Did you see? Another feel-good story about Hampshire's most famous exiled Prussian aristocrat was making the headlines in this morning's Onion News - and it's also a story featuring eye surgery, which is something we all fantasise about occasionally, if we're honest!
And those exiled Prussian aristocrats, eh? They just never get old do they. I don't know what their secret is. My wife Lois thinks it must be some special under-the-counter "heavy duty" Dove, maybe?
I wonder....!
I'll be driving Lois to the clinic next week to arrive at 8:40 am - yikes! - and I'm already planning my optimal route, taking into account that it'll be morning "rush hour".
Nevertheless, it's a lovely feel-good story to start the week on, and very topical for Lois, who's due to get her first pre-surgery review appointment next week at the Optegra Eye Clinic, Guildford. It's actually just "next door" to the Royal Surrey, which is nice.
Lois will be having a cataract removed from her left eye, but she already had one removed from her other eye 3 or 4 years ago, so she knows what it's all about. She says she was in the chair waiting for her eye surgeon to "stop faffing about" and start the surgery, when he told her he'd already finished. So, no big deal, she says.
waiting-room and staff at the Optegra Eye Clinic, next to the Surrey County Hospital, Guildford
My "attack plan" is to approach via the Surrey Research Park's "soft underbelly", making my entry from Gill Road, in case you're a Surrey County Hospital "aficionado" and are interested to know! [No we're not! - Ed]. It's the hospital where our daughter Alison gave birth to her 3 children (not all at the same time(!)), back in the "noughties".
flashback to 2006 - our daughter Alison with little Josie at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford: her first child, and mine and Lois's first grandchild. Happy days !!!!
Alison is now 49, and that new-born babe, Josie, picture above, is now 18, able to vote, and starting university in September - yikes (again) !!!!)
flashback to March 8th: Josie (18) and eldest of our 5 grandchildren
having a meal with us at our house in nearby Liphook, Hampshire
As far as Lois's early morning eye appointment next week is concerned, the omens are good - the clinic is on Alan Turing Road, named after the World War II Bletchley Park code-breaker, one of my professional heroes. And even better, there's a Joseph's Kebab Van just round the corner in Egerton Road, which could come in handy if the appointment proves a lengthy one, which is nice!
And I'll be including a review of Joseph's kebabs in my blog next week, so watch this space!
It's all a bit crazy, but today is the day when they family start to move out of their bigger, crumbling mansion and into the slightly smaller, un-crumbled rented mansion, so Lois and I drop by to watch the chaos, meet the friendly removal guys, drink cups of Alison's coffee and generally offer a sympathetic ear and some emotional support, if asked (!).
Sarah tells us today that this Perth high school the twins will be attending only teaches one foreign language, and that's Japanese, which is a nice coincidence for me, due to my being "fluent in Japanese" in 1969, when I got my degree.
11:00 It's already 11 am, and another busy day today for Lois and me. We dash over to the house in nearby Headley, Hampshire, where our daughter Ali and husband Ed live with their 3 teenage kids: Josie (18), plus Rosalind (16) and Isaac (14).
The family live in a semi-detached crumbling Victorian mansion, one half of the house originally built in the 1870's for John Parish, one of Queen Victoria's vice-admirals, who sailed the China Seas and kept it pirate-free, which was really useful for honest seafarers, to put it mildly! The family is having extensive renovations done to the house this year, and whilst the work is going on, they'll be renting a slightly smaller "mansion", a few miles away in Churt.
(left) Lois outside the crumbling Victorian mansion where our daughter
Alison and family live, the building being due for refurbishment this summer,
and (right) the slightly smaller, rented mansion in Churt that the family
will be "slumming" it in this summer until the builders have gone away
(left) Lois with our son-in-law Ed surveying part of the mansion's 7.5 acre grounds
- in the distance is a mechanical digger which will lay down a dirt road to enable
the builders to bring their equipment through the local 'forest'. What madness !!
What madness !!!!
Also today we get some good news from our other daughter Sarah (47), who left Britain last September, moving out to Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twin daughters Lily and Jessica. The twins will be starting secondary school over there next February, and this morning the whole family was "interviewed" by the headmaster of the local private Anglican high school, where they get the promise of an offer.
"So we must have 'passed'!", Sarah texts me, excitedly, this afternoon.
(left) our daughter Sarah, reduced to a flickering image on Lois's
Huawei's tiny 4" x 2" screen, propped up on our coffee-table between a DVD and
a dictionary (!); and (right) the Perth suburb where she now lives - sob sob!!!
flashback to September 2024: the last time Lois and I saw Sarah
and family in the flesh: after buying them all a farewell meal
at the Royal Oak pub in Alcester, Warwickshire - sob sob!!!
What are my chances of being able to help the twins with their homework now, though? I told them not to hold their breath!!! Well, it was 56 years ago. Be fair !!!!
flashback to 1970: (left) me during my study year in Japan, in the "leisure-kimono"
hand-made for me by the mother of one of my Japanese college-friends, Hiro,
and (right) me and Lois half way up Mount Fuji, after she flew over there to visit me
- happy days !!!!
[That's enough nostalgia! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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