Did you see it? The latest scare-mongering report from the so-called experts, claiming that too many people are going swimming in the sea, and trying to spoil yet one more of people's simple pleasures?
What madness isn't it [source: Onion News] !
Let me put my cards on the table at this point. Nowhere in England is more than 70 miles from the sea, and the record of 70 miles is currently held by a little farm in Derbyshire, would you believe! That's one record you shouldn't be trying to beat by the way. I can more or less guarantee you won't do it, so just forget it. [Thanks for the tip, Colin! - Ed]
Yes, just 70 miles !!!!
And yet... and yet... my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I haven't seen the sea since 2019, what with COVID and all the health problems we've had, since being diagnosed as "clinically old" - it's crazy but it's true, you know, as Lois's dear late dad, Dennis, always used to say, God rest him!!!
me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois
- a recent picture
06:00 Yes, six o'clock in the morning, and I've been up and about for at least an hour, here in our new rural, semi-leafy home town of Liphook, Hampshire, And today I bring Lois a cup of tea in bed at the unearthly hour of 6 am, because we've got a journey planned which will take us to the sea for the first time in six years, 66 miles south-west, to Bournemouth on the English Channel coast.
To see the sea, however, is not the point of the journey - it's to see Lois's cousin Brian, who's in a care-home in Bournemouth, and not in a good way at the moment. At least he knows we've come to see him, and that we're thinking about him. Unfortunately, as his wife Ruth tells us, he's very up and down from day to day, and today isn't one of his better days. Nevertheless he appreciates our good wishes, and he listens while we sit there in his room and chat to Ruth, which is something.
Lois and I plan to come back again soon and maybe spend two or three days down here, so we'll get more chances to have a good chat with Brian himself, which will be nice.
Brian in his room in the care-home, with (right)
his wife Ruth, who spends most days there visiting him
Lois and I actually spend a total of 7 hours today - from 9am to 4 pm - in the seaside resort of Bournemouth, which is on the English Channel coast. The reason is that we've been offered a lift by our son-in-law and hotshot London lawyer, Edward, who's doing business down there today.
It's quite an exciting drive, in Edward's super new car, with its exciting dashboard and displays showing not just Edward's GPS directions but also texts, phone-calls and emails etc, not just from his family, but also from his hotshot lawyer friends and co-workers, even from "Big Cheese" Alan, Edward's boss and CEO Transport UK. The dashboard also gives details about the artist(s) currently playing on the car's stereo, and their latest album cover etc.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
(left) Lois and me in Edward's swish new car with its futuristic dashboard (right),
us clutching our "granny and grandad day-out-at-the-seaside-style bags" (!)
Yes, skipping down like 2-year-olds, we get within 50 feet of the sea for the first time in 6 years, before trudging (!) back up the cliff path, like a pair of 79-year-olds, an hour later. What madness !!!!
At 11 am we meet up with Ruth and go in to see Brian. It's a lovely care-home, and today the manager is another Ruth, my late cousin Peter's daughter. Unfortunately, the building is being refurbished at the moment, but it's got a beautiful garden at the back, where you can escape to, if you get fed up with all the banging and hammering noises. And the gardener turns out to be Ruth's 21-year-old son Matthew, which is nice.
(left) Brian's wife Ruth, with Lois in the care home lobby, and (right)
some of the extensive refurbishment work going on at the moment - what madness !!!!
(left) us again, in the lobby with "Young Ruth", my cousin Peter's daughter, who's one
of the care-home's managers, and (right) the lovely garden at the rear of the home,
now managed by "Young Ruth's" 21-year-old son Matthew.
actress Lillie Langtry with [inset] Edward, Prince of Wales
Poor Lillee!!!!
Let's hope he used his patented "armchair of love" (fauteuil d'amour), with its two levels designed to accommodate two women simultaneously. Less romantic for the women, but on the other hand it produced, on average, more orgasms for them, and, perhaps more importantly, it was also far less arduous in terms of the load-bearing challenges, to put it mildly!
But what a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off days!!!!
The male's antennae are "kinkier", see? Simples!!!!
20:00 Home in Liphook by around 5pm, Lois and I start winding down for bed with tonight's programme in the BBC's "Springwatch" series, which takes a look at the state of wildlife in the UK with the help of live presenters around the country.
Another fascinating programme tonight.
Who knew that the UK has five different species of 'oil beetle', or even that 'oil beetles' were even "a thing"? Lois and I certainly didn't, so it's interesting tonight to be able to learn how to "sex" them, if we ever need to, in an emergency, like - haha!
And the male's "squeeze". the female, after a successful "squeeze session", lays about a thousand eggs into the soil. The eggs then hatch into larvae which climb onto the petals of flowers, and which then "hitch a ride" on little bees who visit the flowers. When the bees go back to their nests, the larvae go with them on the poor bees' little backs. In the bee's nest they "parasitise" the pollen and "pupate", to emerge next year, What madness, isn't it!!!!
They also have an extraordinary defence mechanism, as presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan explain using another trademark "cod" props that the series is famous for. Here Chris and Michaela demonstrate with another dodgy-looking "predator on a stick", what the oil beetle does when it's attacked, for example by a kestrel.
And at this point, unfortunately, the programme's cheap "prop" malfunctions and spurts out cantharidin out of the model oil beetle's knees, going all over poor Michaela's new trousers, for which Chris has to apologise.
Poor Michaela !!!!
But with nasty oil all over her shiny-new trousers, at least Michaela now knows how a female oil-beetle feels, because the females also get this oil squirted all over them from the male's knees, whenever they're mating.
Yes, weirdly, the males also use this cantharidin when they're "getting busy" with a female, The male beetles accumulate a ton of it inside their little legs and when they're mating. It squirts out of the male's little knees, all over the female during the mating process.
a typical male oil-beetle, "getting busy" with a female
Finally, in yet another use for the oil, the female uses this cantharidin to smear round the eggs she lays, so as to protect them, making their taste too nasty for any potential predators, and also potentially causing horrible blistering to the predator - hence their alternative name of "blister beetles".
What a truly crazy world we live in !!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!!
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