Farewells are never easy, are they, particularly when you know you're destined to be taking a long journey without a friend to help you on your way - and there's a bit of a sad story in this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire. Just turn to page 94, but spoiler alert: be sure to have your box of tissues handy - it's a bit of a tear-jerker, to put it mildly !
And that "Warren feeling" as people here in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, are beginning to call it already this morning (!) - if you take that "Warren feeling" and multiply it by - like - a factor of a billion (more probably!), you'll know what my light-to-medium wife Lois and I are feeling like today, "in spades" !
my light-to-medium wife Lois and me - a recent picture
Yes, we're having to say goodbye this Monday morning to our weekend guest, my dear baby sister Jill (67), as we leave her on the London-bound platform, on the first stage of her multi-stage return to her home in Ipswich, Suffolk.
we say goodbye to our weekend guest, my baby sister Jill (67)
on the London-bound platform of Liphook Railway Station
"Has Jill's visit gone well, Colin?", I hear your cry. [Not me, I've already disappeared down the pub! - Ed]
Well, to judge by the volume of chitchat in our usually quiet-to-quietish house over the last couple of days, I think it has. Jill and I have lots of chats about our childhood, and Jill points out that there isn't a single photo of our whole family of 6 - our parents and their 4 children - but then people didn't take selfies in those crazy far-off days, so there's always somebody out of the picture pressing the button on the camera. Our parents are long gone of course, and Jill and I are the only two left out of four siblings, so we feel we're somehow the "guardians" of those memories from the decades when we were all growing up.
flashback to 1958-9: a blurry 12-year-old me (moved just as the shutter
was pressed!), with my dear late brother Steve (6), my dear late sister
Kathy (11), and my dear sister Jill, born Manchester 1958.
So yes, lots to talk about, to put it mildly!
And if further proof be needed of the visit's success, Jill has invited us for a return visit in the spring to her flat in Ipswich, so it can't have been that bad, to put it mildly. Jill has warned us that we should wear pink for the trip - it's something to do with Ipswich's most famous scion, pop-star Ed Sheeran and his enthusiastic promotion of the local football club Ipswich Town.
Who knew?!!!!
Well, step forward, these three "game gals" from Pittsburgh USA, for example, who make it clear that Lois and I are hopelessly out of touch - well we are 79, you know! [You really don't need to keep reminding us about that, Colin! - Ed]
Apparently Sheeran is a big fan of tomato ketchup, and hence the poster these Pittsburgh gals are carrying.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
13:00 Having said a fond farewell to Jill this morning at Liphook Railway Station, Lois and I more or less collapse in a heap, after all the weekend fun and frolics - well, we are 79, you know - and we more or less spend the rest of the day in bed. [Surprise surprise! - Ed]
Lots of interesting stuff keeps coming in on our phones, however. Lois and I have a special interest in Hungary, a country we travelled to several times in the 1990's and 2000's, and we feel sorry for the people there, suffering under the "reign" of its crazy Prime Minister, Viktor Orban and his corrupt regime.
We get regular updates on the situation over there from our Hungarian penfriend Tunde.
flashback to 2002: us in Tunde's flat in Budapest: (left) Tunde,
me and Tunde's son Gabor, and (right) Lois with Tunde
Even former Monty Python and Faulty Towers star John Cleese is now weighing in against the Viktor Orban family's grip on power and their relentless pursuit of personal wealth (!).
What's the Hungarian for "Tee hee!", I wonder. If YOU know, drop me a line - postcards only!!! - because "Tee hee!" is surely what Orban's daughter and her husband must be saying in this picture (!).
According to "Insight Hungary", Orban himself, who has been seen recently "having a jolly good time at taxpayers' expense", on a private yacht owned by one of his cronies off the coast of Croatia, has otherwise recently been travelling on budget airlines in a bid to improve his image, tarnished by his apparent campaign to "make Hungary safe for plutocracy, and especially for me Viktor" (!).
What madness !!!! [That's enough madness! - Ed]
Also, while Lois and I are in bed this afternoon, an email comes in from Steve, our American brother-in-law, with his pick of this week's most amusing Venn diagrams.
Memories, memories! I remember when Lois and I used to pour ourselves out a glass of water to sip intermittently between our gulps of wine at the dinner table, which was said to be "what the French do". It stops you getting a hangover, but if you do get one, drinking water is better than coffee, seemingly.
There's a question about this cwhole issue on tonight's "Only Connect", mine and Lois's favourite TV quiz, which tests lateral thinking.
Can YOU spot the connection between these 4 apparently unrelated "things", asks presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell?
Yes, you've guessed it! The connection is, of course, Arthurian Legends. The dormant volcano in Edinburgh is local beauty spot Arthur's Seat. That National Park in New Zealand is called "Arthur's Pass". The "Best That You Can Do" song is "Arthur's Theme": "when you get caught between the moon and New York City etc etc".
The Sorcerers Team tonight turns out to be two thirds Irish, one third Australian, so they know all about Guinness Celebration Day.
"Arthur's Day" used to be celebrated, named after somebody in the distant past called Arthur Guinness, but it was the drinks brand Diageo who launched it to get people drinking loads of Guinness on one particular day of the year.
Eventually the "Arthur's Day" hype was wound down, because oddly (!) it was found to promote drunkenness. Who would have thought haha !!!
Fascinating stuff !!!
21:00 Does Guinness help the brain function, however?
I think we should be told, and certainly we think that TV chef Jamie Oliver's answer would probably be "No!", to judge from the second programme in his fascinating new series "Eat Yourself Healthy".
Fibre is important for feeding our immune systems, thereby staving off infection and inflammation - that much Lois and I knew. But who knew that the recommended amount of fibre eaten per day is 30g, but only an estimated 9% of the UK population achieve that?
On tonight's programme scientist and dietician Dr Emily Leeming says that, to increase your fibre intake, remember "BGBGS", like the old pop group:
See? Simples!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzz!!!!!!
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