Royal resisters

Already eight days since the operation and despite noticeable improvement each day and diminishing aches and pains, sleep gets disrupted by discomfort, and leaves me feeling tired, although I have enough energy to walk and get on with daily tasks, evening doing without a siesta if I need to. From 8.5-9 hours a night, I've dropped to 7.5-8 hours. Maybe it's summer weather, or maybe an odd anaesthetic after-effect. The main impact is not walking so briskly, but never mind.

We got up late to our usual pancake breakfast. Clare finished varnishing garden table and benches, a job she started a few days ago. I worked on tomorrow's sermon, prepared a funeral service for the week after next and updated my blog, as often happens when I realised there was something yesterday which I only recalled as I was falling asleep. Memory rarely flows in straight lines.

An hours walk before and after lunch outdoors, lengthy phone conversations. After supper we watched a new documentary on Channel Four about the role played by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in the campaign to deceive and mislead the Nazis over invasion plans. The Royal Family's active role has never before been revealed. When the story of Allied spying and disinformation campaigns was published in the 1980s this aspect was concealed, and brought to light only by recent research into royal archives. 

One small titbit of new information drew my attention. In speaking of intelligence gathering networks and the role of MI5 and MI6, reference was made to the royals' independent intelligence network, due to the historic as well as personal relationships between members of all European royal and aristocratic families. This was a two edged sword, as some royal relatives were Nazi sympathisers. George and Elizabeth made it clear where they stood, once the country's appeasement initiative failed, something they'd approved of, not wanting a war. King and Queen acquired weapons along with other household members, learned how to shoot and carried weapons with them in their cars when the threat of invasion was imminent. And they refused evacuation to Canada for safety reasons, insisting on remaining, at home among their people. It was an impressive story, well worth telling.