Yesterday was a beautiful and fine day and one in which it was a real pleasure to meet with our long-standing friends in the park. By all accounts, tomorrow is meant to be the same kind of weather, with fine weather projected over most of the country. But today was very much the day in between – it has been a cloudy, humid and glowering kind of day which has really been quite oppressive and quite unpleasant all day long. So it was not really the kind of day in which one could do anything much, so I indulged myself in a really good read of The Times the weekend supplement of which was actually quite interesting for a change (for example, the foodstuffs to eat to keep you healthy in the long run – it was no surprise that broccoli makes it into the list once again, justifying its position as a superfood. Try putting ‘Broccoli: Super Food’ into a search engine such as Google to see what I mean). Just to compound the type of rotten day that today has proved to be, the bad weather in Manchester meant that there was no play in the England v. West Indies Test Match in which a potentially match-winning position that England is in (which would level the series) is put at risk since a whole day’s play has been lost.

Today is the day when our Waitrose order is delivered, quite late in the day but at least it arrived in the allocated time slot (unlike last week where it was much delayed) I always amaze myself that one can spend such an amount on shopping only to see it all disappear into store cupboards and you seem to have nothing to show for it (although we did avail ourselves of spending some money on cosmetics which would normally have been bought in a different type of store) Earlier in the day, my sister had texted me with the excellent news that not only had my package of gooseberries been successfully delivered to Yorkshire (it was only posted yesterday) but she had already turned it into three jars of jam. Rather than posting a jar down to us, we resolved that it could wait until the next time we visit Yorkshire so that will be quite a treat then. We had been in some doubt as to what is the best occasion to see relatives both in North Wales and also in Yorkshire in view of the uncertainties generated by the coronavirus. We have a tentative plan which is to wait until the 1st August deadline has well and truly passed and then go off to North Wales for a few days in the second week of August (assuming hotel booking’s can be made as normal) and then visit Yorkshire about two weeks after that, which would be the final week of August and will coincide with my sister’s birthday at the end of the month.

It looks as though the blame game for the coronavirus debacle has well and truly started. Well and truly in the firing line is the body called Public Health England where there is already a certain amount of dispute whether under the reforms instituted by Andrew Lansley (generally regarded as pretty disastrous) give the Secretary of State (for Health) to power to take direct control or whether the degree of autonomy they were granted meant that ministers lost the power to intervene and control that part of the NHS. In any case, it looks as though Public Health England (or PHE) which undoubtedly made some mistakes will now be the fall guy thus deflecting the blame away from the politicians who dithered and delayed by at least a week thus doubling the total number of deaths due to the virus. We are talking about an excess death toll due to the delay in the lockdown being of the order of 20,000 which is a truly staggering figure (equivalent to about 60 jumbo jets crashing with a total loss of life) The Sunday newspapers tomorrow will no doubt expose the divisions between the scientists and the politicians in forensic detail which I am sure will pass most of the population by (but which news junkies such as myself will surely lap up)

When I used to trek up and down our High Street in Bromsgrove, I occasionally used to see sets of pottery (such as half a dozen plates or saucers) being sold off at ridiculously cheap prices and I tended to purchase them, if they were of a pleasant design, for use as saucers to put under indoor plants. I had, in the past, purchased a set of six small bowls and in fact use one of them every day to give breakfast to Miggles, the cat who as adopted us. Today,  just out of interest, I turned to see who was the manufacturer and it was Grindley’s, a well-known potteries firm whose vintage pottery is still in demand.  So as my curiosity was now aroused, I hunted around on the eBay websites and discovered that the design I had in my possession was called ‘Tudor Rose‘ and although not what you would call valuable, individual items seem to sell for about £3-£5 so there must be some kind of market for people who either collect them or want to replace some missing items. The next dinner party to which we are invited I shall try and weave into the conversation ‘Evidently we only use our Grindley’s ‘Tudor Rose’ ware to feed our cat‘ which sounds like a line out of Jane Austen.

Today in the park we had an assignation to meet some of our oldest Waitrose friends but first had to buy our newspapers and then make a trip to the Post Office (in W H Smiths currently) in order to post a parcel off to my sister. That having been done, we met our friends on the way to the park and proceeded to our normal park bench only for a local authority worker to come along with a portable, petrol-driven strimmer with which he proceeded to cut off the lower branches of the willow immediately beside us. As we now could scarcely hear ourselves think let alone talk, we had to grab and bits or pieces and make for the safety of an alternative bench where we were now out of earshot of the offending machine.

Lunch was an interesting affair – I had previously bought from Iceland a packet of frozen unspecified ‘white fish’ that turned out to be pollock. If you look on the web, you will find that pollock has the reputation of being a good looking but incredibly tasteless fish. I got around this by making a little concoction of my own which a spoonful of seafood sauce (a la Waitrose) a spoonful of garlic mayonnaise, a splodge of tomato ketchup and a dollop of 1000 Island dressing. This was then all mixed up and given a quick whizz in the microwave and it made an incredibly tasty dish as it turned out. As the potatoes had in my store jar were starting to sprout, I picked out some which I then cubed into very small pieces prior to boiling them and then added to them a raw egg, some butter, some whole milk and some grated cheese which I then mashed together to gave a kind of enhanced mashed potato. I only mention all of this to show that if you start off with some fairly pedestrian ingredients, you can actually turn them into quite a good meal using a little imagination and enterprise.

After lunch, it was time to give the lawns their 7-10 day mowing and they really seemed to need it this time – the combination of a lot of humid weather must have really made the grass grow quite rapidly. Whilst on a gardening theme, I was circulated the other day by a firm from whom I had evidently bought stuff in the past who were selling off a lot of their summer stock at massively reduced prices (they claimed £65 worth of stuff for a fiver) Anyway I succumbed and should be soon be getting 12 dahlia tubers, 100 gladioli corms and 25 oriental lilies which might collectively make for quite an interesting display even if we just put them into pots and distribute them around as ways of brightening up a few borders.

Today was an interesting day for us in the park. We struck up a conversation with a couple of locals who lived on the far side of the park but were very knowledgable about the various plans that were being put forward in the locality and we suspected that absolutely none of them could hope to come to fruition if the developers only wanted to build houses but the existing road infrastructure would not bear the weight of the extra traffic. We calculated that of the suggested 500 new houses with 2.5 cars per household (Mum, Dad and teenage children so eventually 2.5 cars) they would stretch for 2.5 miles which is approximately all the way down into Bromsgrove and back again if the cars were actually bumper-to-bumper. If the proposed developments were to take place under the government’s policy of  ‘presumed consent’ then it would be the first new development in a town where nobody would go anywhere because the roads would be so clogged up! The developers and the County Council are of the view that many people would walk anyway (presumably on the grounds that gridlock would mean that was the only way to get into the town centre). What is desperately needed is, in effect, a Western bypass but the county council will not even fund a feasibility study for that because it knows what the answer would be (absolutely necessary and therefore undesirable because it would draw funds away from the rest of Worcestershire) The joys of local planning -we speak as one who has won three planning appeals against the destruction of a local orchard adjacent to the house to be replaced by 16 houses but lost on the final planning application (as the developer can keep on submitting for evermore until they are successful and can appeal against a decision but local residents cannot)

This afternoon I had decided if the weather was fair (which it was), that I would pick over my gooseberry bushes which I planted about three years ago. I had noticed that although the leaves had dropped off the bushes (in response to the absence of rain?), the fruit was still hanging intact. I picked 800 grams of berries which is about 1.75lb of fruit. This was sufficient for us to have a delicious meal of them stewed and then served with ice cream but the rest will be despatched to my sister in Yorkshire who, I hope, can turn them into jam for us which we can collect the next time we see her. This having been done, I then turned my attention to my neighbour’s hosepipe where I was attempting to turn two lengths into one. She had an assortment of fittings but even though they were Hozelock they all seemed to leak like mad. Eventually, I was forced into the situation where I had to get a half-inch ‘female’ hosepipe onto the conventional ‘male’ part of the fittings (yes- they do call them that) which took for a lot of manipulation of the female end to make it pliable and a lot of brute force and ignorance to get the male connector to fit. This is what we used to do in the days before Hozelock fittings became standard and I recall the struggles that I have had in the past.

It looks as though there are two big political stories in town tonight. The first of these is that it looks as though there is a split between the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser over whether it is sensible or not to resume working in one’s normal workplace or at home. One has seen the tensions apparent for a week or so now but the divergences in approach are now much more transparent. One report is that the experts recommended a full lockdown at least one full week before it actually occurred (a week is a long time when the infection rate is doubling every three days). It looks as though the politicians and the scientists know that in a forthcoming public enquiry, it is evident that mistakes were made and they are trying to blame the other party first. The second issue is the fact that the Russians may well have interfered in our last general election (as they probably did in the US Presidential election also) and this issue is being conflated (to muddy the waters deliberately?) with a suggestion that the Russians may be trying to ‘acquire’ i.e. steal our corona vaccine research. The government knows that the ‘Russian dossier’ will be published next week and parts of this will make uncomfortable reading for them so releasing reports about Russian interference with the ‘body politic’ in the UK is probably a diversionary tactic on their part. Then, of course, there is the effect of the Russian state in promoting Brexit and undermining the strength of the EU by helping to break it up but this has not really hit the public consciousness yet!

This was another dismal day- and just when we thought the weather was going to get a bit better as well. Meg and I endured a slight drizzle as we sat in the park drinking our coffee but the drizzle was not sufficiently serious to strike for home. We got into a conversation with an ex-teacher and her husband whose labrador-like dog was on its first trip out after a serious leg operation. I mused that when we had watched TV programmes featuring surgery on animals, then when the (typically) dogs had recovered from the amputation of a leg and the anaesthetic and were reunited with their owners they incredibly quickly adapted to their new status and were not thinking to themselves ‘I am a disabled dog’ Instead, they just got on with it and adapted to their new circumstances. I wondered if there were any lessons from this we could learn – but of course, we have a much longer memory span than dogs (I suppose).

Having allowed myself to read a feature in The Times on face masks, a particular firm was mentioned which sold high-quality cotton or cotton/silk face masks. To cut a long story short, I decided to buy two good quality face masks for Meg and myself that were both washable, comfortable and also had the facility to incorporate a filter. Although I have a good supply of temporary face-masks, I thought I would reserve these for the occasions when I shoot into my local newspaper shop, gather up the newspapers, hand over the tokens and get back outside again – a process I can generally achieve in about 30 seconds. Of course, it will be compulsory to wear a mask in about 9 days time in any case. But now we have settled down into our new regime of ordering online from Waitrose but the higher quality masks will be reserved for those occasions when we may be having extended conversations with people or else are having a longer shopping experience than 30 seconds. We are now well into the system of having about two or three orders at weekly intervals stretching out into the distance (to secure one’s slot) but we have also to remember that about the day before the order is delivered, it needs to be amended with what one actually needs for the week ahead (rather than having filled up the shopping trolley from an ex-order some weeks back).

There were then three outdoor tasks I had set myself. The first of these was to follow the advice that I had read on the web and ensure that whatever mulch one puts around a newly planted tree, the recommendation is not to form a ‘volcano’ (which I had) but to spread the mulch around over a radius of about two metres because this would be more beneficial to the roots in the long run, particularly by ensuring they were not starved of oxygen. The next task was to pull some sticks of rhubarb which was very easy (and our plant is doing reasonably well this year and not tunning to seed which it often does) The third task was to ‘take out the dustbins’ which entails dragging the relevant bins along our access rods to a point at which they can be more easily accessed by the refuse collection vehicles (one of the downsides of living on a private road is that the local authority has a policy that local householders have to be responsible to dragging their own bins to an access point) Needless to say, each of my outdoor activities was closely monitored and supervised by Miggles, the cat who has adopted us.

There have been two really interesting political developments this evening. The first of these is that the Boris Johnson nominee to head the influential House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee has been rejected. Johnson has nominated Chris Grayling to the committee expecting he could be elected Chairman, However, not for nothing is Grayling known to fellow MP’s as ‘failing Grayling’ that they rejected him and elected another Conservative, Julian Lewis in his stead (who had nominated himself and got the agreement of the Opposition MP’s to back him) Grayling’s record of incompetence is legendary and I quote from The Guardian to be published tomorrow:’He presided over the collapse of Northern and Thameslink rail services and the granting of a no-deal Brexit ferry contract to a company with no ships. As justice secretary, he part-privatised the probation service and banned prisoners from receiving books from relatives, a measure that was overturned in the courts.’  (The privatised probation service was such a disaster that even a Tory government had to bring it back into public ownership as the firm contracted it to run made such an abysmal mess of it) Downing Street has reacted by withdrawing the Conservative whip from Julian Lewis i.e. throwing him out of the party. The second development is that the important report which indicates that the Government should take immediate steps to make sure that we do not have 120,000 deaths in the second wave of the Coronavirus had not even been read by Boris Johnson – he revealed in Prime Minister’s Questions only that he was ‘aware’ of it. One can not really believe this level of incompetence in a Prime Minister – but the electorate voted for him and gave him an 80 seat majority!

Today started with a pleasant surprise – some of our closest friends who have been in ‘shielded’ lockdown for weeks but who we met in the park last week texted to ask if we would like to meet again in the park today. This we did with alacrity and it was particularly heartwarming to know that this type of meeting is not only pretty safe (we wear face masks as well just as a precaution) but also such a source of pleasure for all of us. So we all met for half an hour, a little earlier than usual, which was fine as we have commitments for the rest of the day. The weather. although cloudy, was kind to us as well and we were in no danger of being caught in a shower. We will probably repeat this about twice a week from now on and after July 31st/August 1st (the end of shielding for the ‘clinically extremely vulnerable‘) we can probably plan a joint day out to a National Trust or similar property. This is what the Government are saying about this should you be worried about the risks of infection:The latest evidence shows that the chance of encountering Coronavirus in the community has continued to decline. Four weeks ago, around one person in 500 had the virus. Last week it was even lower with less than one in 1,700 people having the virus.  

This afternoon, Meg needed to go to Worcester Royal Infirmary for a routine eye-check after she a corneal transplant some 9 years ago (they told us). To be honest, Meg and I were a little apprehensive that car parking would be a nightmare (last time I went there for a checkup in took 1½ hours to get out of the car park) and there was always the Coronavirus regime within the hospital. As it happens, absolutely everything was plain sailing. For a start, car parking fees had been suspended and we managed to find a bay quite near to the Ophthalmology Unit. Also, they were only letting people in about 2 at a time so there was no sitting around in crowded waiting rooms. Meg was seen by a couple of nurses who took some questions as a history and then we saw the consultant himself who conducted further examinations using specialised equipment. As we had arrived early, we had a half an hour to wait but I shot off to the haematology department to have a blood test done (as my bowel cancer consultant had requested) and normally one is confronted with a room with about 20 people in it. Today, there was none so I sailed in and got the whole blood sample taken in about 2 minutes before I returned to the unit so that I could accompany Meg through the eye clinic procedures. Having been used to a teeming hospital (in which both Meg and I have been treated) it was somewhat surreal to be in the same surroundings but with hardly any other people around. All of the clinical staff were extremely friendly – perhaps they appreciated not being rushed off their feet which is the norm.

A Tory MP representing a New Forest (Hampshire)constituency is tonight venting his outrage at having to wear a face mask in 9-10 days time. But my impression is from the various clips of vox pop shown on the news channels is that most people are not unhappy about the change in policy and it may yet encourage more people to venture out into the community. It will be quite interesting to see (in a day or so?) what the general public feel about the new regulation, given that we are gradually falling into line behind 120 other countries who wear a face mask with no qualms!

Medical scientists are modelling the chances of a second wave of the coronavirus and believe that up to 120,000 people could lose their lives (the current total in this first phase is 45,000). Of eight respiratory virus pandemics since the 19th century, five have had two or more waves which usually happen in colder months regardless of when the first outbreak occurs. So it looks as though we must all hope for the best (but prepare for the worst).  It seems to be a good idea to get a flu jab as soon as they become available in September so as not to be hit by two viruses at once.

Today turned out to be a dismal day, weather-wise. It started off cloudy and Meg and I largely avoided the rain whilst we were in the park but started to get rained upon with slight smatters on the way home. However, the rain intensified for the rest of the day meaning that we could concentrate on ‘inside’ jobs (which turned out to be just as well). After we had returned home, I decided to contact British Airways (as their website had suggested) in order to speak to a customer services representative to attempt to get my vouchers turned back into the cash that they extracted from me months ago. Needless to say, my worst fears turned out to be justified. The recorded message on the suggested BA number indicated that owing to ‘unprecedented demand’ and in order to ‘protect their staff’ presumably from abuse, they would not even put you in a queueing system but asked you to call back later. As it happens, their call times are 8.00 am to 8.00 pm so I am currently ‘on hold’ at the moment as I type. I am not very hopeful but I did manage to get an email through to them which has acknowledged ‘automatically’ that has probably disappeared into a BA black hole as well. I can now report that I did manage to get through and speak to a BA staff member who told me that the contract was with Expedia and not with them and therefore I should try to claim from Expedia. Meanwhile, the Expedia website is telling me that flight+holiday trips are not refundable. Tomorrow, I shall have a go at contacting my credit card company who ought to be liable under the terms of Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. We shall see!

As it was a rainy afternoon, this was a good opportunity for me to look over an academic paper which I am reviewing for an academic colleague/friend. The paper was an interesting one and well-written so the task was not arduous as can be the case if the author happens to be a non-English writer first speaker. The author of this paper had written me an email saying he thought he knew me because he had bumped into me at a conference in South Africa. However, I was able to tell him that I actually attended a conference in which there were two instances of a Professor Mike Hart giving papers on widely different subjects – and I was the other one. You can imagine the confusion that caused.

The government, after much vacillation, are now going to announce a change in policy re. face masks – i.e. it is going to be obligatory to wear one as from Friday, 24th July. When the government was asked by the BBC’s NewsNight programme to supply a spokesperson from any government department to explain the decision (or rather the vacillation over the decision), quite mysteriously no spokesperson could happen to be found. So it looks as though the UK is going to follow 100 other countries in recommending the use of face masks. What is so significant about this is that the far eastern countries (South Korea, Vietnam) that have had experiences of other pandemics such as SARS and have made the use of face masks compulsory at an early stage have overcome the ravages of the virus more easily (and almost exactly the reverse is happening in the USA)

The other interesting statistic that is being aired this evening is that in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon’s approval rating is +60% whilst that of Boris Johnson is -39% – in other words, a 99% difference between the two. One the one hand, Nicola Sturgeon appears calm, competent and empathetic whilst Boris is bombastic and disorganised. Is it any wonder that support for Scottish Independence has now gone up to 53% – no doubt, voters thinking that if the Scots could handle as important a crisis as COVID-19 so much more competently then in England, then an independent Scotland is surely very viable!

Another fine day in prospect which is always uplifting. I was a little disconcerted, though, to make sure I arrived at my newsagent quite early for a Sunday morning (8.30 am) only to be sold that they had sold out of The Observer.  I was particularly keen to get The Observer as it featured some interesting articles, such as the 20 councils at greatest risk where the coronavirus threat was said to be greatest.  The borough of Oadby and Wigston, where I lived for about thirteen years was actually fifth on the list but this is a statistical artefact as these two small towns are only about 4-5 miles from the centre of Leicester. which was way out in front of the rest with a fairly large ‘spike’ in cases. The Sunday Times reported last week that the spike was probably concentrated in the streets where there are a plethora of small textile factories, many paying only one half of the minimum wage – about which nothing has been done for years if all accounts are to be believed. So when we made our daily trip to the park we extended our journey, donned a mask and dived into our local Waitrose where supplies of The Observer were more plentiful. On our way down the hill, some of our close friends were busy gardening (as they typically are) and we were invited in to look at the progress of their various plants which were all thriving.

This afternoon, we treated ourselves to a long leisurely read of the Sunday newspapers and after lunch, I embarked upon some gardening chores. I thought I had an old hose on a reel which I managed to locate in my ‘stores’ section near the compost heap where the combined effect of being stored under some fir trees not to mention the wind and rain over the months had made it all rather grubby. So I gave it a reasonably good wash down and check over before I offer it to my near neighbour whose need of it is, I think, greater in the short term than is mine. Finally, I had a quick ‘go’ at my latest horseshoe to which I am giving the vinegar and wire brush rust removal treatment.

If I am reading a complex situation correctly, it does appear that various societies (such as Sweden, Portugal) which have tried to bounce back quickly from a lockdown (strict in Portugal’s case, more relaxed in Sweden’s case) do experience various flare-ups and spikes just when they think they have the virus under control. Perhaps the same pattern is happening over here as well because the case of Leicester certainly gives us pause for thought. Some of the Swedish analysts are of the view that the advice given to the population only to self isolate if they had symptoms meant that many members of households where the virus was present but they were pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic did not quarantine themselves and might have helped to spread the virus much more in the non-infected community. And we have a case of an outbreak in a Herefordshire where 73 (one third) of key workers picking and packing vegetables have tested positive and I would imagine that might come as quite a psychological shock as a lot of the farm work is, by definition, in the open air (but what about the packing plants, the proximity of the workers to each other, the quality of the temporary accommodation given to migrant workers? Well – it is a very different scenario to a concentration of the virus in BAME  communities in packed terrace houses and textile factories in Leicester)

There seems to be total confusion at the heart of government over mask-wearing. Boris Johnson was giving several very strong hints that mask-wearing might be made compulsory in confined spaces such as shops and was pictured in his constituency wearing a mask. And then Michael Gove said that the wearing of masks should be left to the individual and what they deemed to be ‘common sense’. But there is a massive problem here, not to mention sources of outright confusion – although I might think it is absolutely ‘common sense’ to wear a mask in a supermarket, to all of the other shoppers it might be also ‘common sense’ not to wear a mask! Personally, I think the sooner we all wear masks in supermarkets and other large stores the better. And I would encourage all of the large stores to give away masks to all of their customers so that no one could have any excuse.

My day started off very well in the wee small hours of the morning. During a restless period in the middle of the night, I decided to do my accounts and looked at when my credit card statement was due (although, as it happens, I only use this particular account for ‘holiday’ expenses and therefore had nothing owing on it). I was pleasantly surprised that Expedia, with whom we had booked our trip to Portugal which we could not undertake in the midst of the coronavirus lockdown. had credited me with the monies I had paid earlier for the hotel expenses. To be fair, Expedia had indicated they would do this within 30 days but I wasn’t informed that they had paid me back some money and therefore it was only by accident that I discovered that I had the credit sitting there since early May.  I then turned my attention to the flights element of the cancelled holiday, one flight provided by Iberia and the other by British Airways. The Iberia website implied that under the terms of the original booking no flight charges would be refunded so I have to make up my mind whether to spend hours pursuing this element of the holiday. The British Airways flight also offered me vouchers (as they have done to thousands of other people in the last few months) but to convert this back into cash I have to speak to a British Airways customer services representative in person (if I can hang onto the end of a phone line for hours).  I will have an attempt to do this on Monday morning but am not hopeful of success. According to information on the web, though, I should be able to claim a cash refund as of right. Knowing that I had a certain amount of credit under my belt, I spent some time looking at accommodation in both North Wales and in Yorkshire should we decide to give either side of our family a quick visit. However, I sent a message to my sister so that we can have a proper FaceTime discussion later this afternoon.

As you might expect, today was reasonably busy in our local park to the extent that we were displaced from our traditional park bench – however, whilst refreshing ourselves we encountered two of our closest friends and spent a few happy minutes in joke-telling and idle chit-chat. Then home to a somewhat delayed lunch and a preparation for the job in the afternoon. I needed to construct a little wooden framework around my Tilia Cordata at the point where the ground sloped away and the roots were in danger of being exposed. This having been done, I then used up my last remnants of some good topsoil and topped off the whole with a bag of forest bark chippings. I am hopeful that the mound of forest bark will help to keep the roots of the tree somewhat more damp and this might help to alleviate the yellowing of the leaves I have experienced to late. Having said that, it seems to be responding to my remedial work (including daily watering) so far.

I then had a couple of conversations with my sister on FaceTime and it appears that her lockdown period lasts until July 31st – even after that, she is still understandably nervous about exposing herself to any risk of the virus because with a compromised immune system and some congestive heart failure, the view of the rest of the family is that she would probably not survive. Although we had intended to spend a few days in Yorkshire at the very end of July, this might be somewhat too premature so we have resolved to leave things until August at the very earliest and then see how the situation unfolds. It really is hard to tell whether such fears on the part of the shielded part of the population are absolutely justified as, on the other hand,  the government are anxious for people to get out and ‘spend, spend, spend’ as soon as possible even though this may well trigger a second wave of the virus. So we will put all tentative plans for some mini-vacations to see relatives on hold for a few weeks more.

Well, today promised to be and actually turned out to be. a much more pleasant day than yesterday. This was just as well because we had an arrangement to meet some of our long-standing Waitrose friends in the park. We did have the excuse of a birthday to celebrate as well and we had made some plans accordingly. I had been busy renovating (if that is the right word) a special birthday gift which was unusual in the extreme – it was a lucky horseshoe (a real one, that is) that I had bought as a job lot through eBay in a rusty condition and I had then renovated it (the process involves soaking in white vinegar to lessen/remove the rust, following by brushing with a wire brush, a scrub with brillo pads and a final  ‘seasoning’ with WD40 and some silver polish). As it happens, I did exactly the same for our Oxfordshire friends and when I wrapped the present up,  I include the story, taken from the web, of why horseshoes are considered to be lucky. Of course, they have to be fixed the right way up so that your good luck does not fall out of them – I am amazed how many people actually know this (because I didn’t until a week ago) In the park, we had some delicious birthday cake. Then as a birthday treat, I read out the Gerard Hoffnung classic recording of a supposed bricklayer explaining to his employers how, owing to series of accidents involving bricks and a barrel, he wanted to report sick for work. For those who have never heard it, here is the URL of a soundtrack of Hoffnung’s speech to the Oxford Union (in the 1950s?). It is incredibly funny if you have never heard it before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOy2GuaP8Mo

This afternoon, it was evidently time to get grass mowing done as after our recent rains the grass seems to have shot up and badly needed a cut – it looks so much better now. As soon as this was done and I had my customary cup of tea, I received a call from my near neighbour who needed some assistance to get her hose pipe properly connected so she could utilise it in the garden. I managed to get connected OK at one end but we may need to acquire an extra piece of hose and connect the two halves together before we can use it fully in the garden.

We received tonight a long and detailed email from our closest friends in Northern Spain indicating to us why they thought it was not a good idea for us to visit as we had planned to in late September. This has given us pause for thought and Meg and I are having to reconsider what our holiday plans might have to be. In the short term, we know that we need to make some tentative plans to see Mike’s relatives in Yorkshire and Meg’s relatives in North Wales but after that, the future is a lot less certain. Certainly, the idea of transiting through an airport does not appeal so we may have to think of the days out we can have and the social contacts which we can sustain whilst the pandemic unlock down is occurring. It is quite difficult to think of what a sensible course of action might be that does not expose one and one family and friends to any unnecessary degree of risk.

There is talk tonight that Boris Johnson wants to reform the NHS again! Whilst the last reorganisation was judged to be a bit of a mess (to put it mildly) one shudders to think what happens if politicians do not want to keep the NHS at arm’s length but want to get involved in decisions that border on the clinical – for example, massive political pressure to cut down waiting lists may mean that the more easily seen and treatable are dealt with first (the ‘low-hanging fruit’) and more difficult cases receive less priority. Again, we shall have to wait and see what transpires  but the omens are not good.

Today was the day in which we had scheduled to meet some of our oldest Waitrose friends in order to celebrate a birthday. We had made a long-standing arrangement to meet in the park at 11.00 am, an event to which we were all looking forward, not least our friends who have been ‘shielding’ for weeks but were now (legally) taking the opportunity for some social contact. However, the best-laid plans of mice and men! Our friends were expecting a delivery from Waitrose and today, of all days, it was delayed by about an hour after the designated time. So the opportunity for our meeting was lost – and we would have massively rained upon in any case. But to make the best of a bad job, we are resolved to meet at the same time tomorrow so hopefully, it just a case of pleasure delayed rather than pleasure denied. As Meg and I were sheltering under a tree to escape a particularly sharp little shower, I was reminded of an expression that members of the acting fraternity used to use. In the days of touring companies, there was often a system whereby members of the cast would stay in what was termed ‘theatrical digs’ which were really just bed and breakfast boarding houses. There was typically a visitors’ book in which guests could write comments, appreciative or otherwise, and the actors who were staying there would add to the visitors’ book a line adapted either from a well-known play or even the Bible. As we were sheltering cold and hungry under the tree and wondering if we might see any of our friends who might give us shelter, I was reminded of the entry ‘We were cold and hungry – and you took us in!‘ Another one of these which sticks in my memory must have happened on a Friday evening when the guests were evidently served up with some fish that was probably well past its sell-by date. So the entry in the book became ‘This was the piece of Cod (rather the peace of God) that passeth all understanding‘ If the company felt they had been treated particularly badly in any set of digs and they knew they were not likely to return, then they would acquire a fillet of fish and nail it to the underside of the (typically wooden) breakfast table – there to rot for weeks afterwards.

This afternoon passed uneventfully, the rain putting a bit of a dampener upon things but we were looking forward to the concluding episode of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I only mention this because I have a sort of direct link with the very last scene of the book (and the film). Tess had just been executed for the murder of the man who had raped her as a young girl and severely abused her since her husband, Angel, had gone to seek his fortunes in Brazil.  Tess knows that she would be caught and executed and made Angel promise to marry her younger sister. In the final scene of the play, Angel and the younger sister are walking up ‘West Hill‘ which overlooks the prison in Winchester as Tess is executed. This became ‘West Hill Cemetery‘ through which I used to walk every day on my way from the railway station to King Alfred’s College (later to become the University of Winchester) So, as you can imagine, I feel as though I have a very direct connection with the closing scenes of the novel (which, I must add, is poignant in the extreme for those unfamiliar with it)

Sky News is reporting the results of an investigation they have made into the ‘chaotic’ testing regime which the government have bungled through. I quote just the main themes of their report below:

In their effort to release rapid data to show the increase in testing capacity, officials from Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) “hand-cranked” the numbers to ensure a constant stream of rising test numbers were available for each day’s press conference, Sky News has been told. An internal audit later confirmed that some of those figures simply didn’t add up.

It looks as though Keir Starmer has got his teeth into this emerging scandal and will subject the government to a necessary degree of scrutiny. In the 5.00 pm press briefing, the Sky News reporter referred to this ‘hand-cranking’ of the figures but the criticism was just brushed aside with the assurance that the capacity for testing was being ‘ramped up’ (whatever that means, but in an odd kind of way quite true!)