Yesterday afternoon after we had lunched on ham, baked potato and some fine beans, Meg and I set ourselves to watch for probably the third time ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ which is both a love story and a war film of which we never tire. There are superb performances by the Spanish actress, Penelope Cruz as well as Nicholas Cage who plays Captain Corelli and John Hurt as the world weary but sagacious doctor village doctor. After we had enjoyed this film, we went into the back garden for about 20-30 minutes and was the opportunity for me to cut the back lawn which had been neglected for a couple of weeks. It goes without saying that our efforts were supervised by Miggles, our adopted cat, who is fed an occasional meal of Aldi’s finest premium fish based cat food. Unfortunately, Aldi have stopped stocking this so I had to buy an alternative which turned out to be more expensive but Miggles’ taste are such that he/she rejected the salmon and just about tolerated the cod version of the food when it was offered. Last night, Meg seemed to go off to sleep fairly rapidly but then had a rather disturbed night which involved me spending at least half an hour in the middle of the night attempting to keep her comfortable. This is rather difficult as Meg is such a dead weight and because of the lost sleep, she is sleeping on this morning and I am letting her so until the carers make an appearance.
Following on the reminiscences about my ‘Uncle Jim’ and the fact that he portrayed his Geordie origins as always referring to my sister and I as ‘hinny’, I started to wonder about the localised terms of endearment that are typically used even by strangers to each other, for example in the markets or on the buses. In Nottinghamshire/Leicester, the term ‘me Duck’ is used quite regularly but there is a slight linguistic shift between Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire which I cannot quite recall. Going up the country, the love ‘love’ was used quite a lot even by male bus conductors to their male passengers, as in ‘Come on, move down the bus love’ and we have referred to ‘hinny’ that the Geordies use. By the time one gets to Edinburgh, this has become ‘hen’ and the Scots are bound to have lots more expressions. Here in the West Midlands, the term ‘Bab’ is very well known in the Black Country and one of our carers was addressed as ‘cocka’ by her future mother-in-law. Although not a regionalised expression, our family use the term ‘sunshine’ quite frequently from each other and this term was popularised by Eric Morecombe (of ‘Morecombe and Wise’ fame). What I not fully appreciated was that the term ‘sunshine’ could be used both affectionately and sarcastically. When we say it sarcastically, we’re trying to refer to someone as a bubbly and warm person when it is clear that they are not. In fact, my wife and I used to use the term ‘Little Ray of Sunshine’ to refer to Meg’s mother whilst she was alive (but not to her face) and it was certainly used sarcastically but as a shorthand code between the two of us, we appreciated it to ‘LRS’.
This morning being a Monday, we are make a longer sally forth to our new found little cafe which greets us warmly. Whether we will actually get there is a little problematic because the little square off the High Street in which it is located has a sign indicting road works so I am wondering whether access to the businesses around the square is to be allowed or not. We used to attend the Methodist Centre when we could travel by car but this is just a little stretch beyond us now that we can only travel to places accessible by wheelchair. When we got to the square, though. access to businesses were still allowed but the work was due to proceed for another twelve weeks. After our pot of tea and toasted teacake, I popped into the nearby AgeUK furniture and charity shop where I bought a throw and some cushion covers. The latter are a subtle colour which will match much of our furniture but I will have to find some suitable filling materials. We made our way up the hill and in plenty of time for the carers. After they had left, I proceeded with our lunch of ham, broccoli and some bought carrot and swede mash just to make a change. This afternoon, we anticipate watching a film on the life and times of William Wordsworth that we just happened to flash by when I was accessing YouTube this morning.
Today is the first day of the Democrats national convention in Chicago, USA. All of the major networks will be capturing this event (as indeed they did the Republican convention about a month ago now) The convention will give the Democrats a lot free publicity with which both to ‘wow’ the audience to persuade the non-committed so it would not be surprising if there a positive bounce in the polls for the Democrats. Meanwhile, there are indications that even Republican ad fairly right wing sources are now indicating that Trump may have a real fight on his hands and may well lose in November. Having said that, there are some fairly blood-curdling predictions in the American media to the effect that Trump’s supporters will not actually allow him to lose the election. Many Trump supporters have got themselves into positions such hay are supervising and/or regulating the elections in key states and therefore would be very open to the suggestion that the Democrats if they happen to be ahead are actually ‘stealing’ the election. I have a foreboding that after the November election there will be weeks if not months of Republican challenge and prevarication to ensure that if the Democrats have actually technically ‘won’ the election, the Trump storm troopers will just not allow the Democrats to take over. The Americans are a litigious nation in the best of things so I perceive that if there as a projected Democratic victory in the election, the Republicans will utilise every legal and organisational trick known to them to ensure that the Democrats do not assume office. It goes without staying that America will become the laughing stock of the world and the American desire to lead the ‘free’ world as a model of democratic probity will be completely trashed. From all of this only Putin’s Russia will benefit and the consequences for the rest of us somewhat terrible for us to witness.
© Mike Hart [2024]