So yesterday started off with a familiar story. I was already well up and showered and gave Meg her early morning cup of tea expecting the two carers to turn up at 8.00am. But after a non-appearance after ten minutes, I got a telephone call from the agency that two workers had phoned in as sick and therefore unavailable for work and so Meg's 'getting up' call would be delayed until 9.00am. This, of course, I have come to expect and may get even worse over the Christmas period. I suppose I am resigned to this by now - the one consolation is that I can use my smart speaker to play a selection of Mozart for me to help to sustain my equilibrium. The fact that the care workers are an hour later than normal means my breakfast routine will need to be re-timed so that we can still see our Waitrose friends at the normal time. The night before, I felt I had just averted a potential disaster. The water levels in our downstairs toilet rose ominously after a flush and this always suggests a blockage. So I plucked up my courage, put on a rubber glove and prepared to reach as far as down the toilet as I could to relieve the probable obstruction. But I could feel nothing but after I had completed this manouvre, the water seemed to give an enormous 'belch' after which the toilet flushed normally. I suspect that a care worker had put a not very disposable wipe down the toilet and this has had created the temporary blockage but the action of putting my hand and arm up and down it had created sufficient movement of water for the blockage to clear. Evidently, I was mightily relieved and normally I dispose of waste destined for the toilet myself to prevent this kind of occurrence but I imagine a care worker was trying to be helpful and did this for me, inadvertently creating the problem. So I know now to always do this myself and I know both how to prevent problems and to solve them when they do occur. Breakfast was a rushed affair in front of the lateness of the carer's call so the minute it was finished I pushed Meg down the hill- fortunately, we had a clear blue sky and some sun plus a smidgeon of the warmth of the sun. In Waitrose, we met up with one of our friends but not the other but nonetheless had a jolly time. Afterwards, I relieved the store of some of its supply of porridge and also a supply of orange-based soft drink in anticipation of our party in a few day's time. Then it was a case of getting home and watching some quite interesting TV. There is a series called 'Villages by the Sea' and today they were focusing on a little community called Bucklers Hard which is on the other side of Southampton Water. Probably because of the proximity of several acres of oak forest, this location had been used in the past for the construction of wooden warships for the Navy, particularly in the 18th centuries. Warships were basically built here and then sailed down the river into Southampton or more probably Portsmouth where they were fitted out with superstructure and, presumably, armaments. But having falling into relative quintessence for a century or so, apparently Bucklers Hard was pressed into service again in the preparations for the 'D Day' landings. At the conclusion of WWII, this was probably the greatest invasion fleet every assembled and all kinds of support ships were required, not to mention innovative structures such as floating harbours that could be towed across the Channel and then used as a temporary harbour against which big ships could moor whilst smaller ships carried supplied inland. This part of the history of Bucklers Hard was totally unknown to me, even though we had visited it on at least a couple of occasions when we lived in Hampshire.In fact, modern archaeological methods such as ground penetrating radar is revealing the slipways that were used in the past to get the wooden warships from their construction site into the Beaulieu River, in the New Forest.
After we had lunched on some quiche, tinned tomatoes and broccoli we settled down for a Saturday afternoon's TV viewing. As Christmas is approaching, some more classic films are being shown. Today it was the turn for the Ealing Comedy 'The Lavender Hill Mob' which is amusing without being rib-ticklingly funny. When this was over, we watched the broadcast from last night of 'Have I Got News for You' which is, of course, always topical. I then consulted the schedules to see what had been broadcast last night and my attention was immediately drawn to a retrospective on the life and works of Alan Bennet the Yorkshire playwright, wit and raconteur. But what was so very interesting for us was Alan Bennet's used occasionally to stay in 'The Crown' hotel in Harrogate which is the hotel which latterly, despite my apprenticeship in the 'Old Swan', became our favourite hotel in Harrogate. They always offered us very good deals and no-cost parking right in the town centre which is why we used to frequent it. So it was wonderful to see the shots of the interior of the hotel and it brought back some poignant memories for us. Like the other large hotels in Harrogate, the buildings were requisitioned by the various Armed Services during WWII and I believe the Crown was commissioned by the Air Ministry and only released back to the public in the early 1950's. The dining room was I think in an art deco style and was magnificent although we only ever breakfasted in it. My mother when she was alive had, I think worked for a spell at the Air Ministry in 'The Crown' and it gave me a rather curious feeling when I was breakfasting there to know that my mother probably had feasted her eyes on the same scene. One could well imagine it in its Air Ministry days and there were some still some photographs adorning some of the hotel corridors detailing stories from the hotel's past.
Now that the economy has shrunk by 0.1% as last month, then the new Labour government has got off to a rather shaky start. The rise in employer's NI contributions might have fulfilled an election pledge not to raise NI on the rest of the population but as well as taking such much money out of the turnover of firms and charities, it has also dealt a blow to business confidence. So all of the hard work that Rachel Reeves may have put in before the election to reassure business leaders about an incoming Labour government will have been set to nought.
© Mike Hart [2024]