Have YOU stayed in an airbnb recently, dear Reader? Landlords are getting tougher on dirt aren't they - that's for sure!
But often their annoying little "notices" stuck here and there on the property are really only common sense aren't they, when all's said and done!
And it's a view that my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I, in our little house here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, fully sympathise with.
me and my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois - a recent picture
But let me put my cards on the table at this point! [I wish you wouldn't keep doing that! - Ed]
Lois and I are currently playing host to our dear daughter Sarah, plus her husband Francis and their 11-year old twins Lily and Jessica, who jetted in just 6 days from Perth, Australia, to stay a couple of weeks in the UK.
flashback to last Saturday - our dear daughter Sarah, plus husband Francis
and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica arrive at our house
after a punishing 18-hour flight from Perth, Australia.
Sarah and family are currently not sleeping here in our house, however, because Sarah has had to go on a 3-day business trip to Evesham, Worcestershire, to the UK firm that she works for, to "touch base" with her co-workers. These are co-worker that, having moved out to Australia last September, she now normally sees only on a computer screen 9000 miles away, would you believe!
They'll be back here again tomorrow (Saturday), however, so Lois and I spend the morning doing a "deep clean" of the house, plus take in a mammoth Ocado grocery delivery, to feed those 4 hungry "Australian" mouths. You know it makes sense!!!!
flashback to this morning: we take in a monster groceries delivery from Ocado,
before vacuuming and cleaning our little house to within an inch of its life (!)
Busy busy busy!!!!
Meanwhile, Sarah texts us today to report that her couple of days have gone well at the Evesham accountancy firm that she works for remotely (in addition to our second Perth accountancy job, where she works in person - what madness, isn't it!!!). Also that the twins have a nostalgic reunion with their old classmates and teachers at the Church of England primary school they were attending up until last September, on Wednesday evening attending a special Year 6 Leavers' Ceremony there and chatting to their charismatic, inspirational former teacher, the locally famous Mr Palmer, which is nice!
flashback to Wednesday: our 11-year-old twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica (not in uniform (!))
visit their old C of E primary school near Evesham, and attend a special leavers' ceremony
for Year 6-ers, and touch base with their old inspirational teacher Mr Palmer (bottom left)
It all goes well overall, I can exclusively reveal, although Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo's normally "cool as a cucumber" sang-froid gets endangered at one point, when he appears to be attacked by a wasp or something similar, during Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave Overture "thingy", which is a pity, to put it mildly!
the normally calm Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo appears
to get attacked by a wasp or something similar during the performance of "Fingal's Cave",
but he seems to manage to "bat" it away with his baton (no pun intended !!!!!)
Luckily the orchestra pays no attention to him (as per usual !!!) and they don't become overly tense in their interpretation of Mendelssohn's music during the locally now-famous (in our house, anyway!) "wasp incident", so all is well in the end, which is nice!
Fingal's Cave is one of mine and Lois's favourite pieces of music, with its evocative "sounds of the sea", which Mendelssohn had seen, and heard, lapping around the wonderful, and mysterious, Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides Islands on the island of Staffa, off the west coast of Scotland.
the mysterious Fingal's Cave, on the island of Staffa in the Hebrides off Scotland's west coast
But it may have been a lucky escape for Petroc, we hear, because Mendelssohn himself suffered terrible sea-sickness on his visit, so beware!
But, dear Reader, I expect you're wondering, now, about the name of the tiny Hebridean island where Fingal's Cave is situated - Staffa. Am I right? Or am I right !!!!
Staffa - sounds a bit "naffa", doesn't it! But it was the name given to the island by the Vikings, because the Old Norse word "staffa" means a staff, a stave or a pillar, and when the Vikings saw the basalt pillars around the cave, they immediately thought of this as a suitable name for the island. And we're still using that name over a thousand years later, so it's stood the test of time, that's for sure!
[You don't say! - Ed]
Viking settlements in the North Atlantic
The Norse word "staffa", just like the English word "stave", comes from an old Proto-European verb "stebh" meaning to fasten something in place. In English we still use the word "stave" for the bits of wood that hold a barrel together. And in ancient Greek the word came also to be used for tying something round your head, hence the name "Stephen", meaning "the garlanded one".
(left) a bunch of "staves" being put together to make a barrel,
and (right) an ancient Greek "Steve", held together (!) by his trademark garlands
[That's enough old words! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!!!
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