Yesterday was the day when our domestic help calls around and her arrival is always greeted warmly, needless to say, with a steaming great mug of tea. She and I are both devotees of charity shops and we have to restrain ourselves from over-impulsive purchases although there are occasions when we succumb to temptation. I had asked our help to look out for some napkins which she did happen to see in one of her visits so these were gracefully received. In return, I had organised the delivery of a plate glass kitchen surface protector because we had just replaced one of ours which had cracked but I managed to secure an identical one. The day was a very gloomy one but no rain was forecast so Meg and I made a trip down to collect our newspaper and some bread but did not tarry in the park, preferring to get home and have our elevenses at home this morning. Some months ago, I had got into the habit of cooking a risotto once a week but have got out of the habit. But yesterday, I decided to cook a risotto for us, and we find that some smoked mackerel fillets makes for a wonderful meal. We always tend to cook a little too much but our domestic help absolutely loves our risotto so I am more than happy for her to have an overflow portion of this which she can heat up for a quick lunch whilst she is dashing between jobs. We actually did make rather too much for our own needs so I was delighted to send off our domestic with some home cooked goodies. On our journey down into town, we were delighted to bump into our Irish friend who we have not seen for over a couple of weeks now. She explained that they had both been away in Ireland on a family holiday which does explain why they were not at home when I hand delivered an anniversary card to them as I knew that their wedding anniversary was within a week or so of our own. We exchanged some rapid news about the health of our respective partners and promised that we would meet up when we could in the next few days when we could exchange a lot more news with each other. After we returned home, it was time for the late morning call from Meg's carers and actually we were a few minutes late in our walk back. In mitigation, although we do have a spreadsheet detailing the times of the visits and the names of the carers, this tends to change on a daily or even an hourly basis as little crisis events occur that have to be managed. A case in point was one of the carers for Meg who should have turned up yesterday but did not. We got a message that she had been involved in a near-miss motoring accident and was quite badly shocked by the incident and unable to work. Naturally, when she turned up today I was sympathetic and made her a cup of sweet tea which she was initially loathe to accept, indicating that she did not really have the time. Anyway I insisted that she have some tea and I explained to her not to be alarmed if she experienced a 'delayed shock' syndrome as this can occur some 24-48 hours after the initial incident had occurred. She had not heard of delayed shock so I tried to reassure her that if she did experience some symptoms in the next day or so, they would be transient and would pass. Lots of rest and hot, sweet tea is probably beneficial as well. So the question is raised 'Who cares for the carers?' One could extend this ad infinitum saying 'Who cares for the carers of the carers' and so on in an ever-widening circle. Still on the subject of carers, when our carer called this afternoon, he recounted to us rather a sorry tale of woe as he had apparently been subject to an assault by a near neighbour, recently discharged from prison, of a relative. The lad was not seriously hurt but his nose might require a bit of further attention from the medics to straighten the cartilage a little. I asked him if he had been to the police but reckoned that things might be worse for his relatives if the aggressive neighbour decided to take reprisals against the rest of the family. I was very sympathetic but could not offer any real advice in this difficult scenario.
Late on this afternoon, we started watching with a fascinating horror the first half of a documentary on Channel 4 entitled 'Trump's Heist: The President Who Wouldn't Lose' Evidently, the whole documentary is an expose of the machinations of Trump to attempt to prove the last election was 'stolen' from him. What was the extraordinary was the number of close aides and former Trump supporters who became increasingly worried and disillusioned by the behaviour of the former President. I shall leave the second half of the two part series to an afternoon viewing with Meg but it is rather compulsive viewing. What is perhaps so surprising to us on this side of the Atlantic is the way in which the Republican party had completely 'hitched its wagon' to the Trump star and are quite willing to give him their support.
I was intrigued by a story I read in the Huffington Post but which has not found its way into the UK media as yet. The impact on UK businesses from Brexit’s red tape is only getting worse as time goes on, a new report has found. According to Aston University Business School, the value of UK goods exported to the UK was 27% lower – and imported goods 32% lower – compared to what the economy may have looked like if Brexit had not happened. Leaving the single market officially in January 2021 has had a 'profound and ongoing' impact on Britain’s trade with the EU, according to the economists’ modelling. The variety of exported goods has also declined, with 1,645 fewer types of British products sent to every EU country and many manufacturers no longer sending their produce to the bloc. Trade with smaller states further from the UK have been most impacted, the authors found. Workers in farming, clothing, wood and paper manufacture have particularly struggled with the post-Brexit red tape, as they grapple with the new time-consuming safety checks and extra labelling requirements. In fact, annual exports to the EU are now 17% lower while imports are 23% lower than they would have been if the UK had not left the EU. The report also suggested the impact is only getting more severe as time goes on, rather than levelling out, as the authors spotted a 'noticeable worsening of EU-UK trade' in the last year. So although none of this is a real surprise to many of us, I do not think that the deleterious effects of Brexit worsening over time is really fully appreciated by any of the political class.
© Mike Hart [2024]