a ‘seismic’ effect upon the rest of the game. It means that our national leagues would be decimated and the whole financial edifice of football thrown into disarray. Wether is is going to happen or not and whether it would have the dire consequences proposed is a moot point. But I suppose one can be pretty certain that if the money, players, TV rights and the rest of the footballing paraphernalia is siphoned off to follow a ‘super league’ then this is going to have a massively destabilising effect on the rest of the game.

The ‘Greensill’ scandal as I suppose we now have to learn to call it continues to evolve. Perhaps the root cause of all of this was when governments did not trust the impartiality of the civil service any more when they their favoured policies were found to be over ideological and/or impractical. There was then a move to make sure that senior civil servants could be ‘seconded’ to private industry (presumably follows the mantra ‘public sector bad, private sector good‘) in order to better ‘appreciate’ the world view of those in private industry. This has led to a revolving door between the civil service and private industry (senior civil servants retiring and immediately taking up lucrative jobs in the sectors they were meant to be regulating whilst senior figures in the private sector are jetted into positions of responsibility within Whitehall) The culmination of this was the revelation tat the senior civil servant in charge of the Government procurement programmes, presumably with a budget of billions of pounds, was simultaneously allowed to held a position in a private firm whilst also being still within the civil service. Perhaps it is not at all surprising that words like ‘sleaze’, and ‘cronyism’ are increasingly bandied about but the Main Street Media does not seem too concerned about it (assuming that politicians of both major political parties are equally culpable) and this only lowers the confidence of the general public with the body politic even further.

Well, it was a beautiful bright day today and Meg and I were delighted to stroll down to town in the spring sunshine. We picked up our supply of Saturday newspapers (particularly full with a variety of Saturday supplements) and made our way to the park where we were happy to coincide with our University of Birmingham friend. All the upper benches were occupied so we had to ‘make do’ by sitting by the side of the lake but the morning was to prove not without incident. The resident black-headed gulls on the park were joined by a heron which was evidently very much larger. Consequently, the heron was being constantly mobbed and dive-bombed by the gulls but it was a bit like a David and Goliath contest. When the heron had been pestered for several minutes he took flight and headed in the direction of the flock of gulls who instantly scattered. After a little while, things settled down and the cycle of constant mobbing followed by a delayed retaliation repeated itself. There is some debate amongst the park cognoscenti  whether the heron we say today is the habitual ‘Henry the Heron‘  we used to see months back but was distinguishable because he had rather a gammy left foot (whether genetic or the result of an accident we do not know). Whilst we were laughing and joking in the park, I told them the story of a conversation I had had with my friendly Asian newspaper shop owner. I told him that I was feeling a bit tired that morning (it was a Monday) because over the weekend I had flown to Barcelona and back as I was representing the UK in an international athletics competition. Having arrived home, I then ran all of the way from my house to our Pilates studio in a one-piece bright pink ‘onesie’. My friendly shopkeeper was very sympathetic to my plight, even though I told him that none this had actually happened but was all portrayed in a particularly vivid dream I had had the night before. My park friends who know me well were of the opinion that the detail of running through Bromsgrove in a bright pink ‘onesie’ was probably correct and I was probably just in a state of denial over it all.

This afternoon was dominated by the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh which was a scaled down affair because of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. I must say that with 750 military from various branches of the armed services, it did not feel initially like a particularly scaled down event but the number of guests allowed inside St. George’s Chapel, Windsor was restricted to 30 who were all members of his immediate family. The funeral had been planned by the Duke himself over several years. One of these highlights of the funeral was the fact that Philip had designed his own custom-built Land Rover to carry the coffin at his funeral. The modified Land Rover Defender TD5 130 chassis cab vehicle was unveiled two days before the service. The duke first began the long-lasting venture to create the bespoke hearse in collaboration with Land Rover in 2003, the year he turned 82. He made the final adjustments to the vehicle in 2019, the year he turned 98. The Defender was made at Land Rover’s factory in Solihull in 2003 and Philip oversaw the modifications, in collaboration with the company, throughout the intervening years. The duke requested that the original Belize Green bodywork be switched to Dark Bronze Green, a colour used for many military Land Rovers. The service itself was one of stark simplicity and was suitably poignant. The Queen had to sit alone and with all the members of the royal family as obliged to wear a mask. Under the circumstances, this was just as well because a certain amount of the naturally felt grief would be obscured by the mask and the television cameras were certainly not visually intrusive. One has to say that the whole funeral was probably a case of ‘less means more’ and one felt that the Duke of Edinburgh had the sort of scaled down service of which he would have approved. As an aside, and without wishing to sound particularly nationalistic, I must say that the English are extraordinary good at arranging events like this at spectacularly short notice. Of course, the last event of a similar nature was the death of Diana, the Princess of Wales and on that occasion, too, the whole funeral was organised in about a week. I know that these things are well rehearsed and also that they have manuals of ‘timings’ (down to the second) to coordinate the various activities. Having said all that, I still think that the English? British? tradition of organising pageants at short notice is probably second to none in the world. Because of the the media onslaught, I feel I know a lot more ‘facts’ about the Duke of Edinburgh than I did previously – for example, one particular story is that as a baby he was stowed away in an orange crate and smuggled aboard /rescued  by a British ship after the Greek royal family (with baby Philip) was forced to flee from Corfu.

Today was another fine and bright day, albeit a little cooler than yesterday. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our walk down into the town, chatting with one of our church friends en-route. When we eventually got to the park, we had a good old chat with our University of Birmingham friend who we had quite missed over the last few days as he was off playing tennis which is his grand passion during the summer months and when lockdown conditions apply. Then we were joined by another of our regular acquaintances  and our conversations turned to the subject of the statistics pertaining to the various vaccines. As always, we didn’t arrive at any really firm conclusions but I suspect that we like to test out our understanding of the issues through discussions with each other.

This afternoon turned out to be quite busy with one thing or another. I had spent some time yesterday evening preparing the 27 labels that I needed for the newly bottled damson gin and now needed to label up the bottles with them. I had intended to do all of these in one fell swoop but I only did half a dozen as I got diverted into taking some of the labels off the mini-wine bottles with which my neighbour keeps me supplied. As a couple of new empty bottles turned up in my porch today, I went round with a full bottle of damson gin by way of recompense and was shown round some of the various improvements that my neighbour is gradually making to his back garden as the weather permits. After I had done some damson gin bottle housekeeping, I decided that our dining room in which we have an iPad (and miscellaneous computer-y type things) badly needed a tidy up and I was half way through this exercise when I was interrupted by a telephone call. The call came through from the son of our ex-Leicester Polytechnic colleague who had died recently (in his mid 90’s) wondering whether we could attend the funeral in a couple of weeks time. We have other commitments that are unmovable on that particular day so we have accepted, gratefully, the offer of a videolink into the funeral service proceedings. In return, I scanned a photo that I had managed to find and send it off to Leicestershire with the observation that we are not sure exactly when the photo was taken. We now know that it could not have been later than 1982 as that was the date upon which our ex-colleague retired but I suspect that it was a year or so before that which would make it 1980. The clothes and hair of the 10 of us look very 1970’s but the trouble is that academics (like us) were never fully up-to-date with the latest fashion trends so what we are wearing when the photo was taken was probably newly fashionable 5-10 years before that. Through the good offices of my daughter-in-law, we tried get a copy of the .jpg file printed on glossy (photo) paper but their printer refused to play ball. Anyway, the photo has now been transmitted and can be added to the family’s own collections (and recollections) of their late father.

Tomorrow afternoon is going to be the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh. To be honest, Meg and I have never been particularly interested in royal celebrations – in fact, the day that Charles and Diana got married, we were shopping for furniture in an almost deserted Leicester city centre. But I think tomorrow might be quite a special occasion and probably worth a watch. Having received my MSc at the hands of the Duke of Edinburgh just some three days after his mother had died, I do feel now that I was the fortunate recipient of the Duke’s sense of duty in that he turned to turn to perform his duties as Chancellor of Salford University. I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, being asked today what he thought the Duke’s reaction would be to his own funeral. He opined that the thought the Duke would probably have said ‘Oh, just get on it with it‘ which does sound exactly the sort of thing that the Duke would say.  Apparently, the Duke had planned his funeral down to the minutest detail, including the specially designed LandRover which is to bear his coffin through the Windsor castle grounds as far as the chapel.

Just to end on a really gloomy note, the latest COVID-19 news, despite a reduction in the ‘R’ number, has some worrying features.The new Indian variant of the COVID virus that’s been detected in the UK has all the hallmarks of a very dangerous virus. It has two new significant mutations in the spike protein that help it infect cells and evade the immune system. Some 77 cases have been discovered in both England and Scotland and it is probably the spread of this variant which is leading to spiralling rates of infection across India.

Today was a beautiful spring day which started off with quite a severe ground frost but which rapidly gave way to a wonderful blue sky and a cool but pleasant breeze. We had to delay our walk to unpack our Waitrose order but this having been done, we were both keen to get out and enjoy the spring sunshine. As soon as we had popped out of the house, we had a long and pleasant chat with our next door neighbour who we have not seen for some time now. But as the weather was so beautiful, we took the opportunity to ‘chew the fat’ sharing with each other the news that we had now both received our second vaccination. Our neighbour has a magnificent collection and an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music from the late 1950’s onwards. We were reminding ourselves of singers that we both liked such as Mary Hopkyn, Connie Francis as well as our particular favourite of Joan Baez. As it happened, Joan Baez (in her 70’s?) did several final farewell tours of the UK a year or so back and we went her to see her perform although I suspect she must be in her mid 70’s. Having picked up our newspapers, we popped into Waitrose on our way home picking one or two vegetables which I knew we had missed off our main order. And so on we walked on to the park which was quite thinly populated this morning and we occupied our usual seats lingering in the spring sunshine and noting the stages of blossom in various trees within the park. Already some of the flowering cherries both in the park and along the Kidderminster Road  are already slightly over the top and starting to shed some of their blossoms as though in a miniature snowstorm. We noticed particular today that we have an abundance of blossom on our damson trees (or rather to be more technically accurate in the damson trees in the thick hedge which forms our rear boundary line – to whom the trees actually belong would be hard to ascertain)

This afternoon, I spent a certain amount of time writing some new labels for our newly bottles supplied of damson gin. I know that some people go to the expense of having such labels professionally printed (which gives the home-produced product a professional touch) but I am quite happy to make do with a particular design of sticky label which I try to ensure I always keep in stock. Fortunately, my next door neighbour keeps me well supplied with the small wine bottles with a screw top which I find particularly useful for my own bottling activities. However, I am always scrupulous in removing every bit of the old label and whilst some soak off easily, some labels seem to have been on with an industrial-strength  glue. I have a variety of techniques to get these put to rights including a little brass rotary wheel (designed for an electric drill) which I use for the occasional really stubborn case.

Now that we are at this stage in the unlock down proceedings, Meg and I are starting to look at options for the next month or so. Of course, the next big ‘unlock down’ date is May 17th and I think that is the date when we go ahead and book hotel rooms if we wish to make more distant trips. We do have Saturday, 15th May, pencilled in to see Meg’s cousin in Bolton, Lancashire, but we are going to make that a one day lightning trip. There are quite a lot of National Trust properties within an easy motoring range so we are starting to think of where we might visit if the weather holds out. Top of our list is Coughton Court (home to the errant Guy Fawkes of Bonfire night infamy) but this was years ago and we have probably forgotten most of the key features. At this stage, we suspect that the Houses themselves may still be closed to the public but the grounds will be open to the public – and generally the ex-stables have been converted into eating places of various kinds. I need to do some internet searches to see what is open and what facilities are available in the National trust properties that are open.

The ‘sleaze’ scandal seems to be gathering speed as Parliament is announcing a variety of investigations ( I believe that up to seven enquiries may be projected at the moment). One particular bit of scurrilous gossip that is doing the rounds at the moment concerns a rivalry between Boris Johnson and David Cameron that dates back to their days together in Eton. There they never really liked each other and it may well be that Boris Johnson is quite happy to see David Cameron get his ‘come-uppance’ as a result of these sleaze investigations. This might sully Cameron’s reputation and enhance that of Johnson so you can see the ulterior motives involved!

Wednesday is always a day when we are running a little hard to catch up with ourselves because it is the day when we have to refine our Waitrose order, ready for delivery the following day. Upon my son’s instigation, though, we decided to see if we could book a special excursion on the Severn Valley Railway in one month’s time on the occasion of my birthday on Tuesday, May 11th. The arrangement is that you can book a carriage which can contain four people. So my son can take a day off work and make up a party of four which will include  the three Hart family members and also include our University of Birmingham friend who has also been looking forward, we know, to a trip on the railway. Basically we start off at Kidderminster and make our way through five interesting stations before arriving at Bridgnorth, where they have a pub with lots of real ale at the very end of the platform. So we are all looking forward to this trip immensely – even if the weather is bad, we are under cover for a lot of the time. Also, as a bonus, because of my son’s membership of the SVR, we managed to secure quite a substantial discount for our day’s excursion. So our walk to the park was a little delayed, as is typical on a Wednesday even without the railway booking.  On our way down we were stopped and engaged in a conversation with an acquaintance  which eventually led to a discussion of military matters and why firearms that are ‘rifled’ are more accurate. The process of ‘rifling’ means that a system of helical grooves are incorporated into the body of the rifle which makes any bullet basically spin. This spinning motion effectively neutralises any slight variation in the weight of a bullet (and there is no longer a ‘light’ side or a ‘heavy’ side) and makes it more accurate both in flight and the ability to reach an intended target. Actually, for someone who is totally ignorant about all things military, I knew all of the facts that our acquaintance was trying to convey but I couldn’t say how and where I acquired this esoteric knowledge. Eventually, when we got to the park we could see at a glance that all of our more normal benches were occupied so we had to make do with a seat by the side of the pond/lake so we ate our comestibles without any chats with anyone. The weather was starting to look a little threatening and it had clouded over quite markedly – however, by the time we got home the weather had brightened again and it looked as though we were set for for a fine afternoon.

After lunch, I started another bottling process and in this case, cooking oil. We buy our cooking oil in 5-litre containers and buy a rapeseed oil which is half the saturated fat of Olive Oil, rich in Omega 3, 6, 9 and Vitamin E. This has the advantage that I never run out off cooking oil when I need it as I generally have a stock of about a dozen bottles in stock. Also our domestic help (and her husband) loves this oil to cook with as it has a much superior ‘fry’ temperature to other oils and quite a delightful nutty flavour.  In addition, we are cutting down on food miles and utilising an ‘almost’ local product.

In the late afternoon, we had a visit from our local chiropodist who provides a domiciliary service for Meg and myself. We tend to have our hooves ‘done’ about every 4-5 weeks or so and this keeps us mobile. As the weather was so fine this afternoon, we decided to sit on our bench at the front of the house as it was a beautiful spring afternoon – this proved to be so pleasant that we might chose to have our feet done like this for the rest of the summer.

The political news this afternoon is quite interesting. In the House of Commons, Boris Johnson has successfully beat off a challenge from the Labour Party to establish a special Commons committee to investigate what is being called ‘Tory sleaze’ i.e. David Cameron, the ex Tory PM attempting to get a commercial firm with which he was associated to be awarded some privileges by the Treasury. If successful, David Cameron would have made a great deal of money – but instead the firm involved, Greensill Capital, has collapsed. However, a very powerful and influential Commons Select Committee, the Treasury Select Committee, has decided to investigate the whole of this affair formally and they would have the power to call whatever witnesses they required which would include both David Cameron (ex-PM) and Rishi Sunak, present Chancellor off the Exchequer, whose hands do not seem to be entirely clean in this affair. We shall have to sit and see!

Well, this is the day after our second jab so the interesting question is whether we will get any side-effects after the second jab or not. Last night, I just had the hint of a temperature rise but this could have been imagination. Similarly, this morning, I felt that I had the slightest bit of tenderness around my jab site but this, too, could have imagination. There is rather an odd feeling about the state of the anti-lockdown this evening. Boris Johnson is saying that people must just understand that ‘we will have increased infections and increased deaths’ as we un-lockdown. He also gave us the news, if it is news , that all of the benefits we have seen is largely the result of the lockdown and not the effects of a mass vaccination campaign – I wonder what the science is behind all of this? The sight on the TV bulletins of lots of youngg people going out to drink and celebrate and not observe any social distancing does not exactly fill me full of joy. It seems to be an odd paradox that those who have vaccinated and even double vaccinated (like Meg and myself) are staying at home in the evening whereas the streets are generally filled with the younger elements of the population who have not been vaccinated. I know that some in the epidemiological community are watching current developments with a degree of apprehension. After all, what we are doing is really a massive social experiment which could go horribly, horribly wrong but is now a certainty that Boris Johnson is following ‘the dates, not the data‘ The fact that as a democratic society, we are going to have national elections shortly is probably not in our long term interests as politicians choose policies that they imagine will bty some them some short-lived popularity and votes.

Today, though, was. a beautiful day for us to walk down into town. We picked up our newspapers and then headed off to the park, noting that there were a lot of cars parked in the vicinity of the park which is usually an indication that the park’s car parks are full and people are parking in the streets nearby. But as we got into the park, it seemed not particularly busy and we were soon involved in lots of conversations with a variety of our park friends and park acquaintances. This even extended as far as the two COVID wardens who patrolling order to give ‘advice’ to members of the population who may be transgressing the rules. Some friends who live any the bottom of Kidderminster Road told us of a terrible car  crash that had happened quite near to their house. At least one car was severely damaged, several young men tumbled out of the car and the police almost had to close the road until the accident debris was cleared up. One can only speculate but I did wonder of some younger people had consumed too much alcohol and pushed their car beyond sensible limits (the accident occurring on a corner)

In the meanwhile, we have yet more horrifying stories from Mineapolis where another young black man was shot dead by the police. The young black person was pulled over by the police for a minor offence and when he struggled to get into a (police) car he was shot by the policewoman – who thought she was firing her taser and got ‘mixed up’ between that and her regular firearm. The police officer, herself experienced, has resigned as has the chief of police whilst the black population of Mineapolis is literally up in arms (being met with shows of force and arrested by members of a white police force) One has to wonder whether the deep racism in American society together with a rampant gun culture makes the whole society a deeply unattractive one. It is also interesting to speculate what influence this is going to have on the minds of the jury in the George Floyd case (black man whose neck was knelt on by a white police officer and who subsequently died) This case is being heard in a court house a few miles away from the present shooting and the defence are starting their case shortly.

Tonight, I finally got to work bottling a lot of the remainder of my damson gin. This is not a difficult process but is a little fiddly. First, my little wine bottles have to be sterilised and I do this with a Milton solution (or the Boots equivalent). Now the tricky part – kilner jars full of damson gin (and damsons) has to be emptied into/filtered into a jug. I generally use an old man’s vest (the type with little ‘vertex’ type holes in it) with a thickness in which the vest material is at least doubled, it not quadrupled. The to the top of each jar, I add literally 1-2 drops of concentrated almond essence which gives the final product a little extra kick of flavour. Then I will label up my 27 extra bottles of gin before they get distributed again to friends and neighbours.