Is it your dream to build your own house? It's a dream that's well worth waiting to achieve, you'll find - even if it takes you 28 years - like area man Don Reese,who first conceived the concept of his house as a child at Junior School, and had to wait that sort of length of time before he could finish building it and then step through the front door.
But what an achievement, finally !!!
Laser beams are funny things. You can see the beam sometimes but you can't feel it if you try to touch it, so maybe best not to try? Would it give you an electric shock? Thoughts????
"Draughts begone!", shout Lois and I, in unison, when Russell finally goes at 1 pm, after 5 hours of doing, like, a billion little jobs for us.
Tonight Michael is continuing his train journey through Brittany and Normandy, stopping first at Bayeux to view the almost 1000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry.
What madness !!!!!
Fascinating stuff, isn't it!
My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I decide not to try touching the laser beam in our house this morning, when local hi-tech handyman Russell starts monkeying about with a laser in our living-room, using its thin pink beam as a 'virtual spirit-level' when hanging pictures about 7 inches too low for me (!), but at just the right height for Lois (!).
local hi-tech handyman Russell sets up a laser-generator-thingummy
from floor to ceiling, before hanging and hangs pictures in our living-room
on the thingummy-generated pink beam, which acts as a "virtual picture rail"
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
For me and Lois, however, the best thing out of the, like, billion jobs Russell does for us this morning, is to put some glass-panelled doors across the yawning gap between our sitting-room and the entrance hall, which will make it much easier for Lois and me to "get cosy" on the sofa in the evenings.
(left) local hi-tech handyman Russell fixing with his
laser-generator-thingummy to the ceiling, and (right) me showcasing
the shiny-new double doors Russell puts on between our living-room
and the entrance hall, spelling doom to, like, a billion draughts
that come in and make mine and Lois's feet feel cold in the evenings
You do the maths! If Russell leaves at 1pm after 5 hours of work, that means - yes, he rang our doorbell this morning at the unearthly hour of 8 am, and Lois and I had to be ready for him: another early start for us, and we've got another early start tomorrow (Friday) when local gardener Mitchell arrives to sort out garden out. What is it with these "tradies", as the Australians call them, and these 8-o'clock starts? It's all utter utter utter madness, isn't it!
a classic case of a "tradie" (right) disappointing woman (left) with his
"ED" problem (early door-bell-dysfunction) syndrome
[All right, we get the idea! - Ed]
And when Russell finally goes, and Lois and I get the chance to have a bit of lunch, we feel we've got no option then except to spend another afternoon in bed - well, wouldn't you if you had the chance? Be honest!!!!
[You lazy bastards! - Ed]
20:00 It all seems worth it this evening, however, when we can "bed down" on the couch tonight for our 8pm "dose of Portillo", and feel really warm and snug on the couch with our shiny-new double doors shutting out the draughts, leaving us with 'toasty' feet, which is nice, to put it mildly!
The famous 230 ft tapestry, completed in around 1077, depicts William Duke of Normandy's long years of waiting for the English throne, the throne which had been promised to him in around 1051 by Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, the tapestry's story ending with William's triumphant invasion of England in 1066.
For some reason, Lois and I hadn't picked up on the fact that this 230 ft tapestry is missing its final few feet. Historians believed that when the tapestry was eventually rolled up and forgotten about, its last few feet were exposed to the elements and had to be thrown out or, maybe, used as somebody's bit of carpet perhaps? Historians conjecture that the final few feet depicted William actually sitting on the English throne.
After Bayeux, and the story of William's invasion of England in 1066, Michael visits some of the Normandy beaches, where, in 1944, the Allies began their invasion of the Continent, ending with the defeat of Nazi Germany in the spring of 1945.
The irony of this is enshrined in the Bayeux Memorial, dedicated to the more than 1800 allied soldiers who died early in the campaign, but who have no known grave. It commemorates the fact that those Anglo-Saxons and their Anglosphere cousins and descendants from around the world, had nearly 900 years later, finally set free the Conqueror's own native land.
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz !!!!!
