I was woken this morning by Alexa (smart speaker) at 6.00am and immediately get up to make myself a huge mug of tea. I had slept pretty well last night which is just as well because his morning it looks as though we are receiving a further dump of snow and the weather forecast is that it will snow until at least 10.00am this morning. This I was not expecting but I know that the spell of wintry weather is to persist during the whole of the forthcoming week. Last night I spent some time getting my bank account statements up-to-date (I copy them into a ledger) which is a task rather neglected over Christmas. I am trying to put into effect one of my New Year resolutions which is to engage in a spot of tidying up and clearing away clutter for some time during each day and the fact that Meg is sleeping so much, although not good in other ways, is helping me to have a bit of time and space to do this. Meg and I do not have much in prospect this week although my primary ambition is to get enough food and drink into Meg so that she can throw off this bad chest infection from which she appears to be suffering. But she is sleeping well at nights which must be a good thing. I have just viewed a delightfully clear video made by Sky news on 'The Social Care Crisis Explained' This told me nothing I did not already know but the video is a model of clarity and good explanation. It shows the timeline stretching from the economist Andrew Dilnot's proposals to fix the social care system way back in 2011 and then how successive governments of all political persuasions have said they are going to fix the system - but they do not. The really fundamental question is the enormity of the costs involved and in the meanwhile, the Labour government has 'kicked the can down the road' until the end of 2028 and beyond. I suspect that one solution may involve a special new tax, earmarked for social care, so that the government can start to extract some of the enormous sums of money involved from an early age - perhaps in their 40's. All adults in Germany pay into a national long-term care (LTC) social insurance scheme. Contributions are split between the employee and employer, and are based on a set percentage of earnings. The German social care system aims to balance what the state pays for versus what the individual pays. I was not expecting the care staff until 8.45 this morning but I received an urgent phone call telling me that only one carer was available and could I act as a 2nd carer. I agreed because I get on well with the young male Asian carer who is one of our regulars but it meant that getting breakfast was well and truly delayed so it was way past 10.00am when I eventually got Meg breakfasted. I then shot off quickly down the hill to get a newspaper whilst Meg was soundly asleep but it was a gut-wrenching site to see our once familiar cafeteria with all of the tables and chairs removed getting prepared for its reconditioned use. I busied myself with routine little jobs until the lunch time carer - again, completely on her own but Meg need actually much attention in any case. I am going to keep a log of all of the times when I am getting less than the complete service because what should be the occasional lapse is now happening once or twice per day and this needs to be carefully documented before I raise it with the care agency managers themselves.
The intervention by Elon Musk, the world's richest man, is continuing to make waves. Although the Prime Minister was announcing a major new initiative in the NHS anticipating that waiting lists might be cut by 50% over a five year period, most reporters at the event wanted to question the PM over the remarks that Musk made about him and also about Jess Phillips. The prime minister, who sounded genuinely angry in denouncing what he described as the 'poison of the far right' infecting politics called for a discussion based on 'facts and truth not on lies'. He repeatedly hit out at the Conservatives' failure to implement the 20 recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, though Labour have not yet done so either. He insisted they are working at speed to deliver them.
It is an interesting question whether Meg will be well enough to go for a venture our tomorrow. Although after the snow today, it seems quite a lot milder outside tomorrow and the next week the temperature may not rise above 4 degrees. If the weather is reasonably bright and Meg has masses of blankets and warm clothing, then we might be able to make a trip to Wetherspoons, our 'new' venue after the sad demise of the cafeteria in Waitrose. On the other hand, Meg might be still very sleepy so we will have to play this one by ear. In the afternoon, we had started watching a programme which seemed relatively interesting about the British countryside and how it evolved but then the doorbell rang and we had a completely surprise visitor. This was a particularly vivacious young female carer who had cared for Meg for several months but then had gone off to university to read veterinary science. I am not sure whether she was on a Foundation Year or something similar but she did not seem to be over burdened by very much class contact but, nonetheless, was achieving good grades. I was delighted to see this young lady because although a little quirky in some ways, she was absolutely excellent with Meg and handled her with a great deal of skill and sensitivity even on the occasions when Meg was a little truculent (which did not occur often). Then her visit overlapped with that of the young male carer and evidently they had a lot to catch up between the two of them.
© Mike Hart [2025]