Thursday August 7th 2025 "Are fantasy dreams your 'bag'? Well, here's your wake-up call haha !!!"

I think we all like to wallow in fantasies don't we, and my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and I are as guilty as anybody in that department!!! But at the same time we like to keep at least one of our four feet on the ground at the same time, and not get too carried away, when we're doing it  (!!!!!). 

my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Did you see this review in this morning's local Onion News?  

Poor local dwarves !!!! And I wonder what happens on [bloody] page 4, if local East Hampshire fantasy fiction aficionados even get that far !!!!

Lois and I, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, are living in a bit of a fantasy world at the moment, living life vicariously through the exploits of our two daughters Alison (49) and Sarah (48), who are both doing exciting things with their families, thousands of miles away from us, having their times of their lives on the shores of the faraway Indian Ocean, Ali on Mauritius and Sarah in Perth, Western Australia.

our elder daughter Alison (49) (left), staying on lovely Mauritius in the faraway Indian Ocean,

(centre) kayaking with husband Edward, and (right) dining with the whole family

Meanwhile, our other daughter Sarah is having equally exciting times, if perhaps not so glamorous (!), sheltering in the family home in Perth, Australia with 12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, while husband Francis battles the current raging storms in their back garden, digging out a couple of blocked septic tanks in driving wind and rain, would you believe !!!

equally exciting times in Western Australia for our other daughter Sarah (48),

sheltering in the house from the current wave of storms with 12-year-old twins

Lily and Jessica, while poor husband Francis is out in their back garden in the rain,

digging out two septic tanks, which have become blocked, would you believe !!!

Poor Francis !!!!

In comparison, mine and Lois's day today seems to be slightly less glamorous, but there's still important work to be done t his morning, clearing up after Sarah and family's recent flying visit, and putting our 'his' and 'hers' so-called 'offices' back into order. Busy, busy, busy!!!

(left) Lois sweeping up out on the patio, and (centre, right) me clearing

up our "his and hers" offices - busy, busy, busy !!!!

Poor us !!!!

We're conscious that we've got a meeting of our online U3A "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group coming up at 2:30pm, so after lunch we hop into bed to recharge our batteries - just a quickie today, but even that gets interrupted - the dreaded "nappus interruptus" (!) - when our new window-cleaner Jason appears with his daughter to do our windows.

Luckily we had some new venetian blinds fitted yesterday on all our windows, so we can comfortably watch Jason parking his white van round the corner and getting all his tools of the trade out, and still have time to get downstairs to greet him. But what madness !!!!

we spot our new window-cleaner parking his

white van - oh dear, another "nappus interruptus" (!!!!)

Poor us (again) !!!!!

Jason always likes a chat, which is a pity! Also he likes to be paid in cash, plus we haven't got a side gate at present, so we have to let him get to the back of the house through the garage.

With Martin, our previous window-cleaner when we lived in Malvern, we could just get on with it and stay in bed - Martin did his work outside, and pushed his bill through our  letterbox afterwards. We paid him later online by bank transfer - much more "clinical", which was nice, to put it mildly!

flashback to us in happier times: watching Martin clean

our windows from the comfort of our bed, which was nice!

20:00 We finish the day on the couch watching BBC journalist Amol Rajan's new interview of Tory Party leader Kemi Badenoch,

Lois and I are quite surprised to find Kemi to be a rather likeable person from this interview, highly articulate, with a charming, sometimes girlish sense of humour. This is really our first opportunity of seeing her "opening up" a bit. We don't watch or listen to news that much these days - we just get snatches of it on the internet, and the balanced summaries in Lois's copy of "The Week". And we content ourselves with that, above all avoiding any "click bait" or anything obviously sensationalist: all the obviously exaggerated scare stories etc. Makes sense to us !!!!

Here she's describing Labour's recent coming to power, saying that the Conservatives were the problem, and that everything would be okay as soon as the previous government was out of the way, and there's some truth in that, Lois and I think.

Amol Rajan brings up the subject of our ageing population, and asks whether the UK is spending too much money on pensioners, rather than on, say, the needs of young people.

At this point Kemi talks about the 25% of young people in the 16-24 age group, who are claiming state benefits on the grounds that they have a mental disorder, and cannot take a job.

Lois and I realise that Kemi has a problem here. She can't annoy pensioners too much, because most of those pensioners that the Government is "lavishing money on", are her party's most loyal supporters, needless to say!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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