Monday July 27th 2026 "Are YOU waiting to get first glimpse of Beyonce's latest twins? Well, join the club haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU finding it hard to cope, waiting to see what Beyonce's new twins will look like - well, at least those two scamps now have a couple of adorable feet "sticking out", which will satisfy her fans for five minutes at least (!), according to this morning's Onion News!

Kudos, that woman, for not forgetting her fans at this latest seminal moment in her career, which is nice!

And reading her story this morning, here in semi-lovely Liphook, Hampshire, brings an ironic grin to the faces of me and my wife Lois, no doubts there!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

It's ironic that Beyonce is debuting her latest set of twins' little "tootsies", because we're due to be revealing the delights of our own feet this morning to a woman we've never met, although we've talked on the telephone - Julie, who's going to be our new "toes-woman" from now on, all being well. 

Getting a good "toes-woman" is a big deal for us, that's for sure - because nothing says "You're old!" more clearly than having to pay somebody to cut your toe-nails for you, that's for sure!

(left) the advert from Age Concern Hampshire, which first caught our eye, 

and (right) local toes-woman Julie, attending to Lois's feet this morning

Julie, who recently moved to Liphook from Epsom, just over the county line in Surrey, is trying to build up a local clientele in this area. And you don't even have to get the car out to go and see her, because she comes to your home, plus she's about a third the price of our former toes-woman Janice, over in Beacon Hill, so what's not to like haha!!! 

And like all professional "toes-women", Julie talks non-stop so we don't need to prepare an agenda of "current issues" and "talking points", or try to think up an armoury of "corny" or "toe-curling" foot-jokes (no pun intended!!!) in advance, which is a plus, also! As you'll be aware already from this blog, Lois and I are famous locally as Liphook's "busiest retired couple" (2026), so any cutting of our humongous "to do list" is "key" to our survival, which isn't putting it too strongly, almost, would you believe!

[No, I wouldn't! - Ed]

a typical foot-joke to tell your podiatrist

To put it mildly, the stress of having our toes massaged by a new toes-woman will, later today, make our usual afternoon in bed even "keyer" to our day-to-day survival, if that's a word!

[No, it isn't! - Ed]

One of  our many jobs is keeping up with Australian customs, since our daughter Sarah moved to Perth, Australia a couple of years ago, with husband Francis and their 13-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.

flashback to September 2025: Lois with our daughter Sarah, with her 

husband Francis, and twin daughters Lily and Jessica, outside

the Royal Oak, Alcester - our final meal with them before

their move 9000 miles away, to Perth, Australia, sob sob!!!

Who knew, that "Christmas in July" is "a thing" down-under, particularly in Western Australia? It's all about events staged with a Christmassy feel, apparently invented to make the state's many British immigrants feel more at home in the country's topsy-turvy climate. Over there, crazily, Christmas is the hottest time of year, and July, the coldest month, doesn't have a Christmas in it, which is bad planning, we think! 

What a crazy planet we live on !!!

Our twin granddaughters were celebrating their 13th birthday just yesterday, and our daughter Sarah decided to take them out to a "Christmas-in-July" event at a local pub with their two "besties", followed by a visit to the local Treetops Adventure near their home in Yanchep, just north of Perth, ending up with a lovely birthday cake, which the twins baked and decorated themselves, which is nice!

Awww!!!!! Those loveable little scamps! They're really growing up, and how we miss them !!!!

Poor us !!!!!

At least we've got another new Prime Minister this week, and dare we hope it, a sensible one, and a popular, likeable one, which will be a comfort to us, in our old age! 

And tonight Lois and I watch Burnham's first interview as Prime Minister, with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, 4 days into his new job, an interview in which he rules out drama and rhetoric, and, importantly, rules out any early general elections. There's no need for one, he says: we live in a parliamentary democracy, he's got the support of his colleagues there, and he'll be following the manifesto from the last election, which the majority of the electorate voted for last time.

"There'll be no early general election," he says tonight. "I don't think people want it.... What I most need to do is to get Britain focussed on getting the country back where it should be, getting it working." 

He's got a lot to do, also, to put it mildly, so Colin and Lois say, "Let's let him get on with the job, and stop all the drama and all the shouting!"

And he continues:

Well said, that man!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Sunday July 26th 2026 "That new 'The Odyssey' film - what a 'humdinger', as young people say nowadays!!!"

Yes, Friends, have YOU seen the new 'epic' blockbuster from budding 55-year-old "young whippersnapper" director Christopher Nolan yet?

If not, did you maybe miss the recent sizzling preview in Onion News, hidden away a little too much methinks, back at page 94? If so, here's a helpful reminder of the main points, for your reading convenience!!!

Sounds veritably "epic", doesn't it - no pun intended!!!!

But reading the Onion's "taster" a couple of weeks ago brought an all-too-familiar smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in lovely Liphook, Hampshire - not a shred of doubt about that!!!!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

"But why the sudden interest in modern movie-making, Colin?", I hear you cry!

Well, you see, Nolan's brand-new masterpiece is showing this week at our local Living Room Cinema, here in Liphook, but Lois won't let me book tickets for one of the cinema's "old codger matinees", because she says I always fall asleep within minutes of the opening credits, especially if we've managed to nab one of the "old codger and courting couple sofas" that they keep at the back, which I always make a bee-line for - well, you know me haha!!!!

(left) Liphook's iconic "The Living Room Cinema" and (right) the inviting

"old codger" sofas that they keep at the back of the theatre - oooh! cumFEEEE !!!!

Lois and I probably won't be seeing the film this week, but our daughter Alison, husband Edward and at least two of their three teenage kids, who live in nearby Churt, Surrey, have seen "The Odyssey" today, Sunday, would you believe, as part of festivities for their son Isaac's 16th birthday today! 

And afterwards they drop by at mine and Lois's house at tea-time, to give us their "take" on Nolan's film, which is nice!

(left) a welcome visit from our daughter Alison and family, and (right) the scene

in our living-room as they give us their "take" on "The Odyssey" - (left to right)

our son-in-law Edward, Rosalind, our daughter Alison, and birthday-boy Isaac 

They give the film a cautious "seal of approval" - they're all enthralled about it, with the possible exception of our daughter Alison, who reportedly winced during some of the scenes where either Odysseus and/or his fellow Ancient Greek voyaging-companions were getting chopped up, cooked, and/or eaten "al dente" by monsters, as I expect you can imagine!

What madness!!!!

But it gives me an idea for a possible modern-day version, with a now-retired Odysseus watching a matinee of his adventures with  favourite "squeeze" Circe the Witch, and being swallowed by one of the cinema's seductively comfy sofas. 

What do you think - is it a 'goer', as young people say today?

possible scenes from a new film, maybe titled "Watching the Odyssey", in which

comfy cinema sofas are swallowing up old codgers and courting couples alike

- yikes, scary !!!!!

I wonder.....!

But the main thing today is to celebrate young Isaac's birthday. Lois and I are "gifting" him a harmonica, which he's determined to master for performances with his boy-girl group New Horizon. Isaac is normally just on vocals, but he's anxious to follow in the footsteps of his idol, singer Billy Joel, by doing some harmonica-inserts during his singing, which will be nice!

(left) Isaac opening up the recent Haslemere Fringe Festival on the big stage,

and (right) Isaac's idol, Billy "Piano Man" Joel at the Wembley Arena

And, now 16, Isaac's got to apply for a new passport, which will stay valid for 10 years, and which he'll need for his upcoming school trip to China in October, with fellow classmates also studying Mandarin Chinese. 

Isaac tells us today that he can't even imagine being 26, which, to him, seems incredibly old (!).

Awww - bless haha!!!!!

flashback to 2024: Isaac's first visit to China with schoolmates: (left) Isaac

to be seen bottom-right, half out of shot, on the school bus-ride to

London's Heathrow Airport, and (right) arriving at their destination in China

And meanwhile, 9000 miles away, in Perth, Australia, our other daughter Sarah's twin daughters Lily and Jessica  are also celebrating their birthday, both 13 today, and so becoming proper 'teenagers'. 

Lois and I talk to them, too, today, through the wonders of the internet and 'whatsapp' - pictures to follow!

our daughter Sarah, with twins Lily and Jessica, seen here having a snack

with Lois on me in Liphook's village centre on their recent visit to the UK

It's all a lovely reminder to Lois and me of that great day in our lives, July 26th 2013, when Isaac was at our then-home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, celebrating his 3rd birthday, and during Isaac's birthday tea with the (iconically-named) 'Colin the Caterpillar Cake', we remember getting the news on Alison's phone, that Sarah had just given birth to her twins over at Gloucester Royal Hospital, with first pictures of the twins - awwwwwww!!!!! 

Awww (again) !!!!! What a day! And Lois and I remember that day as if it were yesterday, that's for sure.

And see - bottom right - the photo of our dear daughter Sarah, at 36 years of age, on her first day after becoming a mum, with a half-eaten hospital lunch at her bedside.

Golly that lunch looks "scrummy" even now - battered fish, maybe, with mashed potato and mixed veg, do you think? What's not to like haha!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Saturday July 25th 2026 "Is YOUR community going rapidly downhill, in a not very smart car, to put it mildly!!!"

Yes, Friends, are you concerned that YOUR local community is deteriorating rapidly downhill with a lot of undesirable people in undesirable cars turning up and parking outside YOUR house?

It's been happening to a lot of us recently, but one local community seems to have found the answer, to judge from the story in today's Onion News - just turn to page 94!

Kudos, those residents! One just has to make a stand at some point, doesn't one!

And reading those plucky residents' story this morning, here in semi-respectable Liphook, Hampshire brings a tearful smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, to put it mildly!

me and my wife Lois - a recent picture

Community is still important, even in 2026, Lois and I believe, and community theatre even more so! Hence our committed drive to support the local "amdram" (amateur dramatics to the uninitiated!), except when we can't be bothered to get out of bed for it, that is! Last Saturday afternoon we weren't quite in the mood for a bunch of local actors acting their hearts out in front of our noses, and so we casually switched our booking to today instead.

While being crusty old "boomers", we're also quite "wizard", as young people might say today, at pressing buttons on our own, and each other's, phones, so don't talk to us about  "Gen Z" phone-users casually carrying their phones, plus keys, money etc in one of their enormous so-called "claws" haha!

And this Saturday afternoon, casually as anything, we also move our "statutory nap-time" forward to 12:30pm, so we can do it and still be in time to scoot round to nearby Headley Village Hall for 2pm, to catch the penultimate performance of "Flora's Heatherley", a local play celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of local authoress Flora Thompson (1876-1947). 

Flora Thompson was the postmistress at nearby Grayshott, who wrote the classic autobiographical novel "Lark Rise to Candleford", which you may remember was a big hit on BBC TV a few years ago.

And the afternoon certainly turns out to be lots of fun for Lois and me, and for the 40-strong audience in Headley Village Hall, as the local theatre group brings to life young Flora's struggles to find the time, in between her busy working days at the Post Office, to do her writing; while, at the same time, her having to fend off would-be suitors, would you believe, and also having to silence all the local gossips, curious to know when she was going to find a husband, and all that sort of "malarkey"!

The production, by local writer John Owen Smith, evocatively brings back the atmosphere of those crazy, far-off, times - the birth of new ideas like socialism, and also the Boer War which took so many of the local lads away to far-off South Africa to fight the Boers.

Above all the writer does a great job bringing to life Flora's extraordinary determination to become an author, undaunted by the reputations of the already famous writers living in this area, people like George Bernard Shaw and Conan Doyle, who used to pop into Flora's post office to buy stamps and collect telegrams etc - what madness, wasn't it !!!

(left) George Bernard Shaw and (right) Arthur Conan Doyle,

two of the writers living in this area in the late 19th century

At the end of the afternoon's performance, the cast persuade selected members of the mostly elderly audience sitting around the sides of this local village hall to get up and be their partners a traditional so-called "circle dance", to close the afternoon's fun, which is a nice touch!

For some reason, none of the cast picked either Lois or me to be their partners - a big relief to Yours Truly, but I suspect Lois has always had an unfulfilled yen to "trip the light fantastic", either with GBS or with the creator of Sherlock Holmes, so I try to be extra nice to her to make up for it, for the rest of the day - I'm all heart haha!!!

noted author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (ringed) makes 

a rare appearance, dancing with a member of the audience

respected author George Bernard Shaw (right), still turning

heads as a dancer, even at the age of 70, back in 1926

Fascinating stuff isn't it!

[If you say so! - Ed]

Will this do? [Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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