This morning did not run as smoothly as one would have liked. I got Meg all up and ready for the care workers who turned up at 8.45 rather than at 8.00am this morning. After I had left Meg some undressed and therefore cold in the bathroom, I finished off everything myself. When the care workers arrived, they explained that they were scheduled for 8.45 but whoever had scheduled them forget to inform me. Later the manager of the agency phoned me on another matter and then I informed him of the lateness on this occasion. It looked as though one of his staff had done some re-scheduling without him knowing anything about it. I can put up with these inconvenient changes of time so long as I am informed in time and can make the necessary adjustments. So after a delayed breakfast, we entertained ourselves for an hour until we received a visit from our local church parishioner which is generally a weekly event on each Friday. When her visit was over, Meg and I motored down to the Waitrose car park where we picked up our newspaper and then made another venture along the High Street. I particularly wanted to have a chat with the charity shop proprietor whose plight we learned about yesterday and which was regarded as sufficiently newsworthy for it to merit quite a large spread in the local newspaper. The ironic thing about this whole affair was that one of the ‘culprits’ was another charity (a ‘Primrose’ charity) which seemed as though they had the money to outbid and to oust out a smaller charity. The advice that I wanted to pass on was that I thought that the cafe proprietor was in urgent need of some legal advice. More specifically, I wondered whether the ability to terminate a lease after only two weeks, although written into the lease, was actually legally enforceable or not. If it were, then I suggested that a counter claim be submitted for thousands of pounds spent on upgrading the decor of the shop which was adding to the value and desirability of the property, thereby handing a bonus to the landlord. The cafe proprietor was grateful that I had given her the advice that I had. Although she had not engaged a solicitor for the initial signing of the lease, she was now in contact with some very good legal advice who were working along the lines that her lease ‘was a public good’ and therefore, not as I suspected, susceptible to an abrupt termination. In any case, she was having to leave her premises tomorrow but agents were looking for somewhere similar for her along the High Street and she promised to let me know as and when she had found somewhere else suitable. Our walk along the High Street proved to be quite fruitful in other ways as well. We bumped into an erstwhile ‘park friend’ who I used to see almost every day and to whom I referred to as ‘Seasoned World Traveller’ but who I have not seen for a month or so since Meg and I are so much less frequent visitors to the park. He informed us that he now had taken a job in a local supermarket in what I think was some kind of quality control function. I was delighted to hear his news since our COVID walks in the park and I think his health had improved somewhat and I am sure that a new job would be beneficial to him in all kinds of ways. Also whilst walking along the street, we met one of our Waitrose Tuesday crowd who we did not see earlier on this week as she was busy bowling. So the whole little trip along the High Street was entertaining in itself. We found a stall (over which we did not linger) which sold all sorts of animal parts normal not edible by humans but no doubt a treat for household pets. We noticed some pig’s ears, hen’s feet, duck necks, ox bones and all kinds of otherwise unimaginable animal body parts no doubt relished by the dog population of Bromsgrove but sufficiently gruesome for the human population.
There is a most extraordinary story of the type loved by the popular press. Apparently, a caravan was stolen near Thirsk in North Yorkshire. However, with the aid of tracking technology, the police apprehended the ‘thief’ who was driving a BMW Series 5 which was towing the caravan. From tools and other objects found by the police inside the car, it looked as though the boy himself had executed the theft and was driving the towed caravan down the motorway. There are several intriguing questions behind this story – for a start, where was the boy heading or when driving down the motorway? What would have happened when he ran out of petrol? Did he have any parents or other adults who were responsible for him?
It been announced this afternoon that the one time Prime Minister, Theresa May, would not stand for Parliament at the next election i.e. later on this year. One wonders whether history will treat Theresa May kindly or not. She says she is going to concentrate upon a particular interest of hers which is the abolition of modern day slavery. One must say that Theresa May was dealt the most difficult of hands whilst PM, torn between the demand of the ardent Brexiteers on the one hand and some equally ardent Remainers on the other. Boris Johnson ‘solved’ the problem by engineering a vote so that prominent Remainer critics such as Anna Soubiry and David Gaulke had the whip withdrawn – that is, effectively being thrown out of the party to enable the Brexiteers to have their way.
© Mike Hart [2024]