The previous evening, Meg had a somewhat getting to bed time as the care workers were allocated to come at 6.30 but in the event turned up at 7.45. But they had had a very difficult call previously with a new client who really needed two handlers but social services/OT had only approved one. The one experienced carer called upon his mate and fellow care worker and they spent two hours with a new client dying of cancer who was incredibly difficult to move and to care for and hence their delay in getting to us. I completely understood and sympathised with the two lads who. by all accounts had done a superb and sterling job but it does underline the fact that if things go awry in one part of the system it has implications for other clients or service users in the jargon. But when Meg was safely in bed I started to think about the Christmas card task looming head of me. Several years ago I put my Christmas card list of about 50 in a file that enables me to print off labels of which I had run out.However, I determined the right size and ordered some more and Amazon told me 'you last ordered these on December 15th last year' so I am reassured I have the right product which should arrive some time today, which indeed they did. We had a bit of a rush round this morning as we had a delayed start to the day but managed to get down the hill in time to meet up with a couple of our friends, as is our wont every Tuesday. We were treated to a free cupcake, one of the benefits of being one of the oldest customers. Before we left, we availed ourselves of a new type of soft drink being sold in the store which seems to be a marriage between Perroni water and the local supply of oranges. These drinks might be an interesting new thing to try when our carers arrive for the little Christmas party in less than two weeks time. We got up the hill just before the carer arrived to do the Tuesday sit. Meg was having a slight anxiety episode so I gave Meg some pills and decided not to go out until I was assured that Meg was in a calm state of mind. We finished off entertaining the sitter with some of the music that we had at our wedding and I explained to her how we were fortunate enough to have discovered the original organist's notes when we were digitizing our album of black and wedding photos taken in 1967. And so we came to play 'Wachet Auf' ('Sleepers Awake') which many in the population will know as the Lloyds Bank advert music and we followed this up with 'Jesu Joy of man's Desiring' with a final rendition of one of our favourite tracks from Joan Baez. The carer is relatively new but a Bromsgrove local and is learning her trade fast so it is always good to take the opportunity for us to get to know the carer better (and vice versa) After Meg's lunchtime call and translocation into her newly acquired specialist chair, the carer left and I pressed ahead with the day's lunch where I had some smoked mackerel fillets on the menu. I had previously consulted the web as to the best way to cook smoked fish without it smelling the house out and, as I thought, poaching is undoubtedly the best method. Apparently the milk absorbs some of the chemicals which causes the fish to be odiferous but the poaching process only takes about five minutes so the lunch was quickly prepared and even more quickly eaten. In the late morning, we received two deliveries from Amazon both of which were welcome but the first in particular, being a supply of address labels for my Christmas card writing.
There is an important development in the rapidly evolving situation in Syria now that Assad has gone. It seems that there are thousands of captured IS fighters have been detained in northeastern Syria since the self-styled caliphate fell and, if they were freed, they could further destabilise an already turbulent situation. What is concerning the liberal democracies in the West is that such fighters might regroup and form a fighting force that will either seek revenge on their former captors (understandable as though this might be) or even form a regrouped revolutionary Islamic group determined to wreak vengeance on the West. For this reason, the UK is being incredibly cautious at the moment and together with France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium has stopped asylum applications from Syria. When Syrian dissidents escaped the clutches of Assad and many of them had been tortured by the regime, it was fairly evident why they should be seeking asylum in the past but, of course, now we are in new territory.
Nearer to home, it is reported that Birmingham City Council is near to reaching a historic deals with the unions over the underpayment of female staff over the years (if not decades) The dispute relates to council workers in female-dominated roles, such as cleaners and catering staff, historically being paid less than those in male-dominated roles, like waste collection. The authority started paying out the claims after a landmark Supreme Court case in 2012, but said last year that the bill had spiralled to about £760m. This was one of the key factors in the council, the largest in Europe, declaring itself effectively bankrupt in September 2023 with a Section 114 notice. The notice confirmed that all new spending, with the exception of protecting vulnerable people and statutory services, must stop immediately, while £300m of cuts and tax rises were later approved in order to secure exceptional financial support (EFS) loans from the previous government. The situation in Birmingham though is not completely unique to the city - Nottingham, for example, is in a fairly similar plight but not on the scale afflicting Birmingham. Many of these large local authorities were Labour administrations and the previous Tory administration found it in their interests to let these large local authorities go effectively bankrupt so that they could score a political point by delineating Labour party profligacy. But in practice, the concentration of problems particularly in adult social care but also in children's services are immense and these problems remain despite the change in government. The funding of adult social care (or lack of it) has been a national scandal but successive governments ave identified the problem and shied away from the enormous cost, preferring to 'kick the can down the road' for succeeding governments to implement.
© Mike Hart [2024]