Fiftieth week of the pandemic

I'm a bit late, but a lot happened in the last 8 days. The only significant event before last weekend was the arrival of our new box of Nespresso capsules, which were jolly quick. I only ordered them the day before. The weekend was spent in a bit of a fugg on my part. I had some really stressful times with some bureaucratic crap on Friday morning, which then resulted in some ill health of an alarming nature on the following day. It felt like an allergic attack, but I am now sure it was delayed shock, giving me a couple of sleepless nights, but some relaxation by reading, watching Netflix and other enjoyable activities, I seemed to turn it around. Iwoke on Monday morning about as happy as I can be in a global pandemic, so all was well.

The church

The weather forecast was quite good and I settled it in my mind that this coming week we will have to do some outdoor exercise, either by gardening, or sorting out something outside or even going out for a drive or geocaching. I also made some decisions, which were a great deal overdue. I am sure that the indecision involved in putting them off, also contributed to my high stress state.

Halasz manor house

 

I got through to the TV people in BP and booked an appointment for the following week to have the new digi box and have it commissioned. This meant that another decision had to be taken and that was to pop into town for a few days to have some outstanding things dealt with. I also contacted the hospital where Roy had his prostate op a few years back, and made a doctor's appointment for myself - also definitely overdue. Some of the hassle the previous Friday taught me, that all those bureacratic obstacles which are in my way had to be swept aside, so I did it. Next week we have an appointment at the local authority offices in the nearby town to try and resolve them.

Three stages of the cross

 

It is always like this. You agonise over decisions, but once they are made, they do not seem nearly as daunting as they did in the vacillation phase. So this means that we will do our next big food shop on our way back from town, and therefore in the interim we needed some basic foods. Like potatoes, and other fruits and vegetables, some dairy products, cornflakes etc. So this morning we went to the open market in a neaby village, bought some stuff, then visited the nearby supermarket and bought some more foodstuff and then went home.

Roy's rusty old car

Once we put the food away it was about 10:30am and the sun was shining so beautifully that I felt like  going out again, this time for pleasure. I picked a fairly new geocache about 30 miles away and off we went. The Tom Tom sent us a new way, on roads we didn't know, which was also exciting. Roy saw an interesting, very rusty old car and I photographed it for him. Initially, I thought it was an old Russian Pobeda, but now we think it is probably American. Or perhaps a Skoda. 

The central cross in a derelict state

The cache had two parts and it was in a village where there was a lovey old church, a fairly run down stages of the cross, some old chateaux and manor houses and all of it was quite interesting. We found the cache easily and en route home we tried to have lunch in one of our favourite country restaurants, which looked open. Unfortunately, due to lockdown regulations, we could only get a take away, not eat there. So we drove home and had a quickly cooked, but very delicious lunch of salmon, potatoes, carrots, onions, all with garlic mayonnaise. Roy had the same, except he had some pork instead of the salmon. For afters we had apple crumble with whipped cream.

Having finished all my Dalziel and Pasco novels I have started re-reading Stephen Fry's autobiography. For some strange reason I started reading volume two - The Fry Chronicles. It is so lovely, funny, in places hilarious and gives a very honest account of Fry's life in his twenties. Some of the people and events are very familiar to me, others are a revelation, as I knew nothing about them. Nearly finished it, but I don't know whether to go back to his childhood, or carry on chronologically. We'll see how I feel after I finished this one.

I watched the entire series 3 of Unforgotten, followed by episode 1 of series 4 on ITV. Fascinating characters, good story lines and excellent acting, especially Nicola Walker, whom I like very much. Interesting, that ITV, unlike many other channels, does not let you binge watch and I'll have to wait a week between episodes, like in the past. Still, that should teach me some patience, shouldn't it?

The place of the chapel

I also managed to reconnect with m homeopath this last week, whom I had not seen for over a year. She is very popular, as the earliest appointment I could have was on 31st  March 2021. Still, I am very happy for her, as I was wondering if she had to close down at all, but obviously not. Others might have, which would explain her extreme popularity, although I suspect it is due to the fact that she is excellent and when that sort of thing spreads by word of mouth, the clients don't stop coming.

Long shot of the stages of the cross

I also had a few admin bits of tasks on the computer, as I usually do. The translation text I mentioned last week, has arrived, so I am in the middle of that. It is very seriously boring, but I have so far done 4 pages, and there is only three left. The other stuff was related to geocaching. After I wrote that cache page for a fellow geocacher last week, I decided to write one of my own. The photos for it were taken on a hike some weeks back and I got enthused by the one I did for griffs, so I had a go at mine. It was put in for moderation on Tuesday, and it was passed for publication this morning while we were shopping. Now, the only task left is to put the box out, which I will do on a nice sunny day sometime in the coming weeks.

The other lovely happening was the arrival of the present from Alex, which was not supposed to arrive until the 1st March, but appeared on the 23rd February. It is a gorgeous metal plaque of a raptor, which will go on top of the pavilion to scare away the little birds that soil the benches right through summer. I am never bothered about my birthday or nameday or any other day, when it comes to presents. You don't need presents to tell you that somebody loves you. It is the way they treat you and the relationship you have with them that tell you, not things. However, a present that comes at no particular time,  but for the pure reason that somebody saw something that he thought mum would love very much. It took nearly 7 weeks to get here, but it finally did and I am chuffed.

Roy had gone to have a nap and I think I am retiring to my book. Next instalment hopefully next week, when we should be in town for a few days. Keep your fingers crossed that the TV, phone and internet works, or if not, the guy who is bringing the new box fixes it.

Fortyninth week of the pandemic

This has been yet another interesting week, with lots happening on both the good and bad sides. In fact, I think the good things sort of dominated this week, with the only really bad thing being the weather. With the door on the big stove bust, we decommissioned it and had to rely on the central heating only. Unfortunately, that is quite an old boiler, and now we are worried that it will buckle under the pressure of this cold spell, which doesn't seem to be wanting to go away. On the good side I had an interesting online winter school, lots of good TV and Roy's apple crumble.

Apple crumble with yoghurt and a cup of coffee

Last Friday I did a bit of Netflix binge watching and it was delightful. Young Wallander is an interesting concept. When you take an old series, like Wallander and the title is Young Wallander, you think that's a prequel. But it wasn't, because while the character was similar, just younger and it was all happening in Sweden, like in the original series, the actual date was now. Fascinating insight into the life of Sweden today, so I'm glad they did it this way.

On the reading front, I am still on Dalziel and Pascoe, but I'm sorry to say, that I'm approaching the end. I have only 2 more books, and then I'll have to find a new author. I do have many books that were written by one writer and sort of form a series, so it'll be fun to choose.

Adam Pålsson as Young Wallander

UKTVPlay is also an interesting channel, with many old series, or parts of series available to watch. As I have been reading Reginald Hill for months now, I started watching some old Dalziel and Pascoe episodes. They were quite enjoyable, but, as usual, you're always disappointed when you compare them with the novels.

 

During the weekend I was highly entertained and well educated by a brilliant set of online meetings, all combined into three days of the Montreal Marxist Winter School, organised by my Canadian comrades. Unfortunately, because of the time difference, I could only take part in the first half of the program each day, but even so, it was fascinating at all levels.

Alex giving his presentation on the Canadian CP

The three presentation topics that I have listened to were:

1. Louis Riel and the rebellions of the Metis

2. 100 years since the founding of the Canadian Communist Party - lessons for today

3. The oppression of the Jews through the ages: Who actually fights anti-Semitism?

Julien translating me into French

The first two topics I knew next to nothing about. So, not only was the presentation brilliant, but extremely educational as well. The Metis were the beaver and buffalo hunters, who went West into the Canadian wilderness and after a while got into conflict with the Canadian state, as they were not exactly pleased when they wanted to take their land and their towns away from them. In one of the interventions in the discussion afterwards, a young woman of Metis descent described the discrimination they still suffer from after all this time.

The presentation on the 100 year story of the Canadian Communist Party was given by Alex, but believe me, I am not biased when I say that it was excellent. As I really knew very little about this topic again, my attention did not wane for nearly 3 hours, which proves how fascinating it was.

 

In the oppression of the Jews topic I even managed to intervene, outlining a mini-history of the Jews of Hungary. As I only had 10 minutes and that included the translation into French, I think I have done very well to only go over my time by 2 minutes.

 

There were other sessions, some in the second half of the day, when I was already  asleep, as well as those that ran at the same time as the ones above. The topics included Chile, The American Civil War, Economics, the Haitian Revolution, the socialist planned economy, the Irish struggle for freedom and the final plenary session on "How to organise Revolution?" Fortunately, they are all up on the website, so over the next few weeks I will listen to all those as well.

 

Then this week started with hectic activity. Strange how sometimes nothing happens for ages, and then all of a sudden, everything happens all at once. I was asked by e-mail if I would do some translation for an orienteering club that I don't know, but they are really desperate, so I said yes. They are planning a 5-day international orienteering event in August and they need an English version of th invitation. The text hasn't arrived yet, but presumably when it does, it'll be urgent.

The cache page in progress

Then there was another request, this time from a geocaching friend, who asked me to write, or part-write, if I haven't got the time to do the whole thing, a planned geocache page for him. This request followed on from a foolish act, when about a year or so ago, I offered to do something for him, which was less work than this, but I volunteered then. I also said yes to this as well, as I like doing cache pages, and it cheers me up when I can do anything to do with geocaching, as I miss it terribly.

           8 great tits on one of the feeders
 

I am glad to report that I have done it this morning and I think it looks OK. Poor fellow works a 100km from home, commuting by car every day, so he leaves really early and gets hom in the evening. I hope he'll like it, I enjoyed doing it.

Now I think I am off for a nap, as my head is hitting the keyboard. All the best to you all out there, and the next post is due sometime next week. :)

Fortyeighth week of the pandemic

A somewhat miserable week, with lots of coughs and sneezes, bad nights, not enough sleep and the non-arrival of my present from Alex on the downside - and another bit of snow, the arrival of Alex's books in Toronto, the Liszt/Berlioz Marathon and the return of the birdies on the feeders on the up side.

Mickey checking out the parcel

The original arrival date of the present from Alex was 5th February, then they changed it to 9th February and as of today, that projected arrival date is now the 1st March. Considering that 70kg of books took 10 days to get from BP to Toronto, that is some fair sized delay. I wonder where it could be? On the tracking page it just says 'In transit', so who knows? If we can wait patiently for life saving vaccination, a few months' delay in the post is nothing.

Mickey's taken possession of the parcel

Talking of tracking, that is a marvellous facility, obviously not when the thing takes forever and the tracking page has no real information on it, like with the Postal Service, but FedEx was ace. I followed the route the parcel took and it went through BP-> Vienna-> Paris->Memphis, Tennessee-> Mississauga, Ontario-> Toronto. Other than a bit of superficial damage to the wrapping paper, it arrived in perfect condition. 

Lili Farkas, Music Academy student

Saturday was spent listening to 9 x 45 minutes long online concerts, mostly from Franz Liszt and a bit of Berlioz. These music marathons happen once a year and this year it was virtual, but all the concerts were very recent. With the exception of the last one from the Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer, were pre-recorded, but only during the previous week. The BFO one was live and this was the first time I actually saw that, as in previous years I have never managed to get a ticket to that one.

Iván Fischer

The first concert started at 10am and the last one finished just before 10pm. There were 2 half hour breaks, one for lunch, the other for tea. The soloists included some big names and also some Conservatoire and Music Academy students. It was very well done and on top of all the excellent artists and orchestras, it was even free. Thank you to the Palace of the Arts that put this on in the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, one of two performance spaces in that massive modern building by the Danube.

The courtyard

On and off we had some snow this last week, but not too much. Some days the temperature went well above zero, so it was back to the dark, dingy and miserable drizzle, but most days and nights were cold enough for snow in the last few days, so the weather was a lot more cheerful. Unfortunately, our big pottery stove, well its door, has given up, due to the acid residue from the oak stopping the mechanism working. As we are now hopefully on our way out of winter, we decided to decommission it and rely just on the central heating. Once the weather's better and we can countenance letting strangers into the house, we'll have the guy who built it to come over for a repair/maintenance session, although if it needs a new door, that would be OK too.

Front of the Bunkhouse

Talking of maintenance, the central heating boiler has been hellishly noisy this winter and I was really worried that it would give up on us. Until, I have discovered, that it was our fault. Basically, there are too many places you can control the temperatures of both the radiators and the hot water. There is the central electronic unit, there are analogue gauges on the boiler itself and also there are thermostatic valves on the radiators. We have never realised that there is an optimum way to adjust all of these to ease the boiler's workload. But, I am proud to report that it is now a lot quieter, although it still makes a bit of a noise. The optimum setting is: set the radiator temperature on the central unit, along with a reasonably high water temperature on the boiler gauge. The trouble was that the water temp was too low and the boiler struggled to heat to the temperature setting on th central unit. Let us hope it lasts until we can get our little man in for the biannual service of the boiler in the spring.

Great tit on the fat

You may remember about a couple of weeks ago I discovered a lovely 9 episode series from about 3 years ago of Grand Design. Well, recently I found on Netflix another series, this time with 8 episodes from 2013, which was also brilliant. I absolutely love these way out modern houses, and the renovations. They are all different, all a bit quirky and definitely not run of the mill. Kevin Macloud is a joy to listen to and most of the people featured are interesting and pleasant. There was one shrill, entitled and spoilt cow that got up my nose, but even her house was a fascinating design.

Restored Victorian water tower

This weekend I will spend three days at the Montreal Marxist Winter School, where Alex talked me into making a small contribution to one of the sessions on the topic of anti-semitism and the oppression of the Jews over the centuries and today. I haven't started putting the text together yet, but as you only get 5 minutes and 5 minutes for translation, it shouldn't take long.

Grand Designs from Hertfordshire

Next post hopefully next week!

Fortyseventh week of the pandemic

Interesting week, with some days totally uneventful, others having some fun in them. After FedEx had taken the massive cube full of Alex's books, I started tracking its progres towards Montreal. It first went to Vienna by road probably, although it didn't say. Then it proceeded to Paris, which, in all likelyhood, was by air. It sat there for quite a few days, until in the early hours of last Saturday it landed in Memphis, Tennessee. That's the last we heard of it, but yesterday, on the phone, Alex told me that he had a phonecall which asked him to send $26 for customs. Hopefully, that is the levy of customs duty, as he would have got away with it lightly, should that be the case. On the other hand, it could just be a handling charge, or US customs, not Canadian, but it will hopefully be all revealed soon. FedEx gave the estimated arrival date as 8th February, that's next Monday. I hope it arrives in one piece and with no damaged books.

The public well in front of our house

In the last week or so we had deliveries of my vitamins and my teas, both of which was ordered online. There is also another delivery that I am waiting for, and that is the mystery present that Alex send nearly 3 weeks ago, estimated date of delivery: 5th February. He wouldn't tell me what it is, so I do hope that one turns up soon.

The corridor towards the road

Today we are also awaiting my next 3months' of medication, being delivered - hopefully - by Kati, the village social worker. I suppose I could go to the surgery myself for the prescriptions and to the pharmacy for the meds, but apparently it is her job to look after the oldies, so why not? She is very nice and I like her a lot.

Alex and his comrades are organising their usuall big event at this time of the year, the Montreal Marxist Winter School on 13-15 February. It is going to be a big Zoom event and I have just registered and bought my ticket to it. Unfortunately, as the attendees are from all corners of the world, and it is very difficult to find times that suit everybody, I will probably miss the afternoon sessions, as they are far too late for me over here. Never mind, they are all recorded and will be available online after the event, so I'll watch them then. Alex is one of the speakers, the topic of which is the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Communist Party of Canada. This is a topic I know zilch of, so apart from the pleasure of watching Alex, I will probably learn quite a lot.

I am also still reading Reginald Hill's brilliant thrillers and having finished Death's Jest-Book amd now in the middle of Good Morning, MIDNIGHT. Both exciting and very enjoyable and extremely different. The only thing that is not different in any book is the wit, sarcasm, humour, good storylines and big climax at the end. They all have those, and I can't wait to finish this one as well.

Basilica of our Lady of Assumption

I have left the star event of this last week to the last. On Monday morning the sun shone like it does in summer. OK, it was a bit colder, but the phsychological effect was the same. We are not nearly as physically active as we should be, so I had a go at Roy, suggesting that we went out. I found 2 geocaches within 35 or so minutes' drive away, and finally he agreed. Didn't look very happy about it, but I suspected, (based on past experience), that he would start enjoying it once we are there.

Bridge to the well of the Virgin Mary

 

Well, I don't think he looked too happy, even after we arrived at Holy Well Pilgrimage Centre, but he shocked me by offering to come with me. He just usually goes to sleep in the car and I have to wake him up when I get back. So, this time we got going together and the beginning was quite interesting for him, as he has not been there before. I have been 2 or 3 times, hiking and geocaching in and around the pilgrims' centre. The Virgin Mary cult is strong at this place and you know how popular it is by looking at the size of the car park. The other two caches, one at the holy wells and the other at the hermits' caves I have already found years ago.

The well

The exciting bit came after the sight seeing, when slowly and surely we plodded uphill on the path and suddenly it became covered in ice everywhere. Thankfully, we could just about find a bit of non-iced up forest on the edges of the path, so we escaped unhurt, which was a miracle. The first cache was easily found under a pine tree, and after that we got going towards the second one.

Big boulder

Now, that was a tougher nut to crack, and I was really pleased when after small amount climbing Roy suggested that he would stop, take the rucksack from me and leaning on a big tree wait for me to get back. The air was quite cold in the forest, where the sun didn't get to, but I hoped that I would get back reasonably quickly. I don't think I was more than 20 minutes and he seemed very happy.

My hero

The second cache was put there to show up a steep sided valley, which was a bit like a ravine. Thankfully, I read the comments previous cachers left online, and as all those suggested that near the box the GPS is pointing in the wrong direction, I stayed on the left and found it easily. The valley/ravine was very pretty, there were also large rocks and boulders scattered around.

The sun was setting by the time we got back

We got home about quarter past 2, Roy quickly threw together a prawn stir fry, which was delicious, so all in all that was a lovely day.

Fortysixth week of the pandemic

Yet another traumatic week, but not all bad. The first good thing was the inauguration in the US, which while I have no illusions in Biden, like millions might have, at least it saw the orange lunatic's departure. I must have mentioned that famous Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!" a few times before, but you have to admit we are most certainly living in (or more like surviving) interesting times. What is even more "interesting" is that I am already sort of looking forward to the time , when all those 81 million US citizens that voted for change, realise that even Biden cannot perform miracles, and after the initial honeymoon they'll see that not much has changed. I would be completely and utterly prepared to admit I was wrong, but I very much doubt that I will be.

Biden being sworn in

The major upset in the last week was what happened about my cardiac CT. My lovely doctor, whom I have known for over 5 years has been under so much pressure, that I suddenly realised that I can' trust either him or his hospital to be safe and therefore I decided that I will not attend. The story itself is very sad and long, so I will not go into details, but now I have to plan what to do, as the investigation planned is still necessary, but I have to find another way.

The private hospital we like

Private medicine is available in Hungary, and while it is not cheap, it is well worth it. When a few years ago Roy had a prostate operation, I did say that to get a guy like him, a complete hospital-phobic, not only into there, but actually not being afraid, not panicking and most satisfied, was worth any amount of money and we should really use them whenever it is possible. So now I have written up a list of specialists that I think I need and have decided that I will buy a yearly pass to that lovely hospital where Roy was, and use it to its maximum extent, having a general checkup. If the cardiologist there also says that I need a CT, I'll have it there and hope that all will be OK.

The only drawback now is that Roy and I were hoping that we will not have to go into BP until the spring, when, hopefully the infection figures would have reduced sufficiently for us not to feel too unsafe. Roy needs his dental works done as well, but he is not planning to have them done until the spring either. So, we are in a bit of a limbo with regards to medical matters, but I am sure we will be able to sort them soon.

Heather and Lyle

One very joyous event recently was the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Heather and Lyle Turner of our Canadian family. They are Alex's wife, Meaghan's parents, and we know and love them dearly. Although we have half a globe between us, we talk frequently by e-mail and Facebook. They put some lovely photos of themselves up on FB, I have included one here. We wished them all the happiness for the next 50 years and are looking forward to seeing them soon. As soon as we have all been vaccinated and travel restrictions eased, we are planning to go to Canada and spend some time with all the family there.

 

The trailer in winter

Talking of family in Canada, Alex didn't ring at the weekend, like he usually does, but called yesterday to apologise and explain that they have gone out to the trailer and ran out of time to call. This trailer is a lovely thing, (see photo!) and they only just  bought it at the end of last year a few weeks before the trailer park closed for the winter. So he is anxious to get back there, and to counteract the claustraphobia of being at home forever, they went out for a drive to it. It was somewhere between 2 and 3 hours' drive in lovely, bright snow covered countryside and the trailer was OK. The deck has nearly been finished before the bad weather stopped them, but by the time they open up again in May, hopefully everything will be OK.

Vit B for oldies

Returning to another bad, frustrating experience this last week, I had a hiccup with an online order, which was impossible to fix. I take vitamin supplements and a probiotic, plus some other stuff, and usually I order them once every three months online. Normally it is delivered by courier and I pay either by cash or card on delivery. This time, fool me, I clicked the payment by card online option and needless to say, the bank's website the payment went through crashed, no message, nothing. And that was on Saturday, so I couldn't even ring their customer service.

My probiotic

The really appalling thing was, that unlike decent banks, that when they have a problem, do not let you start filling in everything, including all your card details, etc., but put up an error message asking you try later. Or, if some problem came just as I was doing it, an error message should come up telling you that you didn't get through and repeat it later. No, not a sausage. So I was stumped, because I had a situation like this before, and once I repeated it and got everything twice, because in spite the crash, the payment went through, unbeknown to me, because there was no feedback there either.

The almost finished house after ten years

Finally, I had to wait patiently until Monday, when everything was solved. No thanks to the bank, but I kept watching my bank and card accounts to see if the money was drawn or not, and didn't seem to, plus the people I ordered the stuff from were so helpful and efficient that I didn't have to reorder, they just reactivated the order with Pay on delivery, and it arrived the following day. The stark contrast between the organic food website and their service, compared to that appalling bank, was very obvious.

 

The central living space

A very pleasant TV event was discovering a program from two or three years ago on Netflix, in which people build unusual, interesting and grandiose houses for themselves. It is called Grand Designs and the guy who runs it is much loved by us. I binge watched six episodes one day and the last three the following day. Needless to say, it was the last one which was the really magic one. A guy, who is good with his hands, took 10 years to build it with very little help from professional construction firms, and he also used materials that grew on his land. Mostly wood, but other scavenged stuff too.

The kitchen

His long suffering family was also delightful and it was such joy to watch an organic house, which was climate friendly, easy to run and at the same time magnificent in appearance. After 10 years it was still not finished, although I think there was only one room unfinished which was at that stage used as a storage area. 

Roy sorting the books by size

And then came another vaguely stressful, but otherwise very positive task that we have been involved in. I may have written about the fact already, that we are planning to send approximately 200 books, mostly politics and phylosophy and pamphlets to Alex in Canada. It has been in gestation for quite a long time, but this week we got round to packing them up. A couple of weeks ago Roy came up with a lovely, sturdy and enormous box for this purpose. The lawn mower came in it last summer and it was ideal. It took us a couple of hours to fit about 200 books and pamphlets into the box, and then this week about 4 hours of hard labour to finish the packing. 

They're in, now fit box to it!

FedEx was coming to pick it up today and both Roy and I have been somewhat concerned about how the guy is going to lift it into his van? We cannot help him and if he is on his own and without lifting gear, it will not be easy. Well, we need not have worried, as a very lovely young guy came, simply lifted all 70 kilos of it into the wheelbarrow and used the big side door on his van which opened almost all the way to the ground. There was lots of paperwork, form filling, ringing head quarters to pay by credit card etc., etc. but after about half an hour the guy, and the box, weree gone. Phew, I won't do one of these in a hurry, that's for sure.

Reinforcing the edges with tape

We then had lunch, which was lovely, Roy had some leftover pork with mashed potates, beans and beetroot, I had a couple of fried eggs, some smoked salmon, mashed potatoes and beetroot. For afters we had some pear compote with yoghurt and nuts, which was also delicious. The other really lovely happening was the return of the birdies onto the feeders. It is quite  cold again and it snowed a bit too, so they need the food. I have seen the first goldfinch of the winter, but most of them are still the tits.

Great tits on the feeder

Must get back to my book now, as Messrs. Dalziel and Pascoe await me with their antics. I am about half way through Death's Jest-book, which is yet another completely different story and style from all the others. I absolutely love it. In fact, there was an interesting discovery the other day, while reading it. I have always suspected that the author, Reginald Hill was a socialist. Or if not quite, at least leaning that way. His origins from Scotland, his upbringing in Yorkshire and a fair number of allusions in his books to politicians etc. suggested it. Well, I can quote you this sentence from page 364, that with humour and sarcasm confirms my assumption: "Mrs Eel pronounced this punchline with all the revulsion of Tony Blair discovering that one of his cabinet was a socialist."

The final fully packaged box

The driver putting it into the van