Well, the big orange fool was never going to admit to being a loser, an epithet he has always been happy to spit out at others. It’s a shame the predicted landslide didn’t materialise; indeed it’s worrying in the extreme that he picked up more votes than last time. True, the Democrats have stuck to their miserable tradition of nominating unsuitable candidates - Obama was a rare exception - so lacked a charismatic figure with the power to sway the impressionable idiots who vote for the larger (and nastier) than life Trump. Perhaps the best news is the Vice-President elect.
Meanwhile, the lawyers will be rubbing their hands, and stringing things out as long as they can, however hopeless their cases.
Closer to home, I wish I saw a real prospect of a robust trade deal with the EU. As things now stand, I think the best we can hope for is a deal in name only, with enough loopholes to keep lawyers raking it in for years. At worst, the UK will become a marginalised irrelevance to the world economy.
But turning to important matters, we now have two genuinely soft-closing bog seats again, gutter fascias that don’t bubble up when it rains, and a down pipe from the top roof that projects water away from the wall. I’ve started the next round of domestickery by asking the agent for our absentee neighbours to shore up their fence with some concrete spurs, replacing the current arrangement by which the rotten posts are lashed back to their trees with climbing ropes.
The garden is still showing some colour: the cosmos that sulked their way through the summer are flowering rather better, just as we await the frost that will cut them down. The polyanthus are flowering well already, and I’ll be splitting them up soon to stock the little bed by the front door. The rudbeckias meanwhile continue to flower, and I’ve done a modicum of staking to keep them going a week or so longer. I think we’ve had the last of the beans, so we’ll probably get the plants up and out in Monday’s garden refuse collection. They have done very well, despite a rather poor bean frame.
On the health front, I’m a bit less anxious than of late: an MRI scan has revealed no sinister reason for a persistent sore throat, and a regime of antacids is helping. When I mentioned it to the doctor on the phone (our now normal consultation mechanism) she called me in there and then, and decided on an urgent referral to EN&T. This put the wind up me somewhat, prompting morbid thoughts of life without a voice box and breathing through a hole in my neck. So now I suppose I’ll be looking around for something else to worry about!
Martyn, meanwhile, has built another model railway layout that fits on the desktop in his study. It is built with lightweight materials, so is easy to lift on and off. I’ll try to find out how to post a picture: used not to be a problem. Thrombosis, I expect: clot behind the keypad.
