Building up for Winter

I think this is a juvenile blackbird looking quite splendid. I was in the garden to mow the lawn and collect the bird feeders for cleaning. I was feeling fine today, I wonder if it was a very delayed reaction to my pneumonia jab last Thurs (as some of you suggested) or if I picked up a slight bug in the surgery. I took a covid test first thing this morning to be sure (clear) and as I was having my boiler serviced. I opened all little windows and we both wore a mask anyway, and he was finished in about 15 mins. A very young chap, all I got from him was 'boiler service', 'where is it' and 'can you turn the heating on', then 'all done'. More Paralympic watching today including tennis. So well done to the brilliant Dame Sarah Storey who won a remarkable 18th Gold in her career today over both swimming (5 golds) and cycling (13 golds) over 9 Paralympic games starting in 1992 at Barcelona at the age of 14.  

I tried to fill out my insurance form for my car minor damage claim - it's insurance for things like minor scratches and stone chips and the form was 5 pages long!!! It was meant to be a editable pdf, but that didn't work properly on my iPad or my pc and in particular the ticks in the tick boxes kept disappearing. So after about an hour of trying I rang and got them to send it as a Word document. I also renewed my AA cover via Toyota. It covers Roadside Assistance, At Home, National Recovery, Onward Travel and European Breakdown. I thought I'd check the answer to what happens if my cracked windscreen was too dangerous to drive..........the answer was no they wouldn't get my car to be repaired as it wasn't a mechanical breakdown. 

Terrible findings in the Grenfell report, but I can't help thinking that all these public inquiry reports show similar broad findings: inadequate regulation set by Govt; unethical behaviour by companies; risks being underestimated and/or not managed; and regulators who aren't totally independent or are ineffective. That could broadly apply to Grenfell, the Post Office scandal, the banking crisis, insurance mis selling, endowment mortgages and so on. I'd also add that no-senior managers / directors ever seems to end up in jail as a result and until that happens nothing will change.