Sunday, 28th May, 2023

[Day 1168]

This morning was a fairly typical Sunday morning for us as Meg and I got up and then breakfasted in front of the TV watching the Sunday morning TV programmes. It is evident that the TV studios are very close to each other because the same government spokesman seem to appear on the Sky News programme at 8.30 and then immediately pop up on the Lorna Kuennsberg programme half an hour later giving identical answers to what appears to be identical questions. We found nothing remarkable of note this morning so got ourselves ready to go down to Waitrose where we had made an arrangement to meet with our University of Birmingham friend. Once we were parked in the carpark, I left Meg in the car whilst I walked a hundred yards or so round the corner to get a document popped in the post. Once I had done this, I felt in my back pcket to check that my front door key was safe on a little lanyard and keyring that was attached to it. I was dismayed to find that it was missing but I know that this sometimes pops out of the back pocket of my trousers. Whether this pocket is particularly shallow I cannot say but the other day I found that my front door key was missing and as I went to the car to see if it dropped out of my pocket whilst there. But as I went to the car, I discovered my front door key on the driveway outside our house so was naturally was very relieved. But this morning when my key had gone missing again, I immediately drove the car back to the house to see if the missing key was again on the drive or indeed inside the house. Not being there, I drove past our newsagent to see if the missing key was on the pavement near to the newsagent. It was not there either so I went again to the Waitrose car park, left Meg inside the car and walked slowly to the postbox to attempt to locate the missing key. I did not find it but on the way, I bumped into our University of Birmingham friend and I explained to him my quest for a missing front door key. We walked slowly to the postbox and then the two of us walked back slowly to our parked car but taking a very slightly different pedestrian route. And then I found my missing key lying on the pavement where anyone on earth could have picked it up and run off with it – although it has no signs of the house address. To say I was thanking my good fortune is putting it mildly so we immediately repaired to Waitrose for a celebratory cup of coffee. Tomorrow morning, I am going to make it a priority to go to the gent’s outfitters on the High Street to see if I can find a pair of trousers with appropriate zips so that losing house keys is a thing of the past. What I used to do when we were on holiday in Spain was always to have a special wallet which had a chain attached to it so that I could attach it to my trouser belt and never be parted from it. In the context of a holiday, where one is often heaving oneself at a funny angle fron the back seat of a taxi, I found this has saved my life on more than one occasion. Also in the case of a black wallet we have the ‘black on black’ syndrome where a black wallet falling onto the black floor of a car can render it almost invisible. After we had consumed our elevenses, our friend needed to depart for a midday appointment that we had but as we were cooking a nice beef joint, we invited him round to the house to participate in our meal if he felt so inclined. I had bought some carrots and made a parsnip and carrot mash which is a particular favourite of ours when we have a beef meal. I dished up a third portion and kept it warm in the oven and our friend turned up after his appointment and enjoyed the meal and we all further treated ourselves to some ice-cream, enhanced by a few plump apricot halves and a drizzle of honey. The washing up seemed to take quite an age but nonetheless we got this done and enjoyed an hour of a natural history programme on the life of gibbons, filmed in Malaysia.

This afternoon, there are several football relegation battles being played out across the country. I still vaguely follow Leeds United but am regularly disappointed as they seem to make a good start to matches and then throw things away. Today they needed to win and both Everton and Leicester are in a similarly parlous position so the various matches are not only hard fought and exciting in themselves but the fate of one’s team often depends on what is happening in the parallel matches as well as one’s own. Leeds seem doomed as they are losing the match 0-2 which they need to win whereas Everton have scored a very late goal which might just have secured their survival.