So we enter our Saturday morning routine this morning, having woken up to quite a gloomy kind of day but at least the weather promises to be a tad warmer than some of the frosty starts we have just had. Meg’s carers arrived on cue this morning and so everything went fine but tomorrow, as they are so short-staffed, I agreed with the care agency that we make do with one carer tomorrow morning. I reckon that a little bit of give and take on both sides is always a good policy. One of the carers was telling me of her baptism of fire as a care worker. Her very first assignment was to a 60-stone 20 year old who suffered from fluid retention issues. Eventually, it took a team of eight workers coming in three times a day to cater for his extensive needs – the fire brigade needed to remove a window and goodness what kinds of lifting equipment on the occasions that it was necessary for him to visit hospital. After we had breakfasted, it was time for us to get ourselves down to Waitrose which we did and met up with two of our regular coffee drinking companions. We all look forward to these little Saturday morning chats (as well as Tuesdays) and we informed our two friends that we might miss next Tuesday. The ‘Falls’ nurse plus a physiotherapist colleague are due to visit us at some time next Tuesday but as we are not sure when, then we need to ensure that neither our morning coffee session or even Pilates class gets in the way of what might be quite an important assessment meeting. After we had got back, Meg had a bit of a rest and I got things organised for lunch which was a simple but tasty affair of quiche, fine beans and microwaved tomatoes.

We were gearing our timetables today around the Six Nations Rugby match. We got settled down to watch the Italy vs. Scotland game. Scotland have the reputation of being fast out of the blocks and they had a tremendously good first half, scoring a handful of tries and being quite reasonably ahead at half time. But Italy have a reputation of coming good in the second half of their matches and so it proved today. With about five minutes left to play, the Italians were nine points in the lead but then the Scots made a massive effort and scored a try to come within two points of the Italians. Then we have an absolutely nerve wracking final minute or so because if the Scots conceded a penalty, then the Italians would have won. But if Italy had conceded a penalty, then victory would go to the Scots. Hence, as the cliché goes, there was everything to play for. In the event, after the clock had gone red, the Scots knocked on and so the Italians won the game. They were absolutely ecstatic because they only narrowly lost the game against England, actually drew with France (but would have won if the conversion kick had not hit the upright post and failed to go over) So here they actually had a victory by two points which was their first victory in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome for eleven years. These tight matches are not only absorbing but they are good for the game as a whole and all fans really want to enjoy skilful and fast rugby being played. In the England vs.Ireland game, the English made a surprisingly good start but the Irish still managed to be ahead at half time having seized their opportunities better than England. At the end of the day, nobody really expects England to beat Ireland but they are certainly making a very fierce context of it. In the end, as a result of a fired-up performance, the English played like the Irish and won by a single point, kicking a drop goal in the closing seconds of the game.

Just when we thought that Joe Biden was too old for the job, the old-timer made a fiery ‘State of the Nation‘ address to Congress. These speeches are generally not overtly partisan but on this occasion Joe Biden really had a go at Trump, not referring to him by name but only as ‘my predecessor’ Biden made the powerful point that ‘Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today. What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.’ So here we have the old campaigner coming good, as it were, and giving some heart to the Democrats who are not entirely enthused of Biden who appears to be both gaffe-prone and probably somewhat too old for the job. But Trump himself has made several gaffes recently and both Biden and Trump seem to be in the habit of getting the names of presidents of other countries mixed up with each other. Whilst Trump appears to be riding high at the moment, there are a lot of law suits still to be decided over the coming weeks and months. But we are faced with the bizarre prospect that an American contender be a convicted felon and even sent to gaol but by itself this not disqualify them from becoming a President elect. There may be some moves in Congress to rectify this apparent anomaly but this will probably not come to fruition. Trump has managed to delay some of the court proceedings against him and this playing for time is probably par for the course.

This morning did not run as smoothly as one would have liked. I got Meg all up and ready for the care workers who turned up at 8.45 rather than at 8.00am this morning. After I had left Meg some undressed and therefore cold in the bathroom, I finished off everything myself. When the care workers arrived, they explained that they were scheduled for 8.45 but whoever had scheduled them forget to inform me. Later the manager of the agency phoned me on another matter and then I informed him of the lateness on this occasion. It looked as though one of his staff had done some re-scheduling without him knowing anything about it. I can put up with these inconvenient changes of time so long as I am informed in time and can make the necessary adjustments. So after a delayed breakfast, we entertained ourselves for an hour until we received a visit from our local church parishioner which is generally a weekly event on each Friday. When her visit was over, Meg and I motored down to the Waitrose car park where we picked up our newspaper and then made another venture along the High Street. I particularly wanted to have a chat with the charity shop proprietor whose plight we learned about yesterday and which was regarded as sufficiently newsworthy for it to merit quite a large spread in the local newspaper. The ironic thing about this whole affair was that one of the ‘culprits’ was another charity (a ‘Primrose’ charity) which seemed as though they had the money to outbid and to oust out a smaller charity. The advice that I wanted to pass on was that I thought that the cafe proprietor was in urgent need of some legal advice. More specifically, I wondered whether the ability to terminate a lease after only two weeks, although written into the lease, was actually legally enforceable or not. If it were, then I suggested that a counter claim be submitted for thousands of pounds spent on upgrading the decor of the shop which was adding to the value and desirability of the property, thereby handing a bonus to the landlord. The cafe proprietor was grateful that I had given her the advice that I had. Although she had not engaged a solicitor for the initial signing of the lease, she was now in contact with some very good legal advice who were working along the lines that her lease ‘was a public good’ and therefore, not as I suspected, susceptible to an abrupt termination. In any case, she was having to leave her premises tomorrow but agents were looking for somewhere similar for her along the High Street and she promised to let me know as and when she had found somewhere else suitable. Our walk along the High Street proved to be quite fruitful in other ways as well. We bumped into an erstwhile ‘park friend’ who I used to see almost every day and to whom I referred to as ‘Seasoned World Traveller’ but who I have not seen for a month or so since Meg and I are so much less frequent visitors to the park. He informed us that he now had taken a job in a local supermarket in what I think was some kind of quality control function. I was delighted to hear his news since our COVID walks in the park and I think his health had improved somewhat and I am sure that a new job would be beneficial to him in all kinds of ways. Also whilst walking along the street, we met one of our Waitrose Tuesday crowd who we did not see earlier on this week as she was busy bowling. So the whole little trip along the High Street was entertaining in itself. We found a stall (over which we did not linger) which sold all sorts of animal parts normal not edible by humans but no doubt a treat for household pets. We noticed some pig’s ears, hen’s feet, duck necks, ox bones and all kinds of otherwise unimaginable animal body parts no doubt relished by the dog population of Bromsgrove but sufficiently gruesome for the human population.

There is a most extraordinary story of the type loved by the popular press. Apparently, a caravan was stolen near Thirsk in North Yorkshire. However, with the aid of tracking technology, the police apprehended the ‘thief’ who was driving a BMW Series 5 which was towing the caravan. From tools and other objects found by the police inside the car, it looked as though the boy himself had executed the theft and was driving the towed caravan down the motorway. There are several intriguing questions behind this story – for a start, where was the boy heading or when driving down the motorway? What would have happened when he ran out of petrol? Did he have any parents or other adults who were responsible for him?

It been announced this afternoon that the one time Prime Minister, Theresa May, would not stand for Parliament at the next election i.e. later on this year. One wonders whether history will treat Theresa May kindly or not. She says she is going to concentrate upon a particular interest of hers which is the abolition of modern day slavery. One must say that Theresa May was dealt the most difficult of hands whilst PM, torn between the demand of the ardent Brexiteers on the one hand and some equally ardent Remainers on the other. Boris Johnson ‘solved’ the problem by engineering a vote so that prominent Remainer critics such as Anna Soubiry and David Gaulke had the whip withdrawn – that is, effectively being thrown out of the party to enable the Brexiteers to have their way.

Today has turned out to be quite an interesting day, as we shall see. The principal event on Thursday is my shopping day and for this event, the care agency supplied a care worker to sit with Meg whilst I go shopping. This morning, the two care workers turned up on cue including one who is a middle aged Polish care worker who is incredibly jolly and hard working. She is one of those people who does not hang back but immediately tackles whatever task is before with gusto and Meg and I have a very good relationship with her. She is very kindly and helpful to Meg and helps to jolly her along to get the morning routines accomplished. One of the pieces of kit that we had delivered the other day was a sort of basic wheelchair that we can use to quickly transport Meg from bedroom to bathroom and the carers appreciated the utility of this aid. So after we had got Meg up, washed, dressed and breakfasted we only had an hour to wait until the Polish carer, who had been allocated to another client, came back to care for Meg whilst I did my shopping. This took three quarters of an hour and I managed to buy all of the things that I had on the list (in my head) and when I got back, Meg had evidently had a bit of a wobbly so the kindly care worker had sensibly got her onto our little settee, put a (heavy) therapeutic blanket round her which was exactly the right thing to do and Meg was soundly asleep upon my return. The carer still had an hour left of her allocated slot so whilst Meg was sleeping, the care worker and I exchanged some of our life histories. She had a hard time in her life, losing her mother when she was only 18 years of age and largely left to her devices together with a brother and sister. I had put some of our favourite baroque music concerts (YouTube) on whilst I was out of the house and as the care worker had been exposed to classical music for an hour, I felt she needed a bit of a change. So searching YouTube I managed to find some Joan Baez (classical Mexican-American folksinger, one time ‘amante’ of Bob Dylan, who established her reputation singing protest songs in the 1960’s) Of course, the Polish car worker had never been exposed to these musical influences so we mutually enjoyed listening to Joan Baez tracks whilst Meg was asleep. If there had been a routine domestic job to share such as clothes folding, we would have done this but as it happened the washing was up-to-date. Afterwards we finished off the chicken thighs which were the remainder of last week’s ‘joint’ as it were and had a delicious lunch, complemented with baked potato and broccoli.

The afternoon turned out to be quite entertaining for us. As Meg had not had any fresh air and I had not had the opportunity to pick up my newspaper, we parked in the Waitrose car park and then went for a little trundle along the length of the Bromsgrove High Street, popping in at some of our favourite charity shops to see if anything tickled our fancy. We did not see anything we particularly wanted or needed but noticed that a new charity shop had opened, the proceedings from which were to be used to help the running costs of a horse sanctuary. We decided to pop inside and discovered it only been open for a month. As it was deserted and the owner/proprietor was very chatty, we had a look around and saw that they had supplied about three or four tables beautifully laid out for those who were tempted by a coffee and a cake. Meg was feeling a bit chilled at this stage so we decided to succumb to temptation and sat down with hot chocolate (for both of us) and then a nice piece of cake for Meg. As there was no-one else in the shop, the proprietor came and chatted with us and she explained how they had spent several thousands tastefully redecorating the interiors. Then some other customers came in and informed us that this brand new shop was going to have to close at the end of the week. Then we got the full story from the proprietor who explained that they had taken out a lease for three years and wanted to make it into a little community hub where groups could come and have little impromptu meetings. Then we learnt of the bombshell that had befallen then. After they had been in the store for only two weeks, the landlord decided to serve them notice of eviction as he had been offered more money than the horse sanctuary could afford to pay and was turfing them out. Having just discovered this wonderful little place we were horrified that this could happen. We left with hugs and kisses all round (yes, really!) and I left one of my business cards asking the owner if she could contact me the minute they had found a new place so we could come and patronise their new venture and to help to spread the word and help their little business to grow. When we got back home, Miggles, our favourite adopted cat, was sitting patiently waiting for us having observed us leaving about an hour and a half beforehand. Had the faithful animal been sitting and waiting patiently for our return, we asked ourselves but of course we shall never know.

We were looking forward to three or four things happening today, of which the first was greeting our domestic help who is now calling around each Wednesday. The carers called this morning about 15 minutes early whilst we were both still in bed having woken up and then dozed off again. So after Meg was got up and breakfasted, we started to turn our thoughts to our second little venture of the day which was to eventually get to the Methodist Centre coffee shop which is our regular routine for a Wednesday. We picked up a copy of our daily newspaper from a local garage and then went to access an ATM to get out next week’s living money. Accessing an ATM is a little problematic these days but I pop onto the Asda carpark without paying for their charges as I only intend to be there literally for a minute or so. This particular car park operated by the District Council used to have a 15 minute ‘grace’ period so that you could pick up things from the local store but I gather from talking to a car park attendant that this policy does not operate any more and one has to pay if only for a stay of a minute or so. Once we had got our money out we went to the Methodist Centre where we were quickly joined by one of our Waitrose friends and her next door neighbour who had walked down to the centre together. When we had met last Tuesday, our friend described to us how she had mislaid her front door key but her daughter-in-law had fortunately found them just outside the house. I recommended to her that she should purchase the type of chain that I deploy to make sure that I lose the keys from my back pocket which has happened before today. I suggested a local firm called ‘Bromsgrove Cobblers‘ where the proprietor always tries to be very help in helping people with the kinds of things that shoe repair shops sell these days. Our friend was delighted to have found a chain which the shop owner had carefully fitted her keys onto to make sure that she should keep them safe in the future. We had a very pleasant chat with our friend and her neighbour and then set off for home as today is Budget Day and we thought we would get home in time to see a lot of the Budget speech. For lunch, I was in and out of the kitchen whilst I was searing some chicken legs which I wanted to be well cooked before I added them to our stewpot for a lunch. I was attempting to get snatches of the Budget speech and do some cooking at the same time which proved to be a little difficult. Eventually, I got Meg to the kitchen table and we started to have our lunch.

I was about half way through our lunch when the ‘Falls’ nurse showed up as we knew that she would some time in the afternoon but we had no exact time. She was alone as the colleague who was meant to accompany her had phoned in sick today. Nonetheless, she is an incredibly helpful Falls nurse and once we had completed our lunch, we get Meg to the bottom of the stairs and I started to show how I helped to support/push/encourage Meg up the stairs which normally happens once a day only when we are preparing to get Meg to bed. I think it is fair to say that Meg is having a particularly wobbly day today and the nurse covered her hands in horror as in our efforts to get Meg up the stairs we only managed a couple of stairs. The nurse expressed complete amazement that I had been coping with getting Meg up the stairs unaided for months now and thought that a stairlift was an absolute priority. She had brought along some leaflets for me to peruse and, as it happened, I had already made a tentative internet search and discovered what may be a good, if pricey, local supplier. I have the option to buy brand new, to buy refurbished or to rent and each of thee options comes with attendant advantages and disadvantages to be considered. The Falls nurse said she would discuss Meg’s case with colleagues and would return next Tuesday (i.e. in six days time) – although this is normally my Waitrose/Pilates day, I think the appointment with the couple of physiotherapist from the ‘Falls’ team has to take complete priority over everything else, as things stand at the moment. We briefly discussed the option of a bed downstairs but the Falls team nurse explained that if we had a hospital type bed, we could not have rests fitted down the sides as disoriented sleepers might get up during the night and injure themselves. So between us, we discounted this possibility which makes the stairlift appear the only viable option. I probably need to re-activate links with the social work team (having just been ‘signed off’ by the existing social worker) so we would start again with a new social worker and, perhaps have further reviews and discussions of options.

I have not had much time, if any today, to absorb details of the Budget except to note the details of the cuts to national Insurance contributions pre-announced yesterday. There was some speculation that the Chancellor might try to pull a rabbit out of the hat i.e. spring a Budget surprise right at the end of his speech. But this Budet led one minister to remark privately that this is the Budget that could well have been produced by a Labour Chancellor. In line with speculation, the ‘non-dom’ tax status relief is to be abolished which may not please the wife of the Prime Minister very much but such is the magnitude of her wealth, she might not feel it that much.

Today being a Tuesday, we swing into our Tuesday routines which will turn out to be coffee with the Waitrose friends at about 10.30am followed by my Pilates session in the middle of the day. I got myself showered and then Meg’s carers did their bit to get Meg washed and dressed. One of the carers in particular is pressing that I ask for extra equipment to help Meg (and them) in their tasks. She is arguing along the lines that her grandmother had greater levels of mobility than Meg is exhibiting at the moment so we should press for a stairlift and other quite expensive mobility aids. But more of this later. After we had breakfasted, I got Meg ready to meet with our coffee bar friends and whilst the youngest one was busy playing bowls, we met with our other two regulars. Our friend who was a keen fell-walker has lost her husband (who was quite a lot older than her) to dementia and the funeral was held about a fortnight ago. Since then, she has busy with the things that are consequence of the death of a partner, such as the adjustment to joint bank account details. She was telling me of a government website called ‘TellMeOnce’ which, in theory, is a portal in which you communicate a person’s death to the portal which is then meant meant to inform all other relevant government departments. But I think she had run foul of one agency, probably I think the Benefits Agency, who when asked to cease the payments of one particular benefit, then required the completion of an eight page form including such details as the bank account details of any executors (presumably to pay any monies due into their bank accounts) Our friend had quite a row with them, refused to fill in the form and slammed down the phone. I am sure there there must be a simpler and easier way of dealing with this particular benefit but this is bureaucracy running mad for you. Before I left for my Pilates, I had a couple of welcome telephone calls from a nurse who works in the ‘Falls’ team and is part of the Occupational Therapy service. I had telephoned her yesterday to thank her for the piece of kit which she left with us on Friday which is helping to transport Meg around the house. She returned my message today, as she was out of the office yesterday, and said that she would see what she do about my request for a second and parallel piece of kit which would be used exclusively upstairs. A second phone call informed me that would manage to get the second piece of kit round to me some time in the afternoon. In addition, she was going to set up a visit in which she would call round with another OT/physiotherapist colleague to see how Meg was able to cope with stairs and how she managed the journeys she made (one at the start of the day when she comes downstairs and one at the end of the day when I get her off to bed) I must say I am delighted with the rapid and timely response of the team but I think that as Meg falls about once a day she is just an accident waiting to happen and we want to avoid these unpleasant possibilities. This is not just an idle speculation. One of my life-long friends who was both my art master, music teacher, dormitory supervisor at boarding school and boy scout troop leader (I knew him in several roles) would send us a Christmas card and verses of his composition every year without fail. When one did not arrive a year or so back, I sent another urgent letter which eventually passed into the hands of his daughter. She informed me that her father had fallen down the stairs of the cottage in which he lived in Northern France as a result of which he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage from which he died within the day. So potential falls down the stairs of a house are to be taken very seriously and evidently everyone concerned with Meg’s care is going to try to ensure that this does not happen to her.

It is budget day tomorrow and the media are their normal feeding frenzy in the day or so preceding it trying to ascertain what tax cuts are to be implemented in this most strange of years when the country cannot afford anything but it is going to be an election year, probably in October/November. There used to be a time when the Chancellor ‘went into purdah’ communicating with not a soul until he could announce good news in his budget statement that would be treated with wild applause on his own side of the house. Budget leaks used to be treated with the utmost seriousness, requiring ministerial resignations in the past. But we have had a ‘pre announcement’ (or is it a government leak of its own Budget) that there will be a cut of 2p in the rate of National Insurance contributions. This announcement, though, has a degree of political thought behind it. Firstly, a 2p cut in National Insurance will not benefit the extremely wealthy, nor the pensioners who do not pay NI contributions. But pensioners do not need any more largesse to be handed out to them as they benefit from the ‘triple lock’ policy in the first place whilst the extremely wealthy do not need a tax cut and will vote Tory anyway. So a cut in NI insurance contributions benfits those still at work who may be persuaded that the Tories may be worthy of some support after all. So there is quite a lot crude political calculation at work here.

After yesterday, I thought that today might be a much better day and so it has proved so far. The carers turned up around ten minutes late but there were horrendous traffic jams right through the centre of Bromsgrove so I was sympathetic to their plight. I know from an early doctor’s appointment that I had some years ago that at 8.00am it is possible to walk down the Kidderminster Road faster than the line of slow moving traffic. After breakfast, we contemplated our shopping and itinerary for the day. We started off at the Aldi supermarket to buy a toilet requisite that they stock and nobody else does so we were fortunate that they had some of this particular item in stock. Aldi sells it for about the price of other supermarkets and so that people in the know tend to snap it up whenever it appears on the shelves so you are never sure whether the shelves are to be bulging or completely bare. After this little venture, we picked up a newspaper and motored to Droitwich where we parked fairly easily. Then we had our usual fare of a pot of tea and a bacon butty in our favourite cafe which was fairly quiet this morning. Droitwich used to be the home of my favourite hardware store, Wilko, which went ‘belly up’ a month or so back. The store space has now been overtaken by Poundland who I suspect have inherited a lot of Wilko’s stock and supply lines. In short, it does not feel like a Poundland store as things are displayed at their normal discounted prices but with I suspect about two thirds of the lines that Wilko used to have. So Meg and I had a very useful trip around the store picking up those bits and bobs that you know you are going to find useful. I was also delighted to find that they stocked a range of mens’ underpants which I was on the point of buying online, anyway. I think the price I paid probably beat the online price anyway and I was delighted to see one of those little folding step-stools that are so useful for reaching into high cupboards so that went into my shopping basket as well. So after our successful little shopping trip, we called in at a Cancer Relief charity shop that we now well and usually carries a good range of items. I bought myself a Marks and Spencer shirt in the size, colour and style that I would buy if I were in a M&S store and some Easter cards of which we only send a very few these days. But I espied a wall clock in a classic pine hexagonal style design which was being sold for a song. I suspect that the price may have been discounted even further than normal because the label on the back informed one that you required a battery. But it was a standard AA battery of which I have a copious supply at home. I have wasted no time in getting the clock mounted in such a position that it can easily be seen when sitting in our little two seater settee – and it just so happens to match the surrounding furniture perfectly so that meant a piece of good fortune for us. Whilst we were paying for our purchases in the charity shop, I enquired of one of the assistants whether they had dominoes sets available – I have hunted for some dominoes for what appears to be months amidst the myriad of jigsaws but to date have been unsuccessful. But the assistant went into the back of the shop and appeared with a traditional box of dominoes which I was more than happy to acquire for a small sum. I am hopeful that Meg and I might be able to play this simple game at some suitable point in the afternoons if there is nothing to grab our attention on the TV and/or YouTube. Meg is getting into the habit of having a little doze after lunch and I am convinced that this helps her to cope with the rest of the day more easily.

This afternoon, just after Meg had rested, I made a FaceTime contact with my sister who lives in Yorkshire and who I have not seen for quite a long time now. Whilst being conscious of the fact that we are trying to organise something to see Meg’s cousin in Derby, I have also turned my thoughts to seeing my own family in Yorkshire. A year or so back we would have stayed in a hotel in Harrogate without a moment’s hesitation, but these days I have to think a little more carefully about the logistics involved. I am playing with the idea of staying overnight with one of the family overnight if this at all feasible but otherwise it might be logistically better just to one long extended day when we make the journey by car. The journeys would be principally by motorway but there are rush hours, traffic congestion and roadworks to take into account so what might seem to be a simple journey might prove to be a little more arduous than one would have thought.

Some of the breaking news late this afternoon is that the Government have been dealt a ‘spanking defeat’ in the House of Lords over the Rwanda bill. An amendment has been passed by a majority of 102 to the effect that if the bill comes into operation, it must comply fully with our obligations under both national and international law. As it is the intention of the Rwanda bill to try to avoid UK litigation this is a tremendous spanner in the works of the passage of the bill. Eventually, of course, the bill will emerge heavily amended by the Lords and then a game of ‘ping pong’ might emerge in which the Commons will have to try to reverse the amendments made in the Lords.

Today started off bright and early with what promises to be a glorious spring day. We set our alarm and were up and had our early morning cup of tea before the duo of carers arrived at 7.00am this morning – one hour earlier than during the week. We got Meg turned around and then we managed to watch the Lorna Kuennsberg program in its entirety. As it is the Budget next Wednesday and this year is going to be an election year, there is much speculation as to what the Chancellor will give away in the form of tax cuts. Apparently, there is enough money ‘in the kitty’ as it were for a 1p cut in income tax even if this were to be a prudent thing to do, but the Conservatives in their present mood are clamouring loudly for much more significant tax cuts although they seem to be very coy about what public services are to be cut in order to pay for a further tax reductions. The current political thinking is that a 2p reduction in income tax is necessary to make any real political impact and so, at the moment, there is a desperate scrabble around as to where the extra money might be found. Two avenues are in mind, of which the first is exploring the option of scrapping the tax status enjoyed by people who live in the UK, but whose home for tax purposes is overseas (the so-called non doms). As Rishi Sunak’s wife falls into this category and it would be a direct steal of one of the Labour Party’s prime policies, it must be a measure of the desperation of finding the money from somewhere afflicting the Chancellor and the PM at the moment. A second avenue is to withdraw some of the very generous allowances enjoyed by some landlords but so many Tory MPs are also landlords so one can see the political difficulties in this direction as well. After we had breakfasted, we received a very welcome telephone call from our University of Birmingham friend who we did not see last weekend as he was away in Yorkshire so we readily accepted his invitation to join him for coffee in Waitrose. We have discovered in the course of our many conversations, that we have a mutual interest in etymology or, at least, in knowing the derivation of the more rarified words we came across. The one we were trying to work out is ‘minestrone’ (as in Italian soup) but this is a bit more complicated that might be thought. On the one hand, the word probably derives from a Latin root to indicate ‘that (potage) which is served’ but in contemporary Italian the words is used more figuratively to indicate a haphazard collection of objects (hence any bits of vegetables that one had left in one’s kitchen) I am going to scour my collection of books to see if I have any of a vaguely etymological nature that might prove to be of interest to our friend – the nearest that I do know that I have is one called ‘The Pedant’s Revolt’ which is full of interesting bits and pieces including some etymology.

Last night, when Meg was in bed, I vaguely remembered seeing the flash of the latest film from Sasha Baron Cohen (‘Ali G’ to most people) I did a quick check and found out that it was included in one of the Prime collection of films to which my subscription entitles me. So I watched it, alone, and found several sections of it excruciatingly funny as well as disturbing. Without reviewing the main plot of the film, Sasha Baron Cohen takes a massive swipe at many manifestations of the extreme right in America and gets some people in the commercial sector to do the most outrageous things without turning a hair. For example, he gets one patissier to ice a cake with the most outrageous anti-Semitic trope which the shop owner does immediately – I should point out that of course Cohen is himself Jewish and I have seen videoclips of him doing similar outrageous things such as getting a folk club to sing the most outrageously vicious anti-Semitic songs without pause for thought. Having enjoyed this film last night so much, I thought I would play it all over this afternoon for the joint enjoyment of Meg and myself. But the black humour and outrageous nature of some of the pranks played in the course of the movie were a bit too much for Meg to follow so we had to abandon this after watching about half an hour of it. The rest of the afternoon rather put me in mind of the reply that I asked one of original Spanish students on an Erasmus exchange what was the worst time he spent in England. Without hesitation, he replied ‘4.00pm on a Sunday afternoon’ which was a deliberate misunderstanding of course but reasonably accurate from his point of view. I think the contrast with Leicester and Madrid was overwhelming at 4.00 on a Sunday afternoon because in Madrid there was a lively cafe frequented almost exclusively by university students who used to engage in earnest debate with each other. I mentioned this to one of my Waitrose crowd whose husband worked a Sunday shift and she reckoned the only ‘escape’ at this time on a Sunday afternoon with a one year old child was to wander around the local park.

Today has been turned out to be quite an interesting day. We needed to set our alarm for 6.30am so that we were up and awake before our two carers were meant to turn up at 7.00am. In the event, it was one only but between us, we got Meg up, washed and dressed and then I got Meg downstairs for breakfast. On Saturday mornings, we tend to meet up with our Tuesday+Saturday crowd and again we had a jolly time. I recounted the story to them of the rules that the Womens’ Moral Tutor made up to keep the girls (i.e. female students) safe from predatory males and this just seems so quaint by the standards of today. I then popped around the Waitrose store to buy one or two things of which I knew we might run short. I also espied a particular low alcohol beer which Waitrose stocks but where the preserved flavour is superb and it is difficult to know that you are drinking a low-alcohol product. Whilst paying for our purchases, I noticed from the person’s shopping in front of me that the store was selling off some its ‘Cavalo Nero’ kale which I have not seen on supermarket shelves recently. The traditional kale was called ‘Hungry Gap’ because it was often available for harvest in February when last year’s greens were spent and this year’s had not yet been planted. This traditional kale was often of a bitter taste and I suspect the greens of last resort. But the newly bred ‘Cavalo Nero’ is bred with narrow leaves with a spine that is easy to remove and the flavour is generally superb. So I bought some of this discounted veg and we ate one half if this lunchtime to accompany the fish pie which we generally eat on Friday but we carried over until today. So our lunch was tasty this afternoon and I successfully persuaded Meg to go and doze on the settee in our Music Lounge which she did for about half an hour. Whilst she was in a deep doze, I took the opportunity to email the daughter of Meg’s cousin to ascertain how Meg’s cousin was these days and whether we might organise a joint family meal both to see each other but more especially to exchange relevant information about the family members for whom we were caring. Although I knew Meg’s cousin was in a pretty poor state of health, I had not appreciated the triple whammy that she had experienced. As well as advancing dementia, she is also suffering from a terminal cancer and has recently sustained a broken pelvis as a result of a fall. All of this means that it has become impossible for her daughter to give her the sustained level of care that is evidently needed, so is now in a residential home in the village where her daughter resides. So I am busy exchanging emails and we are trying to work out the logistics of seeing Meg’s cousin in the residential home. It may be that Meg and I motor over to the suburbs of Derby and see Meg’s cousin, after which we will have a communal meal somewhere. I have got quite a lot of photos of this particular cousin spread around various folders of photos and I shall and extract as many of these as I can once a certain amount of searching has been undertaken and this collection, once assembled, we will be able to take over to Derby if that is where we actually meet in a week or so.

Earlier this morning, we had been told of an organ concert that was due to be held in our local Methodist centre, principally to celebrate St. David’s Day which was yesterday, March 1st. We thought that we might go along to this if Meg felt well enough and our friend told us she thought it started at 3.30 in the afternoon. But one way or another, the same friend managed to get hold of our telephone number to tell us that the concert started at 3.00 and not 3.30 So we had a bit of a race around to get there in time but we did it, only being about 5 minutes late in the event. The event was not quite as we imagined it might be but was enjoyable nonetheless. Most of the pieces were actually Welsh hymns or at least hymns well known and loved by Methodist Welsh audiences with some perennial favourites (along the lines of ‘Cwm Rhondda’) interspersed with some solo organ pieces (naturally, by Welsh composers) The whole event took a bit longer than we anticipated, being about an hour and a quarter in length overall. But we finished off having tea and biscuits in the ‘overflow’ area such as we do each Wednesday. I must say that we found those attending were incredibly friendly and we were recognised as being Wednesday regulars. We had our cup of tea with our Tuesday/Saturday Waitrose friends and felt that we had a very entertaining afternoon, although Meg was getting tired towards the end of it.

The George Galloway circus rumbles on and there is a view that all of this might prove to be very bad news for the Labour party. In a rousing victory speech, Galloway denounced Labour and the Conservatives as ‘two cheeks of the same backside’ and claimed he had put Sir Keir Starmer on notice. He declared with characteristic Galloway passion: ‘Starmer, this is for Gaza. You have paid, and you will pay, a high price for the role you have played in enabling, encouraging and covering for the catastrophe currently going on in occupied Palestine in the Gaza Strip.’ What is worrying for Starmer in that many tight constituencies, Galloway might just away enough of the traditional Labour (and especially Muslim) vote to allow the Tories to retain the seat (which may cut Starmer’s anticipated margin of victory considerably)

This morning started off as we have by now come to expect with a couple of carers turning up to help Meg up, showered, dressed and then eventually helped downstairs. We breakfasted to the news dominating the airwaves of George Galloway and his Workers’ Party of Britain having gained quite a sensational victory overnight in the by-election yesterday. Normally, this seat would have won by Labour but the Labour candidate was disavowed by the party after he had made anti-Semitic comments and so George Galloway romped away with the seat in Rochdale with an Independent candidate occupying the second place. What was so remarkable about this election was that the two established mail political parties, the Tories and the Labour Party were beaten into third and fourth place. After we had breakfasted, we waited for our minister to arrive from our local church who we had not seen for a week or so but were delighted to see her when she arrived. We spent a slightly shorter amount of time together as she had another service that she needed to attend but, as always, we find these visits quite uplifting. Then Meg and I had the choice of where to go for coffee so we chose to go to Droitwich which we sometimes do on a Friday. As we were parking in Droitwich, I espied a most extraordinary sight which was a group of about eight nursery age children packed into a sort of modern trailer which was then being pulled along by their minders. I suppose this arrangement must be somewhat safer than having a line of children some of whom might be stragglers or be otherwise wayward. The only time that I have seen something similar was in La Coruna in Northern Spain where I did once notice a long length of blue rope with young children (aged about 4) who had evidently been instructed at all costs just to hang onto the piece of rope. At one end of the piece of rope was their teacher/minder and this was a device that they utilised to get across busy roads and otherwise circumnavigate the city. This morning as I was concentrating on my driving, I did not have a great deal of time to observe exactly how the transportation of nursery school children was being done but I suspect it was fundamentally a staff-saving type of arrangement. So Meg and I picked up our copy of our daily newspaper and then headed for our normal cafe which was much quieter than usual. But when we came to leave, we were astonished to see that the ground was white over and evidently there had been a sudden flurry of hail if not snow (I think the meteorologists cover themselves by calling these ‘wintry showers’) But whatever shower there had been, the skies had cleared quite quickly and became quite a bright blue with a hint of warmth from the sun. Today is called meteorologically the first day of Spring, an event I would prefer to be associated with the equinox on 21st of this month. We made our way to the Worcestershire Association of Carers shop to see if, by any chance, the Murano glass goblet was still in evidence but it was not, so had evidently been sold perhaps to a discerning collector. Then we made our way home, the weather having changed remarkably for the better. Once we got home, we wee running somewhat late for our normal Friday lunch of a fish pie which would have taken a fair amount of time to cook. Instead, we made ourselves a lightning lunch of a slice of toast topped by a slice of cheese, then a slice of ham and topped up with some garlic mushrooms. This lunch was not only tasty but prepared in a record space of time as well.

During the afternoon, I was encouraging Meg to have a post-prandial map when I received a mobile phone call from a nurse who was actually standing outside our front door with a piece of kit designed to enhance Meg’s mobility around the house. I was half expecting this piece of kit to be delivered but I was not expecting the person who delivered it to be a nurse employed by the Falls Prevention/Occupational Therapy team to be delivering it in person. This turned out to be a most useful visit as she came and assessed Meg’s mobility and made sure the new piece of kit was suitable for her. She also took Meg’s blood pressure both sitting down and standing up and then was going to submit the readings to our doctor. She was a very useful source of advice and I would have liked to spend even more time with her if it were possible but just then our hairdresser turned up (by appointment) and so between us, we managed to get Meg’s hair given its monthly treatment. In the late afternoon, we saw the Prime Ministerial statement and then an amazing interview of George Galloway, the winner of the Rochdale by election with Sam Cooke, the Sky News political commentator. Whatever one might feel of George Galloway’s political stances, his rhetorical flourishes are second to none and he seemed to reduce Sam Cooke to a quivering wreck in the course of a most extraordinary interview. I saw George Galloway do a similar thing in the United States Senate here again he managed to completely out-argue his Senate inquisitor who was absolutely no match for the verbal skills that Galloway can display when he is ‘on song’ as it were.

This morning started off with two carers plus a ‘shadow’ who turned up fairly promptly and I had just about got Meg up by this time. I always like to try to establish a relationship with all of the carers and this morning, I asked the youngest of them if she had any particular hobbies or interests. It turned out that she had been playing the (baritone) euphonium since the age of eight and was currently a member of a brass band who had performed in several quite prestigious venues. This reminded me that before I went to university, I had a good friend who played the ‘flugel horn’ (a sort of cross between a cornet and a trumpet) in a brass band in Leeds. My friend invited me along to a performance and I was initially reluctant because I did not think it was practically my scene – however, eventually I was persuaded to go. This turned out to be quite an eye-opener for me. Many members of the band seemed to ex miners (hints of the film ‘Brassed Off‘) and they were an incredibly friendly and hospitable crowd as I remember. They seemed to drink like fishes even before a performance and I remember being bought a pint of Tetley’s with the advice ‘Get this down th’ neck, lad!) After having imbibed what seemed quite a quantity of beer quite quickly they went on to perform flawlessly in what seemed to be like a choir of angels and, of course after the performance, there was quite a lot more drinking as well. When I was at my first secondary school at Bolton in Lancashire, the school had a reasonable musical tradition and I was part of the school choir and the school orchestra. But the school was best known for its brass band which regularly took part in the ‘Whit Walks’ processions which were quite a feature of Lancashire life in the mid 1950’s but I think that only remnants of it survive until this day. As it happens, I have a print of an L S Lowry upon my study wall that reminds me of my days spent in Manchester and in the background, there is an illustration of the Whit Walks taking place. A story that I was told about L S Lowry is that he was rather a curmudgeonly old soul and he used to hire a taxi into the Pennine hills overlooking Manchester with only green fields around him. Then he used to paint from memory the industrial scenes with which are typical of Lowry. Today the carer came to look after Meg whilst I went off to my shopping and in the course of getting there almost had a collision in the car. There is a traffic light controlled junction with the A38 dual carriage way and this junction is always difficult to negotiate. You have to get to the centre of the road and then try to peer past any large vehicles that are stuck in the junction and might obscure one’s view but trust there is no oncoming traffic bearing down at a great speed. Of course, the evident thing to do would be to have a filter system but as I know from encounters in the past, the traffic officers attached to the local planning authority will not authorise this because, as they say, ‘we must not do anything to impede the flow of traffic along the A38’ At present in Bromsgrove there appear to be major roadworks on practically every major road system throughout the town and even the main Kidderminster Road is blocked off for about a month whilst the water authority is upgrading something or other. So at the moment, the residents of Bromsgrove seem to be suffering from all of the delay, congestion and inconveniences of the various ‘improvements’ that are taking place, including widening of the A38 at a cost of millions which will have the net effect of moving a traffic jam about one half of a mile along the road. I do not know if the conjunction of the period of austerity following the financial crisis followed by COVID has led to a massive backlog of maintenance that needs to be done. But is all does add up to the impression which is widely shared in the community that the whole of our social and political life is falling apart.

This afternoon, I received a welcome phone call from the Occupational Therapy team after is had contacted them after Meg’s recent falls (on Saturday and yet another today) It is possible that they are able to supply some equipment that may enable me to move Meg from one place to another more quickly than we are managing at the moment and, if they have the piece of equipment in stock, it may arrive as early as tomorrow. On the face of it, this sounds good but is essentially a piece of sticking plaster which cannot address the long term needs that Meg does have. But in general terms, apart from today which is a slight exception to the rule, we get Meg and myself out most days for a coffee and comestibles and to enjoy some social contact as well. The wheelchair that I bought for Meg and which lives in the back of the car has actually proved its weight in gold and after I replaced a nut that fell off, has seen some sterling service.

There is some rather disturbing news from the other side of the Atlantic. It appears that the US Supreme Court have ruled that it will eventually adjudicate upon the claim that Donald Trump was the instigator of insurrection because of the attacks upon the Capital building some three years ago now. The upshot of this is that Trump’s trial will be so delayed that it might not take place until after the next presidential election which means that the American people will be asked to make a president of a man accused of violent insurrection before the presidential election takes place. One can only assume that if Trump wins the presidency again, he will be able to avoid a trial and probable conviction. All of this is incredibly bad news for the normal operation of democratic and legal processes within the US.