Tuesday, 26th July, 2022

[Day 862]

Today was always going to be rather an ‘action-packed’ day because there were quite a lot of domestic chores to be undertaken before we start our preparations for spending a few days away in Yorkshire. First thing this morning, I received a voicemail from my BT contact from Lincoln – unfortunately, I had missed her call on my mobile and she did not phone me on my newly restored landline but, in truth, we had hardly anything to discuss because with my ex-landline restored (or more technically, ported over to the Fibre Plus plan I now have with BT) then everything we needed BT to sort out was now actually working to our satisfaction. As today is a Tuesday, Meg and I indulge ourselves with going down to Waitrose where we did bump into one one or two of our regulars. I took the opportunity of doing a little bit of shopping, the most important of which was to have longer-life milk that will survive the rigours of a hotel bedroom whilst we make ourselves drinks as we require them. Then it was case of going home and getting through a pile of papers that needed to be processed i.e. either junked once the addresses had been shredded or else filed. When all of this, I was ready to change in my Pilates track-suit bottoms and then walk down into town. Our class is currently quite small and there were only two of us today – one of our regulars is fitting in to a Thursday class and another regular to another class this morning. We had the usual jokey session as our tutor and my fellow-class mate and I have been attending for some 8-10 years, I would estimate. Then it was a case of getting home and cooking a quick dinner for the two us. This afternoon, Meg and I thought that we would make a trip to our local vaccination centre to work out whether we needed a COVID booster jab or not. We have both had the two initial vaccinations and two boosters but nonetheless our local surgery had written to us to request that we present ourselves for a ‘spring’ booster. But this, too, proved to be as fruitless a journey as was yesterdays. The very friendly nurse on the entrance door explained that the vaccination centres all over the country were being closed down and further vaccinations would now be under the aegis of one’s own GP/medical practice. She explained to us that most of the time she was busy turning people (like us) away as part of the NHS machine was urging you to attend whilst another part was turning you away. So we now have it from the ‘horses mouth’ as it were that we would wait for the official autumn boost to the vaccine to be rolled out for us in September. On the way home, though, we took the opportunity to get the car topped up with petrol and we also dived into a nearby supermarket to buy one or two cosmetic items.

Last night was a televised debate beteen Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss in pursuit of the Conservative party leadership. Rishi Sunak made a pitch which seemed overly aggressive to many with a host of interruptions. For her part, Liz Truss seemed somewhat robotic as she evidently had prepared ‘mantras’ in which the word ‘deliver’ was certainly overused. In an opinion poll after the debate,the two candidates appeared to be level pegging. But amongst Conservative party members, Liz Truss held the lead whilst Rishi Sunak held a similar lead amongst Labour supporters. A debate held on TalkTV tonight was halted though when the presenter, Kate McCannn, fainted half way through the broadcst. Liz Truss appeared shocked and rushed to the aid of the presenter but the broadcast was immediately abandoned. Both candidates subsequently tweeted their good wishes to Kate McCann who seemed to recover from her faint but the programme makers had to issue an apology citing a medical incident. The debate so far this evening appeared to be much more even tempered but I think the spin doctors and associated journalists probably had to consider the whole of tonight’s confrontation as a ‘non-event’

We took the opportunity to FaceTime some of our pre-pandemic Waitrose friends this evening and we had quite a lot of news to catch up on. Earlier in the day, I had texted my two nieces in Yorkshire and it looks as though we can see both of them on Thursday as well as my sister. So far this leaves Friday for Meg and I to enjoy ourselves in Harrogate but we will see what emerges from our opportunities to catch up with our relatives who seem to be leading hectic lives (moving house, changing jobs) and so on. The weather seems set fair in the days ahead so this will no doubt enhance our little stay away.