Tuesday June 3rd 2025 "Travelling - it's all decisions, isn't it. This way or that way? haha!!!!"

Travelling - we all do a lot of that these days, don't we. Even my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I, who, as fully-paid-up "old codgers", usually stay in most days, actually travelled 66 miles across the south of England to Bournemouth yesterday, in our son-in-law's car (he was driving, incidentally - we hadn't "nicked" it - just saying!).

flashback to yesterday: (left) "old codgers" Lois and me, being

driven to the coast by our son-in-law and hotshot lawyer Edward,

and (right) Edward's futuristic dashboard console flashing

up suggested routes and incoming emails and texts - what madness!

Inevitably travelling involves decisions - shall I go this way or shall I go that way? And just today there's a heart-rending story in this morning's Onion News print edition all about local man Dick Pitt. You couldn't have missed it - it was right there on the front page, as it certainly deserved to be - it's a bit of a "tear-jerker", to put it mildly, so keep that box of Kleenexes handy. You're going to need them, "in spades"!!!

Poor Pitt !!!!!

Pitt committed himself too early, that was his downfall. But, in bed this afternoon for statutory "nap-time", Lois and I see news of a much more successful traveller than poor Pitt, coming in on my Facebook feed.

Yes, step forward, Pytheas, the intrepid Ancient Greek traveller, who, 2400 years or so ago, sailed out of the Med into the Atlantic, and all around Britain, possibly even getting as far as Iceland, before making it safely back to the Med via Norway and Denmark. In those days, there weren't such things as TV celebrity travelogue series - there wasn't even TV in those far-off crazy days - but more's the pity. It would have made a "stonking" series on Ancient Greek TV, and I'm sure the BBC would have bought the series and overdubbed it in English for a wider audience.

 

(left) Ancient Greek explorer Pytheas, and (right) the account in my Facebook feed today

What a guy!!  And his intrepid adventure, to be purely realistic, starts to put mine and Lois's fearless journey yesterday from Liphook, Hampshire, "across the county line" to Bournemouth, Dorset into proper perspective, to put it mildly - let's be honest about it !!!

(left) the route Lois and I took yesterday in our son-in-law Edward's car

and (right) Lois looking out over the English Channel where Pytheas once sailed

Interesting to note, however, that any Ancient Briton, 2400 years ago, standing near where Lois and I were standing yesterday, on Bournemouth sea-front, might have seen Pytheas sailing past. Maybe it puzzled him, and perhaps he stopped for a minute, taking a break from his ceaseless hunting and gathering. And did it make him dream of another sort of life, maybe, as an intrepid navigator, which was a more challenging, but far better-paid, career choice?

I wonder.....!!!!

You've probably guessed already, from my somewhat rambling paragraphs above (!), that today is a fairly quiet day for Lois and me, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook. The big event of the day is Lois's online presentation to her local church's "sisters' group" about biblical character Timothy. 

flashback to the weekend: for days, our dining-table has been

"out of commission" for eating on, so that Lois can spread out

 the books and notes etc in preparation for giving her talk  

Lois says her presentation went well this morning, with lots of comments and questions from "the local ladies" - I knew it would, if Lois has a scrap of the dear late father Dennis's DNA. Dennis was a lay preacher whose eloquence is still remembered fondly, and talked about even today, by church-members all over the English-speaking world.

Flashback to 1985: Lois's dear late dad, Dennis (left), in his

brewer's apron and characteristic post-prandial posture (!)

sitting next to his granddaughter Sharon and me, at a meal 

to celebrate mine and Lois's first Christmas back in the UK 

after our 3 years in the States

Happy days !!!!

It's a bit of a drizzly old day here in Liphook, this Tuesday, and Lois and I don't have to go out. - afternoon in bed and a bit of "telly" in the evening. If only there were more days like that haha!

And although the putative "Pytheas Great European Boat Adventures" series sadly isn't isn't in the schedules for tonight (!), there are some "stonking" other nature documentaries, which is nice.

In this week's programme in Channel 5's "Summer in the Scilly Isles" series, naturalists and bee-fanciers have been painting local bees on the five inhabited islands in different colours, to see if they then turn up on other islands. The big question is "are bees willing to cross the sea between the islands in a bid to find a suitable mate?", and the answer seems to be "Yes they are!".

Well, wouldn't you!!!!

Lois and I didn't realise that the Scilly Isles, which lie in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cornwall, consist of as many as 140 islands, although only 5 are inhabited.

 

Currently "foreign" bees are imported into the Scilly Isles to maintain diversity and strengthen their immune syndromes etc, but this also exposes them to viruses like varroa. If naturalists can prove that the islands' bees are mating with bees from other islands in the Scillies, then the imports can stop, which, even without the use of tariffs (Donald Trump please note!) will help the UK's balance of payments situation, to put it mildly!

On Bryher Island, for instance, naturalist Jilly and husband Richard are painting the Bryher bees green, but the colours are different for each island, so researchers can establish whether there's any inter-island "fraternising".

What a crazy world we live in !!!! Especially when it comes to mating habits, to put it mildly.

And there's more crazy mating going on in tonight's programme in the Springwatch series, which reports on the state of wildlife in the UK through a team of live presenters around the UK. Presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan have found a family of pied flycatcher birds with some unusual "arrangements".

The unusual feature is that the nest seems to be a "menage-a-trois", with two males "servicing" the female, and flying back into the nest periodically with food for the six young fledglings. It's not clear which of the 2 males is the "daddy" of the young chicks, but they're both doing their duty by the female, so fair play to them both haha!

It's a nostalgic week this week for this long-running BBC "Springwatch" series - it's the 20th anniversary of the show's beginnings, when Kate Humble and the legendary, but diminutive (5'3") Bill Oddie were the presenters.

flashback to the 1960's: Bill Oddie (right) with Jo Kendall 

and John Cleese in the classic BBC radio series,

"I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again"

Tonight, the current presenters Chris and Michaela reminisce about some of the classic "Bill Oddie moments" from one of the early series. This one's from 2007:

Fascinating stuff, isn't it !!!!

[If you say so! - Ed]

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!