To underline the depth of the crisis in the Middle East, one estimate of the numbers of UK citizens currently abroad in that region of the world is 300,000 which would take about 900 flights to bring them all home the next day. I imagine that many will just ‘sit tight’ for the next few days although the Trump regime himself is mentioning 100 days as the likely length of the conflict. The US Senate have just voted to reject a resolution that would have limited Trump’s war venture by a margin of 53:47 with one senator each side voting not along party lines, thus neutralising each other. Since the war is plainly illegal in international law (not to mention US domestic law) this all rather underlines the extremely partisan nature of the divide in US politics at this time. Here at home, we are having a burst of spring-like weather and I notice with a great deal of pleasure that some of the earliest of the Japanese flowering cherry trees which can be found in gardens along the Kidderminster Road are starting to burst into bloom and this is always a sight for sore eyes. The day before yesterday,I made a trip to the Methodist Centre and had one or two chats before going off to do my weekly shopping – later in the day, my son and daughter-in-law called around and we started to go through some of the boxes of photographs recently rescued from under the eaves of the house. Most of these were ‘holiday snaps’ and were jettisoned but we retained a few which showed family members and even one or two of my mother’s garden in Leeds which I shall pass on to other members of my family when I next pay them a visit. Next weekend, my son and daughter-in-law are going off to see my daughter-in-law’s side of the family but I have some Six Nations rugby to keep me diverted. England are due to play Italy the result of which would normally be a foregone conclusion but after two recent defeats, no one can be quite so sure any more. The England coach is making twelve changes to the England team, nine personnel and 3 positional and the whole half-back lime has been replaced so this seems like an unprecedented change. The commentators are saying this either a master stroke or a sign of desperation and we shall just have to see whether the gamble has paid off or not. The forward line is largely preserved intact but the rest of the team has been chosen largely to import a degree of urgency into the England team who are facing a much-improved Italian team. We are now at the stage in the year when traditionally my thoughts turn to gardening matters but the first mowing of the season is still some three weeks away and we may yet have the last flourish of winter with which to contend. However for the last year or so, the back garden has been largely neglected whilst caring for Meg in her final months of life but I need to get a regime in place where I deploy some help in the garden and also try to do a regular bit each day to gradually get things trimmed back and being to look more presentable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later in the day, I attended my Tai Chi class and for inexplicable reasons (perhaps the fine weather) attendance was markedly down and there were only seven of us which is about one half of the usual number. This meant that the numbers for coffee were remarkably down as well but I chatted with one of the older regulars who is always there on the day of my Tai Chi class because it is his job to open up the Centre on that day. But, quite unexpectedly, we were joined by an elderly lady who was fairly new to Bromsgrove and to the centre. I told her all about the ‘Carousel’ gathering that meets twice each month and our paths will probably cross again in a couple of day’s time. It turns there were quite a few points of coincidence in our lives – for example we had both worked in establishments that were quite close to each other in Oxford Road, Manchester (and she came from Eccles which is adjacent to Trafford Park in Manchester) She had lived in Spain until quite recently and, in her youth, had \u00a0been quite a keen walker of the Lake District mountains and fells. \u00a0She had worked as a teacher of Pitman’s shorthand in a technical college in Coventry so this was a good cue to reminisce about my mother’s skills in Pitman’s shorthand and typing. So in the course of not a very long conversation, we had established several points of contacts between us – she had out-survived two husbands (and had a gammy leg from multiple fractures, sustained I suspect whilst fell walking). Anther sort of ‘window’ has just opened up for me because the U3A (University of the 3rd\u00a0Age) group are recruiting members for a conversational Spanish course for which I have signed up immediately. \u00a0I am just hoping that there will be enough members because how these things work is that there have to be enough members so that the small fee payable on each visit will pay for the hire of the meeting room (I suppose it is a sad fact of life that precious little is cost-free these days).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the recommendation of my domestic help (and a life-long friend), I am always on the lookout for tasty snacks. Not only did she recommend a new Italian cracker which is very low in sugar and salt but a snack which I have enjoyed for the first time this afternoon. It was slices of apple dipped into crunchy peanut butter and I suspect it is going to be a firm favourite in the afternoons. There is some TV viewing that I wish to catch up on and this is the Hannah Fry series of programmes on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and I noticed that one was being broadcast yesterday evening. But I think will watch the whole series on the BBC iPlayer and I will probably watch that in the early evening where there is a documentary as well as the weekly edition of ‘Question Time’ This last programme can be an interesting ‘pulse of the nation’ so long as the audience has not been hijacked by a local campaign group or faction of a political party which used to happen in the ‘Brexit’ days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To underline the depth of the crisis in the Middle East, one estimate of the numbers of UK citizens currently abroad in that region of the world is 300,000 which would take about 900 flights to bring them all home the next day. I imagine that many will just ‘sit tight’ for the next few […]<\/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-8088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088","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=8088"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8096,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088\/revisions\/8096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}