Thursday, 21st July, 2022

[Day 857]

Today my son and I (well, my son actually) installed the updated ‘gismos’ that we have just bought that route the WiFi signals through our house’s mains wiring system. The old units were about 8 years old and may have been a little outdated as the world of comms technology is coming on in leaps and bounds. The new units increased the WiFi signal strength sufficiently to give my son a workable signal strength and download speed in the corner of the house where he prefers to work (but where the route to the router is somewhat indirect) So this is another protential problem averted and we are now back more or less to the state we were in about two weeks ago, except that we now have a much improved download speed in the ground floor of our property, given that the fibre cable comes through a hole in the wall and is located in a room in the front of the house. Today is the day when I go shopping first thing in the morning so there I was at one minute to 8.00am queuing outside th supermarket door. Having got the shopping home, I then unpacked it whilst chatting with our domestic help and cooking a breakfast for Meg and myself. When all of this was done, we decided we needed to go to Waitrose in Droitwich to buy some items of clothing for Meg which I know the store stocks. But in the event, getting to Droitwich was less than straighforward. For a start, we soon discovered that the main road to Droitwich from Bromsgrove was blocked at some point, so we had to turn round and find another route. Even this second route seemed a bit problematic so we worked our way around that and eventually got to Droitwich. As soon as we got there, we made straight for our favourite coffee bar and treated ourselves to some good coffee and a huge toasted teacake which was split between us. After this, we piled into the Cancer Relief charity shop which is immediately next door. Whilst there, we discovered a stunning blue top which suited Meg down to the ground. Whilst she was trying it on, I discovered a stainless steel cafetiere but I was not quite sure how it worked. When I asked for some assistance from the shop assistant who could not provide me with any, another very friendly customer who was nearby told me he had one almost exactly the same and showed me how it worked. On the strength of this, I went ahead and bought it and then we made our way to our favourite Wilko hardware store. Whilst there, we bought the normal smattering of goods (some cosmetics, some stationery and so on) and finally we made our way down to Waitrose which was meant to be the object of our visit in the first place. I popped into the store and bought Meg the ‘knee-highs’ that are stocked within the store. Finally, it was a circuitous drive home as the traffic obstructions that we had encountered earlier were still there. The minute I got in, I started cooking a fish dinner with some smoked hake fillets I had bought earlier on in the day and our domestic help was more than happy to have a little of this as I also cooked some very low calorie rice substitute which I bought earlier.

After lunch and a doze, I realised that there were one or items I had forgotten from the morning shopping so I shot into town by car to get a top up. I also bought one or two things from a neighbouring store including some rather fine quality ceramic mugs wich we are going to take up to Yorkshire with us to help us enjoy our drinks of tea and coffee. Although we do not go until next Wednesday, I am collecting one or two little things that I know we can take with us to make our stay in the hotel so much more restful. Today has been a much cooler day, weatherwise, with a hint of rain in the air when we were out in Droitwich. According to the app on my iPhone, we should be getting quite a continuous band of rain during the night and this may well persist throughout tomorrow morning. I think we are all longing for one of those prolonged downpours but it may well be that we just end with a slight smattering of rainfall which hardly penetrates the earth at all.

Now that the two Conservative candidates are putting themselves forward to the Conservative party membership across the country, there is quite a lot of detailed scrutiny of the the two candidates. Liz Truss’s brand of economics is receiving particular attention as most economists are of the view that in present conditions, reducing taxes will be inflationary and the impact on growth will be minimal. Rishi Sunak’s past financial dealings whilst a young man is also receiving a lot of scrutiny and we will have weeks more of this yet. As things stand, Truss is way ahead of Sunak in the minds of the Conservative members and were they to vote early, then Sunak’s bid to become Prime Minister seems doomed from the start.