{"id":7059,"date":"2026-03-26T10:58:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7059"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:58:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:58:24","slug":"mingling-with-the-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7059","title":{"rendered":"Mingling with the masters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Owen in his chess room <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Saturday, March 21 – Sunny and warm. Should have gone out. However, we remade the bed and had a couple of meals, and Dot washed the sheets and pillowcases before listening to Norwich beat Charlton 0-1, which more or less ensures their survival. As an added bonus, Liverpool lost. Watched some athletics (world indoor). Gold medal for UK in 3000 metres: Josh Kerr. Good race. Then EFL highlights followed by documentary on problems caused by social media. Interesting, but didn\u2019t mention the positive free speech angle – that i,s a way of getting at the truth when official channels all give the same dubious story.\u00a0 Someone said not being allowed to question the answers is worse than not being allowed to answer the questions. Felt very tired tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday – Pleasant, dry and mainly bright. Forgot to take tablets and felt much better. Decided to query long-term effects of two of my tablets. Last day of world indoor athletics championships: we got four golds – Josh Kerr, Keely Hodgkinson (800m), Georgia Hunter Bell (1500m) and Molly Caudery (pole vault). Spurs lost 3-0 to Nottingham Forest at home. Aargh! In the afternoon went to Blue Boar garden centre to buy some patio magic (cleaning fluid) then bought some petrol. Dot drove for the first time since breaking her leg. No problem. Cooked duck in between athletics events. Spoke to Amy earlier after ringing her by mistake. She seems very well.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday – Mainly sunny, some cloud. Dry. Caught up with various things this morning and watched Sunday\u2019s football. Spurs appear to be on the brink, but you never know\u2026 After lunch we drove up to the garden centre again because we couldn\u2019t get patio cleaner to work. They sorted the immediate problem, but it still wasn\u2019t impressive. No proper flow through hose. Nevertheless Dot managed to get some done. I investigated changing holiday dates but decided not to. Des came round and told us he is going on his European train holiday this week. They have been in Lichfield because their daughter had a painful illness at the same time as her husband had tonsillitis. Cooked sea bass – tricky because everything happens at once. Watched a bit of TV including University Challenge<\/em>, Scottish loch tour thingy and a couple of old episodes of Outnumbered<\/em>, which is brilliant however often you see it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday – Windy but dry till evening, when it became very windy and wet. Took Dot into city for 10.30, when she met Anne at travel agent\u2019s and then for lunch and\u00a0 other things at Jarrolds. I\u00a0 returned home and had a bath and lunch before picking up Mike Read and taking him to see Owen Hindle at Bury. (Both men are chess masters.) Tried new route via Elveden which worked surprisingly well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owen, who is 86, seemed fine, though he spends a lot of time watching the news from various channels worldwide. He continued to do this while we were there, though he showed us round and made us tea and coffee and provided biscuits. I now know a lot about the war. Amazing collection of chess books. Didn\u2019t see Mark and Liz, who now works for BBC, but we had a visit from a British Gas man, who couldn\u2019t service Owen\u2019s boiler because he had Mark\u2019s boiler details (they live a few houses away). Mike and I returned home about 4.20 and made quite good time, though it became slow near Norwich (single lane on A11). Dropped Mike off and drove home. Cooked pies for supper. Watched a couple of old \u201cspecials\u201d – Dad\u2019s Army<\/em> and Keeping up Appearances. <\/em>The former was funnier. Dot bought three tops and arranged a train holiday to Nice in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday \u2013\u00a0Windy and quite chilly. Both had a bad night. Emptied dishwasher and cleared up kitchen in preparation for Linda\u2019s arrival shortly before 10am to cut our hair. Tried it slightly longer at back\u2026 went over to Des\u2019s to check I knew how to operate door lock. After lunch went to Morrisons – Dot had coffee after getting a couple of things and then found water filters. Sorted out stuff while Dot fed tumble drier and then we lay down for a while – both feeling tired. Dot did some practising. Had soup for supper, plus hot cross buns. Drove Dot and Nova to rehearsal at Sewell Park, then fetched them later. Spoke to Penny and Janet. Watched A Woman of Substance<\/em> – a series of wrong decisions. Her, not us.\u00a0Substance isn’t everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, March 21 – Sunny and warm. Should have gone out. However, we remade the bed and had a couple of meals, and Dot washed the sheets and pillowcases before listening to Norwich beat Charlton 0-1, which more or less ensures their survival. As an added bonus, Liverpool lost. Watched some athletics (world indoor). Gold … Continue reading Mingling with the masters<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7061,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059\/revisions\/7061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}