My Madeleine moment

I had a good night's sleep, although I woke up for no reason I can think of at first light, and was awake for an hour before dozing off again. Sunshine with clouds driven by wind from the west. My head was clear when I got up but after breakfast and medication, it was as if my brain clouded over. Clare went off to her study group and I stayed in as we expected a lunchtime delivery of a convertible chair bed. It didn't turn up until gone three. I occupied myself with recording and editing a reflection for St John the Baptist's Day, I  cooked lunch with a foggy brain and mis-timed the baked potatoes and the frozen beans. It wasn't my best effort, but not quite a disaster either.

Two men arrived in a large white delivery van and carried several large cardboard boxes in, containing the components of the chair bed. They unpacked it and then had to work out how to assemble it from a sheet of instructions. Then it was a matter of working out the best place to put it in the front room that already contains a smallish three piece suite. The bay window seemed the best place. Book cases and telly needed repositioning. The chair's furnishing fabric is the same as the three piece suite. The shape is different, but the most important thing is that it's comfortable, and there's no problem about converting the chair into a bed that fits in the length of the room. The delivery men worked quietly and did a good job, having driven from Swindon, but they were finished by four with an hour's return drive ahead of them. They even took the cardboard boxes away with them. Tomorrow is our rubbish and recycling collection day. I was relieved not to have to deal with them.

Putting the bins out was my chore for the day. Then I walked to the Coop to buy almond milk. I spotted a discounted pack of doughnuts stuffed with custard and bought them for sentimental reasons. Sixty years ago, the year we graduated and got married, I was a night shift worker in a bakery at the bottom of Ashley Hill in St Paul's Bristol, putting trays of bread into a conveyor belt oven and removing scalding hot at the other end. I didn't get to fry the doughnuts, but injected jam into them when freshly cooked, dip them in sugar and put them in rows on a tray, ready for packaging. When I looked at the custard filled version I ate with a cup of tea, there was a hole in the side of the bun where the injection nozzle had been inserted, only this time to deliver custard not jam, probably in an automated process these days. Such a vivid memory, my equivalent to Proust's 'Madeleine moment'. I also remembered how tired I was at four in the morning, tired enough to fall asleep at the injection machine for long enough to cover the outside of the doughnut with jam, not the inside, and being teased by Italian migrant shift workers from whom I learned a few of their swear words, well before I learned any Italian.

I went out and walked again in Llandaff Fields after supper remembering the night bakery. I recall on one occasion removing a freshly baked loaf from the conveyor belt. It was scalding hot. I couldn't hold it and dashed it to the floor in a fit of temper. One of the Italians reproached me in a half mocking way and said in broken English. "Eeet's no way to treat the body of Christ." I think I may have told him that when I finished University I was going to train to be a priest. The fresh air cleared my head somewhat, though not entirely. It's so frustrating.

Israel launched deadly attacks on the ancient city of Tyre this morning. The UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez insists that cease-fires in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza must be respected. Netanyahu's actions are in contempt of cease-fire agreements. nine hundred have been killed in Gaza during the cease-fire. He clearly isn't listening to anyone but the extremists in his own government. Border crossings into Gaza have been closed, no humanitarian aid can be delivered. This makes it even more difficult for America and Iran to complete a peace deal. Retaliation by Iran against Israeli attacks on Lebanon boosts the determination of Iranian hard line military leaders to take more risks and escalate the conflict. Iran still controls the Straight of Hormuz, Bab al Mandeb and the flow of maritime traffic, determined to make users pay for it.