Follow your dream! That's what they tell young people these days, so you can't blame the girlfriend of local man Blake McNally from taking that a bit too literally perhaps [Source: Onion News for East Hampshire].
Poor Blake !!!!!
But reading the story this morning, here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, not a million miles away from Blake and his girlfriend (!), my light-to-moderate wife Lois and I are going to shock many readers of my blog, when we say "Right on, that woman !!!!" - we believe wholeheartedly in people following their dreams, however depraved they might seem to the casual observer(!).
my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me - a recent picture
Lois and I are currently hosting my sister Jill for a couple of days, and spending the whole day chatting about this and that, the old days etc, including a walk through nearby Radford Park. But in some ways the most shocking revelation we hear today is that Jill's daughter Maria and her husband Tom, who've been working all their lives in high finance in London's financial district, have always secretly wanted to start their own sommelier business - Tom is really into wines, apparently - in a good way, I hasten to add. I'm not suggesting he's an alcoholic (!)
Lois and me with my sister Jill doing an "old codger" walk
through nearby Radford Park, and checking out its iconic duck pond
The other shocking revelation that comes out of Jill's visit here this weekend is how much Jill and I have aged, and I don't think it's because of excessive wine-drinking - perhaps it's our other "guilty pleasures": all the overindulgence in salsa dancing, rock climbing and karaoke, as per Blake's girlfriend (see Onion story above) !!!!
(left) flashback to 1960: Jill and me in the back garden of our parents' home
in Redland, Bristol, and (right) today, for one of our occasional reunions,
here this morning in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire
To see on our faces what life has done to us, and how much we've both aged, is a bit of a shocking discovery after 65 years, I have to say. It must be all the worry haha !!!
We certainly don't drink a lot of wine. And another indulgence all 3 of us deny "dabbling in" is excessive use of frankincense. I've never been exactly sure what it is - I've sometimes looked for it casually in Sainsburys and WH Smith's, Boots the Chemist even, but so far I haven't seen any on the shelves, and I've always been too embarrassed to ask for it, believe it or not.
a typical Arab person scraping some frankincense off a tree
Tonight during the latest programme from Bettany Hughes about mysterious ancient people the Nabataeans, we find out that the Romans used to order huge catering packs of frankincense, to make everything smell nice in their lives - not just each other but also their houses, which stank to high heaven, due to poor standards of hygiene and limited, if any, cleaning of carpets, beds etc - certainly no hoovering, which hadn't been invented even.
Yes the smelly old Romans used to depend on getting their frankincense every month, but there was a problem however.
The Nabataean tribe in the Arabian peninsular more or less had a monopoly on frankincense, and at one stage, 2000 years ago, they even slapped a 25% tariff on it moving in or out of their country, so Donald Trump-style tariffs are nothing new, that's for sure.
Eventually the Romans got fed up with paying the tariff, and so threatened to send an army to Arabia to just take it all over - again, very much like Donald with Greenland, Panama Canal, Canada etc. Sadly for the Romans, however, they couldn't break into the Nabataean stronghold of Marib, and had to retreat rather humiliatingly back to the Red Sea to get back in their boats and return to Rome.
Interestingly, the Nabataeans increased the retreating Romans' misery still further, by giving them misleading directions: a local resident called Syllaeus offered to guide them back to the Red Sea, but took them the so-called "pretty way", so that when the Romans eventually got back to their boats, they were all jolly tired, to put it mildly!
The journey should really have been a couple of days, according to Googlemaps's "fastest route", but instead the Romans, guided by Syllaeus, travelled back by some very roundabout route, which took a total of 60 days, would you believe!
Poor Romans !!!!!
And how very reminiscent of the Norman invasion of England, as I recall this evening to Lois and Jill.
Because, after crossing the English Channel in 1066, and winning the battle of Hastings, the Normans wanted to capitalise on their victory, march triumphantly into London and install their leader William of Normandy onto the English throne.
The Normans, however, weren't sure which road to take to London, and a wily Anglo-Saxon is said to have misdirected them, saying they "should take the A31, that's the best route, and not so crowded". And so somewhat gullibly the Normans went wrong, somewhere near the site of today's Chessington World of Adventure Theme Park.
flashback to 1066: (left) the standard approach to London for Continental invaders.
and (right) the exit sign where the Normans were misdirected onto the A31 by a local
resident, delaying the capture of London for several hours: sheer madness!!!!
This "wrong turn" delayed the Normans considerably, although they eventually realised they'd been "had", and did a quick "U-turn", possibly in a layby - we don't know exactly where. And the rest is history.
But what a 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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