Yesterday, the current spell of cold weather seemed to be coming to a natural conclusion because when I got up shortly before 6.00am and consulted my smart speaker about the weather, the temperature was -1° whereas the day before at the same time it had been -6° so that is a 5° improvement which is surely to be welcomed. Milder air is working its way very gradually from the west which means that we should have warmer conditions in the first part of the week whereas a high pressure zone of dryer air will persist over the South East of the UK. It then looks as though the weather may dip again slightly but not to the extent that we have experienced in recent days. The evening and night before has not been a good one for Meg. Although she had been in a deep sleep throughout much of the preceding day, in bed she was semi-awake and in an agitated condition, seemingly for hours at a time. As I have a camp bed next to her, I can extend a friendly arm and hand for comfort but in her agitated state she will not hold onto this for more than about a second. Under the circumstances, I am just hoping that sleep will overwhelm her but this is very uncertain. The whole of yesterday all I managed to get past her lips was a small chocolate mousse which I had bought 'on spec' the last time I went shopping and which has proved invaluable. In the evening before, we were limited to only one carer getting Meg to bed so I had to assist for the second time (if not the third time) that day. The care agency are pleading 'staff sickness' which, of course, seems to be perennial. When Meg was in bed last night, I watched a Lucy Worsley quite revisionist programme on the Gunpowder plot and learned a few things I did not already know. She was arguing that Guy Fawkes was a convert to Catholicism and the real ringleader of the conspiracy Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes may have been radicalised by their witnessing of the death of Margaret Clitheroe in York. Margaret Clitheroe (whose hand is actually preserved in The Bar Convent in York where my sister went to school and which relic I have actually seen) was put to death in a very public and humiliating way for providing a safe place of Catholic priests for which she was repeatedly fined and imprisoned. She was laid on a door with a sharp stone being placed under her back and then a door was placed on top of her and heavy weights put on top of the door before she was literally crushed to her death. She apparently died within 15 minutes but the authorities left her in place for some six hours presumably as a warning to the rest of the public. The Worsley programme was at pains to discover the roots of the radicalisation of the young Catholic males who formed the conspiracy and drew parallels with the radicalisation process of some contemporary Islamic 'martyrs'.
The care workers were due an hour later this morning but I acted on the suggestion of last night's carer and gave Meg some chocolate ice-cream this morning, which I was please to say that she enjoyed. Then after she was up, I managed to get Meg to have her customary breakfast of porridge which was a great improvement on yesterday. Then our University of Birmingham friend called around at 11.00 and I was very pleased to see him. We always have interesting chats and this mornings involved questions of astronomy which intrigued us both. After he had left, it was practically time for the couple of carers to arrive and as Meg did not require too much of their attention, I managed to seize the opportunity to pop down the hill and to get a copy of the 'Sunday Times', required reading for a Sunday evening. One of the care workers whose mother had had an illness similar to that of Meg's came me some good advice about getting in touch with a Language and Speech specialist as they have expertise in problems of swallowing and thought that Meg could benefit from some of their particular expertise. This I will do in the morning but I fear it might be quite some time before I can receive any practical help. Whilst in the Waitrose store, I was delighted to bump into our Irish friend who was shortly to go off to Ireland to visit the cottage she has over there and where she needed to make a lightning visit to sort out the affairs of an elderly uncle who was recently died but whose affairs needed some attention. I explained to our friend as now that the weather had improved, we hope we might make a trip down to Wetherspoons and we agreed that perhaps some time after their return from Ireland, this would provide a good venue for us all to meet and have a coffee together. After I returned home, it was time to think about preparing lunch. I had cooked the portion of beef upon which we were to dine in the slow cooker overnight so this made the rest of the lunch fairly easy to prepare. Then having had my own lunch, I was delighted to get a goodly portion of food into Meg which was a considerable improvement on yesterday. Then eventually, we settled down to watch the excellent production of 'Pride and Prejudice' which was broadcast on BBC2 last night and which I had been saving for a time when Meg and I could view it together. It is fair to say that Meg slept through most of it and I myself slept through some of it, but nonetheless, I was sufficiently awake for some of the most dramatic moments of the film and very enjoyable it was as well. We are expecting a couple of carers in the late afternoon with whom we get on particularly well but it is going to be rather a poignant meeting because the young female carer who is a Psychology graduate is going to leave the caring profession to start a career as a publishing assistant and today is her very last day so after several months of wonderful association we shall probably not see her again.
© Mike Hart [2025]