Today was a brilliant day and would have been a good day if we did not have other commitments. Although it ws a beautiful day, we looked forward, as always, to our trip to Waitrose where we met up with one of our regular pre-pandemic friends. We had not seen her since she had performed in Brahm’s ‘A German Requiem‘ in a local school to quite a large audience. The accompaniment was a couple of pianos which, as this was a choral work, seemed to work quite well and our friend who has sung this piece on and off for decades reckoned that whilst not perfect, it was nonetheless a good performance. We wished her well for future choral highlights and wonder whether we could perform as well when approaching our ninetieth year. We both needed to be off before too long as we had other commitments. In our case, our son was calling round to offer assistance in the sequelae following Meg’s little tumble last Sunday. In my haste to clear blood and coffee stains off the carpet, I had failed to notice similar stains and splashes down the walls, on a mirror, down the radiator and so on. Fortunately, my son attacked these with some gusto before any permanent damage was done. Then, after a family consultation, it was decided that I would go down to Pilates and back again by car, breaking my usual practice as I rely upon the walk there and back to give me some necessary exercise. But going by car saved over half an hour from the period in which I was out of the house and my son stepped into the breach to sit with his mother and ensure that she came to no more harm.
After lunch, I thought that it would be a good idea to give Meg a change of scene so I organised our afternoon cup of tea outside the house where we can sit on a garden bench overlooking oour communal green area, the lawn of which received its second cut yesterday. It is interesting the things you notice when you are sitting down and not rushing round from pillar to post because I noticed in one of the borders fronting our communal area a great mass of white blossom. A closer inspection revealed that this was actually our plum tree which last year yeilded practically nothing but the previous year was laden wih fruit. So I am hopeful that this year as we have plenty of blossom we do not have a late frost that nips the young fruit in the bud so that we can get another good crop this year. Whilst gazing around in front of us, I also had the idea that we could possibly acquire one of those free-standing, fairly tall rectangular planters into which we could plant something really colourful so that when we sit out in the future, we have a floral treat with which to delight the eye. My next door neighbour has affiliations with Webbs, the huge garden centre whose head centre is just down the road. I know that he had recently acquired several of these planters acquired as a job lot so that next time I see him, I must remind myself to ask him if there are any more where his own collection came from. Once I got inside the house again, I made a telephone call to see if I can get a medical overview of Meg’s health which I feel needs some face-to-face observation and not just a telephone consultation which is the default mode of access in our GP practice these days. I need to phone up at 8.00am tomorrow morning to try to secure this but am not particularly hopeful. I also phoned our Irish friends who live just down the road for some practical advice and got some useful information with which I ought to ply the doctor.
A lot of things seem to be on hold this afternoon whilst we all wait to see what might happen in the Trump appearance in a court in Manhatten. There are a lot of indications that Trump, a supreme narcissist, is absolutely relishing being the centre of attention as the courtroom drama plays out. But the interesting thing is that the court only ‘unseals’ the actual nature of the charges against the defendant. In the case of Trump, there might be as many as 37 ‘counts’ with which he is charged and whilst I am sure that many of these can be evaded, I am asking myself whether the credibility of the American legal system is challenged if Trump manages to evade conviction in each one of these cases. But the New York laws are very strict on the role of the media so we shall not see Trump in handcuffs and almost certainly no video of Trump actually in court (although one or two stills may appear) The Trump campaign has received a great boost to their coffers since it became known that Trump was due to appear in court. Whilst fervent Trump supporters are reinforced in their belief that Trump can do no wrong, the (few) uncommitted will probably not feel inclined to give Trump the benefit of any doubt at all.
© Mike Hart [2023]