Yesterday, we awoke to a temperature of 12° which sounds unbelievable after what seems to be a long winter. But I think this one-off high temperature is a bit of a blip and will not be sustained and presages the start of some windy and wet weather. Thursdays are my shopping days so I will be able to sample the weather first hand when I go out for my weekly venture. The previous evening I had along chat with my University of Winchester friend whose wife is also very ill so we WhatsApp each other quite regularly to exchange news and to give ourselves bits of mutual support. I read this morning that a plan that Starmer is to put to Trump is that there will be a British contribution to a pan-European force which will be deployed not as peacekeepers but as a 'reassurance' force to guard major cities, ports and nuclear infrastructure. If, of course, the Russians o withdraw and cease their military activity on any deal that emerges, then such a 'reassurance force' would actually have nothing to do but all of these smacks of tokenism to the highest degree. Whether Starmer is able to dissuade Trump from his stated view that the Ukrainian leave is a dictator with only 4% public support and 'starting' the war by not standing up to Russia at the time of the invasion is unlikely - the world has been listening to Trump with increasing incredulity as not a hint of criticism of Putin is evident. Eventually, the world will call out the madness of these Trump utterances, but the world leaders seem to mutter their disagreement rather than make the forthright replies of disagreement which is called for. Starmer has spoken with Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader, to reassure him that the world, unlike Donald Trump, does not regard him as a dictator as under wartime conditions, the Ukraine have suspended elections which is exactly what Churchill did in the UK during WWII.
I got my shopping done expeditiously this morning and Meg's sitter was the young male Asian carer of whom we are actually quite fond. He insists on buying us some goodies from Greggs from whom he orders his own lunch. Eventually he was joined for a normal lunchtime call by another young female Asian carer who has just started work for the company. The two carers had not met before but realised that their ancestors hailed from the same part of the Asian sub-continent. I asked the young carer if she had ever paid a visit to the country from whence her parents originated and she indicated that she came from Bengal. I always thought of Bengal as being a part of India whereas the young worker seemed to identify with Pakistan. When I enquired further about the country of origin of her parents, she told me that Bengal was an independent country ' as it has its own flag and everything' When the carers had departed I did a quick bit of research and confirmed my suspicions that Bengal was not an independent country. But what I discovered was at the time of partition in 1947-48, Bengal as it then existed was split into West Bengal which remained a province of India and East Bengal which became part of the new Pakistan. So I told both of these young people about the partitioning of India and of the book by Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children of which they had not heard. This then raised an interesting philosophical question in my mind as to who bears the responsibility for ensuring that young people are aware of their own cultural heritage - does the responsibility lie with the educational system or is with the parents who might even have the haziest knowledge themselves of their own heritage. In the case of Bengal , one can imagine why there might be some confusion but I feel it is important that young people are taught some of the rudiments of British colonial history and our part in shaping (if that is the right adjective) the destinies of so many people. To elaborate this point, the British did ship workers from the Asian sub continent to work the tea and coffee plantations in places such as Kenya and the Asians developed from this to become the entrepreneurial class of Eastern Africa.
This afternoon, I scoured the TV schedules to see what might have been shown last night that we could catch up today. Channel 5 had broadcast the original of 'Bridget Jones Diary' so I thought we would start to watch this but Channel 5 had not made it available to watch just yet. So Meg and I watched a compilation programme that had been made of some of the choicest scenes from Fawlty Towers with some words of explanation and commentary and this kept us entertained until the carers arrived for Meg's teatime call. Today, I cooked a dinner of the remains of the beef joint from the weekend with some baked potato and green beans and was relieved to see that I managed to get all of Meg's portion safely within her.
A sort of calamity has hit us late in the day. Meg's specialised bed had failed to operate correctly which means that it is difficult for the carers to get her to bed because she has to be undressed and washed when the bed is at the wring height. If the worst comes to the worst, the workers will have o attempt this on her knees but, of course, they might refuse. I telephoned the company who have responsibility for the bed and they may be able to get an engineer out this evening or they may not. So this is all very unsettling because I do not know if anything can be done and Meg is generally fast sleep by 7.00pm. Meg has had a fairly awake day today which means she is bound to be tired so we shall just have to see what the two evening carers make of the situation. When electrical equipment of this nature fails, one always feel a little helpless and there is not even a short term fix that I can deploy I tried the 'reset functions' that the engineer instructed me in when the bed was serviced a couple of weeks ago but this failed to work. We even tried switching everything off and then back on again and this, too, failed to work.
© Mike Hart [2025]