Today being a Saturday, Meg and I looked forwarded to meeting up with friends in the Waitrose cafeteria. One of our regulars made contact with us but not the other two but nonetheless we had a pleasant chat for a good half an hour. Towards the end of our coffee time, one of my ex-Pilates class members passed by and we had not seen each other for several months now. We use to be in the same class and used to occupy adjacent mats to each other so often there was a degree of banter and repartee that used to pass between us. Then circumstances changed and my friend, because of a clash of commitments, changed to a different class and so we sort of lost contact with each oher. Nonetheless, we have a lot of common feeling because some five years ago we were both hospitalised at about the same time and we were texting each other fairly constantly to share the latest news, not to mention trying to keep our spirits high. My friend is a member of local ukelele band and, in the past, let me borrow one of her guitar tutors when I rather thought that I could try to learn the rudiments of the instrument. I updated her quickly about the fact that I had swopped instruments and told her about the keyboard instruments (a Casio keyboard and and an organ) which now grace our Music Room and the pieces that I had been practising. We promised to keep in touch a bit more regularly with each other and we might try to organise an afternoon meeting for tea once we can see that the coast is clear and we have no competing commitments. On the way home, we stopped off at the house of some of our church friends and were delighted to find them at home. We have a lot of news to catch up with each other and I was very pleased that they could accept our invitation to come for tea next Wednesday afternoon. I promised them (or threatened them) that I could demomstrate some of the pieces I have been practising on my keybord instrumnts so I have a few days left to get things perfect.

In a week’s time, the world Rugby champpionships are due to start in France and will extend, I imagine, for a couple of weeks. In preparation for this, many teams are playing each other but England so far have had a terrible run of form. Today there were playing Fiji who have never beaten Engand before and usually lost quite heavily. But today the Fijians played a very good tactical and attacking game and England were characteristically poor. At one stage, England were only a couple of points adrift but they seem to lack any kind of killer punch and they were easily outplayed by the Fijians. It has been estimated that approximately one half of the entire popoulation of Fiji were watching this rugby match and as their first victory over England was achieved, I am sure that the celebrations will go on for a long time. What will happen when Englnd start to play ‘for real’ in the world championships when they do start causes one to shudder and now is the time when I think a strategic change of affiliation (to Wales) might be in order.

There is some interesting political news breaking this evening. The former Conservative minister, Nadine Dorries, has announced she is resigning, after months of criticism over her absence from the House of Commons. In her resignation letter, the Tory MP accused Rishi Sunak of ‘demeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy’ against her. But there is a big back story to all of this. Nadine Dorris threatened to resign when Boris Johnson was deposed as Prime Minister as she was one of his ardent supporters and had been angling for a peerage but she has been absent from the Commons for over a year, whilst still picking up her Parliamentary salary of course and appearing on her own ‘show’ on, I think, GB News which is an incredibly right wing channel. But there is quite a hint of pure corruption at work here because she paid her daughters up to £80k from the public purse to work in her office and even gave one a £15k pay rise. This resignation was not before time. Nadine Dorries’ constituents were expressing extreme dissatisfaction that they were not being properly represented in Parliament and senior Tories such as Michael Gove were opining that having said she was going to resign then she really ought to get on with it. The resignation letter itself contains an astonishing and personal attack on the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak and is already being adjudged by many Tory MPs as being completely ‘over the top’ She has earned the
soubriquet of ‘Mad Nad’ although in this case, mad needs to be read as furious beyond belief rather than deranged. Evidently, there will be another by-election called and it looks unlikely that the Conservative party will retain this seat in the light of other recent election results. When this news breaks on a Saturday evening, one always looks forward to the analysis in depth in the Sunday newspapers, of which no doubt there will be plenty. A book is threatened but it is interesting to discern how many in the political elite would want to read it.

We always look forward to Fridays because the mornings are always full of social contact. First of all, our domestic help (a real treasure!) calls around and we always seem to have a lot of news to catch up on, as well as more hundrum domestic issues to discuss. So she arrived as per usual and I took pleasure in showing her the light stand upon which I have recently deployed my craft skills, such as they are, to attempt to make something out of nothing with only a few raw materials with which to work. Notwithstanding the views of friends and visitors, I am delighted that I now have a little desk light at exactly the right height to shine upon my Casio keybord. This morning, I was playing the ‘Barcarolle’ which is one of my favourites and also saw how much I could remember of the opening bars of ‘Wachet Auf’ as well as ‘Shenandoah’ The common theme behind all of these pieces is that they are relatively simple but evocative tunes, are not too difficult to remember (the ‘Barcarolle’, in particular, as many of the notes are adjacent to each other on a slowly rising scale) and can be played by the right hand alone. So we had a good chat before we took off to see our University of Birmingham friend with whom we had an assignation on our normal park bench at 11.00am. I had already prepared some coffee and comestibles and, whilst we were enjoying these, our friend hove into view. As we have got to know each other better and better, we had quite a long and deep discussion about the impact that our families had made upon us in our early years given that in each of our cases the relationships between our parents never seem to have run very smoothly. It remains a very interesting intellectual and practical question whether these early childhood experiences inevitably make an indelible mark upon us with consequences for our later life or whether, in practice, most people manage to survive these experiences and to lead happy and fulfilling social and professional lives. To this question we will no doubt return but I am personally of the view that the impact of early childhood experiences may be overplayed and the resilience of the human spirit is not to be underestimated. This is, of course, a highly contentious issue but at the end of the day our friend and Meg and I were in broad agreement with each other.

After we returned home, it was case of getting our fish pie into the oven and then enjoying a meal of a haddock dish pie, green beans and tomatoes baked in the oven. This was delicious when we finally came to consume it and then we settled down to enjoy a quiet afternoon. Before the athletics were due to be shown later on in the afternoon, I had a particular treat lined up for Meg and myself. Earlier in the week, I had noticed that BBC4 had put on a classic Joan Baez concert before an invited audience in the BBC studio sometime that I would judge to be the very early 1960’s – glancing at the hairstyles, clothing and demeanour of the audience, I would make a guess at 1962 and filmed in black and white as well. After some research, I was ‘out’ by three years because it was actually filmed at the BBC TV Theatre on June 6th, 1965. The concert was in two halves and gave Meg and myself the most enormous amount of pleasure. Joan Baez’s voice was of crystal clarity and the message was always unequivocally anti-establishment. One of the most pwerful ‘anti-war’ songs that it is is possible to hear is ‘With God on our Side’; which is actually a Bob Dylan song. Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were actually ‘an item’ for one time and the song ‘Diamonds and Rust’ reflects upon the dissolution of their relationship. The lyrics of the song ‘With God on our Side’ goes through a variety of conflcts and wars and one of the most powerful verses is actually the second which runs ‘Oh, the history books tell it/They tell it so well/The cavalries charged/The Indians fell/The cavalries charged/The Indians died/Oh, the country was young/With God on its side‘ and so on with the refrain that every victor in the conflicts we have experienced in the West have always claimed that ‘God was on their side’.

On the other side of the Atlantic, images have energed which may make many of us on this side of the pond watch open-mouthed in astonishment. Donald Trump has been formally booked by authorities in Georgia over accusations he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. The authorities have revealed an offical photograph or ‘mug shot’ in which Trump appears to be looking venemously into the camera (This may sound subjective but the image really has to be seen) This has immediately been ‘weaponised’ by being put onto the sides of mugs (what else), tee-shirts and a variety of other merchandise. The proceeds are intended to fund the legal fees that Trump will face and perhaps those of his fellow conspirators. There is an expectation that Trump’s lead amongst Republican voters could well get even higher after the release of this image.

Today is my ‘shopping day’ so I was up bright and early and got my weekly living money out of a supermarket’s ATM, filled up with petrol and was waiting for the supermarket to open just before 8.00am. This was all done by 9.00 and when I got back Meg was still in bed asleep – I think she must have had a rather disturbed night so I let her sleep on. After we had breakfasted, we were running a little late so immediately went into elevenses mode to catch up on time a little. Today was quite a beautiful day so this lifts our spirits somewhat but we decided to make the best of the day by having lunch a little earlier than normal. This was because I really did need to get outside and get the lawns cut. For a reason I cannot quite explain, my grass seems to be growing exceptionally fast this year, particularly at the back of the house and I wonder if the more humid conditions is stimulating the growth. I managed to get the lunch cooked, eaten and the washing up so that I could make an early start on the front lawn which generally takes about 40 minutes. This went fine and I then have a more extended break (keeping Meg company at the same time) before I start on the back. Despite the back lawn only taking half the time compared with the front lawns, it always proves to be a bit more troublesome as there are lots of curves around which the mower has to be guided. Another feature of my mowing this year is that I seem to be using miniscule mounts of petrol this year and it only takes a few ‘glugs’ from the petrol container to top it up from one week to the next. After the lawn mowing is done, I allow myself to have a well-earned rest.

After the unexplained death of Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, the western media has been full of speculation as to how a private jet, flying in good weather conditions, could have crashed in uch a dramatic fashion. Most western experts are of the view that the video footage of the stricken plane, falling like a stone catastophically until it hit the ground in a huge explosion, was in all probability caused by an ‘external agent’ This was almost certainly a ground-to-air missile which may well have blown off the entire wing of the private jet, although the possibility of an on-board bomb cannot be completely discounted. The Russian state is cynically initiating a ‘criminal’ investigation into the causes of the crash, thereby seeming to rule out that a genuine accident had occurred. Presumably, there were will be some remains of a ground-to-air missile to be found somewhere amongst the wreckage but one wonders whether this will ever be ‘found’ Practically every analyst who has hit the airwaves today is convinced that Putin was exacting some sort of terrible revenge for his humilation at the hands of Prigozhin some two months ago. Putin has apparently sent messages of condolence to the family members which again takes cynicism to untold depths. In cases like this, the ultimate cause must always be conjecture and informed speculation but I heard one analyst on the radio this morning who reckoned that in the past Putin had disposed of 200 of his critics by making them ‘disappear’ in a whole variety of means – some are poisonings, some are assassinations by firearms and some simply disppear without trace. It is possible that Putin has surrounded himself with a cadre of people who do his dirty work for him but which allows Putin to maintain a figleaf of deniability. It used to be said, of course, that the old KGB used to use the Bulgarians for similar ‘black’ operations but as an KGB officer, Putin will be aware how to distance himself from any evidence that it was he that pulled the trigger.

There was a very amusing political letter written in the letter pages of ‘The Times‘ the other day. Suella Braverman, our Home Secrtary is said by some be one of the most stupid ministers to have held high office whilst yet others see her as a potential future leader of the Conservative Party. The letter writer expressed the view that in view of the recent history of the Conservative party, there was not necessarily a contradiction between these two positions. On the other side of the Atlantic, the media are preparing itself for the sight of Donald Trump arriving at a court house in Georgia. Donald Trump has not yet had to submit a mugshot photo during his previous three bookings – but that could change tonight. If he does indeed have his photo taken, he will be the first former US president to submit a mugshot. The booking process usually involves a mugshot, fingerprinting and having your height and weight recorded. It is understood Trump has asked a mugshot not be taken, but it is not clear whether this request will be met. His allies who have also been booked in Atlanta have already provided mugshots, including his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Supporters of Trump have already started to arrive outside the courthouse with a clutch of banners proclaiming Trump to be a ‘political prisoner’. However, his substantial poll lead will probably only grow larger after today’s court proceedings and the possibility remains of a very, very tight election between Biden and Trump next year.

Today was quite a busy day and we had to organise our time a little carefully. Meg and I got up and showered which does not sound at all remarkable, but there was a crucial difference. The other day when I was at our local Age Concern charity shop, they had a bathstool on sale just inside the door which, as it as only £1.95, I snapped it up thinking it might prove to be useful. When I got it home, I gave it a thoroughly cleaning with a bleach spray and noted, with a degree of satisfaction, that it seemed to fit extremely well inside our bath with particularly stout rubber ferrules on each leg. Today was the first time that we had used this and it proved to be remarkably successful. Meg felt much more secure in the shower and I found it easier to administer the shower as though I was washing a car or a horse! You can never be quite sure whether these aids are going to live up to their promise but, on this occasion, Meg and I agreed that the bath stool was a great success. Then, of course, it was a case of getting breakfasted and then making our way onto the road. I had decided that I wanted to visit the Age Concern furniture shop in search of a footstool but one was not forthcoming. But there were one or two pieces of glassware the shape and size of which I was actually hunting for so these were snaffled up together with a little original Wedgewood dish, complete in its box and provenance certificate. Whilst we were in that end of town, I browsed quickly in three of the other charity shops and did find something useful in each one so all in all, we felt that we had a particularly successful morning’s venture out. We knew that our hairdresser was due to call round at 2.00pm and she was actually five minutes early – unusual for her. So we determined that we would have our elevenses promptly at home and then ensure that we had got the lunch prepared, eaten and all washed up by the time our hairdresser arrived.

This afternoon, I spent some time trying to establish the provenance of a decorated glass dish which I purchased for a song this morning and for which I have an anticipated use. I have tried to use Google Images to ascertain whether it has any real value or not but it is a bit difficult, being clear, to photograph and to establish any kind of provenance. I am going to reserve judgement until our domestic help calls round on Friday because I trust her judgement in terms of evaluating objects such as this. During the afternoon, I spent some time perusing a pile of newspapers for articles that I wanted to keep and this is particularly important on a WednesdaY because it is the day this week, for the green and brown bins to go out, the green bins being used for excess paper products of which I have a lot. I managed to make a fair dent on the pile but there is more to do. Whilst I was taking my own bins out as well as those of my neighbour, I bumped into him which was a useful little chat for both of us, so that I could update him on developments that are taking place to assist with Meg’s health status.

This evening, quite exciting new came through that the Indians have managed a soft landing of a craft near the southern pole of the moon. The Russian venture crashed into the moon a few days ago and I think thsat the Japanese might have tried and failed also. So this is a magnificent success for Indian technology and may prove to be quite important if and when we make missions to more distant parts of our solar system such as Mars. The southern pole is believed to contain what might be volumes of ice and, if this is the case, then he resulting water can be split into oxygen and hydrogen or in other words the basic components of a rocket fuel. The Indians have a little rover on board which may make some trips and the craft is already transmitting data back to Earth and, so far, it appears that the soft landing has been successful and that streams of data can now flow. It is early days yet so as the hours and days roll by, we will be able to see how much the Indian soft landing has pushed forwrd the space programme.

There is some interesting political news which is just breaking in the early evening. The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was said to be ‘on the passenger list’ of a light aircraft that has just crashed and it seems likely that all ten people on board may have perished. If this prove to be the demise of Prigozhin, then the Kremlin may be secretly quite pleased as it was Prigozhin who ordered a march on Moscow some two weeks ago and humiliated Putin in the process. Given the dark arts of the Russian state, then was the crash completely accidental or was it engineered by the Russian state? Perhaps this story will develop in the hours ahead but it does seem that a prominent critic of the Kremlin’s war effort is no more.

Today turned out to be quite a chewy day what with one thing or another. I had telephoned the garage from which we anticipate picking up our changed car in a couple of months time but various bits of documentation needed to be in place before we could proceed so this delayed things somewhat. We finally got out of the house and did coincide with three of our friends in the Waitrose cafeteria which always brightens up our Tuesday mornings. One of our friends had been driven to all kinds of exasperation when she was trying to pay a bill for a repair to her garage roof but trying to do this online had generated all kinds of alerts necessitating a variety of interactions with the fraud department of her bank causing maximum frustration all round. I am sure that the banks are kept busy fending off the attentions of fraudsters and spammers but the numbers of us conventional people just trying to pay a routine bill must be legion. We parted after about three quarters of an hour and we re-parked the car in a different part of the carpark but one which is a bit nearer to the High Street. I left Meg in the car whilst I dashed into Poundland to pick up something I buy regularly. These are vinyl floor tiles with adhesive backs and there are two basic designs which I deploy for different purposes. But the one I use most is a pseudo wood effect which looks pretty realistic and where I buy five for £3.00. Mind you, when I started buying these several years go, they were five for £1.00 so there is inflation for you. In the order of things, given that I price everything as multiples or fractions of a cup of coffee, these are still quite a good buy. I tend to use them when I construct one of my favourite little ‘craft’ pieces which is a decorated ‘cube’ or rather ‘oblong’ that I use in a variety of ways. Initially, I had in mind a storage box, sufficient for a variety of lightish objects such as papers and bric-a-brac. But latterly, the design has ‘evolved’ so when used as a closed, rather than an open box, it becomes a convenient artifact upon which to place my coffee cup. Using my recently purchased vinyl, I finished off my latest creation today and decorated the top with one of my ‘butterfly’ pictures after my venture of the other day. I have got this off to quite a fine art havin constructed several of these little boxes which I utilise for a variety of tidy up boxes. They are actually surprising strong although they start off life as a cardboard box. The vinyl floor tiles on each side add a measure of stability and I have invested in some really tough black ‘Gorilla Tape’ which is claimed to be thicker and stronger than all of their competitors. As I have used a variety of black tape over the years (mainly as a bookbinding material when I have been putting together conference papers and other academic documents), I can attest to the fact that this variety of gorilla tape is really strong and with an excellent adhesive and I have learnt all kinds of tricks of the trade which is the best way in which it can be cut (at an angle, with a box-cutting knife when the tape is put under some moderate pressure)

This afternoon brought its share of frustration. Normally, Tuesday is my Pilates day but last week I engaged upon an experiment in which I joined my Pilates class via ‘Zoom’ rather than attending it in person. After consulting with Meg to see how she felt about things, we decided to go for the Zoom experience again this week but although the link I had been sent by my Pilates tacher worked last week it did not do so today. After about 40 minutes, I had to give it up as a bad job and was left very frustrated that I had managed to miss my Pilates session both in person and over a videolink. As I have been doing Pilates for some 10-12 years now, to miss a session needlessly is not something I want to repeat. It may be that I have to have an online discussion with my Pilates teacher to work out how I can get this link reactivated as I do not wish to abandon the one exercise session to which I gave some priority in the week. I suppose it is always possible to do it ‘on my own’ and I know the exercises off by heart and could easily put together a routine that exercised all the muscles nd joints that needed it but finding time free from interruptions in the day is going to be problematic unless I can find a way round this.

There was an item on Channel 4 news that genuinely seemed to be apocalyptic. With fires raging in Northern Greece, 18 bodies have found in a mountain hut that may well have been undocumented migrants from the Turkish border which is nearby. In fact, a UN representative was quoted as saying that the numbers of deaths on this dangerous migration route may well rise and it is estimated that some 4,000 migrants may have utilised this perilous route in the summer months.

Today started off bright, then turned gloomy and finally turned bright again. Meg and I were a little unsure how to spend the morning but eventually we settled upon our old favourite of Droitwich if only because we want to get some things from the Wilko store there whilst the administrators are letting it trade as they search for a buyer. I bought a shower hose from there about a week ago but not only is it a bit longer than usual, it fitted like a dream with not the slightest hint of a dribble which had bedevilled me in the past. So I was determined to get another one whilst I could and whilst stocks lasted but evidently other people had had the same idea and they had sold out. Nonetheless, I got one or two useful bits of hardware. We also visited our favourite Cancer Research UK shop which just happened to be having a sale. We bought Meg both a top and a skirt for which she expressed enthusiasm and, quite fortuitously, they happen to go pretty well with each other. We suspect they are better as ‘Sunday best’ rather than everyday wear but they are nice to have for ocasions out of the ordinary. We visted the Works shop to see if they had anything that tickled our fancy. On reaching the car, we realised that Meg’s stick was missing so I hoofed it back as quickly as possible to the coffee bar where we had our elevenses. Talk about the kindness of strangers but the people on the next door table had kept it safe for us and although I was reconciled to not seeing it again, nonetheless we pleased to retrieve it as Meg places quite a lot of reliance on it these days. Finally, we had a lightning visit to pick up some sandwiches for our son for whom they constitute lunch when he is working in our house (much more eficient that catching a train into central Birmingham which is the ‘official’ way of working)

There are pages and pages of analysis of the defeat of the English ‘Lionesses’ yesterday. A lot of the coverage is pointing to the enduring legacy of the ‘lionesses’ in promoting the women’s game here in the UK but acknowledgement is made that the Spanish team (mainly Barcelona players) were technically and strategically superior to their English counterparts. I did one hear one story that rather tugged at the heartstrings, however. The father of the Spanish captain had died on Friday but the news had been kept from her so that she had nothing to distract her from her game. As she scored the only (and hence winning) goal this was probably a decision which worked all right in the end. I don’t know at what point the news was broken to her but I am sure her Spanish teammates and tean management would have handled this very well.

This afternoon, I finished off a little craft project which might be described by some as the epitomé of being naff but by others as homely, albeit quirky. It started off with the two cartons that Meg’s wheelchair were delivered it – one was the box containing the wheelchair itself whilst the other was a very stout container designed for the safe transportation of evidently heavy objects. I could have ripped up these boxes and thrown them away but I wondered if a bit of recycling could be done to make the cartons into something useful. They are nearly 3 ft in height and 1′ square and are thus fairly substantial. To start off, a covering of stout brown paper was made, held down by a heavy duty black ‘Gorilla’ tape. The carcase now looked exceptionally plain so I wondered what could be used by way of decoration. I just happened to have come across an old but completely unused tea towel decorated with alternating hearts picked out in light grey and dark grey. This was affixed but I had to use some street cunning as the teatowel was a rather stretchy material and, in any case, only covered about two thirds of the height. Hunting around the house, my eye fell upon two square box of tissues and I pressed these into service after some adaptation. One of these was autumnal flowers and ferns in a silhouette design so this served served well as a frieze for the lower portion. But the other tissue box was spring flowers and this went exceptionally well as the top frieze. I had to have a think about the sides but had a brainwave. Somewhere and months ago, I had bought a series of adult ‘colour-in’ book used nowadays as a an adult relaxation aid. I found a book of beautiful large colourful butterfly designs which one was meant to use as an aid to your own colouring efforts. Instead, I took the colourful butterfly illustrations on a quite a sophisticated ochre background and deconstructed the whole of the book so I could use the individual pages. With the aid of a Prit stick and some masking tape, these constituted the covering for the sides and the finished product looks – interesting! This ‘stand’ is designed to perform a function because I have a small unobtrustive white desk lamp perched on the top of it (I just happen to have one spare) and it casts a perfect light at just at the right angle over the left hand side of my Casio keyboard. I will take the reaction of my style consultant (aka our domestic help) as the ultimate arbiter of whether all of this has succeeded or not (although I must confess I am pretty pleased with it).

Today almost inevitably was going to be dominated by the fact that England were due to meet Spain as finalists in the Women’s World Cup. This was due to start at 11.00am and our University of Birmingham friend had very kindly invited us to watch the match wih him. But first, we needed to pick up our Sunday newspapers and whilst I was in the newsagents, I thought I would buy a box of chocolates to take along for our host. But the newsagent has sold out of boxes of chocolates so I just grabbed several packets of chocolate biscuits and we trusted to the SatNav to find the way to our friend. In practice, between us we got a little lost and we arrived a about two minutes late with the match already having started when we arrived. It is always interesting to watch a match like this with friends and the match was certainly an underwhelming event for English viewers. Spain deservedly won the match 1-0 and could well have added two or three more, one of them being a penalty for handball in the penalty area. But the penalty was poorly taken and England survived but as the match progressed, there seemed to be no way that the English women were ever going to win this match and if, by a quirk of fate, they had done so, it would have been a massive injustice. If I were a sports writer, I think I would agonise over whether to write that the England team was ‘outplayed’ or ‘completely outplayed’. As we watched the match and saw the English defenders back off the Spanish forwards, it is pretty obvious that the Spanish were being given the time and space to score and when the goal came after about 30 minutes, it was no surprise to either of us. The English coach was gracious in defeat and evidently when the match ended, there were tears all round – the Spanish with joy and the English with disappointment. I must say that I did not find the result particularly surprising as they had very tight matches against both Nigeria and Colombia that could well have been decided the other way. Perhaps the confident perfomance against the hosts, Australia, had lulled the English team into a false sense of security but the bookies were perhaps evenly divided over the eventual result so perhaps they called it right. At least, we have got all of that out of our system and we shall a little less of the xenophobic rantings to which commentators are prone. After all of that, Meg and I got ourselves home and having had coffee and biscuits thoughout the morning, neither of us felt particularly hungry. It was a fairly humid day so we contented ourself with a meal of bananas and icecream instead of our normal lunch.

Sunday afternoons never have a particular pattern but this afternoon, Meg and I spent about an hour in our Music Room where we could relax to our normal repetory of soothing classical music. The TV this afternoon was dominated by an athletics competition from Budapest which seemed relatively interesting and exciting, so we watched this in intervals whilst reading the Sunday newspapers. As one might expect, there is a lot of analysis of the Lucy Letby affair and whether senior management could have done more to have prevented some of the deaths once the nurse had commenced her killing spree. There are repeated calls for a judge led enquiry so that witnesses can be compelled to attend and then to give evidence under oath. By all accounts, it does seem that the ‘frontier of control’ had passed somewhat from consultants to managers as managers were particularly concerned about ‘reputational damage’ to their hospitals/trusts if the Letby suspicions would prove to be true. There is an awful lot of being wise after the event going on at the moment and I am not sure that Letby was actually ever caught in the act of administering insulin/injecting air into the bloodstreams of babies that caused their demise. The suspicions were always circumstantial in that Letby always seemed to be on duty when the babies died. What may have been the clinching evidence came from Letby herself, of course. Once finally arrested, her premises were searched by police where they found scribblings and ramblings with words like ‘I am evil’ and practically an admission of guilt on its own. What safeguards to put in place are not easy to say. I would not like to be in the position of a critical care nurse in a premature unit where if two babies were to die in quick succession for quite understandable medical reasons then any unfortunate nurse may find herself investigated to within an inch of her life.

During the athletics showing this afternoon, there was quite a dramatic end to one of the competitions. In the World Athletics Championships,Katarina Johnson-Thompson won her second world heptathlon gold medal by only by a margin of about 20 points. In the very final 800 metres, she was was trailing an American competitor but needed, according to the commentators, to be no more than three seconds behind the American. In the event, she was about two and a half seconds behind and therefore won the gold mdal with one of the tightest of margins imaginable.

Today started brightly enough and so Meg and I got ourselves going, knowing that after breakfast we had friends that we were going to meet up with. We collected our newspaper and then made for our favourite haunt on Saturday mornings which is, of course, the Waitrose coffee cafeteria. I had taken along with me a simple piano primer with twenty (simplified) classical tunes in which the melody can be played with the right hand whilst the more ambitious can try to add the appropriate chords with the left hand. This was destined for one of the staff who, like me, is starting to teach himself the rudiments of piano so I thought to myself that the loan of the booklet might be very useful for him. If it proved useful, he could always order his own copy from Amazon and, if not, at least he had not wasted any of his money. As he was not on duty, one of the ‘Saturday’ girls who is always very friendly towards us old lags promised that she would give it to him tomorrow morning. Our friends turned up by degrees and we had the usual wide ranging chat over this and that, spending the best part of an hour and a half. After this, we reluctantly parted but said that we meet up again on Tuesday morning. As we were leaving, I enquired of our University of Birmingham friend what our arrangements might be in view of the all important football match in which England Spain meet in the World Cup final starting at 11.00am. He very kindly invited us round to his house so that we could all watch the football match together which promises to be a very enjoyable occasion. Incidentally, I heard that in the third round play offs (which no team enjoys) Sweden had actually beaten Australia, the hosts 2-0. I suppose that by the end of tomorrow’s match in which we know the winner and the runners up (gold and silver) they will present the winning medals in reverse order starring with the Swedes who are now in third place.

After we had parted from our friends, I made my way again to the AgeUK charity shop where I have found so many good bargains recently. The lamp standard I had my eye on which had been around for weeks seems to have been sold but I did make a purchase of a shower stool which will be worth its weight in gold, helping Meg in the shower. After a good clean up with a bleach spray, I transported it to the en-suite bathroom to see how it fitted. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it seemed to sit securely in either orientation (lengthways or across the bath) and the stout rubber feet ought to ensure no slippages. So I am looking forward to a good try out of this piece of kit which looks as though it may prove very useful to us under the cirumstances. I have also put together and ‘prettyfied’ the stout cardboxes in which the wheelchair was delivered and this is now pressed into service as a stand for a spare desklamp which I happened to have which shines some light on the Casio keyboard at just the right height and angle for when I get the urge to play the ‘Barcarolle’ which I always find so relaxing. I may need to do a little more work finishing off my stand but I will wait until Meg is safely tucked up in bed which is when I tend to do some little craft type things.

Last night afer Meg was in bed I happened to tune onto BBC4 and found myself in the middle of a Joan Baez concert, recorded evidently in the mid 1960’s. I forgot all about the other viewing I intended to do and immediately immersed myself in the Joan Baez experience. I already have some of her CDs but I suspect that this show was actually recorded in London to a UK audience. The camera shots, in black and white, showed an incredible array of 60’s faces and hairstyles and the audience was fairly restrained and polite compared with what might be the norm nowadays. I am waiting until there is a total dearth of anything worth watching on any channel before I start to watch this again with Meg on catch up TV. I am hoping that I can master the technology and that I manage to get this recorded on our PVR even though the program itself will be a ‘catch up’ item – I suspect that my son may have to be pressed into service to give me some guidance.

The media is full of the Letby case, as you might imagine. The nurse was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six other infants while working in a hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. What is happening now, though, is an urgent check of every case with which Letby may have had some contact to see if there a plethora of as yet, undetected cases. All of this seems eerily similar to the Harold Shipman case who, as a GP, murdered his elderly patients systematically and has the reputation of the UK’s biggest serial killer.

The day dawned wet and miserable and, like the rest of the country, we feel that we are living through a premature Autumn. However, our gloom at the weather was to be lightened by the fact that our domestic help calls around on Friday mornings and we always enjoy her company and start off the morning with a good chat. This morning, I had a particular reason for wanting a chat as in the past week, I have restored a bamboo chair of which she was particularly fond and was otherwise destined for the domestic tip. Last night, after Meg was safely tucked up in bed, I applied some beeswax polish to the principal bamboo struts of the chair, left it the requisite 25 minutes and then buffed to what might be termed a lustre. I was quite pleased with the results and know that by daylight, rather than artificial light, the result might look even better. Incidentally, when I was a teenager, my mother often was engaged in house cleaning activities in the late afternoon and railed against ‘the passing of the light’ As an intolerant teenager, I wondered what was wrong with putting on the electric light but now that I am older, and perhaps wiser, I now know that there is no real substitute for observing some things in their natural light rather than under artificial light. Our pleasure at having a chat with our domestic help was rather moderated when we received a phone call from our University of Birmingham friend, apologising for not being able to meet this morning and postponing our meeting over coffee until tomorrow morning. This will be fine by us as there will be a little gathering of the clans of the old ladies and Meg and myself in Waitrose tomorrow morning and our University of Birmingham friend will redess the gender balance somewhat. Then Meg and I had the dilemma of how to spend a rather gloomy and rainy morning, given that we wished to get out of the house and do something. We went to pick up our Saturday morning newspaper and were then fortunate enough to find a parking place outside a little shop which specialises in preparing sandwiches and snacks for offices and firms in the area. At the same time, they have a small area of about three tables in which they will serve you a coffee and what have you. Meg and I ordered a coffee and then a bacon sandwich (for Meg) and a round of toast for myself. In the event, we finished up sharing theae provisions and not being a regular eater of bacon these days, I must say that this was one of the nicest bacon sandwiches I have had for a long time. Normally, I associate bacon sandwiches with old fashioned cafeterias attached to station buffets which my son and I frequent when we go on a Rail Enthusiasts day – for some reason, they nearly always seem to have bacon butties on offer which my son nd I consume with particular relish. After our coffee and repast, Meg and I made our way to our little suburban (i.e. not High Street) AgeUK charity shop which is always stuffed full of goodies at incredibly reasonable prices. I bought myself a couple of shirts one of which is my definite size and the other one of which may fit though it is called a ‘slim fit’ but the design of which I particularly liked. I also bought for very few £s a piece of fabric the function of which is hard to decribe. It is 2 x. 2.2 metres square and I suppose could be a table cloth or a throw. Our domestic help who used to work for Laura Ashley and who has an incredible eye for what goes with what helped us ascertain it was of ‘Damart’ brand and we then used it as a throw over our main settee. This has really helped to alter (beneficially) the mood of our sitting room as well as protecting the suite from any predations so I was pleased to have made another ‘good buy’

And so we came to lunch, which turned out to be a culinary disaster. I had some Basa fillets in my freezer and the instruuctioms said ‘cook from frozen’ I wrapped these in tinfoil and had them cooked in the oven for about half an hour. The smaller fillet cooked perfectly and Meg was quite satisfied whereas the larger fillet seemed only half cooked and only some portions of it seemed to be edible. But we did these with some broccoli and then plum tomatoes, cut in half, sprinkled with marjoram (it would have been tarragon if I had had in our spice rack) and then done in the oven. At the end of the day, though, I felt satisfied enough with our meal. Later in the afternoon, we have a FaceTime call (unexpectedly) with our son and daughterin-law who had returned from their holiday in the Lakes yesterday and wanted to catch up with all of our news of the last week. We had quite a lot to catch up actually and the video call proved particularly useful as an update. Earlier in the afternoon, Meg and I had spent a pleasant and relaxing hour in our Music Room listening to Fauré and I busied myself with a fairly soul-destroying task of removing labels from a large and stout cardboard box in which Meg’s wheelchair was delivered and for which I have some plans.

Today being my shopping day, I was in the vicinity of the supermarket with some time in hand so I decided to go and top up with petrol at the nearby supermarket filling station. But since the last time I used it only a couple of weeks ago, they have installed new technology the function of which, I suspect, is to make everybody pay by card. But the two pumps at which I drew up had not been zero-ised but I was urged to present my card. Fearful of doing this lest I charged for someone else’s petrol, I made the attempt at two different pumps and then abandoned it altogether. As Meg and I were having our breakfast, I noticed on my phone that I had a text from my sister who was putting two and two together and was getting concerned how I was managing as I am Meg’s ‘de facto’ carer all day long. We had a long FaceTime videochat in which we were updating each other of news (more on my side than my sister’s) and we were offering each other mutual advice as how we should both cope wih the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This was much appreciated but we had a fairly delayed start to our morning once the shopping had been unpacked and put away, breakfast cooked and the washing up done and finally getting Meg washed and dressed and ready to meet the world. At my son’s suggestion, we decided to try out the Morrison’s café and this turned out as we expected. Whilst Meg was finishing off her cookie, I shot round the store picking up items that do not seem to be sold in our local Aldi/Waitrose shopping haunts.

Last night, we received a telephone call from a close friend of ours (and former colleague) from the University of Winchester who has very kindly offered us the free use of accommodation of a flat he owns on the South coast. This is an extraordinarily generous offer and Meg and I are considering how we might make use of it. Initially, we were contemplating staying there for several days and nights but that may just be a stretch too far considering Meg’s fragile state of health but there are other options that we are now actively considering. As soon as we got back into the house, we treated ourselves to a glass of cordial and then started to think of our lunch which was a quiche shared between us and some mange-tout. This afternoon was a gloriously sunny afternoon so I took the opportunity to get the lawns cut front and rear. The grass seemed to be extraordinarily thick this afternoon, so much so I wonder if the events of last week, we forgot about the weekly cut and we now have two weeks of growth to contend with. Generally speaking by the middle of August, the growth has started to moderate but this was not the case today. I now mow the front lawns, come inside and have some tea and biscuits with Meg, and then I pop outside and do the back lawns that only takes half the time. I took the opportunity to clear our lavendar bush of some bindweed that was growing madly over it but I think that I have rescued it just in time.

The nation is getting itself into a state of steady excitement over the fact that on Sunday we shall see the final of the women’s world cup between Spain and England. I am quite surprised that the England team have got to the final and I believe that they have had their share of luck along the way. In particular, there were two very tight matches against both Colombia and Nigeria each of which were won by a whisker and could well have gone the other way. But here we are and I am allowing myself to believe that the Spanish are just about beatable. England, after some admittedly poor performances, played with great aplomb and were worthy winners which even the Australians admitted. It does say something to beat a country like Australia on their home turf and without sounding too chauvinistic, I thought that the English girls coped well with the occasion and an extremely partisan crowd. It will be interesting to see which way the ‘neutrals’ break when Spain and England meet at 1l.00am on Sunday – making a huge guess, I guess that the crowd will break 60:40 in favour of Spain. Tonight, there is a showing of ‘Sense and Sensibility‘ and although we have seen this production fairly recently, it has such a quality cast list that it well be well worth watching all over again.

There is now quite a weight of judicial building up to find what what went wrong with Britain’s judicial system when a man can be imprisoned for seventeen years for a rape that he did not commit and where it was known to various judicial bodies that DNA evidence had been found to show that the discovered sample of DNA did not belong to the convicted person. The key body seems to have been the Critical Cases Review Commission which had been so starved of resources that they could not do the job properly which was their remit and, as a result, a huge miscarriage of justice has occurred. How many more cases are there, one asks oneself?