Yesterday, I got up just before 6.00am as I seem to have entered a pattern where I awake a few minutes before the alarm goes off and go off to make myself a customary huge mug of tea with which to start the day. Meg seemed to sleep quite soundly and is in what appears to be a deep doze during much of the day but I am managing to get some food inside her (just) at mealtimes, even though her eyes are closed. This has implications for the way in which the day is going to progress because I normally try to hunt out interesting programmes for us both to watch during the afternoon but if Meg is only semi-connected to the world and has her eyes closed, then TV watching becomes a solitary rather than a joint activity. On days where the weather is mild and we have no other commitments, then I am still persisting with ensuring that Meg is pushed down the hill every day in her wheelchair so that she gets some fresh air in her lungs, coupled with which there is always the odd chance that I might bump into some friends and acquaintances such as my Italian friend who lives down the road. I have today finally cracked the solution to a facility that I have had with Outlook. I knew that in the past I had stumbled across the fact that one could customise the editor according to one’s preferences and I have now discovered where in the complex menu structure this is located. The practical implication is that I have managed to make UK English rather than American English the preferred editing language which, of course, means that words are spelt with the English ‘s’s rather than the American ‘z’ (words such as ‘organise’) Now that I am becoming more accustomed to the Outlook editor in which I always save what I am working on in the ‘Drafts’ section it means that I can catch many more typos as I work making my work so much easier to check upon completion.

As Inauguration Day approaches for Donald Trump, I keep reflecting upon what the original 18th century framers of the American constitution would make of the current American political scene. They were at pains to construct a system in which there would (nearly always) be a check upon absolute powers and did not envisage a situation in which the Supreme Court, the Presidency and both houses of Congress would be under the control of one party (i.e. the Republicans) Added to this, we have a situation in which the President elect consistently lies (the Washington Post documented more than 30,573 either downright untruths or misleading claims whilst the President was in power for four years) and is entering the White House as a convicted felon having found guilty by a New York court of false accounting and illegal payments to a porn star. Added to all of this, we have the world’s richest and most influential men (Musk, Besos and Zuckerberg) attending the inauguration having donated huge amounts of money to Trump, removed fact checking from the media under their control such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘X’ (ex Twitter) and are being given positions of influence if not outright power in the new administration. Some commentators are saying that this unholy alliance is bound to end up in squabbles and ‘fallings out’ given the inordinate egos of all of the individuals concerned but there are few signs of this happening at the moment. Even British political figures are engaging in a cozying up to President elect Trump and there appears to be no countervailing sources of power that will stand up to this cabal running American politics (under the circumstances nobody is using the word ‘cabal’ but I feel it is fully justified in the circumstances that we now face)

The care workers were scheduled to be half an hour later this morning so I used this to send a long reply detailing Meg’s current condition to our long standing Spanish friends in La Coruna. The care workers arrived 20 minutes earlier than they were scheduled but one of them was one of the agency’s managers who regularly puts himself on a shift and it is always useful to chat with him. He was incredibly busy preparing for a CQC (Care Quality Commission) visit in the next few days so we ourselves shall expect that in addition to a normal complement of care workers, they might well be accompanied by an inspector who can assess the quality of the care provided first hand. After breakfast this morning, it turned out to be to be a beautifully sunny day so I made sure that Meg was well wrapped in blankets (and even I had put on an extra pair of socks which I purchased yesterday in what were termed ‘boot socks’) and then we made our way down the hill. I took the opportunity to purchase some extra milk as well as picking up our newspaper but the Waitrose partner reminded me that even though the cafeteria was closed, customers who possessed a Waitrose card could still avail themselves of a free coffee from the machine which I did) On my way back up the hill, I ran into our Italian friend again with whom I had a pleasant chat. After the accident which had written off her car, she was having a bit of trouble with one of her legs and wondered if there might be a degree of delayed trauma. But the hospital had not found anything really amiss and recommended a regime of rest and some exercise to allow the leg to heal itself. Our friend was adapting to life without a car and was taking the opportunity of a little walk as the sun was shining and the weather more benign than of late. It was one of those days in which although the air was cool, you could just about feel some of the warmth of a pale winter sun. On arriving home, I managed a brief chat with our neighbours who I had not seen for some time so I managed to give them a quick update on Meg’s condition whilst they were on their way down to the park to give their newly acquired little puppy some exercise. Meg and I started watching Questions to the Prime Minister during which time I feel completely asleep and was awoken by my phone ringing with our GP’s surgery making a call which, unfortunately, I just too late to answer.

Yesterday the mild spell continued and the temperatures from now on should approximate to those of a ‘normal’ January. At 6.00am this morning, the outside temperature was 3° and is predicted to rise to about 6° at the time we come to walk down into town to see our friends. The overnight political news was the resurgence of the Reform party. Reform UK has grown in support to within one percentage point of Labour according to a new poll for Sky News by YouGov which suggests Britain has entered a new era of three-way party politics. Sir Keir Starmer looks set to spend the parliament locked in a fight with two right-wing parties after Labour support dropped sharply in the first YouGov poll since the general election. The poll shows the Tories have now been pushed into third place – two months after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader. The data collected over the weekend puts Labour on 26%, Reform UK on 25%, Conservatives on 22%, Liberal Democrats on 14% and Greens on 8%.By all accounts, Reform has put its party in the country on a much more professional footing with a proper vetting of parliamentary candidates but the real first test will be the local elections that will be held in May. Voters across England and Wales will head to the polls in a major set of mayoral and local elections. Highest profile were the election of 10 influential metro mayors across England, including in Greater London and all of England’s largest cities. Voters also elected several thousand local councillors, 37 police and crime commissioners and the 25 members of the London Assembly. Apart from Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday at noon, the big event upon which the world’s press is focused is the inauguration of Donald Trump next Monday, 20th January and what he does (as he has threatened to do) on Day 1 in office.

As yesterday was a Tuesday, we were looking forward to meeting in our new venue of Wetherspoons in the centre of Bromsgrove. So we met with a couple of our friends and ordered some pancakes to accompany the drinking chocolate of which we can enjoy as many refills as we desire. The prices charged are so cheap that the Inveterate Hill walker in our midst was driven to explain the Wetherspoon’s model thus: ‘They rely upon charging a large number of people very little instead of a small number of people quite a lot’ Having consumed our pancakes, we made for home but not before calling in on a local cosmetics and toilet supplies shop to replenish some of our supplies and, in particular, some ointment for cracked heels which always plague me whenever the weather is particularly cold and icy as it has been for the last few days. Whilst we were out on the road, I got called twice by one of the local doctors as I requested a consultation on the practice website when it opened this morning. In particular, I wished the GP to make an onward reference to a SALT (Speech and Language Therapist) as apparently they are also specialists in the swallowing reflex. Patients with Meg’s condition often find it difficult to masticate and to swallow food and although I am making the necessary adjustments to Meg’s diet, there may be some special feeding utensils and/or food supplements that may assist. The doctor indicated that he would mark his request as a matter of urgency but neither of us are particularly cognizant of when a visit to Meg might be feasible. I also got a second call from the Doctor (when I was out in the street) to ensure that Meg’s ‘respect’ documentation was all in order. This is to ensure that in the event of an emergency, Meg does not necessarily get carted off to an A&E department but will be treated as far as possible at home.

The political news this afternoon is Tulip Sidiq, the anti-corruption minister, has resigned although she claims to have done nothing wrong but, nonetheless, referred herself to the prime minister’s ethics watchdog, Sir Laurie Magnus, last week. In a letter to Sir Keir, the independent adviser called it ‘regrettable’ that Ms Siddiq ‘was not more alert to the potential reputational risks’ arising from her close family’s association with Bangladesh. He said this ‘shortcoming’ should not be taken as a breach of the ministerial code, ‘but you will want to consider her ongoing responsibilities in the light of this’ In the face of a comment like this, there was no real option for Tulip Siddiq but to resign. If I had been Prime Minister of an incoming government I would have informed Cabinet colleagues that having elected as the successor to a sleaze-ridden series of governments, the Labour Party needed to appear to be whiter than white and were this not to be the case, then ministers would be asked to resign within seconds and before their feet touched the floor. Naturally, I shall watch the political news with particular interest tonight but I suspect that many in the Labour Party might be relieved that the scandal will not drag on and on. In the middle of the afternoon, I received a communication from the building firm offering me a time-slot to assess the damage to our dining room ceiling and adjacent areas after the bad leak we had last week. I was a bit dismayed to have to wait a week more before we start to get any remedial action but I suppose that with the spell of freezing weather followed by a thaw, there will be cracked pipes followed by leaks all over the country.

It appears that a deal might be close in Gaza bringing something resembling peace to that war-torn area. I wonder though whether Joe Biden who has been very active behind the scenes will get the credit for hi or whether it might be delayed for a few days this enabling Trump. immediately after his inauguration to clam having brought peace to the area even though he as not lifted a finger and he prize of the ‘peace deal’ might just drop in his lap i.e. whilst he is President.

The weather, I am pleased to say, was turning slightly milder yesterday morning with a temperature when I awoke of 3° leading to a high of 5° later on in the day. There are no real plans for today apart from progressing our insurance claim after the leak which will surely go on for some time. In the meantime, we are making efforts to slowly dry the room out with a fan heater being on most of the time. Sky News is reporting this morning that The government will ‘mainline AI into the veins’ of the UK, with plans being unveiled today by Sir Keir Starmer. The prime minister is set to promise investment, jobs and economic growth due to a boom in the sector. It comes as his government battles against allegations they are mismanaging the economy and stymied growth with the budget last autumn. The government’s announcement claims that, if AI is ‘fully embraced’, it could bring £47bn to the economy every year. And it says that £14bn is set to be invested by the private sector, bringing around 13,000 jobs. Those of us of a certain age and political generation may remember Harold Wilson’s pledge to a Labour Party conference that a new Labour government would ’embrace the white hot heat of a technological revolution’ but I do not remember it ever happening. Wilson was keen to promote the idea of being a moderniser as well as courting the votes of a newly emerging cadre of scientists and technologists. If the speech was rapturously received by Wilson’s contemporaries, most historians have taken a rather more sceptical view. After winning the 1964 general election Wilson did keep his promise to establish a dedicated Ministry of (Education and) Science, but his government failed to deliver the scientific national renewal that the Scarborough speech had promised, and was in fact responsible for scrapping several high-profile technology projects. The big political story today is that even if Tulip Siddiq resigns, the damage may already be done to Sir Keir Starmer. Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq is coming under increasing pressure over the way she used properties that were reportedly gifted to her. She has denied any wrongdoing. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case which are being established as we write, the thought of a Labour MP being gifted or at least benefiting from several London based properties is not what most of the electorate feel is appropriate for an MP with socialist principles – if she were a Tory, of course, there would be no problem.

Currently, I am having problems getting food and drink inside Meg because of her difficulties in swallowing. From my reading, I realise that I need an onward reference to a SALT (Speech and Language Therapist) and so I got onto the nurses who specialise in Meg’s condition to see if they could make an onward reference on my behalf. They informed me that only a GP can make on onward reference and so I contacted the surgery – but after the time that their appointments website had closed. I was informed that there were no appointment slots left for today and they could offer me next week – when I protested that a dementia patient could have choked to death in the meanwhile, I was offered the opportunity to use their website tomorrow which may then give me access to a GP who alone can make on onward referral which may be days if not weeks ahead. Of course, Monday is not a good day to contact the GP service and I was hoping that the specialist nurses could fast track me but it was not to be. In the meanwhile, at least I got some porridge inside Meg this morning which is an improvement on a couple of days ago. As the weather has improved, I had decided that I would wrap Meg up warmly and proceed into town. I gave up the unequal struggle to try to get an outer jacket onto Meg as her limbs are now so unresponsive and made do with a quite a thick heavy travel rug which I think was probably warmer in any event. Whilst in Waitrose, a couple of the staff commiserated with me about the loss of the cafeteria, as did a couple of other store regulars who recognised myself and Meg and expressed similar sentiments mourning the loss of the facility. I asked one of the staff with whom I get on very well about the cafeteria area and it looks as though they may use it as an expanded bakery area. Whilst in the store, we bought some packet soups of a flavour not available in Aldi and also some mousse confections which I know I can safely into Meg these days. On the way back home, though, we bumped into our Italian friend who gave me some good news. The French lady who lives down the road and is a near neighbour of our other friends down the road is certainly selling her house but not moving to be near to her daughter in Sandbach. Apparently she has decided to buy a flat within striking distance of Bromsgrove town centre about which I am delighted as it means we can still see each other when the occasion demands. Our Italian friend had had a bad accident in her car which was now written off by the insurance company and she has decided, I think very sensibly, not to bother with getting another car as she is over 80. She has worked out, and I totally agree, that you can get a tremendous volume of taxi rides instead of the expenses involved in running a car. I updated our friend on Meg’s condition and, in the same way that I gave her a lot of emotional support when other own husband died about ten years ago now, she promised to reciprocate when the inevitable happens as it will in the months ahead. Whilst Meg is continuing to sleep, I have prepared a lunch of beef, broccoli and baked potatoes, But I have cut the meat into incredibly small cubes so that I can feed them so much more easily when I come to give Meg her meal later in the day.

Yesterday, the current spell of cold weather seemed to be coming to a natural conclusion because when I got up shortly before 6.00am and consulted my smart speaker about the weather, the temperature was -1° whereas the day before at the same time it had been -6° so that is a 5° improvement which is surely to be welcomed. Milder air is working its way very gradually from the west which means that we should have warmer conditions in the first part of the week whereas a high pressure zone of dryer air will persist over the South East of the UK. It then looks as though the weather may dip again slightly but not to the extent that we have experienced in recent days. The evening and night before has not been a good one for Meg. Although she had been in a deep sleep throughout much of the preceding day, in bed she was semi-awake and in an agitated condition, seemingly for hours at a time. As I have a camp bed next to her, I can extend a friendly arm and hand for comfort but in her agitated state she will not hold onto this for more than about a second. Under the circumstances, I am just hoping that sleep will overwhelm her but this is very uncertain. The whole of yesterday all I managed to get past her lips was a small chocolate mousse which I had bought ‘on spec’ the last time I went shopping and which has proved invaluable. In the evening before, we were limited to only one carer getting Meg to bed so I had to assist for the second time (if not the third time) that day. The care agency are pleading ‘staff sickness’ which, of course, seems to be perennial. When Meg was in bed last night, I watched a Lucy Worsley quite revisionist programme on the Gunpowder plot and learned a few things I did not already know. She was arguing that Guy Fawkes was a convert to Catholicism and the real ringleader of the conspiracy Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes may have been radicalised by their witnessing of the death of Margaret Clitheroe in York. Margaret Clitheroe (whose hand is actually preserved in The Bar Convent in York where my sister went to school and which relic I have actually seen) was put to death in a very public and humiliating way for providing a safe place of Catholic priests for which she was repeatedly fined and imprisoned. She was laid on a door with a sharp stone being placed under her back and then a door was placed on top of her and heavy weights put on top of the door before she was literally crushed to her death. She apparently died within 15 minutes but the authorities left her in place for some six hours presumably as a warning to the rest of the public. The Worsley programme was at pains to discover the roots of the radicalisation of the young Catholic males who formed the conspiracy and drew parallels with the radicalisation process of some contemporary Islamic ‘martyrs’.

The care workers were due an hour later this morning but I acted on the suggestion of last night’s carer and gave Meg some chocolate ice-cream this morning, which I was please to say that she enjoyed. Then after she was up, I managed to get Meg to have her customary breakfast of porridge which was a great improvement on yesterday. Then our University of Birmingham friend called around at 11.00 and I was very pleased to see him. We always have interesting chats and this mornings involved questions of astronomy which intrigued us both. After he had left, it was practically time for the couple of carers to arrive and as Meg did not require too much of their attention, I managed to seize the opportunity to pop down the hill and to get a copy of the ‘Sunday Times’, required reading for a Sunday evening. One of the care workers whose mother had had an illness similar to that of Meg’s came me some good advice about getting in touch with a Language and Speech specialist as they have expertise in problems of swallowing and thought that Meg could benefit from some of their particular expertise. This I will do in the morning but I fear it might be quite some time before I can receive any practical help. Whilst in the Waitrose store, I was delighted to bump into our Irish friend who was shortly to go off to Ireland to visit the cottage she has over there and where she needed to make a lightning visit to sort out the affairs of an elderly uncle who was recently died but whose affairs needed some attention. I explained to our friend as now that the weather had improved, we hope we might make a trip down to Wetherspoons and we agreed that perhaps some time after their return from Ireland, this would provide a good venue for us all to meet and have a coffee together. After I returned home, it was time to think about preparing lunch. I had cooked the portion of beef upon which we were to dine in the slow cooker overnight so this made the rest of the lunch fairly easy to prepare. Then having had my own lunch, I was delighted to get a goodly portion of food into Meg which was a considerable improvement on yesterday. Then eventually, we settled down to watch the excellent production of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which was broadcast on BBC2 last night and which I had been saving for a time when Meg and I could view it together. It is fair to say that Meg slept through most of it and I myself slept through some of it, but nonetheless, I was sufficiently awake for some of the most dramatic moments of the film and very enjoyable it was as well. We are expecting a couple of carers in the late afternoon with whom we get on particularly well but it is going to be rather a poignant meeting because the young female carer who is a Psychology graduate is going to leave the caring profession to start a career as a publishing assistant and today is her very last day so after several months of wonderful association we shall probably not see her again.

Yesterday I awoke 6 minutes before the time that Alex generally wakes me up at 6.00am in the morning but although reluctant to leave my warm bed, I knew that the care workers had been allocated to come along at 7.00am rather than 8.00am (for reasons which they do not communicate to us) The Met Office confirms Friday was the coldest night of winter so far in the UK, with the temperatures falling to -17.3C in Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands. Meanwhile, Saturday is likely to be bitterly cold, while Sunday is forecast to be a little milder. The weather here in Bromsgrove was -6° and it is not predicted to rise much during the day but we may get a high of 1°. Just before I went to bed last night, I thought I would consult my emails and found (in my ‘Junk’ folder) a communication from the building firm which has been subcontracted by the insurance company to assess (and hopefully repair) the damage caused by repairing the bad leak which afflicted us yesterday. The firm wished me to send electronic copies of the invoice supplied by the emergency plumber (which I had to scan as their own website refused to accept the job number on the invoice) and also photos of the damage. Fortunately my son had taken ten photos of the damage but this had to be uploaded and described to the building form so, all in all, this took about an hour to do when I was desperate to get to bed. On the brighter side, at least the job was done and the receipt of the uploaded files acknowledged so at least I am into their system. But the firm’s email implied that they could not progress any claim until their documentation had been completed so what less competent IT people would have done, I cannot start to imagine. Many have smart phones these days but not necessarily a scanner but I suppose people out there will take a photo of the bill with their smart phones to get an electronic copy. Normally we would consider getting out to see friends but the weather is so ferociously cold I must just stay in all day. Meg and I do have a sort of midday treat to which to look forward because there is a film of the life of Anne Frank broadcast which I hope is worth watching.

On the international front, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has refused to condemn Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal. Mr Lammy told Sky News he is ‘not in the business of condemning our closest ally’ when asked if he would denounce the US president-elect’s rhetoric. On Wednesday, Mr Trump said he could ‘not assure’ the world he would not resort to military action or economic coercion to try to get control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. He has said he wants the US to buy the vast island off Canada’s east coast that is home to a large US military base ‘for purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world’. Once you enter the mindset of the rich and powerful thinking they can (almost literally) walk over their weaker neighbours, one can understand how Trump views Putin. As the Ukraine was once part of the USSR, then Putin probably feels he has a ‘right’ to retake Ukraine and no doubt Donald Trump in his present expansionary mood, probably agrees with Putin. None of this bodes at all well for the moves that Trump will made once he is inaugurated and the inauguration is only just over a week away.

Our front door bell seems to have failed and it is essential that this is working so that the care workers can alert me to their presence. One of them who had arrived early was outside in the cold for up to a quarter of an hour so this situation has to be rectified. I did take out the batteries and give them a gentle warming in the oven but this move was not enough. Then as a light glows in the keypress when it is pressed, I reckoned there must be a battery inside which had probably not been renewed for about ten years or more. So I removed it from its sticky mount and prised it open to discover that there was a coin size battery of type CR2032 inside. I promptly went ahead and ordered some of these which will arrive some time tomorrow. Then whilst Meg was sound asleep, I decided to go to the garage down the road to pick up both a newspaper and buy a battery. I did get the last copy of the newspaper but the garage said it did not stock the coin size batteries so I went next door to a store called ‘Homes and Gardens’ where they have a large battery bar, as it were. Here too I drew a blank so went to my local Asda where I did find what I was looking for and Meg was still asleep when I returned. I fitted the new coin size battery and was relieved that this solved my problem for me. When the batteries arrive tomorrow, they will always be useful to have in stock.

In the afternoon, Meg was still fast asleep as she has been all day and so I started to watch ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ made in 1959 and shot in black and white which suits the bleak character of the theme. The young Asian male carer arrived early and as there had been a terrific smash on the dual carriage way between Bromsgrove and Redditch was not keen to depart until the carriage way had been cleared. So we had lunch together, the young carer insisting that I have something from Greggs that got delivered to the house. So after a long chat on the ‘meaning of life’ (well, largely modern relationships in the younger generation) the carer left but he was due to return with another young companion carer for Meg’s teatime call. I then tuned into the last five minutes of the Anne Frank film which was poignant but art least we were spared the gory details of Anne Frank’s death in a German concentration camp a few months before liberation by the Allied forces in 1945.

Yesterday we awoke to freezing temperatures yet again and predictions that the day might prove to be the coldest of the present cold snap. The Meteorological Office is predicting that in the North, the temperatures could fall as low as -15° or even -20° tonight but there may be some amelioration by Monday or Tuesday. The news media is dominated with a fascinated horror by the wildfires that are sweeping California, not sparing the homes of the rich and famous. I suppose we are quite used to seeing scenes of devastation involving earthquakes, floods and fire afflicting poor communities but what is so unusual about the current troubles is that it is occurring in the middle of a Northern hemisphere winter and not summer and afflicting affluent communities who must rank amongst some of the more affluent on this planet. In an extraordinary, ‘non interview’ with Sky News, the mayor of Los Angeles had returned from a holiday trip to Ghana and the following interrogation ensued. A Sky News team was on the same plane as the Los Angeles mayor as she landed back in the city yesterday. Karen Bass was returning from a trip to Ghana when our correspondent asked if she felt she owed an apology to LA citizens for being absent. The mayor was speechless and stone-faced and refused to answer the questions regarding an apology for being absent at such a crucial time.

We have a real domestic emergency on our hands with a major leak of water in the house affecting the dining room where water was dripping through the ceiling and the lower part of the hall. Our son has organised an emergency plumber who is due to call between the hours of 8.00 and 10.00 so we just have to sit in the house (without water, central heating) until then. Actually, the whole of the day has been rather dominated by this domestic emergency. My son came and turned off the water and the central heating and arranged for the emergency plumber who skillfully diagnosed the source of a leak in a split pipe which was under pressure. He arrived at about 9.00am and was with us for an hour and a half – we finished up with a hole cut into our dining room ceiling about a metre squared and then my son and domestic help busied themselves with a certain amount of tidying up whilst I looked after Meg. The carpet had to be dried as far as we could and one of the curtains taken down. Once the emergency plumber had departed I had a series of phone calls with our Insurance company. This always seemed to be long and protracted but eventually I got through to the right department after a certain amount of redirection. The upshot of all of this is that a building surveyor should be making contact with us on about Monday to come and assess the damage to the ceiling and, hopefully, to start to effect a repair. This will no doubt be in two stages as first there is the repair and then there is the inevitable redecoration. I can see this going on for about a month altogether and, I must admit, adds to the not very good start to the New Year. Halfway through the morning, I had a phone call from one of Meg’s distant cousins. She had phoned the day before but these days people always seem to put the phone down the minute I get to it.

On the other side of the Atlantic, as well as the terrible news about the forest fires in California, we have witnessed one of the final dramas in the legal case surrounding Donald Trump. He has been handed a no-penalty sentence following his conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. The incoming US president has received an unconditional discharge – meaning he will not face jail time, probation or a fine. Manhattan Judge Juan M Merchan could have jailed him for up to four years. The sentencing in Manhattan comes just 10 days before the 78-year-old is due to be inaugurated as US president for a second time on 20 January. Trump appeared at the hearing by videolink and addressed the court before he was sentenced, telling the judge the case had been a ‘very terrible experience’ for him. He claimed it was handled inappropriately and by someone connected with his political opponents. This means that Trump will be inaugurated as a convicted felon – the first time I believe in US history. But to be declared guilty and then to receive no penalty – not even a nominal fine – points to the way in which the rich and powerful can break the law with impunity. I once read a terrible story about how a British architect did some work for the Trump organisation who were satisfied with the work done but refused to pay him the agreed rate for the job. I think he was paid about a third and then told to sue the Trump corporation for the remainder who knew that the architect did not have the resources to go to court and would have to wait for years for the correct payment.

When I last did a weekly shop, I purchased a copy of ‘What’s on TV’ which is a guide I have just recently discovered and which I think is actually streets ahead the ‘Radio Times’ these days whilst being about a third of the price. In particular, these have a feature detailing forthcoming films and I was delighted to see that two particular offerings will be available to us over the weekend. Firstly, there is going to be the story of Anne Frank at midday on Saturday. Late in the afternoon, there is one of the classic versions of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and this we can delay until the following day and get it on the BBC iPlayer. When Meg and I spent our honeymoon in Amsterdam in 1967, we went round the Anne Frank’s museum but it has been considerably improved since then. But on the two or three occasions we have tried to get in when we have been in Amsterdam, the queues have been enormous. But nowadays the Dutch will have got timed tickets organised as they have for most of their museums nowadays.

Late in the afternoon yesterday, I received a most welcome phone call from my niece in Yorkshire. Like my sister and the rest of the family, they were concerned about Meg’s progress and the fact that in response to a severe chest infection, Meg appeared to be sleeping for so much of the time. But I was very glad to be able to respond to my niece that just during the day, Meg seemed to be responding to the antibiotics and whilst still sleeping quite a lot was now was having periods of wakefulness. She even managed a smile and something approaching a joke with the two young carers who came to minister to her in the afternoon. So there are flashes of the ‘former’ Meg returning and she even called my by my name in the last few hours which is something that has not happened for several days. So having been given news about Meg, I was eager to learn about my niece’s husband who had another hospital episode, albeit a brief one but still involving an 8 hour wait in A&E. So we were happy to exchange family news about the health status of our loved ones and then spent a certain amount of time talking about public sector pensions and specifically the McCloud judgement in the Supreme Court. In a desperate desire to limit the costs of pensions, it has been adjudged that the government acted in a discriminatory fashion by forcing through changes in the pension schemes of many public sector workers (including teachers and the NHS) and has been forced to apply a remedy to this discrimination but the issue is far too complicated to adequately describe at this point. When Meg had her teatime call, she got on well with the two young care workers and reacts to them much better than with some of the older workers. This has led me to speculate whether Meg responds to the most subtle of cues whereby she feels so much more at ease with some care workers rather than others (which speculations I have shared with the carers themselves) Thursday is the day when traditionally I get my weekly shopping done so I am keeping my fingers crossed that Meg will be alright in the morning. We awoke to a temperature of -5° this morning and will just have to tunnel through until Monday when the predicted temperature will rise to the dizzy height of 7°

The news in the morning is the government’s latest attempt to cut down on the illegal boat trade by heavy economic sanctions against those organising the trade. This is being dubbed a bold and innovative mood but the trouble is that those organising the gangs are shadowy figures often based as far away as Kurdistan who are not even aware that their smuggling activities might be illegal. In order to have the slightest chance of success, this calls for a degree of international cooperation and never was there a time when we ought to have the closest of ties with our European allies and neighbours. The same argument applies of course to the current geopolitical situation where Trump still has to be inaugurated and Elon Musk is making his malign influence felt. There are rumours that even at this stage Trump is getting a little weary of the ubiquity of Elon Musk who seems to be in attendance even when phone calls are made to foreign leaders. Some commentators are predicting that eventually there will be a grand falling out between the two but at the moment it just seems like a bromance between the two. On the subject of falling out between allies, the story persists of a meeting of Hitler and Mussolini on a train strategically placed on an appropriate border and by all accounts the two leaders hated each other, despite their alliance. Mussolini, however, had a low regard for Hitler and Nazism, believing them to be uncultured and unsophisticated. In particular, Mussolini had little regard for the German’s racist views which he thought were simplistic and clearly erroneous.

As the outside temperature has been about freezing all day, it necessitated my customary watering can of hot water to remove the frost from the car. I decided to see if there was anything in the supermarket with which I could tempt Meg’s appetite and did indeed buy some chocolate mousse which turned out to be delicious. Aldi seem to be putting on a range of vegetarian meals so I bought a couple of these if ever we needed a meal in a hurry. Once I returned home, it was a case of putting the shopping away (which always seems to take quite a long time) and then pressing ahead to cook our quiche in the oven. I tried a slight innovation today which involved taking the broccoli once it had been steamed in the microwave and then popping it into the oven in a roasting dish with a dressing of roasted garlic mayo to enhance the flavour. This little experiment proved quite successful so I shall certainly repeat it. After lunch, Meg and I were quite intrigued to follow some of the funeral ceremonies for Jimmy Carter who died recently at the age of 100. A notable piece of TV was provided by seeing in one row the five surviving US presidents (Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump and Biden) and one has to wonder whether we actually see the like of this ever again. The funeral service was solemn and dignified and, of course, Jimmy Carter himself was a devoted Baptist. Amid a life of change, Carter held fast to his Christian faith and his Baptist identity. He was credited with bringing the term ‘born again’ into common American conversation in the 1976 election. President Carter will be remembered for living out his devout Baptist faith through his pursuit of peace and support for human rights as well as acts of service, such as building homes for Habitat for Humanity. When it came to following Jesus, Carter ‘walked the walk’. After lunch, we treated ourselves to a Simon Sharma programme (‘The Story of Us’) which was a tour through the UK’s cultural and artistic life focusing on the 1950’s and 1960’s. Some of this I slept through but it was a fascinating film well worth another viewing. When the iPlayer finished, we carried on watching a repeat of a tribute to Dame Maggie Smith which was equally fascinating.

We awoke yesterday to a really cold day in prospect with the temperature here in Bromsgrove said to fluctuate between -1° and -5° all day. The news bulletins are dominated by a most bizarre press conference held by Donald Trump the day before. I was sort of half listening to the press conference whilst looking after Meg yesterday but could not quite believe my ears when I heard Trump claim that wind turbines (which he calls windmills) were sending the world’s population of whales mad and wind turbine electricity was the most expensive to produce. The truth is, of course, that solar energy and wind power are now among the most affordable renewable energy sources globally, and experts anticipate these costs to remain low for years to come. But the really scary part of the Trump diatribe was when US president-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out military or economic action to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland – as he said he believes NATO spending should be increased to 5% per member state. Speaking at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Mr Trump made a series of sweeping claims on what his policies could look like when he takes office on 20 January. He said he believes NATO spending should be increased to 5% per member state, while he also declared US control of Greenland and the Panama Canal as vital to American national security. According to the NATO doctrine, an attack on one member state (Denmark which as sovereignty over Greenland) is an attack on all but what is NATO supposed to do if the attack on a NATO member comes from the United States itself? The West is in a real double bind about how to deal with Trump because it is unclear whether all of this is just bluster and bluff or whether he actually intends to carry out what he promises to do. The president-elect says owning Greenland is vital for US security, but experts say he may also be eyeing other aspects of Greenland such as its trove of natural resources — including rare earth metal — which may become more accessible as climate change melts the territory’s ice. It is unclear in the Trump bluster whether he just wants to ‘buy’ Greenland (an autonomous part of Denmark which is not for sale!) or whether he intends to seize it by military force. In a similar vein, Trump has refused to rule out a military seizure of the Panama canal which at one time he variously claimed was given to Panama by Jimmy Carter and then ‘given’ to the Chinese. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino firmly refuted US President-elect Donald Trump’s assertion that Chinese soldiers are controlling the Panama Canal, calling the claim ‘nonsense’ And to round off a series of bizarre claims, Trump insulted the Canadians by calling them just the 51st state of the USA.

Yesterday was the day on which our Eucharistic Minister accompanied by our parish priest was due to call around to administer the Last Rites. These used to be called ‘Extreme Unction’ but was retitled to the much more explanatory ‘Sacrament of the Sick and Dying’ and is typically administered to a parishioner close to death – the various accessible limbs are annointed with a holy oil and then communion administered. I always thought I was going to find this process a little traumatic and so it proved but I managed to keep my sobs largely at bay during the administration of the prayers. The parish priest was very sympathetic and kindly but it was a relief to me when the rite had been administered. When this over, I defrosted the car and shot down the hill to pick up the newspaper and then the doctor arrived, as he indicated that he would, towards the end of the morning. To my very great surprise, and even that of the doctor himself when he set foot inside the door, Meg was awake and responded with a smile. The doctor made the normal range of checks and then both he, and I, came to the conclusion that the administered penicillin was having the desired effect and as Meg appeared to have turned the corner as far as this infection was concerned then we should finish the entire course of antibiotic and not trouble the doctor unless things took a turn for the worse. Earlier today I had filled in a webform requesting that a district nurse call around but it was one of the more senior doctors who actually made the call for which I was duly grateful.

When the cold snap is as severe and prolonged as this, it is hard not to have it dominates one thoughts and actions. The temperature is predicted to fall to -16 degrees on Thursday evening and this is surely a blast of pure Arctic air. We may have to wait until next Tuesday for the weather to improve. After we moved into this house some 17 years ago, we seemed to have a succession of snow-laden winters and, as we have to clear our own drive, we invested in an appropriate range of shovels and snow clearing materials. But latterly we have got used to a succession of fairly mild winters so the present spell of bad weather has come as a nasty shock. It is important that Meg and I can get out of the house and see people so it was particularly gratifying that we managed to go to town yesterday and we hope to see our friends again on Saturday as well.

In the House of Commons, yesterday was PMQ (Questions to the Prime Minister). Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, has condemned the abuse directed at safeguarding minister Jess Phillips after Elon Musk’s attacks on her. He had accused the minister of being a ‘rape genocide apologist’ and a ‘witch’, claims Ms Phillips told Sky News were ‘ridiculous’. Ms Badenoch said ‘any abuse directed towards MPs is obviously disgraceful and should not happen’. That having been said, there is an enormous cosying up the Trump and Musk even before they take up their official positions. One has to say of Trump that he was elected more or less fairly and squarely but apparently Elon Musk feels free to take pot shots (mainly at the British Labour government) merely because he is the world’s richest man and owns ‘X’ (ex-Twitter) one of the most influential social media sites.

Yesterday, we awoke at 6.00am to another cold day and wonder what the day has in store for us. The day before had not been a good day for Meg, care-wise, as I had needed to act as a 2nd helper on three our of the last four occasions but this is all being logged from now on. As well as the normal clutch of reasons, some of them are weather related as one car worker had had a minor collision in the ice and snow and had to wait for the RAC to rescue him and another worker refused to answer her phone so wholesale changes to the schedules had to be put into effect first thing in the morning, Like the rest of the world, I suspect, I make myself a cup of tea and then have my routines on my laptop. But without looking for it, I came across this tweet which was quite an amusing start to the day. ‘I used a ‘gentle parenting’ voice to ask my 4yr old daughter to rephrase her whining demand into a question that communicates she needs help and she said ‘Fine. But stop using that nice tone with me” There is the expression, of course, ‘out of the mouths of babes and innocents’ which is appropriate here. I looked up the original phrase which in the King James bible is ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings’ but the exact phrase depends upon the version of the bible deployed. It always surprising how many of the expressions that we might use in everyday discourse emanates either from the Bible or from Shakespeare (although I suspect the use of phrases from these sources is lessening).

After I had breakfasted Meg, the weather looked as though it was set fair and Meg was half awake, so I decided (although it was a 50:50 call) to make a trip down the hill, pick up a newspaper and see our friends in our new venue of Wetherspoons. The weather was generally benign and with clear signs on the way down and whilst in Waitrose I bumped into our regulars who was doing a bit of shopping. Then we repaired to try out Wetherspoons as a little group and we were pleasantly surprised. There is a trite expression of ‘when one door closes, another opens’ and so it was today. Every establishment has its own way of doing things but the Wetherspoons way is to queue at the bar and deliver one’s order whereupon you are given a mug that you fill yourself at the coffee machine. But we were amazed that the prices we paid were about one half to two thirds of what we were accustomed to paying in Waitrose. From 4 September 2024, Wetherspoon is offering a small breakfast for £2.99 or less at over 650 pubs across the UK. The small breakfast includes a fried egg, bacon, a Lincolnshire sausage, baked beans, and a hash brown. For an extra £1.56, you can add a Lavazza coffee or Twinings tea with free refills. So the cost of a a small breakfast (admittedly on a special discount in January) was less the cost of a cup of coffee at Waitrose so we each perused the menu to see what we might order for ourselves when next we meet on Saturday. One offer that I might find a little tempting is that one can order 4 pancakes for a fiver so it might be that we can order this to share between us at a minimal cost. Meg will only have a nibble or so. The automated coffee machines have improved tremendously over the past few years and Meg and I can remember how good was the coffee and hot chocolate from the machines installed in ‘The Crown‘ hotel in Harrogate, the last time we stayed there. Also there is a system of perpetual refills once you have paid for ‘your cup’ as it were but I doubt that many would wish to avail themselves of a quantity in excess of two. So after our jolly little assembly, we all started to make our way homewards or where have you but just as we left ‘The Golden Cross’ hotel. the venue for Wetherspoons in Bromsgrove, it started to spit with rain. As walked up the hill, the weather got more and more unpleasant with an increasing precipitation of a form of icy sleet and we were both pretty wet by the time we got home. Meg bore all of this with a degree of fortitude I am pleased to say but when I am pushing the wheelchair I could not say whether she was awake, half awake or asleep. The minute we got back, the weather changed again and we had a burst of glorious sunshine but the clouds did close in again in the mid afternoon. Meg’s ‘sit’ carer was there for her Tuesday session so between us we got Meg inside, divested of her wet coats and blanket and then made comfortable with a cup of soup and a heavy blanket. All in all despite the bad weather on the way home I think Meg benefited from her little trip out because her body was always warmly wrapped up. I remind myself that before the development of modern drugs, TB used to be treated in ‘isolation’ hospitals, normally on a high ground outside a town where the air was judged to be cooler but fresher. If one could afford it, then there was always a stay in a Swiss sanatorium and in the 1920’s and 1930’s TB sufferers flocked to mountaintop clinics in Swiss resorts such as Davos for the pure mountain air.

For lunch, I poached some mackerel fillets in milk and then a sort of fish kedgeree with the cooked dish added to some mushroom rice and petit pois. I got some of this into Meg but she was so sleepy I was a little worried that she might choke on the food so had to abandon the lunch half way through. This afternoon, I am going to carry on watching the series on life in Britain as the series evolve but I fear that I will be watching it to all intents and purposes practically alone as Meg is completely asleep.

I was woken this morning by Alexa (smart speaker) at 6.00am and immediately get up to make myself a huge mug of tea. I had slept pretty well last night which is just as well because his morning it looks as though we are receiving a further dump of snow and the weather forecast is that it will snow until at least 10.00am this morning. This I was not expecting but I know that the spell of wintry weather is to persist during the whole of the forthcoming week. Last night I spent some time getting my bank account statements up-to-date (I copy them into a ledger) which is a task rather neglected over Christmas. I am trying to put into effect one of my New Year resolutions which is to engage in a spot of tidying up and clearing away clutter for some time during each day and the fact that Meg is sleeping so much, although not good in other ways, is helping me to have a bit of time and space to do this. Meg and I do not have much in prospect this week although my primary ambition is to get enough food and drink into Meg so that she can throw off this bad chest infection from which she appears to be suffering. But she is sleeping well at nights which must be a good thing. I have just viewed a delightfully clear video made by Sky news on ‘The Social Care Crisis Explained’ This told me nothing I did not already know but the video is a model of clarity and good explanation. It shows the timeline stretching from the economist Andrew Dilnot’s proposals to fix the social care system way back in 2011 and then how successive governments of all political persuasions have said they are going to fix the system – but they do not. The really fundamental question is the enormity of the costs involved and in the meanwhile, the Labour government has ‘kicked the can down the road’ until the end of 2028 and beyond. I suspect that one solution may involve a special new tax, earmarked for social care, so that the government can start to extract some of the enormous sums of money involved from an early age – perhaps in their 40’s. All adults in Germany pay into a national long-term care (LTC) social insurance scheme. Contributions are split between the employee and employer, and are based on a set percentage of earnings. The German social care system aims to balance what the state pays for versus what the individual pays. I was not expecting the care staff until 8.45 this morning but I received an urgent phone call telling me that only one carer was available and could I act as a 2nd carer. I agreed because I get on well with the young male Asian carer who is one of our regulars but it meant that getting breakfast was well and truly delayed so it was way past 10.00am when I eventually got Meg breakfasted. I then shot off quickly down the hill to get a newspaper whilst Meg was soundly asleep but it was a gut-wrenching site to see our once familiar cafeteria with all of the tables and chairs removed getting prepared for its reconditioned use. I busied myself with routine little jobs until the lunch time carer – again, completely on her own but Meg need actually much attention in any case. I am going to keep a log of all of the times when I am getting less than the complete service because what should be the occasional lapse is now happening once or twice per day and this needs to be carefully documented before I raise it with the care agency managers themselves.

The intervention by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is continuing to make waves. Although the Prime Minister was announcing a major new initiative in the NHS anticipating that waiting lists might be cut by 50% over a five year period, most reporters at the event wanted to question the PM over the remarks that Musk made about him and also about Jess Phillips. The prime minister, who sounded genuinely angry in denouncing what he described as the ‘poison of the far right’ infecting politics called for a discussion based on ‘facts and truth not on lies’. He repeatedly hit out at the Conservatives’ failure to implement the 20 recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, though Labour have not yet done so either. He insisted they are working at speed to deliver them.

It is an interesting question whether Meg will be well enough to go for a venture our tomorrow. Although after the snow today, it seems quite a lot milder outside tomorrow and the next week the temperature may not rise above 4 degrees. If the weather is reasonably bright and Meg has masses of blankets and warm clothing, then we might be able to make a trip to Wetherspoons, our ‘new’ venue after the sad demise of the cafeteria in Waitrose. On the other hand, Meg might be still very sleepy so we will have to play this one by ear. In the afternoon, we had started watching a programme which seemed relatively interesting about the British countryside and how it evolved but then the doorbell rang and we had a completely surprise visitor. This was a particularly vivacious young female carer who had cared for Meg for several months but then had gone off to university to read veterinary science. I am not sure whether she was on a Foundation Year or something similar but she did not seem to be over burdened by very much class contact but, nonetheless, was achieving good grades. I was delighted to see this young lady because although a little quirky in some ways, she was absolutely excellent with Meg and handled her with a great deal of skill and sensitivity even on the occasions when Meg was a little truculent (which did not occur often). Then her visit overlapped with that of the young male carer and evidently they had a lot to catch up between the two of them.