As I awoke yesterday, there was nothing more exciting to which to look forward but a visit from our hairdresser in the morning and another call by our chiropodist in the afternoon. But these two people have been tending to Meg and I for at least ten years now and it is so useful when they visit the house. But in the evening before, the doorbell rang and it was an Asian lady who lives around the corner. When they first moved into their house several years ago, we made them welcome with a bottle of wine and we have remained on these ‘good neighbour’ terms ever since. She apologised that no member of the family had attended the funeral but they themselves seem to have been going through some horrendous family traumas involving a couple of twins being born early and then only surviving a matter of hours as they were deemed too premature to survive (and there were no premature cots available in any case) This lady had brought around a donation for CAFOD which I need to add to some others and then hand on to the undertaker. Apart from this, I located an old little hardback book in which I used to record the petrol consumption of a newly acquired car. I always used to do this when I acquired a new car but then ceased to record after a little. But this little book had several pages already marked out so I rebadged it with those little stick-on letters with which I sometimes label record-keeping books so it is all ready for new car when it comes into my safe keeping. On the domestic political front, more than 120 Labour MPs have signed a ‘reasoned amendment’ to block the PM’s benefit cuts, Sky News understands. Minister Luke Pollard yesterday said the government is in dialogue with their concerned backbenchers about making changes to the policy but if the government did not make some amendments to their policy then they would surely be defeated. The problem for the government is that the welfare budget is soaring but making cuts to it is going to leave thousands of disabled people in real distress. The way round this problem is to keep the benefits for existing claimants and to make the policy increasing difficult to access for new claimants but this does not generate the savings in the short term which are necessary to stop the budgets ballooning out of control. It looks as though discussions are taking place before a crucial vote is taken but the Labour government is acting as though it was a conservative one to the dismay of many of the younger generation of MPs who say they did not come into politics to bash the disabled. This has all the hallmarks of the dispute over the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance (from which I feel Meg suffered for a start) and will probably run and run unless the government bows to the prospect of a massive back bench revolt and refines the proposals.

In the morning, I set myself the schedule of walking down the hill, picking up a few groceries and a newspaper and then returning home before my hairdresser appointment. In the event, it was an eventful walk. Immediately round the corner I bumped into some near neighbours and informed them about Meg’s death but they had already heard of it. Then immediately down the hill, I bumped into another lady who was a relative of Clive, the trumpet player who played at our 50th wedding celebrations but who died just before COVID some five years ago. I informed the lady of Meg’s recent demise but she had herself just lost her own mother to a tongue and throat cancer just over two weeks ago so she was having to cope with a funeral as well as her house which she is in the process of selling. We hugged each other both of us knowing how the other felt coping with the grieving process. When I got to Waitrose, I made my purchases and then bumped into the elderly Irish parishioner who had very kindly led the ‘bidding prayers’ for us at Meg’s funeral and he has a delightful soft Irish brogue. Also shopping was one of my ‘Tuesday and Saturday’ friends who I will see on Saturday in any case. Upon walking up the hill, I espied my Italian fried and almost caught up with her but she was being picking up by a friend so we just waved to each other. In the late morning, our hairdresser turned up and she was telling me a story about how when she went on holiday to the island of Kos in Greece, she got into conversation with a person who knew her when she was a baby of 18 months and had actually played with her older brothers and hence knew our hairdresser’s family. It is, as they say, a small world. My son turned up, as he said he would and we lunched on a sandwich of ham on a rye bread and then waited for our chiropodist who turned up thirty minutes early. As well as seeing to my feet, the chiropodist also treated a toe nail of my son’s that had been injured in a sporting accident but which she had treated before and gave another treatment as part of the service.

As I promised myself, I went outside in the late afternoon and completed the weeding of the gravel area surrounding the bench in the front of the house. I had to contend with some ants which are always prevalent when the weather conditions are hot and dry and I think that one or two might have taken some revenge on me for having been disturbed. When our domestic help was helping me to clear up some of Meg’s things we came across a blue cotton overall that I think I must have bought about ten years ago with gardening and handyman jobs in mind. Anyway, I donned this and it meant that I kept my clothing basically clean despite the dust thrown up by the weeding. The area at the front of he house was what greeted a visitor when they come to visit the house so I am particularly pleased that I have this looking in a better state. Once basically weeded, it is a comparatively easy job to keep it in good condition so tomorrow I need to turn my attention to the back of he house so that I can bring our patio back into use without feeling ashamed of it.

I woke up in the middle of the night the evening before last which is not that unusual and whilst I was up and about, I decided to get things put into place for the documentation for my son’s car which he is handing on to me. I made a new folder on my main computer system so that I could keep all of the documents relating to the car in one place. The first document was proof of the No Claims Discount to which I am entitled and evidently this is readily available should my new insurers request to see I also had an almost completed application form for the breakdown service offered by the RAC and I believe I have got this at a good annual price. Anyway, I checked out with my son that this was a ‘good buy’ and then went ahead and bought it. So in the morning I got up and our domestic help had already arrived and so we had a good chat because I had not seen her since Meg’s funeral. Later in the morning my son called around and we got to work transferring the vehicle over to myself and this went very smoothly and without a hitch. I also showed my son as a named driver as he appears on the insurance document and this helps to cheapen the overall piece of the product. Then my son heated some delicious soup which his wife had prepared the evening before and it was delicious. Then in the afternoon, I went online to get the car taxed and this was as straightforward as it was possible to be. So by the middle of the afternoon, I had become the registered keeper of the new vehicle which is now fully taxed and insured and with a breakdown policy in place. I have also recorded all of the important details regarding the car in an .html file which I am going to use for my own u=internal record purposes and not, evidently, for publication on the web. As under the Motability scheme all of these things were done for you, I am out of practice with the procedures for keeping a car on the road and now I am having to learn it all anew. But over the years, it is now made so much easier to do things on line rather than have to turn up to a Post office with masses of documents. The final thing I am going to do is to set up a little savings account so that monies can flow into from savings and the balance can be use to fund things when they become due, generally in a year’s time. My son has kindly offered to get the car serviced and MOT when it is handed over and then I shall need to take care of things for myself. Another little thing that I am going to do is to persist with the habit which I have just re-started which is to save each £2 coin as I receive it in a special little container. Then each month, I can raid the little piggy bank and whatever I have saved will be transferred into my ‘car’ account so in th1s way, I trust that I can keep expenses in check by a regular savings routine. Over the forthcoming weekend, I need to go through the variety of mats and other useful articles that I like to always with me in any new car. About two or three cars ago, I did but a couple of utility baskets for the boot of a car. I have found these to be very useful as a container for such items such as filled shopping baskets so that one’s shopping does nor roll around the boot but is relatively contained. I have a boot liner preserved from the previous car but I have a feeling it might be a tad too big to fit into the latest one. There are certain things that I always like to have in the boot such as a little flagon of water and some disposable wipes so that I can quickly et rid of bird poop if the car has been hit by the latter, I always tend to carry around a spare looped car wheel brush which I devote exclusively to getting rid of some of the grit that shoes are prone to deposit in the footwells of the car. I have also prepared an envelope with details o the breakdown service so that I can access this quickly in the case of emergency.

In the afternoon, it was time for the bins to be put out ready for collection in the morning. Also, the weeds were going mad in the gravelled area which runs alongside our principal roadway. These were mainly of the shallow rooted and easily grasped weeds so I spent nearly half an hour in the pretty hot sum disposing of the worst of these. I read the newspaper for a little outside but eventually had to retreat to the cooler areas inside the house. Later in the afternoon, I decided to refine the table I had constructed of the various costs associated with my motoring in the next year. This really gives one pause for thought and it might be the case that a year or s, I abandon the car altogether and start to think of a regime of taxis whenever I need them, which could well work out as being most effective. As soon as I receive the details of Meg’s pension from the Teachers’ pensions Agency, I might get a closer idea whether I can afford to run a car in the next year or so. As I had a repast of soup at lunchtime, I thought I would cook myself a bigger meal for this evening so I heated up half a quiche which I had taken out of the freezer in readiness and ate it with some quickly microwaved vegetables, As I was finishing this, there was a news report of the latest score in the England versus Holland Under 21’s in which England are actually the defending champions. As I tuned into the channel, The English team had just scored a second and winning goal five minutes before the end of the match which always makes for a very tense final five minutes. The actual final is to be held on Saturday evening but I am not sure who the other team in the final is going to be.

Yesterday I awoke to a very gloomy day so the weather is definitely on the change. I would be quite happy for a little bit of rain but could do with some extended periods of sunshine. This is because in the course of Meg’s illness, our garden has been severely neglected and, apart from keeping the grass mown and a serious blitz last autumn, I have not managed to do any gardening at all. So I have decided to rectify this by spending a small amount of time each day to focus on the weeds which are rampant both at the front of the house and also on our patio. I am limiting myself to twenty minute sessions each day for both front and back as I know that extended periods of gardening can play havoc with one’s back. I have a little kit which consists of those rubberised and grippy gloves which are so excellent for pulling out weeds by the roots as well as a kneeling mat and one of those forked weeding tools. So yesterday I made a symbolic start at both the front and the rear and am quite pleased with the start I have made. But I need to keep up with a consistent effort each day and rain can get in the way of this of course but I think that slow and steady is the name of the game. The routine this morning will be a little different as I have got myself booked into an appointment to have my eyes checked over by an optician who has treated Meg and myself for at least ten years by now. After that and my son giving me a lift home, I should be back onto my normal Pilates class at the end of the morning.

It looks as though an Israel-Iran ceasefire has begun and may well hold, so the world can breathe a little easier. It may be, though, the Iranians, who had vowed a retaliation against the Americans calibrated their response with a degree of political acumen. They fired off a salvo of missiles in the direction of a huge American base in neighbouring Qatar but gave the Americans due warning. The missiles were all shot down, no lives were lost but from the point of view of Iranian public the authorities could claim a draw and so a ceasefire became much viable. Donald Trump is, of course, claiming all the credit for this and there are a mass of unanswered questions for the analysts to ponder but at least a Middle East conflagration seems to have been averted.

Today was the day when I was scheduled to have my eyes tested. I know the optician very well as he has treated me (and Meg when she was alive) for approximately the last twelve years. The opticians had previously been informed of Meg’s death and I joked with the optician that I had better not have a weep in his presence as it might mess up the eye examination. I was delighted to learn that my eyes had not changed one iota even though the test itself had been delayed by some months so I remain a little long sighted i.e. well within the limits for reading a distant number plate which is test used by the DVLC. Then my son collected me in the car and we collected some milk and a newspaper en route for home. After a gentle chat and a watch of some Politics programmes it was time to walk down for my Pilates class in which I remembered to take my towel with me as well as my mat. There was another gentleman in the class and we vied with each for cracking some jokes. Then my son picked me up to save me a long walk in the sun and I prepared a simple of smoked mackerel on a bed of ‘steamed’ crackers (my way of reducing the carbohydrate count) In the afternoon, I had received a statement from Motability which enabled me to quote a no claims discount on the motor insurance I need to take out before I take over ownership of my son’s car hopefully on Saturday. My son and I had already received a quote from a local broker recommended to us by a friend but this seemed rather on the high side. So I went online to get a quote from a well advertised company only to be rejected at the last moment on account of my age (having just turned 80) I then consulted the web and AgeUK have a special deal (with, as it happens the same insurance company) All seemed to go well with the long application process but, right at the end the screen froze when it said ‘we will be with you in just a heartbeat’. So I repeated the whole exercise and the same thing happened but not before giving me a quote that was 25% cheaper than the first time round. I phoned the company, completing he transaction over the phone and eagerly accepting a quote in which I saved about £300. Whether the system senses that a sale is on the point of being lost and automatically lowers the price I cannot say but I now have the insurance in place, the payment has been made and the relevant insurance documents sitting in the intray of my computer. These dealings have taken up most of the afternoon and hence my gardening activities both to the front and rear of the house have had to be curtailed. Tomorrow is the day when our domestic help calls around and last week I was away in Yorkshire so this is the first time I will have the opportunity of asking her how she felt the funeral actually went. No doubt, she and I will carry on clearing out some of Meg’s things and gradually making space for things but we have made an excellent start so far. As it was her birthday last Saturday and she spent the weekend away with her husband, I wonder what she made of the little Victorian resort of Clevedon where I think she was going. Incidentally, I read again through all of the condolence cards sent by friends, family and acquaintances and noted to myself, wryly, then even the postman had bought and posted a card but not the slightest communication from the managers of the care agency which had looked after Meg for the past year and a half.

Yesterday morning, the sun was so bright that I was awakened before 6.00am with the sun streaming through the bedroom window, but I did not mind as it is not a bad thing to have an early start to the week. I have a clutch of medical and such like appointments this week with appointments for my eyes, physio, hair and feet all on the calendar. I need also to reconnect with the dentists as well as my teeth have been neglected for the past year and possibly need to make a doctor’s appointment as well. I took the opportunity the evening before to write a long email to one of our closest friends in Spain who herself has been coping with some family problems and explained to her how I had hoped to come to Spain for a brief holiday but not for a few weeks just yet. I feel the need, to be honest, to get my new ‘post-Meg’ routines established and for my finances to stabilise a little before I go off an any new jaunts. Also the evening before, I uploaded the video speech that Meg and I gave on the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary celebration with our Yorkshire relatives. I have given the link to one of my nephews and if this seems to work well (as the file is very large) may well do it for all of the other relatives as it does display Meg at her most fluent, speaking without notes or hesitation over seven years ago now. My son and I will probably pop around this morning to pay the undertaker’s bill for the funeral and this very act may well help to draw a line under things. In the early evenings, I have been enjoying the résumé of the days play in the test match between England and India. The fact that England came within six runs of the Indian first innings total indicates how finely balanced the two two teams are. The Indian team are inexperienced but full of young talent and one of their number was pulled from a burning car some years ago and had made the most amazing recovery.

There is quite along and detailed analysis in a ‘Sky News’ report this morning that although the USA may have been successful in severely degrading or destroying some of the nuclear facilities that Iran possessed, this does not mean that the country does not have the ability to make a bomb in the future. It might well be that the desire and political will to make a nuclear device will intensify after the American strike and, of course, the world is poised to see what retaliatory measures Iran will now take. For a start, there are 30,0000-40,000 American troops at strategic locations throughout the Middle East and the Iranians may be tempted to strike at some of them. If so, we would then enter a full-scale war between USA and Iran and where that ends is unpredictable in the extreme. It is probably the case as some analyists are saying that we are entering an era of global politics in which all of the 20th century institutions to prevent war such as the UN have been deemed irrelevant and we are now entering an era redolent of the late 19th century in which ‘Might is Right’ and great powers feel free to do what they wish without any restrain. China might be encouraged to take back Taiwan for a start.

I got an invoice from Worcestershire County Council which upset me greatly. The invoice was for the last tranche of Meg’s care and was for the last visits of the carers but I was billed as though for the whole of the 28 care sessions at the rate of four per day. I argued with the official that it was insensitive and upsetting to be asked to pay for the 6.5 days of care that Meg, being dead, did not receive. But I got nowhere with the official who tried to explain that as Meg had entered the last charging period, then the whole of the weeks care contributions had to be paid as the system was only set up for weekly and not for days of care. I argued and argued and pleaded but to no avail and there was no meeting of minds. I asked the official to report back up the chain that there should be a fairer charging mechanism for recipients of care who had died but she replied that when she had raised similar issues before, she had got nowhere. I left the situation requesting a revised bill (which I suspect will not be forthcoming) and a letter of apology (and I doubt this will appear either) Whatever the legalities of the situation, I am sure it is not beyond the wit of man or even a computer system to allocate costs proportionately and although the official said she was sympathetic (and I laid it on rather thickly) her hands were tied and she could not request the system to issue a revised bill. In the early afternoon, I had a physiotherapy appointment which was all rather routine. He informed that that I had some scoliosis or curvature of the spine and one leg appears to be now a little shorter than the other. Some of this may be the ageing process but most of it was caused by picking Meg off the floor some 3-4 times a day when she fell regularly in the middle part of her illness and the rest by the wheelchair pushing activities. I hope that the physiotherapist can mitigate some of the worst effects of this but it may be that my spine has received damage beyond the point of repair. But I have been given a sheet of exercises to perform and perhaps this and regular walking will help to get me back into some kind of reasonable shape. The physio was a middle aged man who seemed to know his stuff and he informed that I had been booked in for a series of five sessions at about fortnightly intervals, after which we will come to a decision whether the NHS will fund another tranche of treatment or whether I need to extend my consultations by paying privately.

So this is my latest blog and I had quite a lot of trouble accessing Outlook this morning. I am not sure whether Microsoft have just updated their software but it took no end of trouble accessing my account and then things were not quite the way I wanted them to be. Nonetheless, I eventually succeeded and I started off the day having survived another really hot night. I tried a combination of starting off the night on the downstairs sofa and then a favourite armchair and crept into my bed in the upstairs bedroom once things had cooled down. I always feel a little sad once the longest day of the year (21st June) is over because it means that we are on the start of a long march towards winter as the days get progressively shorter until December 21st (and then you do not really notice the change until after Christmas) As is the new ‘normal’ for me on a Saturday, I have resumed going to the evening service on Saturdays which lasts from 6.00pm-7.00pm. Things are a little difficult as I am temporarily without a car but I prevailed upon my son for a lift to the church. Then, fortunately for me, I was sitting behind some of the stalwarts of the church community who I know well so I requested a lift back home which they readily offered. But at the end of the Mass, there was a shock announcement from the priest who announced that he would be leaving the parish in some 60-70 days time, being called back to do some missionary work in some part of the globe. The reaction of the congregation was mixed because in the years that we have this priest , who came to us from Kerala in India he has never really gelled with the parish and there have ben a few incidents and some of them quire recently where there had been a cause of concern being expressed about him. So now we have a new pastor to which to look forward and, of course, these relationships take some time to bed down so a period of uncertainty lies ahead of us. It may well be that with the chronic shortage of priests, we will have another whose cultural roots are from overseas which is not always a good fit with the composition of the parish in Bromsgrove. Sometime, parishioners drift away to worship at other churches which does not bode well for a healthy and thriving parish community as the ‘old faithfuls’ are called upon to do more and more but they themselves are ageing. For the forthcoming Sunday, there is going to be an ‘international’ day at church when people will be encouraged to come along in their national dress and to bring along some of their own ethnic food. This has been tried before and, if the weather holds out, can be an extraordinarily interesting experience but it rather clashes with the commitments on a Sunday that I have with my University of Birmingham friend so I will have to make a judgement call on whether or not I attend a little later. Last night, I enjoyed England having a better day in the Headingly test against India where the match is delicately poised between the two teams and also watched the England Under 21’s football team beat Spain (the fancied team) to reach the quarter finals.

After breakfast I made up a flask of coffee and was prepared to go down to collect a newspaper and then make my way back via the park when my University of Birmingham phoned. We agreed to meet in the park but the weather was almost certainly on the change and we both wondered whether we had correctly chosen what to wear. We chatted with a mutual acquaintance that we often meet in the park on a Sunday morning complete with a huge, almost honey coloured, labradoodle dog. We then noticed a mobile phone and a ball thrower that had been left on an adjacent bench. We were contemplating handing it in to the coffee bar in the park when the phone rang with the caller being the owner’s friend. We assured her that the phone was safe with us and then she came to collect in in ten minutes time. She was grateful but I do not think she fully appreciated how lucky she was the phone had not ended up in the wrong hands. By now, the weather was getting decidedly chilly so my friend ran me down to Waitrose from where I collected my newspaper and then ran me in his car up the hill to home. After I got home and switched on ‘Sky News‘ the media channel was full of the aftermath of the way in which the US military in a huge and apparently well-planned attack had attacked the nuclear installations in Iran with ‘bunker buster bombs’ These are designed to penetrate and destroy hardened targets, such as deeply buried bunkers, by using a combination of a strong casing and a power explosive charge. These bombs can penetrate several meters of reinforced concrete or even more of earth and rock before detonating. But they have never been used in a conflict before and the Iranians had tried to hide their nuclear installations inside a mountain. These bunker busting bombs may only work if one had makes an initial ‘hole’ through which another can follow before detonating. And the Iranians were seen carrying away by lorry key nuclear components when they thought an attack might be imminent. So although the American military are claiming that they were astoundingly successful, we might only know in a few days time the degree of success that the Americans had. There are reports that the Americans are telling the Israeli military a slightly different story to the one that broadcast in the Pentagon news conference. I have the feeling that the Americans might not realise what they have actually started. Although they might appear to have had an astounding military success, there are hundreds if not thousands of American troops spread through the Middle East which might now be vulnerable to a counter attack. In addition, America rather than being seen as peace maker, will be seen as a war-monger-in-chief and will have created swathes of hostile groups right across the Middle East. After all, we have Iraq as an example of what can happen after a military ‘success’ and the adverse consequences might stay with us for decades.

So yesterday was a particularly hot night and the house was filled with warm air as it had been unoccupied for several days. Even with the window wide open, I felt it was too hot for me to get to sleep so I promptly came downstairs and spent a couple of hours on the sofa in our downstairs lounge which was both comfortable and a lot cooler than upstairs. So this little trick worked but I also have a fan available which I might press into use but the hot weather may only last for a few days. Before I went away, I emptied my fridges of food and anything that might go ‘off’ so I have returned home to the unusual (for me) experience of a house with no readily available food within it. But a trip down to my local Waitrose will soon remedy that but I am without a car for a week until my son and I have our new car arrangements sorted out between us. Having drank some excellent, locally brewed dark beer in Harrogate, a phrase is running around in my head which is ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy’ While it is commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin (one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first postmaster general), he never actually said or wrote those exact words. He did, however, express a similar sentiment about wine and the quote about beer is often and wrongly attributed to him. Nonetheless, occasionally one sees it written across fun tee-shirts and the like. Although in general I do not like slogans on tee-shirts, I did see one on a very corpulent and evidently overweight Englishman in Southern Spain which read ‘Help me in my fight against anorexia’ which was amusing in its way. Now that I am returned from Spain, my exercise regime should start in earnest but I must say that the very hot weather disinclines one towards exercise of any sort. By the post this morning, I received several documents all of which were tidying loose ends after Meg’s death. I received news that the DVLA no longer regarded Meg as the official keeper of her ex-Motability vehicle, the local council had sent me a revised schedule of council tax repayments (which happens to be the same as before) and the relevant death and marriage certificates had been returned from the Teachers’ Pension Agency and are were now on file.

After breakfast, I walked down into town but on my way down I was joined by a near neighbour and I must say that I had to walk fairly fast to keep up with him. We chatted about a beer stall that he was running to be part of the forthcoming Bromsgrove festival and I might just be temped to go along to it. Then I had my normal hot chocolate and early morning repast and was joined by one of my regulars (the other finding the weather altogether too hot in which to venture out) After we had chatted a bit, I had espied Seasoned World Traveller but he was disinclined to chat together because I think he used the pub as a sort of office and was evidently in the middle of something. I called in at Waitrose only to find that all the copies of ‘The Times’ had already been sold so I had to purchase a copy of ‘the I’ I also took the opportunity to buy some essential supplies which included some of my favourite non-alcoholic beer which I know they stock. As I walked up the hill with two shopping bags full of shopping, I rang the doorbell of my Irish friends and was delighted to be invited and to share a cold drink with them in their garden. With my trip to Yorkshire and my friend’s recent operation, we had a lot to chat about but then , as predicted there were large splats of rain and we feel with the heat that a thunderstorm might well be imminent. My friend ran me home for which I was well and truly grateful and I lunched on a tin of sardines and some prepared salad which I had just purchased. Then I watched some outdated comedy programs on an obscure channel before thinking about getting things ready for my attendance at church this evening.

It was so hot yesterday that the weather authorities are putting out warnings about the danger of hot weather to old people and those with compromised immune systems. A study has just been published which uses decades of UK data to understand risk relationships in 34,753 areas across England and Wales to predict the excess mortality during this heatwave. Overall, about 570 excess deaths are expected to occur during the heatwave, the researchers estimate, with 114 on Thursday, 152 on Friday, 266 on Saturday when temperatures peak above 32°C and 37 excess deaths on Sunday when they fall to the mid-twenties. Older people above 65 are expected to be hardest hit, with 488 of the estimated excess deaths. Of these, 314 are expected to be among people aged 85 and over, the researchers found. The result shows how heatwaves can be deadly for people with underlying health conditions such as heart problems, diabetes, and respiratory issues, as high temperatures put extra stress on their already compromised immune systems, the researchers say. The horrible thought flashed across my mind whether Meg might have been caught up in this wave of unrelated deaths. I think this is unlikely because I would have deployed our fan and other methods to keep the temperature down. But the possibility remains that as her bodily defences progressively weakened as the weeks went by, she might have become another unwitting casualty, about which I would have felt pretty awful. In the evening, my son has kindly consented to running me to church for the evening service that starts at 6.00pm. This will be in stark contrast to what happened last week when I stepped out of the car only to realise that I had no car to transport me to church (but a local taxi form I have used in the past obliged very quickly on that occasion)

So yesterday, the day dawned on my day of departure from Yorkshire on what promises to be the hottest day of the year with temperatures in the 30’s (or what used to be the 90’s in Fahrenheit) I got up at 6.00am and I rather like packing up to go home if only because the ‘chaos’ of a hotel bedroom gets reduced and reduced as an orderly packing takes place. I have received a text from my son this morning asking for my ETA so that he can pick me up at Bromsgrove station and I have a birthday card prepared for our domestic help whose birthday it is on 21st June which is always an easy date to remember. Once packed up, relatives will call to give me a hearty breakfast (although I have been filled with excellent food and drink over the past few days) and I will certainly return to ‘The Crown’ which has been superb for me in my stay. I intend to ask them at the desk if they have a ‘frequent stayer’ discount as I will be here again in August ready for my sister’s birthday party for which I have helped to get a forward planning date in the diary of the care home manager. On my way home, I will of course have my copy of ‘The Times’ and a host of happy memories upon which to reflect. In particular, my relatives have told me of the wonderful memories that they had of Meg and, in particular, her smile which they always so heartfelt on the occasions that they met. What I have learned is that the wife of one of my nephews is a fully trained psychotherapist and grief counselling is her ‘bread and butter’ as it were. Having said that, she thought that all my strategies were working excellently but it is wonderful to know that when bad times strike, which they may, she will be always be available at the end of a phone line. She herself had a series of miscarriages and they now have an adopted son who is doing very well for himself so she knows whereof she speaks. Having told them the story of my mother’s upbringing, they have implored me to commit it all to paper so that the account that I gave them the previous evening is not ‘lost’ but is available for other family members. They may well have a point but I have to find (or make) the time. I might explore whether a dictation to text facility on my computer with Windows 11 is a good way of getting the basics down on to paper, but we shall see. It is true that they have other accounts of my mother’s history but as my mother told m a lot of things directly when I was helping to rehabilitate her after she had a broken hip, they are inclined to believe my account straight from ‘the horses mouth’ rather than other fragmentary bits of story that they have.

After I had got all packed up and my room vacated, I was met by one of my nieces and her husband who had promised to take me out for a breakfast. I had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs on some sourdough bread after which we went for a little walk around the immediate beautiful little shops and thence I got transported to the station. Another nephew dropped by with my precious hat I had inadvertently left behind at his house and I caught the little train to Leeds but this was running a little late. By the time I had located the main Glasgow to Plymouth cross country train and my allocated seat, I had managed to get there with only one minute to spare. The train was absolutely heaving which is typical for a Friday and I had to ask people to remove their large suitcases which was blocking the passage way and then turn out someone who was sitting in my allocated seat. So it wasn’t a very pleasant cross-country journey to Birmingham New Street but then the onward journey to Bromsgrove was on a quiet train and I was delighted that my son was on the platform to pick me up and run me home. I spent most of the afternoon unpacking and getting things put into their rightful place but I ensured that each member of the Yorkshire family were both thanked and also informed them that I had got home safely. After this intense social activity, following hard on the heels of the funeral, the next week or so is going to seem extraordinarily quiet so I have to make ensure that I can keep myself busy and not mope.I knew that I would return home to some interesting mail and I had received two identical letters from the Teachers’ Pensions Agency telling me that my claim for a continuation of a portion of Meg’s pension would be delayed somewhat until the implications of a court case (the ‘Goodwin’ ruling) had ben taken into account so that a recalculation of Meg’s pension could be made. I am relieved that at least my application is in the system and receiving attention and I have to hope that in the fulness of time everything will be backdated although I am evidently short of the contribution that Meg’s pension made to our finances in the short term. It had been my intention to get myself turned around following my short Yorkshire stay and then, perhaps, to have a holiday in Spain to see my dearest friends. But I may stay my hand for a week or so to see if the Teacher’ Pension Agency come up with the goods and then I will be a position to work out what is both feasible and affordable.

I am going to treat myself to an hour of ‘Today at the Test’ where England or playing India. As my train was passing through the Headingly and adjacent station in the morning, a variety of fancy dress cricket fans were already in evidence. In the past we have had crusader knights, nuns, bananas and equally bizarre outfits but perhaps the TV cameras will be give a little licence to roam across the crowd so that we can see what is ‘de rigueur’ in the 2025 test matches. As alcohol is strictly controlled, it could well be that those in fancy dress have already imbibed well before they even set foot in the ground.

Yesterday morning as I awoke, my head was full of the fascinating conversations I had had with my relatives over drinks and the meal I had shared with them the evening before. One thing that is now certain is that my own life is entering a new phase and it means that I am much more free than I was both to visit my Yorkshire relatives but also for them to visit me in Bromsgrove. In particular, as I have several rooms spare in which to accommodate people, then a half term break or even more, is now completely possible. I feel that I need to get better informed about the ages and interests of the youngest generation of some branches of my Yorkshire family so that I can plan out what might be suitable activities for them. One thing for sure is a trip to the Severn Valley Railway and there is also a nearby Safari park. But I need to get better informed of other nearby attractions so that in future we can plans for some interesting stays. Moving on from this, there were two major news stories that engaged my attention. The first of these was the revelation of a scandal that even preceded the ‘Horizon’ computer scandal in which the Post Office had wrongly convicted scores of postmasters of fraud. Before the ‘Horizon’ system , there was a previous system called ‘Capture’ and on the basis of this evidence, one female sub-postmaster was convicted in 1998 and she has subsequently died. At her trial, a computer specialist was available and he turned up with a computer system but for some reason the defence barrister never called upon him to give evidence. He has subsequently gone into his garage ,and unearthed several hard disks upon which there is a report showing how flawed the ‘Capture’ system actually turned out to be in practice. Had this evidence been heard in 1998, then this conviction and subsequent Horizon convictions might never have happened. What is to follow now is a long legal process involving the Criminal Cases Review Commission and it may be years yet before justice is finally done. But the evidence contained on the computer technician’s hard disks is said to be ‘seismic’ so we shall follow this case with interest. The other big story is the legal advice given to the government about the legality of Israel’s actions against Iran. Legal advice is not published but there is an inkling that the Attorney General may have concluded that Israel’s actions are illegal. This then means that any assistance given to Israel (spare parts for jets, refuelling facilities in Diego Garcia – the list is endless) might mean that the UK is complicit in the breaking of international law and therefore is not in a position to give assistance to Israel in the present conflict. As in the case of Tony Blair and the Iraq conflict, the true status of the legal advice is never actually published but I suspect that at the heart of government there are severe concerns about the way in which the UK has always given support to Israel in past conflicts and the legality of current attacks against Iran is now a very live question.

In the morning, I spent a very quiet morning in the famous Valley Gardens in Harrogate, reading my newspaper, doing Sudoku and reading a book on grief by C S Lewis that my niece had lent to me. At midday, I made my way to the pub across the way from the ‘Crown Hotel’ where they serve a magnificent dark, mild beer and there I met with my niece, her husband and her son who just completed the first year of an undergraduate course in Politics and History. We spent a wonderful couple of hours and I relayed some stories amongst other things, of our undergraduate years and the trips that Meg and I used to make on a scooter across the Pennines along the old A62 road (before the M62 motorway was built). After they had left, I walked into town to my favourite Chinese restaurant and had what I hope to be a small meal of the House Special noodles (with pork, beef, prawns and lots of other things but proved to be a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.) Then I had a bit of nap before I meet the fourth set of relatives this evening for a meal and post-funeral chat and then I will have succeeded in meeting all of my Yorkshire relatives which was, after all, the point of my trip here in the first place. After I have met with all of my relatives, I shall return home on Friday morning but not before the first set of relatives are going to treat me to a big cooked breakfast and then transport me to the railway station to send me on my way. The night before I had spent the most magnificent evening in the company of my (second) male nephew, his wife and their two delightful children. We started off in their house for pre-dinner drinks and I manage to show them some of the memorabilia concerned with Meg. Then we all went all to a local restaurant with which they have close affiliation and finally ended up back in the family home. There I was able to give them a full and detailed account of my mother’s life including several important details of which they were completely unaware – the opinion of the two children was that it sounded like the script from a film. After this wonderful reunion, I am eagerly looking forward to welcoming them to our family home in Worcestershire where we have plenty of space for everyone as we stand at the moment. We had a flurry of excitement about my hat which I had left behind in the house but we have made arrangements to be reunited with the same on the platform of the railway station tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I can only bask in the magnificent warmth that my family has shown to me and their support, love and welcoming embrace have made me feel very humble (and fortunate) that I have such a lovely bevy of relatives at this post-funeral stage of my new existence.

I woke up this morning after a pretty good night’s sleep to what comics in the past would have a day that was ‘scorchio’ ie hot all day. The first thing I did was to consult my phone where I had received an appreciative text from the husband of my niece who showed me around Harrogate and for whom I had purchased from Oxfam a cricketing manual. It looks as though this might be a delight for him which is a source of much pleasure. I then consulted the train timetables to find the frequency of a train to Knaresborough to see my sister again today. I found a good timetable and I was also taken to a site where I could book my ticket which was cheap enough and the return fare made it even cheaper. I paid for my ticket and then get the QR code installed on my phone (as my son showed me how to do the other day) so this really does make things like travel so much easier. Moreover, I have an ‘open’ ticket so I can linger in Knaresborough as long as I like and am under no time pressure to return. But in Harrogate I indicated to my favourite cafe owner that I would return for another meal and I am going to follow his recommendation for what to eat today. So far, my Yorkshire trip is fulfilling all of the objectives that I had intended for it and I have been indicating to my Yorkshire family that any member of the extended family can stay with me in Bromsgrove for a few days if they wanted a holiday break and, in return I feel I will probably return to the ‘Crown’ hotel in Harrogate on a regular basis. Meanwhile, the joys of rapid communication as I have pinged a few emails across to one of my former Oxfordshire friends and my son and my relatives. My Oxfordshire friend is telling me that the Teachers Pensions’ Agency may take months to process the continuation of Meg’s pension which is just the not good news I wanted to hear!

After breakfast, I picked up my newspaper and set off in plenty of time to catch the train to Knaresborough but as the walk to the station took less time than I imagined, I caught a train half an hour earlier than anticipated. I stopped off at a Costa Coffee on the High Street in Knaresborough and the very helpful young assistant helped me to navigate the way to the residential home where my sister is lodged. I had a little fishing about to do with cutting through some narrow ginnels off the High Street but found it without too much difficulty and arrived at my sister 20 minutes earlier than planned. I had taken a iPad along with me and although my photos are rather a jumble, I managed to find some family photos and others of interest to my sister and so we spent the morning until lunch time. At this point, I was going to leave to catch the train back to Harrogate and my sister was going to dine as she generally does in the dining room where she has a bit of company. But the care staff persuaded me to stay as they said that they had plenty of food for lunch so I dined with my sister in the beautifully appointed dining room. Towards the end of the meal, I was throwing out ideas how upon the occasion of my next visit to see my sister, we might take her out for tea or lunch somewhere. At this point the assistant manager of the care home hove into view and I asked what I thought was rather a bold question and whether on the occasion of my next visit, we might take tea in the gardens of the home. We worked out the occasion of my next visit would probably be on the occasion of my sister’s birthday. which is at the end of August and on a Sunday. The manager said she would be delighted to organise this for us and, even if it is wet, they had another little area where with the rest of the family we could have a little celebratory tea party. So I was delighted that I had actually asked the question and even more delighted that it looks as though a little celebration will be easy to arrange. I can now disseminate this news round the rest of the family when I see them over the course off the next day or so and we all have time to make space in our diaries for this. Then I made my way back to the station and thence to Harrogate which was a very straight forward journey and the journey to the hotel is largely downhill which was useful. Then I got some supplies from the little shop across the road and had a quiet afternoon resting before I see more family this evening.

The evening turned out to be an incredibly intense emotional experience. Firstly I met my nephew and his wife in a hotel bar just across the way from where I am staying and we had several drinks here. Then we repaired to a local fish restaurant which was nearby and which my relatives had wanted to patronise for a long time and not quite got round to it. We all had superbly good fish meals and shared lot of family background with each other which all four of us found fascinating and illuminating. Finally, we called back at my hotel and I managed to show my relatives some memorabilia of Meg which I particularly wanted them to see and we finished off with a spirits nightcap. So all in all, it was a most intense evening of remenisciencies which I would not have missed for all the world. We have seen so little of each other over the years that we all of us had a great deal to catch up on. I am hopeful that the wider family can come along to Worcestershire so that I can entertain them and the house is certainly large enough for us to have an excellent party. It could well be that in the years ahead, I visit Harrogate much more often than in the past and I hope that, for their part, they can be entertained in my house when they can take some vacations.

Wednesday, 18th June, 22025

[Day 1920]

Last night, perhaps because I was in a strange bed, I got up in the middle of the night and accessed some photos on my phone that I did not realise that I had as well as sending a couple of interesting health (diet) articles found on Huffpost to my son who could well be interested in these sorts of things. The room I have got at ‘The Crown’ at a very good price is excellent for my needs because besides the bed there is quite a large desk on which it is easy to put my laptop, Before today, I have tried balancing laptops on a wobbly suitcase and other improvised arrangements but my current setup is excellent. I am glad I brought an extension lead with me because I can also have uninterrupted bedside lights and kettles available to me as well. I slept fairly well in a strange bed, as it were, but I was up for a period in the middle of the night and looked at some photos I had forgotten I had which were stored on my phone. Yesterday was planned to be an interesting day because the husband of my niece was due to collect me at about 10.30 and then we are going to visit various places in Harrogate, not least the ‘Harlow Carr Gardens Show.’ famed throughout Harrogate and Yorkshire where we will almost certainly lunch before visiting my sister in the afternoon. I was contemplating the fact that I left Harrogate in 1963 when my mother, sister and I moved to Leeds (although it is fair to say that the population tends to move in the opposite directionI. I have decided not to have breakfast here in the hotel to keep my carb count down but when I enter the huge dining room I always have a rather a strange sensation because I am pretty convinced that after the hotel was requisitioned by the RAF and used as a kind of operational and planning headquarters, my mother probably worked there as a period and probably worked in the very room which is now the hotel’s dining room.

After I had breakfasted in my room, I popped over the road and acquired a newspaper in exchange for my voucher and then bought a small bag of clementines. Then, I enjoyed the morning sunshine until my nieces’s husband came at the appointed time and we made our way slowly to Harlow Carr gardens, made famous in the past as the natural habitat of the gardener, Geoffrey Smith. We enjoyed a very pleasant stroll through the gardens talking over family matters and finally stopping by for a coffee. Then it was time for a leisurely drive to Knaresborough where I came along to see my sister in her residential home. The home was very well appointed and had a pretty homely atmosphere and whilst no doubt being expensive, the whole home was evidently in a superior category. I was left along with my sister for about an hour and then we were joined by the wife of another nephew who just popped in to see us all. After I had discussed all aspects of Meg’s funeral with my elder sister, we arranged to meet again the following day. I had been given instructions how I could find the home again from the railway station and so I will visit again in the morning. Then I asked to be dropped off next to a little cafe that Meg and I used to frequent. When I got there, it was deserted but it is run by a Chinese family who will cook whatever you want for you during the day. Meg and I enjoyed this cade because although the furnishings and appearance seem somewhat basic, the food is of an excellent quality and I discovered from the staff that they had been operating there for about 30 years which is quite a long time these days. I had a king prawn ‘Foo Yung’ with some fried rice and iced tea and the quality was absolutely excellent with some of the best prawns (sweet and tasty) that I had had for a very long time. It was a simple walk down the hill to my hotel where I allowed myself a little rest on the bed. On the way down the hill, I could not resist buying a book on the Illustrated History of Cricket so I bought this for my nieces’s husband as, although he is family, I am sure that with his cricketing connections he would enjoy the book and it would give him hours of pleasure. I told him the story of how when I worked in the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, I served Fred Truman the famous English fast bowler with some beer and he had his left arm round a blonde and his right arm round a brunette. I am not sure to this day whether the sex in which he may have participated put him off his cricket or whether the cricket put him off his sex (although, of course, the two are not mutually exclusive) Later in the evening, my niece came round and we popped across the road to have a drink of the magnificent dark ale which is locally brewed. Naturally, we discussed a lot of family matters but a principal source of concern was how to maintain our health with judicious combinations of lifestyle, diet and exercise. Now that this generation of the family have reached a certain age i.e. our 50’s than some health issues are besetting all of us so we are trying, without being excessively neurotic about it, to do what we can to maintain our health whilst we can. Whilst in the pub, I received a phone call from a distant relative on Meg’s side of the family who expressed condolences and we promised to meet again as soon as practicable. The new few days are to be quite busy because in the morning I am going to catch the train to Knaresborough to see my sister again and in the evening am having a meal out with another nephew. On Thursday, I am to see another niece in the middle of the day and will dine out with another nephew in the evening. But in the course of my stay, I will have managed extensive conversations with each one of my sister’s four children which was, after all, the aim of my trip up to Yorkshire. On Friday, when I depart I am going to breakfast with the first niece and husband and then they are going to run me to the station where no doubt I can return home exhausted but happy.