Mum to the rescue

 Amongst the bric a brac that Sandro left behind for us to collect was a relatively new office chair which had been dismantled. Albina was determined to replace my old office chair with this new one. 

I was in despair as I had no idea how to reconstruct it and when I looked at the screws intended to hold together the back and the arms I noticed that the scredriver required had a miniscule span. Last night, after I came back from work, got the assembled pieces together, miraculously found the right mini-screwdriver, and, with me holding the pieces together, she set to work. Eventually, the pieces were all lined up, starting with the back of the chair, and then the sidearms. Albina managed to start fitting in the screws, but she had only so much strength in her arthritic hands. She asked me to finish turning the screws in tightly. This was not a good idea. I am not, and never will be, a DIY man. Quickly she noticed that I was turning the screws in the wrong direction. After some altercations, under her watchful eye, I finally got it right and the chair was ready to use. 

With great pride in my wife's achievement, I sent a picture to Sandro with the completed chair, acknowledging that "Mum is brilliant". And so she is.

In the meantime I put out a notice to the residents in my block that we had my old office chair available for anyone adventurous enough to want it.

I am please to see that NATO countrues are geting ready to hand over their Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but it is a slow process, the tanks will be too late to stop the Russian surge, the amount of tans will be small and they are mostly in a dilapidated state in nearly ever country they are coming from. I am please that in the iterim Poland is still sending 60 tanks of the old post-Soviet tanks, which the Ukrainians already know how to use, including the Polish Twardy tanks. I even wroye to The Times to make these points but it did not get printed this time. See below.

 Letter to the Editor of "The Times",

Dear Editor,

With regards to your report on "Ukrainian cities feel Putin's wrath after tanks pledge (Times 27.01.2022)", Western governments must understand that Putin could still win the current race for time. Belated pledges to send tanks in the next two or three months, are not the same thing as providing the tanks themselves, while Ukrainian civilians are dying from Russian bombs, and a Russian military surge is imminent. For now, supplying tanks is not a question of quality, but of quantity and speed.

That is why Poland is not only the primary host for Ukrainian refugees, but also, prior to a promised prompt delivery of 14 German Leopards, the immediate supplier of 30 more Polish Twardy tanks and a further 30 post-Soviet T-2 tanks.These the Ukrainian army can utilize straight away as they have already been trained to use both. Poland understands, better than most of its European neighbours, the need for urgency as it knows that its own precious independence can be guaranteed only if Ukraine also retains its independence. 

Yours faithfully,

Wiktor Moszczynski