Yesterday as my friend had called around from Droitwich and we seemed to have so much to talk about, I completely forgot about the play in the Test match against India. England posted a tremendously high total of 669 but the Indians replied with 174 for 2 in their reply. On a flat pitch almost perfect for batting and with the best English bowler and captain, Stokes, probably unable to bowl because of injury then the Indians may be able to play out the final fay for a draw although the odds must be on for an England win. In any case, the cricket is always interesting and absorbing and generally well worth the watch between 7.00-8.00 each evening. But the football final between England and Spain will no doubt absorb all of our attention and emotional energies this evening.

I have started to think about holidays in a general sort of way but with September in mind. I have asked my best Spanish friend if she would indicate the times when it would not be convenient for me not to distract her attention from the start of a new academic term which is always a very busy time. I am starting to think again about visiting La Coruña but I know that as well as flights, I will need to get a visa sorted for myself. To be honest, I am just waiting life to be on a nice even keel, not least financially, but we are slowly getting there now that the Teachers’ Pension Agency have seen fit to respond after some eleven weeks of waiting. I realise, too, that I need to renew my Senior’s rail card and as it had run out in the last few days, I rather thought that they could get in touch with me asking me to renew but that has not been the case. The day has turned out to be exceptionally overcast and rainy so that might mean that my weekend coffee plans get altered somewhat. I am about half way through reading the book by the well-known GMTV breakfast show presenter, Fiona Phillips, called ‘Remember when – my life with Alzheimers’ Apart from the early biographical material, she has detailed how first her mother died from Alzheimers and the middle section I am reading now is describing how the same affliction affected her father. The second half of the book is going to be an even harder read because Fiona Phillips went on herself to develop early onset dementia so the whole book is quite a hard emotional read. So, I am tackling it in little bits when the mood strikes and not am not anxious to see what is coming, although I can probably guess. The thing about Alzheimers is that afflicts people in very different ways with some people becoming abusive or aggressive. Fortunately, for both myself and for Meg, she just drifted away and although she did have periods of anxiety, we managed to find ways in which this could be assuaged by a combination of medication, music and hand holding. In the late afternoon, whilst I was awaiting my friend calling around, I started looking at a documentary on Franco broadcast by PBS (the United States version of a public broadcasting services) This revealed the quite shocking fact of the abduction of very young children, often taken at birth from their mothers and then brought up to be ‘good Franco-ists’ some even being sold with the connivance of the Catholic church. I knew of one or two instances of this scandal that had come to light recently but the program mentioned first 3,000 abductions and then 30,000 of children abducted during the 1950’s. In fact, this practice may have continued after the death of Franco into the 1990s. While the Franco regime ended in 1975, the practice continued for some time, with the amnesty law passed in 1977 hindering investigations into these practices.  This was quite shocking and I will discuss it in depth with my intimate Spanish friends when next I see them.

Often on a Sunday morning, my University of Birmingham calls around and we go for a coffee to the local water sports facility down the road but I got a text this morning indicating he had other commitments. So, I started out on a leisurely walk down to Waitrose to collect my Sunday newspaper but as I did, I stopped for a few minutes char with a new set of neighbours who fairly recently have moved into a house quite near to us.  They were busy putting their young child into the back of the car but, nonetheless, I engaged in a few minutes of casual chit-chat with them. It transpired that the husband was a Manchester United fan and I told him about the deep impact that the 1958 Munich air disaster when most of the team were wiped out as they were on a ice-laden aircraft where the weight of the ice made the plane too heavy to achieve a lift off and hence the crash at the end of the runway. I explained to my neighbour as I had a slight personal connection with this disaster as the brother of the pilot, who was blamed for the crash, was the head barman at the Old Swan hotel in Harrogate where I worked in the early 1960’s. My neighbour told me that there was a huge memorial to the crash in the Manchester United ground and his wife told me that when she read all about it on being taken there by her husband, she burst into tears. Incidentally, it took the captain of the aircraft about ten years to clear his name when it emerged years later that he was ordered to take off by some of the Manchester United directors who were anxious that the team would be bag in the UK for another big match. So the cause of the rash was all about money, it transpired but the easiest thing in the world to do is to blame the pilot which is what initially happened. When I got home, I pottered about a little getting some photographs organised and then made myself a light lunch of quiche accompanied by some salad and coleslaw which I found absolutely satisfying enough. Of course, most of the day today the nation is waiting with eager anticipation of the football final of the England ‘Young Lionesses’ scheduled to start at 5.00pm.

The evening before yesterday, although I was inclined to just have a really lazy afternoon, I thought I had bestir myself and get the car washed. The previous Honda that we had was a wonderful sandy colour which had the wonderful attribute of not being washed for weeks and one would not really notice. But now we living in different times and a huge development is being built on the other side of the road that service our little development. As they are at the earth moving stage, a tremendous amount of fine dust is filling the air and gets deposited on cars as well as the rest of the environment. So it is possible to wash the car one day and have it looking pretty dirty the following morning. The contractors try to alleviate this somewhat by having a huge water spray to help to settle the dust but this seems pretty ineffective and I am having to live with all the inconveniences associated with masses of building work going on all around me both at the back of our property and now also to the front. Although the garden has been a bit neglected not to say overgrown since my energies were devoted to caring for Meg, under the circumstances I am quite glad to have a lot of vegetation to screen me from the various vexations going on around me. My Asian neighbour from across the green area in front of the house brought me over some rhubarb crumble which I enjoyed last night with some ice-cream and I am always pleased to accept these little gifts of kindness. In the evening, I also spent a certain amount of time comparing the blood test results that I obtained the day before with readings taken some two years before and they were very similar to each other with the critical ones all on the right side of the safety margin to my relief. So I need to continue with my current regime of diet and exercise and not be tempted to let things slip.

New age verification rules are now in place to attempt to ensure that those under 16 do not by accident view inappropriate on the web such as pornography. But already it appears that the rules can be circumvented and some researchers have claimed that by using easily available software they have managed to gain access to such sites within about 30 seconds. Of course, teenagers will spread such knowledge between themselves so one despairs whether any new such rules will be effective. One age verification technique is to ask for credit card details but an enterprising teenager could set their alarm for the middle of the night and creep downstairs to acquire such details from their parents’ wallets without their parents being any the wiser. So, together with many others, I suspect that these new internet controls whilst being praiseworthy in themselves may well be ineffective from Day One as some journalists have already demonstrated. Personally, I think all children under the age of 16 should be banned from having a mobile phone but I doubt whether this is enforceable in any meaningful way.

The rest of the day turned out to be one of the most interesting of days. Firstly, I called in at Wetherspoons and had my usual Saturday morning sojourns with my two sets of friends that I have coffee with sequentially. As I was concluding my drink of coffee within the store I got into conversation quite by accident with an old lady and somehow we got onto the topic of talking not just to ourselves (with whom we can often hold an intelligent conversations) but also conversations with departed loved ones. She intimated that although she was 88 years old, she still spoke with her departed husband every day. She was very kindly and sympathetic about my recent loss of Meg but we agreed with each other that we had to make positive steps to life beyond that which we had experienced with out past partners and had to keep interacting with the world and talking to people (as indeed, so were we with each other)

Then I came home and bought some special low-salt lentel cakes from Waitrose  before calling in on my Irish friend who I did not meet in person but eventually he identified me from his doorbell system and we spoke by phone. Then I got home and made myself a light lunch of ham and cheese on some crackers. Later on in the day, I knew that my Droitwich friend was due to call around but I had  already saved some risotto from the day before so I ensured that this was kept warm for the moment that she arrived. Then we spent the most marvellous late afternoon and early evening in each other’s company.  After recounting to each other the various traumas that had afflicted us  during the week we polished off the risotto complemented by a bottle of rosado Cava which I happened to have in stock Then after lots of conversations about how to maintain healthy a lifestyles I eventually persuaded myself to show my friend some of my favourite tracks on YouTube. We started off with Joan Baez (of course) and then progressed on to some Ravi Shankar sitar instrumental music before finishing off with some of our favourite Fauré. This weekend is promising to be a weekend of exhausting and last minute finishing. The British Lions rugby team (combined England, Wales, Scottish and Irish team) pulled off a second win against Australia although I believe that the winning English try was only scored in the last minute of the game. Meanwhile, the whole nation is holding itself in readiness for the final ion Sunday evening between England and Spain.

In the political sphere, the starvation in Gaza has now reached such an intensity that air drops of food are now being considered. The Israelis are saying that plenty of food is available within the territory but that Hamas is commandeering supplies for itself but this view is not backed up by any of the evidence from seasoned international observers. The pressure is growing on the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer who seems fearful of taking a stronger line in case he falls foul of the Americans with whom he wishes to conclude a comprehensive trade deal in any case.

Thursday is the day when I do my shopping and I think this week is going to be a fairly ‘light’ week as I do not seem to have consumed that much. I do make sure that I have a fair quantity of fruit and I would always buy some bananas (good for their potassium level), some of those flat peaches which are so easy to de-stone because you can cut them around and then separate the peaches into two halves with a twisting motion and some big ripe plums. As I go through my morning routines, I keep getting filled with relief that the three massive technological problems I had yesterday (lack of internet access to my bank account, the landline number having to be replaced and sound restored to the car’s SatNav) were all actually resolved in the day instead of grinding on and on. But, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions’ which is an experience well known to all of us when problems seem to appear together in clumps. This week is turning out to be quite a busy one filled with quite a lot of what one might call ‘routine’ medical appointments and I expect our chiropodist later on today, postponed from last Monday. However, the appointment did not take place due to a misunderstanding but is scheduled for later on today. I just thought that my tech problems had done away but one has returned to plague me. Despite being told that a direct debit charge for the cancellation of a contract with BT should not have been charged and should not have been collected, nonetheless the money has left bank account., When I tried to phone up EE to complain their customer support line is ‘unavailable’ and I was told to try again later. I am tempted to believe that companies like this are very efficient in collecting money but less so when it comes to providing a service so this might take some days and hassle to resolve.

Sky News is reporting the latest revelation in the Donald Trump/Epstein story. Donald Trump was told in May that his name appears multiple times in justice department files related to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein according to the Wall Street Journal. The American president has come under fire for not releasing the documents – breaking a campaign promise – with some questioning his ties to Epstein. Now the newspaper reports Mr Trump is aware his name is included in the files, along with many other high-profile figures. Being mentioned in the records is not a sign of wrongdoing, and Mr Trump has not been accused of anything. The White House initially described the report as ‘fake news’, but Reuters news agency said an official told them the administration is not denying Mr Trump’s name is there. This story will run and run if only because in his election campaign, Trump insisted that these files showed up prominent Democrats in an exceptionally bad light but it look as though the truth is that this itself was wishful thinking and was the ultimate in ‘fake news’ Having been repeatedly promised full disclosure. the MAGA (‘Make America Great Again’) movement is deeply suspicious about non-disclosure and seems to be deeply split on the issue.

Sky News is also reporting on a big domestic issue is confronting our politicians to which there is no immediate answer- welfare versus warfare. For decades, it is a question to which successive prime ministers have responded with one answer. After the end of the Cold War, leaders across the West banked the so-called ‘peace dividend’ that came with the end of this conflict between Washington and Moscow. Instead of funding their armies, they invested in the welfare state and public services instead. But now the tussle over this question is something that the current prime minister is grappling with, and it is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges for Sir Keir Starmer since he got the job last year. As Clement Attlee became the Labour prime minister credited with creating the welfare state after the end of the Second World War, so it now falls on the shoulders of the current Labour leader to create the warfare state as Europe rearms. But since the fall of the Berlin Wall our domestic needs have arisen, not least because some parts of the population are still bearing the after effects of COVID and the period of austerity immediately after it. The great moral and political dilemma is whether those who are sick or disabled should bear the brunt of the costs of increasing our national expenditure on defence?

The evening before last was the semi-final of the Women’s Euro competition and the whole match turned out to be extraordinary. England were playing Italy and the English team team started well with a lot of possession and a slow but patient buildup but did not manage any really penetrating crosses. Then, as has happened so often with this England team, there was a quick breakaway by the opposing team and the Italians scored a goal very much against the run of play. From then on it was a tense first half and an even more tense second half in which, although the England team played with much more aggression and focus, it looked and more likely as the minutes ticked away that they were destined for defeat. Seven minutes of extra time had been added and in the fifth minute of the seven, a young English substitute scored an equalising goal. This was really ‘by the skin of your teeth’ stuff and so we were destined for extra time. It looked more and more as though we were destined for a penalty shootout but with only two minutes of the second half of extra time left, England were pressing hard but an Italian player bundled over an English player off the ball in the penalty area and the referee immediately awarded a penalty. Some questioned whether a penalty was too severe a punishment for the offence but if you flatten an opposing player in the penalty area, I suppose you have to expect this. The penalty was taken by Chloe Kelly, one of the substitutes but was saved. But acting with a lighting reflex, Kelly leapt upon the ball pushed out by the goalkeeper and scored what turned out to be the winner. So, it has been reflected that if this has had been a fantasy movie, one could not have made more a more amazing ending. The England women now have quite a tradition of scoring in the last minute of a game or even of extra time and I am sure that their opponents can scarcely believe what had happened when victory appeared to be literally seconds away from their grasp, only to see it snatched away from them. The rest of the day may be quite busy, not least trying to sort out why I am unable to access my online bank account is troublesome but I suspect there is a software fault somewhere. At half time in the football match yesterday, I went down in the car to access an ATM so I know my account is ‘there’ and properly functioning but I felt I needed to check it out for my own peace of mind. So well as sorting some tech issues this morning, I am due to go and have another session of physiotherapy this afternoon to help to keep my back in a better state of repair after years of lifting Meg off the floor and pushing her wheelchair up and down the Kidderminster Road. My domestic help told me that one of her friends who I do not know saw me yesterday walking down to collect my newspaper so I must surmise that with my Australian bush-style hat and in the past pushing Meg in her wheelchair I must have become quite a familiar sight in the town.

Gradually, throughout the morning, my various technological problems started to be solved. Firstly, getting onin to the phone to my bank helped to obtain the correct specialised ID number so that I can now access my account as I have been the habit of doing for the past few decades. It could be that removing Meg’s name from the joint account had unintended consequences but at least all is well that ends well so that is one worry less. Then I go onto BT to attempt to resolve the restoration of my previous phone number which was automatically replaced when we registered our handsets with the new router. After being passed through about three sets of hands I was informed that it could take up to 10 working days to resolve this issue. When I expressed dismay, the ten working days was shrunk to 5 and I was told it could be restored beforehand. Actually, it was restored within an hour and I got an email message informing me that the ‘upgrade’ to the service had been successfully completed.  I tested it out my mobile and a spare Nokia reserve mobile and was reassured that the previous number had, in fact been restored. Then my son turned our attention to the non-performance of the voice component in the SatNav in the Mazda I have inherited. We discovered in the ‘Settings’ section that the volume component of the voiceover in the SatNav had been set to zero but how, we do not know unless it was accidentally done when the car was serviced. My son and I travelled down to Waitrose to pick up my newspaper and at the same time test the SatNav on the way back home and this is fortunately now working. Now we come to the final trauma of the day. Following receipt of the letter detailing Meg’s continuation pension, the advice was given to contact HMRC to resolve any tax issues. So I spent 15 minutes waiting to be put through to a section dealing with ‘Death’ only to be told they only dealt with notifications of the death of a taxpayer, not affairs relating to the tax affairs of the dead person so would I ring in again. This I did and the actual wait turned out to be 30 minutes rather than the advertised average of 20. Then I was told they could not discuss any figures over the phone so I pointed out that I had definitive figures in a letter, ‘No’, I was told I could not supply the information by message or by email (‘to avoid fraud’)so I was told I had to photocopy the letter and send it in to them by post. Scanning a two-page document was not as easy as might be thought so I had to make two jpg files and then use utility software to stitch them together and these I popped into an envelope and sent it off but I suspect that it may be left unopened and unread for weeks. After all of this, I went down to get one of my fortnightly physiotherapy treatments on my back (just a massage really) and upon returning home, did half an hour’s weeding as tomorrow is the day when the garden waste bins get emptied and I felt I needed to get rid of the worst of the unsightly weeds at the front of the house.

When I awoke yesterday morning, I wondered what the day was going to bring and still felt pretty tired after the excitement of yesterday. So I thought I would have a quick fifteen minutes on the downstairs sofa before I made my morning cup of tea but this became three quarters of an hour. Our domestic help texted me last night to come a day early this week no doubt to fit in with her new work commitments as she has just changed her role in the residential home in which she works for most of the week. I learned from the Home secretary that she is going to institute an enquiry some forty years after the events at the Orgreave coking plant as part of the miners’ dispute. There was a massive pitched battle between the police and the miners in which it now looks as though the miners were lured into a trap so tat they could be charged by the police on horseback. There were a horrific number of injuries and I was shocked to learn in one of the many documentaries unpicking the events of the day that the BBC edited their own footage so that it appeared that the miners charged the police although the reverse was the case. Many of the police gave perjured evidence several having been instructed to use identical phrases supposedly written into their notebooks but none were convicted. I think that all of the charges against the miners eventually were dismissed but the events at Orgreave have been a running sore and a national scandal. The British seem quite good at holding enquiries decades after the event (‘Bloody Sunday’ in Northern Ireland comes to mind) with the enquiry itself taking an age and then no prosecutions are possible because of the passage of time. I think that this long called-for enquiry into Orgreave will fit into the pattern of all of the rest. Meanwhile, most of the nation will be holding its breath as the England womens football team (aka known as ‘The Lionesses’) play Italy in the semi-final this evening. If England play well, they may prevail but often nerves take over and mistakes are made.. A probable outcome is a draw after extra time followed by penalties where the outcome is always unpredictable. In some ways, I will be glad when the football competition is over and then we can all resume a more normal life.

Later in the morning, I popped down the hill, picked up my newspaper and then made for Wetherspoons where I see (separately) two groups of friends. I saw the Inveterate Hill Walker first and after we had concluded our chat had a few minutes only with Seasoned World Traveller in another part of the pub. Then I came home and prepared myself for going to my Pilates session but by car on this occasion. As I got to the studio, the reception staff reminded me that my Pilates teacher was on holiday this week and I had, indeed forgotten as had one of my class-mates. So I came home and after a rest, heated up some risotto which I had left from last week. Most of the rest of the afternoon was taking up with wrangling with various communication companies. Initially, I got onto BT trying to persuade them to revert the old telephone number that I have had for the past 18 years. I have to wait for a day for the order of equipment which I do not need and which arrived today to be ‘technically closed’ as an order and this has to wait until tomorrow. Then I got onto EE to dispute a £199 cancellation charge for which I do not think I should have been charged – eventually, I got someone to agree with me and the £199 debit charge was cancelled. My experiences with both of these tech companies were very similar. First after a long wait, you get onto someone who goes through ID routines with you and then you are passed onto another person/department which involves more waiting and the most jangly pop music it is possible to imagine. Eventually, about three or four people down the chain, you reach a situation in which the situation is almost, but not completely resolved. As I say, my dealings with these tech companies occupied a fair bit of the afternoon and you feel you are trying to make progress through a ‘cat’s cradle’ of bureaucracy.

By tbis mornings post, the awaited letter arrived from the Teachers’ Pension Agency but even this had some complications. After the death of Meg, I am entitled first to a short-term pension and then to a longer term pension. But these are subject to tax and the letter intimates that I need to get onto the Inland revenue (which I shall tomorrow) or avoid emergency tax codes being applied to the payments. In theory, the Inland revenue should get data from the Teachers’ Pension Agency but the latter are very tardy, having taken some 10 and a half weeks to process Meg’s claim which should have been straightforward. Then, in view of the time scales involved, they have made an interim payment of some 73% of what should be the full amount which they will then claw back at a later date. All of this makes apparently simple things so much complex and the payment day has been altered to towards the end of the month to further complicate calculations. But at the end of the day, I think I am receiving the proportion of Meg’s previous pension to which I am entitled. By a late afternoon delivery, a book arrived that I had ordered from Amazon. This is ‘Remember When’ which is a 300-page hardback detailing how the TV presenter Fiona Phillips coped with the onset and progression of early onset dementia. Although I have read the first few pages to get the flavour of the book, I feel that at the moment I want some light reading on almost any subject except dementia so I may have to wait until I am in the right mood before I tackle the rest of the book. I dare say I will find many portions of the book with which I shall resonate but having lived with this afflicting one’s spouse, there might be better choices of reading matter.

So, the night before yesterday, I thought I would go out to the concert held in the Bromsgrove parish church of St. John’s just down the road. The first part of the programme was Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’ which have a mournful, elegiac feel to them and were powerfully sung by a soprano who happens to be married to the well-known local conductor. In the interval, I wandered over to the orchestra area and espied our friend, the Eucharistic minister who was one of the cellists in the orchestra, She was delighted to see me (and I her) not least because she is struggling with a bout of ill-health and I thought that if she had struggled through her rehearsals and the practice, not to mention the actual performance, the least I could do was to give her my support. I got the impression she was very pleased to see me and I bumped into hr husband a little later and I hope to have both of them over for a meal when the coast is clear. In the interval, I had a glass of red wine and started chatting to a couple who I did not know but was not engaged in another group. It turned out that the wife had been a teacher, knew my cellist friend well and was a fellow parishioner in my church but at the Sunday rather than the Saturday service. I mentioned the facts of Meg’s demise and she remembered the details being announced in our parish newsletter. The second half of the concert was one piece which was Bruckner’s ‘Symphony No 7’ which was a piece I had not heard before. This piece seemed to me like an artist applying layers of paint and reminded me more of a tapestry being made than anything else. The piece is long and complex taking 65 minutes to perform over four movements and deploys the use of what are called ‘Wagner tubas’ These are not tubas at all but a bit of a hybrid between a French horn and a trombone and are added to give a real depth and blast of sound in an orchestral piece. After the concert was over I returned home and cooked myself some cheese-laden scrambled eggs on one slice of toast before making some preparations for my trip to Cheltenham to visit cousins the next day. Overall, I was glad I had made the effort to go out last night but it is a slightly Kafkaesqe experience going out to a concert on one’s own on a Sunday evening. But as I explain to everyone that I meet, I must keeping on trying to engage with the world and not just withdraw into a little pit of self-pity. Needless to say, I have been thinking over some of the things I want to convey to Meg’s cousins when we meet later in the day for an extended lunch.

The morning turned out to be a bit nightmarish in more ways than one. I received a message from BT telling me that my new DECT telephone service was due to start. After my son hunted around for the base unit of the phones that we have, my son tumbled to the fact that we needed to register our existing phones on the new router. This we did but with the result that the telephone number we have enjoyed for the past 18 years had now been substituted with a new one. BT were going to issue us with a new piece of kit, free of charge, but we cannot start to resurrect our old number until the new piece of kit arrives on Wednesday and we then inform them that we do not want it a which point they can try and resurrect the old number but not before. This is frustrating but we just have to be patient. Now we come to my trip to Cheltenham to see Meg’s cousins. I filled up with petrol and collected a newspaper and my son and I had already set the coordinates for the Sat Nav. But no voice directions came through the system so by the time I got to Cheltenham, I had no idea how exactly to reach my cousins. Just to make things worse, the journey down the motorway was severely congested and for most of the journey, I had to chug along at 25-30 mph, an accident further down the road causing huge delays. I remembered the way to a suburb called Charlton Kings and then remembered my way to a pub with a large car park where Meg and I had dined with members of her extended family in the past. I then telephoned for help and was rescued by my cousin’s husband who came out in his car and I followed him their house. There I was very warmly greeted by my cousins and after a restorative cup of coffee we sat down to a magnificent lunch. I took the opportunity over lunch to inform them of a few facts about her childhood stay in France of which they were largely ignorant. Then, after lunch I had taken along an iPad with link to the speech that Meg (and I) gave to our Harrogate relatives on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary some eight years ago. My cousin’s husband who is supremely technologically competent managed to get my video ‘AirPlayed’ through his own smart TV set so we could watch the full 20 minutes presentation, the first 10 minutes of which was Meg at her fluent best speaking from memory and with no notes with no signs of the dementia that was to overtake her in the following years. The family were pleased that I had brought this along and now we came to the third objective of my visit. I had taken along a fair collection of the jewellery I had discovered in Meg’s drawer and I laid all of these pieces out on a table. The Meg’s cousins pored over the various pieces before taking possession of pieces that they particularly liked and would complement their own clothing and tastes. I was absolutely delighted that they had done this and so now they have good lasting momentos of Meg and have also taken some pieces which they think the younger members of the family will appreciate. Now it came to the journey home but it only a right hand followed by a left hand turn to get me onto the right road (which I remembered from years back) so all I hd to do was to follow my nose. Despite unclicking a box that said ‘Mute directions’ I still had no directions on the way home but I did not need any as the journey back, once Cheltenham itself is navigated, is simplicity itself.

In the late evening before yesterday, I attended church which is now part of my early Saturday evening routine and several parishioners who I had not previously known came up to me to offer their condolences even though it is now ten full weeks since Meg died. At the conclusion of the service, there was a cloudburst so we all needed to huddle in the porch of the church until the worst of the rain had passed over and we could all make a dash for our cars. Once home, I prepared myself some chicken soup and then settled down to watch the France v. Germany in the Euro football competition. An extraordinary incident occurred about a third of the way through the first half in which a German defender pulled the hair of an opposing French player which resulted in an immediate red card (and subsequent sending off) and a penalty from which the French scored to make the score 1:0. But it sometimes happens in football that a sending off inspired a team to even greater efforts and so it proved today. The Germans equalised with a stunning header and from this point on, it was a tussle throughout the rest of the game. The French, despite being the favourite to take the championship. seem to have lost their belief and did not make many crosses into the penalty area and when they did, there did not seem to be a forward there to make the finishing touch. So, it was no surprise that the game ended at 1:1 even after extra time and then the game went to a penalty shootout. I had felt in my bones that this whole game was going to end in one way. The German goalkeeper made several incredible saves and when it came to the penalty shootout, one always favoured the Germans. They did hold their nerve and always seemed so much more assured and less nervous than the French when it came to taking the penalties and eventually missed only one of their spot kicks before emerging as winners 6:5. The French twice had the ball in the net only for the VAR to spot an offside using the computerised VAR system and thus the goals were disallowed. The French have now been eliminated from this stage of the competition more than any other team in the game’s history whilst the Germans go on to take on Spain in the semi-finals (the other semi-final being the UK versus Italy next Tuesday) So it is interesting that two of the semi-finalists, England and Germany. have made it to this stage of the competition despite it looking at one stage in their respective matches as though they were on the point of elimination. But, as the commentators are wont to say, it is often a case of fine margins that determine the eventual outcome of matches. The undoubted hero of yesterday was the lanky German goalkeeper who produced some stunning saves – and in her personal life she has twice survived cancer which adds a human twist to the whole story.

After I had exercised doing some Pilates routines and then breakfasted, I received a welcome phone from my University of Birmingham friend and we made a joint decision to go, as we did last week, to the local water sports facility based on a huge ex-gravel pit where we sit under cover enjoying a cup of coffee but still enjoy a stretch of open water upon which to gaze. We spent a certain amount of time discussing the attitudes of generations younger than ourselves both towards debt but also whether younger generations felt they had a right to possessions and a life style which, for those of us who are an older generation, we had to work a lifetime to achieve. I have to admit that this is the type of conversation in which only men over a certain age will tend to indulge but my friend and I do think quite alike on many issues. As soon as I was being dropped at home by my friend, upon his departure I was led into a conversation with a very long-standing friend of my next-door neighbour who just happened to be arriving at the same time. My next-door neighbour had informed her friend of my recent loss and as she had been widowed some ten years before, we swapped some stories upon our various coping strategies and this was quite an entertaining, and useful, little chat. Then when I got inside the house I read a text from the cousins that I am to visit tomorrow and was delighted to learn that another set of cousins (the two female members being sisters) were also staying in Cheltenham so we should have a jolly little gathering of Meg’s relatives who were present at her funeral but there is so much more than I want to convey to them. Tomorrow, I am going to take a long a laptop which I trust will give me access to a long video clip of Meg and myself giving some recollections to the Yorkshire branch of the family on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary (and before Meg’s ultimate illness finally took its toll) I also have quite a lot of interesting information about Meg’s childhood to share with the family because I suspect that they do not know very much of it. Finally, I am taking the opportunity to take some of Meg’s collection of jewellery along so that family members can retain a keep sake of her.

Although I have been in two minds about it, I think that I will after all attend the concert in our local church and I have permission from our Irish friends to park on their drive-way so that most of the journey will be by car. Our fellow parishioner who acted as a Eucharistic minister to us is going to be playing her cello on the improvised orchestra so I do feel I would like to go along and give her some support. I intend to take along a cushion as the hard wooden benches can be uncomfortable if the concert is a long one and it starts at 7.00pm in the evening. There is typically a little wine or coffee break in the middle of it in any event, or at least I trust so.

The afternoon before yesterday, pleased with the fact that I had got my two ‘smart’ speakers connected to the new router, I thought I would give BT (my previous internet provider) a quick call to ensure that I did have an old contract with BT and a new contract with EE running side by side. EE have taken over BT and this can make life confusing for people such as myself who have deals with both halves of the now merged business. But I found had a very helpful person on the BT side of the business who confirmed that my contract with BT had now terminated and there were no hang-over bills to pay. But what was so helpful is that when I mentioned that the previous router had been posted back to them, the operative asked me for the tracking number supplied to me on the Post Office receipt so that they she could make a note of it on my file and hence there should be no subsequent chasing of me for the return of equipment as if it did not turn up I would be charged for it. It is early days yet but if I can believe the ‘free’ speed tests available on the internet, I may be getting four times the internet speed I had previously for a lower price. Last night, I was quite keen to watch the Switzerland versus Spain Euro football match. But as the Swiss were so much the underdogs in this match, my support started to switch towards them and I thought that they did an excellent job in repelling the Spanish and did not allow them to play their normal passing game. The Swiss managed to hold out for three quarters of the game and then the almost inevitable couple of Spanish goals ensued and Spain won the game 2:0 without extra time or penalties. Tonight, there will be the last of the quarter finals which is France v. Germany and I anticipate that this will be a marvellous match although, on current form, the French should emerge as the eventual winners. The day dawned today with the storm clouds gathering so it is a ‘touch and go’ decision whether I risk a walk down to town or whether I go by car so that I do not get caught in a cloudburst. My Irish friend from down the road very kindly either gave me or loaned me one of those emergency rain protection packages that used to go by the name of ‘Pak-a-mac’ but I have not had occasion to use this as the Spring had been so dry. But now that we are well and truly into cloudburst weather, I need to ensure that I have it permanently stored in my little rucksack. I am due to meet two sets of friends down in Wetherspoon’s today which is now a regular part of my Saturday morning routine. I am also thinking ahead to next Monday when I shall be taking the car on its first big run (for me) when I visit Meg’s cousins in Cheltenham which is only 39 miles away and quite an easy journey down the M5 for most of it.

I walked down into town today but it was a little humid with small droplets of rain in the air. I met up with two lots of friends between whom I split my time (and locations within Wetherspoons) One of my friends and I discussed the phenomenon which must be known to many people that that after the death or departure of a loved one, there are moments (only lasting about a tenth of a second) when you still feel that your loved one is still present only for the reality to kick in that they are well and truly departed. After I left Wetherspoons, I was tempted down the High Street and actually did venture into the Salvation Army charity shop where I was tempted to buy, and did indeed purchase, a pair of tailored shorts which were attractive to me because they had some zipped pockets out of which vital things like car keys are less liable to fall. When I returned home, as I was cooking some chicken breasts for my lunch, I had a bit of a scour through one of the drawers in the chest-of-drawers where Meg kept her jewellery. I am going to take a selection of this with me when I visit her cousins in Cheltenham this forthcoming Monday. I suppose that not many men or husbands are used to sorting their wife’s jewellery as they leave this to their wives (as wives leave the contents of Toolkit to their husband no doubt) Quite a lot of this is costume jewellery but some items might have slightly more value but I suppose the principal thing is that passing on bits of jewellery is a way of remembering those who have passed on and hence ‘keepsakes’ I sent off some messages and emails this afternoon to keep up with correspondence and appointments and am trying to decide whether I want to go to a concert in our local church to be held on Sunday night starting at 7.00 in the evening (a little late in the day for me but there is no football to contend with the concert)

Sky News is reporting that dozens of people protesting against the ban of Palestine Action have been arrested in Westminster. Similar demonstrations are being held in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro after the group was officially designated as a proscribed terrorist organisation two weeks ago. Protesters gathered in Parliament Square carrying white placards with the message: ‘I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.’ Some were carried away by officers, while others were led away in handcuffs. If found guilty, which seems to be a foregone conclusion, each protestor could face up to fourteen years in gaol. But one wonders what the attitudes of the judiciary might be when middle class protestors do not quite fit into the popular conception of a terrorist according to the legislation that is being deployed against the protestors. As so often, it will be interesting to see what the media as a whole and the political commentators make of these arrests when these matters are discussed on the politics programmes transmitted on Sunday mornings.

The night before yesterday was dominated, of course, by the Euro quarter-finals match between England and Sweden. This turned out to be one of the most memorable matches ever watched. The England team sloppily conceded a goal to the Swedes after a poor clearance in defence and from this point on, the Swedes really dominated the match scoring another goal half way through the first half and could easily have added a couple more. Indeed, a score of 4:0 to the Swedes rather than 2:0 would not have been an unfair result at half-time. The Swedes were quicker to the ball, completely closed England down and completely outplayed them throughout the whole of the half although England did have one shot on goal that was tipped onto the crossbar. In the second half, England played much better looking as though they really intended to make a match of it but the teams were practically equally matched for two thirds of the half. Then the England manager made a couple of inspired substitutions and England scored two goals in less than two minutes, one of the substitutes contributing the second. From this point on, there was a tense finish to the match as the scores were level at 2:2 and so it remained for the remainder of the match and for the thirty minutes of extra time that was played. So now we come to the dreaded penalty shootout in which of the 14 penalties taken, 9 were missed and only 5 resulted in a goal. So, England scored from three penalties and missed at least three but the Swedes did even worse and only scored from two of their penalties meaning that England won the penalty shootout by 3:2. This has been judged the worst penalty shootout of all time by commentators to the game and in some respects, the England team can regard themselves as extremely lucky. I think it is fair to say that the best team on the day did not win the match but England live to fight another day in a semi-final against Italy next Tuesday. The English women really threw themselves into the later stages of the match and picked up a fair share of injuries some minor but a major one to the team captain which may keep her out of the next match. So, as I say this was one of the most extraordinary football matches it was possible to witness and the Swedes, having dominated so much of the match and creating the better chances, must feel devastated. But that, as they say is football and as Napoleon is said to have remarked ‘Give me generals that are lucky!’ Incidentally, there is no proof that Napoleon ever did say this but the saying is often attributed to him.

The day started off fairly bright and sunny but I have no major things scheduled for the day except that my son and I might put our collective minds towards the installation of a new router which EE, our broadband provider, thinks is necessary for us in an updated contract. My son called round and after we had breakfasted together, we set about getting the new EE router installed. This had all of the appearance in being identical with the existing one but it is possible that it has an enhanced chipset within it. The technology seemed to install without fuss and then we set to work making sure that the various devices recognise the new router. We had to supply new credentials to my main desktop and the two portables that I have and this seemed unproblematic. We turned our attention to the two TV sets one in the Main Lounge and one in the Music Lounge but as these are on a kind of network that runs throughout the house via the electric cabling, they needed no updating and still work as formerly. Then I boxed up the old router ready for despatch back to EE whilst my son was simultaneously packing up his NHS supplied IT equipment ready for it to be collected on Monday. I went into town to get the router despatched via the Post Office who just scanned a ‘returns’ QR on my phone but I am being particularly careful with the Post Office receipt I was given in case they deny ever having had it returned. Then having thought I had got everything sorted out, the two Amazon Echo devices I have installed one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom did not work as they still thought they were connected to the former router. The only way to reconnect is through the Alexa app but I had an idea this never seemed to work on my current iPhone but worked perfectly on the previous iPhone that I have retained as a backup. This needed some charge so I left it for a couple of hours and then tried the Alexa app on the kitchen smart speaker. Having got its new password credentials this sprang into life much to my relief as I play it in the kitchen several times a day. Then I turned my attention via the app to the bedroom smart speaker and this recognised the new credentials without my having to re-enter them (so presumably smart speakers communicate with each other via Amazon) Anyway, another tech problem was solved for the day. The football match this evening is going to be Spain vs. Switzerland. Which is a ‘must see’ match. On the one hand Spain is one of the tournaments favourites and may well in the fullness of time prove to be the ultimate champions but Switzerland is playing on their home soil and the stadium is bound to be filled to capacity with fervent supporters. So, as in last night’s football, unpredictable things can and do happen although I shall be rooting for Spain to win.

As the weather systems change after the spell of hot weather, some violent thunder storms are predicted in the next day or so, particularly for the South of England. These may or may not sweep up the country tomorrow but a violent thunder storm with a cloud burst of its accompanying rain would surely be welcome to most of us at the moment. The weather is quite humid at the moment but I may squeeze in a little bit of gardening.

The night before yesterday, before I came to bed, I did a quick check of my bank account which I often do last thing at night and record all of the results in a big black ledger I keep for the purpose. Here was a sort of pleasant surprise because it was evident that the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) had paid some monies into my account some of which would be Meg’s back pension and some of which should be the small proportion which is a continuation of it. But without a letter of explanation which will probably arrive in the next day or so, there is no way of knowing how the figures have been calculated, how much is ‘back’ pension, whether tax has been applied to it and to what dates the monies refer. So I spent a certain amount of time before I went to bed trying to make heads or tails of the figures that had just appeared. As it stands the figures are falling between the continuation of Meg’s pension for three months which is promised on the Teacher’s Pension Agency website but then less than the continuation pension might turn out to be. I shall just have to be patient and wait to see what explanation I am given by the Teachers’ Pensions Agency. I had phoned them last Friday and they thought that I might hear from them within the next ten working days i.e. two weeks of waiting but I am relieved in the extreme that something seems to be happening some two and a half months after Meg’s demise. Some friends of mine have warned me that I might have to wait months rather than weeks for activity on the part of the TPA so I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies. Last night, it appeared to have rained during the night for which again, I and the rest of the country are grateful but we now need several days of sustained rain to return the gardens to a state of normality. In the evening before yesterday, I watched the Norway vs. Italy Euro competition deciding to support Norway which I thought I would support as I imagined them to be underdogs in the match against Italy. To my mind, and perhaps I am being unduly sensitive about this, the commentary team seemed to manifest evident favouritism towards the Italians and hostility towards the Norwegians. The reasons for this I cannot fathom although perhaps it had been judged that the Norwegians had been lucky so far in the competition. But we had a wonderful example of that is often called ‘the commentator’s curse’ when one commentator stated that Italy were now only twenty minutes away from a semi-final after which the Norwegians scored some 10-15 seconds later. Later in the day, we have the England vs. Sweden quarter final in which the Swedes may well prove to be really tough opponents. As the day unfolds, it is my shopping day and under my revised regime I try to hit the shops just after the rush hour traffich had abated and before the shops get busier. My shopping went well and truly to plan in the morning and I find I do not have to rush around with the same frenetic intensity as was my wont because I was anxious to minimise the amount of time when I was out of the house and Meg’s separation anxiety was acute. But there are two particularly poignant moments involved in my shopping ventures. The first is when I go past the shelves where I used to buy products for Meg’s use and these I now have walk on past rapidly. The second moment is when I return to the house with my full shopping bags because Meg was always so pleased to see me on my return and now, of course, I am greeted by the empty chair.

Lunch was quite considerably delayed today for the following reason. I telephoned my son to update him about one or two things and he suggested that I should download and the activate the Inland revenue app to keep control of my finances. This was, of course good advice but turned out to be pretty complicated. In the first place, having download the Inland Revenue app the system needed my Government Gateway credentials to proceed. When I eventually located this, the system informed me that my present Government Gateway credentials had been cancelled as I had not used them for some time. So, I had to download the Government gateway app and then another more specialist app to help you to gain access to the system. This offered the possibility of getting your passport page containing the photograph scanned and this took several attempts before the system accepted the photo of my face. Then my own face had to be scanned to match the passport photo. Finally, the passport had to be held in a particular way against my iPhone so that the embedded chop within the passport could then be read by the installation app. All of this took at least an hour but all of my efforts were crowned with success and life should be easier from this point on. For a start, the Inland Revenue will now log me in directly via the automatic face recognition facility now that this feature has been facilitated but I am still no nearer getting the information concerning Meg’s pension arrangements clarified. No letter arrived by his morning’s post as I hope that it would so I have to be patient for some days more. Later on in evening will be the England-Sweden match which I am sure will be a very tense and hard-fought affair. As is so often the case, I expect that the match will be decided by a single mistake, or a strike of brilliance from either side where the ball just curls inside the net. The winners of this match will play Italy in a few day’s time as well.

One announcement from the political system is that that at the next General Election, 16 and 17 years old are to be given the vote. The consensus view is that it is hard to predict which parties will particularly benefit from this but I would imagine that the Greens will probably pick up a fair amount of the extra votes and the Tories will struggle to appeal to the younger generations as their supporters are much older than the rest of us on average.