Yesterday, we woke up to a somewhat finer day and we were relieved that the huge band of rain that had swept over all of the country seems to have passed over. I was just getting washed half an hour before the carers were due to call when the doorbell rang and there was the manager of the care agency (who often puts himself on a shift) saying that they had changed the timing of the morning visit to half an hour earlier but had forgotten to inform us, and by the way could I act as No. 2 to the manager as a second care worker was not available. This kind of thing is par for the course these days and although initially somewhat exasperated, I get on well with the manager who is literally 'hands on' so I did not mind the opportunity to have a chat. Also he knows how to jolly Meg along first thing in the morning and a chat over care related issues is always worth while. We made our usual trip down to Waitrose in order to meet up with the grandiloquent granny gang.I took along with the lyrics of 'Airn't it grand to be blooming well dead', a comic song first written in 1932, and we all had a good giggle with this. Our table was delighted to be the recipient of four bunches of roses (one per couple) as one of Waitrose partners who has responsibilities for looking after the 'flowers' section of the store donates bunches of blooms to us regulars rather than throwing them away which is always a much appreciated gesture. Having got back in plenty of time for our 'sit' carer, she failed to make an appearance. After a time, the normal lunchtime carer call was made and she had just about checked Meg over when the District Nurse turned up. She was visiting to administer our RSV vaccine to us, a new vaccine which is only being made available to people in their 70's this year. This service is not available once you have passed the milestone of 80, the ostensible reason being that the original trials had so few people of 80+ acting as volunteers that they did have the data to vouch for its effectiveness. I have considerable doubts about this explanation but at least Meg and I came within the appropriate vaccination window and the effectiveness is claimed to be for at least two years or more. Then one of the carers left and a second carer turned up to perform the 'sit' service almost 30 minutes after the scheduled time. Evidently, the care firm is having its usual logistical problems with staff but some of these are probably due to the prevalence of zero hours contracts. I needed Meg to be 'sat with' for at least 30 minutes so that I could go into town and start the process of renewing my mobile phone contract. Needless to say, when I was short of time, all of the staff in the EE office were busy with other customers and I had to wait about 10 minutes before anyone was free to attend to me. I indicated that I was incredibly short of time but to cut a long story short, I was dealt with quite expeditiously and have ordered a new iPhone 16 (the last one having been sold this morning, which is surely Sod's Law.) Although I cannot quite believe it, the new phone contract will work out cheaper than I am paying at the moment but I do not have the time to sort out what the snags might be. As it was, I spent a lot of time flipping through 11 pages of contract saying that I had read it, understood it and agreed with it but I imagine that I am only doing what most customers tend to do. The new phone will be delivered to the store and I will go down in a week's time when I have another 'sit' session on a Tuesday to get the final handover from the old phone to the new. I was given the option of having the phone delivered to my home address but I feel happier with the store organising the changeover in case any problems should arise. The whole trip to town took 50 minutes rather than 30 I had anticipated so I abandoned the lunch that I had originally planned and made a quickie lunch based upon an Aldi thick soup so that we could eat fairly soon after my return. Then we watched the Keir Starmer first address to the Labour Party conference as party leader and this was workmanlike as you might have anticipated.
This afternoon, I had been saving as a treat the latest in the BBC2 series 'Mozart: Rise of a Genius' I had originally thought that there were only gong to be two episodes but consulting the BBC2 web pages, it indicates there is a third episode. Rather tantalisingly, it indicates that this is 'Series 1' which might imply that there are other series to follow. Although I am familiar with the main points of Mozart's life, there are always new things that are learnt. In particular, I learned last night that 'The Marriage of Figaro' was considered so revolutionary (servants getting the better of their aristocratic masters) that it made some of the upper class audience of Vienna so uncomfortable that it was pulled after 9 performances to make way for another opera which was less threatening. Mozart conducted the first night and although the first night was well received, it was spoiled somewhat by some of Mozart's rivals who were paid to boo and hiss and to generally disrupt the performance. But it was performed subsequently in Prague where I think it was much better received. It is generally regarded as one of the finest operas ever written and contains some hilarious scenes not to mention a certain amount of cross-dressing. For example, Cherubino an adolescent page boy, is generally sung by a mezzo soprano but in one scene is dressed in girl's clothes to play a practical joke upon the Count.
© Mike Hart [2024]