Saturday March 28th 2026 "Feeling exhausted? Well why not have 'a night in' for once haha!!!!"

Yes, Friends,  are YOU currently feeling exhausted? Most of us are, aren't we! And it's a Saturday night so why not opt for a quiet night in, for a change!!!! 

It's what local 'live wire' Martin Burton is going to do, according to this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire - check your print edition, page 94 !!!!

Poor Burton !!!!!

But Burton's story brings a bit of a knowing smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, as we take our near-daily walk, which today takes us around the perimeter of the "hallowed turf" of local soccer heroes Liphook United, currently "languishing" in the relegation zone of the Hampshire Premier League, no less!!!

And I say "around the perimeter" advisedly, because we can't walk on the hallowed turf itself, because it's full of youngsters from Liphook's "under 12s" and "under 16s" teams, to our complete surprise! We only moved to this area 15 months ago, and it's our first time coming here on a Saturday morning. Usually we come here during the week, and we''re normally the nearest approximation to any "form of life" here, to put it mildly !!!!!

Even the dilapidated so-called "club house" is open - for soft drinks, would you believe! 

What madness!!!!

flashback to this morning: Lois and me taking our near-daily walk around

the unexpectedly "rammed" (!), hallowed turf of local soccer giants Liphook United

At the same time, since we also are feeling totally exhausted, we feel a bit of a kinship with local man Martin Burton, whose 'exhausted' face is all over the papers this morning.

Lois and I are pretty exhausted ourselves today, actually, after 48 hours of non-stop partying [???- Ed] to celebrate my 80th birthday this week, with close family, although local neighbourhood sources say that I'm still "marvellous for my age", which affords me some degree of comfort!!!!

flashback to the last 2 days of non-stop partying [??- Ed]

to celebrate, with close family, my 80th birthday, would you believe!

Luckily, like local man Burton, I can afford to "take it easy" today, for once in a complete blue moon [??? - Ed], although poor Lois hasn't got that luxury. It's her church's monthly "shared lunch Sunday" tomorrow, so she's busy making one of her delicious apple-and-mincemeat tarts as her contribution to the festivities. And she's making a spare one, to keep at home, just for ourselves, so no worries there!!!!

Her tart will be a cheering sight to the congregation tomorrow, however, that's for sure. They're bound to be feeling slightly grumpy, because the clocks go forward an hour tonight, for BST (British Summer Time), so everybody will have had to get up an hour early, which is a pity!

Yours Truly taking a "sneak peak" at Lois's latest 

apple-and-mincemeat tart - yum yum!!!!

21:00 Totally "flaked out" [??? - Ed], at last Lois and I get a chance to flop down on the couch for an hour of relaxing "telly", which is a welcome relief!!!!

It's the first programme in a new series about Britain's national parks, starting close to home, for Lois and me, because it's focussing on Hampshire's "New Forest", so called because it's "only" 947 years old, having been established by William the Conqueror in 1079, just so that he could hunt a bunch of deer in it - what madness, wasn't it !!!

The New Forest is only about 40 miles away from our home here in Liphook, in the south western part of the county, so we're hoping to have a proper visit there soon. Watch this space! [I can't wait! - Ed]

And it's interesting tonight to see how the New Forest's deer communities organise themselves, gender-wise. 

Is there a lesson here for us humans, I wonder?

We hear from a "forester" called Lee, whose main job is to keep the deer and stag populations in check. We see a herd of red deer grazing at the edge of the forest - apparently a few days previously the group was taken over by a new stag, but the females are already worried that "the new boss" will start attacking some of the younger males - what madness!!!!

The testosterone-charged alpha male, given the chance, would immediately overpower the two younger males in a fight, inflicting severe, or even fatal, injuries on them, and the females feel a bit sorry for the two youngsters, which is heart-warming!

Sounds a bit chaotic, doesn't it, to put it mildly! 

But compare the herds of humans who gather where the forest meets the English Channel coast, and who are no less chaotic!

In the local human herds, would you believe, the females are allowed to go around completely unchecked, we're told! What madness!!!!

One of the local herd's females, Jackie Adams, started the group a few years ago with a friend, and now up to 30 females meet up at the beach here every day, whatever the weather. 

But "Where are the males of the herd, while their females are all cavorting, unsupervised, in the cold seas?", I hear you cry! 

Group founder Jackie Adams, has the answer:

And who knew that cold water swimming trains the cardiovascular system by widening the blood vessels and improving blood circulation? The oxygen supply to the heart increases, and, in addition, a dip in cold water is said to boost mental health by increasing the release of endorphins and serotonin. Stress levels decrease, and a natural 'high' kicks in, apparently.

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

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Friday March 27th 2026 "Ever wondered why YOUR Chinese takeaway is suddenly out of meals?"

Yes, Friends, have YOU ever wondered by your local Chinese takeaway is suddenly mysteriously out of food? We've all been there, haven't we!

And by coincidence a possible answer to this, one of life's biggest mysteries, has been uncovered this week by a team from Columbia University, which is a relief - at last! Onion News has more....

And reading this story this morning here in rural, semi-professional Liphook, Hampshire brings a smile of relief to the faces of me and my wife Lois, as we take our near-daily walk, which today takes us through the mud-affected paths of pleasant, nearby, Radford Park, which is nice!

Tonight, by coincidence, we're going to be meeting up with "our son-in-law the hotshot London lawyer Edward" (as we always refer to him!), so we'll be able to get his angle on the Onion story! He's offered to take us out both for a Thai meal tonight with his family, to celebrate my turning 80 yesterday. That won't be till 6:30pm tonight, however, so Lois and I have to somehow "kill time" with a 4000-step walk followed by an afternoon in bed, before the big night starts, something we're particularly good at haha!!!!

to help kill time before the big meal tonight, my wife Lois and I take our daily walk

through nearby semi-leafy, mud-affected Radford Park, which is nice!

As you can see from my "bird log" (see above - top right!!!), all my very dearest bird-friends - the robin, wren, jackdaw, blackbird, blue tit, great tit, song thrush and goldfinch, have dropped by, some of them coming from as far away as Europe and Eurasia, just to wish me well, in their tiny bird-voices, on this, my official "80th birthday-plus-one day", the start of my new life as an semi-professional octogenarian, which is touching!

The day passes, somewhat hectically (!) - Lois and I have been retired for 20 years as of yesterday, and we always say we don't know how we ever managed to find the time to go to work back in the day! 

[Still waiting for evidence to back that statement up, Colin - just saying! - Ed]

18:15 Our daughter Alison arrives to pick Lois and up to take us into nearby Haslemere for tonight's meal, at the Thai restaurant in Wey Hill. Lois and I always try to avoid driving at night these days. There's nothing wrong with our eyesight - we blame the modern overly dazzling headlights. That's our story and we're sticking to it!!!!!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Edward is coming separately, with our three teenage grandchildren: Josie (19) who's on the first year of a maths degree course at Durham, and is now home for the Easter break; Rosalind (17) who's doing her A-Levels and hoping to do an international relations degree (with Danish) at UCL London; and Isaac (15), who's taking his GCSEs this year including Mandarin Chinese, and weighing possibilities for studying in China, either for his A-Levels or for a degree.

Lois and I are treated to a dinner at a local Thai restaurant tonight by

our daughter Alison, son-in-law Edward and their 3 teenage offspring

Josie (19), Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15)

The family lived in Copenhagen for 7 years from 2012 to 2018 - hence young Rosalind's desire to study Danish with her International Relations degree, that is, if she gets her expected A-Level grades and UCL accepts her. She'll get a study year in Denmark as part of her degree course, which will keep up the family's connection with the country, where they still have several good friends. All three children attended International School there.

flashback to 2017: Lois and I drop our 3 grandchildren off at 

their school in Copenhagen. We were spending a week there

looking after them, while their parents were away in Hong Kong

Tonight the talk turns to this week's inconclusive Danish elections, which has produced a hung parliament. We briefly discuss the efforts of veteran Danish politician Lars Lokke Rasmussen, dubbed "the Kingmaker" by the press, who's currently trying to sort out the mess, so that some sort of coalition government can take office.

Poor Lars !!!!!

If anybody can sort out the mess, however, it's Lars, Lois and I think!

Lars is the only senior Danish politician that both Lois and I have shaken hands with. Sitting at a table outside a restaurant in the centre of Copenhagen with our daughter Alison during Denmark's 2014 election campaign , we were taken by surprise when Lars suddenly appeared from around the corner with his entourage of supporters, plus demonstrators and a Danish TV camera crew - quite a 'circus'!

He shook all our hands but moved swiftly on after we told him we were foreigners and didn't have a vote.

flashback to 2014: Lars Lokke Rasmussen, seen here in happier times, on the election

trail in Copenhagen, stops to say hello to Lois and me, sitting at a table outside 

a cafe, until he realises we haven't got a vote, and he moves swiftly on (!)

It was certainly a memorable moment for Lois and me, and we like to think that that was reciprocal, and that Lars often remembers his little chat with us, perhaps regretting that he didn't take the opportunity to get our phone number.

I wonder....!

While we're sitting here tonight in this Thai restaurant in Haslemere, Edward gets one of his AI bot friends to compose a Elton John-style song for the occasion, "Lemongrass and Lime", which is a nice touch!

Just click on the picture, to hear the song - you'll be glad you did haha!!!

Told you!!!

Just play it over and over, and I guarantee that eventually you'll start to love it - suggested minimum: 2 hours haha!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Thursday March 26th 2026 "How to be eighty, by a local expert haha!"

Yay!!!! A lovely day for Yours Truly's 80th birthday, with blue skies and some sunshine, although temperatures not ideal - brrrrr!!!! 

It doesn't really feel quite real to be actually 80, but it happens to a lot of lucky people these days, and I'm certainly not grumbling!

To celebrate, Lois and I drive 10 miles down to Petersfield to take a walk round the lake - the locals call it "the heath pond". It looks sunny but you can tell from our coats that we're battling a chilly breeze, but no matter, because it's my birthday, yay!!!

Those pictures above make it look like it's just Lois and me and a bunch of ducks and geese going out and about this morning, but actually the whole "heath pond" is throbbing with life, including "new life", especially round the tea-shop, which is nice! 

Local couples have obviously been busy making babies (!), and today we see, like, a billion of these babies and toddlers etc, more probably, together with their mums, grannies and grampas, walking round the lake and saying hello to the ducks etc. 

What madness!!!!

Even the local wildlife has been "at it", and on our walk, Lois and I find time to greet a couple of geese with their 5 or so little chicks - awwwww, bless!!!!!

After our walk, there's just time to have a snack lunch at the aptly named Plump Duck Tea-room, a coffee and a bacon-and-brie panini, before it's time to go home for a lovely afternoon in bed, which is nice!

Then, around 4pm, we get a visit from our daughter Alison and her three teenage offspring, Josie (19), Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15). Our son-in-law Edward can't be here - he's in London on business, but we'll see him tomorrow when they take Lois and me out for a birthday meal at a local Thai restaurant, which will be nice!

Josie, a first year student at Durham in the far north of England, is home for the Easter break, but the big news is that Rosalind, who's taking her A-Levels this summer, now has University College London (UCL) as her first choice for university in September, and earlier today, she even visited her potential bedsit in a student residential block in the Bloomsbury area of London.

Rosalind hopes to be taking a degree course in "international relations", but including a subsidiary course in the Danish language, with it, like! And she'll get a study year in Denmark as part of her degree, which is nice.

flashback to earlier today: our daughter Alison

in London with Rosalind (17) checking out her 

potential student bedsit if she's accepted

to do a degree course in International Relations

and Danish Language, which will be nice!

This is very good news, because it'll maintain the family's links with Denmark. Alison and family lived in Copenhagen for 7 years from 2012 to 2018, and Lois and I visited them there several times. 

All 3 kids went to school there and they still have a lot of friends in the city. Plus, it will tempt all the rest of us - even Lois and me "if we're spared", as Lois's old dad Dennis used to say (!) - to take the short flight over there, just to check that Rosalind's keeping to the straight and narrow, and not getting up to any Scandi-mischief while she's out of the country haha!

Lois outdoes herself again with the lovely message on top of my jam-sponge birthday cake. Her formula for deriving the number 80 looks a bit random, but TV Countdown quiz presenter Carol Vorderman would be proud of her. Lois literally had just these 5 figures left in her box-of-tricks, one two, two threes and one five, and she somehow found a way to combine them to produce a game-changing formula, now free to use by the general public. 

What a woman I married!!!

TV's Carol Vorderman, presenter of daytime quiz Countdown

Also on the cake, Lois finds the time to showcase her progress in Latin with the phrase "Amamus Te Poppa" (English: we love you Poppa), with musical notes suggesting possibly a Gregorian chant or something similar! Awwwww!!!!

Kudos, Lois!!!!

And finally to the slightly "seamy" side of my birthday. It turns out that my main gift-donors - (1) Lois, (2) our daughter Alison and family in nearby Headley, and (3) our daughter Sarah and family in Perth, Australia, have all, completely independently, chosen to give me gin this year. 

This is very welcome, although it makes me look a bit bad, I feel. A nice gin and tonic, just at G&T o'clock (!) obviously, is my favourite tipple, but it's not as if I'm drinking myself under the table every night -  moderation in all things, that's my motto!

[How can we be sure of that, Colin! - Ed]

 

(top left) Lois's present to me, (top right) Alison and family's gift,

and below my sweet card and present from Sarah and family in Perth, Australia

And that, in brief, is how you do it - becoming 80, that is! But if you're over 80 yourself, you'll know all that already anyway, so "Kudos!" to you!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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