Yesterday morning, Meg seemed exceptionally sleepy and did not manage to fully wake up even as she was being washed and dressed. Wether this is a result of her medication, or the combined effects of the double vaccination we received on Thursday last and our little party yesterday, I cannot say. However she is coming around a little after I am giving her some breakfast and no doubt a trip down the hill will wake her up even more. Meg seems to have a big immune response to the recent vaccinations because the vaccination sites form a red circle about 4-5 cm across which the care workers carefully documented, photographed and filed away in Meg’s record as they are trained to do. Apart from the slightest hint of a sore arm, I seem to have suffered no ill effects. Although feeling tired, I was by no means as exhausted as the day before so probably a bit more sleep is the ultimate remedy. I did find an informative article on the subject from an American professor of medicine who had studied the effects of vaccines. He concludes that the bottom line is you cannot gauge how well the vaccine is working within your body based on what you can detect from the outside. Different people do mount stronger or weaker immune responses to a vaccine, but post-shot side effects will not tell you which you are. It is the second, adaptive immune response that helps your body gain vaccine immunity, not the inflammatory response that triggers those early aches and pains. So that has added a tad to my knowledge base.

This morning was an absolutely beautiful morning so it was a real pleasure to walk down the hill with Meg and to meet up with our Saturday crowd. Our conversations are always somewhat wide ranging and perhaps bizarre to outsiders and there is always a lot of black humour involved. One interesting topic of conversation (admittedly started by myself) were the precautions that needed to be taken before disposing of the body of a spouse in England’s deepest lake which is Wastwater beneath Scafell Pike. This question received some prominence during the intense droughts in the 1970’s when the level of the water in British lakes dropped dramatically and in the case of Wastwater revealed some underlying rocks that lay not many metres below the surface of the lake. A dentist in the 1930’s thought he would successfully dispose of the body of his murdered spouse by heaving her over the side of a rowing boat in the dead of night in Wastwater where the weighted body would normally sink to a great depth. But the dentist was unfortunate in that his wife’s body ledged on the aforementioned rocks and the skeleton, complete with wedding ring, was exposed during the severe drought. From the wedding ring it was possible for the police to find a hallmark and a place of manufacture and to link this with a previously unsolved crime. So one must always be careful to remove wedding rings or any another means of identifying a corpse before disposing of it and the unfortunate dentist was eventually successfully charged with his crime some forty years after the event. From then on our discussion moved onto the ground up glass that is sometimes used to reinforce the tarmac used in road building which I thught was called ‘skut’ but I have not been able thus far to verify this word via the internet. We lunched at home on half a chicken, leek and ham pie that I had in the freezer with some broccoli and tomatoes enhanced with garlic and tomato puree that I made up into a second vegetable. This was actually all very tasty.

In the late morning, I had received a text from my sister and we arranged to FaceTime each other at 1.00pm. The news was not really pleasant as my sister reported to me that her mobility problems were increasing and she was losing the confidence of living alone and independently. I shared the call not only with my sister but only with one of her daughters (i.e. one of my nieces) and I said that I wold call back later on in the evening. To help my clarify my own thoughts, I got into contact with my daughter-in-law as I knew my son out of the house for a day and we had a fruitful discussion of several routes forward. One possibility is that we do not move from incompletely independent living in one’s own home (the situation at present) straight into residential care. It may be that a brief period of residential care may gave us time as a family to explore and put into place other options. One options is, via social services and the local occupational therapy services, we explore a range of options to support my sister at home with a care package not completely dissimilar to the one that Meg and I receive at the moment. Another option is what is termed ‘Assisted Living’ where there may be a flat with a range of services, including some medical services available in the very near proximity. There are some residential homes where there is a full residential service available but a kind of half-way house available to those whose needs are not so urgent at this point in time. Of course to consider all of these options, what is needed is a professional assessment and for this social services are the key but getting access to an assessment is not an easy task. I suspect that the key may be a letter from my sister’s GP, perhaps aided and assisted by an advocate as, for example, provided by the local AgeUK service. Evidently, it is difficult to give practical advice when I am not on the spot but will do whatever I can from a distance whether it be research or even some correspondence with my sister’s GP.

The UK is set to be blasted by strong winds and heavy rain next week as Hurricane Kirk moves across the Atlantic Ocean. The weather system strengthened into a category 4 storm on Friday and its remnants threaten to bring a spell of unsettled conditions, with temperatures forecast to fall. While the hurricane is expected to be downgraded by the time it reaches Europe, the Met Office has said it poses a threat of disruptive rain and wind for some after a mild weekend. All of this serves as a reminder that I need a waterproof cover for Meg’s wheelchair before the really bad weather sets in. But we are due to receive a visit from the wheelchair service shortly to assess the suitability of ankle straps to be fitted so I may stay my hand until after their visit.

Yesterday was a day to which we had been looking forward all week as we had been invited by our French friend down the road to a coffee morning she was putting on for close neighbours. This was a great opportunity for us to have some delayed celebrations for Meg’s birthday yesterday and I had already delivered a chocolate cake ready for the occasion. Our friend had taken the opportunity to put some candles on the cake and also provided some party balloons to give is a slightly festive occasion. We were nearly too late for the event as immediately after breakfast I had seated myself in my favourite armchair with a cup of coffee and almost immediately fell asleep. I was awakened by a telephone so I quickly had to rouse myself and rush down the hill but in truth the other guests were still arriving so we did not arrive late. We feasted on scones laden with jam and cream as well as a variety of cakes and so had a marvellous time. Our friend will be leaving us in the spring as she is going to sell up and then go to a smaller and more manageable flat nearer to her daughter in Cheshire. The conversation included a discussion as to how the males of the species present at little coffee morning to always hang onto furniture and possessions whereas the females were more disposed to throwing out when the occasion demanded. Whilst we were talking about de-cluttering ourselves of possessions, we were offered our friend’s cat, quite a large ginger tom, which goes by the name of Vincent (after Vincent Van Gogh, the painter) This cat does not seem to be amongst the friendliest of his species and so I was not tempted particularly in view of the fact that Miggles, our adopted cat, takes every opportunity to enter the house and to receive some breakfast when she espies that the carers are at the door and the front door is shortly to be opened. Naturally speaking, we had eaten so much cholesterol rich food that we did not feel the need for any lunch after we returned home so we settled down to watch the Maggie Smith film of ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ This was one of those films that seemed to have a very slow build-up and scene setting before some quite dramatic dialogues in the later stages of the film. I sensed that Meg was not absolutely staying with the film but we watched it until the very end. Then after the team time call by the carers, we repaired to our Main Lounge where we regaled ourselves with some of the best bits of ‘Black Adder’ courtesy of YouTube. Probably because of the combined effects of the two jabs and the energy expended in cutting our front lawn, I have felt incredibly tired all day and have kept falling asleep which rather messes up our schedules.

It is reported on Sky News tonight that Sir Keir Starmer has said senior ministers do not need to hand back freebies and gifts like he has – as Diane Abbott said donors do not donate to politicians ‘out of altruism’. After weeks of criticism over Sir Keir and his top team taking freebies since coming into office, on Wednesday the prime minister gave back £6,000 worth of gifts. Included were the cost of six Taylor Swift tickets, four to the races and a clothing rental agreement with a high-end designer favoured by his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer. But on Friday, he said he does not expect his cabinet ministers to do the same. However, Keir Starmer is reported as having said that acceptance of some of these gifts is ‘wrong’ but I doubt this will be do much to draw a line under the affair. The whole point is that whatever the legalities of accepting some of these gifts, as the political commentators point out, the ‘optics’ of this are terrible. In particular, there must be a massive disconnect between Labour’s High Command and the vast majority of recently elected Labour MPs who, one imagines by having been out on the doorstep in the general election campaign will have been left in no doubt about the levels of deprivation experienced by some sections of society in contemporary Britain. The depth of anger is palpable and one wonders what ‘special advisers’ have been doing as they are meant to be a fast route between public opinion and political leaders, bypassing the civil service for example. Not only are the Labour leaders guilty of the charge of hypocrisy but this whole scenario feeds into the narrative of ‘They are all the same’ or ‘Snouts in the trough’ But the level of Tory sleaze was on a scale hundreds and perhaps even thousands of times worse than what has been accepted by Keir Starmer and his coterie as billions of pounds were channelled into the coffers of Tory supporters during the scandal of supplying PPE (Personal and Protective Equipment) at the height of the COVID crisis. So ‘they are not all the same’ but the Labour Leader, by his actions, is generating the impression that Labour sleaze is of the same magnitude as Tory sleaze. Naturally, the right wing press have seized upon any weapons that they have to belabour the new Labour government but they have rather been handed their ammunition on a plate. It is interesting that it takes a left winger such as Diane Abbott to point out that donations are not made in the spirit of altruism but in the expectation that favours will be reciprocated at some point. A think that a good dash of Puritanical self denial would not be out of place for the next year or so that the Labour party can attempt to rebuild some of its credentials.

On Question Time broadcast on Thursday evening, there was repeated questioning why the Labour party was still arms to Israel at the height of the conflict. The government has put a stop to some contracts, for example denying the export of spares for some of the military jets, but the total amount of the ban am mounts to a very small row of beans. The reaction of the audience members was instructive because a common sentiment in the audience was to express the view that whilst Israel had the right to defend itself, there had to be some boundaries as to what was acceptable and what was not. The general view taken by the audience members was that the Labour government were implicitly aiding the Israeli war effort by not taking a tougher stance of the export of arms sales.

It was Meg’s birthday yesterday but I waited until she was fully awake, up and dressed and seated in our Music Lounge before we started to open the birthday cards she had received (but today’s post may bring some more) It is our shopping day today and the ‘sit’ carer is arriving quite bright and early so I may be able to make a fast start to the shopping today. The shopping was done quite easily done this morning and the store seemed pretty quiet, perhaps because I was there a little earlier than usual. Then it was case of getting it home and the carer and I unpacked things and put everything away before it was time for her to leave. I felt pretty tired by this stage and, having made myself a cup of coffee, promptly fell fast asleep in my chair which is not an uncommon occurrence these days. I was awoken by the mid-day carer coming on her own – I had been sent a text to see if I could assist her which I was happy to do.

We had a simple lunch of ham, baked potato and fine beans followed by some flavoured yogurt. Just before lunch, a doctor that we knew quite well from the practice visited and gave both Meg and myself a COVID jab in the left arm and a normal flu jab in the right arm. Two weeks ago, we had both received the new RSV vaccine so we should well protected for the winter months. I must say the doctor was efficiency personified and the new needles that are used are so incredibly sharp and fine so that both Meg and I scarcely felt a thing. My son had given me some advice to swing my arm around immediately after the jab to increase the blood supply and this I forgot to do but I imagine that tomorrow I might have one (or two) slightly sore arms. The doctor is one we have seen before and is cognizant of Meg’s diagnosis and prognosis so I took the opportunity to ask her advice whether the prescription and administration of a sleep-inducing antihistamine would prove beneficial. She seemed quite relaxed about this and , in effect, give it a trial so we now have the medication attached to Meg’s prescription list. After lunch, we idly scanned up through the TV channels to find anything with watching and caught the interesting last few minutes about the last days of the Holocaust. I only got some of the story but I think in at least one of the camps, the German guards realised that their misdeeds would be evident to the invading Allied forces and tried to destroy some of their evidence which mean destroying some of the gas ovens and other ghastly reminders of their misdeeds. In this they were not completely successful but some of the ‘inmates’ actually effected an escape from the camps although they were shot before making good their escape entirely. We remained on the PBS (Public Services Broadcasting of America) and straight into a Mary Beard program entitled ‘Who were the Romans?’ Mary Beard had as an artefact for the program a skull of Roman origins excavated in York but the contents of the grave were interesting Firstly, there were several high status amulets and bracelets from which we could infer that the skeleton was that of a high a status Roman female. Modern DNA analysis and the shape of the skull indicated that her racial origins were probably from Northern Africa and not Italy as you might imagine. By collating quite a mass of evidence, Beard surmised that Roman citizenship was not confined to one ethnic group and Roman society in that respect seems to have been quite a pluralistic one. One does not have to be excessively romantic about all of this as the Romans utilised the barbaric practice of crucifixion quite widely and children were often put to work as though they were young adults. But in some respects, Roman society still seems to have some lessons from which we can learn. It was a beautiful afternoon so I took the plunge and got the front lawns mowed which they badly needed. I managed to get this done and the mower cleaned up and put away before the carers turned up for Meg’s teatime call. So it was a case of taking the advantage of the fine weather and I still have the back lawns to mow but this only takes half the time and is therefore easier to fit it. I calculate that there are two more mowing days before the mower gets put to bed for the winter season on a date very early in November. I must confess that after this busy day and perhaps as a result of the jabs on top of everything, I might treat myself to an earlier night tonight.

In the afternoon, we opened the door to our carers and received a pleasant surprise. There on the doorstep was a carrier bag containing some files of (medical) information which I had loaned to our Irish friends down the road. More to the point, there was a birthday card and a fabulous box of chocolates for Meg to enjoy which she did quite enormously. Then, in the evening, we had a delightful pair of young carers, one of whom is an Asian male and quite experienced in the care business and the other still at sixth form college. Now these two form a most magnificent ‘duo’ and work very well with each other. When they arrived to put Meg to bed at 7.00pm this evening, we got from them a birthday card, a bunch of flowers and another large box of chocolates. The young female carer was quite excited to tell me her news as she has passed her driving test, at the first attempt, only two days ago. So when they left with Meg safely tucked up in bed, the young female carer received two big hugs (one being congratulations at having passed her test, the other one a big ‘Thank You’ from Meg and myself for the presents). The male carer was the recipient of a hearty handshake and it was a perfect end to the day. Having said that, I happen to know that these two young people love coming here and it is one of their favourite calls. For my part, I love having the two of them as Meg always seems quite settled and reassured in their presence so there is an evident mutuality of interests.

Yesterday we would normally have expected our domestic help to have called around but she had texted us to switch her day this week to Friday rather than Wednesday. Last night, I was pleased to say that Meg seemed to get off to sleep relatively quickly and then I spent a little bit of time familiarizing myself with my new iPhone 16 that I had picked up in the store earlier in the day. I had previously consulted the internet and found a useful and up-to-date article on how to maximize battery life in the new phone and I am trying to put its recommendations into effect such as, for example, only to charge up to 80-85% of its capacity rather than 100% as this is supposed to aid its longevity. This morning, we had intended to visit ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe in the centre of Bromsgrove but time was rather against us as we have to be back in time for the carers’ late morning call. Nonetheless, we did manage to get onto the High Street and bought some bits and bobs including quite an interesting printed cushion with a bear illustrated upon it which goes nicely in the ‘Owl Corner’ of our Music Lounge. We have had several telephone calls this morning, generally with quite encouraging news. One of these was from the social services department who have been requested by the nurse specialising in Meg’s condition to expedite further assessment to ascertain if Meg needs/is qualified for an extra small increment of care. Our care agency tells us that the social services departments are so hollowed out that trying to get them to respond is very difficult but of course they fund the majority of the care costs and we pay the necessary contribution. The second telephone call was from our GP surgery to indicate that a doctor would be calling tomorrow to administer the flu (and perhaps COVID) vaccinations and, of course, this is to be welcomed but the only time slot that could be offered was ‘some time between 9.00am-6.00pm)’ I was a little surprised that a doctor should be undertaking this task rather than a District Nurse but if it is going to be a doctor then I will be delighted so that we can fine tune some of the medication to help Meg’s condition. In particular, if there is anything that can be done to increase the probability of sound sleep and minimise the agitation that Meg sometimes experiences in the early evening that prevents sleep, then this will be a considerable bonus. Finally, we received a phone call from one of Meg’s surviving cousins, making a telephone (a day early) to wish Meg a Happy Birthday. Both Meg’s cousin and her husband have developed age-related conditions and it was wonderful to hear from her but, of course, we commiserated with each other about our respective conditions. In particular, neither of us were sufficiently well to attend the funeral of a mutual cousin some months ago now about which we were both sad but there was no way that either of the cousins were sufficiently well to be able to attend the funeral of the cousin who had died.

We have got into the habit of perusing the TV schedules each day and noting what may well be worth a viewing at a later date. Very recently,the film of Schindler’s List was broadcast, quite late at night but Meg and I thought we would start watching the film this afternoon and probably in two halves as it is quite a long film, The story is a 1993 film by Steven Spielberg about Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved over a thousand Jews from the Holocaust. Schindler was a wealthy industrialist and flattered and bribed the Nazi high command into giving hum a supply of workers ostensibly to aid the German war effort and whether the Germans knew that they were being ‘played’ or just went along for the sake of the trappings that Schindler supplied is a moot point. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of historical drama. It was shot in monochrome i.e. black and white but the clarity of the black-and-whiteness was superb and in way detracted from the enjoyment of the film. This was a deliberate design choice by Spielberg and the final scenes burst into colour to represent the triumph of hope after the portrayal of the darkness of the Holocaust. There is a modern tendency for a series of wedding photographs to be shot in black and white to give some clear and startling images, particularly in closeup, and one can appreciate why. In fact our own wedding photographs were shot in black and white for the simple reason that on a student budget we could not afford the very expensive colour versions in 1967.

The Middle East conflict proceeds apace with every expectation that Israel will retaliate with a great deal of force to the rocket attacks by Iran over the last day or so. In these days of ‘warfare by rocket’ it is the side with the best air defences that will prevail and in this case, there is ‘no contest’ and Israel is bound to come out on top. Ballistic missiles travel at such a speed that they are more difficult to intercept and thus to destroy but Israel has the sophisticated ‘Iron Dome’ system in place that seems to trap or neutralise most, but not all, of the incoming missiles.In addition. both American and British fighter pilots are on hand to help to defend Israel and the RAF were in action last night. But the Iranian air defences are no match for the firepower that Israel can unleash and I expect a massive attack in the next day or so. How long this ‘ping pong’ or deadly type of tennis match will continue is hard to say but the Americans are in no position to restrain the Israelis in any way. For their part, they probably sense a never to be repeated opportunity to ‘smite’ (to use an Old Testament biblical phrase) several of their opponents and there is no doubt to degrade their attack capabilities extensively. But at the same time, the resentment against the Israeli regime will surely increase amongst the traditional enemies of Israel. I learnt that the Israelis had banned the Secretary General of the United Nations from entering the country on the grounds that he was ‘biased’ (for reflecting world opinion). I think we will have to wait until after the American elections before the USA will dare to restrain their protege and the amount of damage, both physical and diplomatic, that will have been done by then is hard to over-estimate.

Yesterday, I woke up relatively early and it a source of some relief to me that Meg seems to have had a good night’s sleep. I am organising her medication so in addition to her normal pills, Meg is also taking some Piriton which is basically an anti-allergen medication but the type we have just successfully ordered from the community pharmacist attached to our GP practice says that it may induce drowsiness which is exactly what we want. I suspect, as well, that when Meg gets put to bed by the two young people who know her well, she gets into bed into a relaxed frame of mind which again is helpful. Sometimes Meg falls asleep just before the evening carers call but I am attempting to keep Meg awake at this time as its putting her to bed so much easier. In the morning, the care manager called around as he often puts himself on a shift, accompanied by one of his regular staff and they have the facility of being able to jolly Meg along if she is taking some time to arouse herself in the morning. Tuesday is the day when Meg has a ‘sit’ session and it is always helpful if it is someone that Meg knows well, as it was yesterday. This morning, we went down the hill eager to catch up with our usual Tuesday friends but were quite disappointed when no one else showed up. Nonetheless, we had an interesting time in Waitrose. After I picked up my copy of ‘The Times‘ I noticed in the T2 section that they had an article of good alcohol-free lagers. I turned to the feature and noticed that the brand of which I am particularly fond and which is sold in the store was listed as the favourite beer of the reviewer. So I brought this to the attention of two of the staff that I know well so that they could bring it to the attention of the manager – he might have been interested to know that a beer he stocks has been so favourably reviewed. On the way out, we were given a bunch of 19 white, pink and yellow roses wby some staff who often think of us. I bought a chocolate cake in the store and on my way home, I popped in to see our French friend to whose house we are going for a coffee morning next Friday. However, she was not in but I called at a (near) neighbour who is our Irish friend and let her have the cake so we can give it to our mutual friend before Friday. As it Meg’s birthday on Thursday, we can have a sort of delayed birthday celebration only a day later.

Knowing that the sitter was due to call, I had arranged to go down into town to the EE shop to get my new phone (iPhone 16) brought into commission. The sales staff were exceptionally good and managed all of the technology for me but it took about an hour and a half to get all of the downloads done and the set up procedures (face recognition) completed. Then, on the recommendations of the EE staff, I went across the road to a mobile phone shop and bought both a glass protector for the screen, a new red case and also the requisite charger which is just as well because my existing ones might not have worked. So I got home about a minute before the carer was due to leave. In anticipation of today, I had applied to Tesco mobile for a free SIM card and after a bit of fumbling about managed to get this inserted into my old iPhone with, as it happens, a new number which was very easy for me to memorise. Then of course, the SIM being free had no credit on it so I had to get this organised but this is relatively straightforward for me as I have a Tesco PAYG program/app on my computer so it was easy to stitch in a ‘Family and Friends’ entry and get the top up organised fairly painlessly. This evening, I have just about got the relevant app downloaded into the new phone, having to remember that it is the PAYG version and not the contract version of the app that I need. Then I have in effect a second iPhone that I can use as an emergency phone or more likely as an extended MP3 player and a lot of the functionality of the apps will still be there but I have to wait until Meg is well and truly asleep before I can have a little play. But so far, so good. I still have a billing issue to sort out with EE but I can do this in a day or so. I had been so long in town, there was not really any time to cook a normal lunch. So I made a sort of omelette with masses of tomato and onion and the meal was ready in 10 minutes. Then afternoon, I replayed the ‘Genius of Mozart’ program broadcast the day before but which Meg had not seen. Then we went in the late afternoon onto YouTube and discovered a sort of instant history program that did a quick resume of the plot of Amadeus, going into some depth whether Mozart was actually poisoned by an arch rival as the film suggests.

As we were watching the 6.00pm news, it had become apparent the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East is now unfolding. After Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Iran has responded by launching some 140 missiles, some of them ballistic, towards Israel. The Israeli ‘iron Dome’ system has intercepted the majority of these but by no means all. Meanwhile the USA who is supplying Israel with whatever arms it wants is standing by helpfully as Netanyahu is pursuing his war aims with no restraint whatsoever. Of course, the moment is opportune for the Israelis as America in just over a month away from the presidential elections and will not dare to restrain Israel for the sake of the electoral consequences. Consequently, the conflict in the Middle East is spreading as many predicted that it would and we may even be on the brink of a huge regional war as Israel battles with every state on its borders and has the firepower to inflict the most terrible damage as has already been witnessed in the Lebanon. We can only wait and see whether the international community can exert any pressure for a ceasefire but the prospects this evening look exceedingly grim.

The day did not start well when Meg’s hospital bed refused to respond at all to the control unit which raises and lowers it. I searched for various bits of documentation including perusing all of the various ID labels stuck on the bed itself but it was not at all evident how I was to summon help. I did remember, though, that the person who installed it did show me a little key fob type thing that you used to reset the controls when necessary. This did the trick to my evident relief. Then after it had rained so much during the night and the weather was still so gloomy, I thought I would consult the weather app on my iPhone. But it had somehow disappeared from my screen although I could find it in the List of Apps buried within the menu structure. But one of the carers who seemed quite IT savvy with iPhones managed to resurrect the app for me and restore it to its rightful place on my Home screen. I know that the latest version of the Apple operating system is grouping similar apps into an appropriate group and this may have happened but at least that is another thing put to rights. After we had breakfast, Meg and I listened to Brahms ‘German Requiem’ which we always find tranquil and soothing and is readily available to us on YouTube. We then needed to look at the weather to sort out exactly what little trip we were going to make today. Up to a point, our minds were made up for as our carers who give us details of the next visit ‘along the line’ indicated that indicated that would be back at 11.30 later in the morning. We started off down to Waitrose with the finest of rain in what I believe the Irish call a ‘soft’ day and although we got a little damp, it was nothing like a soaking. On our way down the hill, we bumped into our Italian friend who was just on her way out of the house to attend the funeral of a near neighbour. In view of the rain, we only had the briefest of chats, grabbed our newspaper and made up the hill hoping that we would get back in time. But I had been sent a text saying that we had only one carer for Meg’s lunchtime call and could I assist but in the event, she was 40 minutes after the scheduled time. This is all par for the course but it does make’s one day difficult to schedule.As soon as the carer had left, I pressed on lunch for us which turned out to be quite a tasty affair. But Meg was fast asleep (rather unusually) and did not fancy any of her lunch today which I did not press on her. As she is only two thirds of my body weight and she expends practically no energy during the day, I have a feeling I probably give her slightly too much food in any case so I did not think the absence of a meal would do any great harm. In between other jobs this morning, I filled in a form on the web (which is the way to contact the doctor in our surgery these days) and requested a prescription of which we had run out (through no fault of our own but rather the suppliers) and an additional anti-histamine which I have a notion may just help to get Meg off to sleep at nights.

The Israelis have been celebrating their success in killing the leader of Hezbollah as if there was no tomorrow, I have seen pictures of Israelis in a beach resort raising their glasses in celebration and, by all accounts, a similar mood has been exhibited in the various TV studios – I must say that find this all rather distasteful. The Israeli army are poised to enter Lebanon and their special forces are already operating inside the country. I ask myself whether it is a point of international that firing rockets into each others’s territory whilst undoubtedly an act of aggression is not regarded as an act of war but rolling one’s tanks in an invasion must surely be so. The Israelis are now fighting on multiple fronts (Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen) but one has the terrible foreboding that all of these military gains in the short run are not designed to elicit a peace in the longer term.

Now that Maggie Smith is no longer with us, I noticed when we popped onto YouTube this afternoon that one of Maggie Smith’s definitive films – the ‘Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’- was being given an airing. I expect that in the next few days, we may have even more of Maggie Smith’s masterpieces rolled out including, perhaps, her portrayal of the vagrant old lady in ‘The Lady in the Van’ which is essentially a true story. We seem to have a tradition in this country of cerebrating the young talent whilst actresses are in their 20’s and 30’s and then follows a fallow period in their middle age. But once they reach sixty plus, a whole new vista beckons to them and this probably the case that Maggie Smith made more memorable performances when she over sixty than she did in the 20 years beforehand. The afternoon ended with an unexpected bonus for us. On looking at what YouTube was showing, one choice was an ‘An Evening with Kenneth Williams’ Ken Williams was a regular on the ‘Round the Horne’ comedy shows broadcast on Radio 4 in the 1960’s. Rambling Syd Rumpo was a folk singer character created for Kenneth Williams for the BBC Radio comedy series ‘Round the Horne’. He sang suggestive and humorous songs with invented or double-entendre words, such as ‘moolies’ and ‘nadgers’. So we had a rendition of one of these songs which evidently we have not heard for some decades now but I imagine they are readily accessible on YouTube. Some of the characters performed by Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick deployed some outrageous homosexual slang words then in vogue within the gay community but the BBC executives had no idea of the import of what was being said and thought it was just two comic male actors making up funny words that no one would understand. We listened to these shows avidly when they were first broadcast in the 1960’s and to the subsequent repeats when the BBC dared to repeat them.

Meg and I had a good night’s sleep last night and managed, unlike yesterday, to be well prepared for when Meg’s two carers call around five minutes earlier this Sunday morning. The two care workers evidently got on well with each other (sometimes this is not always the case) and were assiduous in making sure Meg was comfortably seated in her chair before being wheeled down to our Music Lounge. We shall be seeing the same pair again for the midday call, as it happens. We chatted away on the perennial topics of children, holidays and all points in between. The politics programs are particularly interesting this morning. One big headline is, of course, the fact that the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been ‘taken out’ by Israel i.e. killed in a targeted strike. Whether this makes for sensible politics is debatable. Now that Nasrallah has been killed, commentators are speaking of his intelligence, political skills and length of service and it could well be that he will be replaced by a leader who is infinitely less experienced and more hard line and is this what Israel actually wants? It looks as though a ground invasion of Lebanon is almost certain and now that the Hezbollah leadership has been largely eliminated, it looks as though Israel is now intent on invading Lebanon for a second time and one suspects of creating another ‘Gaza’ in that unhappy land. We also have the final four candidates for the Tory party leadership putting out their pitches mainly in the forms of interviews and the two front runners may well be Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick at this stage but after the vote at the Tory party conference, two names will go forward to the wider party membership. Personally, I am of the view that in both of major political parties, given that we live in a parliamentary democracy, the selection procedures in both parties should, as a minimum, have the support of a majority of MPs in their respective parties. Otherwise we may get a repeat of the Jeremy Corbin and Liz Truss situation when whatever parliamentary support there may have been melts away. There has been one standout story, though, from the interviews with the candidates for the Tory party leadership. When candidates for the Tory party leadership were questioned about affairs in Lebanon, most skirted around the issues of the terrible events unfolding in the Lebanon but not Kemi Badenoch. She was forthright in saying if she was PM ‘I would be congratulating Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think what they did was extraordinary. Israel is showing that it has moral clarity in dealing with its enemies and the enemies of the West as well’ she said. ‘Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, and I think that being able to remove the leader of Hezbollah, as they did, will create more peace in the Middle East.’ No doubt, there was a certain amount of grandstanding in this response but suffice it to say that I have heard of no other political leader or commentator who has ventured to suggest that decapitating the leader of Hezbollah which actually make the world a safer place. But there are two other big stories this Sunday. The other big political story this morning is the fact that a recently elected MP. Rosie Duffield, has resigned from the Labour Party and is to remain as an independent MP. Her resignation letter is said to be absolutely scathing and to nobody’s surprise, it is the combination of the ‘cruelty’ of the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance and the showering of gifts (and their ready acceptance) by the Keir Starmer which has really proved to be the last straw. I will just take the liberty of quoting some of the most scathing sections of the resignation letter but it has to be read to be believed:

‘Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear….How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party….Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister. Forcing a vote to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for – why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse?’

Our routines on a Sunday have a different rhythm to the rest of the week, largely as a result of watching the twin Politics programs on Sky News and BBC1. By the time these are finished and we have a leisurely washing up, we then prepare ourselves for a walk down into town. As the weather is getting a little colder, I equipped Meg with a (Manchester University) scarf and a warmer blanket and then we hastened down the hill to pick up our copy of the ‘Sunday Times’ Then we go straight home, without dropping off for a sojourn in the park. Rather, when we got home I treated ourself to some chicken soup in a mug which I prepare by dissolving a packet soup in some boiling water, topping up with full cream milk and micro waving to the appropriate temperature. Then the late morning carers arrived and after Meg had been made comfortable, I prepared our lunch of ham, baked potato and broccoli. After lunch, we dipped into the Walt Disney version of ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ which was not entirely to our taste and so we quickly moved onto other offerings. We actually did view last Thursday night’s broadcast of ‘Question Time’ which I had viewed once before but managed to sleep through practically from the first moment to the last. I find these days that when I am seated in my favourite armchair with a cup of coffee in my hand, I quickly fall asleep within minutes even if the programme in front of me is reasonably engaging.

It is hard to express my relief that on waking up at about 1.00am in the morning, I tried the various TVs that we have only to find that all is now restored to normality. What actually caused the outage in the first place, I shall never really know or even care but fact that normal life as we have come to know it has been restored is so reassuring given the other tribulations that we have to endure. Of course there was a certain amount of reconfiguration of the TV equipment that had to take place in the wee small hours of the morning but this was a price I was more than willing to pay under the circumstances.

This section of the blog is a complete experiment. In the past few days, I have discovered that an old Bluetooth keyboard that I have used to interface with an iPad and which did not seem to work, could now be coerced into life. First of all, I discovered how to use a keyboard with my iPhone, as well as with my iPad, and basically using a technology app called Notes. This particular app is very well known in the Apple eco-structure and is very easy to use and has the great virtue that with a few very simple keystrokes, it is possible to send anybody a text wherever one wants and in particular to my email, which means that once the text is in an email sent to myself, I can access it from either of the two laptops that I have in the two main lounges of the house. Very much encouraged by this development, I wanted to see how much I paid for this technology in the first place. I do not think it was a great deal of money, but I was absolutely amazed to discover that I could actually buy a brand-new Bluetooth enabled little keyboard for the princely sum of less than £7.00 So to cut a long story short, I actually bought this little piece of kit (and, of course, it is made in China) and it is a sweet little thing in effect converting my iPad, and new keyboard, into the equivalent of a little laptop that I can actually utilise while sitting in my favourite armchair, whilst watching the TV on the one hand and talking to Meg on the other. This is quite liberating in many ways. However, what is even more extraordinary is the little button ‘microphone’ symbol and it allows one to dictate ones text. So far, in this particular section of the log, I had avoided using the keyboard all together and I am dictating the whole using the new technology. I need to look at the text and see what terrible errors may or may not have been committed, but the fact that I can sit down and actually say what I want to say and it gets converted into text almost immediately is considerably liberating. I am actually quite excited as, in the past, you could pay an absolute fortune for this kind of technology. I seem to remember that there was an application in the IBM PC days called Dragon software and you paid hundreds of pounds for it, but this now seems available to almost anybody who wants it as an incredibly cheap price and we will have to see how it works. All that I can say is so far so good at this will conclude this particular section.

This morning starts off in a somewhat unusual way. Meg seems to have slept relatively well given the shenanigans of last night’s drama with our TV reception. But as I was getting dressed after my shower, the doorbell rang and one of the carers had turned up 20 minutes early. So she made a start getting Meg washed and dressed and I was going to act as the second carer (necessary when it comes to turning a prostate body – one to hold whilst the other washes) But then the second carer turned up on time and not late as predicted. The carers normally wear a thin disposable apron before commencing their washing duties but I was not wearing one. But in the washing process, I got wet through and just having put on a clean set of clothes had to discard them all and start to get dressed all over again. We breakfasted on porridge and toast and then made our way down the hill to meet up with our friends as we generally do each Saturday. It really was the most delightful day starting at about 10.30 but then the weather clouded over and we have had an increasingly gloomy afternoon. We had a jolly time with the five of us and although sometimes Meg is a bit sleepy, she was wide awake whilst she had her tea and Danish pastry. Then it was a case of ensuring we got back up the hill before the carers’ late morning call, after which I threw together some bits and pieces to make quite a tasty Saturday meal. After lunch, I navigate up through the channels and stopped at one showing past episodes of ‘Rising Damp’ which still remains reasonably amusing despite the act that it was shown in the 1970’s and needs to broadcast a disclaimer to disavow the racist and inappropriate humour which was not then inconsistent with the standards of the time. Normally, Meg can sit in her wheelchair securely enough to await the arrivals of the carers in the late afternoon. But this afternoon, perhaps as a consequence of losing all upper body strength, Meg was practically sliding out of her chair (a tendency to which she is wont). So I had to take some emergency remedial action and just about got Meg up in her hoist which is normally a two-handed job and then got her located reasonably safely in the armchair which we have in our main lounge which has ensured has quite a pronounced backward sloping tilt to it so that Meg can be relatively secure within it. I have put together some materials which I happened to have to hand to make a kind of bolster arrangements which I am going to try out on the armchair in the Music Lounge tomorrow. If I am fairly successful, then hopefully the slipping incident to which Meg may be subject may be averted but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say.

Yesterday as it is Friday we go on our normal trip down into town to visit ‘The Lemon Tree‘ cafe which is now our favourite venue for a Friday morning. After the pouring rain of the last few days, it looks as though the bands of rain are sweeping their way northwards and, upon our return, the weather was rapidly brightening and yielded quite a pleasant day during the afternoon. We were delighted to meet up with our University of Birmingham friend who we often see at the weekend, either on a Friday or a Sunday. Then we rather had to dash up the hill to ensure that we get home in plenty of time for Meg’s late morning visit from the carers. I recently had to repair (i.e.wood glue together) some of the legs from a little occasional table we have in our lounge – I suspect the legs had become loosened from when Meg in her falling about days had sent the table crashing. The wood glue seems to have worked its magic although I a treating it very gingerly these days.

I have managed to get the Bluetooth keyboard upon which I am currently typing communicating directly with my iPad whilst sitting in my favourite leather armchair. This means that I can now chat with Meg, watch the TV and also type notes to myself all at the same time which is true multi-tasking. We also treat ourselves to a bought haddock fish pie which we are going to have for our Friday lunch and today is no exception. We finish off our lunches these days with a small bowl of plain Greek yogurt but enhanced a little with some spoonfuls of coconut yogurt (sold in Aldi) which is delicious. Last night was a disturbed night for both of us. Although Meg had been put into the bed by the carers so that she was all tucked up by 7.30pm, in practice she did not fall fully sleep until about 11.00pm.This happens occasionally such as every third night and, on occasions like this, I try to keep Meg calm and unagitated but this is easier said than done Eventually, I got up and started to do the jobs that I reserve for the evenings when Meg is (hopefully) asleep. Consequently, last night I got very little sleep last night and consequently have felt like ‘death warmed up’ the whole of the following day. After Meg has had her ‘tea time’ call from the carers in the late afternoon, we always go to the main lounge and see what YouTube has to offer. Sometimes we are presented with some classic comedy and so, sometimes with some classical musical offerings, depending on what the YouTube algorithm has sorted out for us. Today, there was an examination of the lives of the three great tenors,Caruso, Gigli and Bjorling (the Swedish tenor), As a follow up, there was a biopic of the life of Mario Lanza who had a magnificent voice but, coupled with his good looks, lent itself to the TV and cinema era rather than the opera house. But Mario Lanza died at the age of 38 and although he had recorded the sound tracks to The Student Prince, the powers that be that in MGM substituted another actor who played (and lip-synced) the role pretty well by all accounts. We were happily watching our TV when suddenly we lost all TV signal in both of our lounges. Suspecting a transmitter fault, I got onto the appropriate website which informed me that there were no problems with the transmitters (but I am not convinced about this) After an urgent phone call to my son, he came over and we experimented with a little portable TV and various lengths of TV cable to try to work out if the problem was with our aerial.To cut a long story short, we got first the portable and then the big Toshiba TV working but only in the other end of the lounge and only receiving the terrestrial channels and not the internet channels. But from the important standpoint of keeping Meg engaged, we now have a TV that offers something, if not everything, and she can view this by locating the wheelchair into a different part of the lounge. After various experiments and trials with different combinations, my son and I think that we may have an explanation for what is going wrong. It could well be that the transmitter has some kind of fault and is transmitting at a lower power than is normal. This might be effecting the big TVs but not the portable. In addition, to put the TVs where they need to be proximate to our armchairs, I have deployed long lengths of cabling along the skirting boards of the Music Lounge and this will degrade the signal further. So we think that a reduced transmitter power coupled with our cable-induced signal degradation may account for the problem. We are going to wait until the morning to see if anything has been sorted out overnight and whether the TV in our Main Lounge is functioning as it should in the morning. But as things stand, they are now looking somewhat less bleak than they were an hour or so back when it looked as though we might have to call a TV or aerial specialist and be without TV for days on end. I am relieved that we have a solution that will just about work for now and we will have to see what the morning brings.

The foreign affairs news on the evening bulletins was disturbing in the extreme. Israel had attacked the Hezbollah HQ in Lebanon and the scale of the destruction left a huge red glow over the horizon that rather reminded me of the initial American attack on Iraq when they were promising ‘shock and awe’. It looks as though some of the major Hezbollah leaders may have been successfully targeted but not their actual leader. Of course, there will be others who will step up into the role and I have always thought that the military doctrine of (almost literally) decapitating the enemy was a futile strategy. For example, if Churchill had been killed at the height of WW2, would the reaction of the rest of the population that now is the time to sue for peace? So a ceasefire seems to be a long way off and the Israelis are preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon in the near future in any case. One has to despair what a solution might be in the face of these calamitous scenes.

Yesterday was my shopping day and we almost overslept this morning – I suspect that the dark mornings makes it slightly more difficult to awake at our normal time. But the two carers came on time to get Meg up and ready but she did appear to be a little sleepy this morning. Perhaps the RSV virus jab that we had the other day is making us both a little more tired but at least we are happy to be within the narrow window of the system (75-79 year olds) and to have been given a level of protection that may last for at least a couple of years. One of the carers was detailed to stay on with Meg as a ‘sit’ carer whilst I went off to do our weekly shopping. This particular carer has a very happy and friendly disposition and I was actually quite relieved to leave Meg with her whilst the shopping was done. At Aldi, I saw a pair of admittedly thin cotton men’s pyjamas marked down to £5.00 so I bought this to complement a similar pair I bought last week thinking to myself that in the very cold weather, two pairs of thin pyjamas might actually prove warmer than the traditional Winceyette, particularly if they trap a layer of air between the two pairs. Upon my return, the carer helps me to put things away and this seems to take most of the morning. At midday, the manager of the care agency who details himself as one of the duty rota was due to call around accompanied by his manager. The idea of this is that the management team as a whole have sight of each of their clients periodically so that they can get a more rounded picture of their domestic situation and attendant care needs. This sounds like excellent practice and I took the opportunity to enquire how our application to Social Services for an extra visit was being processed. I was told the most incredible tale of woe about how things were with Social Services these days. Every request for an extra resource has to go through several layers of bureaucracy and then sent out to an assessment panel to see if the extra resource can be approved or not. So a decision can take months to emerge and the whole scenario is a response to the absence of resource within social service departments. The levels of bureaucracy are an attempt to save money be delaying and delaying the decision making process. As though all of this was not bad enough, I was told blood curdling tales of what was happening in Birmingham Social Services now that the city council is effectively bankrupt. Birmingham’s problems were brought to a head when it was ruled that they had underpaid their female employees for decades and were then faced with a huge bill in back payments. At the same time, there was a huge squeeze in local authority budgets which in the big cities were generally under the control of a Labour administration. This suited the purposes of the then Tory government who starved the big cities of resources and then found it quite easy to deflect any criticism by pointing out that Labour administrations were always profligate whereas their Tory counterparts in the more affluent shires did not have the same scale of problems exhibited in the large conurbations. We received through the post a written confirmation of the fact that the wheelchair service are due to pay us a visit in about 10 days time to see if the ankle straps arrangements that I utilise to keep Meg’s legs from slipping off the footrests can be replaced by a more professional arrangement. The occupational therapists were generally happy with my pragmatic solution but they have made an onward reference to the wheelchair service itself that may have some more professional kit to help to keep Meg more secure (and less liable to slippage) in her wheelchair.

Last night, I had a sudden burst of enthusiasm and wondered whether a keyboard that I had purchased some time ago to make a Bluetooth connection with my iPad would actually work with my existing iPhone. After a certain amount of experimentation, I found that this would work pretty all so in the afternoon, I wondered if it possible to view the TV whilst also using the keyboard to write some text for this blog. As we been watching a Lucy Worsley program on Mozart in London yesterday, I had unfortunately had a doze in the middle of it and the carers had also come along before we had got to the end of it. So today, we are resuming our viewing of this and I am also trying out this innovative bit of kit and am using the ‘Pages’ app on the iPhone. From here, it is a fairly simple task to use a few keystrokes to upload the text into an email and then I can send it to myself so that I can read it on either of my laptops. This afternoon, it has been rather a gloomy afternoon so we are not unhappy to have another little burst of Mozart for this afternoon. We had been watching some ‘BlackAdder’ on BBC catchup but the selections were not some of the rib tickling ones so we were happy to resume our viewings of yesterday.

In the late afternoons, Meg and I have a little routine that seems to work pretty well for us. After the carers have made Meg comfortable, we stay in our main lounge where we have a chair in which the seat cushion has been tilted back somewhat to help keep Meg from sliding off and whilst Meg is sitting happily in her chair, I go off and make ourselves some tea and also treat ourselves to a little bit of chocolate. Then we either watch some comedy or view a YouTube concert until it is time for the 6.00pm news. I have also got into the habit of giving Meg her ‘evening’ pills at 6.00pm before Meg is put to bed at about 7.00pm. For the last day or so, this timing has worked out very well for us and it seems to help Meg settle down for the evening a bit more readily. This then releases me to get some more of my evening routine jobs done which is always a bonus.