It looks as though the Gaza conflict is now edging towards some sort of resolution. Donald Trump has said Hamas is ready for a ‘lasting peace’ after the Palestinian militants agreed to release all remaining hostages, as he called on Israel to stop bombing Gaza. The US leader was responding to a statement by Hamas on Friday in which the group committed to returning all remaining hostages in Gaza, dead and alive. Hamas also said it wants to engage in negotiations to discuss further details of the president’s peace plan, including handing over ‘administration of the enclave to a Palestinian body of independent technocrats’. Now I am sure there is some way to go yet and there are bound to be some last-minute hitches but the signs are promising so far. Donald Trump has posted that ‘Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it is far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.’ This was a remarkable statement and represents a huge moment. Neither Mr Trump, nor Joe Biden before him, has ever asked this of Israel before. The American president was telling Israel to stop by standing its military down and to bring this war to an end. Trump is assuming that Hamas have accepted most of the peace plan which it has not but there is no doubt that we are entering an endgame in which there need to be tit-for-tat moves on both sides.

I woke late this morning as the rain storm is continuing to sweep across the country and I suspect that it might change my plans for the day. I am pretty sure that the weather is too inclement for one of our coffee mornings this morning. I think I will probably take the car to get my newspaper and I might pop into the charity shop to purchase the neck-shaped hot water bottle for my Droitwich friend before it is snaffled up by someone else. The evening before last, I had a surprise video call from one of my University of Winchester friends which was very welcome. He had remembered that it was the date of Meg’s birthday and had made a video-call in case I was in need of being cheered up. As I happened, the day passed without a great emotional impact but it was delightful to get the call. We discussed medical matters which unfortunately is all too common at our ages. My friend and I are both living in houses that are somewhat too large for us and so we spent some time discussing what our respective down-sizing plans might be. At the moment,  I am just battening down the hatches and preparing to see out the winter before making any other plans. I am hopeful, though, that I might take a short trip to Spain at the start of February to help to pull some of the teeth of the winter.

The morning turned out to be quite a busy one, what with one thing or another. By the morning’s post, I received an invitation from my local council to re-register for my postal vote as I was informed that the legislation had changed and I needed to re-register for another three-year period. In order to comply with this, I needed to put my signature on a sheet of paper and then photograph it. I emailed the photo to myself so that on my computer system I could put the image file sent from my phone by email into a file location that I knew about in my main computer system. Then I went online to complete the form and had to supply address and contact details together with a national insurance number and the uploaded signature file. This all seemed to go well and I received an email informing me that I would know the result once my application had been processed. I just wondered, en passant, how many other seniors would be able to complete this process trouble-free. As I was now late, I went down to Wetherspoons by car, spending a bare 15-20 minutes with my two lots of friends before re-parking the car in a car park at the top end of town. I made a lightning visit to purchase the specialist hot water bottle for my friend and then made my way to the surgery where everyone was being processed in an operation that seemed to be run like a military operation. I was seen by one of the doctors who I know quite well and it might have been her who gave Meg and I our jabs at home, a year ago on her birthday as it happened. I received a flu jab in one arm and a COVD jab in the other and was in and out of the surgery in a few minutes. The doctor made sympathetic enquiries into how I was coping in my newly widowed status and I was able to say to her that it was a case of ‘So far, so good’.  Then I called in at Waitrose to pick up my newspaper and one other item and then returned home to have a little rest and then to prepare my lunch of quiche, broccoli and some microwaved tomatoes. Then I settled down to watch ‘Question Time’ broadcast last Thursday evening which I had missed but was coming from Belfast and therefore there were some issues particular to the province and this made the whole programme a little less appealing. I intend to have a fairly quiet afternoon just in case I feel a little under the weather from having received two vaccination jabs, one in each arm and it may be that I experience a little soreness in the morning. The weather has brightened up considerably since the rain storms of the morning and although it is bright, it is still pretty windy. In the late afternoon I shall attend the Saturday evening service in my local church which is part of my new routine by now. Then I expect that after quite a busy day, I may treat myself to an early night unless a good film grabs my attention.

Yesterday, the news was dominated by the attack on a Manchester synagogue in which two members of the Jewish community lost their lives in an attack in which the assailant used both a car and a knife. It is an unfortunate fact of life that all synagogues have to have armed protection and the attacker was shot dead within a few minutes, thus preventing a much larger tragedy. The police probably acted with the utmost speed and diligence and were praised for their swift actions. But when an attacker is stopped in this way, the fact of shooting them dead rather them being disabled by a shot means that we have to infer the motives rather than questioning the attacker himself. This seems to have been the first time that a member of a Jewish congregation has actually been murdered and the general reaction is one of shock but not complete surprise. One member of the Jewish community attending the synagogue expressed his view that there had been a ‘tsunami’ of hatred manifest towards the Jewish community since the outbreak of the war in Gaza two years ago. Now this appears to be ‘the elephant in the room’ because there must be a line of affiliation between the conflict in Gaza and the rise in anti-Semitism. Perhaps I have not followed all of the news bulletins very assiduously but I do not recall the conflict in Gaza being mentioned in the media.  But according to many people in the neighbourhood, even Israel’s war on Gaza has not caused any great division within the community. However, many expressed concerns that far-right groups – their confidence fuelled after an August campaign to hang English flags across the country and a mass rally in London a month later – would seek to take advantage of the attack to further unrest. Across Britain, the number of reported antisemitic acts last year was the second highest in modern times. The Jewish charity which advises communities on security said the Hamas attack and subsequent war had helped fuel thousands of incidents, including cases of violent attacks and threats. The area of Manchester is one where Jews, Muslims and other faith groups have lived harmoniously for a long time and the wave of revulsion at the attack is universally shared. Jews in Manchester and across the country say that they are shocked but not surprised and an attack like this had been expected for some time. One unfortunate revelation has come about after the horrendous attack upon the Manchester synagogue yesterday. Two people died and four were seriously injured but it has now come to light that one of the two people who died did so as a result of a bullet from a police marksman. Details of this are extremely sparse at the time of writing but I imagine that the police service, not to mention the individual marksman, are absolutely mortified. The victim shot by mistake was believed to have been behind the synagogue door, close to another victim, who is in hospital with a gunshot wound, but their condition is not life-threatening.

Yesterday would have been Meg’s 79th birthday but I think it is a day that we will manage to navigate without too much evident grief. I did consult via this blog how we had spent last year’s birthday and, on that day, she had received cards, flowers and chocolates and we had celebrated in a quiet way. We had even watched one half of the film of ‘Schindler’s List’ which because of its length we had put into two viewings. Evidently, the point had not then been reached at which Meg’s decline became progressively more rapid and I think she had been capable of following the plot of the film. But Meg’s condition worsened considerably immediately after Christmas when she suffered a chest infection but it was interesting that she had actually managed to enjoy what was to become her last birthday a year ago now.

Later in the morning, I made the journey down into town by car. A transatlantic storm is sweeping across the country bringing rain to practically all parts of the UK and it is quite windy as well, although not particularly cold. I did not wish to get thoroughly wet so I parked the car in the Waitrose carpark, collected my newspaper and then walked the length of the High street to have my usual coffee in that I call the Donkey Sanctuary shop although that is not its real name. Once inside, I was treated to my customary cup of coffee and then a real teat of some homemade scones with cream and jam (which I only spread on very sparingly) It is much nicer going into an establishment where you are known and can have a friendly chat with the staff. I wandered into one or two of the local charity shops to see if anything caught my eye and one item did which I will probably go and purchase tomorrow. This was a hot water bottle in faux fur but shaped rather like a question mark and is designed to ft around one’s neck. As my Droitwich friend has quite a few problems in her neck which can be exacerbated after a long journey, I thought I would go along and make a purchase of this before it gets sold out. Whether it will prove to be a boon or a white elephant I cannot say but the charity shop is selling these items off quite cheaply. After I returned home, I made myself a simple lunch of mackerel fillets which had already been defrosted on a bed of salad and his kind of lunch can be prepared within just a few minutes.

Some interesting news has been announced during the day. The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, a former nurse, has been named as the next Archbishop of Canterbury – the first time a woman has been appointed to the role in the Church of England’s history. The announcement comes almost a year since Justin Welby resigned from the role as spiritual leader of the Church of England (CoE) due to a damning review into its handling of a sexual abuse scandal. It is the first time an archbishop has been chosen since women were allowed to become bishops in 2014. She was actually the UK’s chief nursing officer from 1999 to 2004 so is well used to a leadership role. One wonders what the reaction will be of some of the more traditional and evangelical wings of the Church of England but my feeling is that she will probably bring a breath of fresh air to the venerable institution of the Church of England.

As is usual on these darker mornings, I got up a shade before 7.00am having woken up at 6.30. I always stay up until after midnight at this stage of the month anyway to see if any of my Premium Bonds had struck lucky but I had a much better night’s sleep than the night before. Sky News came up this morning with some financial analysis which is actually quite revealing and indicates why the last Conservative government had become so unpopular. Monthly disposable income fell by £40 per person between Boris Johnson’s election victory in December 2019 and Rishi Sunak’s defeat in July 2024. It is the first time in recorded British history that disposable income has been lower at the end of a parliamentary term than it was at the start, Sky News Data x Forensics analysis reveals. Disposable income is the money people have left over after paying taxes and receiving benefits (including pensions). Essential expenses like rent or mortgage payments, council tax, food and energy bills all need to be paid from disposable income. Previously published figures showed a slight improvement between December 2019 and June 2024, but those were updated by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday. There has been an uplift in the last year, although we are poorer now than we were at the start of the year, and today we only have £1 more on average to spend or save each month than we did at the end of 2019. That represents ‘an unmitigated disaster for living standards’, according to Lalitha Try, economist at independent living standards think-tank the Resolution Foundation. Although I have not seen any data, I would not be surprised if something like the same analysis applies to France and helps to explain the current unrest in that country also. Meanwhile, the Labour party are being pulled rightwards as they strive not to lose voters to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party which is way ahead of them in the opinion polls. Refugees who have come to the UK and successfully gained asylum will no longer be able to bring their family members to the UK, under new plans. Sir Keir Starmer will announce that the rights of successful asylum seekers will be restricted, and will pledge to ensure there is ‘no golden ticket to settling in the UK’. The proposals would see the automatic right to family reunion permanently dropped, along with the automatic right to settlement, the latter becoming conditional. I checked the legality of this and have discovered the following.  Not allowing family reunion does not constitute a branch of human rights, but rather a violation of the right to family life, particularly under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) affirms family unity as an essential human right for refugees, and while it is not an absolute right and can be limited for reasons like immigration control, a refusal to grant family reunion may violate this right if family life cannot be enjoyed elsewhere. 

In the morning, I went down to the Tai Chi class which I have started attending but which session I unfortunately missed last week.  But this week a gentleman about my age with whom I had a great chat a fortnight ago turned up and we were mightily pleased to see each other as we had both missed sessions (and therefore seeing each other) So after the class was ended, we had a hearty chat with each other and supplemented our coffee with some homemade cake. I think why we get on so well with each other is because we are of the same generation and understand the illusions that each of one is likely to make such as the imprecation not to spoil a renovation by cutting corners with the expression ‘don’t spoil the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar’. I used this expression with my daughter-in-law some time ago and she had no idea what I was talking about but, there again, many of these very old expressions are dying out for lack of use. After the exercise (if Tai Chi can be called thus) and a coffee I went to Lidl for my weekly shop, this now being my third trip to the store. On this occasion, I managed to locate some of the things that I have been in the habit of buying quite regularly but could not find last week so now I know where to look for them on future trips. My overall impression of the Lidl store is that it is a slight notch up in quality compared with Aldi but there again, the store is quite a large one. I did not get home until about 1.00pm and unpacking always takes a certain amount of time. Lunch consisted of heating up some curry of which I had prepared an excess the other day complemented with some baby potatoes. Idly flicking through the TV channels, I found a programme in which the presenter was trying to track down the evidence for the remains of the cross upon which Christ was crucified. What I had not realised is that there is one school of historical thought that argues that Romans used an ‘X’ shaped cross that was easier to constrict and to erect with a man’s body affixed to it rather than the ‘T’ shaped cross which has become the most dominant of Christian symbols. Of course, as with all archaeology there is a lot of informed speculation but no definitive proof. What is well known is that many ‘splinters’ of the true cross, supposedly discovered by St Helena, the mother of Constantine, must be fakes as the total sum of the many splinters that have been claimed might have filled a ship-full of wood.

In the late afternoon, I made myself go outside and do a weeding job on the patio that we have at the back of the house. It was a gloomy afternoon and I felt most disinclined to do any ‘outside’ jobs but I needed to collect the two bins from the side of the roadway, after they had been emptied first thing in the morning. I did the same for my neighbour as well because he will still be a little incapacitated after his knee operation about a week ago. I only stayed out for about 15-20 minutes but was pleasantly surprised by how much progress I managed to make in that limited period of time.

I did not sleep particularly well the evening before yesterday and so decided, in the middle pf the night, to have a look at some of the liberal media websites that are constantly examining the shenanigans in which Trump is engaged in the White House. One of the latest is being reported in the UK media but is not receiving the attention which it deserves. Many, if not most, of the 800 generals serving in military establishments in the USA and across the globe were summoned to a military academy. There we were informed that in the newly renamed Department of War (renamed from the Ministry of Defence) the military should focus their attention on ‘the enemy within’ who just happen to be the large cities in the USA which are under the controls of the Democrats. Trump told the assembled generals that they should now focus on large Democrat-controlled cities and these should now be used as ‘training grounds’ for the American military and is clearly aimed at intimidating and suppressing any Democrat votes on those cities. Ostensibly, the reason for the deployment of the military is to ‘fight crime’ but in the Trumpian view of the world, these cities have been invaded by people who wish to destroy America from within. At the same time, the American Secretary of State for War, as I suppose he is now called, vowed to eradicate what is perceived to be a ‘woke’ culture in the US military. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said he is ending woke culture and political correctness and that diversity and inclusion policies would be rowed back, with changes including ‘gender-neutral’ or ‘male-level’ fitness standards for everyone. He also hit out at ‘fat troops’ and said height and weight requirements would be brought in – as well as twice-yearly fitness tests. These harangues were received in a stony silence as, after all, the intelligent military chiefs well know the difference between serving their country and being used as a partisan political weapon which is as unconstitutional as it is possible to be. Trump himself was a well-known draft dodger and the American Defence secretary has the most limited of military experience and neither are at all respected for any of their military credentials. The meeting concluded with a stunned and stony silence which is not something to which Trump is at all used. He then informed his incredulous audience that it was up to them whether they applauded or whether they left the room. But if they were to leave the room, they would be automatically stripped of their rank and then dismissed! I imagine that the assembled military would try their utmost to avoid implementing these new policies but in the discussions that I followed on the TV, there are already  reports that throughout the American military, individuals are being promoted (or even dismissed) on the basis of their political loyalty to Trump rather than their actual competence. Now you would have thought all of this would have been opposed in Congress but this is being actually closed down as I write as there is no agreement between Republicans or Democrats over the passage of two crucial bills. A Congress shut down is not a trivial thing as thousands of government employees are temporarily laid off and Government business and funds temporarily cease. Now to be too dramatic about this, individuals will die as they no longer receive the funds supplied through Medicare for life-saving drugs. All of this may receive an airing in the UK press in the fulness of time but like the troubles in France on which I commented yesterday,  we in the UK are being very insular about events elsewhere that may well impact upon us.

In the morning, I had promised to take my Droitwich friend to Birmingham airport which I did. My friend had two enormous suitcases but assured me that each was below the regulation 23 kg but I am not so sure. We got to the airport in plenty of time with no holdups on the motorways. A really long journey was in prospect because my friend was flying first to Dohar in Qatar for a three-hour stopover and then on to Johannesburg and then on to Durban for which she is going to spend a couple of weeks with her family. I warned against ‘burning the candle at both ends’ because it is quite possible that she goes from relative to relative and has a succession of really late nights. I may get a text later on in the morning tomorrow telling me she has arrived but I think a good long sleep was in prospect, particularly as she had got up at 3.00am this morning with last minute packing to do. This afternoon after lunch, I checked over the legal documents that my son and I had worked on in the morning and then parcelled them up to get them into the post.  I took the car down into town and then after dispatching my documents, I took the opportunity to buy a couple of reams of paper for the laser printer in my office. Although I try to keep my printing requirements down to the bare minimum, there are still occasions when I need a hard copy. Knowing that tomorrow is the day when our green bins (paper waste) get emptied, I spent some time in the afternoon going through a pile of ‘The Times’ to see if there are any things that I really feel the need to keep. Most typically, these articles are health related ones such as the double page spread of information giving tips and hints of how to maximise the response of your immune system to cope with the winter months ahead. It is fairly common knowledge by now that when children return to school in the autumn, they inadvertently help to activate respiratory and other viruses that had been dormant throughout the summer. These are then transmitted to older siblings, the rest of the family and so on into the wider population as a whole. Again, knowing it was bin day tomorrow, I made a quick excursion to remove some of the tallest and most unsightly weeds from the kerbs along our common roadway, so that these, too, could be removed in our brown (garden waste) bins. I think I will have an early night tonight and try and catch up on some of the sleep that I lost in a restless night last night.

The whole of the news the evening before yesterday was dominated, as you might expect, by the Peace Plan for the resolution of the Gaza conflict put forward by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Analysts of the plan think that the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ of the plan have actually been constructed by Tony Blair and probably months ago and not just in the last few days. The plan states that if the fighting ends, Gaza will be placed under the control of a transitional government headed by Mr Trump and others, including former British prime minister Sir Tony. The president described him as a ‘good man’, while the ex-Labour leader commended the ‘bold’ plan. It says Gaza will be a de-radicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours, with no role for Hamas in its future governance, and will be redeveloped for the benefit of its people. It also says nobody will be forced to leave Gaza and states there will be increased aid to the enclave. Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza, it says. The remaining Israeli hostages being held by Hamas must be released within 72 hours, the plan states. It says this will be followed by Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners. The overriding mood both in the international community and also in the region is a cautious ‘Let us wait and see’ There may be two massive stumbling blocks to prevent the plan from coming into effect but in the next few days, we shall see if either or both of them occur. The first is the reaction of Hamas who completely mistrust the role of Tony Blair after his whole-hearted support for the invasion of Iraq all of those years ago. It could be that Hamas is so weakened that it feels that it has run out of options but it may fight on until in an act of self-immolation until it finally is forced by overwhelming military power to succumb. The second big unknown is the reaction of the two fanatical nationalists who are propping up the Netanyahu government and who have already decried the fact that Netanyahu had been forced by Trump to give a public apology to Quatar for the strike of Israel on that country about a fortnight ago. They could resign from the Israeli government which could then mean that the whole government falls and in the subsequent elections Netanyahu is swept from power. No doubt the airways will be full of analysis as to what may well happen from this point on but Trump himself may be of the view that he has ‘solved’ the problem.  If Hamas fails to back the agreement, then Trump has given the green light to Israel to ‘do has it has to do’ to eliminate Hamas. The one glimmer of light in this agreement is what is not in the plan. There appears to be no plans to formerly annexe Gaza or the West Bank for that matter although Israel probably does not need to do so as it the overwhelming military force in the region anyway.

This morning my son called around as he had arranged as we had some legal documents to sign and get processed and as well, it was the morning for our domestic help to arrive which proved to be more convenient as she was. Willing witness to some of our signatures, which was a requirement. Then I walked down into town and met one of my usual Wetherspoon’s friends and we had a pleasant coffee together. I took the opportunity to get some cash out of an ATM and do a little bit of shopping before I walked back up the hill and made preparations for my Pilates class later in the morning. When I got to my class there was the usual jolly five of us and I explained how I had to miss last week’s session as I had to stay in all day to be at home for the plumber who was coming along to unblock my en-suite bathroom basin. Then I returned home and had a healthy meal of some mackerel fillets which is easy to prepare and light on the carbohydrates as well. Then I popped round to see my next door neighbour who is just recovering from a replacement knee operation to arrange a time when I might come round to secure his signature on the legal type documents which my son and I had been processing in the morning. I only chatted for a moment or so with my neighbour as his family were calling around but long enough to learn that he had been in a tremendous amount of pain since his knee operation and he was trying to cope by taking the minimum amount of the pain killers prescribed for him so that they would not interfere with the rest of his medication which sounds eminently sensible.  Some of the roots of this type of protest are the same as in the UK. Both countries are experiencing practically zero growth and there is a widespread feeling that ‘everything’ is broken and nothing seems to work as it did. Both in the UK and France, there are swathes of people who feel left behind as a result of de-industrialisation and globalisation and living standards that have remained static since COVID and even well before.

It is amazing that we can things happening in a neighbouring country, in this case France, but because we are so insular and wrapped up in our own concerns that they do not get reported at all.  I knew something about these happenings in France because a friend of mine was asked to go on a business trip to Paris but the whole trip had to be called off when the French capital was in some turmoil. Protesters in France are trying to cause as much disruption as possible as political turmoil continues to plague the country. Tens of thousands of people demonstrating across Paris, Marseille and other French cities on Wednesday were met with 80,000 police officers Riot police have clashed with protesters and more than 250 people have been arrested across the country on the same day the new prime minister is being sworn in. But the question arises what these protests are  about and they started?  At the heart of the riots is a collective called Bloquons Tout – or Block Everything. It was first spearheaded by right-wing groups in May, but has since been embraced by the left and far-left, experts say. The country’s powerful labour unions have joined the movement, which has grown with no clear leadership. The campaign, which started online over the summer, has encouraged people to strike, block roads, and disrupt public services amid the country’s spiralling national debt and the fourth prime minister taking office in 12 months. The protests have spelt a baptism of fire for Sebastien Lecornu, who replaced Francois Bayrou after he lost a vote of confidence on Monday.

So, we have the month of September, gently slipping away from us and we are truly entering Autumn as the month of October beckons. As I have always started a new venture whether it be a new job or going to university, these ‘new starts’ have always been at this time of year so I associate these dates as a type of New Year. The weather has proved to be quite obliging as well although I constantly have to think about the jumpers that I wear or do not wear so that I am comfortably warm but not too warm in my walks down into town. Last night, after I had spent a long afternoon with my Droitwich friend, I perused the TV schedules and there seemed to be a very good programme on the culture, and particularly the food, of Spain. This focussed on the Barcelona and Cost Brava region of Spain and the gastronomy, not forgetting the World’s finest restaurant of ‘El Bulli’ which won the accolade of the world’s best restaurant for five years and for which there is a two-year waiting list for reservations. But after a bit, I started to get annoyed with the programme as the documentary made its way from elite restaurant to elite restaurant and although the food was delicious, it was bound to be at astronomical prices and way beyond the reach of ordinary people. For this reason, I prefer the series that Rick Stein used to make when he travelled around Spain and introduced us to the cooking of what you might term ‘normal’ village communities. In such settings, women were often the cooks and Meg and I often noticed this in our travels around Spain when we ate in what I call, non-prejudicially, the ‘peasant’ type eating establishments. Here they would serve things like locally caught rabbit, made into a stew or a ‘cocido’ which we really enjoyed but would not be served to you in a really superior restaurant such as in a Parador, which Meg and I would also frequent ever third day or so. Last night, I had a long (pre-arranged) WhatsApp call with my very good University of Winchester friend for we had some issues that we wished to share with each other and these calls can last everything up to two hours in length as we give mutual aid and support to each other. I was explaining to my friend how much I enjoyed good conversation with any pf the people that I meet but occasionally I hit a real low such as I did about a month ago when the sole topic of conversation (to which did not care to contribute) was the tribulations caused by the recent spate of traffic jams around Bromsgrove. As important as this topic is to many people, I do wish for more interesting lines of discussion when I meet people.  Today I am listening to the news of the Labour Party conference where the whole agenda seems to have been framed by Reform and the other right-wing parties and there is a constant drift to the right. The latest announcements are that new migrants to our shores whether legal or not may have the rights of their family to join them abrogated and are now having to demonstrate not only do they have a good standard of English but be asked what contribution they have made, presumably on a voluntary basis, to their local communities. Now all of this is well and good but there is a constant drip-drip of the sentiment that migrants are not welcome in UK society, conveniently ignoring the positive contribution that they make to the economy.  Due to their age profile they contribute to the economy via their taxes but receive proportionally less benefits than the indigenous population because they have not reached the age at which their call on services (health, pensions etc.) are on the same scale as the rest of us. So we have the interesting scenario in which migrants are actually subsidising the rest of us but this argument is never heard, still less articulated by any of the political parties.

The darker mornings meant that I was later getting up this morning but after my routine of Pilates exercises, a shower and then breakfast I was ready for my walk down into town.  Once within the Waitrose store I had a bit of a laugh and a joke with some of the staff that I knew well and also availed myself of a ‘free’ coffee. On my way back up the hill, I encountered some of my Catholic friends and we chatted about some of the ailments that afflicted us. I also received some news that the parishioner who was known as the Eucharistic minister and used to visit Meg about once a fortnight was now herself seriously ill and evidently, I was very troubled this news and wondered how I could get a message to them. When I got home, I had a delayed lunch where I stir-fried some vegetables, added a tin of chunky lamb stew and then served it up on a half packet of quinoa.  After an afternoon doze, I made myself get outside and wash the car as the building work which seems to have gone all around for us for months now leaves a fine film of sandy residues over all of our cars and the car had not received a wash for about a fortnight now. There is going to be a critical meeting of Netanyahu, the Israeli premier, with Donald Trump later on in the day and the world is wondering whether some kind of ‘peace deal’ might be forced upon the combatants. The White House is saying that a deal is ‘very close’ but I suspect that this is just a negotiating stance to force out a deal of some kind. There are a couple of very good science programs being broadcast on the TV this evening but I do not want to stay up to watch them. As they start at 9.00pm and scheduled from 9.00pm-11.00pm I may make myself comfortable in bed to watch them on them on the upstairs TV and then it does not really matter if I drop off before the end. I have often found it noteworthy that interesting programmes are often scheduled on a Monday evening rather than later on the week and rather have to speculate why this should be the case.

The evening before yesterday was a sad occasion but one which I was anticipating. One of the parishioners at the church that I attend each Saturday evening was what might best be described as ‘cheeky chappie’ Irishman. He always had an irrepressible sense of humour and was invariably cheerful even he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus some 15 months ago. His doctors had given him only three months to live but he had such a hold on life that he refused to die, as it were. He was connected with a great many church activities and was often called upon to read, in a delightful soft, Irish brogue,  some of the readings which form part of the service. Last Christmas, when I was in the Waitrose café with Meg and my University of Birmingham friend, he joined us and insisted that we all wear some Christmas hats which he just happened to have about his person and then he photographed us all and sent me the photo. I last saw him about two weeks when the disease had evidently progressed and he was being treated with morphine. Nonetheless, he had somewhere managed to get to church although he admitted it had been the most tremendous struggle for him and I joked with him and gave him a big hug. He had particularly wanted to be there to greet the newly installed young priest who was due to give his first service. It was no surprise that I learned a week later that he had a stroke and was then in the local hospital. We learned that he had died the day before the service, having been visited by the priest and some local Irish friends on his wedding anniversary. His widow attended church and she was evidently in a tearful state but was consoled by all of the other parishioners who evidently knew the couple particularly well. I hugged and embraced his widow, bursting into tears myself both or the memory of our departed friend but also because the event of Meg’s recent death is still in my memory. I am hoping that he has a huge funeral service because I will certainly drop all of my other commitments in order to attend it. When a long-anticipated death occurs it is conventional to say that that he ‘is in a better place’ but he was such an inspiring figure that I will never forget him. He was a man of such deep faith that I imagine that dying had no fears for him whatsoever as he knew that he would soon be in the presence of his Creator.

Sky News is reporting today that Russia has launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine’s capital this morning, killing three people and injuring about 10, Kyiv’s military administration has said. Poland closed the airspace near two of its southeastern cities, Lublin and Rzeszow, as its air force scrambled jets in response to Russia’s attack on Kyiv. Drones flew over Kyiv and anti-aircraft fire rang out through the night in what independent monitors said was one of the biggest strikes on the city since the Ukraine war began in February 2022. The attack started at around 6am local time and many regions across the country are under air raid alert. Some residents have fled to metro stations deep underground for safety as the attack continues. Poland closed its airspace near the two cities until at least 4am GMT due to ‘unplanned military activity related to ensuring state security’, flight tracking service Flightradar24 said.

As I walked down into town today to collect my Sunday newspaper, I encountered an acquaintance who I know quite well down the road who is in the business of selling her house. She thought that she had it sold at one time and then the entire sale fell through as sometimes happens and now the entire market slows down as the year advances. I always think that people have the notion of wanting to be in a new house by Christmas time and this means that getting a house sold by October is probably the right time scale to enable all of the searches and legal work to be done. So, our friend was a little pessimistic that her house could be sold this year unless, of course, the previous buyer who had dropped out comes back for a second bite of the cherry. This makes a total of four people who I know quite well who are selling and moving away, all for quite understandable reasons, but it also means that my circle of friends will slowly diminish unless I make efforts to cultivate new relationships. We were joined in our conversation with my Irish friend and these conversations are always very welcome to me but there is a slight downside. This is that when I have been standing for long periods, my knees lock up a little from the inactivity so it is always good to keep on the move again. After I had my cup of coffee in Waitrose, I walked back up the hill and then gathered some books tother for my Droitwich friend to read as holiday reading before her flight on Wednesday, We had arranged that I call round in the middle of the day but this extended until most of the afternoon as my friend very kindly prepared some tasty morsels of food to help me to keep the wolf from the door. Then upon my return home, I arranged to have a WhatsApp chat later on in the evening with one of my University of Winchester friends who I last saw on the occasion of Meg’s funeral when he made the journey up from Hampshire.

The Labour party conference ia starting in the forthcoming week and this might prove to be quite a rancorous affair. The boss of Unite, Labour’s biggest union funder, has threatened to break its link with the party unless it changes direction. Sharon Graham, general secretary of the union, told Sky News that, on the eve of a crucial party conference for the prime minister, Unite’s support for Labour was hanging in the balance. She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: ‘My members, whether it is public sector workers all the way through to defence, are asking, What is happening here?’ Of course, one is never surprised to see dissension in the Labour Party but it looks as Andy Burnham is building up a sufficient head of steam to mount a leadership challenge. I remember the comment attributed to one of Napoleon’s generals that ‘I will always be absolutely loyal to my emperor – until the time is right for treachery!’

Yesterday is the day to be dominated by the final of the Women’s Rugby World Cup with the kick off at 4.00pm. This means that I shall probably have to depart for my regular Saturday church commitment when I leave the house at 5.30 but hopefully the game will have been won and lost by that time. Having said that, in rugby as opposed to football, the final result may be determined in the dying minutes of the match and of course that could happen today. I searched the TV schedules in vain to discover when the ‘Bronze’ final (between France and New Zealand) is scheduled to take place but eventually discovered that it is to be broadcast on the BBC i-Player live in the middle of the day so that is another must for me this weekend. I allowed myself the luxury of a little lie-in until nearly 7.00am this morning and then got busy on the computer before I started my daily routines. Eager to find the originals of the ‘living alone’ articles which was a subject of discussion yesterday, I managed to relocate them again and this time I have them bookmarked so that can be run off as needed. I have one or two friends who may be particularly interested in these articles so I wanted to ensure that I had one or two spare copies to hand. I also organised a train ticket to Worcester for a little trip I am going to make in two weeks’ time to visit a friend for a coffee. Meg and I used to travel to Worcester quite regularly and we used the park-and-ride system which was excellent for us. But now this service has been stopped as the local authority thought they could not afford the maintenance on the park-and-ride site so this service was terminated. This must have been one of the worst cost-cutting decisions ever taken because it means that people like Meg and I would cease to visit Worcester and to contribute a little to the local economy by spending money there. Meg and I had found a delightful little outlet down in a ginnell which led into a small square and where there was the most wonderful cafe with home-cooked food and, as I remember, a stupendous fish pie on Fridays. But, as Jon Cleese said in a favourite line (on mine) in ‘Fawlty Towers’ when his wife, Sybil was furious at Basil’s tendency to have a flutter on the horses and Basil retorted to the effect that ‘That is another avenue of pleasure denied’. In the morning, I intend to visit my local Wetherspoons to meet up with my Saturday friends. They have been refurbishing the kitchens in the hotel which means that normal catering has been disrupted for about the last 15 days which has not pleased us regulars very much but hopefully, normal service will now be resumed. The Wetherspoon’s prices are ridiculously cheap because I tend to have an egg-and-bacon breakfast muffin with limited mugs of hot chocolate (from a machine) at the princely sum of £2.79 (which was half the price of the Waitrose cafe before it closed).

I walked down the hill into town and coincided with my two lots of Wetherspoon’s friends that I normally meet on a Saturday. The refurbished kitchens having opened, I could indulge in my favourite egg-and-bacon muffin and then embarked on my chats. I the course of the morning I received some welcome texts which means that I can probably pop over and have a few minutes with my Droitwich friend before she has a couple of weeks off work to go on holiday to see her family. When I got home, I cooked myself a curry and tried out some of the newly purchased Thai curry paste which I bought the other day which was really interesting. Then I watched the New Zealand ‘Black Ferns’ women’s rugby team secure a much-deserved victory over the French in the Bronze match play off for the 3rd place. The ‘Black Ferns’ went well ahead by half time and had scored four tries to the French one, but the French had a resurgence in the second half and strove valiantly for a comeback. But the better team undoubtedly won and the New Zealand speed and ball handling showed off rugby at its best. What was interesting about this match is that there were players on both sides who were at the pinnacle of their careers and because they would probably not be selected for the next World Cup. Consequently, this would be the last match of their international career and when they were pulled off by their coaches to be replaced by fellow team members, they received massive applause from the very appreciative crowd. The same thing will happen again, of course, when England play Canada in the final in some minutes time. I managed to watch the whole of the first half and all but the last fifteen minutes of the second half but by this time England and were well ahead. I went to church and then came back and watched the last 15 minutes of the match on the BBC iPlayer with England winning 33:13. Canada played somewhat less well than in their semi-final win over New Zealand whilst England saved their very best performance for the last match in the series and won out deserving winners. This would certainly not be the last occasion when a semi-final provides a better match than the final itself but the England performance today was hard to fault. The England team did not display the elegance and running style that we associate with the ‘Black Ferns’ but they displayed massive strength and superiority in their mauls and scrums, speed in the rucks and the breakdowns and accuracy in their kicking game. Whilst the England team did display some weaknesses at various points in the competition, then these seem to have successfully addressed by the coaches and the back-room staff which all contributed to the superior performance on the day. I quite enjoyed all of the celebrations that take place at the end of a competition such as this and I think that commentators and spectators are agreed that the women’s game has come on tremendously and the games have been played in a really good spirit which is great to see and you do not necessarily see in the men’s game and certainly not in soccer. 

The evening before yesterday my Droitwich friend came over and we cooked a meal together which we both really enjoyed. We have done this about three times now and as both enjoy sharing the cooking, this has turned out to be an excellent way in which we can relax in each other’s company. I had previously collected Meg’s ashes which are supplied in a stout cardboard box about 9″ x 6″ x 6″ and this was covered with a beautiful ruby covered cloth. In many ways it almost looks like the chalice veil which is used in a Catholic Mass at the start of the service to keep the sacred vessels clean and pure and although I originally intended to transfer the contents to a proper funeral urn, I am more than happy with how Meg’s remains are resting at the moment. She is nesting amongst a little collection that we have of owls and other wildlife  and at the moment is being overlooked by an arctic fox and a golden goose (both embroidered cushion covers as it happens) In vase this all sounds completely ‘kitsch’ it really is tastefulness itself and I am minded to keep things just as they are. Kitsch refers to art, design, and popular culture that is considered by some to be of poor taste, sentimental, garish, or overly commercial, often characterized by its superficiality or excessive melodrama. The word originated in Germany in the 19th century as a derogatory term for low-quality and cheap artwork but has since been adopted into English to describe items that appeal to popular, lowbrow tastes, sometimes with an appreciation for their ironic or nostalgic qualities. I did plan on transferring the ashes into one pf the large vases that we have but to be honest these may all be a little unstable. I am minded, though, to take the really excellent photo of Meg taken at her best (a staff photo, taken in her early 30’s) and using this in a discreet size to place atop the box which would be more difficult in a conventional case or urn. At the risk of being over-sentimental, I have a profound feeling that Meg is really happy back in her own home and my heart is filled with joy (and the inevitable tinge of sadness) Needless to say, my friend and I stood in front of the arrangement and included her in our toast to the three of us. Now returning to yesterday, I have an arrangement to meet up with my University of Birmingham friend with whom I have quite a lot to discuss – but that is what good friends are for, after all. This weekend will be dominated by rugby, no doubt as France and the ‘Black Ferns’ (New Zealand) will have a play off for 3rd place earlier on Saturday afternoon whilst Canada and England play in the final starting at 4.00. If I have to predict the results, I feel that both New Zealand and Canada will emerge as winners of both of these contests and England will have to be content with second place.

In the morning, I took the car down into town and then walked along the High Street to introduce my University of Birmingham friend to my ‘Donley Sanctuary’ café. I think it is true to say that he preferred the informal and homely atmosphere within the shop to what might term a ‘normal’ coffee bar and we had a really good chat about the things that we had been doing I the last week or so. He had just returned from holiday in Mallorca where he had found it very hot, not surprisingly. Then after I had returned home, my son and daughter-in-law turned up as they had previously indicated and I showed them the little arrangement  I have made in the Music Lounge to display the box containing Meg’s ashes, I intend to put a small red rose in a small flower dish immediately in font but I do not want the whole to look over-sentimentalised which is always the danger. Then I cooked myself a simple lunch of slices of ham, heated in some onion gravy and then served on a bed of lettuce.

I spent a certain amount of time trying to track down some internet copies of the three articles I read recently about the experiences of three female journalists who had been living alone for the past 10-20 years. You have thought this should have been a simple task of searching the internet but this was to no avail. As I am a subscriber to ‘The Times‘ I accessed their own website and eventually found the article in I which was particularly interested. But the reason why I had not been able to find the article in my my internet searches was that the same article was headlined in two different ways between the paper version of the newspaper and the internet version. Whether this is a regular occurrence or just an aberrance I cannot say but I was particularly pleased to be able to locate the article so that I could pass it on to on particular friend for whom I feel it may have a special relevance. I notice from the news bulletins that Donald Trump is claiming that he is very close to securing a peace deal for the Israel/Gaza conflict. If this is the case, then no one else has been able to discern it and I suspect that Trump may be deploying some gamesmanship here. He is due to meet with the Israeli PM Netanyahu on Monday and be hoping that by announcing an imminent deal which the Israeli leader may be forced to deny it is not true may bounce the Israelis into some sort of deal just to save face. As the days unfold, we shall find out whether Trump’s claim is true in any particular. Now to turn from high politics to the much more mundane. As I went shopping yesterday, I bought myself a ‘Peppermint and Liquorice’ fruit tea. Now his tea has an immense and interesting flavour that I suppose one will either love or hate. But many of these fruit teas are incredibly insipid and require more time in which to infuse but this tea is a real exception as the resulting taste is so powerful. The other tea I particularly like is ‘Camomile and Spiced Apple’ but this can be a little hard to find.

The day before yesterday turned out to be a nice quiet day and after extended chats with my family first thing in the morning and then with my Italian friend later in the day, I was quite content to have a delayed lunch and then a quiet afternoon reading.  Over the last weekend, there were some articles in ‘The Times‘ weekend supplement which I found very interesting and am sharing with any of my visitors to the house. There were three articles of which the first was headlined ‘Single for 10 years – and I love it!’ and the theme was of the consequences of living alone perhaps when in your 40’s after a marriage or relationship had broken down. All of the three articles were written by women but they could apply equally to men as well. They detail how all anticipated that their enforced state of living alone might be temporary and it was probable that they would enter now into new relationships. But this did not happen and, after a period of time being free and independent and having to organise everything oneself, often involving looking after teenagers, the contributors realised that they quite liked living alone and were starting to appreciate some advantages. I think they had all tried some dating apps and always found them unsatisfactory with time-wasters, retreads and people coming along ‘with baggage’ They would all quite welcome a new relationship with a man if one were to happen and, more particularly, they were to meet in what you might call the ‘normal’ process of living such as shopping or whilst participating in keep-fit activities. Now being alone myself for the first time in my life, I found this article had a particular resonance and can fully appreciate what led the contributors to their conclusions. Men are sometimes seen as being as needy as small babies and dispensable and, often in the case of these women at this stage in their life cycle, they derived a lot of satisfaction from their other women friends with whom they liked to socialise and even have as holiday companions. A common theme was none were ‘men-haters’ and would actually quite like a new relationship to happen but often it just did not occur and, in the meantime, all kinds of advantages could be seen in the independence that they were currently enjoying.

There was a report in ‘Sky News‘ that the already very wealthy had a particular dislike of higher income taxes. But I want to apply a little bit of economic theory to this which I learned as a teenage when I was studying economics for my ‘A’-level exam. What I had in mind is ‘marginal utility’ theory and I remember expanding on it at great length when I asked in an interview at York University which economic concepts had greatest applicability outside economics itself. Marginal utility theory postulates that the extra satisfaction you derive from each extra unit of consumption declines as you consume more. So on a hot day, the first glass of beer might give you most satisfaction but this declines with the second and the third glass and so on. But the whole argument applied to income itself in that as you earn or acquire more, the marginal utility of each extra pound of income will decline. Now if you define income tax as negative income, then the marginal disutility of negative income will also decline. This means that the extra ‘pain’ of each extra pound of tax will decline as you earn more and more. But politically, this means that the rich can pay more tax but the extra tax hurts them less and less. The trouble with applying the theory is that the rich shout loudest and have access to political power to prevent high rates of taxation whilst the poor bear quite a lot of pain from the taxes that they endure but thy just have to get on with it.

I the morning I went shopping to Lidl and this was only my second venture into the store. I found it a lot larger than the Aldi store in which I used to shop and therefore fuller of all kinds of things I would never purchase in the first place.   In fact, I did spend some time looking for (and not finding) quite a simple item and some of the things that I buy regularly but no doubt as the weeks roll by, I will learn to locate my favourites. After a simple lunch I cooked an apple crumble in preparation for the meal that I am sharing tonight with a friend who is popping by. The beautiful cooking apples that I am using were left in a box by the side of someone’s house with an invitation to help yourself which I did but shared them with our domestic help who called around this morning. The apple crumble has been prepared but not yet baked but I will serve it with some ice-cream as a dessert. Later in the afternoon, I went to collect Meg’s ashes which are safely within a special box supplied by the undertakers but later I shall get a more specialist urn for the purpose. It really is rather a strange sensation bringing one’s life partner back inside the house but in the form of a box of ashes but there we are. In the fullness of time, then I myself am cremated, then my son has been instructed to mingle my ashes with those of Meg and the two to be sprinkled together in Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District. I had only been back inside the house for a few minutes when our chiropodist calls around and we always have a good chat about every subject under the sun. Then it was time to start some of the vegetable preparation for the meal we are having this evening which is going to be a special treat of some rib-eye steak and good vegetables to accompany it. I cannot recall the last occasion I had a steak in this country but I am very partial to ‘buey’ or ‘ox-meat’ which is a real delicacy in Spain. As I remember how they serve it in good restaurants, then quite a hunk of meat is taken from a larger carcase which has been slow