Last week when I went shopping in Asda for the first time in months, I managed to buy two or three of what I call ‘thin strip’ calendars that just fit inside the kitchen door jam and upon which I record birthdays and so on (when I remember) But for reasons that will become apparent, I felt I could do with a calendar printing off just this last month of 2024, December. Finding a website that would do this for me, I could also print out some complete calendars for the whole of 2025 which I proceeded to do as I have several uses in mind for such documents. According to the schedule of care workers, the two workers allocated to get Meg up this morning should have arrived at 8.45 so I was bobbling about, just ready to go and get showered when the two workers turned up at 8.00am i.e. three quarters of an hour early. I think I must have shown my displeasure because one of the care workers communicated with HQ and apparently the schedules were changed last night and the care worker who was a team leader should have communicated the change of time to me. I subsequently got a telephone call with a half apology and the information that the relevant team leader had been ‘spoken to’ whatever that means. So I am going to utilise one of the home made calendars which I printed off this morning to assiduously record every time that the agency falls short by only sending one care worker when two were allocated. Meg certainly needs two workers to get her up and dressed in the morning and the reverse process to get her ready for bed in the evening. As for the other two calls during the day, then if it is necessary to utilise the hoist to get Meg out of whichever chair she happens to be occupying, then health and safety demands that two workers should be utilised, one to operate the controls of the hoist and the other to ensure that Meg is not made uncomfortable by the hoisting process itself. I am quite prepared to lend a hand when necessary on an occasional basis but the occasions when I am becoming the ‘de facto’ second care worker are multiplying so that they now number about every other day. So this is going to be carefully documented and I intend to inform the manager that careful records will be kept and a more formal report submitted to the care agency management about once a month from now on. I am hoping this shot across the bows might have desired effect but the toll of the winter pressures is certainly making its presence felt.

After breakfast, it seemed a fairly fine day so Meg and I set off down the hill but a principal task was to deliver some nine cards to near neighbours and friends. This having been done, we picked up a copy of ‘The Times’ and then set off along the High Street. Actually, we got no further than the Salvation Army (charity) shop because this store provided me that everything that I needed. When I sent our Christmas cards, I send religious cards to the definitely religious of my friends, secular cards to the avowedly none-religious and a variety of cards to everybody else. When I looked at the cards left over, I had only religious cards so I felt I needed some more but secular cards for recipients such as the care workers that we have. But my search only went as far as the Salvation Army because I found packs of cards with the ‘Dove of Peace’ which fitted the non-secular bull perfectly and I bought a couple of these. I also found a specialist knee support on sale on a ridiculously cheap price because my left knee occasionally plays up in the bad weather following an accident at Leicester Polytechnic when I was hit by a run-away car on the Polytechnic campus in about 1974 which is, of course, half a century ago. I was warned I might have some osteoarthritis in my knees later in life but I regard myself as fortunate in having survived this long with my knee(s) in a tolerable state. I also bought another thing singlet which I want to wear under my pyjamas to keep me war at night. This particular garment is decorated with a couple of cute little kittens which are not exactly to my taste but I am prepared to overcome my scruples as the garment is the right size and material and had been massively reduced to £1.00.

Around lunchtime, we received a call from our friendly chiropodist who called around for her month visit. After this we had our chicken and broccoli which had been in the oven for longer than I had intended but was nonetheless very tasty. I had parboiled some broccoli and then put it in the oven, whilst the oven was already on but when we came to eat it, it was decidedly crispy. But it was delicious and had the taste and texture that I sometimes associate with a crispy seaweed which I have occasionally eaten when visiting Meg’s cousin in South Wales where it is considered a local delicacy and known as ‘lavabread’.Originally, Laverbread hails from Pembrokeshire, but it can also be found growing in the Gower Peninsula in Swansea. After harvesting, the laver is boiled for around 10 hours, before being minced or pureed into a dark greenish-black, viscid substance. While it may not look or sound overly appealing, many people find that the marine, slightly salty taste tends to grow on them. It is boiled down and made into a green paste, usually enjoyed with a traditional Welsh breakfast. Contrary to the name, it is not bread, although it can be served on toast or with a Welsh breakfast.

After lunch, Meg and I watched the original 1939 edition of ‘The 39 steps’ although I must say that I did not enjoy it nearly as much as the remake of the film made in, I think. the 1970’s. The film we watched this afternoon did not match my memory of it very well and I wonder if the original version and the remake differed quite a lot. Then we followed this up with a natural history film upon polar bears which Meg is quite enjoying but it fills in an odd 20 minutes before the carers arrive for Meg’s teatime call. In the House of Commons, the Chinese ‘spy’ has actually been named under the terms of Parliamentary privilege and I am pleased this has happened. The extent to which the Chinese have burrowed into the elite of British society to obtain influence rather than direct spying activities as such. The activities of the Chinese state in sponsoring this type of ‘soft power’ is quite extraordinary but, of course, China is such an important trading partner this has not been ‘called out’ by the UK until today.

Our two care workers arrived this morning, both looking exhausted even before they started their day’s work, suffering from a variety of ailments. As always, I offer them whatever medicaments are likely to soothe their present troubles but this is invariably politely declined. Nonetheless, we had a jolly little chat over Christmas related issues and they gradually came round and then left whilst I prepared breakfast for Meg and myself. Then we received the most welcome invitation to meet up with our University of Birmingham friend who we tend always to meet up with on a Sunday morning. We took the opportunity to buy some soft drinks and then had quite a dismaying time when we came to present the voucher for our copy of the ‘Sunday Times’ at the checkout. The polite young lad who was acting as a Sunday job informed us that is was now Waitrose policy not to accept these vouchers any more and the system would not accept them. When I protested about this change of policy and informed the lad that I had been presenting vouchers every day for the last six months, he apologised and said I could have my copy of the paper ‘just this once’ I happened to see what one of the oldest established of the ‘partners’ as the Waitrose staff are called and asked him whether it was true that these pre-paid vouchers were no longer being accepted. The partner checked with a colleague and the vouchers in the event are being accepted, at which news I gave a great sigh of relief. As there are no newspaper shops on the High Street any more (a sign of the times?) one has to go to a supermarket to buy a newspaper in Bromsgrove these days and this would have been a severe disruption to my daily routine. But the Sunday boy has misinterpreted some information he had been given so all is well that ends well. On the way home, I noticed something quite extraordinary. I had two large bottles of soft drinks and some cans of ‘Red Bull’ for the youngsters and these I hung from the handles of the wheelchair. But being quite weighty, they evidently acted as some kind of counter balance to Meg’s weight in the wheelchair and actually made it easier for me to push her up the hill. I suppose this is akin to the principal that it is easy to walk up a hill with a heavy bag in each hand rather than just one bag in one hand so my journey home this lunchtime was just that tad easier than might have been expected. Once we got home, we tuned into ‘Songs of Praise’ which was mainly traditional English carols but the presenter is Aled Jones (who also is a presenter on ClassicFM) and whose easy style I can quite take to. For lunch. I seared off some chicken thighs and then baked them in a lasagne sauce in the oven and I also put some parboiled kale and a cooked potato in the oven to give us some oven baked vegetables. I nearly gave myself a nasty burn by getting hold of the handle of an oven-proof saucepan which I had forgotten had been in the oven but in a second or so immediately ran my fingers under a stream of icy cold water which averted the potential disaster. One of the most miserable Christmas dinners that I ever ate occurred when we having Christmas in my mother’s house in Leeds and she handed me a dish straight from her mini-oven which burnt all of the fingers on one if not both hands. Naturally, my mother did not have any ‘Acroflavine’ to hand of which we normally have a tube in the cupboard next to the oven ready to slap on in the case of emergencies. In the afternoon, we re-ran the program on Alan Bennet of which we had only seen half yesterday. I particularly wanted to see again the shots that had been taken inside ‘The Crown’ hotel which was our most recent abode when Meg could get into a car and we could visit Harrogate – but those days are now over. To be saved for another day is a program on the life and career of Dame Maggie Smith (who was absolutely marvellous in the way she played ‘The Lady in the Van’ who had camped at the bottom of Alan Bennet’s garden for some 15 years)

The other day I indulged myself in ‘once a year’ purchase of the ‘Radio Times’ which details all of the programs across a wide variety of channels for a two week period over Christmas and the New Year. Although expensive, this issue of the weekly is generally worth having as it helps one to map out the programs and perhaps films that are not to be missed over the Christmas period. Also, it has its uses on the newspaper non-publishing days over the festive period. In the past, I am sure that have made a feature of the entire lost of films (often totalling over 100) that are to be shown and it can be useful to either plan ahead or view a program on iPlayer if there is a not-to-be-missed program. One one occasion I remember an anguished letter being published which pleaded for the program planners to show ‘High Noon’ (a regular Christmas favourite) because the viewer thought that they might have ‘forgotten some of the words’ But I looked in vain for this feature and did not find it so it might be a case of browsing through and then marking things up day by day. In the past, some fascinating replays have been done on Radio 4 when they tend to raid the archives and to run some of the BBC classic recordings some of which can be hilariously funny but the BBC allows to broadcast on festive occasions.

What is happening in Syria at the moment is disturbing in the extreme but the world’s attention is focused elsewhere.As well as positioning troops inside Syrian territory, Israel has also unleashed air strikes on military targets across the country. It says it is doing this to stop weapons stockpiles falling into the hands of extremists. The chief of staff for Israel’s military, Herzi Halevi, for his part has dismissed the idea that Israel has no justification for its involvement in Syria. But for one country to send its military across an international border must surely be a violation of international law (although the Israelis and the United States have shown scant regard for the principles of international law in the past)

So yesterday started off with a familiar story. I was already well up and showered and gave Meg her early morning cup of tea expecting the two carers to turn up at 8.00am. But after a non-appearance after ten minutes, I got a telephone call from the agency that two workers had phoned in as sick and therefore unavailable for work and so Meg’s ‘getting up’ call would be delayed until 9.00am. This, of course, I have come to expect and may get even worse over the Christmas period. I suppose I am resigned to this by now – the one consolation is that I can use my smart speaker to play a selection of Mozart for me to help to sustain my equilibrium. The fact that the care workers are an hour later than normal means my breakfast routine will need to be re-timed so that we can still see our Waitrose friends at the normal time. The night before, I felt I had just averted a potential disaster. The water levels in our downstairs toilet rose ominously after a flush and this always suggests a blockage. So I plucked up my courage, put on a rubber glove and prepared to reach as far as down the toilet as I could to relieve the probable obstruction. But I could feel nothing but after I had completed this manouvre, the water seemed to give an enormous ‘belch’ after which the toilet flushed normally. I suspect that a care worker had put a not very disposable wipe down the toilet and this has had created the temporary blockage but the action of putting my hand and arm up and down it had created sufficient movement of water for the blockage to clear. Evidently, I was mightily relieved and normally I dispose of waste destined for the toilet myself to prevent this kind of occurrence but I imagine a care worker was trying to be helpful and did this for me, inadvertently creating the problem. So I know now to always do this myself and I know both how to prevent problems and to solve them when they do occur. Breakfast was a rushed affair in front of the lateness of the carer’s call so the minute it was finished I pushed Meg down the hill- fortunately, we had a clear blue sky and some sun plus a smidgeon of the warmth of the sun. In Waitrose, we met up with one of our friends but not the other but nonetheless had a jolly time. Afterwards, I relieved the store of some of its supply of porridge and also a supply of orange-based soft drink in anticipation of our party in a few day’s time. Then it was a case of getting home and watching some quite interesting TV. There is a series called ‘Villages by the Sea’ and today they were focusing on a little community called Bucklers Hard which is on the other side of Southampton Water. Probably because of the proximity of several acres of oak forest, this location had been used in the past for the construction of wooden warships for the Navy, particularly in the 18th centuries. Warships were basically built here and then sailed down the river into Southampton or more probably Portsmouth where they were fitted out with superstructure and, presumably, armaments. But having falling into relative quintessence for a century or so, apparently Bucklers Hard was pressed into service again in the preparations for the ‘D Day’ landings. At the conclusion of WWII, this was probably the greatest invasion fleet every assembled and all kinds of support ships were required, not to mention innovative structures such as floating harbours that could be towed across the Channel and then used as a temporary harbour against which big ships could moor whilst smaller ships carried supplied inland. This part of the history of Bucklers Hard was totally unknown to me, even though we had visited it on at least a couple of occasions when we lived in Hampshire.In fact, modern archaeological methods such as ground penetrating radar is revealing the slipways that were used in the past to get the wooden warships from their construction site into the Beaulieu River, in the New Forest.

After we had lunched on some quiche, tinned tomatoes and broccoli we settled down for a Saturday afternoon’s TV viewing. As Christmas is approaching, some more classic films are being shown. Today it was the turn for the Ealing Comedy ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’ which is amusing without being rib-ticklingly funny. When this was over, we watched the broadcast from last night of ‘Have I Got News for You’ which is, of course, always topical. I then consulted the schedules to see what had been broadcast last night and my attention was immediately drawn to a retrospective on the life and works of Alan Bennet the Yorkshire playwright, wit and raconteur. But what was so very interesting for us was Alan Bennet’s used occasionally to stay in ‘The Crown’ hotel in Harrogate which is the hotel which latterly, despite my apprenticeship in the ‘Old Swan’, became our favourite hotel in Harrogate. They always offered us very good deals and no-cost parking right in the town centre which is why we used to frequent it. So it was wonderful to see the shots of the interior of the hotel and it brought back some poignant memories for us. Like the other large hotels in Harrogate, the buildings were requisitioned by the various Armed Services during WWII and I believe the Crown was commissioned by the Air Ministry and only released back to the public in the early 1950’s. The dining room was I think in an art deco style and was magnificent although we only ever breakfasted in it. My mother when she was alive had, I think worked for a spell at the Air Ministry in ‘The Crown’ and it gave me a rather curious feeling when I was breakfasting there to know that my mother probably had feasted her eyes on the same scene. One could well imagine it in its Air Ministry days and there were some still some photographs adorning some of the hotel corridors detailing stories from the hotel’s past.

Now that the economy has shrunk by 0.1% as last month, then the new Labour government has got off to a rather shaky start. The rise in employer’s NI contributions might have fulfilled an election pledge not to raise NI on the rest of the population but as well as taking such much money out of the turnover of firms and charities, it has also dealt a blow to business confidence. So all of the hard work that Rachel Reeves may have put in before the election to reassure business leaders about an incoming Labour government will have been set to nought.

So today has been a rather different day. The two carers came along at 8.20 and one of them, although new to the company, is tremendously experienced having worked as a psychiatric hospital and it was immediately evident that he knew exceptionally well how to communicate with patients so this fills one with confidence. Once Meg had been breakfasted, we decided to set off for town but decided to visit the large Asda store in the centre. This is because I know that there are a variety of things sold within this store that are not easily obtainable elsewhere so I had a little shopping list in my head. Although the store is large, I was pretty successful in obtaining almost everything that I wished to obtain including some things that I happened to buy when I say them on the grounds that they might prove useful. The principal things that I wanted to buy are some of those what I termed ‘strip’ calendars which are quite narrow and thin and which I just happen to have in one or two convenient locations around the house. Often these are animal designs (cute little puppies) that are not really to my taste but beggars cannot be choosers as they say. But I also managed to renew supplies of some other items which I find particularly useful. One of these is a supply of Asda’s own ‘instant mashed potato’ and I tend to use this for one cooking function only which is to supply a thickening agent to gravy. So instead of using cornflower which is typically used for this purpose, I find that a few sprinkles of instant mashed potato does the job for me. I also managed to buy some light bulbs and one or two items of party stationery thinking ahead to our little celebration which is now about ten days off. After we returned home, I made us a risotto and tried hard to follow exactly the recipe used by chefs which does involve sprinkling some of the arborio rice into the clarified onions to toast the rice a little before adding the chicken stock. This worked out fine and I even had some spare which I have frozen up ready for the delectation of my carers who I know particularly likes this. During the afternoon, we treated ourselves to ‘Question Time’ which is broadcast on Thursday evenings and usually runs for the best part of an hour,. As it happened, I saw the first 20 seconds of this and the last minute and slept during the whole of the rest – which is not an uncommon occurrence these days. Whilst on the subject of extreme tiredness, I am finding these days that when I am particularly tired, I tend to put things down and completely forget where I have left them. A case in point was the beautiful striped mug for which I have already have a huge affection even though it was only purchased yesterday for the princely sum of 50p. This seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth and the same sometimes happens with articles of clothing. But experience has now taught me that in the case of pottery to look in the microwave (in which they almost inevitably are) or in the washing machine or dryer (where clothing is often to be found).

Almost inevitably, one’s own life becomes intertwined with that of one’s carers. Without wishing to be obtrusive, carers often talk about their children and domestic activities. We have had a fairly new carer for the past two to three weeks who is a resident of Bromsgrove and is the mother of a young child of about four. She is a fairly slightly built person ad certainly not as hefty as some of her colleagues. She has a fairly shy nature but is eager to learn and evidently is growing in self confidence as she gets more and more successful episodes of care under her belt. So I was amazed when she let slip that she was actually a kickboxing champion of the UK, presumably in her weight allocation of that is how the sport is organised. Of all of the carers that we have, this lady is one of the least likely candidates to be a kick boxing champion. It rather reminded me of a mature student that I used to teach at the University of Winchester. This particular student was a little short and. not exactly podgy but she once let me know that she was the long jump champion of Dorset. Normally, one things of long jumpers as long-limbed, quite tall and lean and with a fair burst of speed down the athletics track so this student, too, surprised me at the time.

Reform UK could replace the Conservatives as the second-largest party at the next election, former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman has predicted. The peer said Nigel Farage’s party ‘seem to have an argument and they seem to know what it is’. Speaking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, she opined ‘I feel quite conflicted about this because I do not want to talk up Reform,’ she said.’But I actually think that Reform are going to replace the Conservatives at the next election because they seem to have an argument’ Her words highlight the increasingly bitter battle between the Tories and Reform following the general election, which saw Mr Farage elected to parliament for the first time. We have seen political parties come and go before e.g. the SDLP but whether the Conservatives will ever be replaced is a tall order – after all, the Conservative party has been one of the most successful political forces for a century or so now. We could, though, end up with a divided centre-right. One of the reasons why Margaret Thatcher was so successful was that the opposition to her was divided between the Labour Party and the Liberals/SDLP and only about 2 voters in 5 actually voted Conservative. So we may yet see the ‘mirror image’ of what was witnessed in the 1980’s.

Last night, I spent about an hour searching for one of my favourite jumpers only to find it this morning draped over the edge of Meg’s bed which I evidently did not search last night as it would have meant putting on the light and probably disturbing Meg’s sleep. As soon as I got up this morning, I received a text from the super-reliable young male Asian team leader to the effect that there were staff shortages and he would himself would be doing Meg’s morning call but he would be delayed. It turned out that he had been alerted at 4.00am that one of his co-workers needed to take his own mother to A&E which rather took him out of the reckoning for the day. Consequently, the young team leader needed to start all types of rescheduling of work commitments which he succeeded in doing but at some personal cost of the absence of sleep on the one hand.

Fortunately, as it turned this young male carer who knows Meg very well as he attend to her almost every day had detailed himself (being a ‘team leader’) for Meg’s sit call. I raced out to do the shopping but as one does just before Christmas, I was tempted to buy some extras. Thinking about our careers’ [party, I bought standard white wine (Pinot Grigio) and what seemed to be a reasonable rosé. Being Aldi, I also bought a bottle of Glühwein (mulled wine) as this always goes down well at Christmas parties. After I had got back, we got the shopping half unpacked and then Meg and I made our way through a slight drizzle down the hill. We picked up a copy of the newspaper and then made our way to the Post Office where I bought the stamps for the 42 cards I was about to post which included four destined for Spain. In view of the tremendous price hikes and as I was so far ahead of myself this year, I only bought second class stamps supplementing these with a book of first class stamps for the inevitable late card I will probably need to send. Upon enquiring whether my cards would reach their destinations in Spain in time for Christmas. I was told that the last date for guaranteed delivery is now the end of November. I expressed my disappointment and dismay to the counter staff member who took it in good part but I needed to explain that what had been two weeks beforehand has now become about four to five and the levels of service in the Post Office were dropping enormously (since privatisation, of course). On our way home, I bought some ointment for cracked heels which I always seem to need at this time of year and could not resist a Sainsbury’s ‘Home’ range striped mug being sold for 50p in our local Salvation Army charity shop. By the time the care workers had called around for Meg’s delayed lunch time call it was way after 2.00pm and I did not fancy an extended period of cooking. So I diced up some meat and threw it into a ‘quick’ rice with petit pois for some green veg. This was both tasty and quick, after which I resumed doing the unpacking of the shopping from this morning that seems to be taking all day.

At least one of the care workers is taking her very young children (aged 3-4) to a ‘Santa Express’ which goes to the ‘North Pole’ (although it is only 12 minute ride from the start in Tamworth (in a country park) At the destination, you can visit the elves in their workshop, receive a present from Santa Claus himself and even help Mrs Claus prepare some cookies that are then given to the children. The whole of this trip takes about 2 hours after which the little ones are exhausted with the excitement of it all and, of course, the belief is total. Sometime this type of activity lends itself to scammers as happened a few years ago when the winter experience was a few plastic bags draped around one or two scanty bushes trying to simulate a winter landscape but when it is done ‘professionally’ it seems to be very well done indeed. The reviews, for what it is worth, are very favourable. Down the road, of course, we have the hugely popular (and presumably money-spinning) trip on the Santa express from Kidderminster to an intermediate station (Arley) where there is a pantomime experience and the chance to receive a visit from Santa Claus himself. My own Santa Claus simulating days are unfortunately over but I played Santa (and Meg, Mother Claus) for several years at my daughter-in-la’s primary school until a hospital induced thinness on my part meant that pillows could not disguise my lack of a Santa physique and my stint came to an end.

I received a text late in the afternoon that the two care workers had been delayed and would be half an hour late for the putting to bed call this evening. When the two young care workers arrived, they looked absolutely shattered having just had another really traumatic experience with a very ill elderly client who has just come under the care of the agency and it took the two of them over an hour to clean up the mess (and this has happened every day this week) I gave them some coffee to help to revive them because they really look practically dead on their feet. Social Services and the allocated OT is of the view that only carer is required for 30 minutes but they seem to have no idea of the enormity of the task that the care workers have to face. So I give the two lads as much moral support as I can but their lot is not a happy one at the moment.

The NHS is under the most enormous pressure just before Christmas. A ‘tidal wave’ of flu infections has led to a 70% increase in hospital cases in England in just seven days, the NHS has said. An average of 1,861 patients with flu were in hospital every day last week – up from 1,099 in the previous week and 402 at the same time last year. Flu cases are currently highest among 5 to 14-year-olds, according to the UK Health Security Agency, but adult cases are expected to rise when schools and nurseries close. Cases of norovirus (the winter vomiting bug) and RSV (a common cause of coughs and colds, and a cause of chest infections in babies) are also on the rise. NHS England said an average of 837 beds were occupied last week by people with norovirus symptoms – up 10% on the previous week and 64% on last year. These figures look dire but on a personal level, I am relieved that my son’s hospital stay was a week or so ago and not at the moment

The previous evening, as soon as Meg was safely put to bed, I turned my attention to making a start on my Christmas card list – or at least those items that I knew would have to be posted. Altogether there were about 40 cards to process and I thought I would divide this into four tranches of 10 – in the event, I pushed this up to 14 before I went to bed so that I knew I had done a third. Early yesterday morning, I woke up just after 5.00am and rather than going back to sleep, thought I would make some more progress on the remaining cards. By the time Meg was ready to be got up and breakfasted, I had done all but five of the cards because, as I was making good progress I felt the impetus to press on. Our domestic help called around today and we had already planned to make a major focus of this morning the erection and dressing of our Christmas tree. My son and I had ensured that we had taken everything from its storage place in the loft so after our domestic help had done some of the essential tasks oh her stay with us, we turned our attention to the Christmas tree. A certain amount of furniture rearrangement is called for so that we can locate our tree in its eminently suitable location in a corner of our hall and near a plug point. Our domestic help actually rather likes dressing of Christmas trees and she made a superb job of it. After the tree was put into position and clad with its lights, we then started to dress the tree with a fairly large supply of baubles in our possession. We seem to have a huge supply of baubles because we have inherited some from the family tree that we used to adorn in addition to which our domestic help added some of her own excess and finally a job lot which she bought in a charity shop when, in the past, Christmas was over and the store wanted to dispose of them. Dressing the tree and then some of its immediate environs seemed to take most of the morning but I am pleased to say that the result is as stunning as always. Meg and I did not venture out this morning but just before lunch I sat with Meg whilst I finished off the last of the Christmas cards that I needed to write. I had sent off an email late last night to one of Meg’s cousins to check the most recent address of another cousin and then I did a thorough check that I had an up-to-date definitive list of the Christmas card list with a tick against each item to delineate that I had actually sent a card this year. Incidentally, when I first started to computerise my Christmas card mailing list several years, I handed a copy of it to my son and daughter-in-law so that at the time of our actual demise, they know exactly with whom they need to communicate. This so-called ‘death list’ actually needs to be updated year by year as some people on it almost inevitably have succumbed to the grim reaper.

Almost inevitably at this time of year, a lot of the focus of attention of all of us is the forthcoming Christmas festive period. The carers in particular know that they have to cope with the demands of both work and family and they are busy planning how and what presents they are going to give to their children. In bygone days, when belief in the Santa Claus myth was almost total, we used to shout up the chimney to indicate what presents we hoped would be brought.The giving of presents at Christmas time is an interesting tradition. The term Boxing Day actually dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries. The giving of presents is linked to an older British tradition in which the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families since they would have had to serve their masters on Christmas Day. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses, and sometimes leftover food. During the reign of Queen Victoria, the wealthy would give gifts to servants and trades people in boxes as a thank you for their service. The gifts would often include money, goods, and Christmas leftovers. However, Meg and I rather like the traditions that are followed in Spain. Here whilst Christmas is important, some symbolic presents might be given on Christmas Day itself. But the major feast in these times is ‘Reyes Magos’ or what we term the ‘Three Kings’ who traditionally brought presents of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newly born Christ. In the small fishing communities around Spain, the young children are brought along to the dockside or landing area here they can actually observe the Three Kings, in all of their fine robes, descend from the fishing boats, evidently from overseas. In some of island communities, the Three Kings actually arrive by camel as well so no effort is spared to impress the very young. Traditionally, too, there is a procession throughout the town where small sweets are thrown into the crowd. So most Spanish children would expect their principal presents to arrive on January 6th (‘Reyes’ in Spain) and not on Christmas Day itself.

Of course the other thing about the days before Christmas is the Christmas music. Since we have bought our two ‘Alexa’ smart speakers, we have been playing some wonderful Christmas music to ourselves. In particular, I quite like Bach’s ‘A Christmas Oratorio’ whilst Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and Haydn’s ‘Creation’ are perennial favourites. There are still some communities in the UK where you can turn up, be identified as a tenor, baritone or bass and having had the score of ‘The Messiah’ thrust in one’s hand, carry on and sing your way through the whole oratorio. I think this used to happen outside Leeds Town Hall, for example. This morning whilst we were putting up the Christmas decorations I played Harry Belafonte’s ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ which my sister and I bought as an Extended Play (EP) record between us when I was about 14 years old. I also remember some Johnny Mathis songs from about this time period as well and, in particular, ‘Let it rain’ which I often sing around the house when it is pouring with rain outside.

The previous evening, Meg had a somewhat getting to bed time as the care workers were allocated to come at 6.30 but in the event turned up at 7.45. But they had had a very difficult call previously with a new client who really needed two handlers but social services/OT had only approved one. The one experienced carer called upon his mate and fellow care worker and they spent two hours with a new client dying of cancer who was incredibly difficult to move and to care for and hence their delay in getting to us. I completely understood and sympathised with the two lads who. by all accounts had done a superb and sterling job but it does underline the fact that if things go awry in one part of the system it has implications for other clients or service users in the jargon. But when Meg was safely in bed I started to think about the Christmas card task looming head of me. Several years ago I put my Christmas card list of about 50 in a file that enables me to print off labels of which I had run out.However, I determined the right size and ordered some more and Amazon told me ‘you last ordered these on December 15th last year’ so I am reassured I have the right product which should arrive some time today, which indeed they did. We had a bit of a rush round this morning as we had a delayed start to the day but managed to get down the hill in time to meet up with a couple of our friends, as is our wont every Tuesday. We were treated to a free cupcake, one of the benefits of being one of the oldest customers. Before we left, we availed ourselves of a new type of soft drink being sold in the store which seems to be a marriage between Perroni water and the local supply of oranges. These drinks might be an interesting new thing to try when our carers arrive for the little Christmas party in less than two weeks time. We got up the hill just before the carer arrived to do the Tuesday sit. Meg was having a slight anxiety episode so I gave Meg some pills and decided not to go out until I was assured that Meg was in a calm state of mind. We finished off entertaining the sitter with some of the music that we had at our wedding and I explained to her how we were fortunate enough to have discovered the original organist’s notes when we were digitizing our album of black and wedding photos taken in 1967. And so we came to play ‘Wachet Auf’ (‘Sleepers Awake’) which many in the population will know as the Lloyds Bank advert music and we followed this up with ‘Jesu Joy of man’s Desiring’ with a final rendition of one of our favourite tracks from Joan Baez. The carer is relatively new but a Bromsgrove local and is learning her trade fast so it is always good to take the opportunity for us to get to know the carer better (and vice versa) After Meg’s lunchtime call and translocation into her newly acquired specialist chair, the carer left and I pressed ahead with the day’s lunch where I had some smoked mackerel fillets on the menu. I had previously consulted the web as to the best way to cook smoked fish without it smelling the house out and, as I thought, poaching is undoubtedly the best method. Apparently the milk absorbs some of the chemicals which causes the fish to be odiferous but the poaching process only takes about five minutes so the lunch was quickly prepared and even more quickly eaten. In the late morning, we received two deliveries from Amazon both of which were welcome but the first in particular, being a supply of address labels for my Christmas card writing.

There is an important development in the rapidly evolving situation in Syria now that Assad has gone. It seems that there are thousands of captured IS fighters have been detained in northeastern Syria since the self-styled caliphate fell and, if they were freed, they could further destabilise an already turbulent situation. What is concerning the liberal democracies in the West is that such fighters might regroup and form a fighting force that will either seek revenge on their former captors (understandable as though this might be) or even form a regrouped revolutionary Islamic group determined to wreak vengeance on the West. For this reason, the UK is being incredibly cautious at the moment and together with France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium has stopped asylum applications from Syria. When Syrian dissidents escaped the clutches of Assad and many of them had been tortured by the regime, it was fairly evident why they should be seeking asylum in the past but, of course, now we are in new territory.

Nearer to home, it is reported that Birmingham City Council is near to reaching a historic deals with the unions over the underpayment of female staff over the years (if not decades) The dispute relates to council workers in female-dominated roles, such as cleaners and catering staff, historically being paid less than those in male-dominated roles, like waste collection. The authority started paying out the claims after a landmark Supreme Court case in 2012, but said last year that the bill had spiralled to about £760m. This was one of the key factors in the council, the largest in Europe, declaring itself effectively bankrupt in September 2023 with a Section 114 notice. The notice confirmed that all new spending, with the exception of protecting vulnerable people and statutory services, must stop immediately, while £300m of cuts and tax rises were later approved in order to secure exceptional financial support (EFS) loans from the previous government. The situation in Birmingham though is not completely unique to the city – Nottingham, for example, is in a fairly similar plight but not on the scale afflicting Birmingham. Many of these large local authorities were Labour administrations and the previous Tory administration found it in their interests to let these large local authorities go effectively bankrupt so that they could score a political point by delineating Labour party profligacy. But in practice, the concentration of problems particularly in adult social care but also in children’s services are immense and these problems remain despite the change in government. The funding of adult social care (or lack of it) has been a national scandal but successive governments ave identified the problem and shied away from the enormous cost, preferring to ‘kick the can down the road’ for succeeding governments to implement.

This morning as I was getting showered and dressed, there was a play on ClassicFM of ‘Away in a manger’ which is, of course, a very traditional Christmas carol. But it put me in mind of a radio comedy series broadcast in either the 1970’s or the 1980’s which had a way with Christmas panels. As cinema had developed since the late 1950’s a new wide format was introduced into cinemas to aid in the excitement and visual spectacle of films such as ‘Ben Hur’ (in which the chariot race was, I believe, 20 minutes long) Many cinemas, though, could not get this extra format and so resorted to cutting off a little of the left and the right side of the projected film but one supposes the audience barely noticed. The radio comedians, though, wondered how Christmas would be if they were constantly truncated to right and left in the revised system and so ‘Away in a manger’ became ‘Way in a mange’. Even worse, we got things like ‘Hark the herald Angels sing’ being truncated to ‘Ark the herald Angels sin’ and so on. So this has remained one of the more amusing aspects to Christmas as the years roll by.

Yesterday after we had breakfasted, my son and I got various Christmas things handed down from the loft where, fortunately, we had left them in a convenient pile for ease of access. Although the various decorations have been brought down, I am not going to attempt to erect or to dress the Christmas tree until this Friday when our domestic help says she is more than willing to help a hand. I had to do a certain amount of repair work on some of the stands upon which we locate the tree but fortunately I remembered where we had a good stock of Christmas paper left over from previous years so that eased my restoration labours. After this, and as time was a little pressing, I pushed Meg down the hill to pick up our copy of our daily newspaper and I also took the opportunity to buy a packet soup of a flavour which I cannot get in my local supermarket. On our way down the hill, we noticed that one of our church friends was busy spearing large leaves with a long handled fork in her front garden and this was a great opportunity to thank her for a little kindness she had bestowed on us recently. Our friend used to be responsible for all of the flower arranging in our local church before she retired from this position having done it for many years. But she still made Christmas wreaths and generally these had to be ordered well in advance as the other parishioners were always very keen to obtain one. Our friend had enough material left over for one spare wreath and she actually not only made it but came and fastened it into position in our front porch and this must have a period when we were out of the house so we offered her our profuse thanks.

The news coming out of Syria after the fall of the Assad routine is as terrible as you might expect when a dictator has been deposed. The precedents for establishing orderly government after the downfall of a dictator are not good (we have the precedents of Iraq and the Yemen after all) But having said, the rebel leader has been making suitable conciliatory noises since the fall of Damascus so it is possible that the whole of Syria does not descend into anarchy. So far, the rebel leader has not been indicating to the Russians that their naval and airbase are not to be threatened by any emergent regime but the whole world is rather holding its breath at the moment. As soon as Damascus had fallen, the rebels wanted to release the hundreds, if not thousands, of Syrian citizens locked and tortured by the Assad regime and although locating the prison was easy, releasing its inhabitants had not been. In order to avoid recriminations, no doubt, the gaolers seem to have fled evidently not leaving any keys behind. So the rebels had scoured the country to find anybody with the expertise of how to blow open the iron doors which guarded a network of subterranean tunnels in which not only men abut also women and children had been imprisoned.Those held captive could scarcely believe what was happening to them at the point of liberation and I heard an interview with a Syrian refugee living in Manchester explaining that there was scarcely a family in the land who did not have a family relative or friend imprisoned by the former regime. Sky news is reporting that tens of thousands of detainees have so far been freed from Syria’s prisons, according to Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Syria’s prisons were notorious during the Assad rule, highlighted in 2013 by a defector known as Caesar who smuggled out photos showing evidence of torture, disease and starvation. At Sednaya, Amnesty and other groups claim dozens of people were secretly executed every week, estimating up to 13,000 Syrians were killed between 2011 and 2016.

I am getting increasingly irritated by the government’s plan to build new houses, a feeling accentuated by the plans of the Labour Government to increase the stock of housing by allowing developers to have much more leeway – an almost automatic green light – so long as their plans conform with the local development plan. Here in Bromsgrove and particularly near here I live, there are two massive developments of about 400-500 houses being erected at breakneck speed. Many local residents are fearful about such developments for the simple reason that firstly they have all of the local disruption necessitated by the new development (for example the installation of a new gas main in the distributor road serving my own street) and then there is the consequent pressure on local services, particularly health services which are not expanded at the same time. In my view, the government ought to be talking about the establishment of new communities rather than houses and these communities ought to have a minimum level of provision (I would suggest a doctor’s surgery, a pharmacy, a small local convenience store and a facility for communal use and available for a cheap hire price to make provision, for example, for mother and toddler group) and the houses then be built around them rather than an afterthought, years later (and often, never).

As I was going through my early morning routines, I turned to Sky News and discovered that only a few minutes before, Damascus, the capital of Syria, had fallen to the Syrian rebels. The various opposition groups in Syria were united in their hatred of the Bashar Assad routine which had been in power for about two decades. Damascus had fallen with ‘barely a whimper’ and as sometimes happens when this happens, the government troops realised the game was up and tore off their uniforms and ran away or abandoned their military bases. So far, the disparate elements of the new Syrian regime heavily dependent upon Islamic elements seem to have made all of the right noises, indicating that former government offices were not to be overrun, that the armed forces of the previous regime should be allowed to flee without any recriminations or settling of scores. One of the first acts of the victorious forces was to open up the prisons so that all of those imprisoned by the previous regime could be released. Assad’s former Ally, Russia. now has some real problems because it will be eager to protect the two ports that it has and the Russians may make overtures of peace to the new regime. The states bordering Syria are Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Turkey, and Jordan. Syria has a coastline measuring 120 miles in length and borders the Mediterranean Sea on its western side. So the implications of the fall of the Assad regime throughout the whole of the Middle Easy are immense. The Americans have so far been largely silent with an expression that whatever happens in Syria is nothing to do with the USA but the USA does have strategic concerns in the area and so policy might emerge from the Trump regime when it takes power. The geopolitics of a key ally of Russia being swept away and the fact that Syria borders Lebanon makes the situation one of almost complete unpredictability. One argument which is just about surfacing tis that the Americans may, if they so choose, have an opportunity to dislodge Russia from the region and thereby gain an advantage over them. But of course, the most thing that must happen is for a relatively stable Syrian government to be formed, unlike what happened in Iraq when the whole society descended into hostile and opposing groups after the fall of Sadam ussein. There are video images, which we might expect, of some of the population looting the former presidential palace and helping themselves without hindrance to some ill-gotten gains. News emerged late in the afternoon that Assad sought refuge in Moscow where, presumably, he will stay for the rest of his natural days and one has to wonder if he can only be an embarrassment to the Russians from this point of time onwards. Some very rapid footwork is now called for in the liberal Western democracies. At least one military analyst has opined that the rebels in Syria bore more of the hallmarks of a liberationist force rather than a terrorist organisation which is still the official designation of the Syrian rebel forces. It may take some time for the UK government to recognise the new regime but, in many ways, the sooner the better. Incidentally, what are American forces doing in Syria giving some indirect support to the former Assad regime?

We watched some of the political programmes this morning, as we generally do. But I had consulted the TV schedules and discovered that the James Martin cookery and magazine programme into which we tuned the day before on ITV was repeated a day later on ITV4. I was quite keen to see his tips on how to take the stress of preparing the vegetables on Christmas day to make a stress free Christmas day and so managed to watch the whole of this item. Insofar as I can summarise it, it seems that one boils the vegetables (or parboils) them vigorously and then plunge them into ice-cold water (melting ice and water) to keep the colour and texture the following day. Then it is quite easy to bring them to the boil and serve them straight away. According to James Martin, this is a chef’s trick deployed up and down the country to have plenty of vegetables to serve for Sunday dinners for example so I might give this a go this way – or even try a little experiment first. After our TV viewing, we telephoned our University of Birmingham friend and then made our way down the hill for our customary Sunday morning chat. Whilst we were in the store, we had a look at the range of soft drinks, thinking about the party we will have been throwing in about a fortnight’s time. I notice that Gordons, the gin manufacturers, were selling something in their own shape and colour of bottle which was non-alcoholic and was probably best described as non-alcoholic gin. So I bought a bottle of this ‘on spec’ and will have a little taste later on to see if this lives up to its promise. Waitrose also had a range of some quite exotic non-alcoholic drinks so I may purchase some of these bit by bit to build up our stocks before the big day. One of the lunchtime carers asked of she could bring her 9-year old daughter to the party to which I readily assented as I thought that the little girl and Meg might be able to read children’s stories to each other from our supply of books. Thinking about the party, I had earlier in the day repurposed and decorated a spare little blank hardback notepad which I already had so that visitors to the party can sign in their names and leave a little Christmas message which I can then read and re-read to Meg as the occasion demands.

The weather was tolerable on the way down but turned into a rather nasty icy blast on the way back home. As is by now customary when we have both got a little chilled, we regaled our selves with a cup full of soup upon our return and then started to think about Sunday lunch. This was easy to prepare today because we had retrieved the other half of a pre-cooked beef joint so we just had to make some onion gravy and then ate the beef with some fine beans and a baked potato.In the mid-afternoon, we were very pleasantly surprised to received an unexpected gift of flowers from one of my nieces with a delightful message inside so I must acknowledge their safe receipt as soon as I can. The afternoon concluded by watching a further episode of the Hardy ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ where developments come a-plenty as the novel draws to its conclusion.

Yesterday, the named storm Darragh hit the west of the country and a very rare red warning (‘Danger to Life’) was issued. All of the football and rugby matches in South Wales were called off and the principal bridges between England and Wales were closed. Evidently the airports were closed and many suburban trains were cancelled but some of the mainline services were maintained. The weather forecasters are pointing out two principal dangers as the storm sweeps across the UK mainland. The most immediate effect are the very high wind speeds which brings down branches and trees, not to mention power lines and afterwards, of course, comes the rain on areas which are already quite sodden after the past few storms. It looks as though new storm alert procedures are in place as messages are now being sent direct to mobile phones warning of the dangers of unnecessary travel. Wales is evidently worst effected but so are sporting fixtures such as the Liverpool-Everton derby (the last one due to be played at Goodison park before Everton move to a new stadium) This morning, Meg and I were got off to a very early start as the care workers were scheduled to call around at 7.25 and even arrived and got to work 10 minutes early which is a trifle disconcerting and a massive change to what happened the day before when Meg had to stay in bed until 9.45. After we had breakfasted, it was a touch-and-go call whether we ventured down into Bromsgrove or not as the wind was still quite strong but it did not seem to be bearing so much rain. So we got ourselves kitted forth which is in Meg’s case is a scarf, outside coat, two quite large blankets and some gloves and takes some putting on. We got as far as the main Kidderminster Road but then the wind was so strong and icy and I lost my hat on a couple of occasions so we both judged it better to go no further but to return. This was very much a case of ‘discretion being the better part of valour’ but I was somewhat fearful that we might get ourselves thoroughly wet and then had the return journey home. So we turned around and immediately came home and I think this was probably a wise decision. We regaled ourselves with some chicken soup and settled down to watch some Saturday morning TV. The programme I enjoyed most was a James Martin cookery and magazine programme and I wished I had seen the while of it rather than entering it half way through. One of his presentations was to make a quick and tasty Christmas dinner and, in particular, I thought that his recipe for glazed parsnips enhanced by some sherry in the cooking sounded like something that I would definitely like to experiment with. He also had a recipe for boef a la bourguignon in which he kept the cooking steak in fairly large chunks which, he argued, made it retain its moisture and remain quite succulent so this, too, is a tip I must remember the next time I cook this meal.

This afternoon we have been snug in our lounge whilst the storm has continued to rage outside. I rather thought that the storm would pass over the Midlands at midday and, after that, we would have a period of relative calm but the reverse seems to have happened and, if anything, the weather has gone even wilder and windier. The two young carers who called around at teatime showed me a photo they had taken on their phones of a tree completely blocking a road that were taking on their way to a call during the day. After consulting the TV schedules, Meg and I enjoyed watching ‘The Importance of being Earnest’ which was very well played in a classic British film. Immediately following this on BBC2 was a film of Shakespeare’s Henry V which had an excellent cast. We watched most of the film before the carers came along to interrupt proceedings but the only trouble is that watching fighting on (presumably) cold and muddy battlegrounds when it is cold and windy outside does not induce much of a feeling of warmth and comfort.

The little party which we are going to organise for the carers staff is already generating some enthusiasm if not downright excitement. Compared with other clients, Meg and I are in the position where we have plenty of space and room in which to hold some festivities and we know at least one of the managers is certainly going to come. Two of the very helpful and likeable younger carers have even volunteered to come a little early to help me put out the food and generally get things organised for the party and this was incredibly good of them. I have accepted their offer saying that if they came on time at 1.00pm they can help in any last minute preparations. I have to think quite carefully about what soft drinks to provide as too much alcohol is not a good thing unless the carers are passengers and are therefore freer to indulge. On a slightly more sombre note, my feeling is that we ought to do this whilst we can because goodness knows what other facilities will be like in a year’s time.

In the early evening, there is going to be the official opening of the restored Notre Dame in Paris. Given the emotional pull that this has upon the heart strings of the French, I am sure they not resent a single centime of the millions of euros which they must have spent on it. There is a lot of speculation about the diplomatic ‘deals’ that might be done whilst various world leaders are assembling because there is quite a lot of leeway for unofficial talks on occasions such as this. I expect that later in the day there may be some stunning visuals once the restored parts of the interior are shown in all of their glory. The opening few minutes of the ceremony have shown the tolling of the one great bell that survived the fire followed by a procession of the clergy to the doors of the cathedral. At this point, the archbishop of Paris hammers symbolically on the doors of the cathedral which are then opened to grant him admittance to the tunes and words of an appropriate Psalm. What I have seen of the service is quite emotionally compelling and I know that architectural experts from the whole of Europe lent whatever assistance they could to get this iconic cathedral opened again within five years. As a final Gallic touch, an outside view of the front of the cathedral had a lasered projection of ‘Merci’ written above the portico.