Books - they're wonderful things aren't they and what are they, if not something somebody somewhere has committed to writing, sometimes things that are something special, and thoughts to really savour on those dark winter evenings!
[Good opener, Colin! - Ed]
Books can be a comfort in difficult times, too, as you can tell from this story in this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire - turn to page 94, and weep (!) :
Books like that one are for keeping, that's for sure. And books have given birth to a rich crop of expressions in our language, as Susie Dent has pointed out in this week's Radio Times.
And my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois is a bit of a "librocubicularist" - somebody who reads in bed, not so much at night, thank goodness, as in the morning, which is why we're late this morning going out on an important "errand", even though we said last night that we'd "try to get going early".
my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois, an inveterate
"librocubicularist" (!), carefully selecting a book to read in bed
Yes, we've got some important errands to do this morning, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, so it's a pity that Lois got up so late today, and no mistake! Number one errand is to start stocking up for the upcoming visit of our daughter Sarah, who's flying in from Perth at London's Heathrow Airport at 5 am on Saturday, with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
flashback to April 2018: me (left) at a beach cafe in the Margaret River region,
Western Australia, along with Francis, Sarah, and the twins
on mine and Lois's last visit "down under"
Incidentally, talking of errands, did you know that the word "errand" is itself a really really really old word, like, thousands of years old, I'm talking? Our ancient Proto-Germanic tribal ancestors often told their spouses that they'd have to get going early next morning because they had an "airundija" to do, and Viking warriors used to carve a list out for themselvs and their warrior wives as an "aide-memoire", if they had an important "erendi", which was the same sort of thing.
[That's enough words, Colin! - Ed]
(left) a typical Viking couple, studying their shopping list (right),
because they had some important "erendi or two" to do the following morning
[I think you've made that point very well, Colin (!) - Ed]
flashback to us this morning: shopping at nearby Applegarth's
Farm Shop near Grayshott, partly over the county line, in Surrey
We often shop online these days, which pleases me because it's less work, but it leaves Lois strangely unsatisfied. There's nothing she likes better than to see the stuff all laid out in front of her before she makes her choice. And you should see her squeezing that fruit - it makes me wince just to watch her doing it.
Ouch !!!!
Let me put my cards in the table at this point [I wish you wouldn't! - Ed].
Lois and I are getting on in years, sadly, and we'll actually be 80 next year - yikes!
us, a recent picture taken in the tiny back garden of our
home in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire
But is eighty really so old these days?
Not according to this morning's Zealand News from Denmark. How do I know that?
Well, you see, not so long ago our other daughter, Alison, was living in Copenhagen, Denmark with husband Edward and their 3 kids, and Lois and I visited them often. The family has been back in England for about 6 years now, but I still like to keep tabs on what's going on over there with the good old online Zealand News [Danish: Sjaellandske Nyheder].
I expect you glance at it occasionally yourself don't you. Go on, admit it !!!!
And incidentally that word "seks" in the headline has nothing whatever to do with "sex" if that's what you're thinking (!). Just saying! It's simply the Danish word for 'six', and what the headline is saying is: "A MODEL FOR SIX DECADES AND STILL ACTIVE IS TURNING 80 TODAY".
Yes, an elderly woman in Hellerup, Copenhagen, near where our daughter Alison used to live, is turning 80 today, but has no intention of giving up her job - her job as a model, I mean!
What a crazy world we live in !!!
Yes, Grethe Kasperson (see picture above) is, at 80, one of the oldest models in the world, if not the oldest. She's been a model for 60 years at the Copenhagen branch of the elite Parisian "Unique Models" agency, and quite early on in her career she married the boss (as you do - see also picture above) and somehow they found time to have two children together.
Grethe is apparently a trained "relaxation pedagogue" (whatever that means!) and also a legal secretary, but she has chosen to devote herself to modelling and family life. Now 80, and still modelling, she's also very active in her spare time playing tennis and golf, and bridge, as well as doing the characteristically Danish winter swimming at nearby Skodsborg and Charlottenlund.
Brrrr !!!!!
typical Danish winter swimming, as publicised recently
by New Yorker magazine - brrrr!!!!!
I won't mind it if my wife Lois (79) becomes a model, it's obviously not too late for it. The extra money would be handy, to put it mildly! But as I make clear to her today as we discuss the options, I'm "defo" myself not doing any winter swimming. I've warned her - she's on her own with all that "malarkey"!
Call me an old-fashioned "stick in the mud" if you like!
Both cold and hot temperatures aren't particularly good for the elderly, I maintain, and my theory is borne out by this evening's BBC2 documentary "Heatwaves: the New Normal".
Who knew that the UK has the oldest housing stock in the whole of Europe, and that it's woefully inadequate in terms of repelling heat or fire, as well as feeling uncomfortably hot for the residents, in these new modern heatwaves?
Lois says it's because a lot of Europe was rebuilt after World War II, with the help of lots of free foreign aid, which the UK didn't get. I suppose we just "too polite" and "too British" to ask for it, which in retrospect seems a pity now, to put it mildly !!!!
And who knew that fire-fighting helicopters have to first find a river to pick up water in a big bucket before they can drop the water down on a forest fires, say? Then they have to go back to the river to fill their bucket up again before they can continue. It's a bit like a child at the seaside filling a moat round its little sand-castle, and have to keep going back to the sea to "fill up" their little bucket again.
What madness, isn't it !!!
In this sequence "a practice wildfire" has been simulated with a smoke-bomb, and Guy the helicopter pilot has taken off carrying his bucket with him.
To Lois and me, however, the buckets don't look that big, when you think of what a forest fire often looks like, to put it mildly!
Lois and I think the buckets should be bigger, especially if, with climate change, the UK is going to start getting more wildfires and more forest fires, and suchlike.
But what do you think? Let me know, won't you, either on line (hashtag #bigger-buckets), or by "snailmail" - postcards only !!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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