Now that election day in the USA is actually here, many commentators re turning to the notion of process i.e. how the results are to be counted and when the results might be available. Tight presidential elections are not unknown, the closest recently being in 2000 when Al Gore conceded (perhaps wrongly) the state of Florida to the Republicans. There has been inquest after inquest into this election with many commentators conceding that Bush actually won but probably more voters wanted Gore to win but were faced with confusing ballot forms and wrongly cast their vote for a candidate called Buchanan. Above all, USA Today highlighted that its review revealed, ‘The American system of elections routinely fails to count hundreds of thousands of ballots because of errors by voters, confusing ballot instructions, poorly designed ballots, flawed voting and counting machines and the failure of election workers to adequately help voters.’ and this seems to have been the case here. I have heard two legal experts on USA election law giving their opinion in the last day. One was saying that in his view given the accuracy of modern voting machines, the amount of error in the system is incredibly small at least compared with any alternatives. So Trump challenging the result in 2020 was probably challenging the most secure part of the system. Another expert was of the view that we would not get anything like a result until Friday or Saturday. The Americans have a system of ‘calling’ a state when the lead of the winning candidate exceeds the number of ballots still be counted and therefore, mathematically, the candidate in the lead cannot now lose. But this ‘calling’ process is likely to be much delayed this time around as the results are so tight and no doubt there will be legal challenges and demands for a recount all over the place.

This morning tended to be a little dramatic but not in the way that we would have liked. But on our way down to Waitrose I experimented with having my iPhone playing Mozart tracks from the recently migrated App and this as we entered the store we had ‘Meg, Mike, Mobility and Mozart’ But as we were ordering our coffee we were informed that one of our friends (the one who uses a mobility scooter and elbow crutches) had sustained a fall within the store’s customer toilet. In falling, she had banged her head but how badly I do not know but certainly cut her face and it was bleeding into her eye. The Waitrose partners were absolutely magnificent and administered literally ‘first aid’ by putting on dressings onto the wounds on her face and tried their best to make her comfortable. But of course, they had to follow protocols and neither move her or give her a soothing hot drink. Two staff at least administered to her and then a third member of staff who was first aid trained stayed by her side. Our friend had managed to telephone the ambulance herself and give whatever details and I said to myself that when the ambulance men arrived I would have a word with them and make sure that full reports were submitted to her doctor and, more particularly the social services because our friend is now certainly at risk and probably needs more support. Ambulance after ambulance seemed to flash by with their sirens blaring but after an hour and a quarter none had come to the assistance of our friend who was probably destined to spent even more time on a cold toilet floor. But the Waitrose staff found some blankets and were generally excellent. I thanked them copiously on our friend’s behalf but, I suspect that like myself as we are their oldest customers and we are such frequent customers that they had pulled all of the stops out. One of the male staff who I know well even got onto her mobility scooter, never having driven one before, and managed to get it to a parking space at the back of the store where it would be both safe and secure. On my way up the hill I suddenly did not feel too well on the steepest section at the start of the walk home and wondered if I had a bit of delayed shock or just low blood sugar level but we got home and coped with a little wobbly that Meg was experiencing the minute I got into the house. Fortunately, a carer arrived not long afterwards whilst I got Meg warm with a cup of hot, sweet tea and a blanket. Things were running a little late today what with one thing or another so I cheated and made a ‘quickie’ lunch which was a tin of chicken in a white wine sauce, added to a tin of chunky chicken and vegetable soup, both enhanced with some petit pois and served on the type of microwaveable rice that is ready in 2-3 minutes. After this and later in the afternoon, we treated ourselves to the third episode of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles which was as well acted and gripping as ever and helped the afternoon to whizz by. Naturally, the media is full of the news, such as there is, of America at the polls but I think that the earliest possible result will not be announced until about 1.00am GMT as we are five hours ahead of the USA. The American polls do tend to close a little bit earlier but, of course, it varies state by state and to British eyes, this all adds up to a very complicated and confusing picture. Equally confusing is the way that many states announce partial results congressional district by congressional district. So it might appear that one party is establishing a lead and the results are announced from an opposing congressional district and the provisional results seems to have been reversed.

November 5th is, of course, the traditional bonfire night. But although we have heard some of the whoosh and bangs of fireworks, we also heard some last weekend when families felt, no doubt, they had a bit more time at weekends. I also expect that some will even delay until next weekend, as well. So we now have a scenario in which the traditional bonfire night extends over a period of several days. As a marketing gimmick, no doubt, the ClassicFM radio station is advertising everyone a ‘calm and soothing music for pets’ service but I wonder if they end up with a multitude of satisfied or dissatisfied listeners?

Yesterday did not start off too well as Meg had a rather disturbed night with two periods of extreme anxiety exhibited, one at about midnight and the other about 5.00am. But by the time the couple of carers arrived, Meg was somewhat calmer and she is always so much better once we have got her washed, dressed and in her wheelchair. Having said this, one of the carers was pretty new and inexperienced so I lent a hand on the occasions it was necessary. We knew that there were things going on today which would mean that our current routines would have to be modified and the most important of these was a visit by a physiotherapist (specialising in equipment) accompanied by a trainee. The physio evidently had to be given a brief history of Meg’s condition and we manage each day and was quickly appraised of the situation. He unequivocally recommended a special ‘Riser-Recliner’ type of chair and was going to get in touch with the representative of the firm straight away that afternoon. We should expect to wait for about three weeks to get a more specialised call by somebody from the supplying firm as well as the physio himself and as soon as they have assessed what kind of chair Meg needs to fit her needs, the ordering process can go ahead. If we are fortunate, I feel that we may be able to be supplied with this more specialised chair by Christmas. As soon as the physio and his trainee had left, we immediately got Meg prepared for a walk into town as we reckoned we had a window of opportunity of about an hour and a half open to us. So we popped down the hill, picked up our the copy of our daily newspaper and finally made our way to the Post Office. Here I handed over the TV unit that EE had supplied for us and which was superfluous to our needs and, naturally, I am ensuring that I hang onto the receipt of postage for dear life as I shall be charged for the unit if it is not returned within a certain time period. I had already been supplied with a pre-paid plastic bag to return the unit but evidently a trip to the Post Office was called for. On our way down the hill, I bumped into our Irish friend but we could not stop for a chat as I explained that I needed to get up and down relatively quickly. When we returned home, we got the care agency manager himself (he often puts himself on a shift when staff shortages threaten) who had evidently put himself on duty as he needed to give additional bits of training to the second care assistant accompanying him. After this, it was time to cook ourselves a beef dinner, rather late in the day but still very tasty. Meg and I were particularly looking forward to the second episode of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ which did not disappoint – this particular production by the BBC gave an excellent portrayal of rural life (in Dorset?) in the early nineteenth century and the quality of the acting, as well as the story lines, were compelling. There was one scene in it which reminded me of an incident from my own past. The novel (and the film) contains an episode when Angel (the male hero) meets the four milkmaids from the farm where he worked and carries each of them individually across a flooded path when they were on their way to the Sunday morning service. Each of the milkmaids (and of course Tess herself) were completely enamoured of Angel and almost swooned at the prospect of being carried across the flooded path by him. When it was announced that Angel and Tess intended to marry, her three milkmaid companion burst into tears because the man of their dreams was suddenly as they say, ‘spoken for’. Now the incident from my own occupational life mirrors this in a way. As a young 15-year old, I was supervised by a young manager at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate by a young but exceptionally handsome young manager who I shall call ‘Lionel’. Now all of the young waitresses yearned to catch the eye of ‘Lionel’ although he was way beyond their socioeconomic standing and experience and so the prospect of an engagement were slight in the extreme. However, I was present with a group of these waitresses when it was announced that ‘Lionel’ had in just in fact got engaged to a person in his social circle and, being present when the news was broken to them, I witnessed several of them openly burst into tears. If this sound incredibly quaint, it did in fact happen that way. To compound matters, Lionel was removed from their midst whilst his well-heeled family sent him on a gastronomic tour of Europe. He was such a talented young man ( and an exceptionally good manager to boot) that I suspect that he was being groomed for managerial experience in one of the elite London hotels such as the Dorchester.

Yesterday, was of course, the last full day of campaigning in the US presidential election. Up to one half of the electorate have already voted (some 75 million) and so their votes are ‘locked in’ and not susceptible to change. So although there may be last minute gaffes (or more likely insults) flying around, it may be that it is too late for these to have real impact upon the outcome of the election. Much more sinister is the army of lawyers assembled by Trump (and perhaps matched by the Democrats, although I doubt it) who are standing posed to sniff out the slightest opportunity for a legal challenge as the polling results emerge in the hope of snatching some advantage in what has been labelled as probably the most closely fought election in American electoral history. In their appearances on Monday, both candidates will be shadowed by final polls that suggest the race is even. The final New York Times/Siena College poll of Pennsylvania, published on Sunday, found it tied, with both candidates garnering support from 48 percent of likely voters. So this particular key state may well be in the hands of a thousand voters. However, the latest news appears to be that Trump has been slowly gaining support in the State and chipping away at the small lead enjoyed by Harris to date so I would not be surprised if this absolutely critical state (and probably, but not invariably, the whole election) does swing Trump’s way.

Yesterday certainly did not get off to the best of starts as the care workers were unaccountably delayed for about 25 minutes and one of the care workers was my least favourite. In addition, Meg was going through an agitated period so getting Meg both washed and dressed was somewhat problematic. However, once we had actually Meg sitting in her wheelchair she was in a calmer frame of mind and some porridge helped to restore her equilibrium. Immediately after breakfast and the Lorna Kuenssberg Politics programme, I had a bit of a brainwave and managed to locate very quickly a little external, portable Bluetooth speaker. This was a bit of kit developed by a small British technology firm but it is brilliantly simple. It worked first time when I tried it out on my iPhone4 but then I went on the web to find and print off a manual to make sure I was utilising it to the full. The most important fact I managed to discern is that a single charge through a USB style port may last as long as ten hours which is probably more than the phone. The manual told me to turn on my device first and the kit called a ‘Droid’ second and then the ‘intelligent’ Bluetooth connects automatically. This means that I can my iPhone complete with at least 300 classical tracks of music and play it wherever I want. It goes by the name of a ‘Droid’ and looks somewhat like a miniaturised Dalek in appearance, the name evidently derived from ‘Android’ An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids existed only in the domain of science fiction and were frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot technology have allowed the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots. Then, pushing my luck a little, I realised that I could utilise this little system with me on the wheelchair when Meg and I make our daily excursion. So I kitted myself out with the iPhone4 in the little compartmentalised bag which always accompanies us whilst the ‘Droid’ itself I put into a spare bottle bag that I found and hung on the other handlebar about a foot away from Meg’s ear. This worked for half the journey down the hill and then suddenly stopped. What I think happened is that after the charge on the iPhone4 dipped below 20%, the system automatically enters a low power mode and playing music tracks is jettisoned. But after I got home, I recharged the phone and everything is now working the way that it should. On our way down the hill, we bumped into our Italian friend and were very, very sad to learn to know that she is probably going to sell up and relocate herself much nearer to her daughter in the Cotswolds, which I am sure is a very sensible decisions for her as she gets older but a little disappointing for us.

Yesterday afternoon, we had the treat of watching ‘Paddington 2’ which I always enjoy, even though I have seen it several times before. Towards the end of it, though, I did my usual trick f falling asleep with a cup of tea in my hand. However, all was not as bad as might be feared as I had only a small cup with not much left in it and then most of it on my trousers (which then went straight into the wash), some on the newspapers spread out on the floor before me and only a smidgeon on the carpet which was quite quickly cleared up. After the film was over, there was a news bulletin on with some extraordinary scenes. One of the news items was reporting on a visit of the (Spanish) King and Queen of Spain to the stricken area of Valencia after the recent floods in which a year’s annual rainfall fell within 12 hours. In particular, they visited a small town near to Valencia where no official aid seemed to be forthcoming for five whole days. There are gruesome reports that have started to circulate that although the death toll now exceeds 200, the authorities are approaching the task of pumping the water out from some underground car parks in which they may be dozens of cars with goodness knows what number of dead bodies trapped within them. The population are experiencing a simmering anger because they feel utterly abandoned by the authorities, both national, regional and local. In particular, the army has been deployed very late and then only with very limited numbers. The media has shown a lot of reports of volunteers rushing to help with the clear up operations with, almost literally, mountains of mud to remove. But the anger of the population boiled over when the King and Queen of Spain paid a visit and attempted a walk about to give comfort to the local population and they were pelted with ‘snowballs’ of mud of which there was a lot around. The Queen was shown wiping mud from her face and the King my well have been a successful target as well. Eventually, a huddle had to be formed around the royal couple so that they could be shepherded to safety. Such scenes are absolutely unprecedented, of course, and I intend to email our Spanish friends to offer condolences and to get some more inside accounts.

Yesterday was the second last full day of campaigning in the US presidential election. Trump’s advisers are desperately trying to keep him ‘on message’ whereas Trump himself is already crying ‘Foul! Election Fraud!’ in Pennsylvania before a single vote has been counted. Even at the last moment, there has been a surprise poll in Iowa, normally firmly in the Republican camp which puts Harris 1% ahead according to a small but respected pollster. Meanwhile in North Carolina, the Trump camp is getting worried that the state might be on a knife edge although, like Iowa, it should be one that Trump would be expected to take. Sky News is promoting its election news broadcasts starting at 10.00pm on Tuesday but I suspect that the really important results will not actually come through until Wednesday so I am not going to stay up beyond an hour or so to see which way the wind is blowing. Some commentators are trying to warn us that it could be several days before the result emerges in an election as finely balanced as this well and then, of course, literally armies (or at least several thousands) of lawyers are going to swing into place to claim irregularities.

Yesterday, I had spent more time than was good for me in the middle of the night getting some of my Bluetooth interfaces to work with current and backup version of my mobile phones. This process was a little fiddly and at times frustrating but I managed to succeed with some but not all of my various interfaces. Meg and I were not very happy that our day was due to start 40 minutes early as the scheduled getting up call was 7.20 rather than 8.00am. I do not think that either carers or their charges like this very early slot in the morning but we have to make the best of it. Meg was not too sleepy this morning so we managed to get her into her wheelchair without much ado. This has now been adapted recently since the wheelchair specialists made some running adjustments to it for us the other day. We now have some professional ankle straps fitted and we also have a curved backrest inserted into the chair which helps to keep Meg stable. Also, the wheelchair specialists supplied a special little triangular wedge which they call a ‘lateral support’ and this helps to keep Meg in a fairly upright position in the chair. After we had breakfasted, it was time for us to make our Saturday morning trip to Waitrose and there we took coffee with the lady that we know well but she drives a special scooter and then manages to get from this into the store with the help of a couple of elbow crutches. Our friend is fiercely independent which does impress me greatly but she knows that her condition is only going to deteriorate with age but we have to do what we can to put off the evil day. We spent some time discussing the forthcoming US elections as well as some domestic issues until the time came for us to leave. In some ways this was a sad little occasion because I let my friend get to her feet unaided but today her legs just would not work as she wanted them to. I offered her one of arms by way of support and my friend did accept it in the spirit in which it was offered but I noticed that some tears of frustration had crept into her eyes. Both she and I do realise that however well meant, the more she accepts these little offers of support so her independence has just diminished a tad. I think both she and I are of the view with various bodily movements and motions then one has to either ‘use it or lose it’ and our friends is fighting as hard as she can to do whatever she can for herself. We will meet again next Tuesday all being well, by which time the actual voting in the American elections will be taking place. We walked back up the hill but when we got to the house, coinciding with the two carers, Meg was having a little agitated spell. I must say that one of the carers was excellent in helping to keep Meg on an even keel and I did my little bit in preparing some chicken soup which also helped to calm Meg down as well as some anti-histamine which one doctor prescribed months ago to help in circumstances such as this. We dined on the second half of a quiche with carrot and swede mash and some fine green beans. After all of this, we settled down to watch the biography of Vera Brittain in ‘Testament of Youth’ which we first saw some years ago but the film is always worth an extra viewing. The film is as powerful a depiction of the horrors of WWI that has been portrayed and is exceptionally poignant in places where Vera Brittain loses first a fiancee and then actually nurses her own badly wounded brother. Vera Brittain was the mother of Shirley Williams who was a Labour MP for years before with three other colleagues they split off to form the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ (the SDP) in the 1980’s. When the war has ended, Vera resumes her studies in Oxford where she meets with another undergraduate by the name of Winifred Holtby. It is at this point that I have some personal connection, albeit slight, with the film. Winifred Holtby was the author of ‘South Riding’ and was probably resident in Hull or thereabouts. My mother who had lived in Hull used to speak of Winifred Holtby and I wondered if they moved in similar circles or even knew each other, as my mother had done some acting with the Hull Repertory company (or it could have been just an amateur dramatic society and my memory is very hazy on this point). I imagine the BBC is putting on the film at this point because we are getting into the run up to Remembrance Sunday in one week’s time. We viewed most of the film but Meg started to experience a period of agitation towards the end of it and in any case the carers were coming for their tea time call so we had to end our viewing somewhat prematurely. I gave Meg a special anti-histamine type pill one of the doctors had prescribed some ago and a combination of this, a cup of tea, some chocolate and the warm glow of the electric fire helped her to calm her down a little. Then we looked at some of the ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ series that YouTube offers up to us at this time the afternoon.

As widely predicted, Kemi Badenoch was elected as Leader of the Conservative party today. In total, about 132,000 members of the Conservative Party were eligible to vote in the leadership election – a noticeable fall from the 172,000 in the contest in 2022 which Liz Truss won. The turnout was also down – 72.8% in 2024 vs 82.2% in 2022 – with about 40,000 members not voting. But this is rather a historic moment as Kemi Badenoch s the first female black leader of a major political party. Being already on the right wing of the Tory party, it will be quite a job to unify the party which has always been in a fractious mood with the debates on Europe and Brexit tearing the party apart. But the Labour Party is not governing in a very sure footed way and amazing though it might appear, the Tory party is actually one point ahead at this point. But being the leader of the Opposition and with no prospect of returning to power for at least five years and probably for ten years, the task of the leader of the Opposition is not going to be easy. She has stated that each contender for the leadership would be offered a place in the Shadow Cabinet but several ‘heavy hitters’ such as James Cleverley and Jeremy Hunt are returning to the back benches so there may be a return of Priti Patel to the Shadow Cabinet. If it were not for the American election results unwinding next Wednesday, then the next PMQ might have been worth a viewing.

Last night before I got to bed I had some extraordinary good luck. In my very ancient (c. 2010) iPhone4, I had inserted a SIM that cost me practically nothing and then put £5 worth of credit to use as a PAYG phone. On the phone I had a classical music app which I do not think I had ever fully used before. To cut a long story short, I downloaded 202 tracks of classical music representing some 55 composers and 48 of them being Mozart (who happens to be one of my favourite composers) When I say the tracks are downloaded, I am pretty sure that they are being stored within the app itself rather than being added to the ‘Music’ file which Apple maintains in its iPhones. I had a quick word with the more tech savvy of the care workers who thought that Spotify worked like this as they could download tracks which could then play even when not internet connected so it looks as though my hunch was correct. But there is a huge bonus as I can interface the iPhone4 through a Bluetooth connection which means that the tracks can play through a loudspeaker system. In our Music Lounge I have a CD player with speakers that are adequate enough and so much bigger than the speakers found on a phone and, similarly, I can interlace the iPhone through the Panasonic micro HiFi system that I have installed in the kitchen. So all of this means that I can enjoy music that I really enjoy in at least two locations within the house. All of this was discovered in the middle of the night, as it were, as it took some time to download the tracks and then to test them out so my sleep pattern was a little interrupted, but I went to bed very happy at long last. In the morning, we knew that we were going to be quite busy as Friday is the day when our domestic help calls around. After our normal exchange of news, we awaited the arrival of the Eucharistic minister from our local church who we have not seen for a couple of weeks now. We had both learnt of the news of the death in the last day or so of the parish priest who was the immediate predecessor of our current parish priest. We knew that he had been ill with bowel cancer (about one year later than myself) and after his enforced retirement through ill health actually went to visit him on one occasion because the retirement home where he was lodged was quite near to the village in which Meg used to live in Staffordshire. Our son also called around who it was delightful to see after he had spent a few days away visiting in laws as it was half term and now that half term is over, we will see more of him next week. We spent some time discussing the Budget and the way it had been received in the country as a whole. The reactions of the market to the budget is interesting as, once again, the government in its borrowing plans is at the mercy of ‘the kindness of strangers’ which is one expression used when the government is financing its borrowing through the issue of gilts which may, or may not, be attractive to the investing community as a whole and hence ‘the kindness of strangers’. We got an invitation to meet for coffee in Waitrose with our University of Birmingham friend but as our visitor from church had been delayed by about 20 minutes we had to proceed down the hill in a tremendous rush and only had about a quarter of an hour to spend with our friend. Then it was a case of a massive dash up the hill to be home in time for the carers but we made it with about a minute to spare. The carers were two young people who we know pretty well and so the three of us put into action a plan to help Meg sit in her chair in such a way that her knees are not as bent as they would have been when sitting in the wheelchair. I had found a way to raise the front of Meg’s chair by a few inches which meant that when Meg was sitting in it securely she was not at all likely to tip out of it. This little experiment seemed to work quite well but we needed to support Meg with a cushion or so to keep her secure. This was particularly important today as the vagaries of the care agency rota meant that Meg was having to spend five hours in her armchair which we knew really was too long a stretch but there was nothing else we could do under the circumstances. However, the young carers and myself have put our heads together and have devised a little system whereby Meg’s knees are not bent to anything like the same extent and, judging by the fact that when she was put to bed she could straighten out her legs more than before, our little system seems to be having a degree of success.

After we had lunched on a haddock fish pie, Meg set ourselves for a good afternoon of TV viewing. Firstly, we watched Question Time broadcast the evening before and when this was completed started to treat ourselves to the first episode of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy. This was a classic BBC production with superb cinematography filmed in Thomas Hardy country (Dorset) and with an extremely good cast. There are four episodes with each one lasting an hour so naturally each of the critical scenes in the novel receives the attention that it deserves. This afternoon, I eventually managed to speak with someone at EE so that they could link my debit card with my newly installed SIM to facilitate top-ups. The official advice is ‘download our App’ but the trouble is that the operating system is so old on the iPhone 4 that it cannot be updated and therefore the EE App will not install. But now I have successfully linked the debit card, topping up becomes incredibly easy because you put in a couple of code letters, then the last four digits of your pre-validated debit card and then the amount you want to top up in whole £s. So the whole transaction can be performed by sending a simple text message of just 9 digits including spaces and you get a confirmatory text within a few seconds once the transaction has gone through.

Yesterday was a day out of the ordinary, as it turned out. The day had actually started in the middle of the night when I woke up and realised that as it was practically the end of the month, I had scheduled myself to put a little bit of credit on the old iPhones into which I have inserted PAYG SIMS and which gives me a ‘de facto’ backup iPhone for if and when the occasion demands. All of this worked more or less as I wanted it to but in the course of looking some of my records, I saw that on Meg’s phone there was a message indicating that she needed to update her NHS app or lose it altogether. I had previously made some efforts to get Meg’s NHS app fully functional but had been thwarted as I had forgotten the email address that we had used to set up the system and had a horrible feeling it was an out of date email to which we no longer had access. But the fact that the NHS had used Meg’s email address to contact her as a reminder was like manna sent from heaven and although I had forgotten the password, this was fairly quickly regenerated and good notes made as to what they both are. But there seems to be quite a complex procedure which is probably an enhancement to security in the latest version of the NHS app because the system is now demanding a photographic ID which had to be located on my main computer system and then transmitted to Meg’s iPhone. At least we now have an almost working NHS app on Meg’s iPhone but there is a crucial last step when the system is probably going to take a photo of Meg’s face and use AI software to reconcile the image just taken with the image on the passport. I suppose this is a good security procedure and once it is in place, I am sure it might be very useful not least in getting appointments and ordering new medicines but we are not quite there yet. This morning was the day allocated to do my shopping and I was delighted that the young ‘A’-level student, studying Psychology had been allocated to be Meg’s ‘sit’ for the morning. I scoured my bookcase to see if there were any psychology books that might be more useful to her rather than sitting on my bookshelves. I managed to find three Psychology type books, as well as a simple statistics for psychologists primer, a good study guide and a little book on report writing. I am delighted that these books are going to go to a good home and I hope they help her achieve good grades and help her in a subsequent career. Altogether, this young carer spent three sessions with us today (a getting Meg up call, a ‘sit’ session and then doubling up to provide the lunchtime call). We had a lunch of curry which is really just bits and pieces thrown together and served with rice but we had barely finished this when the wheelchair specialists called around. We knew that they were scheduled to come some time between 1.00 and 5.00 but in the event turned up when we were just on the point of finishing our meal. The wheelchair specialist fitted some special ankle straps so that Meg’s legs can be correctly aligned with the wheelchair frame but at the same time they provided a specialist ‘lateral support’ which is a triangular piece of kit that fits into the wheelchair in such a way that Meg does not slope sideways (as, without any upper body strength, she is prone to do)

After the wheelchair specialists had made their adjustments and then departed, we received a telephone call from a physiotherapist who was telephoning to make an appointment to see Meg. Some OTs/physiotherapists had previously called me and I had briefed them about Meg’s legs which I was concerned about getting ‘locked’ into a particular position after she had been sitting in the same position for most of the day. They had said that we were ‘in the system’ and we should expect a visit in a few weeks time – however, there might have been ‘wheels working with wheels’ because I was delighted that they could come and pay us a visit next Monday. They mentioned a ramp as a household adaptation which was something I had requested months ago in order to get Meg out of the French windows at the back of the house but is probably something we no longer need as the summer is effectively over and the days are gone when we can enjoy summer sunshine in the back garden. To my considerable surprise, though, the physio mentioned a more specialist chair, specifically a ‘Riser-Recliner’ type of chair which I thought had been ordered by another OT weeks and weeks ago. I had been waiting patiently only to be informed a few days ago that the OTs were progressing items ordered last April and it is now practically November but we entered this system last June so had been told to wait for at least another couple of months. This piece of equipment is moving from the ‘nice to have’ to he ‘completely essential’ in my view, for the following reason. As a result of not standing or walking, Meg is losing all body strength and in particular ‘core’ strength. This means that even when sitting in a chair she is apt to slip sideways and even gradually slip off the chair altogether unless special precautions are taken. In the chair in which she is seated after the carers’ teatime call, we have the chair at an angle, then make sure that she has a special triangular pillow behind her augmented by a little cushion designed to stop sideways movement and finally a small platform covered by a blanket so that her feet are just at the right height and hopefully she will not slip too far, or at all. The young carers are particularly good at getting Meg into just the right orientation but we are getting to the stage where a lot of these little aids and supports will not work as Meg loses more and more core strength.

This afternoon, we started to view a film first broadcast or repeated) on BBC4 the previous evening on the life of Thomas Hardy through his own poetry. Meg and I were looking forward to this but the whole programme a little wistful and did not quite live up to its promise. But also broadcast last night was he whole of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ in a series of four parts. So we should be able to watch this at the rate of one episode a day for the next four afternoons which should be quite a treat for us. I try to note what the good evening programmes are as they are broadcast day by day and then get them on catchup the following day.

Wednesday started off with a pattern which is all too common these days as I received a text from the care agency one hour before the two carers were due to call asking if I could assist the one carer who was calling as people had phoned in sick. This is the second time in three days this has occurred first thing in the morning, so I am logging these occasions so that I can remonstrate if necessary with the agency. Having showered this morning, when I got down Meg was attempting to get out of bed but had she done so she would fallen which would mean her lying on the floor for several hours until the falls team and/or the ambulance service were called for. I need to avoid calling the ambulance service because their protocols are that fallen patients have to be taken to hospital for a checkup and once we get into this scenario, things can only go from bad to worse. So I have to make every effort to ensure Meg does not try to get out of bed and generally put a wheelchair, with its wheels locked, in a critical position to avoid this eventuality. The media having been dominated by news of the forthcoming budget have had their attention diverted by enormous flash floods in the eastern part of Spain around the area of Valencia. Some reports are saying that a combination of dried hard earth and a year’s rainfall falling in eight hours can make these floods catastrophic. We know that this area of Spain was liable to very heavy rainfall because when Meg and I visited Valencia, we paid a visit to the ‘City of Arts and Sciences’ which is a world-renowned complex that combines avant-garde architecture, entertainment, and education in one place. Apparently there had been really catastrophic floods in, I think the 1950’s in the area just to the west of Valencia. The Spanish regional authorities diverted one or two of the local rivers, created a huge flood plain and then wondering what to do with the vast area that they had cleared built the ‘City of Arts and Sciences’ The reports are that at least 90 people have died and it is expected that these numbers will rise substantially. One report is saying that this latest flood is one of the greatest floods in Spanish history but I think there may be a degree of hyperbole involved in this.

After breakfast, I felt pretty tired and did not really feel up to an extended walk into town which I might have done if both Meg and myself felt a bit better. I had intended to walk all the way into town and visit our favourite cafe on the High Street but I was a bit anxious as to whether Meg could cope with an extended walk. But on our return, I regaled us both with some potato and leek soup of which I had just bought a packet and then the two care workers turned up but not the two I was expecting according to the rota. Apart from periodic sickness factors, it is half term week which always plays havoc with the domestic child care arrangements of the carers so some disruption is only to be expected. After they had left, Meg and I saw the major elements of the Budget speech live on TV but have not caught up either with the expert analysis that will be undertaken or indeed the political reaction to it. But it does look as £40 billion of taxes are to be levied but none directly on the working population. One tax I was particularly glad to see imposed was via the abolition of the non-dom status by which so many of the rich (including the ex Prime Minister’s own wife) have benefitted. What we got from Rachel Reeves today was, in economic terms, a major departure from economic policy as we’ve known it in this country for the past decade and a half.We got the single biggest increase in taxes in any fiscal event since 1993. The tax burden itself is now heading up to the highest level in history. So all of this is quite a gamble but not the kind of gamble for which Liz Truss is notorious. The overall impact of the budget is a little hard to gauge because those who have benefitted (e.g. from the rise eon the Minimum Wage) are not very vocal whereas some small (but not the smallest) businesses are complaining about the increases in their costs that the National Insurance changes will bring. But it could be that this particular budget will be seen as ground breaking but whether it will lead to increased growth is a very unknowable question, Even the OBR has moderated downwards some of its forecasts for medium term growth once the impact of some of the tax changes work their way through the system. But budgets are judged upon political as well as economic criteria and it is possible that the budget is welcomed, if not entirely warmly, by the Labour back benchers whereas economists may themselves be divided upon the future impact.

This afternoon after lunch, Meg and I were intrigued to view on BBC iPlayer one in the series presented by David Olusoga called ‘A House Through Time’ The concept of the program is to find a house which is at least a century old and then trace through the life histories of everyone who has ever lived in it. The programme we viewed had taken a house in Headingley, Leeds which I have probably walked past and looked at the occupancy of a middle class Victorian house (built in a terrace of about three or four) and built with both basements and attics. The attics would have provided some quarters for servants in a middle class household and we found this living history programme to be fascinating. When I lived in an adjoining suburb in Leeds, I used to visit Headingley quite regularly as did my mother and as a 17 year old I used to look at the stone clad fine looking houses and wondered if I could ever live in one of them one day. So I found the programme to be particularly intriguing and the lives of those who had occupied the house through the decades was equally interesting. David Olusoga and his researchers. used Census and other records to build up a picture of the lives of the occupants and this is an excellent way to present this type of economic and social history.

Today after breakfast it was time for our Tuesday walk down into town and meet our friends for our bi-weekly chat in Waitrose. Getting Meg ready for our trip down the hill is a bit of a palaver but it works like this. I try to ensure that the carers have clothed Meg in a thick cardigan and then I put on a windproof and waterproof outer jacket. Then I clothe Meg in our University scarf and put the big, heavy Russian blanket across her knees and fortunately it tucks in securely down the frame of the wheelchair. Then I put a light little woollen blanket across Meg’s knees. Finally, I finish off with a pair of smaller men’s slippers that I had bought in Aldi the other day and just happen to slip over the thick woolly ankle socks that we put on Meg each day. Finally, we put Meg’s Dr. Zhivago style hat of (the sort worn by Tonya and played by Geraldine Chaplin if you remember the film) Once we finally got down to Waitrose, we were delighted to see our three friends there particularly as we had only been expecting one of them. So we had our normal jolly time, enhanced by the telling of a Dave Allen joke which we happened to have heard on YouTube the evening before. Then it was the journey up the hill which is not as arduous as you might suppose. There are some downhill sections as well as longer, and steeper, uphill sections but the amount of steep gradient is quite small. If the gradient uphill is slight then the weight of one’s body pushing the wheelchair is sufficient to give the required momentum. However, I do need to stop half up to don a pair of green rubberised gardening gloves that helps to alleviate the strain on the hands and fingers that can become somewhat numbed by the pushing. Once we arrive home, there is a certain degree of ritual as well. Outside in the porch, I use a brush to clean off the worst of the dirt and grit that have accumulated on the wheels. Then once inside, the wheels are cleaned again with a sponge to try to remove the finer pieces of grit and pavement dirt. Were I not to do this, then our carpets would be in a terrible state by wheeling dirt from the outside all over the house. But all in all, my little systems do their job. Having said all of that, when I start to push Meg home, I do feel in quite an enervated mood and can only conclude that some endorphins cut in, stimulated by the pleasantt chats I have just had. Similarly, when the young carers come in the late afternoon and even if Meg is having a depressed time, they do seem able to lighten her mood and even to elicit a few witticisms from Meg as they attend to their caring duties. It is pleasant all round that these young people like to come to do this particular visit and, we in our turn, are always pleased to see them. In fact today as the young male carer had some time doing his sit whilst I bought to a local AgeUk charity shop and bought Meg a new top, he was entertained by a viewing of Meg’s speech, and my own, in our 50th wedding anniversary video that we have available on a website and can be viewed on our big TV in the Music Lounge.

The conflict in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbouring states has taken a decidedly ugly turn in the last day or so. UNRWA (or to give it its full and official title ‘The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East’) was established as a subsidiary organ of the United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1949 and became operational on 1 May 1950. It is one of the largest United Nations programmes. But the Israeli parliament (Knesset) has just voted through laws barring UNRWA from Israel, limiting it in Gaza and West Bank. This is seen as massive victory for the right wing in Israeli politics, which itself has one of the most right wing governments in Israeli history. Th fact that in the past UNRWA had within its ranks some HAMAS supporters has always been a massive irritant to the Israeli authorities but even though these elements have been identified and sacked, there is still considerable distrust of the agency. UNRWA provides practically all of the education for young Palestinians and the amount of humanitarian help that is supplied is immense. The fact that it is being emasculated and the principal individuals affected will be women and children from whom aid in its many manifestations is now being denied is being seen as a possible war crime in itself. Western governments are wringing their hands in despair but it seems that the West in repeating the refrain that Israel has the absolute right to defend itself is allowing Israel to exact punishments on the Palestinian people that many objective observers would describe as disproportionate.

Tomorrow, at long last, we will have the long anticipated budget and the media are going to fill the airwaves with all from 10.00am onwards tomorrow. Yet another important piece of budget news has been released in that we now know that the Minimum Wage is going to be increased to £12.21 although it falls short of the £12.60 an hour sum recommended by the Living Wage Foundation. Nonetheless at 6.7% it is quite a significant increase and will no doubt be welcomed by many who are struggling to get by on the Minimum Wage. But no doubt the power centres of our society including employers and the generally right wing newspapers, will no doubt condemn this as undeserved and inflationary. I will be watching the Budget debates tomorrow, though, and I wonder if the Speaker will take the opportunity to roundly condemn the selective release of parts of the Budget that ought to be announced first to Parliament. As always, there is a certain amount of shouting before one actually gets kicked, as it were, and it is always a little difficult to ascertain if tax rises can be quite readily absorbed or are the proverbial ‘last straw that breaks the camel’s back’ Budget Day is always a rather special occasion and the leader of the opposition, still Rishi Sunak, has to rise and make an instant speech on the iniquities, as he sees it, of the Budget proposals. The interesting thing this time around, compared with the Liz Truss fiasco, is that Rachel Reeves seems to have carefully sought the reaction of the IMF and the City who would not be averse to tax rises ‘per se’ provided that they can see that the Budget as a whole is industry-friendly.

Yesterday did not start off particularly well. I received a text from the care company informing me that owing to staff illness, notified to them at short notice, could I act as an assistant to the sole carer to get Meg up and dressed in the morning. Meg was rather agitated and confused first thing this morning and she did not recognise me when I asked her several times who she thought that I was. But once up and breakfasted and with some good porridge inside her, she seemed to be in a rather calmer and more reflective mood and I think that by now she recognised me. We thought that we would only make a quick trip to pick up our newspaper because it really is a judgement call that I have to make whether Meg is sufficient ‘compus mentis’ for me to push her out in the wheelchair. However, two quite experienced care workers are due to call late morning which I think is quite a relief. As it turned out, we only had time for a quick flying visit up and down the hill but I was relieved that Meg seemed somewhat better after her breakfast and some fresh air. After we had both eaten our lunch together (ham, baked potato and broccoli) Meg watched our fill of the day’s news and then as we were eating our lunch decided to treat ourselves to some music. We accessed YouTube and the great joy of this, from our point of view, is that the algorithm deployed now ‘knows’ what we like and serves up suitable offerings. We decided to listen to a performance of Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 which is one of my favourites. The performance was given by quite an elderly pianist who entered the auditorium at the Gulbenkian foundation in Lisbon to thunderous applause and had to rely upon a stick in his right hand and the helping hand of a young female assistant (who turned out to be his page turner) on the other. The performance was pretty good but not outstanding as the pianist was evidently quite stretched by some of the Mozart runs and trills particularly in the vivacious third and final movement. I had quickly taken a note of the pianist’s name and it turned out to be Menahem Pressler who was a German Jew who fled to the US in 1940 although most of his family were lost in the Holocaust. But at the time of performing in Lisbon, he was actually 95 years of age and died four years later at the age of 99. So this must have been one of the last if not his last complete performance and I was absolutely amazed at the quality of the rendition given his advanced years. This, no doubt, explained the thunderous applause when he entered the concert hall and then when he completed the work.

After the teatime call of the carers, Meg and I repair to our main lounge where YouTube on a Fire stick device offers us a different set of options. There were several programmes detailing the life of Mozart and in one of these, there was an attempt to ascertain Mozart’s physical appearance and characteristics. Working this out is rather like trying to put together pieces of a jigsaw as there were several portraits of Mozart but none of them appear to be similar to any of the others. One of the two portraits which is often shown was said by Constanza, his wife, to be a good likeness of him but the other clues to Mozart’s physical appearance has to put together notes from a series of sources. We now know that Mozart was quite a small man being about five feet in height, and was thin, pale and with wispy hair. He had an ordinary face, which was marked by the scars of the smallpox he suffered in his childhood, and in which a large nose stood out. His eyes were large and clear (apparently a deep blue colour) and he sported a thick headful of hair, with fine, wheat-colored strands pulled back in a ponytail. His hands were medium-sized, with long, slender fingers, and his mouth was small. But Mozart’s sister Nannerl once wrote that her brother’s ‘hands were very small.’ Mozart’s left ear was missing the usual circumvolution or concha (this rare congenital malformation is now known in medical literature under the name ‘Mozart’s ear’) To those who are enchanted by Mozart’s music, it does come as a bit of a shock that the accounts that we are of his appearance do not seem match up at all with the celebrated heights that his music attains. Another fact that jars somewhat is that Mozart displayed scatological humour (obsession with vulgarity) in his letters and multiple recreational compositions. This material has long been a puzzle for Mozart scholarship. Some scholars try to understand it in terms of its role in Mozart’s family, his society and his times; others attempt to understand it as a result of an ‘impressive list’ of psychiatric conditions from which Mozart is claimed to have suffered. But we do know that Mozart wore a wig and had a love of fine and fashionable clothes that might have disguised a not very prepossessing countenance.

I am not surprised that the Speaker of the House of Commons is expressing considerable annoyance that important parts of the Budget are being leaked to the press in advance of the Budget speech on Wednesday. There is an important convention that important policy announcements should be made first to the MPs in Parliament and not briefed beforehand. This briefing may well be a breach of the Ministerial Code in any case. When Keir Starmer was in Opposition, he rightly condemned the Tory party for briefing important policy announcements to the press and it now appears that he and his government are doing exactly the same thing. The rules are clear and I cannot see what advantage it is to the government to make these announcements early and, of course, it just reinforces in the public mind that ‘they are all the same’ The Labour party spokesmen have got themselves into a terrible tangle by constantly saying that their policy of not raising the three principal taxes of income tax, NI and VAT should not adversely affect ‘working people’ but the very small employer who might be subject to increases in NI contributions is ‘de facto’ classified as not a working person and so the arguments have persisted for days and days.

Yesterday was the day when the clocks went back and we were all supposed to get an extra hour in bed. In my case, though, some of that bonus time was spent in correcting various clocks and appliances so I did not appreciate the full benefit of it. Fortunately, I could remember important things like the central heating setting and even the fiddlier things like the microwave were not too troublesome. It proved to be a quiet Sunday because we saw neither our Eucharistic minister from our church or, indeed, our University of Birmingham friend. So Meg and just made a quick trip down the hill to pick up our newspaper and back again. I had promised one of the carers that if she had sufficient time left over from Meg’s lunchtime call, she could view Meg’s 50th wedding anniversary video which we can access through our TV and so she enjoyed listening to this and also viewing some of the other wedding photos that we have on the same website.

Reflecting upon the little scraps that I have gleaned about the American presidential election, I would like to propound a new theory (or, at least, a speculation) There are literally scores of opinion polls both national and local but they all face one large problem, which is how to evaluate the views of those who do not wish their communicate their views to anyone and particularly not a polling organisation – hence the ‘silent’ ones. Now we know that there is a group of Republicans of the traditional variety who actually despair of what is happening to their country if led by Donald Trump and hence they form a silent group of Republican voters who are prepared to vote on this one occasion for Harris. But I also suspect that there is a parallel and probably larger group of Kamala Harris haters who, despite the very evident shortcomings of Donald Trump are secretly preparing to vote for him. Where does this hatred of Kamala Harris come from? Well, there are several streams that flow into this particular well. Very important are those who are appalled by the illegal immigration questions and some of these immigrants are camped (literally) on the outskirts of even Democrat strongholds such as Chicago. Secondly, there are polices such as defunding the police which sound to be barking mad. Thirdly, there are those who doubt her abilities to handle a modern economy. But perhaps of most importance are those who have heard the labelling of Kamala Harris as ‘far left’ which epithet is constantly thrown around by Donald Trump but it is a sad fact of life that if you throw enough handfuls of mud at a wall, some of it will stick. So with this label of ‘radical far left’ around her neck, Harris is already losing the support of some Latino and Black male workers. It is undoubtedly the case that she has an extremely strong case on abortion rights for women which the Trump regime has tried quite successfully to dismantle and this issue alone will persuade some younger Republican inclined young women to vote for Harris. But I contend that there are several other demographic factors at work and all of these tend to suggest that Harris is not meeting their concerns. So just as in the UK, we have the secret Tory voters who never divulge their opinions to pollsters, I suspect that there is a well of silent haters for both of the candidates but, crucially, the pool of Harris haters are probably larger than the pool of Trump haters (the intensity of whose hate may be immense but, in the last analysis, they are not that large in number in the crucial swing states) So I am ‘calling’ this election for Donald Trump and I think there are quite a lot of little straws in the wind that indicate that this may be the case – I would very much like to be proved wrong but we shall see as the results of the election gradually dribble out over the days.

I had cooked a ham joint in our slow cooker but decided to do a little bit of experimental cooking for the veg to accompany it. I had previously bought a big bag of carrots so I down loaded a BBC recipe how to do honey glazed carrots by roasting them in the oven first. So having doused them in olive oil pepper and salt I then cooked them for half an hour before spreading a mixture of lemon juice and honey over them and finishing off with a sprinkling of thyme (from a jar I already had in stock) The results were quite pleasing but not outstanding. In the past, I am pretty sure I have achieved equally good results by transferring some carrots cut into batons, then boiled and finished off in some oil to which some honey is added at the last moment. What I did this morning was quite a deal of work without the commensurate increase in pleasure in eating the final product.

The big political event this week will be Rachel Reeve’s budget which has been trailed for weeks now. There was a time when it was absolutely out of order for budget secrets to be revealed before they were announced to Parliament but a bad habit seems to have crept in whereby some of the budget items are revealed in the days beforehand. We now know as a cast iron certainty that National Insurance on Employers contributions is set to rise. Also, it looks as though another what is termed a ‘stealth’ tax will be in place by not allowing allowances before tax to rise in line with inflation. So we have a process known as fiscal drag in which people actually pay more tax and also get dragged into higher tax brackets even though the rates of tax have not risen. The public as a whole may have thought that no more money was going to be extracted from them via income tax but for many people will find that they are actually paying more tax owing to the non-indexation of allowances even though the rate of tax itself has not been altered. At the time of the Budget, a large booklet of financial data is released at the time the budget is delivered and often there are some technical changes in this booklet which may impact upon some tax payers but it does not necessarily figure in the Budget speech itself or even the many discussions that take place after it. So the airwaves will be filled with Budget news next Wednesday and probably for several days after that as well.