Both sets of care workers arrived on time today which is something of a record these days. The company has been adversely affected by lots of workers calling in 'sick' at the last moment and I wonder whether all of this is a product of the 'zero hours' contracts that are in place. The first workers were scheduled to be 35 minutes later than usual so this meant that we had a somewhat delayed breakfast time. Our domestic help normally calls around on a Wednesday but she was feeling pretty exhausted so is delaying her visit to us until Friday. Friday will turn out to be quite a busy day because we are expecting our Eucharistic minister on that day (despite a death within the family) and then we have a delayed 'sit' call whilst I can off and do our Christmas shopping. I expect Friday will be rather a hellish day at the supermarket but at least we now have a 'sit' organised for that day. Meg and I went down the hill to collect our newspaper in pretty mild weather so the journey there and back was uneventful. For lunch, I thought I had better finish off the two remaining chicken thighs so I seared them well and then popped them in the oven with the last third of a bottle of lasagne type sauce. Some time ago, I purchased (in a charity shop) one of those old fashioned but heavy oval oven dish. I find it is excellent not only for cooking but also things do not seem to burn in it and it washes fairly easily despite long bake times in the oven. In the afternoon it is necessary to remember to put the right bins out for the refuse collection vehicle which calls very early on a Thursday morning. I like to get this job done in the light - and of course we are soon approaching the shortest day. Miggle, our adopted cat, heard the back door open and hastened towards me, expecting titbits no doubt (he already knows how to identify the carers and their cars and sits patently on the doorstep until the front door opens). Today, whilst wheeling the dustbins along our access road, the cat accompanied me to a half way point whereupon he sat down, perhaps sensing dangers on the actual distributor road. Then having delivered the dustbin to its correct collection point, the cat trotted alongside me until we got to the back door where he was no doubt expecting some more treats. I was reminded of the mediaeval stories of a black cat accompanying older women who had them as pets although to the mediaeval mind, they were known as a particular i.e. the devil or devils in disguise.
Our culinary discussions carried on apace when the two care workers arrived for Meg's teatime call. One of them had undertaken all three levels of (presumably) BTEC or NVQ qualifications in cheffing and might indeed have worked in a kitchen. So we carried on our discussions of rice preparation and cooking and what he had to impart generally reinforced what I now know about cooking rice. In the middle of the day, Meg and I watched PMQ (Questions to the Prime Minister) and as usual the Commons on this occasion was full of a certain degree of bonhomie before the barbs were out. The case of the 'Waspi' women caught in the pensions shortfall because of some mal-administration in the past is annoying the left wing of the Labour Party. The Tories, for their part, are rubbing their hands in glee crying at every opportunity that the Labour would say anything to be elected and then reneges on promises (or at least half promises) once elected. On the UK front, there will now be a period when Parliament is having its winter break when nothing appears to happen but there is still time for a crisis to occur or a scandal to emerge.
Denis Healey (later Lord Healey) the veteran Labour politician used to say that 'in war, the first casualty is truth' Reports from the battle field probably fall into this category with one party to the conflict over-claiming and the other remaining silent. Nonetheless, there are reports about the deployment of a contingent of North Korean troops on the front line in the Ukraine. It is reported that North Koreans do not understand what is happening on the battlefield and that North Korea has suffered 'several hundred casualties while fighting alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region'.A senior US military official speaking on condition of anonymity, said the figure included everything from 'light wounds up to being KIA (killed in action)', with soldiers of all ranks among the casualties. Yesterday, Ukraine's special forces said 50 North Korean soldiers had died in three days of fighting in the border region. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said as many as 10,000-12,000 troops from Pyongyang had been sent to fight in Ukraine. Kyiv's forces have been able to distinguish North Korean troops from Russian forces on the battlefield due to them moving in large groups, a Ukrainian drone commander told The Washington Post. 'The North Koreans are running across the fields, and there are so many of them. They do not understand what is happening. I do not know if they do not understand what is going on or if the Russians are deliberately sending them like that. I cannot say.' he said. He added that Ukrainian drones, artillery and other weaponry easily found their targets 'because they were moving in the open field.. We were very surprised, we had never seen anything like it — 40 to 50 people running across a field. That is a perfect target for artillery and Mavic (drone) operators. Russians never ran like that'. This would not be the first time that soldiers had been caught up in a conflict without the soldiers being at all aware of where they were, who they were fighting or even why. One report from the early days of the conflict said that the Ukrainians rounded up the largely young, frightened and inexperienced conscripts amongst the Russian troops that they captured, put a cup of tea in their hands and then a mobile phone with the instruction 'Phone up your mothers and tell them where you are, that you have been captured and how you are being treated' If this story has any truth to it, it is interesting because it was certainly true that in the early days of the conflict, the only really significant opposition to Putin was provided by the mothers of dead, missing or injured young conscript soldiers.
© Mike Hart [2024]