The afternoon before yesterday, pleased with the fact that I had got my two ‘smart’ speakers connected to the new router, I thought I would give BT (my previous internet provider) a quick call to ensure that I did have an old contract with BT and a new contract with EE running side by side. EE have taken over BT and this can make life confusing for people such as myself who have deals with both halves of the now merged business. But I found had a very helpful person on the BT side of the business who confirmed that my contract with BT had now terminated and there were no hang-over bills to pay. But what was so helpful is that when I mentioned that the previous router had been posted back to them, the operative asked me for the tracking number supplied to me on the Post Office receipt so that they she could make a note of it on my file and hence there should be no subsequent chasing of me for the return of equipment as if it did not turn up I would be charged for it. It is early days yet but if I can believe the ‘free’ speed tests available on the internet, I may be getting four times the internet speed I had previously for a lower price. Last night, I was quite keen to watch the Switzerland versus Spain Euro football match. But as the Swiss were so much the underdogs in this match, my support started to switch towards them and I thought that they did an excellent job in repelling the Spanish and did not allow them to play their normal passing game. The Swiss managed to hold out for three quarters of the game and then the almost inevitable couple of Spanish goals ensued and Spain won the game 2:0 without extra time or penalties. Tonight, there will be the last of the quarter finals which is France v. Germany and I anticipate that this will be a marvellous match although, on current form, the French should emerge as the eventual winners. The day dawned today with the storm clouds gathering so it is a ‘touch and go’ decision whether I risk a walk down to town or whether I go by car so that I do not get caught in a cloudburst. My Irish friend from down the road very kindly either gave me or loaned me one of those emergency rain protection packages that used to go by the name of ‘Pak-a-mac’ but I have not had occasion to use this as the Spring had been so dry. But now that we are well and truly into cloudburst weather, I need to ensure that I have it permanently stored in my little rucksack. I am due to meet two sets of friends down in Wetherspoon’s today which is now a regular part of my Saturday morning routine. I am also thinking ahead to next Monday when I shall be taking the car on its first big run (for me) when I visit Meg’s cousins in Cheltenham which is only 39 miles away and quite an easy journey down the M5 for most of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I walked down into town today but it was a little humid with small droplets of rain in the air. I met up with two lots of friends between whom I split my time (and locations within Wetherspoons<\/em>) One of my friends and I discussed the phenomenon which must be known to many people that that after the death or departure of a loved one, there are moments (only lasting about a tenth of a second) when you still feel that your loved one is still present only for the reality to kick in that they are well and truly departed. After I left Wetherspoons, I was tempted down the High Street and actually did venture into the Salvation Army charity shop where I was tempted to buy, and did indeed purchase, a pair of tailored shorts which were attractive to me because they had some zipped pockets out of which vital things like car keys are less liable to fall. When I returned home, as I was cooking some chicken breasts for my lunch, I had a bit of a scour through one of the drawers in the chest-of-drawers where Meg kept her jewellery. I am going to take a selection of this with me when I visit her cousins in Cheltenham this forthcoming Monday. I suppose that not many men or husbands are used to sorting their wife’s jewellery as they leave this to their wives (as wives leave the contents of Toolkit to their husband no doubt) Quite a lot of this is costume jewellery but some items might have slightly more value but I suppose the principal thing is that passing on bits of jewellery is a way of remembering those who have passed on and hence ‘keepsakes’ I sent off some messages and emails this afternoon to keep up with correspondence and appointments and am trying to decide whether I want to go to a concert in our local church to be held on Sunday night starting at 7.00 in the evening (a little late in the day for me but there is no football to contend with the concert)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sky News<\/em> is reporting that dozens of people protesting against the ban of Palestine Action have been arrested in Westminster. Similar demonstrations are being held in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro after the group was officially designated as a proscribed terrorist organisation two weeks ago. Protesters gathered in Parliament Square carrying white placards with the message: ‘I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.’ Some were carried away by officers, while others were led away in handcuffs. If found guilty, which seems to be a foregone conclusion, each protestor could face up to fourteen years in gaol. But one wonders what the attitudes of the judiciary might be when middle class protestors do not quite fit into the popular conception of a terrorist according to the legislation that is being deployed against the protestors. As so often, it will be interesting to see what the media as a whole and the political commentators make of these arrests when these matters are discussed on the politics programmes transmitted on Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The afternoon before yesterday, pleased with the fact that I had got my two ‘smart’ speakers connected to the new router, I thought I would give BT (my previous internet provider) a quick call to ensure that I did have an old contract with BT and a new contract with EE running side by side. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7540,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7539\/revisions\/7540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}