Saturday, 2nd November, 2024

[Day 1692]

Last night before I got to bed I had some extraordinary good luck. In my very ancient (c. 2010) iPhone4, I had inserted a SIM that cost me practically nothing and then put £5 worth of credit to use as a PAYG phone. On the phone I had a classical music app which I do not think I had ever fully used before. To cut a long story short, I downloaded 202 tracks of classical music representing some 55 composers and 48 of them being Mozart (who happens to be one of my favourite composers) When I say the tracks are downloaded, I am pretty sure that they are being stored within the app itself rather than being added to the 'Music' file which Apple maintains in its iPhones. I had a quick word with the more tech savvy of the care workers who thought that Spotify worked like this as they could download tracks which could then play even when not internet connected so it looks as though my hunch was correct. But there is a huge bonus as I can interface the iPhone4 through a Bluetooth connection which means that the tracks can play through a loudspeaker system. In our Music Lounge I have a CD player with speakers that are adequate enough and so much bigger than the speakers found on a phone and, similarly, I can interlace the iPhone through the Panasonic micro HiFi system that I have installed in the kitchen. So all of this means that I can enjoy music that I really enjoy in at least two locations within the house. All of this was discovered in the middle of the night, as it were, as it took some time to download the tracks and then to test them out so my sleep pattern was a little interrupted, but I went to bed very happy at long last. In the morning, we knew that we were going to be quite busy as Friday is the day when our domestic help calls around. After our normal exchange of news, we awaited the arrival of the Eucharistic minister from our local church who we have not seen for a couple of weeks now. We had both learnt of the news of the death in the last day or so of the parish priest who was the immediate predecessor of our current parish priest. We knew that he had been ill with bowel cancer (about one year later than myself) and after his enforced retirement through ill health actually went to visit him on one occasion because the retirement home where he was lodged was quite near to the village in which Meg used to live in Staffordshire. Our son also called around who it was delightful to see after he had spent a few days away visiting in laws as it was half term and now that half term is over, we will see more of him next week. We spent some time discussing the Budget and the way it had been received in the country as a whole. The reactions of the market to the budget is interesting as, once again, the government in its borrowing plans is at the mercy of 'the kindness of strangers' which is one expression used when the government is financing its borrowing through the issue of gilts which may, or may not, be attractive to the investing community as a whole and hence 'the kindness of strangers'. We got an invitation to meet for coffee in Waitrose with our University of Birmingham friend but as our visitor from church had been delayed by about 20 minutes we had to proceed down the hill in a tremendous rush and only had about a quarter of an hour to spend with our friend. Then it was a case of a massive dash up the hill to be home in time for the carers but we made it with about a minute to spare. The carers were two young people who we know pretty well and so the three of us put into action a plan to help Meg sit in her chair in such a way that her knees are not as bent as they would have been when sitting in the wheelchair. I had found a way to raise the front of Meg's chair by a few inches which meant that when Meg was sitting in it securely she was not at all likely to tip out of it. This little experiment seemed to work quite well but we needed to support Meg with a cushion or so to keep her secure. This was particularly important today as the vagaries of the care agency rota meant that Meg was having to spend five hours in her armchair which we knew really was too long a stretch but there was nothing else we could do under the circumstances. However, the young carers and myself have put our heads together and have devised a little system whereby Meg's knees are not bent to anything like the same extent and, judging by the fact that when she was put to bed she could straighten out her legs more than before, our little system seems to be having a degree of success.

After we had lunched on a haddock fish pie, Meg set ourselves for a good afternoon of TV viewing. Firstly, we watched Question Time broadcast the evening before and when this was completed started to treat ourselves to the first episode of 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy. This was a classic BBC production with superb cinematography filmed in Thomas Hardy country (Dorset) and with an extremely good cast. There are four episodes with each one lasting an hour so naturally each of the critical scenes in the novel receives the attention that it deserves. This afternoon, I eventually managed to speak with someone at EE so that they could link my debit card with my newly installed SIM to facilitate top-ups. The official advice is 'download our App' but the trouble is that the operating system is so old on the iPhone 4 that it cannot be updated and therefore the EE App will not install. But now I have successfully linked the debit card, topping up becomes incredibly easy because you put in a couple of code letters, then the last four digits of your pre-validated debit card and then the amount you want to top up in whole £s. So the whole transaction can be performed by sending a simple text message of just 9 digits including spaces and you get a confirmatory text within a few seconds once the transaction has gone through.