As the Grinch in this household, I do have to concede that Ms Playchute has done a great job at Chistmasfying the household. We have a tree purchased from the local garden centre at an extortionate price – do we have tariffs on imports from Lapland? We also have a couple of strings of lovely red lights on the hedge outside and around the front door and some twinkly white lights strewn across the beam in the lounge festooned with bits of ivy. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Which reminds me – I must get some more wine in!
Great excitement on Friday – I got to go wading in Penelope’s Pond. We needed to retrieve the solar-powered pond pump to protect it from freezing over the winter. Penny had posted on the village Facebook page to ask if anyone had a pair of waders we might borrow and our lovely next-door neighbour Roger came to tell us that he had a pair. So, donning the waders, I was able to retrieve the pump without falling in or falling over. A great achievement! The pump has been cleaned and is ready for next year’s outing. Job done.
Adam, Ava and the girls arrive home on Tuesday – it will be a joy to see them again. Unfortunately, the tenants who have been renting their home while they’ve been away aren’t due to move out until the 20th so we’ve had to line up an AirBnB for them for four days. No matter, it’s quite near their home in Northampton but I imagine they’ll be keen to get settled back home.
Tuesday also happens to be the day Nick starts his chemotherapy, a series of all-day sessions in Warwick for a number of weeks to come. Penny will take him across while I set off to Gatwick (!) to collect the returning wanderers. To be fair, their arrival is at a reasonable time of day – 14.25 – but Gatwick is a fair trek away and we shall probably be just in time for some early rush-hour traffic. Marvellous.
We’ve got two YCNMIUs for you this week. The first concerns the previous Conservative government’s “flagship” Free Schools policy. Introduced in 2010, the basic idea was that Local Authorities, which had run schools for ever, were useless and schools should be run by anyone who fancied the idea. Therefore, there was funding provided for just about anyone who thought they could improve on the provision in their area. Many of the Free Schools approved were in areas where there were already sufficient pupil places. As a consequence, the government wasted £325 million on schools which were never needed and subsequently closed due to a lack of pupils.
The data shows that since 2010 more than £325m in capital funding was spent on 67 free schools centrally delivered by the DfE that later disappeared, bearing out warnings by the National Audit Office that 50% of new free school places created between 2015 and 2021 would be surplus capacity within their local areas.
It perhaps won’t surprise you to know that the idiot Michael Gove was the government minister responsible for the scheme. It irks me that the likes of Gove and Boris, both of whom backed Brexit you will remember, have never been held accountable for their disastrous actions and have managed to fail upwards time and time again.
And speaking of failing sensationally, our second YCNMIU of the week is the gift that keeps on giving – Liz Truss, the 49-day Prime Minister.
She now has a YouTube channel where she can spout to an audience of perhaps ten that the reason she failed was because of the sinister actions of the dark state! Fundamentally delusional. As one commentator put it, “Hapless ravings from a closet.” If you have time read John Crace’s piece – Beware the Liz Truss chatshow: viewers will require survivor therapy.
And, I think that’s about it for this week. Happy Birthday to my sister’s husband Rod on Tuesday – he’ll be a bit older than he is today. Also, Tuesday would have been Donna’s birthday so Happy Birthday to you too – always in our thoughts.
And finally, keep Nick in your thoughts on Tuesday and moving forward – he can do with all the support he can get.
Meanwhile, keep breathing, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees – we need all the pollinators we can get.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg