You’ll not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that most of my time has been spent hovering around Ives Towers cleaning, cooking, gardening, sorting out trades and variously tripping out to post or collect parcels and shopping for my bride (since our return from Austria with her broken ankle.)  I have borne this yoke, as you must agree, heroically yet less kind close friends did observe that it was time I returned the favour after all those years of wifely servitude. I suspect the pleasing image of me bedecked in a pinny flourishing a feather duster in one hand and the Dyson in the other drove them to such disloyalty. However, there has been the benefit of everyday being a ‘school day’.

Who knew there were certain ways to clean a work surface? That the dish washer goes on once a day and that the washing machine has various settings? If there’s a qualification on how to use an air fryer then I’ve nailed that. If my burden has increased then so has the workload of the sales staff in Tesco. I suspect they’re now watching, in trepidation, the car park for my arrival. I was pretty good at spinning round and collecting meat, chocolate biscuits, frozen stuff, beer and dairy but complicated stuff like certain exotic brands of salad dressing, small bottles of shampoo with formulas that seem to be a cure for smallpox, various spray soaps (??), flax seeds etc have necessitated collaring a member of staff and asking for help. For example, who knew Auntie Bessie made a meat free toad in the hole or where it lurked?

One of Anna’s several frustrations include being unable to climb the stairs. A solution to the daily ‘will you find me x and bring it down’ has been helped by WhatsApp. We call each other and put on the video camera; I get guided to the ‘third drawer in the cabinet near the window, on the left hand side, in the spare room, where beneath the birthdays cards where you’ll find…’ I have now been to the deep recesses of the property that I barely knew existed let alone what the furniture contained. Everyday is indeed a school day.

Anna is now into her recovery after the operation and is optimistic, stoic and calm. It’s going very well but it’ll take time. I’d like to say it’s one step at a time but in her case currently it’s one hop at a time! Obviously in our situation concerts and socialising has taken a hit including a wedding bash in Scotland. Anna has been fulsome in thanking everyone for their kind thoughts and gifts. The kindness has been overwhelming.

This has left a little time for reading and I have completed a quite brilliant book on the rise and global intentions of China. It’s called The Hundred-Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury. I tracked this down in Columbia, South Carolina on my travels. It’s written by an American China expert who worked for several Presidents and has had a high profile with China over decades; all helped by his being fluent in Chinese. It’s not a happy story for the West as China seeks to dominate. This is by economic absorption and elimination of competitive industries (mainly by state subsidy of their own production) or more aggressively dominating near nation states by military might. Their inexorable rise continues at the price of democracy or freedom of speech not just in China but all over the world. Much of the commentary is how the West were mugged in plain sight by the Chinese playing up to US misconceptions and naivety over decades. It’s very readable and not a sensational Sino hostile read but a measured deep dive into the history and the track record of the Communist Party and its relentless ‘progress’ on this path. Beware.

Lastly, with the Mighty Jessney and Mrs Blues (or Steve and Sharon.). I went to York Art Gallery to see Monet’s Water Lilies. The exhibition included other Impressionist artists of the late 19^th Century and some of his influences such as Japanese prints. It was interesting and I approached it with curiosity but I am to fine art what Kylie Minogue is to brick laying.

Over a century on with so much technology it’s hard to place yourself in this era when no doubt this art was seen as adventurous, brave and new. Anyway, it was a great hour or so and maybe I should study more.