Last night proved to be another late night but largely because I really wanted our dining rom to be absolutely perfect before I completed my reclamation of it. Because the dining table was a large area even though populated by some table linen, I tended to use it whenever I needed plenty of space to do a clerical type of job. The prime example of this would be Christmas card writing them when I had piles of different kinds of cards, address books, address lists, stickers of news to go inside, address labels stamps, Sellotape and so on. I also used this table when I was experimenting with putting a keyboard on an iPad and other activities when needed to have a number of files open around me. The solution, of course, is is be absolutely scrupulous about clearing away afterwards so that the dining room looks like a dining room and not an overflow work area. As the table looked a little bare, I put a place mat on each setting and complemented this with some coasters of which we seem to have accumulated a lot over the years. As I put the coasters into position, I realised that they were the same rural scenes (I think taken from Constable) as the place mats themselves which I had not ever noticed before, so it gave me some pleasure to match them up with each other. In order to ensure that everything I wished now to retain was properly stored away, I needed to severely rationalise our drinks cabinet to create some storage space. At the end of the day, I have some papers that I need to file or discard and random items of stationery but these I have seated on a spare food tray so that I can take them out of the room easily to go through when I am in my sitting room. Of course, when you have things absolutely perfect and in is rightful place, it creates a big incentive to keep it that way. The next more formal occasion when the room will be used for its proper purpose may well be next month if we decide to have a family meal to celebrate my 80th birthday and, of course, if we have some friends around for some afternoon tea.
In the USA, the Democrats have finally taken a leaf out of the Republican campaign book and come up with a good catchy slogan to rival 'Make America Great Again' The slogan is the three word mantra 'Tariffs are Taxes' and the message is being hammered home that Trump and his cronies are imposing a $3,800 tax on each American family. Although I deplore the modern tendency to reduce complex political policies to simplistic slogans, I am prepared to concede that on this occasion the Democrats might have found a worthy stick with which to beat Trump and the oligarchy with which he has surrounded himself. The increase in tariffs against the Chinese coming on top of other tariffs (imposed by past Democrat presidents!) has spurred the Chinese into retaliatory action, the consequences of which are likely to be severe.
I was not a particularly happy bunny this morning because although I was ready for the pair of care workers at 8.35, I received a text saying that one of the carers could not make the call and could I assist the other one? The carer who turned up ome 40 minutes late had been on maternity leave and although she had seen Meg a year ago, she was in a very different state of health just then. Consequently, I needed to instruct the carer about how to deal with Meg at the moment and the call started so late there was no chance that we could get down to Wetherspoons to see our friends. But I texted them to explain we probably could not make it this morning but in order to avail ourselves of the fine weather, I pushed Meg down the hill to Waitrose to pick up our Saturday newspaper and then got back to a well-earned cold drink of cordial. The strip light bulb I ordered for the unit arrived this morning and this went into the cocktail bar 'section' which is normally hidden behind a locked panel so now I have the four lights working in the display cabinet for the first time in years. I also have in mind, and have done some preliminary searches, for a 'table protector' which can be bought in a variety of sizes. When next I need to have a larger working area, I will utilise the table protector so that I do not disturb the place settings underneath. Looking at how these are advertised, I think that people engaged in craft activities deploy these table protectors so that in the pursuit of their hobby they do not damage the furniture. After lunch, even though a little tired, I thought I would get the front grassed area cut although the flattened molehills make life a little difficult at the moment. But I got the mowing done, leaving Meg to listen to a Beethoven concert on YouTube and, fortunately, the mower behaved itself with the temporary repair that I effected last week. Tomorrow, I will cut the back lawn which only takes half the time of the front.
This afternoon when the two young care workers arrived, I showed them our renovated dining room because they had seen it at its worst when there was a hole in the ceiling. I also showed them the pencil portraits that our Lancashire friend had drawn of us whilst we were all on holiday in Southern Spain and they were intrigued by these - they agreed with my plan to eventually get them framed. Incidentally one of the newest care workers who was one of the older generation said that I reminded her of the film star, Clark Gable. Now she is not the first person to have made this observation and I suspect that is the similarity of the moustaches that lead them to that conclusion. I did out of interest, though, see what Clark Gable looked like and there is the faintest of resemblances but I would not want to dwell on that.
© Mike Hart [2025]