For those who have got used to their weekly fix of marvellous rugby these winter weekends, there is now a fortnight's rest between the next round of matches. But one of the broadcasters is going to broadcast a highlights match next weekend for us rugby junkies so I must look out for this. I also think that the England-France game is going to be broadcast again in an extended highlights programme, possibly available via YouTube so now that the tension is out of the game and we know the result, this might well be worth a viewing as well. Just as I as typing this, I got an unexpected and very welcome text from the Asian lady from South Africa who used to live around the corner but has now moved away but only to Droitwich I believe. Now that she has moved, the text indicated that she would still like us to keep in touch so I have given her up-to-date details of Meg's state of health and it might well be that we can enjoy an afternoon cup of tea together. Talking of Asian ladies from South Africa, Anne and I got very friendly with an Asian lady from South Africa who was a single parent but who had great technical skills and who was the manager of the reprographic unit in the Scraptoft purpose of De Montfort University. It was she who first introduced me to some of the finer arts of how to make a professional looking document e.g. of a conference presentation and these skills I have not forgotten but indeed deployed quite a lot when I was in the business of producing documents when I was employed at the University of Winchester. A particular weakness of mine to which I do admit is that I do like to produce professional looking presentations and take pride in doing so but for some people, this feeling just passes them by.
The morning brought a succession of windy showers, so much so that my weather app detailed the weather as feeling like -5° and so I made the decision not to venture out with Meg. I am not a natural watcher of daytime TV but I thought Meg would quite like to watch some of the 'Pilgrimage' programmes often shown by the BBC on Sunday's. But before I got there, the iPlayer gave me the chance to resume watching the biopic of Aretha Franklin called 'Respect' with the lead played by Jennifer Hudson, as near an lookalike as it was possible to be. Before she died in 2018, Aretha herself chose Jennifer Hudson to play her in Respect. A producer who was a close friend of Aretha opined 'They both sing with a lot of emotion...they both sing with a lot of range and power. It’s really hard to compare anyone with Aretha, though. I think the good thing about Jennifer is that was Aretha’s pick to play her. … There was a lot of discussion about a lot of people, but Aretha was adamant that it be Jennifer.' What I found compelling was that the 'Queen of Soul' as she came to be dubbed had a troubled background and personal life. Her life seemed to be permeated by over-controlling men, be they fathers, managers, husbands (sometimes one and the same) or producers. But out of this strange chemistry came such extraordinarily powerful music which is why, I suppose, this music has the kind of qualities that it has.
We had an appointment with one of the community physiotherapists who turned up at 3.00pm this afternoon, together with a trainee - altogether, they spent an hour and a quarter with Meg and it proved to be a really useful visit. First they examined Meg's legs as far as they could whilst she sitting in her specialist chair. Then we utilised the hoist to get Meg onto her own bed in the bedroom part of our Main Lounge from where they could make an even more detailed assessment of Meg's legs and muscle tone. I did actually learn quite a lot from this visit (including the differences between 'contracture' and 'tonicity' the former of which is much more difficult to treat) The physio managed to get Meg's legs bent to a better angle i.e. straighter than they have been for some time so the physio and I agreed a range of practical steps that I (and the carers) can take to keep Meg's knees and legs from deteriorating. All of this is really excellent news because it means after this diagnosis that there are some practical steps that we can take both to keep Meg comfortable and more-or-less pain free but, more importantly, stop conditions deteriorating. The physio said that she would make contact with the care agency manager who frequently puts himself 'on shift' so that she and he can together have a practical session. Having been taught the 'lessons as it were, the care manager can then incorporate things into the care plan and then the good care for Meg can cascade its way though the system. I spent some time with one of the younger carers talking about life in the Army which he is going to make his career in a year or so but at the moment he is making considerable progress in the part-time roles he carries out within the army.
There are even further madnesses coming from the mouth of Donald Trump. He has announced that once the Palestinians have removed from Gaza that he would 'own' and that there would be no right of return. This is almost a reverse of the position in modern Israel where I believe that anyone of Jewish descent can claim a right of abode within Israel but the obverse occurs in the case of Palestinians whose land it is. When Donald Trump says that if he is to 'buy' Gaza or even own it, then this raises the question of whose land it is to sell.It is certainly contrary to international law for Israel as an occupying, not to say conquering, power the right to sell Gaza to Donald Trump but, of course, Trump has scant regard for any legal framework, let along an international one. To add to this bluster, we have the case of tariffs of 25% applied to all steel entering the country and whether this applied to UK steel is, at the moment, unclear apart from the fact that Trump has declared 'all steel and aluminium' which must include UK steel.
© Mike Hart [2025]