Today was one of those days when you wonder what the day is going to bring if anything, as a certain amount of political pressure has been building upon the Education Secretary throughout the course of the weekend and there are mutterings on the Conservative backbenches. We collected our newspapers and ate our elevenses in an almost deserted park this morning and apart from being inspected by the occasional dog (quite common on a park bench as they are often anticipating a nibble of food!). The rain came down quite softly and had it intensified we could have made for the shelter of a nearby weeping willow, but instead, we braved it out and the shower soon past. We can often judge the intensity of the rain by the pattern the droplets make on the water in the pond but after living in Lancashire for some of our life, the rain down here always seems mild in the extreme.

Meg and I read an intriguing story in today’s Times which has really set us thinking and wondering. More and more families are deciding in these lockdown conditions that now might be an ideal time to acquire and train a puppy as they now have time on their hands and the opportunity to train a puppy which was difficult for them whilst at work. Consequently, sales of, and prices of, puppy dogs have soared and many dogs are in fact being stolen, with reports of dog theft up 65% since the start of the lockdown. According to the charity Doglost,  some buyers are paying as much as four times the normal price and the price is often in the £1.000’s.  According to research by the insurance company, Direct Line, as many as 360.000 adults believe that a cat was stolen from their care in the past 12 months and some other research indicates that up to a quarter of the cats that go missing are actually stolen – but this is notoriously difficult to prove in the absence of chipping (which is voluntary) and/or a collar. Now we come to the case of Miggles, the cat who had adopted us and has now gone missing. As a previous blog indicated, her true owners were aware that she had gone missing unexpectedly and were repeatedly calling for her. As she was such an exceptionally good looking cat, the thought has crossed our mind whether she has actually been stolen rather than met an accidental death. After all, some new ‘owners’ could acquire a cat at no cost to themselves and the crime would be untraceable (and the police really do not want to know) So the thought in our minds that it is difficult to dispel is that Miggles has actually been abducted rather than meeting an untimely end. Of course, we shall never know!

This afternoon, we were holding ourselves in readiness for the 4.0 pm news bulletin because it was becoming increasingly evident that the government would have to execute the most tremendous ‘U-turn’ over the A-level marking debacle. As first the Welsh and then the Northern Irish devolved administration followed the Scots in allowing teachers’ assessments to constitute the final mark (even at the price of some grade inflation) then surely the English would have to follow suit – which, of course, they did. I correctly predicted that Gavin Williamson would be very slow in making a public apology and, sure enough, the first apology had to come from the Head of OfQual whilst the second came from a junior education minister that nobody has ever heard of (It did remind me of the public schoolboy trick where everybody blames ‘Jones Minor’ who is the little squirt in the system least able to defend themselves in the case of malfeasance – the Tories seem well versed in this particular piece of skulduggery. Compare Nicola Sturgeon, for example, who fronted up and apologised whilst  Boris is off playing ‘Monarch of the Glen’ somewhere in Scotland). In terms of public administration, then the creation of executive and regulatory agencies (of which the education regulator OfQual is one) blurs the lines of accountability such that if there are problems, the head of the agency can be blamed (and not the politicians) whereas if there are successes, the politicians can claim the credit. And, interestingly enough, as I wrote I read in tomorrow’s Guardian that the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, according to the lead headline is seeking to blame Ofqual for exams debacle…Well, it is quite evident that he will be got rid off at the earliest opportunity and BBC NewsNight had on it a policy analyst who had advised Michael Gove whilst he was Education Secretary and was amazed that Williamson was still in a job (as are we all)

Today was always going to be one of those days in which it could not decide whether to rain or not to rain. As it happened, Meg and I walked down to the park in practically cloudy conditions and the park rewarded us by being practically deserted. The rain in the night had well and truly wet all of the park benches which was designed to discourage any casually sitting down. But being well prepared like a Boy Scout (the motto of the scouting movement was ‘Be Prepared!‘), I had with me one of these absorbent sponge clothes which did a great job of removing the excess water before we could take advantage of the park bench. On our way home, we met some of our friends who we had not met for a few days and exchanged some news about their grandson who had been expecting the results of his ‘A’-levels. It turned out that he had been caught up in this ‘A’-level debacle in which in the absence of exams the teacher assessments which are always assumed to be overly optimistic were moderated downwards by an algorithm which meant that 40% students received a lower grade than their teacher assessments and this had severe implication for the universities that they wished to attend. In the case of our friend’s grandson, he was intending to appeal and his first choice university did not reject him but said he would have to wait for the results of his appeal (which might be too late) So he got onto his second choice university who spent a lot of time with him on the phone and armed with all the information that they had about him and effectively a 2-hour telephone interview, he was accepted by them. He was delighted with this offer as his second choice university is of the same general standing in the rankings so things seem to have turned out for the best.

I heard all of this well explained by, I think, a sixth form principal who was interviewed in the media to help to explain what had gone wrong. The explanation seemed plausible and simple. Basically, so she explained, the small colleges (typically found in the public schools) and those new colleges without a track record were excluded from the algorithm – and hence the teacher assessments were accepted.  If this were to be universally the case (as in Scotland) then the distribution of ‘A’-level grades would be deemed ‘too high’ and therefore the credibility might be put at risk. So the other colleges in the system (particularly larger sixth form colleges, some FE colleges offering ‘A’-levels and those with a poorer track record for whatever reason) had to bear the brunt of the statistical re-calculation, losing out badly in the process. {Apparently, the Royal Statistical Society had offered the assistance of some prestige members to give expert advice, but this was rejected as the experts in question refused to sign ‘non-disclosure’ agreements that would have meant that they had to keep silent for some five years!) What I suspect the government has failed to appreciate on a purely political level is that not only are the young people themselves affected but also their friends, parents, grandparents, other relatives – all of which is a sizeable part of the electorate. Will a screeching ‘U’-turn be forthcoming? I think not.

Our plans to visit Meg’s cousin who is now resident since her bereavement in Bolton have been put in a certain amount of doubt. We got an email this morning from her daughter who explained that as Bolton is part of the Greater Manchester lockdown area then no such visit will be possible (apart from people already within the bubble). To see what the current ‘lockdown’ rules are in Manchester I did a quick Google search and was horrified to see some video clip of Wilmslow Road, Rusholme in Manchester (which is where we lived in our final year at University) only to see enormous crowds of people (celebrating, I think, Pakistan’s National Day’) but the police had been putting out urgent messages to the younger sections of the population, flagrantly breaching the social distancing regulations and putting the health of themselves, their families and the wider community at risk. No wonder that the infection rate seems to be increasing in certain clusters.

Today was the day when we were booked into St. Mary’s, Harvington Hall at 10.00. Last week there were only a dozen of us but this week there somewhat more of us (about 17) but just enough to make the atmosphere quite an intimate one. We were greeted warmly by the parish secretary with whom we need a booking week by week so it was nice to put a face to a name. After the service, we drove back home, dropped off a few things and went to collect our Saturday complement of newspapers before having our elevenses in the park

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of Miggles, our adopted cat who we do not own but who adopted us, much preferring our garden to her own. The exploits of Miggles will be well known to regular readers for she insisted on accompanying me to supervise whatever job I happened to be doing in the garden. Today, though, I am sad to say that Miggles is no more. We first were aware that something may be wrong when her rightful owners (we know who they are) could be heard regularly calling for her all day long a few days ago – so they evidently were aware that the cat was missing. She has not turned up for breakfast for five days now and although last time we saw her she was happy, well-fed, playful and basking in the sunshine, now she is only a memory. I have to say that Meg and I feel her loss quite keenly! She was an incredibly good-looking as well as intelligent cat so I shall leave her a tribute of the lines from Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat‘ which I regularly used to repeat to her:

‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are!
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

As she walked into our life we think about two years ago, now she has walked out of it so we shall have to get used to not seeing her bound across the grass to greet us as she typically did. I have a collection of nice photos on my iPhone on the occasions when I would wish to be reminded of her.

Idly seeing what was on the TV we saw that a rugby match was being played for the first time in months (Exeter Chiefs v. Leicester Tigers) but as the Tigers were being soundly outplayed and beaten, it was not the source of pleasure one might expect. We also got cheated out of our 1-hour ration of ‘Today at the Test’ as the (cricket) The Test match had to be abandoned for the day with a combination of rain and bad light. And finally, whilst on a sporting theme, whilst I was getting ready this morning I heard a sports report that indicated that Barcelona (one of Spain’s and Europe’s premier teams) had been defeated 8-2 which was their biggest defeat since 1940 (which is a very long time ago!)

It will be interesting to see which particular scrape the Government has got itself into will hit the Sunday newspapers tomorrow. It will be a tossup between bright A-level students who, because of the algorithm which reduced their teacher-assessed final grades, will miss out on their choice of university course. However, one brave Oxford college (Worcester College) has guaranteed a place to all students holding an offer irrespective of what the diminution of the grades might happen to be. They argued that they had enough information in the round without having to have recourse to a hypothetical final examination grade which was then moderated down!) And the second big story is the holidaymakers desperately getting home from France to discover that they need to undertake a strict 14-day quarantine (they cannot even take the dog for a walk)

We thought today was going to be an intermediate kind of day but although it started off fairly cloudy, eventually it turned out to be a pleasant summer’s day with a light breeze and the sun eventually breaking through the clouds. We got the letter posted off to Meg’s cousin which was quite an important one as we hope she will be in a position when we make our trip to Chester in about 12 days time. As we have not seen Meg’s cousin for a couple of decades, we suspect there is a lot to catch up on, but after a gap of that period, one never knows how such encounters are going to turn out. Meg had seen a lot of her cousin when she was singing in small opera houses in Austria but we have lived at quite a distance from each other ever since and therefore the opportunities to see each other have been limited.  Then we had a further chat in the park with a lady who uses a wheelchair and was looking out for my hat and, not seeing it, assumed we were not there. She found us eventually and we chatted for a while about family history matters. Eventually, we made our way home but we seemed to be running a bit late on everything this morning. We exchanged a few words with our Italian friend down the road but she was busy preparing for visitors. I have to say we had a fairly lazy afternoon – I am sure there were various things in the garden and within the house to which I should have attended but the humidity does make one feel a little disinclined to exert oneself. I had yesterday emailed a friend who was an old colleague to get news of his wife who we knew was going to have an operation. It seems as though as all has turned out well so far as we can tell at this stage, so I was relieved to get this piece of positive news.

Occasionally, after I have answered my emails I look at Sky News to see if there are breaking stories (I must add that although I loathe the Rubert Murdoch stranglehold on the media, I am forced to admit that Sky News always seems to get to critical stories way before the BBC which I suspect has been utterly tamed, not to say cowed, by the past few governments) Apparently. Donald Trump was asked a question whether he regretted the fact that he had consistently lied to the American people during his presidency. One would have expected a complete denunciation of the reporter who had had the temerity to ask the question but instead, Donald Trump swerved the question, turned his gaze to another journalist and gave them to chance to ask another question instead, without offering up either an answer or a defence. Extraordinary – shall we see a video clip of this in the next few days? (Not on the BBC I venture to suggest, in view of what I have just been saying above).

I read a fascinating letter in ‘The Times‘ a day or so back, commenting upon the difficulties that the government is facing over ‘A’-levels in which teacher’s assessments are moderated by an algorithm which looks at the past record of the schools, thus ‘baking in’ inequalities. For example, a pupil with high predicted grades but in a school which performed ‘poorly’ the previous year could expect to be downgraded by applying the algorithm. The letter writer in ‘The Times‘ reminded readers that Michael Gove scrapped the system in which A-levels were essentially modular (each year being divided into two semesters) and with AS levels at the end of Year 1 of the sixth form. So, an A-level mark would be the amalgamation of the marks of four semesters of work  – but if this system had not been jettisoned, then by the time of the lockdown students would have marks attained for three out of their four semesters. Under these circumstances, it might have been considered quite fair to base the final A-level mark on these three semesters of work rather than four. However, Michael Gove thought that the pattern that we had in the 1950s ought to be the model for the future (i.e. one exam at the end of two years of study) and reflects the way in which some Government minister think that we should ‘look backwards into the future’. So a lot of the current mess could have been avoided if the existing system had not been tinkered with for essentially political reasons.

We did not have a tremendous storm last night but we did have a certain amount of rumbling thunder, some sheet lightning and quite a steady patter of rain which persisted until the small hours. So we were not surprised when we awoke to a day with a much fresher feel to it and the threat of a further shower always there. The morning’s post brought us some unwelcome news. It was from Meg’s cousin who is now living in Bolton and whose husband had had a stroke the bet part of a year ago. The letter informed us that her husband in a weakened condition had contracted a mild version of the COVID-19 virus but had died (and been cremated) some two months ago. We were shocked, but not absolutely surprised, and later on today we wrote a letter of condolence which we will post tomorrow. I consulted with my neighbour over a range of issues because after the lockdown we have to be very careful about what equipment we need to bring to our resumed Pilates classes. So far, we are thinking about Pilates mat, a bath sheet to spread on it,  small handtowel to act as a neck roll, some stretch Pilates exercise bands, a Pilates ball – I think that’s about it. Anyway, we have enough time to assemble things before the class resumes on 1st September. Before we entered the park, we called by the opticians ao that we could arrange for an eye test for Meg as she feels that her eyesight is deteriorating somewhat and this was a bit more difficult than you imagine involving a call to the manageress (who knows us quite well). However, we got there in end and got an appointment with the optician who knows Meg’s eyes well having treated her over the years. We also took the opportunity to call by our favourite High Street cobbler to get new ferrules put on our National Trust portable stool (what exciting lives we do lead!)

This afternoon, we texted one of the relatives of Meg’s uncle who lives in North Wales to check out whether a quick visit is feasible. As it happens, the coast seems to be clear so upon the strength of that, we went ahead and made a booking in a Holiday Inn that we know well and is very convenient for us (but we got the 3rd last room according to their website) Having got this all booked, we then made a further booking at a country club down the road at which we eat on the day we arrive and then made yet another telephone call to Meg’s uncle to check out it would be OK for us to call upon him and so he could note things in his diary. This leaves us one free day which we would normally spend on our own in Chester but on this occasion, we intend to make a trip from outside Chester to Bolton to see if we can see Meg’s recently bereaved cousin – as it is a trip almost entirely by motorway it seems to us to be an excellent idea to fit in this visit as we are in the vicinity. So now we have ‘all of our ducks in a row’ having made all of the arrangements that we want without any real difficulty.

As it happens, the predicted row over ‘A’-levels is underway. The government is evidently desperately worried not to let ‘inflated’ teacher’s grades become the finished product but as a result of applying some degree of standardisation the public schools and high performers seem to have come out of it best whilst the pupils whose marks have been moderated (downwards) the most just happen to come from the poorest areas, thus apparently ‘baking in’ the inequalities that already exist within the system.  (Thus was it ever so!) It is hard to say at this point whether the political pressure will eventually force a rethink but in purely political terms, a situation in which 39% of marks were reduced by one or more grades does not seem to a particularly healthy one for any government, even one with a large majority. We shall see!

Our mini-heatwave continues although there are indications that we may have a storm tonight and almost certainly tomorrow. Last night, as we were going to bed, there was evidently a storm not too far off with sheet lightning every few seconds or so but the winds and especially the rain passed us by. Again tonight, we have had a small intimation of an impending storm but the house is very hot and humid and we are all praying for a tremendous downpour to cool us all down. On the way to the park, we were delighted to bump into the friends who had invited us round for sandwiches in their garden at lunchtime. By way of (a small) recompense I have donated one of my specially prepared horseshoes, all the way from Yorkshire but duly de-rusted, cleaned up and polished up and with a little explanatory ‘runoff’ from Google which explains the story of the Irish saint, St. Dunstan and why horseshoes can be considered lucky. Now all our friends have to do is to find a fortunate spot in their garden or house to hang it, which no doubt they will. We spent some time completing our Waitrose order this morning which is due for delivery tomorrow afternoon. Also, our email has indicated that we are ‘booked in’ to the church service in St. Mary’s, adjacent to Harvingtom Hall as we were last Saturday so we are off to repeat the experience (and it is just possible that some other friends might join us as well).

In the afternoon, I texted my sister in Yorkshire suggesting that it might be that the time is right for us to make a quick visit to Yorkshire when I could see her and the rest of the Yorkshire extended family, particularly as it is going to be my sister’s birthday at the end of the month. My sister telephoned and we discussed a range of possibilities but it seems there still a range of practical difficulties. Other members of the family are either away/working/having house extensions done so the time is not apposite for a visit. My sister and brother-in-law have no desire to dine out in a village pub as we often do on the occasions of our visits so it appears that we had better wait until the times are a little more propitious before we visit. Similarly, we are conscious that we need to pay a visit to Meg’s aged uncle in North Wales who we were going to see at the very start of the lockdown (and had actually booked our hotel room) but which we decided, fortunately as it turned out, to cancel. We are going to text another member of his extended family to see how the land lies and whether it would be sensible/not sensible for us to make a flying visit for a few days to North Wales but again we feel as though we need to ‘play this one by ear’ on this occasion as well.

Tomorrow is the announcement of ‘A’-levels and the current arrangement is that in the absence of exams, an algorithm will be applied that takes account of teachers’ assessments. the results of mocks if taken and the past track record of the schools. But there was a debacle in Scotland where the Scottish government was forced to abandon all of the ‘awarded’ grades and then rely solely upon teacher assessment in order to avoid a situation in which approx. 40% of students finish up with less than their predicted grades. The UK government are suggesting at the very last moment a hybrid scheme where the student can choose between the provisionally awarded grade, substitute the results of ‘mocks’ if they are higher (which they rarely are) or volunteer to take an examine the autumn. Whatever happens, looks both messy and is going to cause a huge political row. My own view is that even though the teacher assessed grades might be inflated and lack a degree of credibility, then this could be viewed as a one-off compensation in view of the absence of proper tuition in the extraordinary arrangement that students have had to undertake under the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis.  But we shall have to wait until tomorrow and see what happens…

Another day in the current heatwave but fortunately for us, it is not too oppressive in the morning when we walk down. Today we met some of our old Waitrose friends in the park by prior arrangement or rather Meg did as I needed to go off and buy a few ‘essentials’ (such as getting a new watch battery fitted) on the High Street. We thought our friends might have told us of lots of exciting places that they had been to since the semi-release from lockdown on 1st August – instead, they have been getting some medical appointments in that had to be postponed over the last few weeks. So we had a rather hurried meeting today but at least we got a meeting before the weather turns really nasty which it might in the next few days if we have multiple rain and thunderstorms. This afternoon, I needed to consult with my neighbour before I started some much-needed edging and gully clearing in our communal area. As it happened, my neighbour and I are going to start our Pilates class together and we had to have some practical things to sort out. We also had several other bits of news to impart to each other, principally on the subject of actual neighbours and soon-to-be neighbours (as a large bungalow just around the corner from us has just been sold) so by the time we had finished our long chat it was ‘Tiffin‘ time i.e. mid-afternoon cup of tea time so the edging had to be given a miss for another day. Quel surprise!

Whilst not wishing to be a ‘car bore’, the various reviews of the new Honda we intend to purchase do all mention not particularly good acceleration for the model in question. However, I did by a series of ‘accidents’ arrive at a website that detailed most makes and models of cars with a plethora of information giving, in particular, what I found to be of most interest i.e. a table of ‘overtaking times’ such as the time taken in seconds to go from 80-120 km/h (which is 50-75 mph) which is just the sort of information you need if you entering a motorway via a slip road and have to slot into a lane of faster-moving traffic on the right-hand side. Armed with this information, I could then draw comparisons between my ‘intended’, a much faster beast from the same stable and cars that I had owned in the past. I discovered that whatever the motoring journalists might have written, there was no difference between my intended and a Mazda 3 which I had owned in the past and only 1.0-second difference between my intended and the faster beast. This leads me to conclude that motoring journalists get fixated on one or two aspects of a car which, whilst real, are not that important in the wider order of things. I also discovered an owner’s website in which owners reminisced about the much older, heavier, more powerful but less ‘zippy’ cars they had owned in the past and which made them more than contented with their present model, whatever the motoring reviews had to say. They also stressed that such things as cargo space are much more important to the average owner than to the ‘boy racer’ in us who is trying to get every smidgeon of acceleration out of his vehicle. And now, I promise I will leave that topic for good.

There are two disturbing COVID-19 stories tonight, no doubt related to each other. The first is that 1148 new cases have been reported in the past day which is the highest total since June – it does look like the start of a second wave of the pandemic. The second issue was a Sky News investigation in which it was shown that in a Manchester suburb (where infection rates are rising) 9 out of 10 establishments are not following the guidelines i.e. that a record of names and addresses of all of these who enter the pub is not being taken and if the video evidence is to be believed, then social distancing is being largely ignored. The requirements are only ‘advisory’ at the moment but the Scots are shortly to give these the force of law (and perhaps we will be dragged, reluctantly, doing the same but two weeks too late!)

Well, you can never tell how a day is going to turn out and so it proved today. We were somewhat delayed this morning because we have an arrangement whereby our oven gets professionally cleaned – we have this done every six months and evidently, the person whose business it is does not mind doing a job professionally that most of us hate doing periodically, so we are more than happy to have done for us. Needless to say, it is always interesting to see how other individuals and families have coped with the COVID-19 lockdown so we had a good chat about this. Then Meg and I left for our daily newspaper/trip to the park walk in what turned out to be quite a fine, albeit muggy day (the rains and thunderstorms are on their way, perhaps tomorrow, but it is a bit difficult to estimate precisely when) On our way home from the park, we came across one set of friends who were busy gardening and we managed to convey several useful bits of information about the church service we attended on Saturday last. Then three doors down we bumped into another set of friends who we had not seen for a few days so we exchanged news and gossip with each other. Then, on the spur of the moment, they invited us into their back garden for what I think the Anglo-Indian community used to called ‘tiffin’ but which was actually sandwiches which were rustled up on the spot, cake, tea and even beer. We have been saying to each other for a week or so now that we would like to invite each other into our respective gardens when the weather was set fair so this an actual case of ‘carpe diem‘ (seize the moment) a phrase popularised in the film ‘Dead Poet’s Society‘ which I know is a bit dated now. Altogether we spent some two and a half hours chatting and the time flew by but it was well to get the opportunity whilst we could because the weather is undoubtedly going to break and they were going away for a mini-break in a few days’ time. I think we managed to get the world set to rights anyway – on our way home we received an anxious message from other family members who assumed we had been captured by the white slave trade as we had left the house several hours ago and not returned. This afternoon, I was full of good intentions to clear up some of the clutter on the desk in my study but what with a good reading of the newspapers, coupled with a trawl through some of the car reviews I have collected over the days, it didn’t actually get done. Incidentally, reading car reviews is always a slightly frustrating experience, particularly if one is trying to compare performance characteristics (it’s a man thing!) when each review seems to be referring to a somewhat different specification or trim level to the one you have intended to purchase.

It looks as though the long-awaited thunderstorms are in the vicinity but it just possible that we may be on their outer fringes. The members of my family have a special app on their iPads that enables them to track the distribution of thunderstorms as they progress across the country – if they develop in intensity, we love to sit in our porch and enjoy the intensity of the storm. Evidently, we have to chase around and make fast all of our windows before the rain strikes.

It now looks as if the government’s ‘world-beating’ test-and-trace regime is having to undergo significant revision. Some 6,000 staff are being stood down (and many of them had nothing to do anyway) whilst a significant number amongst the remaining 12,000 will be deployed to assist the local authority public teams where the real expertise has been located all along – at least for a century! The Serco scheme is starting to look more and more like ‘contracts for one’s friends’ instead of a serious and professional attempt to hunt the virus down as is happening in other societies such as Germany (not to mention the far eastern economies of South Korea from who we could have learnt many a lesson)

Today’s date is the date of my mother’s birthday and although she died some 13 years ago, the date of your mother’s birthday is always something that is lodged in your memory (after years of buying cards and presents). As I walked down to Bromsgrove for the Sunday newspapers this morning, I was wondering to myself whether there was any saying or piece of advice that I remember my mother giving to me. There was just one piece of advice, given if we had a family argument or tiff over something, which was:  ‘Do not let the sun go down on your anger‘. Actually, over the years I think this is quite a sound piece of advice and so I did a quick Google search as it sounded vaguely biblical (as indeed it was as it was apparently said by St. Paul). My mother was always quite concerned with the political process – in fact when she died, I found an examination paper for some Local Government examinations she must have taken called ‘Civics’ and many of the questions were just as pertinent today e.g. ‘How does Central Government control the spending of local authorities‘ and questions of a similar ilk. Whenever there was a general election as there was in 1955, she felt it was her duty to go down to the village hall (for the village in which we were then living) to ask questions of the prospective candidates. As a local government officer, she always relished the opportunity to act as a ‘poll clerk’ as it was the only way in which a local government officer could earn a smidgeon of extra cash on top of one’s normal pay. Although she started off life as a Conservative, she increasingly voted Liberal (Liberal Democrat) in her later years and finished off stuffing envelopes for the Liberal party candidate. Eventually, as an inmate of a residential home in her later years, she caused quite a kerfuffle when she insisted that she be included on the electoral register and be given a postal ballot. I think that she felt incredibly strongly that whilst women had fought so hard for the vote, then it certainly had to be exercised on every available occasion. Although she could by no means be described as a feminist of any description, I think that she took her part in the political process very seriously.

In the park, we met with an elderly lady who was a regular visitor (in her wheelchair) to the park on an almost daily basis and she showed us a leaflet that she acquired from the local authority (and now available on the web) which details how the great and the good of Bromsgrove’s past were buried in Bromsgrove cemetery and how to find their graves. This is something we might do if at a really loose end! On our way home, we bumped into our Italian friend and continued our conversation of a few days back relating especially to family matters. And then a friend turned up for a Sunday lunch so we continued on our way in what was turning out to be quite a humid day. The weather has continued like this most of the afternoon and we are hopeful that there may be some dramatic thunderstorms (and rain) in the next few days to save me the trouble of watering various pot plants. I even watered my sickly Hornbeam first thing this morning to coax it back into better health.

The new cases of COVID-19 have topped 1,000 for the first time since June so this must be a source of concern. According to a headline on Sky News, ‘Boris Johnson {has been) told teachers and students must get weekly COVID-19 tests for the safe return of schools‘, which advice he almost certainly ignore. For a start, we have to have a much more reliable ‘Test and Trace’ regime rather than the present (private sector) disaster run by Serco and this looks like being a long way off. Apparently, even staff in care homes have only been tested once since the start of the epidemic and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. There has been a hint dropped by the Government, though, that in the very last analysis pubs would have to be closed in preference to schools if there were to be a resurgence of the virus, which looks more and more likely.

Today turned out to be a different sort of Saturday for all sorts of reasons. Temperatures were again on the very warm side as we are in the middle of a ‘mini-heatwave’ and it is predicted to last for a couple of days more before breaking down into thunderstorms and rain (we hope!) This morning, Meg and I attended a service at St. Mary’s, Harvington which is completely adjacent to Harvington Hall. There is also a Georgian chapel built within the grounds and even an attic ‘church’ where mass was held in mediaeval times cleverly disguised so that it looked as though it was an extension to a children’s nursery – and priestly vestments could be quickly hidden away in the event of a raid searching out Catholic ‘heretics’. The service itself was delightful – there were a dozen of us and we were well socially distanced from each other, sanitised, masked and/or visored up. There was a very intimate feel to the whole experience and I suppose it must have been like this in the early days of the Christian church where congregations would assemble in each other’s houses and the priest would come to them rather than the reverse. We suspect we will repeat the experience next weekend as we rather enjoyed the aesthetics of it all. Harvington Hall is only 7 miles distant from Bromsgrove so we drove down to the park and hunted for an elusive car-parking space which we eventually found. We were delighted, though, to meet up again with an old acquaintance of ours who has two twin baby girls (growing up fast) and as we had not met up for a week or so, we had to catch up with each other’s news. She had started work again when the children went to a nursery but as a speech therapist, she found to be enormously kitted out with a lot of PPE since she was last at work and this coupled with a new boss made the whole experience of work seem very different to the pre-COVID-19 days. Then we met another mother complete with a dog (sort of a mixture between a poodle and something else) and her children who were helping to walk and train the dog which still a puppy. We exchanged some stories, as we typically do, and then made for home on what was becoming quite a humid morning.

The big political dilemma facing the government whether to press ahead with a forced reopening of the schools in three weeks time still rumbles on. Tonight, the position seems to be as polarised as ever. One the one hand, Boris Johnson and the rest of the government machine are arguing that it is only ‘morally right’ that children should receive the education that they deserve. At one level, it is hard to disagree with these sentiments and is evidently the case that the absence of any formalised education for so many months is causing real damage to the life chances (and the mental health) of a whole generation of children of school age. But the difficulty is this – we know that the incidence of the virus amongst school children is remarkably low. But what we do not know is whether the school population could act as a vector for the transmission of the virus to older people whilst they themselves seem unaffected. As well as school children, we also have to be aware of the Further Education colleges and other institutions catering for adolescents there is much more uncertainty. The crux of the argument is that the reopening of schools is actually the reconnection of several diverse networks and, once reconnected, the virus may well become much more rampant. A former chief scientific adviser to the government is of the opinion that the epidemic will almost certainly worsen once schools are made to reopen, despite the measures that they are undertaking unless compensatory mechanisms can be sought to offset these. The argument most often heard is ‘pubs’ or ‘schools’ – will any government dare to shut down all of the pubs and restaurants if it is the case that the reopening of the schools is generating more opportunities for the virus to replicate?