Today turned out to be quite a full day, what with one thing or another. We had anticipated that our domestic help would call around today but when I consulted my phone, I see that we had a text switching things to Friday for this week. Ths did not matter to us a great deal as I had a scheduled eye appointment today for my annual check. I am always quite pleased when this worked OK which it did. The ‘puffer’ test showed that the pressures in each eyeball were not excessive which is one of the first signs of glaucoma. Also, my vision had hardly altered at all over the past year and, if anything, my presbyopia is increasing which makes it easier and easier to read things at a distance (like car number plates) but at the cost of being a little more short-sighted. All of this is due to the eyeball changing shape gradually as one ages but it is always reassuring that one’e eyes are OK for the next year. I am pretty sure that next Spring, I have to renew my licence and can therefore tick the ‘eye sight’ box with complete confidence. However, my optician tells me that many people do not answer this question truthfully when they have to fill in the licence renewal form and I think that there are no ‘spot checks’ on this to show people are telling the truth – until they have an accident, of course, in which case the police might do an instant eyesight test. We got back from the opticians with whom we have been with for at least ten years now and then, as it is a Wednesday, watched Prime Minister’s Questions which was the usual ‘yah boo’ style of politics. Once this was over, I started to prepare the elements of lunch so that we could eat just after 1.00pm as I needed a somewhat longer afternoon. This all worked out fine and it meant that I could start to cut the lawns (which is now a regular Wednesday job) just after 2.00pm. The sky was cloudy and a little threatening but I was relieved to get all of this before the weather changed.
After a cup of tea and a bit of a well-earned rest, I needed to put out our bins abd it is the week for both the green one (paper) and the brown one (garden waste), I also have a little arrangement with my next door neighbour that each week I make myself responsible for taking the bins to the end of the road (kerbside) ready for emptying. Tomorrow morning, once emptied, my neighbour pulls them back again for us. We have a line of holly trees along one side of the house and during the hot weather, holly leaves have been dropped in profusion so the path had got quite messy. So I used a combination of a blower and a shovel to dispose of a lot of the excess leaves as the garden waste bin was being emptied tomorrow. As I was taking our bins out, my new neighbour from across the green was also processing his bins and he had been busy putting his garage to rights. He had some cupboard carcases which he wondered that I might make use of but these I did not need. At the same time, there were one or two little things about the house which he wondered I might know. On spotting a big, heavy safe in the garage, my neighbour told me that there was also one in the loft but he did not know the key combination. I wondered whether 0000 or 1234 might be the default so he was going to have a little play. Also outside the house and on a surface near to their garage door, there was a fairly ancient ‘key safe’ receptable which was locked and, of course, we did not know the combination to open it. It did have a telephone number on the case, though, so if the manufacturers are still in existence, they might be able to help. As it happened, it was our neighbour’s birthday earlier in the week and a family member had bought for him a nice bottle of rioja. Our neighbour very kindly made me a present of it which was very gratefully received. The rioja happened to be one of our favourites as well so this doubles the pleasure for us. As both of us bobbled about inside the garage, some gentle rain started to fall so this vindicates the decision for me to get my outdoor jobs done in good time.
An interesting political scandal has blown up this afternoon. A candidate to be the Tory Mayor of London, Daniel Korski, has quit the race after an allegation was made in The Times, earlier on in the week, that she had been very evidently groped whilst trying to give a presentation in Downing Street. The incident was written up in graphic detail and no details were spared by the woman, Daisy Goodwin, making the complaint. But she says that she had tried to file a formal complaint in the Cabinet Office but this had been made difficult. More the the point, the Tories knew of the allegations as part of their vetting process but still allowed the candidature to progress. Needless to say, the Labour Party are saying that this shows exactly what are the values of the current Conservative party and are milking the embarrassment for all it is worth.
© Mike Hart [2023]