Saturday December 4th 2021

08:00 For the 5th day in a row Lois and I haven't been able to stay in bed after 8 o'clock. What madness! We've "only" been retired for 15 years - what a crazy world we live in !!!

At least today it's for a nice reason - our weekly zoom call with our daughter Sarah, who lives in Perth, Australia, with Francis and their 8-year-old twins Lily and Jessie. The call is fixed for 9 am GMT, which is 5 pm in Perth - a good time because the family have come home from any Saturday activities they may have been engaged in, but it's before tea-time and the run-up to bedtime, which is good.

me waiting for the zoom call to start...

Jessie wants to showcase the work she's been doing on the "squeebles" maths app for children. Sarah is concerned that the twins have been falling behind in their schoolwork compared to schools in the UK, and our other daughter Alison recommended a number of apps for them to try, including "squeebles".

Midway through the zoom call, Frances comes home from his golf game at the club, which is nice.

10:00 The weekly delivery of groceries arrives from Budgens, the convenience store in the village, so we spend a bit of time swabbing down every item with disinfectant before storing them away.

Then Lois goes off for a walk round the local football field, while I start my first work on this year's great "Christmas Card" project, starting with the cards going overseas. 

After a lunch and our nap in bed, by 5 pm I've done about 20 cards, which doesn't sound much does it? I start with the cards going overseas: USA, Australia, Japan, and then the ones going to Ireland and Europe - Hungary and France.

The crazy thing is that I discover Royal Mail now charges more to send a card to the EU countries than it does to send to Japan, Australia and the USA. What madness !!! 

It's £1.70 to send to Europe and only £1.45 to go anywhere else in the world, including Japan. Is that yet another hidden downside to Brexit? I don't know, but I think we should be told - and quickly!!

Isn't it strange how random it is who you send cards to and who you don't? I met hundreds of people during my student year in Japan, but one by one they've all dropped off the list except for two, and it's quite random. Lois and I met even more people when we lived in the US from 1982 to 1985, but there's just a handful now that we exchange cards with now. What madness !!! [Say that again and you're fired! - Ed]

I've got about 30 first cousins, but I only exchange cards with some of them. Why is this? It beats me, that's for sure. 

I used to send a newsletter, but I've stopped doing that since the pandemic started. No point in boasting about anything - none of us is doing anything very much these days, that we can boast about, are we haha!!!!

17:00 Lois has been asking me what I want her to give me for Christmas. She suggests she could give me some brown corduroy trousers. What a brilliant idea! I haven't worn corduroy trousers for years. I wonder if that's why I've become so unpopular locally in the last few years. Well we'll see!

20:00 We watch an interesting documentary about film-star Claudette Colbert (1925-1987), on the Sky Arts Channel.

In the opening scenes of this documentary we see Colbert playing Nero's wife Poppaea in "Sign of the Cross" (1932), bathing in a huge pool of what is claimed to be asses' milk. 

Claudette Colbert as Nero's wife the Empress Poppaea,

bathing in a pool of "asses' milk"

Lois immediately questions the content of the pool, claiming you would need to milk an awful lot of asses to fill a pool that size. Well, is she right? It's very handy watching TV with a smartphone, because you can look these questions up before you forget about them, which is nice. 

So I look up Wikiipedia, and discover that director Cecil B DeMille did claim at the time that it was genuinely asses' milk in the pool, but it was later revealed to be powdered cows' milk - and as the scene took days to film, the milk gradually turned sour under the powerful lights, making it very unpleasant for Colbert to bear the stench. My god!

Poor Claudette !!!!!

Later we see the famous scene in "It Happened One Night" (1934), where Colbert's character and Clark Gable are standing by the roadside trying unsuccessfully to get drivers to stop and give them a lift.

Eventually Colbert's character decides to show the passing drivers a bit of leg, and it works wonders.

Colbert had a reputation at the studio for being a strong woman, who didn't want herself to be sexualised, so the director initially brought in a stand-in "body-double" to show the leg in question. Colbert, however, took one look at the body double's legs and didn't think much of them compared to her own - so the leg we see is actually Colbert's. Good to know haha!

She certainly knew how to look her best on film. And after she became a big star, she made no bones about using her power and influence to control how she appeared. 

One of her extraordinary feats was to stop photographers filming the right side of her face. Owing to some accident in her childhood she had a slight bump on her nose, which was only visible from her right side. So she was very strict about not showing her right profile on film.

This caused problems. More than once, entire sets had to be rebuilt the other way round so the studio could accommodate her wishes. And she actually had cinematographers sacked if by mistake they photographed her from the wrong side.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!!!

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

Friday December 2021

09:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower, and soon afterwards we find ourselves in our car on the way to the shops at Bishops Cleeve (and intentionally so, we haven't been kidnapped, you'll be pleased to know!). [I'll be the judge of that! - Ed]

We park in the giant car-park at the Tesco-supermarket - it's only the second time in a week that we've done this, after over a year of avoiding busy car-parks and supermarkets. Yikes - scary!!!!

flashback to last Friday: Lois, in her trademark pink coat, showcases our car, 

which had not seen the inside of a supermarket car-park for about 18 months.

We get out of the car, and pick up Lois's shoes from the local Macdonald's Shoe Repair business in Tarling's Yard. But "Old Macdonald" hasn't put a new strap on my watch yet, which is a pity. He says he'll give us a ring when it's done.

The entrance to Tarling's Yard - Macdonald's Shoe Repairers

is the first shop on the left - the one with the blue sign by the door

We also want to get some cash out, but we find out that there doesn't seem to be a single cash machine left any more in Bishop's Cleeve except the one outside the Tesco Supermarket. All the banks and building society branches seem to have closed. 

This is a nationwide trend, we've heard, where banks and financial institutions are closing a lot of their local branches - it suits them, and if it doesn't suit their customers, that's tough luck, apparently. What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

the Bishops Cleeve branch of the Cheltenham & Gloucester

Building Society - now it's no more: what madness !!!!!

Although we now pay for almost everything by contactless debit or credit card, it's nice to have a bit of cash at home as well - for paying Ian the Window-cleaner, for example, or for stuffing inside birthday cards for great-nieces and great-nephews, that kind of thing.

11:00 We come home and take a walk round the local football field. We order two of Polish waitress Monika's new creations: mint-flavoured hot chocolate, plus a Bakewell raspberry flapjack. Yum yum! 

We notice that on the nearby building-site where builders are building some horrible blocks of flats, two silos have appeared, something to do with concrete-mixing, so I suppose they've got as far as laying some foundations. Damn - Lois and I were hoping that they would go out of business and that the site would "return to nature". That's obviously not going to happen - damn (again) !!!!!

14:30 After lunch I settle down in front of the laptop. Lynda's local U3A Middle English group is holding its monthly meeting today on zoom.

Lynda has sorted out something "Christmassy" for us to look at today, and it's a set of medieval carols written by John Audelay in the early 1400's. Each member of the group has been given a different carol to put into modern English.

Lynda makes efforts to get us each to try singing our carol, but only Ant makes an attempt at this. Ant claims it works to the tune of "I Saw Three Ships", and he tries singing it on that basis, but I don't think anybody is convinced.

Bad luck, Ant !!!!

the medieval carol that Ant makes unsuccessful attempts to 

convince us can be sung to the tune of "I Saw Three Ships"

Poor Ant !!!!!

20:00 We watch some TV, and interesting retrospective on the life and career of comedian and actor Grouch Marx (1905-1976).

Did anybody do Marx Brothers-style humour before the Marx Brothers did it? If they did, they kept quiet about it, that's for sure. And even if they did, the Marx Brothers deserve a lot of credit anyway - as somebody says tonight, if there'd been no Marx Brothers, there'd have been no Monty Python, that's for sure.

Lois and I didn't realise that the group did most of their early work in the theatre, on Broadway, and in their first films, for Paramount in 1929,  they simply transferred a lot of their stage routines to the film set.

They did a lot of verbal humour as well as the slapstick, which is nice. One of their first films was "The Cocoanuts" (1929), where Chico and Harpo turn up at a hotel where Groucho is the receptionist. They claim that they've got a reservation.

Chico: We made a reservation.

Groucho: Reservation?

Chico: We want room and no bath.

Groucho: Oh, you're just here for the winter? Sorry, boys, no vacancies. Plenty of rooms, no vacancies.

Chico: All right, we'll take a room.

Or this scene from "A Night At The Opera" (1935), where Chico has asked Groucho to explain the contract that Grouch has asked him to sign up to.

Tremendous fun !!!!!

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

Thursday December 2nd 2021

By teatime today, Lois and I feel exhausted again. We had to struggle out of our bed by 7:30 am because the Borough Council Pest Control Department told us that their "mouse inspector" could arrive here at any time between 8:30 am and 1 pm.

a typical "mouse inspector" from the Borough Council

Pest Control Department

We are ready for him by 8:30 am but he doesn't come till 10:30 am as it turns out, and he stays for about 45 minutes. 

We hadn't been sure whether we should postpone his visit because "our mouse" hasn't put in an appearance for several days, the little bastard!!! 

But I'm glad we didn't postpone his visit, as it turns out. We are impressed by how thorough he is, leaving lethal bait in little traps in the larder, kitchen and living-room, and checking round the outside of the house and garage to look for holes that the mouse or mice might have used to get inside the house. 

He tells us that when he comes back for his second visit next week, as well as checking the traps, he's going to be stopping those holes up. The house was built around 1930, so it isn't air-tight to put it mildly. My god!!!

He also tells us that the so-called plug-in electric ultrasonic "mouse repellents" don't do any good, although he admits that they make householders feel better, thinking that they're "hitting back at the mice where it hurts them most - i.e. in their ears". 

All a waste of money, he says, which is nice to know! Luckily we only bought six - damn !!!!!

ultrasonic mouse repellents - safe for humans and pets,

but also safe for mice, as we hear today. Damn !!!!!!

14:30 We're pretty tired but we have to have a busy afternoon as well. Lois and I run the local U3A Danish group, the only one in the UK. And it's our fortnightly meeting this afternoon. Damn (again) !!!

16:00 At last a chance to relax - we collapse on to the sofa and eat all the biscuits that my new-found cousin David and his wife Zanne brought us on Tuesday, chocolate ones and all. We make complete pigs of ourselves. 

Still, as long as we're both as fat as each other we don't really mind - it's when one of us is fat and the other isn't that dissatisfaction grows as much as the tummies do haha!

20:00 We watch the first programme in the new series of "Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby", where chef Monica Galetti and food writer Giles Coren visit unusual hotels and try their hand at working some of the jobs the hotel staff have to do. Tonight they're in the wilds of Iceland.

I realise, watching this programme, that I, like presenter Giles Coren, am not much of an "all-weather, outdoors action man", to put it mildly. When I think of hotels, especially if they're described as "amazing", my mind goes first of all to having a big, comfortable bed, a warm comfortable bathroom and shower, and a warm, comfortable, cosy bar and restaurant. Oh dear!

I'm not one for scrambling over erupting volcanoes or making my way through the insides of a shrinking glacier. I wonder why? Faulty genes perhaps? I don't think it's just old age [Are you sure about that? haha! - Ed], 

The guests at this hotel, however, are all up and gone by the time presenters Giles and Monica roll out of bed. Those plucky guests are all already miles away, far out of sight, trekking and hiking hither and thither. 

What madness !!!!!!

Do you fancy scrambling over mountain tops towards streams of molten lava...

..or fighting your way through the drilled-out insides of a shrinking glacier, while 

defending yourself against charges of carbon-non-neutrality? Brrrr !!!!!

22:00 No, we go to bed, where it's warm - zzzzzz!!!!!

Wednesday December 1st 2021

Lois and I have both had a disturbed night, after being overstimulated yesterday - oh dear! We must try and have a more boring time today, that's for sure! We've got a "sound machine" on our bedside table that makes the sound of waves breaking on a beach, which is a help towards inducing sleepiness: and we have really put it to work overnight - my god! It must be getting red hot with over-use haha!!!!

08:00 Lois and I are lying in bed thinking after all the excitement of yesterday and our first ever meeting with Cousin David and his wife Zanne, that we haven't got much to do today and we can afford to stay in bed a while longer. But then Lois remembers she's got an appointment with James, her hair stylist, at 9:30 am - damn !!!

Later in the day Lois showcases her new hair

While Lois is out, I start to read some lines of Middle English. I'm a member of Lynda's local U3A  Middle English group, which is holding its monthly meeting on zoom on Friday. Lynda has picked out some Christmassy stuff for us to look at and translate into Modern English.

I suppose it was predictable that Lynda would choose something Christmassy, but speaking personally I would have preferred something a bit racier - still, that's just me, isn't it!

I've got to do a carol written for the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas a Beckett, who was assassinated in Canterbury Cathedral in the year 1170 by 4 "knasty" knights, who stabbed him to death thinking that was what King Henry wanted them to do. What tropic madness !!!!

flashback to 1170 - an artist's impression of the scene in Canterbury

Cathedral during the assassination of Thomas a Beckett,

Archbishop of Canterbury

Poor Thomas !!!!

The problem for me is that every month our Middle English group is progressing steadily through the centuries, reading stuff that is less and less "Middle", and looking more and more "Modern", which means that it's basically getting too easy for us to make sense of. How can I tell Lynda this? 

She's given us a set of carols by John Audelay. According to wikipedia he was born in 1417 at the latest, but died in 1426, so he could have been a baby or child when he composed them.

a photographer's impression of John Audelay (1417-1426)

as a baby, composing one of his famous carols

This (below) is the carol I'm supposed to put into Modern English, but I'm finding it's a bit on the easy side. 

It's medieval madness, I tell you!!!

See what I mean - not much of a challenge is it haha!!!

I wish I could think of a new direction that our group could take. We're a good group that has really gelled together well, and we always have a lot of fun during our meetings. But how can we make the actual work more of a challenge? Answers on a postcard please!

11:00 We go for a walk over the local football field and stop for a hot drink at the Whiskers Coffee Stand. Monica, the Polish waitress, showcases her latest concoction for us to try out - we like being her guinea-pigs. Today it's hot chocolate with an orangey flavour. 

Yum yum, we give her 5 stars!

Lois agrees to try Monica's latest offering at the Whiskers Coffee Stand

we try out Monica's latest surprise  - hot chocolate

flavoured with orange - yum yum!!!!

14:00 After lunch we go up to bed for a nap and put the "wave machine" back on full blast. What madness!!!!

20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch to see an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "One Foot in the Grave", all about irascible retiree Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife Margaret.

In this episode Margaret is planning to send Victor out on an errand to the local fruit-and-vegetable shop to buy some ingredients for the casserole she'll be making. Victor, however, isn't keen to go, for fear of tangling with the sultry widow who owns the shop.

On balance I think it might be good for Victor to have a bit of a love interest in his life - it might make him a more rounded person. But we'll have to see!

Evening falls and Victor is waiting for a bus to take him to Wembley Stadium to watch a football match. Millicent is driving by and offers to give him a lift, but her van is stopped by police, and poor Victor can't get to the stadium in time for the match.

As compensation Millicent offers to let Victor watch the match on her TV instead, and then when he's inside she invites him to go to bed with her. 

Unfortunately I don't see the rest of this episode because I'm interrupted by a phone-call. I'll have to see what happens next when I watch the rest of the episode another night. Things look a bit more promising for Millicent at any rate !!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch an interesting retrospective on the Beach Boys, on the Sky Arts channel.

Lois and I didn't know that the creative force behind the band, Brian Wilson, suffered his initial nervous breakdown when flying with the band on tour. This reaction resonates with Lois - in 1983 we were flying from Baltimore, Maryland to Denver, Colorado to see my cousin Susan, when Lois had some kind of traumatic reaction that made her vow never to get into a plane again after we got back from Denver.

flashback to 1983: we fly to Denver to stay a couple of weeks with m cousin Susan:

(left to right) Sarah (6), Alison (8) and Lois (37)

The result was that when we moved back to England from the US in 1985, we came by sea. 

We say goodbye to the US in a spectacular thunderstorm:

However, when our daughter Alison and family moved to Denmark in 2012, she managed to come to terms with her fears, and we flew to Denmark several times before Alison and family moved back to England in 2018. And Lois even managed to fly to Australia twice, in 2016 and 2018, to see our other daughter Sarah, who moved there with her family in 2015. 

Somehow Lois did all that. And that's what I call courage - what a woman !!!!

The programme implies that when Brian Wilson started to lead the group away from being a surfing band into playing more wide-ranging styles of music, this caused a temporary dip in their popularity in the US, where they were associated very strongly with surf culture. 

Whereas in the UK, where nobody had ever really understood what surf culture was all about in the first place, it didn't really affect the band's popularity with their fans over here, and even seemed to increase it. I don't know it this was true. But we've been told haha!

"Hello England!" - flashback to 1966: the Beach Boys arrive at 

Heathrow Airport, London, to be welcomed by thousands of fans.

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