After I went to bed last night, relatively early, I woke up and decided I would treat myself to a cup of tea and a watch of Sky News. The latter was devoted to Donald Trump engaging in a long and vicious rant on the successes he had achieved after his first 100 days in office. His address to the party faithful was as usual full of invective and bile from which we learned that all illegal immigrants into the US were guilty of drug trafficking and the rape of (obviously) white American women which is why they were being deported despite court orders to the contrary. Then I must have fallen asleep and had the most terrible nightmare in which I was lost in a strange American city in which I had no map and nobody would help me. At every street corner and in all of the shops there were voices that appeared to be multiple Donald Trumps and wandering around this city seemingly for ever, I could not escape. I then woke up and it was one of those occasions when one realised it was all just a bad dream and none of it was actually happening. Evidently the rants of Trump on the TV were inserting themselves into my nightmare which why I dreamed that the whole city seemed to be filled with Donald Trump clones. But I read the following on Sky News this morning that Donald Trump on the campaign trail denied all knowledge of Project 2025, a right-wing plan to tear down swathes of the US government. Written by a prominent conservative think-tank, Project 2025 is a plan to fundamentally reshape America. Its 900 pages set out how a president should expand their power by gutting the federal workforce while abolishing the department of education. For some it represents an anti-woke 'wish list'. For others it is a fundamental threat to American democracy. A copy of Project 2025 held up during the Democratic National Convention last year. The document got a lot of attention during last year's election, leading to Trump disavowing its contents and saying it had nothing to do with his campaign. But now - 100 days into his second presidency - we see how much of what has occurred since he returned to the White House looks like the Project 2025 blueprint. The architect of the plan, lawyer and political activist Paul Dans said what Mr Trump has achieved in office is 'beyond my wildest dreams'. The lessons of history teach us that Hitler came to power using the organs of democracy and then promptly removed any democratic sources of opposition to himself as he created the Nazi party. There is quite a degree of debate out there on the web as to whether comparisons between Hitler and Trump are fair comment or whether this analysis misses the point. Trump's meandering style of address means that observers are constantly wondering whether to take him seriously or whether we are just seeing a series of rants that will blow themselves out. But what is incontestable is that Trump has issued so many executive orders that a liberal opposition to them does not know where to start, particularly as court orders are regularly ignored and American citizens deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador where they may spend the rest of their lives and probably die.
Yesterday being a Wednesday morning, it was the day in which our domestic help calls around and we also expect a visit from a duo of District Nurses to see Meg. I gave our domestic help a nice surprise by showing her our newly 'turned around' study that she had not seen looking as neat and tidy for about the last ten years. Needless to say, I have an enormous motivation to keep it that way and she herself was delighted, not least because it is now so much easier to clean. As it was such a beautiful day, our domestic help and I were resolved that Meg should enjoy as much as she could of the fine weather so having been located in her new, 'good' and very comfortable wheelchair, we put outside to enjoy the sunshine, not forgetting that Meg probably needed a sunhat so that did not get over hot. I took the opportunity to collect our daily newspaper and also to buy a birthday card for one of my University of Winchester colleagues. When we were employed, which was some 17 years ago now, there were about five of us who all had birthdays in May. So all of those years ago, and I am going back more than 20 years ago, we all had a joint birthday celebratory meal. It made a lot of sense to have it in the middle of May (as two of our birthdays were on successive days in any case) which happened to be very near the date of my own birthday. We called ourselves 'The Old Fogies' and the tradition of meeting still limps on but COVID on the one hand and my continued absence looking after Meg on the other has made it increasingly difficult. I know it is remiss of me but the first birthday in our group is on 2nd May and over the years, although I always send a card, it is very often late by a day or so. So yesterday I bought a card from Waitrose which I addressed in the store and then got into a nearby post box from whence it will hopefully be delivered on time. I pointed out in the card that I was trying this year to break the tradition of a lifetime and get a card in the post so that it will arrive on the due date. Upon my return, Meg was still in the sunshine, and I sat outside and had my elevenses with her. Although Meg's condition varies somewhat from one day to another, she was very unresponsive from the moment when I first work up this morning at about 8.30 just before the carers arrive. The inclination of the two carers were to keep her in bed the whole time which I think would be disastrous as she would be subject to no mental stimulation of any kind such as a concert on YouTube which is a fairly regular fixture in our day (as well as watching the news programmes) The two District Nurses made an appearance in the late morning and after a grumble about the care workers not removing the sling (which happens to be easy but reinserting it is a nightmare) renewed Meg's dressing and monitored the condition of other pressure points. After they had left, it was a case of back outside until the two care workers arrived for the late morning call. Then Meg was relocated back into her comfortable chair in the Music lounge and I set about preparing the midday meal which was ham, some roast potatoes and fine green beans. Meg had about two thirds of her portion which surprised me somewhat as I had only managed to get about 2-3 spoonful's of porridge into her this morning. Each Wednesday afternoon, I have to remember to pull the relevant wheelie bills out for emptying which takes place very early each Thursday morning and it was the turn of the green (paper) bin and the brown (garden refuse bin) The green (paper) bin seemed incredibly heavy and it took me all of my time to pull it to the end of our drive. But it contains masses of past papers from the clear-out of the study which explains why it was so incredibly heavy this week.
© Mike Hart [2025]