Today we started off quite early as we got up early, had a cup of tea and then went to sleep again for a couple of hours. Last night, after Meg was safely tucked up in bed, I started to watch the New Zealand vs. Italy rugby match but as it was such a one-sided competitiopn, it was no real joy to watch and so I abandoned the effort just before half time when the score was about 45:3. I did, though, succeed in getting the video that our domestic help had taken of a panoramic view of our Music Room with me playing the Casio keyboard to accompany the video subsequently uploaded to one of my websites. I then had to remind myself to get the video to run automatically via the META tag in the header section of an index file and then made sure that this worked successlly as well. Then I explored the browser connectivity of our recently acquired Toshiba TV and although this was the american computing community might describe as a little bit ‘kludgy’ I got the address of my music system stitched into the browser so that I can play the video back at will through the TV. Once I got into bed, though, Meg was having rather a disturbed night which did not help my sleep pattern very much. This morning, after I got myself up and showered and Meg’s ablutions performed, it was a case of getting downstiars a little late and then having some breakfast before we set off to see our friends in Waitrose. We could stay for a strict half hour before we needed to set off knowing that we needed a fillup of petrol en route. After we refuelled, I deployed the post code of Meg’s cousins into the SatNav in order to navigate correctly to our destination. I was a little dismayed when the system could not recognise the postcode so entered the address via the house number and street name and was relieved when the system now recognised the address. We got to our cousin’s house in Cheltenham about fifteen minutes before we were due and Meg’s cousin was out in the street waiting for us. As soon as we got there, I queried the case of the equivocal postcode and it transpired that in a WhatsApp message a ‘fat finger’ had intervened and a digit in the postcode was out by one – explaining its non-discovery.
Once we got inside the house and knowing that these cousins of Meg’s are quite tech savvy, i wondered if their smart TV could access an internet address. They managed this quite carefully and in no time at all, we were displaying the little music video on our cousin’s TV. We also had the opportunity to explain how we had built up the collection of musical pieces bit by bit and why this is now quite an important part of our lifespace. And so we proceeded to lunch which was absolutely delicious. Our cousin had prepared a casserole for us which was basically little squares of pork cooked, I believe, in cider and served with some of those little bijou roast potatoes and some green beans. We had taken along some wine so we had a really enjoyable meal over which we discussed, at great length, the various afflictions which were affecting both Meg and her nearest cousin who is now living with a daughter in Derby. It appeared that some of the interactions we had with social services seemed identical, despite the fact that we were talking about very different local authorities and we discussed lots of practicalities in a frank and informative way in only a way that close family members do. We are resolved, though, to keep in much closer touch with our cousins so that through information sharing, we can be as helpful and supportive to each other as it is possible to be. By the late afternoon, it was evident that Meg was beginning to tire so we started the journey home which was very uneventful. We are are only 39 miles apart and most of that is the M5 motorway, the only more problematic section being a circumnavigation of the Cheltenham one way system to get to our destination in the south of the city. After we had returned home, we watched the second half of the Fiji vs Georgia rugby match over a relaxing cup of tea but we are actually in some anticipation of the Scotland vs. Romania match scheduled to start at 8.00pm this evening. We will have to organise getting Meg ready for bed before the match starts and then Meg and I will probably watch the first half of the match in armchairs in our bedroom before I settle Meg down and I will conclude watching the second half of the match downstairs.
I know that one should not gloat and as Denis Healy, the veteran Labour party politician used to observe that ‘In war, the first casualty is truth’ but some interesting news has emerged this afternoon. It is being reported in Romania that there may have been a violation of its own air space and that a Russian fighter plane might have been shot down by their own side. The full account of all of this might emerge a little later but, as usual, the Sunday newspapers may provide slightly more in-depth detail and analysis.
© Mike Hart [2023]