I witnessed a particularly nasty American woman Republican – an avid Trump supporter naturally – about the recent leak of probably classified military information by some of the leading lights of the American administration. The reporter from Sky News was told that the Republican ‘did not care a crap about the UK’ and was, in effect, told to go home and sort out the UK’s problems. Now it is quite rare to see such viciousness shown to a reporter asking quite legitimate questions but, nonetheless, shocking when you see it happening. The modern Republican party in the USA are so in thrall to Donald Trump that not even a whimper of dissent against his policies is heard. Some of the liberal commentators from CNN and MSNBC are indicating that there is a great of opposition to Trump, but nobody dare put their head above the parapet and say so. Meanwhile, Donald Trump himself has snarled that ‘I believe that CNN and MSNBC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party, and in my opinion, they are really corrupt, and they are illegal. What they do is illegal’ during his remarks at the Justice Department. Incidentally, I heard an interesting discussion the other day wondering whether Donald Trump had any idea what was mean by the term ‘illegal’. There are already several injunctions to prevent the illegal deportation of some Venezuelan refugees but the law just seems to be like a troublesome fly to be swatted aside and ignored rather than to be obeyed. The phrase consistently comes to mind, very much in the minds of the framers of the American constitutiion in the American Declaration of Independence that they are seeking to establish a framework of a ‘a government of laws not of men’. This phrase is often associated with John Adams, a remarkable political philosopher, who served as the second President of the United States (1797-1801), after serving as the first Vice President under President George Washington. Adam’s writings are particularly relevant today as he was particularly troubled by unbridled wealth. Shocked by the greed and self-interest he saw during the Revolution, Adams was convinced that the wealthy new American aristocracy—based upon commerce and speculation, rather than land—had to be tamed. And it was John Adams who helped to advance the concepts of the separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government and the necessity for ‘checks and balances’ One can only imagine what Adams would make of the present state of play in the American political scene and perhaps, in a few years time, we will all come to realise what a terrible aberration we are currently experiencing. It is quite possible, of course, that America ceases to be a democratic society and becomes a kind of ‘pseudo-democracy’ using as a kind of model the systems of governance that Putin enjoys in modern day Russia. There is in modern day America no middle ground between the current Republican party and the Democrats which makes any sensible legislation required in any modern democratic state to be successfully negotiated through the Congress.

Without wishing to sound too maudlin, I have been undertaking some researches that help explain the sudden disappearance of ‘Miggles’ the cat who had adopted us. I find from the internet that the average life of a cat is some 14-15 years but ‘outside’ cats are subject to much more risk of trauma, disease and injury and their life span is about half that of ‘indoor’ cats. Now Miggles was very definitely an outdoor cat being outside from the first thing in the morning until late at night and I have known the animal for some 7-8 years, feeding it titbits night and morning so it is possible that the cat has only lived the normal lifespan of an outdoor cat. A second hypothesis is that the owners have just moved away taking the cat with them. The fact that the cat’s last appearance was a Friday and practically at the end of the month may lend support to the fact that the owner(s) have moved. Again, the cat and its owners has been ‘homed’ at the same address for 7-8 years and, statistically, it is not improbable that the owners have moved (or split up) and the cat has moved with them. Of these two hypotheses , I feel inclined towards the latter and if it is the case trust that the animal is happy in its new location. I suppose I have to tell myself that Miggles walked into my life some 7-8 years ago, provided much pleasure to myself and the other visitors (principally carers) to the house and has now moved out of my life and I need to be philosophical about this.

The doctor called me on the phone and I shall expect a visit from her this afternoon where we can discuss pain relief and other strategies to make Meg’s life more comfortable. She made a visit in person in the early afternoon and Meg’s oxygen levels, blood pressure and heart all seemed to be fine so the doctor left after telling me to carry on with the good work. I have received some reassuring news from the care agency that they will care for Meg ‘as long as it takes’ and for this I am relieved, as I would not want Meg to pass from one group of hands who know her well and care for her to another group who, however expert in their own way have not developed the relationship over time with Meg and myself. Meg is now asleep for much of the day (which presents its own challenges in terms of keeping her fed and hydrated) but in some ways is making life a tad easier. On a beautiful day like today, one’s thoughts almost inevitably turn to what needs to be done in the garden, but I have to say that apart from regular lawn mowing and a ‘one-off’ blitz in the autumn, this has been somewhat neglected over the past few months. We are approaching the weekend when the clocks go forward, and we all lose an hour of sleep but gain from longer and lighter evenings. Whilst some appliances such as computers adjust themselves automatically, I seem to have a lot of clocks and watches around the house that will need readjustments on Sunday morning.

We woke yesterday morning to a temperature of 5° but one which was promised to rise to 16° so a fine day is on prospect. We are still analysing the fallout from yesterday’s Spring Statement (mini Budget) and one or two things have emerged. The first is that Rachel Reeves is determined to stick to her financial rules, the principal one being that current expenditure is to come out of taxation and should not be financed by borrowing which, in turn, should be used only for investment. The second is that the already disadvantaged will bear the brunt of the nearly £5bn of savings. Cuts to welfare will mean 250,000 more people – including 50,000 children – will be pushed into poverty by 2030, the government’s assessment predicts. Separately, 800,000 people will not receive the daily living component personal independence payment (Pip) – due to tightening eligibility rules. It is almost inconceivable that a Labour government is pushing so many of the population into poverty but the actions of the Chancellor has all of the hallmarks of an ‘Austerity Mark II’ looking like the actions that a Tory government would make and there may be massive rebellions on the Labour back benches when any votes on the statement come to be taken.

I have just been saved from a huge iPhone ‘scam’ which I avoided. I got a text, apparently from my son, who started off by saying ‘Hi Dad’ and then continued to explain that he had just acquired a new SIM card for his phone, having changed suppliers and could I note the new number. Later on the day, I was to do my ‘son’ a favour by transferring quite a large sum of money (£1640) later on that day which I thought seemed a bit fishy and which I declined to do until I had spoken with my son. There was no reply but I knew he was travelling to London that day so there may have been communication difficulties whilst on a train. To cut a long story short, I smelt a rat and did not comply with the request to send the money although I admit I was on the point of doing so. When checking with my son in person, I now know that this was an evident scam, and I am glad that did not fall for it but it just shows how clever the scammers are and how easy it is to fall for such a hoax.

Today has been rather a strange day because we knew that some decorators were due to call round to repair our leak-damaged ceiling in our dining room. The first crew to arrive were plasterers and they busied themselves putting down some protective film in the hallway so that our carpets could be kept clean. Then they are going to proceed by cutting out the damaged section of plasterboard and then to feather in its replacement. There was a team of two principal workers assisted by two lads and they seemed to trail in and out quite a lot, at one stage having to go off to get some supplies. It is always a little unnerving when strangers are popping in and out of your house whilst you are trying to keep out of their way. At one stage, they needed to know what was the shade of the paint on the existing walls so that they could effect a repair with the same shade. We always keep half-used tins of paint and I am pretty certain that I manage to locate the correct tin (of a shade called ‘Buttermilk’) so that they can obtain the correct matching supplies. Having arrived at about 8.00am this morning, the crew logged off at about 3.00pm explaining that they could no further work until the repairs they had effected to date could be dried out, at which stage they would hand over to the decorators. This particular form, appointed by the building society, seem to be used to be working on large jobs (e.g. after a major fire in a house) so this seemed quite a small job to them but I did get the impression as the insurance company were paying that they were spinning out the job for all it was worth. But the firm as a while seems pretty professional and having paid over quite hefty excess premium, the rest of the bill rests with the insurance company.

Now I have to report some rather sad news. Our adopted cat, Miggles, who we are in the habit if feeding at least once a day if not twice a day and who runs to sit outside out front door whenever she spots the red uniforms of the care workers, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The last time I saw the cat was last Friday when he/she assisted me in flattening down the molehills on our front grassy area. Now that it is six days since the cat has been seen, I absolutely fear the worst and wonder if the animal has had a tragic accident or had to put to sleep by the owners. It is true to say that it not our cat but over the past six or seven years, quite a strong bond has grown between us and I am trying not to be desperately upset by the loss. I texted our domestic help who will understand these feelings as she fairly recently had to bid adieu to her aged and sick Jack Russell and I know she was devastated by the loss. Full of optimism, she thought the cat would return but despite the occasional absence of a day or so, the cat has never been absent for so long so I am having to reconcile myself to the thought that Miggles is no more.

Donald Trump is declaring that April 2nd (not April 1st which is ‘All Fools Day’) is to be declared ‘Liberation Day’ when 25% tariffs are to be applied to all cars imported in to the USA . The tariff could have a huge impact on the UK’s car industry, including manufacturers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce. Official data shows that the US is the UK car sector’s largest single market by country, accounting for £6.4bn worth of car exports in 2023 – 18.4% of the total. The UK government has signalled it would not retaliate with a reciprocal tariff – despite pleas from British manufacturers to avoid the tariffs probably hoping that as there is an approximate equality in the trading relationships of the UK and the USA, that the UK might be spared some of these tariffs – but I am not holding my breath.

This morning, Sky News is reporting a most extraordinary security breach by top American officials in the Trump regime. Donald Trump has been urged to fire US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth following the leak of highly sensitive war plans – as national security adviser Mike Waltz said he took ‘full responsibility’ for organising the group chat. The conversation on the messaging app Signal between US officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Mr Hegseth, was leaked to American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was added to the chat in error. They discussed plans to conduct airstrikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, which took place on 15 March. These officials should have been using the specialist and approved security systems for their group discussions but instead were using the popular ‘WhatsApp’ app which is considerably less secure. All of this displays both a cavalier attitude as well as the inexperience of personnel not used to the ways of government. When challenged, they have chosen to attack the journalist who was mistakenly invited to join the group and who seems to have acted with the utmost integrity in not revealing military secrets. They are also denying that any classified material was leaked but which appears, on the face of it, to be an outright lie because plans by the military to bomb a rebel group must surely be classified information. The Democrats are making the most of this incident as well as they should because not a single Republican politician has condemned this crass error whereas, in any normal political world, heads would roll. Meanwhile, our government is in trouble of a different kind. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has had her plans to save £5bn of the welfare budget has had her plans thrown into disarray as the OBR (Office of Budget Responsibility) who have stated that her plans will save £3.4bn and not £5bn leaving a gap of some £1.6bn still to be found. So, in advance of the Spring statement, Reeves is announcing further welfare cuts which again are falling disproportionately upon the poor and the sick. It is no wonder that Labour MPs are deeply unhappy as all of these cuts are not what they came into politics to do and seen to be the epitome of Tory policies. There are also hints that eventually some tax rises are being contemplated which is a sign of desperation rather than anything else – after a week or so of speculation, the full statement will be made to the House of Commons and no doubt, be subject to a torrent of adverse media comment.

We have now received news that a plasterer will call around on Thursday morning to repair the hole in our dining room ceiling that was hacked out by the emergency plumber to locate the leak we experienced over a month ago. So, our repairs are gradually being put into place, and I am hopeful that they can be completed before Easter. The care agency has re-timed some of their visits starting at 8.30am rather than 8.00am in the morning which actually gives me a little more leeway to get some of my routine household chores completed before they arrive. Our domestic help had called the day before and, having breakfasted, I popped quickly down the hill in the car to pick up our daily newspaper. Soon after I returned, the district nurse called around to assess the condition of the ‘Deep Tissue Injury’ on Meg’s heel. She was satisfied that nothing needed doing at this stage but was very helpful in other ways. I managed to have a frank discussion with her on how we were to care for Meg in the foreseeable future, given that Meg now seems to be asleep for most of the time. Having explained how difficult it was to get food and drink inside Meg at the moment, the district nurse gave me a supply of three syringes so that I could get small amounts of fluid into Meg’s mouth when this was needed. She said that she was going to email the doctor and request a home visit so that a doctor could take decisions, in the light of Meg’s condition, as to the most suitable forms of medication and thought that the time might be ripe for the application of slow release pain relief medication to assist when the carers have to handle Meg during the day and when movement of her knees can be painful for her. The district nurse was very supportive and I was very pleased to see her.

The day started off a little gloomy but in the late morning, the sun has started to break through, making for a sunnier day. The major event today was the Chancellor’s Spring Financial Statement in a speech described by commentators as ‘punchy’ but which seemed to be replete with an optimism that seemed to me to be clutching at straws. There was hardly a specific mention in the statement of additional cuts to welfare recipients and even the claim, which seemed to be extraordinary, that the average family has benefitted from a Labour government to the tune of £500 a month. Meanwhile, the Joseph Rowntree foundation reveals that a single person losing PIP and the Universal Credit health element could lose £818 per month but defence spending would be increased by £2.2bn – much of this being spent on armaments that would assist those parts of the economy engaged in supplying the Ministry of Defence. The OBR has downgraded the growth forecasts for next year but increased it somewhat for later years. There was hardly any recognition of the enormous swathe of price increases that would befall us from next month onwards and I imagine that an enormous disconnect between the relatively optimistic, if not exactly rosy, picture painted by the Chancellor and the very real hardships that families will experience across the land. Much of the optimism expressed by the Chancellor relies upon the assumption that planning restrictions will be eased and a massive housebuilding programme of 1.3 million homes provide the much-needed stimulus to the economy. But we know that there are all kinds of skill shortages in the building and construction trades and a major problem in our society is the fact that builders having acquired land will not start to build until they judge that they can do so at a time that maximises their profits. At the very end of the day, we still a big curb on some welfare recipients and a dose of optimism which I suspect is quite a lot of whistling in the dark.

It seems unbelievable to us but Donald Trump seems to be serious about his desire to acquire both Greenland and Canada to make for a ‘greater’ United States. In the case of Greenland, there are vast mineral and rare earth resources that America would really like to acquire, and they have had eyes on Greenland before. It is not likely that Denmark will release Greenland but the Trump regime is about to impose tariffs upon Denmark to attempt to force the issue and it is not out of the bounds of possibility that he might succeed. But the desire to take over Canada and to make it the 51st state of the USA appears to be pure moonshine, and the Canadians will resist for all they are worth. Mark Carney who was the governor of the Bank of England has just taken over the premiership and has called an election in Canada in which its independence is a major election issue. Were they to join the USA, they would probably be a Democrat controlled state with a large number of electoral college votes, not to mention the Senate, so the Republicans would lose power for a generation or more. But this is not going to happen and as in the case of Greenland is a pure case of bully boy tactics.

When I last pushed Meg out in her wheelchair, something seemed a little different about our environment as I pushed Meg towards the main road. Then I realised that the local authority had cut back a magnificent 2.5 metre hedge in the road which we use to access the main Kidderminster Road to a height of about 1 metre or less. Why this hedge which has been at the 2.5 metre height for about the last 20 years and probably way before that should suddenly require such radical surgery is a mystery to me and I wonder what impact it will have on the local bird population. The fact it has been done in late March rather than in April makes me wonder whether it has been done now so as not to run foul of any legislation, but it always distresses me when quite well-established hedges are ripped out or cut back in this way. In the large new housing estate which is being built down the road, a perfectly well established hedge was ripped down by the builders and replaced by a rather inadequate looking fence by the builders and I am sure that the occupants of the new houses would have preferred a hedge to border their properties rather than a fence. As we know from our own experience when a small orchard adjacent to our property was cut down before seventeen houses occupied the plot, it only takes couple of cowboys and a chainsaw to wield all kind of destruction and by the time one is driven to protest or to stop such an act of vandalism the act has been done. In the case of the adjacent orchard, at the time I urgently requested that the local authority Tree Officer call around to give a view on the felling activities but by the time he got round to it in a day or so, the act had already been performed. If the apple orchard adjacent to our house had been in rural Worcestershire, it would have received an automatic protection, but this policy did not apply to Bromsgrove as we found to our detriment. But as I am basking in the fact that I have got my first grass cutting of the season under my belt, I notice that the local authority had performed their very first cut of the season on the local verges so they, too, must have the last week of March in their calendar as the date upon which to re-commence their regular mowing activities. Having said that, I have always had a policy of not keeping my grass too short as we could still have late frosts in April. I did discover that I had some grass seed already in stock so as soon as the weather is propitious (by which I mean sunny but with the prospect of rain in an hour or so) then will go and re-seed the areas left bare by the mole which has rampantly made its progress across the whole of our grassed area to the front of the house.

Yesterday turned out to be quite a busy morning. Meg and I journeyed down the hill and met up with our two regular friends in Wetherspoons where we were especially pleased to see our 90 year old chorister who had made it to our rendez-vous this morning. Our domestic help had come around today as on her usual day tomorrow she was having to supervise the fitting of a new garden fence and we always have a lot of domestic type news to share with each other. As soon as we had returned, I received a text inviting Meg and I to receive a spring anti-COVID injection and despite joining a queue of 17 requested that Meg and I be added to the list when the District nurses administer the vaccine as it is not feasible for Meg and I to attend the surgery. The care worker arrived for the ‘sit’ session and we were soon interrupted by an electrician who was detailed to come round at short notice to isolate the electrical fittings in the ceiling the dining room before the plasterers arrive next Thursday to start the repair following the leak we had a few weeks ago, Then two care workers turned up for Meg’s late morning call so for a few minutes bodies seemed to be everywhere. By the time all of the care workers and the electrician had left it was past 2.00pm and I did not feel like starting to cook our normal lunch of a risotto at that point. So I made a type of ‘quickie’ lunch which was tin of tuna, enhanced with some good dollops of salad cream, butter and Thousand Island dressing and then served on a slice of toast. This as it turned out was sufficient lunch for Meg and myself. In addition to all of this, I took delivery of another oil-filled radiator which I decided to buy to complement the one I bought some weeks ago and with which I am delighted. The circumstances of this latest purchase are rather unusual because I was turning over in my mind whether 2.0kw rather than a 2.5kw heater would serve my needs as it was only two thirds of the price. I needed to go into our bedroom and looked in a bedroom drawer in which Meg and I stored some purses and when I looked inside one of them there were a number of £1 coins (which is scarcely unusual) but also a folded up £20 note in a small compartment in the purse that I had completely forgotten about. Spookily enough, what I found in the purse was almost exactly the cost (to the nearest 10p) of the oil heater I was contemplating a purchase so reckoning that I could buy this for effectively nothing having just discovered the contents of the purse in the bedroom. This heater arrived today and I needed to assemble some casters on it and bring it into use. As the previous heater I had purchased had three heat settings but I had only ever used on the ‘middle’ setting of 1.5kw then I reckoned that this new ater rated 2.0kw should prove to be more than adequate, particularly now that the worst of the winter has passed us by.

As the new week gets underway, I am sure that we are all bracing ourselves for what the Chancellor holds in store for us next Wednesday when she delivers her ‘Financial Statement’ immediately after Prime Ministers Questions. There is bound to be quite an in-depth examination of how much investment is required to maintain our national infrastructure as the fire at the electricity sub-station that knocked out Heathrow last week revealed. I read this morning that the bosses of the National Grid and Heathrow are in a mutual blame game with the boss of the former claiming that Heathrow could have carried out functioning with the assistance of two other sub stations. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular argument is almost immaterial as whatever enemies the UK has must be rubbing their eyes in wonder at how easy it would be to bring the UK to its knees. After all, a well thrown bomb could have started the fire at the sub station with the most enormous consequences. Although we are supposed to have plans to protect our national infrastructure, one does have to wonder whether these have been hollowed out in the past decade or so of first austerity and then post austerity. The omens are not good as I also read the views of an expert that as a society we have not learnt the lessons of COVID and it seems a racing certainty that another pandemic could be on its way within our lifetimes. There is also a lot of speculation this morning that the education budget, once regarded as sacrosanct, may well be the target of future cuts with free school meals in the firing line. The current Labour government seems to be on a kamikaze course at the moment because cuts to the education budget are now being envisaged and this impacts directly, of course, upon both parents and children. With the price rises that are soon to be upon us, I can empathise with the argument that further general rises in taxation may not be capable of being levied upon the population, but I am sure that there must be other imaginative ways to raise money through taxation. Top of my list would be a ‘parcels’ tax as personally I receive a lot of parcels through the post that are ‘free’ but actually paid for with a Prime subscription. Yet a quick search shows that approximately 4 billion parcels are delivered in the UK each year so a levy of £1 per parcel would raise £4bn for a start if it could be organised. There is also a lot of public support for extra taxes on betting and gaming. Apparently, over half of Britons (52%) believe the government should increase tax on online gambling. When asked to rank which taxes should be raised by the government, three-quarters of people said that gambling duty was their priority, above income tax, VAT, inheritance tax, and duties on fuel, alcohol, and tobacco. So, doubling the rate of tax from about 21% to 42% would raise another £1bn. And we have not even stated to talk about a ‘sugar’ tax and taxes on other commodities that kill us. In fact, when asked the population nearly always state they would prefer extra taxation rather than a cut in services but, of course, this brings electoral unpopularity at the same time.

It turned out to be a beautiful and bright spring day, just as the weather forecasters had predicted so I thought when I could seize the moment I would start to mow the lawns at the back of the house which is only half the work of the grassed area in the front. The mower started on its first pull and seemed to be making short work but without much impact on the length of the cut grass. So, I promptly raised the wheel control to position 4 on the 1-5 available and this proved to be a smart move because now the mower seemed to have a lot more impact, but the engine did not ‘baulk’ which is what happens if the grass is too thick for it. I got the whole of the back lawn done in about 20 minutes and cleaned up the mower and got back inside the house and all before Meg’s carers arrived for her mid-day call. As last year’s petrol, laced as it is with fuel stabiliser, seems to be behaving itself. I shall wait until the can is near empty before I refill it but I feel the most immediate priority is to buy some grass seed so that I can start to reseed the many flattened molehills that my furry friend has left me for a legacy. I am trying not to get too upset about these molehills but they have made a mess of the front lawn but fortunately it is the time of year when grass grows rapidly.

Bird flu (or avian flu as it is more correctly known) is rearing its ugly head across the country. Strains of the virus have been reported in poultry and wild birds across the country, as well as a confirmed case in a single sheep in Yorkshire, more than a dozen in grey seals in Norfolk, and one in a fox in Scotland. One person working on a farm in the West Midlands also tested positive. Although there has only been one human case, the government has ordered five million doses of a bird flu vaccine to prevent further spread between humans. Human-to-human transmission has not happened in the UK or Europe since bird flu first emerged in 1997, but experts warn each infection increases the risk of the virus adapting to human hosts – and causing a pandemic.

Last night, after Meg was safely in bed and asleep, I started to watch the Mary Beard series of programmes – ‘Meet the Romans’ The first of the series was fascinating if only to explore the Roman utilisation of slaves. It is true that the Romans subjugated many of the peoples that they conquered and brought them back to Rome as slaves. In fact, the numbers of slaves far exceeded the numbers of citizens, but many eventually did acquire their freedom. There were many different types of slaves, and they could be found in every walk of life in ancient Rome. Domestic slaves were perhaps the most common. Some were educated or highly skilled and, therefore, much sought after. Tutors for children, specialist cooks, and even hairdressers could command high prices. The success of urban life depended on an army of slaves. Many worked in civic positions in public libraries and baths and also in government administration jobs, often alongside freeborn plebeians. At the other end of the spectrum were prostitutes who worked under the watchful eye of violent brothel-keepers. Many slaves were subjected to lives of manual labour. Some helped to run the rural estates of wealthy landowners, while others endured the horrific world of the mines, often digging for precious gold and silver. Here, the incredibly harsh conditions meant that life expectancy could be as low as a few months. But when examines the tombstones that documents the lives of Roman citizens, many had started their lives as slaves and had come from the far-flung parts of the Roman empire. Once they had acquired citizenship, the principal source of social identity, as we know from tombstones, was the occupation that they came to profess.

The day before yesterday, we had already completed the task of getting the petrol mower prepped, its oil changed and a start made on mowing the large grassed area in front of our house. Yesterday, I was delighted whilst Meg was asleep to complete the first mowing of the lawn which I already started and then having mowed it in one direction, I then go and mow in the transverse direction (horizontal rather than vertical) The first mowing of the season is always quite a hard affair because the grass if very ‘tufty’ after the winter and last autumn some sort of short term crisis had intervened and I had not managed to get the mower emptied of petrol and oil as I normally would. But I am off to a flying start this season as I generally reckon to re-commence the grass mowing starting on March 25th which is my son’s birthday. The lawn at the back of the house, not visible to visitors to the house, has yet to be done but I think I will wait until Monday for this task to be completed because as opposed to the somewhat gloomy and cloudy conditions today, the weather forecast is for some sun tomorrow. In the days when we used to have a long garden in the house in which we lived in Leicestershire and when I grew a lot of our own vegetables, I purchased a few gardening books so that I knew how to sow and care for my vegetable crop. One particular phrase used to ring out from the books which was to ‘choose a fine day’ as though all that one needed to do was to click one’s fingers and a fine day would emerge.

When I consulted Sky News early on this morning, there was an item about the ways in which so many household bills and utilities were due to rise this April. It is true that our Teachers’ Pensions are due to rise by 1.7% (in inline with the CPI for last September) but in the meantime we have some horrific increases in the pipeline with water bills, in particular. heading for an average rise in about 26% and other things like council tax and fuel due to rise by at least 5%. Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off. The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules. In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend. The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament. Comparing 2030 with 2025, it said the average mortgage holder is set to pay about £1,400 more in ­mortgage interest annually and the average renter about £300 more in rent a year, while average earnings are set to fall by £700 a year. The JRF said the poorest third are being disproportionately affected by rising housing costs, falling real earnings and frozen tax thresholds. I am not sure that the public at large really knows that is about to hit them but there are so many price rises in the offing that it must impact badly on the rate of inflation. The next tranche of elections are about 26 county councils (including Worcestershire) that go to the polls on 1st May and I suspect that the Reform party will massively benefit from discontent with the Labour government. There is quite an irony here because if the reform party were ever to take power in the UK, its cuts to welfare spending would put both the Conservative and the Labour Parties in the shade.

On Sunday morning, we received a visit from our University of Birmingham friend and this is always especially welcome. We sometimes have a YouTube baroque concert playing quietly in the background whilst we swop the news of the last week over a cup of coffee (and chocolate biscuits for our friend) Today, I actually played our friend some Joan Baez tracks from a concert recorded in London in the mid 1960’s and of course the clothing and the hair styles were just the things that we remembered from when we were ourselves at University. After he had left, the carers called round to see to Meg and then I prepared a Sunday lunch of ham in an onion gravy, runner beans and a baked potato. I was a bit disappointed that I only get a very few mouthfuls inside Meg on this occasion but I cannot force food and drink on her if she does not want to accept it. In the mid afternoon, I had quite a long chat on the phone with our Italian friend who lives down the road. I think that she thought that I would be pushing Meg down the road every day but it is only on two occasions per week (on a Tuesday and a Saturday) and that is why she has not seen me recently. She promised to try and pop around one afternoon if she can and in the meantime indicated that she would always be a source of emotional support for me in the weeks and months ahead (as I was for her, on the occasion of own husband’s death nearly ten years ago now) We share an interest in classic Italian opera (Puccini, Verdi as well as Mozart) and there are always arias within all of these operas with deep emotional significance for each of us.

Although last Thursday, we had had. day of glorious spring sunshine, this was not quite to be repeated on Friday, but the weather was still mild but cloudy. In the late afternoon on Friday, I decided to do the preliminary work to see if my trust petrol mower would function as it should after the long winter break, but I was a little fearful as it has not been properly ‘winterised’ i.e. old fuel and oil taken out in the Autumn as some short-term crisis had intervened. But there were a few things that to be done as the mowing season approaches. The first is to stamp down on the mole hills which have unfortunately appeared in out front grassy area which I did but with an amusing event on the side. Miggles, our adopted cat who loves to be near me when I am out in the garden observed my stamping down on the molehills and as I moved from one to another, the cat followed me from one to another to add his/her own stamping activity. Needless to say, the differences in our weights made the cats efforts completely ineffectual but the whole thing was so amusing I wished it had been captured on a video clip. I then knew that I needed to start the mower to let is run for a minute or so before I could drain off last season’s oil which would now be warm and flow more easily. I must have pulled the starter cord some 15-20 times with only the occasional little ‘cough’ after which the mower, thankfully, sprang into life. Fortunately, I had a big tinfoil pie dish to hand into which the oil could be emptied quite easily. Getting the new oil in was not easy as the oil container did not, as some oil cans do, have its own little plastic spout and I spilled quite a lot guessing the quantity, approximately 0.5 litre which I knew was needed. Then as I knew the mower would start, I decided to do the difficult lawn edges before I started on the mowing proper. I had done about a quarter of the first mow when the two carers tuned up for Meg, but they are so good with meg I let them get on with it before I completed half the lawn. I did not want to push it and wreck myself as the first cut of the season is always a lot of effort, and the mower has to be set to its highest setting. But I did complete one half of the mowing, knowing that on the following day it would be easier as the edges had been done, and the mower was ‘prepped’ and functioning. Normally, I start the mowing season on my son’s birthday which is March 25th so I am in advance of myself this spring. But once the mowing season starts, it has to be one on a weekly basis as the act of mowing the grass releases a hormone which stimulates the grass to grow apart from the warmer weather and the longer days, of course.

Today, after breakfast, it was time for us to go ‘down the hill’ and we met up with our regular friend in Wetherspoons, the other regular friend, the 91-year-old chorister, being taken out to a birthday party. Meg seemed to be asleep, or in a really deep doze all the way there and back and she has carried on like this for the remainder of the morning. I think this is Meg’s body just slowly shutting down by degrees and although it makes life easier in some ways, it presents dilemmas in others. In particular, were I to wake up and she is still semi asleep they trying to give her food and drink is counterproductive and could, in extreme circumstances, lead to choking if she were to take food into her mouth and then choke. So I have left Meg’s portion of her lunch on one side, and I shall try to get some of it inside her when she comes round a little. When we were in Wetherspoons, we bumped into some quite aged Irish friends of friends who we used to see in the park regularly in our Covid days. They told me that our mutual Irish friend who lives down the road was anticipating having a prostate cancer operation fairly soon but was feeling somewhat tired. After an MRI scan, it was revealed that he needs a heart pacemaker fitted almost immediately and this was going to happen on Monday. This was quite a shock as our friend is much younger than I am and is pretty fit with his cycling, golf and gardening activities and I was tempted to call on him to wish him the best as we passed his house. But I suspected that he and wife might be wanting some quiet time together so I made my way slowly back up the hill.

Sky News has a feature which documents the price rises that are going to hit the population in April which is, of course, just over a week away. The Teachers’ Pension which Meg and I both receive is due to rise by 1.7% which was the CPI figure last September. Bus some of the price increases in April are truly shocking with water bills due to rise an average of 26% whilst energy and utilities bills all have hefty increases. There is a limited amount that the average household can do to limit the impact of these increases, but I fear that it will come to a very rude shock to many of us in about ten days’ time. Council Tax bills are due to increase by the maximum which is generally 5.99% whilst the energy price cap is due to be raised 6%. I expect that the media will be dominated by several yelps of pain and, of course, we have the Chancellor’s financial statement due to be made next week and it looks as though some £10bn of savings will be presented to us.

It was wonderful to wake up this morning and, as I generally do when I make my early morning cup of tea, enquire of my smart speaker, Alexa, what the weather is like and to be informed that the temperature was now 8° and due to rise during the day, albeit with some showers of rain. Our chiropodist when she called yesterday was telling us that she was going to the Caribbean for her first holiday in five years and I know how he feels as this is the longest period of my life when I have gone holiday-less, primarily as a result of the pandemic. I was reading a story in Sky News this morning about the damage that was being wrought to the UK metals industry. We export huge quantities of a semi-finished product of stainless steel in huge bars called billets and this product is eventually manufactured into everything from surgical instruments to kitchen sinks. The Trump-imposed tariffs are now imposed on semi-finished as well as finished products which means that ships laden with British made stainless steel, if delayed across the Atlantic by storms (which they were), now face a 25% tariff wiping out the entire British profit margin. To make matters worse, foreign steel producers now priced out of the USA market are flooding the UK with cheap steel imports and this ‘double whammy’ is having dire consequence for the UK metals market. This story reveals the complex inter-dependencies and delicate ecostructure of international trade so the Trump tariffs will have ripples that spread far and wide. American steel producers will have to take their old plants out of mothballs to replace those supplies now impacted by tariffs, but this takes time and of the order of years. So, we are living in a situation in which tariffs imposed within days may take years of corrective action. In effect, we are seeing a similar series of events unfolding within the UK domestic scene with the ‘instant’ decision to abolish NHS UK which is the administrative and technical arm of the NHS. Many of these functions were established by law in the ‘Health and Social Care Act 2022’ and so to implant these functions back within the Department of Health and Social Care will take years and at a cost which has probably not been calculated. The politicians always work to an incredibly short time scale and never having worked in ‘proper’ organisations rather than as political advisers are probably completely unaware of the damage they may be causing. To illustrate this point, Keir Starmer appeared on a Channel 4 programme last night on the acute shortage of nurses and he claimed that getting rid of NHS UK would release sources that would go straight into patient care such as nurses. The trouble with this argument, even if had the smallest grain of truth, is that we would have to wait for several years to make the savings anticipated and it could well be the case that potential savings are considerably smaller once the redundancy and administrative costs of reorganisation are factored into the equation. But these are the calculations that civil servants make, and not politicians, and when the civil servants point out these problems to their political masters they are accused of being obstructive or uncooperative.

Yesterday morning was somewhat dull and cloudy, and I was not unhappy about not taking Meg out for the day, particularly as were expecting a call from our church’s Eucharistic minister later in the morning. We spoke about the recent death of one of the parishioners who we knew and then completed our short little service. After she had left, I made a quick visit down into town to collect my newspaper and on the way back, I was intrigued to be following a white van decorated, I think, in the motifs of the British Legion but with the expression ‘Grumpy old git inside’ As I was behind the vehicle, I never discovered to what organisation the van belonged but it was not an everyday sight. As it was St Patrick’s Day on the 19th of the month, I accessed on the BBC iPlayer a documentary detailing the life of St Patrick who was born of Romano-British parents but started off his life in England and not Ireland. Saint Patrick was not sold into slavery but was captured and taken as a slave to Ireland around 400 AD. According to his writings, he was a shepherd for six years in captivity before escaping back to Britain. However, a study from Cambridge University based on his writings suggests a different narrative. It indicates that Patrick may have sold slaves owned by his family to pay his way to Ireland, possibly to avoid becoming a tax collector for the Roman Empire. Despite these conflicting accounts, it is generally accepted that Patrick’s experience as a slave in Ireland was a formative period that deepened his faith and eventually led him to return to Ireland as a Christian missionary. After lunch, as we generally do each Friday, we treat ourselves to a catch-up of ‘Question Time’ from the night before to discover what the country at large is making of topical political questions of the day.

The day’s news is dominated by the complete closure of Heathrow following a dramatic fire in an electricity sub-station (and its back up system). As Heathrow has about 1350 flights in/out per day and a flight taking off every 45 seconds, the effects of this closure have been felt worldwide. Flights have been diverted or turned back if they have not reached ‘the point of no return’ and the consequences of the closure are incalculable. For example, there are a group of Chinese on board on aircraft bound for the UK and with UK visas but not for any other country so what happens to them when they land in another country? Inevitably, questions are raised about the fragility of the infrastructure in the UK, and one would have thought it impossible that there were not robust plans in plans for this admittedly rare event to occur. One does get feeling that the UK which used to have sound systems has been ‘hollowed out’ in recent decades – could such an event have happened in France or Germany? Who will bear the costs of this massive disruption may be hard to evaluate and it will undoubtedly have an impact on our ability to achieve some economic growth.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday in my blog was a phone call I received from a friend of mine down the road. We had some acquaintances from our local church who used to meet in a local club and the husband was suffering from dementia. Unfortunately, he has died in the last few days because he had sustained a fall and broken his hip and was then taken to the hospital whereupon they operated upon the hip. But he did not survive the anaesthetic and died without regaining consciousness. Under the circumstances I feel it was a massive relief to his wife, but I will write a letter of condolence to her and to his daughter but unfortunately do not think that I will be able to make the funeral. Nonetheless I can invite his widow round when she has overcome her immediate grief and mourning to come round and see us any afternoon that she would like. As a foursome, we spent one or two days out together whilst I could Meg into our car and we have fond memories of the couple, and their daughter but I am sure that as a devout Catholic, our friend is now in a better place. Today we are going to get some spring-like weather and the temperature when I awoke was above freezing, for a change but projected to rise to quite a nice spring like day. Almost inevitably, my thoughts turn to thoughts like lawn mowing because the grass looks desperately in need of a cut. Normally, the lawns would have received one last cut on November 5th of last year and the mower emptied of fuel and oil ready for the winter. But this did not happen last year as I suspect that the weather had turned very cold and Meg, as she was then, could not be left because of the acute separation anxiety she then experienced. So this year, I am looking for an occasion when a carer is with Meg and I met start to ‘prep’ the mower by emptying out last years oil and petrol. But this will entail getting the mower started to warm up the oil because I suspect that last year’s oil will be too viscous with the engine cold. It is always a great moment of anticipation ?(dread?) whether the mower will start after a six month pause and what has turned out to be a cold winter but we shall have to wait and see. At least I have my oil in place but I always buy the highest quality fuel (at a premium price) to ensure that the engine runs smoothly. The great problem with mowers is the 5% ethanol which is added to modern petrol to bulk it out and this can attract water and contaminate the fuel if left not in motion for long periods. Bit I do invest in a Briggs and Stratton fuel stabiliser so I am keeping my fingers crossed that all will be well when the mowing season starts again (probably from the date of my son’s birthday on March 25th). One interesting thing that has happened overnight is that Donald Trump has ordered the release of documents surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. Around 2,200 files consisting of more than 63,000 pages about John F Kennedy’s assassination have been made available to the public and these will take some time for historians to digest. But, as of now, nothing startling has emerged. What is interesting about this event is everyone of my generation knows exactly what they were doing when they first heard news of the assassination, as it made such an impact across the world. When American leaders of the centre and left get shot at, they tend to die (both Kennedys, Martin Luther King) whereas the right wingers (Reagan, the segregationist and racist Governor Wallace, Trump himself) always seem to survive.

The care workers were scheduled to arrive a little later this morning but after they had departed, I gave Meg her breakfast of porridge and the young male Asian care worker arrived to do Meg’s sit whilst I went out shopping. I called into Morrisons to buy a few commodities that I know are not sold in Aldi after which, when I arrived home, the carer helped me to unpack the shopping. Then he and I sat down, myself with a coffee, whilst we went through the evaluation of the service that Meg was receiving. I needed to be brutally honest as I could be and in general the story was one of almost complete satisfaction with the actual level of hands-on care once delivered (particularly in the hands of the younger carers) but a certain amount of irritation with the organisation and logistics of the care as timings (and personnel) were often changed at very short notice. I remembered from my ‘quality enhancement’ days something that we used to enjoin upon our students when they were assisting us in evaluating the quality of the education they received. Here it is important to distinguish between a ‘niggle’ (minor annoyance which happens throughout the course of a working life), a ‘grumble’ which is more serious but should be capable of being addressed and finally a’complaint’ which is an issue that needs to be addressed and resolved. When the carer and I were filling in the evaluation form between us, I tried to ensure that ‘niggles’ were not documented but ‘grumbles’ were and, so far, I have not had any reason to raise a complaint. However, I imagine that some ‘service users’ as they are called, or better clients, might raise some trivial issues which, if documented will stay on the record for evermore. But at the end of the day, my lead carer and I were happy with the evaluation form which was the first he had to compile. We had a simple lunch and then our chiropodist called round and did both of our feet which was quite timely as I had developed quite a large and painful crack on one heel. If the weather holds out fine in the afternoon, I may be able to seize the opportunity of getting the mower started and last season’s dirty oil drained out.

Yesterday, it became clearer where the welfare axe has due to fall but, as predicted, it is new claimants that will bear the brunt of the exercise. There must be a great deal of uncertainty amongst those in receipt of benefit who receive some PIP but some of those will be in work in any case. I must say that I dislike the whole way in which the debate over welfare benefits is framed because we all seem to know that this is effectively a cost-cutting exercise. Despite the fact that the Welfare Secretary has adopted the Tory meme of being ‘trapped’ on benefits, I suspect that most recipients would use the analogy of a lifeline rather than a trapped door. After all, if we were rescuing drowning people after a maritime disaster, it would seem a strange use of language to say that that those who needed rescue were ‘trapped’ by the lifeline that was thrown overboard to them. One un-named cabinet minister really put their finger on the problems we face in society by observing that ‘The intellectual question that has not been answered here: is this about principled reform or is it a cost-saving exercise? There are some concerns this does not fix the issues around welfare but rather is about finding quick savings.’ I do think that there is a great lack of political imagination in play here and in no way would I wish to minimise the scale of the problems that we face. But the projected savings of £5bn are not a great deal in the scheme of things and it could be that the political damage done is not worth the cost of the actual savings achieved. Rather than being completely negative about the issue, I wonder to myself what I would do if I were in a position to politically influence events. One thing that could be done is to look at other European democracies who are facing similar problems and see what they are doing to face the rapidly increasing welfare bills. After all, the demographic facts are affecting every European society as the numbers of aged (and their infirmity levels) increase and the proportion of the population in work to support them diminishes. A second way to address the problem is to look at the contribution of employers, including particularly the voluntary sector. There was no mention yesterday insofar as I could tell as to what incentives might be offered to potential employers to offer some work to those in receipt of benefits. There is a lot of talk about the therapeutic effects of being in work so why not take a small proportion of the benefit and give it to potential employers to encourage them to offer some employment (at a small, subsidised cost) to those who are seeking it? After WWII, there was evident concern about the employability of those injured during the war and the legislation at the time made employers employ a proportion of those disabled in their work forces, As a local government officer, my mother had mentioned to me that her own boss had a prosthetic hand, having been injured during the war. Those of use of a certain age may remember that in the days when department stores had lifts, they were often staffed by disabled ex-servicemen who rose up and down in them all day. If I had to make a guess, I would say that the proportion of the disabled of working age far exceeds those levels seen at the conclusion of WWII, so why are not similar schemes being thought about today?

Later on in the morning, I was helping our domestic help to clear some things off our dining room table prior to its redecoration following the leak of a month or so ago. Trying to find some space to put things, I decided to relocate some book and was on the point of throwing away a couple of issues from the Royal Statistical Society entitled ‘Statistics in Society’ I quickly thumbed through the pages of each of them and in one I found the following article by Julian Le Grand, an eminent Professor Social Policy written some 18 years ago (2007). Extending the idea of Beveridge’s five giants of want, squalor, idleness, ignorance and disease, Le Grand enunciated what he called ‘the giants of excess’ The article abstract indicated ‘that for health in particular, excessive behaviour of various kinds contribute significantly to the major sources of morbidity (= illness) and mortality in our society, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney and liver diseases…the main problem that face both individuals and the government or other agencies tasked with improving health is that the costs of unhealthy activities impact in the future, whereas the benefits from them occur in the present’ What I found so amazing is that this was written (and known about) so long ago but the article could have been written yesterday and still retains its pertinence.

To our domestic help and the two care workers who called round to see Meg, I spoke to them at 2 minutes past 12.00pm and asked them what I was doing 52 years ago to the date (and the minute) The answer was that I was lying on a pavement having bit hit by a Hillman Imp that failed to stop at a T junction and hit myself (first) and then two of my students that it carried on its bonnet through some iron railways. Both legs were twisted out of position after the impact and it required an operation and some three months of rehabilitation before I could resume my work as a lecturer at Leicester Polytechnic again. As I was being transported by ambulance to the nearby hospital, one of the ambulance men asked his colleague whether to turn on the ambulance klaxon (known colloquially as a ‘doo-dah’) and his colleague, in view of the proximity of the hospital, replied that there was no point really. Hearing this remark, I concluded that I was so badly injured that I was not worth saving and hence there was no need for the klaxon. When in the hospital, I had my legs plastered up and I was then sent home because the hospitals throughout the country were accepting no patients as they were in the middle of an ancillaries’ strike. I was sent home and told to take some aspirins to cope with the muscles severed in one leg and broken knee bones in the other. Things have improved somewhat since 1973!