Yesterday afternoon was dominated by the two rugby matches in the 'Six Nations' competition. The young and inexperience Welsh team gave away a plethora of penalties to the Italians who beat them in Rome to a not unexpected victory. But the much anticipated match was between England and France with French flair matched by English determination to win on their home ground. At half time, the scores were level and then the French pulled away during the second half. The French could normally have been expected to extend their lead and nearly did so but made some unexpected handling errors (including Dupont) by dropping the ball as they approached the English line. England took the lead briefly by one point later in the half only for the French to score a typical and audacious try about five minutes before the end. Then England through massive determination and some determined play scored literally a last minute try which put them one point behinds the French and the subsequent conversion enabled them to win the match by a single point. As one of the English players said n a post-match interview, it was not a perfect performance but they got there in the end. The French themselves admitted to 'oopsies' as they neared the English and must rue the fact that although they may well win the championship in the end, they will have been denied the Grand Slam. To say that this match was on the edge of your seat stuff is no exaggeration and will have given the English team considerable heart and satisfaction after their loss against Ireland last weekend. We now have to wait a fortnight for bodies to repair themselves before the competition resumes. The morning starts off very early because the care workers are scheduled to arrive at 7.00am, two hours earlier than the day before and so set the alarm on 'Alexa' to 5.0am only to turn over and go back to sleep as soon as I had turned it off. But when the two care workers did turn up, they were a couple who had worked together for years (sixteen years, since they were teenagers) who I had not seen for months. So I needed to do a quick update on Meg's condition but a lot of this they knew by reading the care notes. They are due back for the lunchtime call so I am very pleased to this duo again.
I learnt this morning that all of the parts of the two crash aircraft (a regular plane and a helicopter) have now been recovered from the bottom of the Potomac river in Washington, DC and the wreckage is being analysed for clues. But already we know that the helicopter was flying at about 100' above its recommended height and a key safety system had been turned off, so things are looking black for the military in the subsequent investigations. Yesterday was rather a strange morning because we normally look forward to the visit of our University of Birmingham friend on a Sunday morning but this Sunday we knew that our friend had another engagement. So after breakfast, I busied myself with some housework, food preparation and other jobs that tend to get done weekly but Meg has been in a deep doze for much of the morning. For lunch,I took a one half of a frozen ham joint I had put by in the freezer and prepared an onion gravy whilst the green veg I was going to have with it was some young spinach leaves (actually, I suspect, baby beet) But in time-honoured fashion, I fried an egg in a tiny little saucepan which I purchased as a 'one egg' saucepan some time ago and this always makes the spinach taste delicious. When the care workers arrived for their late morning call which became an early afternoon call, there was not much to do and they always ask if there are any other household jobs that need to be done. On these occasions in the middle of the day, I have no hesitation in asking them to take a load of washing straight out of the drier and to fold it neatly for me. This they do with consummate skill and at an incredible speed but they always tell me that they do so much of it on their own domestic lives, that they are past masters at it (which I can well believe). I always have to check the times of the next two carers along and anticipate getting an update on the birthday party which the two young male carers, having attained the age of 18, enjoyed the other evening. The afternoon was filled with watching the Scotland vs. Ireland rugby match.
Meanwhile, the Baltic states have switched to the European power grid - ending Russian dependency. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have announced they've synchronised their electric systems to the European power grid, completing a complex switch. The move has been planned for years, and came the day after severing energy ties to Russia and its ally Belarus. They cut cross-border high-voltage transmission lines in eastern Latvia - just 100 metres from the Russian border - and handed out pieces of chopped wire to bystanders as keepsakes. The EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, herself an Estonian, called the switch 'a victory for freedom and European unity', while Latvia's President Edgars Rinkevics wrote on social media 'we did it'. The three ex-Soviet countries - all staunch supporters of Kyiv - stopped buying power from Russia following Moscow's invasion in 2022. But they had been relying on the Russian grid to control frequencies and avoid outages. The Baltic Sea region has been on high alert after power, telecom links and gas pipeline outages between the Baltics and Sweden or Finland - all believed to have been caused by ships dragging anchors along the seabed. There are hints that some kind of deal might be being worked out between Putin and Trump to end the war in Ukraine but more might be revealed in the week ahead.
© Mike Hart [2025]