I was looking forward to a family get-together for my 95th birthday later this month, postponed due to Sunrise lockdown.
It might even have been possible for us to have it in Penarth but I will not be in my new home in time.
The last family celebration, for my 90th in 2016, at the Cardiff County Club, organised by Siân, was memorable.
Looking ahead, optimistically, I hope to arrange a celebration in the new year, for my birthday and as a welcome back to Penarth.
What a planet we live on. But for how long? Will it one day collide with another or will fires, floods or some other catastrophe signal the end? No doubt by then the rich will have rocketed up into outer space to live on another planet.
Forgive the doom laden thoughts, prompted by the start of the climate conference in Glasgow.
Most of the countries of our world are there, apart from a few whose action or lack of it could be the deciding factor for our future. And I can’t help questioning the sense in 30,000 people jetting in, clocking up gas guzzling miles. Why, with all the newfangled but effective communication resources, can’t it be more of an armchair exercise?
Boris Johnson is enjoying the international spotlight, bonhomie personified, brushing aside the obvious doubts with pseudo optimism.
A failure to achieve positive results would add to his lengthening list of tribulations but no doubt he will come up smiling.
It is surprising how quickly we forget. Just a few days ago life seemed to be plain sailing, things going according to plan. Then it all changed. The pandemic struck Sunrise again.
Three residents proved positive. Action stations. For us residents, a retreat to our rooms to face at least three weeks' isolation, the carers and staff back in safety gear.
A cruel blow for elderly people, especially the infirm and vulnerable.
We were getting used to the regular stream of visitors. But the only contact now is with carers calling in to check we are safe, to ask what we want for meals, which are then delivered.
Immediate testing of all staff and residents revealed seven positives in the assisted living area and this morning the Welsh health authority is conducting another thorough test for everyone.
I was fortunate to have visitors just before the lockdown, with Robert delivering my new computer, but I have had to cancel visits from friends due this week.
Despite all the projections, the hopes and anticipation of better days, the pandemic is still creating uncertainty and danger.
The pandemic has hit Sunrise again, after many ‘safe’ weeks, and we are all at lockdown after three residents proved positive.
Disappointing to for everyone, with the carers and all staff again wearing full safety gear.
Yesterday I had lunch delivered to my room for the first time since I left hospital a year ago. It is all very disappointing but we just have to plod on.
We were looking forward to Halloween events and I was going to read The Ghost of Braydon Manor, a story about the Wildeboer family home I wrote for my granddaughters Siân and Ria thirty two years ago.
I have plenty to do, preparing for my move back to Penarth and all is going according to plan so far, but as from the start of the pandemic in March last year coronavirus is still making life unsettled for all.
English, written and spoken, is a magnificent language. A priceless treasure chest of jewels gleaned over thousands of years from many lands, peoples and tongues.
I love words and welcome the constant revisions and addition to this word store.
I have written uncounted millions of words in a basic, and, I hope, acceptable style, trying to eschew slang and the latest fads.
English is a living, vibrant language, welcoming and embracing new ideas, like the nation’s propensity to accept people of different origins, ethics and religions.
Most of the newcomers are welcome but there are some I am pleased that prove to be fly-by-nights, here-tonight-gone-tomorrow,
And my hate list is growing steadily.
I can think of many in the present galaxy that deserve to plummet ignominiously.
In speech I shudder at like, awesome - a favourite of of young people - and the now inevitable addition to interviews, surreal.
Another abomination, push back (what’s wrong with delay?)
I have a leaning towards to pause which is more subtle than to delay.
As for government ministers’ incessant embellishing of their plans and achievements, amazing and incredible, the sooner they fall to earth the better.
But, am I being too pedantic, or to use a colourful, apt phrase, nit picking?
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| The Blitz, 1940 |
Over the past week I have been reliving the 1939/45 war as depicted in a magnificent new television series. A revelation as much of it is news to me.
I was a teenager at school when the war started and even when I became a reporter in 1942 I knew little more than anyone about the progress of the war and the raging battles on air, sea and land.
The radio and newspaper reports gave little away for what today would be cited security reasons.
They certainly did not convey the enormity of the conflict as it engulfed the world.
From the anxious late 1930s when Britain hoped war would never come, boosted by the peace seeking prime minister Neville Chamberlain, to the final battles in the ravaged city of Berlin there were countless battles, some epic in scale.
For me the most startling revelation is the bold reaction to adversity and possible catastrophic defeat by nations’ leaders Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, all three so different.
I was at school in London during the Battle of Britain and the blitz when Britain stood alone, invasion by Germany seemingly imminent.
It was averted and we were saved by ‘The Few' in the RAF, but that victory was only made possible by Churchill ordering Beaverbrook, his minister of aircraft production, to produce hundreds of fighter planes in a few weeks.
Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that almost wiped out the US navy, Roosevelt did the same, on a vast scale.
Within months the US was producing an aircraft carrier a month, tanks, guns and countless billions of rounds of ammunition that eventually sealed the fate of both the Japanese and German armies.
Stalin staged a miraculous turn around at Stalingrad where, on the brink of defeat, he conjured up a secret army of a million soldiers and hundreds of aircraft to end Hitler’s ruinous gamble.
Turning to today, inspirational leadership is missing. Leaders throughout the world are shadows of the heroes of the past.
In Britain there is the pandemic with the dithering prime minister Johnson, the USA, divided by Trump, led by a cautious, elderly Biden, while Putin manipulates and schemes.
It is all so shallow, so weak - and so dangerous.
Even worse, there is no sign of bold, imaginative leaders coming to rescue our troubled world.
So the government is ‘going to keep a close watch’ on infection rates according to an official spokesperson, warning of a ‘challenging’ winter.
How reassuring, with infections rising to the highest for months, perhaps soon to reach the worst ever in England.
The response, or rather lack of it, is typical of the wait and see, hope for the best attitude of our complacent, over-optimistic prime minister.
Last summer he stubbornly went ahead lifting for what was to be freedom day that never dawned and will hang on again, delaying a Plan B.
It is the same with all the problems mounting up.
It astonishes me that according to a new poll, fifty percent of the people still think he has done, and, presumably is still doing, a good job on the pandemic.
I am not one of them.
