Today was the day we have been looking forward to for some time when we are going to see Meg’s Uncle Ken. We planned to see him immediately before the lockdown started 160+ days ago but we were rather overtaken by events. We had spent a restful night in our hotel, aided by the gentle playing of ClassicFM on an app called RadioPlayer installed on the iPad. The trick is to have the music playing sufficiently softly to lull you to sleep if that is your desire or just loud enough to concentrate on the item being played if you so wish. It had its desired effect because we didn’t awake fully until 7.30 and had to get showered and organised before our breakfast slot at 8.30 When we got down to breakfast we noticed we were the only non-BAME family in the breakfast room and wondered if everybody was taking the first opportunity to visit members of extended families. Breakfast was traditional or Continental and already ‘plated up’ which felt a bit like a regression to the 1950s.

After breakfast, we made for Conway and then for Penrhyn Bay, the distance being a little further than we had imagined. Ken seemed to in fine shape for a nearly 93 year old – whilst we were enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of fruit cake first the District  Nurse turned up to dress Ken’s leg and then one of the army of carers who pops in on Ken to help him with his more social needs. We left Ken in good heart and headed off to enjoy our (pre-ordered) lunch in Conway town itself. When we got to our favourite tea rooms we were delighted to have successfully made a prior reservation as other would-be customers were being turned away but our reserved table was awaiting us. I had a fantastic home made fish pie and Meg had cod and chips – we have never had a poor meal there yet. During the lockdown period the owner had undertaken some renovations, knocking the wall through to liberate the space taken by a small shop area they used to have but now replaced by a serving counter. We also begged some empty Prosecco miniature bottles as a neighbouring table was being cleared, ready for the damson gin I hope to make the minute I have picked all the damsons off the decades old series of damson trees that runs along the bottom of our garden.

Then after lunch we made our way to see some other relatives on Ken’s side of the family who live in Old Colwyn ( not too far away) and we managed to get a bit of sea air into our lungs before the visit. We both had lots of Covid-19 stories to share with each other. In particular, the police in North Wales seem to have interpreted their role very zealously moving anybody from sitting on the benches overlooking the sea even though the guidance at the time said you could tale a rest whilst taking your daily exercise. Some members of the family are currently in New Zealand so it was to interesting to share stories of how they were coping with the virus over there. I made the offer to give some advice on dissertation writing as an MA needed completing within the next few months and whilst I was working I was responsible for providing the material for dissertation writing on all of the undergraduate programs.

When we eventually got home, we turned to see what was on the TV tonight, only to find it all seemed to be absolute rubbish. However on BBC4 they were re-broadcasting the film of ‘Brideshead revisited’ and although initially, I was not sure  that I liked the production ( a voiceover giving expression to some of the actions and emotions as though read out from the book itself) eventually from the half-way point onward I got absolutely absorbed, not least because one could never be quite sure what the ‘denouement ’ was going to be.

As a postscript, I might add that this blog has been written twice over because whilst at the point of saving the final draft, the iPad seemed to ‘freeze’ ( every computer user’s nightmare!) and I lost everything I had written and just had to sit down and write it all again!

Today has arrived at last when we are going to go on our little trip to Chester to see Meg’s Uncle Ken in Penrhyn Bay ( next door to Llandudno). We had set ourselves a schedule of getting off by 9.30 but as it was, we actually left promptly at 10.00. We called in to get our newspapers and then made our way with just a brief stop half way along for a drink of coffee in a lay-by but not requiring a loo visit. We got to the hotel and everyone turned out just as we expected – we had been given a family room with two double beds in it which was welcome. We had brought a selection of wipes and cleansing materials with us and although, no doubt, the room had been ‘deep cleaned’ we still gave it another go on all of the evident flat surfaces before venturing forth for our lunch at the Country Club which is only a couple of miles distant down the main A55. We have never had a poor meal here and we have had meals at least three times before. We felt we both have had a magnificent meal (starter of black pudding and chicken salad, followed by a main course of sea-bass and finished off with a sticky toffee pudding. I suppose it might be a function of not having a meal out for practically six months but we both enjoyed our food tremendously – and of course, thanks to the government we had it with £10 off per person. Afterwards, it was a case of repairing to our room and whilst Meg slept off the meal, I buried myself with unpacking and getting my little hotel systems sorted out. I must say the WiFi works effortlessly nowadays and it really does make a tremendous difference not to have to struggle with the technology the minute one arrives.

Being in a ‘hotel room’ disposition, we idly flicked through the available TV channels and found one which had filmed some of the ‘lost’ Dad’s Army scripts. The BBC had wiped, or failed to save, the original recordings so these episodes were created using actors who approximated to the original cast ( the vast majority of whom must be dead by now) It was marginally amusing but didn’t quite match the original.

Three Political  stories seem to be Hitting the headlines this evening. The first of these was an asylum seeker in Glasgow who had lost her job and with no food, starved to death with her starving baby beside her. The Home Office said it was ‘sorry’ but crocodile tears,  methinks. The second story is one in Sky News ( the BBC wouldn’t run a story like this for fear of offending the government) which documents the 11 ‘U’ turns the government has made, giving the impression of a government completely out of control. And the third issue is the way in which Boris Johnson has had sacked first the chief regulator at Ofqual and then the chief civil servant in the Department of Education. Interesting, isn’t it, how civil servants have been sacked or sanctioned (making it look as though they are to blame) whereas no politician has yet had to ‘walk the plank’ and resign ( or lose office). Of course, the constitutional dictum used to be that ‘civil servants advise, ministers decide’ But in the new style of politics, it looks as though a not particularly bright bunch of politicians ( but all ideologically pure as all of the competent remainers  have been got rid off or sidelined) refuse to accept any degree of accountability and blaming the civil service is cowardly. It also lessens the degree of trust between civil servants and ministers that must flourish if a healthy democracy is to flourish.

Today was an incredibly blustery day with the storm ‘Francis’ blowing away all day long. Meg and I needed to make a trip out on the road so we decided to miss out on our normal walk and call in at the park on the way back from our trip to the dry-cleaners. As we were in the car, we parked in a section of the car park away from our normal route and located ourselves on a bench next to the pond itself, replete with ducks. This proved not to be a good idea. The park benches had little advisory signs on them explaining that it was NOT a good idea to feed bread to the ducks and suggesting some good alternatives. Nonetheless, just a few yards away from us were several mothers with their children busy feeding bread to the ducks – I suppose people have done it for generations and an advisory note on a park bench is not going to stop them now. But at least we were not rained upon despite the winds being incredibly blustery. As we are going away tomorrow we knew that today was going to be our packing up day and that took a goodly part of the afternoon, even though we are only going for three nights. Of course, we do not quite know what to expect when we get to the hotel although I suspect that the Holiday Inns have got a very well worked out set of protocols in these COVID-19 days, not to mention the restaurant into which we are booked for a meal just after our arrival. The great thing about packing when you are going for a stay in an English location and in your own car is that you don’t have to think about jamming things into a suitcase but can take several dedicated packages along. So far, I have one carrier bag devoted to cleaning products, another to ‘useful things’ such as kitchen roll, spare toilet roll, waste bin liner bags and the like, whilst a third bag will be devoted to teamaking things and some necessities/luxuries such as biscuits!

We think that a change of policy is now rapidly underway as regards the use of face masks in schools. Although the situation is developing rapidly, it now looks as I write that the use of face coverings will be mandatory in all areas (such as Greater Manchester) subject to the COVID-19 restrictions but that headteachers in secondary schools will be given discretion as to whether pupils might wear face coverings for example in communal areas (which is the policy in Scotland) It does appear that whatever sensible policy the Scots adopt, we in the UK do it eventually but two weeks later!

There is a sign of a culture war boiling up over whether the traditional ‘Rule Britannia – Britannia rules the waves/Britons never, never shall be slaves‘ is still appropriate as a rousing point of English nationalism at the ‘Last Night of the Proms‘ The argument from the Conservative right is that these patriotic songs are an intrinsic part of British culture and should certainly not be jettisoned. I must confess that I used to quite enjoy watching ‘The Last Night of the Proms‘ but have felt increasingly uneasy about it, especially since the success of the Brexit campaign. What with the ‘Black Lives Matter‘ campaign and the toppling of the Colston (prominent slave-owner) statue in Bristol, perhaps the culture is at a turning point and the time has now come to quietly abandon such cultural artefacts, stirring though they may be. If you read the words of ‘Rule Britannia’ then the 17th/18th century sentiments seem completely inappropriate to modern-day British society. After all, we put an end to witch-ducking, bear-baiting, sending children up chimneys and at the time no doubt these were said to represent ‘traditional British values’. One way out for the BBC is to let the tunes be played but without the words being provided or sung (but would an audience behave itself, one wonders?) As an afterthought, perhaps in the light of the Brexit (non) negotiations, we should all be singing that ‘Britain waives the rules‘ rather than the other way around!

Today is one of those days when you look at the calendar and can scarcely believe that the month of August has only a week to run.  It was a pleasant walk to the park with no rain being threatened (in the past few days we have been caught once or twice) We notice particularly in the park today that groups of people are evidently getting organised to meet with each other but evidently to keep on the right side of the social distancing regulations. We notice that there tend to be two types of these groupings – in the first place we evidently have a group of more elderly (retired?) people who have got themselves organised. Secondly, we have the impromptu birthday party and we noticed one was in process today. Evidently, three elements are involved – a groundsheet or blanket, some portable garden chairs and finally a hamper of food. It was clearly a nine-year old’s birthday party today and the group had carefully placed themselves in the bandstand where they could display things in the centre (like food) whilst the chairs formed a ring on the periphery. You also got the advantage of the open-air on the one hand with the opportunity to shelter from the rain in the event of a sudden shower on the other. It shows what a bit of organisation can do. On the way home, we encountered one of our oldest ‘church’ friends who is always good to see and we exchanged news about family matters and the like.

When we got home, Miggles the cat was lounging about in a variety of poses enjoying the late morning sunshine. We have come to the view that she quite likes our terrace because as our house is ‘L’ shaped, she can desport herself without fear of attack from two of the four directions. Before we got down to the park, we received a friendly text message thanking us from Miggles’  true owners thanking for looking after the cat but asking us not to give her any more food in future (in case she never returns home?) We indicated that we would certainly comply with their request and as we are going away later in the week then the cat might learn not to expect any more food in future from ‘Cold Comfort Farm‘ This message, too, was acknowledged in a friendly fashion so it is good that we have established a good modus vivendi with her real owners. Incidentally, I thought I might do a quick google search on ‘Why does my cat keep going to the neighbour’s house?‘ The internet is replete with information on this, much of it American, but I gleaned from it one interesting fact. Apparently ‘entire’ i.e. non-neutered cats are much more likely to roam and therefore to regard a neighbour’s house as merely the extension of its own territory. So if you possess a male cat and wish to keep it within the confines of your own garden, then apart from feeding it well the solution seems to be to ‘cut its knackers off’ ( you live and learn something new every day)

Knowing that we were going on a journey, I went out on the road to fill the car up with petrol (a rare event in these days of lockdown) and also to check the air pressure in the tyres. To my dismay, as well as paying for the privilege of free air, I found myself in the queue behind another motorist who decided not only to check the type pressure but also avail himself of a vacuum service (which is a utility just added to the air and water) I then discovered that the drycleaners from whom I wanted to collect some garments now shut at 4 pm in the afternoon rather than 5 pm so that will entail another journey to tomorrow. As we leave for our trip to Chester on Wednesday, much of tomorrow will be devoted to packing in any case.

Meg and I had quite a full morning by the time we had chatted with various people. On our way to the park, we ran across an old lady (in her 80’s) who we know quite well from walking her dog in the park. She had been in the wars recently and had a fall inside her own house as a result of which she had damaged her foot. After attention in hospital, they had given a special boot but she had to stay overnight until she was in a condition to look after herself as she lived alone. She was now hobbling about (gardening!) and gradually recovering, but this does explain why we had not seen her for a few weeks. She seemed to be coping very well but she does have a fiercely independent spirit. As we had been somewhat delayed, by the time we got to our little newspaper shop it had shut (perhaps they only open until 11.30 on a Sunday and by this time we were somewhat after that) So we popped into Waitrose to get our newspapers and had a chat with one of the regular staff we know well. We enquired about the possibility of the Waitrose cafe re-opening and got rather dispiriting news. (I need to point out tat this stage that before the lockdown there were a series of ‘regulars’ in the Waitrose cafe who used to meet several times a week before the lockdown and hence the absence of the cafe has been quite a blow to us) Waitrose had run a trial in one of their stores to see if it was feasible to reopen the cafeteria. But the trial was a failure – the trial site only took £70.00 in three days and with the adaptations that would be necessary, there was no way in which this floor space could be justified. So it looks as though the facility we have known and enjoyed over the years at Waitrose has come to an end. This was such an interesting little social grouping but we shall have to learn to live without it from now on. On our way out of the supermarket, we met one of our ‘church’ friends (who often used to sit by us for a chat) A friend of hers had given her some home-grown tomatoes and a couple of little pots of home-made jam for us to have – which was a wonderful thought (and wheels within wheels).

I have been playing around quickly tonight with an online photo editor called ‘Pixlr‘ Basically I want to make my portrait photos (480 x 640) into landscape ones (640 x 480) and this basically involves some cropping. This seems to work OK and the crop tool actually tells you what pixels you are working worth. I have to take my 480 x 640. crop the top and the bottom to make it  480 x 360 and then resize it. So far, I have only done one but it seems to work OK so I will try it out on the rest now!

It is interesting that there seems to be a head of steam building up politically to ensure that children resume school in a week’s time. There now seems to be an acknowledgement, though, that (a) the children do not/will not reinfect each other (b) but the network of relationships involved in children attending school (mothers dropping children off at school gates, returning to work) means the infection rate in the society as a whole will undoubtedly rise. The question is – what compensatory mini-lockdowns might have to be traded off? One suggestion ( and I would concur) is that one should close the pubs again if it becomes a choice of ‘pubs’ versus ‘schools’ It may be a bit clearer in a couple of week’s time. In the meanwhile Brexit negotiations rumble on – the UK insists on trying to ‘cherry pick’ e.g. it wants an unlevel playing field so that, for example, lorry driver’s hours will be regulated right across the UE but not in the UK. Of course, some would argue that the UK has never wanted a deal and prefers to crash out, blaming all of the undoubtedly economic consequences upon COVID-19 (and who will be able to tell which are Brexit and which are COVID-19 consequences which is making the ardent Brexiteers salivate!)

Yesterday’s blog contained the details of how our adopted cat, Miggles (our name for him/her) turned up after an absence of 11 days and the explanation for this. We always knew that today might be a critical day i.e. would she turn up for her breakfast (i.e. be capable of leaping over fences, be let out by her true owners) Happy to report that after a few dings on her breakfast bowl (cats can hear up to 100 yards away I understand) she appeared and posed for some snapshots, as you can see…

[In the first snap, you can see she is still nursing her poorly left foot but the second is a more classic pose!] If you are a fanatical catlover, you can see a lot more at

http://bit.ly/miggles 

After this exciting start to the day, Meg and I attended our pre-planned church service, made a little more interesting because it commemorated the life of a local saint who was a frequent visitor to Harvington. We then collected our newspapers (full of weekend supplements, as per usual on a Saturday) and had an enjoyable coffee on the park bench, just avoiding the rain showers as we did so. After lunch, it was time to get the lawns cut and they badly needed a cut on this occasion as they had ‘missed’ a week owing to the hot weather  (when they hardly grew at all) but, of course, since then, we have had frequent showers not to say downpours for a day or so now. There are several things to keep our attention in the garden at the moment. Our daughter-in-law is an expert on growing superb dahlias i.e. she starts off with really good stock and then they get nurtured in an especially prepared bed adjacent to ou communal grassed area. Also this year we are growing some sunflowers and their growth has been so rapid that they are needing the support of some really large stakes to keep them upright (particularly in the light of the high winds we are experiencing currently). We are also growing some sweet peas against our back wall in the rear garden and these are progressing but are some way off the vigorous flowering stage. Down in Mog’s Den (the reclaimed bit of sloping land that lies at the very edge of our property), various things are coming along through a policy of benign neglect. Because the whole area is quite a severe slope and underneath trees, I have put various barriers (detentes) in place to create a series of mini terraces and liberally applied forest bark (both in the past and more recently.) Over this is growing some periwinkle (‘vinca major‘) and after a slow start, this is now starting to grow laterally, which is what I intended. I the past, I had bought some Skimmia and one of these is starting to look as though it is going to burst into bloom. Also, I had transplanted some Penstemon from another part of the garden and this seems to be thriving. The overall effect I am trying to achieve is a part of the garden you can visit for a bit of peace and tranquillity but with absolutely minimal maintenance! I am slowly getting there and can only say that the whole is looking so much better than a couple of years ago when, to be frank, it was just brambles and nettles. The other major thing of interest is our damson trees which are very old and form part of the hedge/boundary at the bottom of our garden. Last year, the crop was inexplicably light but this year the trees are absolutely laden with fruit – and a lot of it has matured about two weeks earlier than is usual. I am hoping against hope that although we have had some blustery conditions today that we do not have any really severe gales which would result in all of the crop being lost. I just want things to hang on until a week tomorrow (i.e. Sunday 30th August) which is a date when, having returned from our little sojourn in North Wales later on this week, I can pick all of the damsons and immediately use them to make litres and litres of damson gin (most of which is given away at Christmas)!

Today was a strange kind of day weather-wise in that it was quite blowy but also mild at the same time (often you associate wind with quite cold weather but not today) Having collected our newspapers and made our way to the park, we did get rained on and Meg had to shelter under a neighbouring willow tree for a minute or so. I stuck it out as the shower seemed to be quite fast-moving and in a few minutes time, we were treated to a burst of glorious sunshine. The weather being somewhat inclement, we saw none of our usual friends with whom to have a chat but it was the type of day when only the foolhardy or the intrepid would set out for a walk (we are both of those). Our son and daughter-in-law had returned home from a few days away and had had a very relaxing few days in a hotel they know quite well – and where the chef cooked some special dishes for them as regulars.

After lunch, I engaged in a little job I had been putting off for days but turned out to be quite easy in the event. Via the web, I have discovered a farm which grows their own rapeseed and then presses, processes and filters their own rapeseed oil which they then sell in 5-litre containers. This I then dispense into 10 half-litre ex-cordial bottles (which are slim but with quite a nice long neck and therefore ideal receptacles for the cooking oil – a smidgeon of which I use to oil the blades of the shredder I have in the garage for the sole purpose of shredding cardboard for composting) And then, half-way through the afternoon, my son looked out of the window and said ‘There’s Miggles’ (our missing cat!)

Miggles (whose proper name is ‘Buddy’) had turned up after an absence of 11 days! He limped down our garden and I immediately gave him a bowl of food before he wandered off. This is the full story…His true owners found him about 10 days ago with an injury to his left leg – possible he had been trapped somewhere and struggled to get free. Anyway, they took him to the vet and (presumably) he had an antibiotic to counteract any infection and then his owners kept him inside for 7 days. Today, they let him out as he was feeling a bit stressed, being constantly confined to the house. Miggles (I will continue to call ‘him’) was evidently still feeling a little sore and sorry for himself as he ate his food, allowed a quick stroke and then wandered off to reconnect with his old haunts. We went round to make contact with the owners for the first time. The owners were quite pleased that we had made contact with them-  we told them that the cat often visited us and so, inevitably, we had got a little attached to it but we decided to come round as we didn’t know whether he had just turned up for the first time in 11 days. The crucial thing is whether ‘he’ turns up for breakfast in the morning – we will just have to wait and see! I think his ability to leap up and over fences is impaired until his leg is fully healed so whether we will see him regularly or not, who can tell. Having thought that cat was dead or stolen, it is hard to describe the range of emotions that I felt, as you can imagine.

Tomorrow, we will be going to St. Mary’s at Harvington Hall, which is now part of our new-found Saturday morning routine. In the meantime, we are still watching the ‘ferrets fighting in a sack’ syndrome as the Head of OfQual and the Education Secretary argue with each other as to who was responsible for the ‘A’-level debacle. In this process, pure lies are being told. For example, the Education Secretary, Gavin Wliiiamsom is trying to give the impression that he alone foresaw and tried to solve the problem The education secretary said repeatedly during the week “As we looked in greater detail over Saturday and Sunday, it became evident that further action needed to be taken.” But we know that is not true. As HuffNews tells us

But this is not totally true – last month the Education Select Committee was warning that the proposed method of using an algorithm to calculate student grades could cause “significant problems” and “might hurt the disadvantaged”.

And on Thursday, The Times revealed a former director-general at the Department for Education, Sir Jon Coles, actually wrote to Williams and told him the algorithm would only be 75% accurate and hundred of thousands of students would get the wrong grades.

This morning was a beautiful fine morning with a blue sky and a few fluffy white clouds – it made walking an absolute pleasure compared with yesterday which was so rain-sodden. We realised that we needed to buy a few toiletries so we made one of the very rare trips onto the High Street to access one of the cut-price toiletries shops of which there are several. Whilst we were at it, I popped into Poundland in order to buy a supply of cleaning wipes and sprays so that when we go on our little few days break in Chester next week, we can have a supply of cleaning agents to hand to make our immediate environs in the hotel as safe as we can be (without getting excessively neurotic about it all) By the time we had our elevenses, we suddenly realised that we were actually running it a bit short of time as our hairdresser was due to arrive at 1 pm. So we had to walk home at a fairly brisk pace but still made it with about three minutes to spare. We both have our hair cut by our visiting hairdresser who has been coming to us for years so we decided (as we did yesterday, with our chiropodist)  to set up an online payment system so that we are not constantly scrabbling around for money when she comes but we can make the payment online (which, of course, is more and more common these days).

Last night, after I had finished blogging and playing about with my webspace files, I wondered what the available free FTP clients were like for the MAC these days. I downloaded CyberDuck which seems both a have a good reputation but it integrates into the Mac operating system. It was easy to install and I was delighted to find that it had recognised that I also have Filezilla (very popular FTP client installed) so it had incorporated all of the various web-site credentials (usernames, passwords etc.) so there was no setting up to be done. I used a free and incredibly popular FTP client for years called WS-FTP for decades and knew it like the back of my hand but they have never developed a version for the Mac and showed no inclination to either. WS-FTP was first written decades ago and set the standard for how these FTP programs work as you have a split screen with all of your local folders and files on the left hand side and all of your remote folders/files on the right hand side. So it was a bit disconcerting to see that CyberDuck only displays the remote window for you and assumes that on a MAC you are going to use ‘Finder’ to display your own local folders. However, I have now worked out how you get the exact configuration of  folder you need on the remote side which you save into a ‘Bookmark’ (slightly confusing as all browsers have their own ‘Bookmarks’ as well) and I have also worked out how to quickly bookmark and display the local folders from which you intend to upload. From then on, it is just a case of selecting your file(s) and pressing ‘Upload’ although you can drag directly from the local to the remote sides of the screen. A rather nice feature of CyberDuck is the ability to edit small changes to files on the remote side using either the built-in editor or with your own choice of editor. This is incredibly useful as all website designers will know as you can make small changes and/or correct errors ‘on the fly’ as they say. All part of the learning curve but it got quickly sorted out and is now ready for my next serious file transfers.

Meanwhile, in the ‘A’-levels debacle, the latest obfuscation I heard on the radio this morning came from Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. His words of wisdom were ‘Well, the model was fine but it was just the way it was applied that was wrong‘ What kind of nonsense is that? (‘There is nothing wrong with the car but we have just driven it over the cliff‘) According to inside sources, Nick Gibb has known about the problem for weeks but refused to countenance any changes – the phrase often used was that he had a ‘tin ear’ and was absolutely desperate, at almost any cost so it transpires, not to allow any grade inflation into the system.

Today it has rained and rained and rained all day long with hardly any respite – I suppose I should add it was drizzle rather than genuine rain but enough to make one uncomfortable. Nonetheless, we ventured out as per usual but enjoyed our elevenses whilst standing in the very middle of a completely open-sided bandstand (the only place where it was absolutely dry!) observing the only other hardy souls (one dog walker, one couple complete with children) all hundreds of yards away. Anyway, it was good to get back inside the house and enjoy a nice cup of tea! 

As it was such a wet day, I indulged myself by doing a little HTML to display some photos on the web. I did a very quick Google search and obtained some code which enabled me to show two columns of photos side by side – I am not absolutely sure I could have worked this out for myself but it came in useful. I then decided that I would like to try a version in which the photos were displayed side by side and row by row. I reckoned I could work this out for myself, as indeed I did. So now if I want to have a ‘quick and dirty’ method of getting some photos online, I can do it very quickly. I have a little bit of webspace which I rent from a Canadian company (incredibly cheaply) for these little bits of experimental and ‘playing about’ types of activities.

Our son and daughter-in-law are away having a few days break at the moment so Meg and I have the house to ourselves, which seems rather unusual after so many months ( well 156 days actually) when we are all been in the house together although working away in our respective rooms. Meg and I are starting to gradually think about our own little trip to Chester next week to which we are looking forward. When I updated the Waitrose order earlier on today, I ensured that I had plenty of anti-bacterial sprays and wipes for use whilst we are away. We have a plan to dump all of our suitcases in our allocated room and immediately give all of the immediate surfaces a quick wipedown before we go off to lunch in the country club down the road. Them we will do the same again when we get back from lunch and then we should be comparatively safe.

Well, we are wondering what tomorrow is going to bring with the publication of the GCSE results. So far, Gavin Williamson. the Education Secretary is both simultaneously claiming that he ‘spotted’ that the algorithm was going to produce bizarre results over last weekend – but at the same time, it is all the fault of the regulator OfQual who had assured him that the model was robust and would deliver the objectives he had set for it (no grade inflation) and they should, therefore, be blamed. Meanwhile. Boris Johnson on holiday in Scotland has proclaimed that he has ‘every confidence’ in both the head of Ofqual and also his Education Secretary. Without wishing to sound too naive, does anybody take ANY responsibility when things go so horribly wrong? One is reminded of Estelle Morris who resigned as education secretary because she felt that she was not doing a good enough job, Peter Carrington (the Foreign Secretary at the time of the Argentine invasion of the Falklands) who resigned for not having spotted that the invasion was imminent. Nowadays, nobody seems to resign even after committing the most horrendous dereliction of duty. The ultimate prize for any Tory has to go to Chris Grayling (who even follow Tories called ‘failing Grayling’ who wasted 2.7bn of taxpayer’s money on one mad scheme after another e.g. when transport secretary awarding a cross Channel ferry contract to a company that owned no ships!) He even failed to secure a job (leading the Parliamentary Intelligence and security committee) when he was the only ‘ official’ i.e. Prime Minister approved candidate!

Today, as we walked down into town, Meg and I were reminiscing about how life used to be like some 25 years ago when we were part of the admissions rota, manning the phones in order to recruit the requisite number of students to make our course (and out livelihoods) viable. I think in those days we aimed for a cohort of about 45-50 students but my memory may be playing tricks upon me. However, life in contemporary universities must be an absolute hell at the moment. After the ‘A’-level results were announced last week, you imagine that your course might be up to quota but suddenly, as a result of the government ‘volte-face,’ you are besieged by would-be students who thought that they had not achieved the required grades and had then been advised to go off and appeal. Now the applicants are enquiring whether they still have a place which would mean expanding the course capacity considerably – but do you have the staff to teach them? Have you the requisite accommodation (because of social distancing, all universities will be having to sort out how students distribute themselves in the available space, even though much tuition will be done on-line) Will you try and persuade some students to take a year off and come back to you in one year’s time, or do you persuade them to accept their second offer or do you try and hang onto them having morally (and legally?) offered them a place? No doubt, all of these critical decisions are having to be taken without having all of the normal planning parameters to hand and with students increasingly anxious (not to mention parents who occasionally slip through the net, although admissions staff should not really be delaying with them as they are technically a ‘third party’) I suppose, one must say ‘It’s a nightmare!’

We had a lunch today which was quite typical of a Tuesday (fishcakes) I have learnt how to make a wicked sauce with this, which will enliven any fish dish, including fishcakes, It really is ridiculously simple and involves mixing (in a small receptacle) a desert full of mayonnaise, a desertful spoon of 1,000 island dressing, a good glug of tomato sauce, a shake of Worcester sauce – and then whisk all together with a fork and do one minute in the microwave. What name you would call this, I do now know so I will call a ‘Mog special’. After we had dined royally, we hit the road in the car to get some things into be drycleaned and to replenish our supplies of actual cash (which we use less and less these days as more and more retailers prefer to have things paid for by debit card rather than old fashioned cash). When we returned home, we sent a few emails, tidied up some odds-and-ends and then FaceTimed some of our old Waitrose friends who we have not actually seen for a week or so (unusually). Tomorrow we must ready ourselves for a visit by our chiropodist who ensures that we have thousands of miles left in our feet.)

The news tonight is dominated by the fact that Public Health England (PHE) is being folded into a new organisation and effectively merged in the newly developing test-and-trace regime (which has not had conspicuous success so far) It is to be headed up by Tory peer Baroness Dido Harding, currently in charge of Whitehall’s contact-tracing operation who, as TalkTalk chief executive, refused to apologise for financial losses caused to her customers following a cyber attack which saw 157,000 customer’s details stolen by online criminals.It really does look as though the politicians (Matt Hancock in this case) know that a public inquiry is coming and they are boiund to be heavily criticised by it. So they are trying the shift the blame sideways onto an agency (have we heard this before? As Sarah Wollaston, MP and ex-GP has written 

‘a reminder that PHE is the only bit of the health service directly under govt control as an executive agency. Seeking to scapegoat them is extraordinary after cutting public health funding for years & excluding local directors of public health from decision making on COVID.’