Yesterday has opened with quite a lot of cloud and this is going to persist most of the morning but there is a 20% chance of a light shower in the afternoon. I have spent a certain amount of time exploring some potential holiday options for a stay in Spain next February (when winter is at its worst) and were I to book up now, there are a quite a lot of good deals to be had. Our favourite hotel in La Coruna appears to be already full but another that I know well run by the Hesperia chain is offering rooms at half the price so it is all pretty tempting. I am not at the stage to make firm decisions just yet as there is quite a lot to consider. There is an interesting report in Sky news this morning that despite the military might of America, Iran seems to be outfoxing USA in the protracted negotiations over a cease-fire and a peace plan. When the dust settles (if it ever will) then in the most paradoxical way, Iran may emerge as a stronger and strategically more important world power than it has been hitherto, if only because of the whole issue of the control of the Straits of Hormuz. When one starts to reflect upon world affairs then both Russia and the USA seem to have thought that their military might would have made a ‘push over’ of their conflicts with smaller nations (Ukraine, Iran) but both major military powers have suffered what might be termed a bloody nose so this might give the serious military analysts pause for thought before they rush into any more conflicts. The thing that I find genuinely puzzling and both the UA and Russia are guilty of this is the thought that the bombing of civilian populations is likely to lead to a rapid end to a conflict. As we ourselves know from our experiences of WWII, then the bombing of a civilian population is likely to increase and not decrease their overall resolve. The day before yesterday, I had my Spanish conversation class and this turned out to be quite interesting. Our tutor had assembled a range of popular expressions about the ways in which we might be ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ and this led to quite a little spate of stories around the table of how might have utilised some or all of these phrases in our past discourses. We were joined by a new member who has skills in both French and Spanish although I suspect more so in French. But I did feel sorry for her because I think she felt a little overwhelmed by the rest of the group even though our conversations are only semi-fluent. It is interesting to see how each of us approaches our conversation – one of our number is very thoughtful and does not speak as much as the rest of us but I expect his listening skills are of a high order and he understands nearly everything. Speaking personally, I tend to flip the other way because I am fairly confident in speaking (even though I must make a mountain of mistakes) but I suspect that my listening skills are worse than my fellow class member as sometime I fail to comprehend or to follow the flow of the conversation. Still, the important thing is that we each feel as though we are making some progress and therefore deriving some benefit from our fortnightly meetings. I suspect that our latest recruit may not join us again even though all of us made friendly and welcoming approaches towards her. In the evening before last, I watched ‘Any Questions’ come from the critical by election in Makerfield (Wigan and Leigh area of Greater Manchester) and this was conducted in quite a civilised and restrained fashion. But I read that Andy Burnham has opened up a 10-point lead over Reform in the Makerfield by-election race, according to a new poll. The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester would win 49 per cent of the vote, according to data from Survation, with Reform’s Robert Kenyon trailing on 39 per cent.

Yesterday was the day when my friend and I promised ourselves a day out in central Birmingham. We caught the train together from Bromsgrove to arrive in Birmingham New Street station and it was relatively easy for us to negotiate our way to the City Art Gallery. The minute we arrived there, we treated ourselves to Edwardian tea rooms and then we ventured forth to view the pre-Raphaelite collection. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was Britain’s first modern art movement. In the mid-19th century, its artists painted traditional subjects in radical ways and responded to a rapidly changing world. They looked back to the bright colours and realism of medieval art to create a new style for a modern age. As they admired art from before the Italian painter Raphael (1483 to 1520), they called themselves ‘Pre-Raphaelites’. Birmingham has the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art and design in the world. Selected from this outstanding collection, the displays will introduce audiences to the Pre-Raphaelites and their circle, from their early works through to artists working in Birmingham at the turn of the 20th century. After we had had our fill of the artwork, we decided not to eat in the Art Gallery (where we could have had fish and chips) but made our way to the immediate environs where we found a high class Indian restaurant and treated ourselves to an Indian meal (which was good but not ‘that’ good). Then we went on a meandering walk and ran across St Basils’ cathedral (and I estimated it to be Georgian built in 1740 but it was completed in 1715) We admired the stained glass windows and went to light candles for our respective deceased loved ones but whilst we were lighting candles before a Madonna and child, we noticed a woman overcome  with grief weeping to herself before the painting. My friend and I immediately went over to the woman to console her, explaining how we ourselves had both experienced grief recently and after some interesting conversations between the three of us we ended up with a communal hug between the three of us which I honestly think made the three of us feel better. Then we carried on with our peregrination and finished up at an interesting coffee shop at the start of the huge shopping mall that surrounds New Street station. We both find that the bar codes issued on the tickets provided to us at Bromsgrove failed to give us access to the platform spine but staff realised that the software was a little ‘dodgy’ and allowed us through without question. Then we arrived home at about six having had a very interesting day.

I am not getting hugely excited about the 2026 football World Cup to be held across the three countries of USA, Mexico and Canada with England’s first match about 10 days away. Apart from the scandalously high ticket prices, though, as we were talking briefly about the World Cup in our Pilates session the other day, I decided to look up some features of this particular event and discovered some items of interest. One such item is that 25% of the matches are likely to be played in temperatures of 80° and above which must have consequences for the health of the players. FIFA are introducing the ability  to have a two minute drinks break half way through each half which is surely sensible. I wonder whether the high temperatures will militate against the northern European teams and in favour of the African and Asian teams more accustomed to this humidity and heat. But FIFA have tweaked some of the rules for this competition and one, in particular, caught my eye. This is that VAR and assistant referees can both be alerted to, and sanction, the grappling (even to the ground) between players which often takes place at corners. This is a rule change of which I wholeheartedly approve because it is an ugly feature of the present game that players can, at present, grapple with each other whilst preparations are being made for a corner kick to be taken. It will be interesting to see how this rule is both interpreted and enforced but I personally would make shirt pulling an instant ‘red card’ (i.e. sending off) offence but this is such a feature of the modern game that referees feel powerless to do anything about it. I would make only two observations at this point. The first is that as a boy taught how to play football in the 1950’s, we were given instructions how to male a legitimate ‘shoulder charge’ and anything else was considered illegal (not that we would have considered anything else) The second feature that football could learn from rugby union is to outlaw any backchat or confrontation of players with the referee, with the only exception being the captain who is allowed to make (presumably polite) enquiries of the referee as to the reasons for a particular decision  from which (in theory) the captain can attempt to fine-tune the behaviour of players in his/her team and the game can become more free-flowing. But a think a rule change of this magnitude is not even on the horizon and would fundamentally alter the character of the modern game. If I were a football referee in the modern game (God forbid!) I suspect that I would take as my role model ‘Pete’ in the comedy ‘Outnumbered’ where as a football team he finished off by giving most members of the two opposing schoolboy teams red cards thus reducing the game to a 5-aside (which is not a bad idea). On the other side of the Atlantic, the US House of Representatives have belatedly voted to rein in Trump’s war powers (when the war looks practically over, in any case) The US House of Representatives passed a measure that seeks to halt President Donald Trump from taking further military action in Iran. The 215-208 vote was successful after four Republicans joined Democrats in a public show of disapproval of the war, which began in February. This is the fourth attempt by the House to rein in Trump’s war powers, which critics say lack congressional approval. The House resolution still needs approval from the Republican-controlled US Senate. Even if it were successful in the Senate, the measure is unlikely to fully curb military action against Iran. The Senate advanced a similar resolution in May, after seven previous failed attempts, but it has yet to reach a full floor vote. The vote on Wednesday marked the latest sign of division within Trump’s Republican Party, coming just days after a revolt by conservatives in Congress led his administration to pull back plans for a $1.8b ‘anti-weaponisation’ fund for political allies.

Yesterday was going to be quite a busy day because I had my normal Tai Chi class in the morning at which I suspect I am slowly becoming somewhat more adept but it takes time to acclimatise to the moves after a decade of doing Pilates. After the class, I had a coffee with my Bank Manager friend and we exchanged  some thoughts specifically on the organisation  of funerals (the mother-in-law of my friend had died at a ripe old age and she had outlived almost anyone who could come to the funeral so it was going to be quite a small affair) There were also some regulars there with whom she exchanged some black humour jokes before it was time for us to leave. Then I paid a visit to my local Asda store. both to use an ATM and also to buy some fruit (fresh and tinned) that I had forgotten to purchase the other day. By this stage, it was getting pretty late in the morning so I pressed on straight away with a different kind of lunch as I knew that I had to leave the house in plenty of time to get to a neighbouring village hall in which my Spanish conversation class is held.  You would think it would  be easy to get to a village only some five miles distant but because of the massive works on the A38 which seem to have extended for a couple of years now, the most direct route had the road close and the next  obvious shortcut was also closed. However, I managed to navigate my way to the village hall even without a SatNav and got there in plenty of time. There are three males there as well as our tutor and a very experienced (female) teacher of both Spanish and French but we three males all have a background in IT which happens to an amazing coincidence. On getting home and sorting out my future U3A meetings I have an unfortunate clash in a fortnight’s time and I cannot attend two meetings at the same time so for one of them I have had to tender my apologies. I am surprised this does not happen more often but commitments tend to bunch around Wednesdays and Thursdays – Fridays are often the days when one is going away for the weekend and Monday and Tuesday may be too early in the week for some people!

I awoke yesterday to a gloomy day with a 90% prospect of showers across the morning which rather affects whatever plans I might have for the day. One does not get neurotic about the weather but I still continue to be amused by the imprecation in one of the many gardening books which I used to consult to ‘choose a fine day’ as though one was choosing an item of clothing from a clothes rack. Upon consulting Sky News this morning, I saw a report which, despite any possible Western ‘spin’ was illuminating. This was reporting cracks in the Russian economy which is now in its 4th year of conflict with the Ukraine. According to the report, 200,000 businesses had been forced to close in Russia over the past three months alone. The inflation rate is hovering between 5%-6% a year but is 10% in services. Russia’s high inflation rate is primarily driven by massive, war-related government spending, a severe labour shortage, and increased costs for imported goods due to Western sanctions. This combination of factors has overheated the economy, pushing inflation near double digits and forcing the Central Bank to maintain record-high interest rates.  The main drivers of this inflation include heavy government spending on the military-industrial complex and war efforts pumps vast amounts of cash into the economy without producing lasting, everyday consumer goods. This creates a classic scenario of too much money chasing too few goods, driving up prices. One of the reasons for the prolongation of the war is the way in which Ukrainian drone technology has improved dramatically over the past few months. A major improvement in Ukraine’s air defence system has seen the number of Russian long-range drones being intercepted and shot down doubling in just four months. The new hi-tech interceptor drones are relatively cheap, and they are defeating thousands of Russian attacks.  In the past month Russia launched one of its most sustained aerial attacks on Ukraine, launching more than 1,500 drones within 48 hours.  But most were shot down as Ukraine gets better at defending its skies. Ukraine says its aim is to be shooting down 95% of enemy drones by the end of the year. Much as I am not a particularly keen follower of things military, what we have seen is the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine is modern warfare changing before our very eyes. The conventional Russian military forces may have been depleted by as much as 500,000 during the conflict (or ‘special military operation’ as the Russians call it) which is a staggeringly high figure and helps to explain why Russia itself is bombarding the Ukraine with almost hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles are launched almost every day. The war against Iran has diverted attention away from this conflict as well and even the USA’s own military stocks are feeling the adverse effects. I would imagine (and hope) that our own Defence ministry is observing and learning the appropriate lessons and whilst it remains hypothetical, I wonder how well our country would fare against a sustained drone attack in the decades to come? It is certainly the case that Ukrainian drone technology has made massive advances under the impact of war and a fight for its own survival, and one would hope that some of this would be shared with the UK defence industries. 

After I had breakfasted quite rapidly this morning, I made my way to my son and daughter-in-law’s flat which is some five miles distant and had to negotiate several lots of roadworks just to get there – but this is contemporary Bromsgrove.  We had several things to discuss but, quite fortuitously, some of the results of my pre-diabetic monitoring had been uploaded to my NHS app so we managed to discuss collectively some of the more obscure parts of the whole communication. I have another appointment with a practice nurse in a week’s time but I am pleased to have got this data uploaded to my app although I think that one or two crucial results still have to find their way onto the system. I stayed with my son and daughter-in-law most of the morning and I stayed for lunch which was very welcome before I took my leave and navigated my way home round the roadworks again) I then picked up a copy of my newspaper from the local garage and then went to do my weekly shopping which fortunately turned out to be quite a light week for me. Then after a rest, although the weather looked threatening, I turned my hand to the back lawn which badly needed a cut and just managed to avoid the rain, getting the mower cleaned up and put away in something approximating to sunshine. After a break fo a cup of tea, I turned my attention to finishing off the weeding of the communal driveway which was about 60% completed and which I desperately wanted to finish. It was my day for putting out the wheelie bins and I managed to help out my neighbour by offering space in my wheelie bin which was much less full than this. Then we had a good old chat, principally on  the subject of social interactions that we had enjoyed at the birthday party held last weekend and where I was fortunate to have my American friend by my side (she is a natural mixer so this only helped the party to go extremely well). I dare say I will sleep extremely well today after a much busier day than anticipated. Tomorrow looks as though it may be quite a busy day as well as I have Some Tai Chi in the morning as well as Conversational Spanish in the afternoon and for this reason it is satisfying to have got the shopping for the week done. I am anxious to keep my sugar intake as low as practicable as I wish to avoid getting into the zone where I am considered diabetic or even pre-diabetic. I do tend both to buy and also consume a fair amount  of fruit each week but, after discussion with my very well informed daughter-in-law, I may have to reconsider this. It is possible to eat watermelon in moderation as part of a balanced diet because it provides essential nutrients. Although watermelon has a high glycemic index, its low glycemic load means it has a minimal impact on blood sugar levels when consumed in appropriate serving sizes. Eating watermelon may offer other benefits, such as reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, a common diabetes-related complication, due to its lycopene content. So now I am much better informed about what may be good (or even bad) for me.

Yesterday I needed to get up bright and early because I had a scheduled diabetic monitoring at the doctors before 9.00am in the morning so it was important that I did not oversleep. The morning was one of those grey and overcast mornings and the forecast was light showers and a breeze throughout the day with the probability that the rain showers would increase  throughout the afternoon. I was faintly amused to read in my review of the international news that Donald Trump was losing patience with the Israeli leader, Netanyahu whose continual bombardment of southern and mid Lebanon is threatening the Iran peace talks. Trump is reported to have sworn at the Israeli president calling him ‘f*g crazy’ and informing him that ‘Everyone hates you now’. Iran has indicated that it will put out of the talks if Israel continues to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon and Trump has sort of engineered a promise from both sides that will cease shooting at each other but whether this means that Israel will desist from strikes and a bombing campaign is unclear. However, I did receive some welcome political news overnight courtesy of the liberal American political podcasts. Trump was planning to use a huge slush fund of $2.8bn (actually a more emblematic $1776 million ) to reward the violent insurrectionists who were responsible for invading the Capitol building and causing the death of at least one police officer on Jan 6th 2021. This finally proved too much even for some of the most loyal of the Republicans who indicate that they would not vote for it in Congress and so the measure looks liable to fail. Trump is suffering other reverses as well because his attempt to rename the ‘Kennedy Centre’ to the ‘Trump Centre’ as been ruled as illegal by a federal judge on the grounds that only Congress has the ability  to name/rename this facility. The full title of the venue was to be The Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Under District Judge ‌Christopher ⁠Cooper’s order, the name will revert to the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, as it was christened when it first opened in 1971 in memory of the US president who was assassinated in 1963. Trump has responded by closing the Centre, theoretically for renovations but expressing the desire that it would never re-open. All of this is redolent, of course with the Trump’s narcissism in which he is attempting to rename all kinds of facilities after himself in order to secure his legacy with the American people. The so called ‘ballroom’ (which is actually going to house a secure militarised bunker as well as a hospital) is still  being constructed but whether this will be completed remains problematic, particularly after the mid-term elections to be held on 6th November later this year. American political commentators have been talking excitedly about these mid-term elections as all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, plus one-third of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for a vote. The partisan composition of Congress can have a major influence on what the President can do during his or her term in office. As things stand in the moment, it looks as though the Republicans will almost certainly lose control of the Lower House (the House of Representatives) but the outcome of the  results in the Senate seems a bit too close to call.

In the morning, I needed to attend the annual diabetic clinic monitoring and I have been through these tests a few times before.
Whilst I was waiting for my appointment to start, there was a rolling health information display and one item I found interesting was a short clip entitled ‘Rethinking Dementia’ (or similar) This clip highlighted the importance of social interaction of all types and it seems that those who have engaged in multiple social contacts as they age tend to be less likely to develop the disease, so it may well be that in social interaction, there  is a neurophysiological effect upon the brain which helps to protect it. I have also just discovered that those who had the herpes virus (which causes cold sores and never goes away) may also be a risk factor. Some American research is even investigating aloe vera and Chinese celery as possible dietary supplements to help slow Alzheimers. In my examination, a blood sample is taken so these results will not be available for a week but in the meantime my blood pressure was taken and it was as near ‘normal’ as could be for someone of my age. This I find absolutely amazing as I have lived with moderately raised blood pressure for years now so it was a pleasant  surprise to have these results come back as ‘normal’ Whilst I was at the clinic I made an appointment for next week to discuss the results of my hospital monitoring tests last week. So I went on to collect my newspaper and then exchange news of the week with both my domestic help whose day it was today  as well as my son who had called around. On mornings like this, I do not engage in anything over-strenuous as it is my Pilates day and there were only three of us in the class as one of the regulars is off on holiday. Once my Pilates session had been undertaken, we had a short, sharp burst of a shower as I walking back towards the car but I am wondering how wet it will actually make the ground and therefore whether I can complete a weeding job. Upon getting home, I started to prepare some salmon to have as my main meal but I did not want to ‘smell the house out’ with a fishy smell. So I consulted the web and cooked the salmon with a large squirt of lemon juice and some balsamic vinegar and this combination of elements certainly cut down on the fishy smell. I might have overdone it a little, though, as you wouldn’t normally think of adding balsamic vinegar to salmon and I think that I rather overdid it a little – I will know for next time.  Surveying the TV programmes for this evening, I see that Simon Scharma is going to look at the role of women in Victorian society, and I always find his ‘History of Britain’ series well written and illustrated and includes perceptive social commentary.

I awoke yesterday to a day when I expected rain to be sweeping across the country but got one of those dull, cloudy days. with a 75% chance that it will be raining within a couple of hours. Late in the afternoon and before the arrival of my American friend, I managed to complete the sweeping up job that needed to be done besides the recently hand-weeded (and now salted) gravel border. In fact, the sister of my next-door neighbour who was staying with my neighbours for ‘the’ birthday party came and gave me a hand for the final 2-3 metres which was very good of her. But as she and her sister (my neighbour) had been brought up on a Welsh farm they were used to turning their hand to almost everything, so we had an interesting little chat whilst we finished off our tidying up job. I now need to turn my attention to the other side of the roadway which looks terrible by comparison but which I intend to tackle section by section and day by day as long as I do not have a downpour with which to contend. When my friend came around and we had regaled ourselves with some nice cooling drinks and a bite of light supper, I knew my friend was worried about the air conditioning in her car which seemed to be non-functioning and she was unsure whether to return the car to the main dealership in Worcester to have it fixed. However, I consulted the web and found a specialist car-conditioning firm who claimed to be ‘female friendly’ and who could probably sort out the air conditioning in her car for her. Of course, we have had some very hot conditions in the last week or so but my friend had worked in Florida for several years which, having  a hot and humid climate probably has air conditioning units in every single building (not to mention cars) that one enters. Although I listen to a modicum of news each morning, I do tune into ClassicFM to play in the background and heard the latest in what I thought was a commercial solution to a problem which most people never knew existed. The product advertised was a way of getting better drinking water inside one’s cat. Just out of interest, I wondered how much of our national income is spent on domestic pets and found the following. Britons spend over £11.8 billion every year on pets and related services. Nationwide, owners spend roughly £1,000 to £1,500 annually per pet on everyday care, with food, routine vet care, and insurance making up the bulk of the bills. Average Costs can vary significantly depending on the animal you have but for a dog, the average annual costs range from £1,000 to £1,500 for basic care, food, and vaccines. When taking into account larger breed food costs and insurance, this can easily push higher. Cats typically cost between £1,000 and £1,500 per year once you factor in food, litter, insurance, and routine healthcare. So the annual spend is huge and by way of comparison we spend about £8 billion on childcare costs which is itself is about double what was spend only three years ago. So as a society we spend nearly 50% more on our pets than we do on our pre-school children, a figure which I find simultaneously amazing and shocking. I realise, of course, that pet ownership is much more widespread than the demand for pre-school care but, even so, this gives one ‘paws for thought’ (sorry for the shocking pun but I could not resist it). 

Anxious to get some gardening jobs done before rain sweeps across the country, I tackled the back garden patio in which after the hot weather some  weeds had re-established themselves so immediately after breakfast I gave this a once-over. Then I popped into town by car and picked up my daily newspaper but then, immediately upon my return, set to work clearing weeds from the other side of our access roadway. I made reasonably good progress n this endeavour and cleared about half of the required length before I judged that I had done enough for the day and went indoors to cook myself a dimmer of beef, half a baked potato and cabbage -the first ‘meat and two veg’ I have actually cooked for myself  for several days.  After lunch, I looked at some YouTube current affairs videos and started watching one of my favourites who is James O’Brien who is a British journalist, writer, and presenter on radio and television. Since 2004, he has hosted a weekday morning phone-in discussion for talk station LBC. What I saw today was a piece of video which made my jaw drop in complete astonishment. After the recent local elections, the Reform party has often swept the board replacing generations of both Tory and Labour councillors who knew how the system worked. But Reform is so ‘new’ that many of its candidates, now elected, have little or no idea how local government  works. What we witnessed was  a film shot in a Council Meeting of Kirklees (Huddersfield) A Reform candidate was putting herself forward as Leader of the Council but she admitted, on tape, that she had not read the constitution, dd not understand ‘Standing Orders’ and was ignorant of the meaning of terms such as ‘amendment’ Se also said that she still not understand matters even when they ad been explained to her. Then she claimed that the operation of the council was fundamentally antidemocratic because those councillors who understood the rules were at a great advantage compared with those recently elected Reform councillors who did not or could not, understand the council procedures. All councillors will have been offered some training but the exact form of this varies from one local authority to another. A typical pattern is an intensive induction day followed by perhaps a week or so of in-house training. The phrase ‘Lunatics in charge of the Asylum’ probably dates from 1919 when established film stars like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford decided to run their own studios. But the thought that may of our councils are now in the hands of individuals who literally have no idea what they are doing is frightening. Here in Worcestershire, the Reform ‘leaders’ have fallen out with each other and the current leader of  the council is a Green (which is a supreme irony given  how far apart the politics and polices of the Reform and Green parties are) one can only be fearful for the future of democracy when this kind of event occurs and, of course, it may be repeated at a national level if Reform were to be the winners of the next general Election.

After all of the excitement of yesterday’s party at my next-door neighbours, I must have slept very well as I did not awake until just after 5.00am.  Then, fatefully, I fell asleep again and only work up about a quarter of an hour before  I normally leave to attend Church. So I aroused myself from my slumbers, threw on sone clothes and got to church at just about my usual time. Today was one of those occasions that happens about once a month where our usual church organist is given a ‘rest’ day and two of the parents with good singing voices and expertise in playing guitars lead the congregation through their Sunday hymns by performing in the front of the altar. After the usual uplifting sermon, we had a slight variation to our routine as an ex-headteacher (I imagine) was raising funds to finish off the erection of a clinic in Zimbabwe. We needed to raise about  another £10,000 to finish off the building by putting on its roof (which could not be done brick by brick as happened with the rest of the building) So we went into the parish hall and partook of delicious chocolate cake whilst also making our contributions to help the building project. The church hall had a series of photographs documenting the stages of the project and the whole reminded me of the work of Meg’s cousin, Margot, who worked as a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) medic in Sierra Leone. What Margot did, and I believe on more than one occasion, was to take a huge collection of photographs in the form of slides  and then get herself invited around  a series of fund-raising occasions (organised, for example, by Rotary) and then raise funds in this way. She contacted what was then British Leyland, I believe, to beg a LandRover for practically nothing and told us that she could build and equip a one ward clinic in Sierra Leone using local building materials and labour for about £20.000 so the project in Zimbabwe seemed of a similar nature. The good news is that the government in Zimbabwe had promised to fund the staffing of the clinic once the building had been constructed. So after all of this, I made my way into town but stopped at a well known local hardware store with an excellent reputation which I know is open at this  time. I needed to buy a stiff yard broom to complete my weeding and tidying up activities on the gravel border I have been resurrecting. I dithered over whether to buy a 12″ or an 18″ brush but settled on the former as it was a lot cheaper. Also, the brush unit was supplied with a specialist plastic fitment which meant that it would child’s play in the future to put on a new brush head when needed, probably in a year or so. When  I was a boy I always seemed to affixing new broom heads to staves and in these days, one was affixed by hammering in a nail or screwing in a screw through the  guide hole which was part of the brush head manufacture – so things have moved on.  I went and put some petrol in the car and collected by Sunday newspaper before returning home for a smidgeon of breakfast. After this, I assembled together some teak oil and a paint brush so that I could give the handle of the broom a seasoning of teak oil given that it would ‘live’ outside under the eaves of the house and will probably give a second or a third coat later in the day. Whether all of this can be done day I am unsure as fairly heavy rains are due to fall in the next day or so so I would like to get my sweeping up activities done first. Whilst the weather was fine and I had some weeding tools to hand, I weeded about a third of a gravelled area I front of the house and so, one way or another, I have had quite a busy morning so given  had leapt out of bed first thing in the morning, I allowed myself the luxury of about 20 minutes rest enjoying a cup of tea whilst snuggling in the contours of a ‘bean bag’ inherited from my son. I then lunched on some ham and grilled vegetables saved from a day or so back  when  had prepared too much food.

So having spent at least a couple of hours hand weeding my gravel border, I dashed out whilst the weather was fine and before the onset of the anticipated rains to literally ‘a-salt’ my gravel border,  which job must have taken me five minutes at the most and which I will anticipate should keep this gravel border weed free for at least the rest of the season. I very carefully ensured that I put just the right among  of salt in the border that my gardening sources indicated. The day before I had secured my neighbours permission to my gravel salting but I promised to stop short of the area abutting his garden so that he would not suffer from any run-off that could occur after heavy rain. Now that I am. into gardening mode again, I need to record quantities of materials used and dates deployed so that in future years I can use this as a reference point. My American friend texted to say she was busy with domestic jobs (like hoovering her flat) but was coming to round in the early evening. I have been ensuring that I have all of my ‘ducks in a row’ with U3A activities and although I record everything on a special wall calendar some times there are clashes with other commitments and one can miss a date. because I had to stay in for the TV delivery about ten days ago and  I was unsure about the next Spanish conversation class which happens to be this Thursday. I suspect that I have commitments one way or another  each day of the week forthcoming but Monday may well be a very wet day which limits any outside jobs like lawn mowing. I see that by consulting the web, the football World Cup (shared between  Mexico, USA and Canada) is due to start not next week but the week after and we will be exposed to some 5½ weeks which may be far too much for many, I suspect.

The war in Iran my be somewhat nearer some kind of resolution despite some tit-for-tat by both sides recently but these appeared to be measured and not designed to provoke a massive military response. Although America remains the dominant military force in the area, any great show of aggression only invites a counter response and the war continues. It may be that we are edging towards  a settlement but at a snail’s pace and, in the meantime. Israel is rampaging unrestrained throughout the whole of southern Lebanon and seems to keep expanding the areas that it seeks to occupy and/or control. The only certainty that we can take from all of this is to realise that oil prices will continue to be high and it might be years before the price of oil drops to its pre-war levels. Meanwhile, nearing his 80th birthday on 4th June, Donald Trump has undertaken an annual health check and, as we might expect, the White House have issued a statement indicating that the president is in an excellent state of health and that all of his vital signs show normality. But this is evidently at odds with what independent observers note from time to time and the fact that he is said to have said 100% on a recent test of cognitive ability just defies belief. Trump appears to doze off frequently during the long cabinet meetings and, given the level of sycophancy displayed, perhaps one can understand why. Here in the UK, the really hot weather spell with temperatures at or near 34° or 35 ° have thankfully abated and we have a beautiful fine late May sunshine but with the promise of cooler weather to come. Now that I have been accepted as part of the coach party to visit Port Sunlight in mid-July, I though I would do some background reading before our visit. Port Sunlight is an internationally significant model village on the Wirral, England, built in 1888 by William Hesketh Lever for his soap factory workers. It is historically significant for its pioneering fusion of social welfare, town planning, and Arts and Crafts architecture, which helped inspire the global Garden City movement. Conceived by over 30 different architects, the village features no two identical homes, varied English architecture, and no visible house backs. Its low-density housing and integration with 130 acres of parkland served as a radical departure from typical cramped industrial towns. Founder William Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) aimed to uplift his working-class employees by providing sanitary, affordable housing and championing overall health and good hygiene. Nearly every building in the 130-acre site is Grade II listed. It is widely considered one of the best-preserved industrial worker settlements in the UK. All of this sound fascinating and raises the interesting question whether or not we have progressed much as a society in the UK although there are several experiments such as the Garden City movement and the New Towns in the 1960’s were we have tried to create more interesting ways of urban living. At the moment, one tends to hear the same complaint from most towns in the country that housing is being built at breakneck speed in practically every part of the country but the necessary urban infrastructure of roads and community facilities is lagging a fair way behind. I have often wondered whether Bromsgrove will be the first town in the country to be utterly gridlocked as the amount of housing is predicted to rise by about 40% with no discernible commensurate increase in road capacities and the like.  

The day turned out to be quite a full one, what with one thing or another. I made my way into town to collect a newspaper and to buy some wine and pick up a birthday card for our next door neighbours to whose 75th birthday I (and my American friend) had been invited. I had just about completed  my shopping when I received a phone call from my son from our local hospital from which he was being discharged. So I made my way there and got my son home as fast as I could, filling up with cold drinks and ice cream as a treat after his spell inside the hospital (only three days but it seemed like a lifetime to him). Having got him home, my daughter-in-law called around later to whisk him off to their marital home and I went outside and finished off the weeding of the gravel border which has taken some of my attention during the last three days.  This was a pleasing job to get done and  I am going to follow carefully some gardening instructions as best to use salt to effectively ‘deaden’ an area in which nothing is ever intended to be grown. Salt can be corrosive and dangerous if not carefully applied but I have read a couple of extremely informative website based articles which indicates how you can usefully utilise salt to maintain a gravel border and how it can be done in such a way that other plant life is not damaged. I then went and changed into some better clothes and awaited the arrival of my American friend before the party started at 3.0pm and we both had a most excellent time with superb food and drink during the whole of the afternoon.  My American friend turned up and she is really very good at mixing in with a crowd of people that she does not know. As my next-door neighbours have Welsh connections, we were even treated to home made ‘bara brith’ (rich fruit loaf) and some welsh cakes and the family had been busy baking to produce some marvellous garden party ‘eats’ I spent some time chatting with a close friend  of our actual neighbours who I actually met some five years previously (on the occasion of a 70th birthday party) and she remembered meeting Meg which was poignant. We had some fascinating conversations with the other  guests and really enjoyed ourselves but eventually my American friend had to tear herself away to attend her  weekly dance session. After I had seen her car out of tight parking spaces I returned back to the party which carried on until about 8.00 in the evening. My American friend is coming round tomorrow afternoon where we can have some relaxation time with each other and perhaps have some to plan out some activities for ourselves, families and friends over the next few weeks.

Last night was a much cooler and therefore more pleasant night and I managed to get to sleep fairly quickly with the windows a little ajar to get some fresh air inside the house. Last night, I popped outside the house to survey the weeding work I had undertaken, and my neighbour came out for a little chat. We exchanged news about my son’s health  and we agreed some practical arrangements for the car parking arrangements on our two adjacent forecourts before their garden party at the weekend. My neighbour was wondering what I was doing with a measuring tape in my hand but all I was doing was measuring the length of each section of what I now know to call either a ‘Splash strip’ or a ‘Gravel border’.  It’s a man thing to be measuring things the whole time but I like to have an idea in my head of how much I have done and how much remains to be done. The roses this year as a result of the weird climatic conditions are blooming in profusion and I know that I am keeping an eye on a bush of deep red roses in our back garden which are just coming into bloom. This rose bush was donated to my daughter-in-law by her grandmother and therefore has a special significance for her. But it also has one for me because I gathered some roses and put them on Meg’s coffin (when it was replete with a wonderful array of roses) with a final message of love from me before her funeral on 11th June last year which will mark another turning point. Now that the summer is upon us, I am planning some day trips out with U3A (to Port Sunlight) and with family and friends (to Severn Valley Railway) but I am aware that I have a special eye on when the children break up from school and whilst not being averse to young children  at all, I can do without  hordes of badly behaved ones.  Looking at the international scene, I have just a Sky News journalist being berated by an Israeli defence spokesman who claimed that the Sky News was being fooled by radical Jihadist terrorists who embedded their fighters into the middle of ambulances (a claim that the film footage of ambulances being blown up by Israeli rockets refutes) One does have to wonder whether Netanyahu wants a state of continuous and active war with its hostile neighbours and this has got to threaten the long term prospects for any truce or what passes for ‘peace’ in the middle East. Meanwhile, the days of May are slipping away and 1st June which is a Monday is rapidly approaching. I am resolved to try and getting my walking distances improved somewhat because I have been making a lot of use of the car in recent months and it will be much better for my overall health to resume my daily walks. But I do find that my walking distances have diminished now that I do not have Meg to push in a wheelchair because this did act as a huge ‘walker’ for me although I did not realise it fully at the time. After my little incident wit losing and then regaining my front door key recently, I have constructed what might be called a ‘thingamabob’ to keep my supermarket trolley access key from entangled with other keys which is what happened a few days ago.

After I had breakfasted, I took the car into town and picked up a copy of my newspaper from the supermarket as well as  ensuring that I had availed myself of next week’s living money from the ATM. Then I got to the Methodist Centre, just about at the start of the Ukrainian ‘meal event’ which normally takes place on the last Friday of each month. I ordered some Borscht soup and my American friend was doing some of her volunteering behind the counter serving the meals as we ordered them. I was delighted that two of my Catholic friends from down the Kidderminster turned up together with another parishioner friend and they joined me at my table, so this really was a case of ‘wheels within wheels’ The event was pretty well attended and all of the tables that had been laid out were fairly soon occupied. I followed up my soup with a special honey cake which I shared with my American friend and then I needed to leave to go and visit my son who is not well at the moment. When I returned home late in the afternoon, I resumed my weeding activities on the gravel border to our communal roadway and was delighted to get three more ‘sections’ under my belt, in effect doubling the area that I had got cleared.  So now this particular job is about two thirds done before I start on my next venture. My American friend phoned up so that we could mutually discuss the events of the day and she mentioned to me that she would quite like to accompany me on the trip to Port Sunlight in mid July. So I have forwarded on to her, the email I received from the trip organisers so that she can get herself into the system. If accepted,I can show her how the payment system works as I don’t think she has been on one of these trips before but perhaps, like  me, she will catch the bug and realise that these are all good and really cost-effective days out by coach. She also mentioned to me again the Severn Valley railway trip and my son seems quite keen on this so perhaps son, daughter-in-law, American friend and I can make up a cosy foursome in the weeks ahead. Looking at the Sky News broadcasts, there was a very interesting analysis under the headline ‘If US and Iran agree deal, will fuel prices come down?’ Even if all goes according to plan, it does look as though Iran, post war is now much more of a global player than hitherto and taking several factors together, it looks as though the rest of the world is going to have to get used to increased oil prices probably for several years to come. So this is an interesting legacy that Trump has left the world – will the American electorate ever get the chance to punish him for it, one wonders.

I was awoken in the middle of the night by some low rumbling of what turned out to be thunder which gradually became closer and was accompanied by some quite heavy rain. I was not expecting this in the slightest so I leapt out of bed  and had to rapidly close some windows in our bedroom and upstairs landing which had been opened to try to get some cool air into the house. Actually, it was markedly cooler when I went to bed last night so perhaps, I should have not been surprised by the thunder and the rain but it came as a very pleasant surprise. During the evening, I had a fairly long exchange of texts with my University of Winchester friend whose wife seems to be sinking although she seems to be the recipient of some excellent care in the specialist nursing home which my friend visits every day. We keep in constant touch with each other and to give each other some mutual help and support during the illnesses of our respective wives. In the meantime, I am hoping that my application to join the U3A trip out to Port Sunlight has been successful – although it seems a long time in advance, one has to book up for these things almost immediately. At the moment, I am juggling the membership of my three groups (Curry Club which is self explanatory, intermediate Spanish and Classical Music Appreciation) and this is probably enough although I am tempted to join the Philosophy group as well. I have a Ukrainian Day organised under the aegis of the Methodist Centre to which to look forward and they meet once a month with offerings of Ukrainian food (and perhaps even drink) which is a fund-raising effort for that war-torn country. My next-door neighbour is also having a garden party at the weekend to celebrate her birthday. Talking of days out, I am contemplating treating my American friend to several rides up and down the Severn Valley Railway which is on our doorstep but which I have not done for some time now, the last occasion being with Meg, my son and our mutual University of Birmingham friend. On the international scene, one has to wonder whether a peace deal can ever be done whilst an unrestrained Israel is pounding southern Lebanon into to the dust. A terrifying new wave of Israeli strikes has rendered ceasefire worthless. The latest intense wave of Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon are terrifying, the Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford reports from Beirut. Up to 300 towns and villages south of the Zahrani River were given evacuation orders – some in the early hours of this morning – that have prompted ‘a mass exodus’ from civilians, she says. ‘They are in effect on-the-ground orders to get out of the area because, in their words, they are declaring the entire area the entire south of Lebanon a combat zone and telling them to leave, or you risk dying and being injured’ Israel and Lebanon agreed a 45-day ceasefire extension that remains in place, having been announced on 17 April. But in effect, on the ground, there is no ceasefire, Crawford says. 

Yesterday morning proved to be quite interesting. I attended my Tai Chi class as I normally do at this time every week but the chance of a coffee in the canteen area was nil as it closed during this (half-term) week. So a bank manager friend and another of our class member who had just retired from a prestigious role at Birmingham University and I went down into town in search of a coffee. I took my two class members into the ‘Gifts of Love’ outlet (a favourite of mine because it is hugs and kisses from the volunteers and the owner who I know quite well by now) here we spent a very interesting hour as we had all lived in Bromsgrove for about 20 years now and we were sharing experiences what had changed (generally for the worse) over the past couple of decades. After that, I collected my car from the Methodist Centre car park and returned home to prepare a ‘lighter’ kind of lunch. With some scraps of ham, I cooked a large ham omelette and then supplemented this with a sort of stir-fry  of onions, peppers, tomatoes and some green beans so the overall dinner turned out to be a lot larger than I intended (and some put by for another  day).  In the course of the afternoon, I received an email telling me that I had a place reserved for me on the Port Sunlight U3A coach trip on 17th July. The booking system is tried and tested – once you have expressed interest, the organiser will then inform you by email whether your application has been accepted and, if so, details of the bank transfer to be made to pay for the trip. That is all there is to it and all you have to do is to remember to turn up on time in the right make. Because the U3A clientele is such a prompt lot, as I remember we all got on the coach for the Derbyshire trip and left before the appointed hour. Although this seems a longer distance, most of the journey will be M6 motorway so I anticipate the travelling time will be about the same.  As the weather has cooled down a little, I have decided to start to do a little bit of weeding of the gravelled strip just adjacent to the kerbstones on our communal driveway. I have had to search the internet to find the special building term for this and  think it is called a ‘splash’ strip, so called as it would catch drips e.g. from an over-hanging gutter, I am going to do one or sections each day, each section being about a metre and a half and today I felt quite pleased with myself because I managed to do about three sections. It is a slow, tedious and painstaking job but there is no real substitute for getting down onto a kneeler and pulling out the creeping weeds by the roots. Then my daughter-in-law and I conferred about the health of my son who has been stricken (as he was this time last year) with a bout of what we think is viral pneumonia so we have been conferring about the best ways in which we can restore him back to health again. The medics are giving us conflicting messages but we are doing what we can to help a ‘patient’ who hates being ill.

Today was one of those ‘one things leads to another’ type days and it was a long time before I actually got myself up and breakfasted. I knew that the U3A (University of the Third Age) were organising an sort of industrial archaeology trip to view the historic listed buildings in Port Sunlight (Wirral) and I am always keen to sign up quickly for these kinds of ventures because they are to places where you might not go as an individual but it makes so much more sense to go as a group, not least because there are always many fellow travellers with whom to chat but also because the expense alone in petrol costs is more than your share of the cost price of the excursion. So as I was signing up for the next trip in July, the organisers had, very sensibly, asked each one of the intending trip members to have with them their ICE (In Case of Emergency) contact cards. I realised that I did not have one prepared for myself but now that I am on my own, as it were, I realised thatI had better organise one for myself. I got onto a website which turned out to be American and the card turned out to be red one on the PDF which when printed out on a black and white printer turned out to be near illegible. I fiddled around without success trying to change the colour of the card in the PDF but eventually gave it up as bad job. I then located a (British) Red Cross template but this required moving text boxes around, choosing appropriate fonts and the like. Eventually I succeeded though and now comes the job of laminating. I do not have a laminator at home but I do have a series of self laminating labels that you stick together to form a composite whole. So I printed off the PDF and had to carefully cut the front and the back of it to the right size so that it would fit the size of the laminating sheets. In all of this, I was eventually successful but it took me so much longer than I thought it would and at least I have the relevant details stored in a saved ICE pdf file so the manufacture of more cards ought to be quite an easy job. Whilst I was at it, I made three of those cards, one for my credit card wallet (into which it just fits), one into my normal money wallet and another to put in the breast pocket of whatever jacket I happen to be wearing at the time. This was a useful job to get done but I had to look up details such as the phone number  of the GP surgery, check the spelling of my routine medications and things like that. As it is a half term week this week and the Methodist Centre is closed, fortunately I had the time to engage in such activities but I am finding these days that even simple activities are always taking me longer than I would have anticipated. Although we are in the middle of a heatwave, we have the very unwelcome news that our energy bills are due to rise 100’s of pounds in July (as a consequence of the Iran war) Energy bills to rise to more than two-year high and average annual energy bills are set to rise by hundreds of pounds from July for a typical dual fuel household. Energy regulator Ofgem has announced a 13% rise in the price cap to £1,862 a year for a typical household, up from the previous cap of £1,641.  That means bills will cost £18 more a month for an average household on a supplier’s standard default tariff.  So now is the time to try to get a better fixed price deal of that is possible. Actually, I have managed to get a deal fixed at an OK price for the next 12 month which comes into effect tomorrow so I should be able to avoid the price rises scheduled for July.

After a slow morning, I did a normal shopping at Aldi but was dismayed when  got home to discover that my normal front door key was missing from my back pocket (but I always carry an emergency spare in a wallet attached to my belt by a chain!)  When I thought about it, I thought that the ‘key’ that I use to access a supermarket trolley had got entangled with a skein of thread and I wonder whether in getting it entangled and put away I dropped my house key without noticing. So I popped the shopping (unpacked) in through the front door and immediately raced back to the spot where I had been parked to see if I could find a dropped key but no such luck. But as a desperate last measure, I popped into Aldi and grabbed hold of one of the assistants to enquire whether a key had been handed in. She and a male colleague disappeared into their office and came out bearing my ‘lost’ key – you can’t imagine the relief that I felt! I am going to devise a little change of procedure to ensure that this can never happen again. Then I unpacked the shopping and made myself a salad type lunch which was easy enough to throw together. I was anxious to get rid of some particularly fast growing thistles that had grown unbated down one side of the house and as tomorrow is the day when the bins have to be pulled to the kerbside to be emptied first thing in the morning, any weeding is best done the day before. So although the weather was quite warm, I made myself undertake this task as the thistles had been an eyesore for quite some time. Now I need to tackle other sections of the narrow gravel sections by the side of or communal roadway (I am never quite sure of the correct building term for this feature of a house or driveway). It is very hard to know what is going in the USA: Iran negotiations at the moment with both sides jockeying for position in the ‘spin’ states. Iranian state TV has shared details from what it says is a draft ‘memorandum of understanding’ with the US – but Washington has branded the report a ‘complete fabrication’ whilst also maintaining that the talks between  the two sides are ‘proceeding nicely’. I suspect that these shenanigans will go on for a few days yet after which a deal may – or may not, emerge.