Friday July 11th 2025 "Injuries, as long as they're 'minot' - they can make us laugh sometimes, can't they!"

Injuries - we all get them from time to time, don't we, and, as long as they're not totally "lethal", they can even makes us laugh sometimes, as any film director knows, who's "worth his salt" !!!

Take Steven Spielberg - please!!! Even when shooting his famous epic "Lincoln", back in the day, he bore this eternal truth in mind for the final "rushes" - it was all in the Onion News at the time. Remember?

Poor Lincoln !!!! [It's only a story, remember, Colin! - Ed]

"But why are you focusing on injuries this morning, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Not me, I don't care!!! - Ed]

Well, even though you're obviously "gagging" to know, I'm just going to keep you waiting a tad longer, because I need to tell you about a new "fad" that's coming in from our friends in Scandinavia.

Yes, I'm talking flatpack furniture. You've probably not heard about it yet, but as a word of warning it's bound to hit you soon and quite change your life in the coming decades, that's for sure! "What is flatpack exactly, Colin?", I hear you cry! Well, essentially it's buying a furniture item, and then when you open the package you find that you've got to put it together yourself - it's just in bits, would you believe!!!

Here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I started work on assembling a bedside cabinet yesterday, because we're expecting our daughter Sarah and family to arrive from Australia this weekend, and it's one of the things we need to fully furnish the bedroom Sarah's twins will sleep in.

flashback to yesterday: my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I

begin work on a flatpack bedside cabinet for our twin granddaughters

due to arrive here soon from Australia, with mum Sarah and dad Francis 

Have you tried it yet? - "flatpack furniture", I mean !!!! 

It's a lot of fun!! But expect a few injuries along the way while you're putting together your sofa or whatever it is! However, at the same time, don't worry too much - at worst it can only mean, maybe a night in A&E at your local hospital, say, or a minor operation followed by a few days' recuperation. So don't worry - start your "assembling" with a big grin on your face. And just have fun - that's the bottom line !!!

I was lucky - I got away almost unscathed, but with a few injuries to my hands - nothing a bunch of Elastoplast plaster can't fix !!! The important thing is that our shiny new bedside cabinet, which we continue work on today, is finally "good to go", if a bit "wonky" !!!

And I decide to keep my plasters on for the evening, just in case, because the big event for us today is our other daughter's 14-year-old son Isaac in playing the Tin Man in his school's production of "The Wizard of Oz". I certainly don't want to "steal the show" and maybe create a minor "stir" in the audience if my injuries start "playing up", that's for sure!

By 7 pm, Lois and I are sitting in the audience at the nearby Bedales Theatre, where various "celebs" went to school back in the day - including actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Lincoln in Spielberg's epic and had to suffer several groin injuries in the cause of entertainment (see above!!!!), also actress Minnie Driver, not to mention TV presenters like Gyles Brandreth and Kirstie Allsopp. 

Lois and I aren't allowed to take pictures of the performance, but I take a few while we're waiting in the lobby etc with the Tin Man's Dad, Edward, Tin Man's mum our daughter Alison, and Tin Man's sisters Josie (18) and Rosalind (17). 

in the lobby, waiting to go into the theatre: (left) Edward and Josie

and (right) our daughter Alison with Rosalind

in our seats, waiting for the performance to start

In the lobby, we even bump into the Scarecrow's Grandad, (as you do!) which was nice - Edward knows him because in real life Scarecrow's Grandad is also Ed and family's gardener. Small world !!!!

Isaac's school - Bohunt in Liphook - has decided to go "full-on American" for the cast's performance, but Lois and I are confident that our grandson Isaac, playing the Tin Man, will manage the accent, and mostly the rest of the cast do too, especially Dorothy. In the interval I even ask Alison if "Dorothy" is perhaps an American ex-pat, but she says no. Remarkable, because you'd almost think you were listening to Judy Garland, Lois and I think! 

Judy Garland as Dorothy in the original MGM musical

Isaac can certainly "talk American", and he also has a really good strong singing voice, which we hear to advantage this evening as he sings the musical's iconic song "If I Only Had A Heart". In real life Isaac has his own 5-piece boy-girl rock group which Lois and I are hoping to hear tomorrow, when the group is performing live at the village fete in nearby Tilford, just over the county line in Surrey.

Isaac is also quite good-looking, we think, and during the performance tonight, when he's singing his iconic song, I can see the teenage girls in the audience whispering excitedly to their mums, which is nice!

It's a pity that he's got to wear that cumbersome Tin Man costume all evening because it means he can't sit down and take a rest for 5 minutes. His mum, our daughter Alison, says that he lay down on the floor once once during rehearsals, and they had to fetch help to get him up again.

Poor "Tin Man" !!!!!

Isaac - he can't even sit down with his Tin Man costume on. Poor Isaac !!!!

And Lois and I can't help thinking, as we sit there in the audience tonight, about our other daughter Sarah and her little Australian family getting nearer and nearer as they fly across the world to see us. They took off from Perth Airport around midday today British time and they're now flying over the Middle East. Yikes !!!!!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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