We knew that today would be quite a busy day for us. As soon as Meg and I had breakfasted, I took to my word processor to pen a letter to a consultant opthamologist, whose clinic Meg is due to attend next Monday. We have a series of quite important questions to ask him so I carefully composed the letter indicating that I wished to see him personally to answer our queries rather than one of his assistants. Whether this letter will generate the desired results or not, I cannot say but at least the letter is composed and on its way. Having picked up our newspaper, we then made our way to Finstall which is a delightful little village which is now a ‘de facto’ suburb of Bromsgrove and in the village hall, Age Concern Worcester run a club once a month on each second Wednesday. We arrived early but we were joined by a couple we know who only live a bit over half a mile from us and who we met at our very first meeting. On today’s agenda, the meeting was themed to be ‘Holiday Snaps and Memories’. However well intentioned the organisers were, this did not really work as intended if only because so many of us now hold our snaps digitally on phones and ipads and so not so easily passed around. Nonetheless, we had some pleasant chats and the two personnel who run the club are very friendly and approachable. Actually, I did have quite a long chat with one of them who promised me some help in navigating my way through the labrynthine coils of the welfare system because I have a feeling that Adult Social Services in Worcestershire may be able to unlock some channels that might be useful to us. This helper took some copious notes which she was going to discuss with her manager and we were very grateful for the enquiries that she was going to make on our behalf.
This afternoon, we got home fairly late but nonetheless wanting to have a quickly prepared lunch as I was keen to get going on the weekly lawn mowing whilst I could. So what I did was to make a fairly large confection of some iceceam, a tin of peaches, some yogurt and finally some dried peaches, walnuts and a drizzle of honey. This was not only delicious but was quickly prepared and just the job when we were pretty hot anyway. So this went down a treat and I was able to start the mowing just after 2.00pm and get it all done within the hour. Then, after a rest, it was a case of unloading the washing line where things had been baking since about 10am this morning but I follow this up with another light tub load of washing comprised of the underwear I bought for Meg recently. This is out on the line as I blog but I am pretty sure it should be dry-ish by about 8.00pm.
This afternoon, there have been live scenes from Nottingham where staff and students were participating in a vigil for the two university students (and a third man, a school caretaker) who were stabbed to death by someone who appears to be mentally deranged in the small hours of Tuesday morning. The live TV clips were emotionally compelling although I only witness them in passing. When this sort of apparently random killing occurs, I always ask myself the question of what this a case of ‘Care in the Community‘ or what the more cynical amongst us might call ‘Neglect in the Community‘ which is a popular regime as the medical authorities are loathe to admit people into mental health wards given their scarcity. I often wonder whether such indivuals are properly taking their medication and whether they are being adequately supervised. When the full account of what actually happened in this incident will ever be released into the public domain is hard to say but I would not be surprised if the answer to both of the questions that I posed above tends out to be a ‘No’
One of my Wednesday afternopon jobs is to roll out the dustbins to locare them near the roadside ready for empting first thing in the morning. Very often, I take my neighbour’s bin(s) out as well as our own and he, in return, brings them back for both of us. But today, we coincided and so took a chat about things musical and musicological. I was telling him about our recent venture in buying and practising upon a Casio keyboard and my ambition for the future. Our neighbour is extremely knowledgeable about most pf the personnel and the groups in popular masic probably since the 60’s so we never pass by the opportuniy to discuss items of joint musical interest. Today we were thinking about the classic recordings of ‘Scarborough Fair‘ about which I was blogging recently. My neighbour collects the old juke boxes, some of which have the most amazingly mellifluous sound and naturally, he has a huge collection of 45 rpms which these machines play. He is a very dab hand in this technology and knows how to buy and restore these items when they come onto the market which I do not suppose is that often nowadays.
© Mike Hart [2023]