Wednesday January 14th 2026 "Multi-tasking eh! To women it's easy, but most men seem to struggle, don't they !!!!"

Multitasking, eh! Most women say it comes naturally to them, and yet men often struggle, which is weird! 

Not so, however, with local man Pete Gosling, according to this morning's Onion News!

Poor Gosling!!!!

And reading Gosling's story this morning brings a peculiarly warped, multi-sardonic smile to the lips of me and my wife Lois, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, because we're doing lots of multi-tasking ourselves this week, despite having been retired for almost 20 years, would you believe!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

It's one of those weeks that we dread - when something happens in the universe at large, maybe Jupiter aligns with Mars, or some such freak event (!), and the multiple U3A "Old Codger" groups that we manage - "for our sins" (!) - all turn out to be holding online meetings almost simultaneously, would you believe!!!.

And quite suddenly, we find that our his-and-hers "diaries" are bulging with pre-meeting meetings and sheer multiple hard work and "old codger networking" - yikes !!!! Busy, busy, busy !!!

Take this week, for example - tomorrow Thursday Lois and I have got an online meeting of our local U3A "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group that we manage, and then on Friday, there's a meeting of my local U3A "Intermediate History of English for Old Codgers" group, when I've been "nobbled" to give a short mini-presentation on the English language's most interesting "fruit" words. 

What madness, isn't it !!!

Make sure you're sitting down before you see this next picture, which is of my personal calendar for January - as you can see, there's something on, literally, almost every day!!!!

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

Lois and I are actually thinking of asking for our old jobs back, so we can get a bit of well-earned peace and quiet in our old age!!!!

flashback to 1980: lazy days - me on my first business trip abroad, finding plenty of time

to sample the world's best custard, at a shop in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Happy times !!!!

Unfortunately, all that idleness is just history for Lois and me today, however, which is a pity!!! 

[Exactly who do you think you're kidding, Colin, on this one! - Ed]

No, it's all 100% genuine, I tell you! Even our daily walk, which this morning takes us over Old Man Lowsley's Farm, now a nature reserve, just outside Liphook, turns into a nightmare of frantic multi-tasking, as we inspect the health of the newly planted saplings, check the water levels in the local mini-reservoirs, and record what birds are around etc etc!!!

You can see what a complete mayhem it is by the stressed look on our normally sweet little faces in the photographs we have taken for our eventual "report", but, again, make sure you're sitting down before you look at these!!! You have been warned !!!!

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

21:00 Finally the pace slows and Lois and I at last get a chance to put our feet up and relax with a bit of "telly" on the couch, which is a relief, to put it mildly !!!

At last we can have the luxury of watching other people "working their socks off", which is nice!

Yes, it's Professor Alice Roberts, with her, to Lois and me highly anticipated annual review of archaeological digs across the country. And tonight she's in South East England, in East Anglia. It's been described as Britain's biggest ever excavation, covering a huge area of the county of Suffolk, an excavation which is being carried out in tandem with the planned construction of Sizewell C, a new nuclear power station.

My only criticism would be that there are just too many finds coming out of the Sizewell C dig - it's a huge area that's being researched, so the archaeological team are "hoovering up" finds from a massive range of historical periods all at once - calling for multi-tasking skills of the highest order, in our humble opinion (!).

too many finds - that's the problem at the Sizewell C site in Suffolk

- what madness, isn't it !!!!

As would be expected in Suffolk, there are numerous finds being made from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, not to mention all the Anglo-Saxon finds from the 5th century onwards: after all, this region of East Anglia is one of the key regions where the Anglo-Saxons first settled in Britain, so no surprise there. 

Those archaeologists must be literally "stepping on something valuable" everywhere they walk!

Interestingly there are even finds from the era before any "proper people" lived in Britain, way back 40,000 years ago, when there were only Neanderthals to be found. And also, at the other end of the scale, there are finds from what could almost be called "living memory".

In the "finds tent", presenter Alice Roberts is shown a 40,000 year old hand axe:

At the other end of the scale, there are also finds from the World War II era, like a beer bottle with some beer still in it - what madness (again) !!!!

Plus, a pocket compass has been dug up, dropped by an airman, in all probability, somebody serving at one of the many air force bases in Suffolk, and in East Anglia generally:

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!

[If you say so! - Ed]

History eh! Who would want to study anything else, that's what Lois and I say!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Tuesday January 13th 2026 "Families, eh?! Can't live without them, but mostly, can't live WITH them!!!"

Yes, Friends, family get-togethers can be tricky sometimes, but I've got news for you. Onion News this morning says this is nothing new, which is a bit of a "bombshell" - in a small way!  

Oops! Father bringing his new girlfriend, eh! That could have been 'awkward', admittedly, to put it mildly!!

But the story brings a bit of a sardonic smile to the lips of Yours Truly this morning, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, as I sit in the town's prestigious "Millennium Centre", listening to a talk in the local series of "Intermediate Local History for Local Old Codgers", because - you've guessed it, the subject is the neighbouring town of Petworth, just over the county line in West Sussex. It's the town where those wily Pilgrim Fathers are thought to have stopped for the night on their journey down to Southampton "without paying their bill" (!), on their way to join the big voyage across the Atlantic to America back in 1620, would you believe!

The landlord is said to have let the Pilgrims off their bill, as a favour, and as a result they dubbed him an "angel" - hence the name of the pub, "The Angel Inn" - see? Makes sense now, doesn't it !!!! 

the Angel Inn, where the Pilgrim Fathers are alleged to have stayed

on their journey down to Southampton in 1620 en route to Massachusetts

Let me put my cards on the table at this point! [I wish you wouldn't keep doing that, Colin! - Ed]

My wife of 53 years, Lois, has "let me off the leash" this morning, to hobnob alone with a bunch of other local "old codgers", because she's got an online meeting scheduled with her "sisters' group" - the female members of her church in Petersfield, Hampshire. 

So here I am, footloose and fancy free, but keeping a low profile, scooping one of the much-sought-after seats next to radiators on this chilly, and wet, Tuesday morning - brrrr!!! Plus, I'm trying to avoid the attentions of any of the local ageing "cougars" on the hunt for any piece of ageing, but seemingly unattached, "beefcake" (!).

I arrive in good time for this morning's talk in the series "Intermediate Local History

for Local Old Codgers", and manage to scoop one of the coveted "seats by a radiator",

on this chilly, wet Tuesday morning in semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire - brrrr!!!!

What else can I say? The town, Petworth, was founded in Anglo-Saxon times by an Anglo-Saxon guy called Pytta, who cleared away a bunch of trees, thus creating a clearing - what they called a "worth" in those crazy, far-off times: hence the original name Pytta's "worth", commemorating, for all time, that, no doubt backbreaking piece of work he did, all those years ago.

Poor Pytta !!!

The town subsequently grew and prospered - although "not a lot" (!), says presenter Ian Yonge, and by the time of the Norman Conquest it was thought to have become important enough to appear in William the Conqueror's Doomsday Book catalogue of his new realm.

What madness, wasn't it - but fascinating stuff !!!!

[If you say so! - Ed]

My wife Lois unfortunately misses out on the presentation this morning, but I take copious notes. And I give Lois my own version of Ian Yonge's presentation (without slides!) in bed this afternoon for our statutory "nap-time". 

And there's more history to come this evening, but this time with memories especially vibrant for Lois herself, which redresses the balance somewhat!

Back in the 1990's, when Yours Truly still worked for a living, I was one of Her Majesty's civil servants "for my sins" (!), and "the Department" every few years used to hold week-long conferences to which our opposite numbers in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were invited. And at the end of the conference we would take overseas delegates out for a celebratory meal. 

Wives were invited too, and Lois had a bit of a traumatic experience one year, when we were holding the farewell meal at Chavenage House, near Tetbury, in the lovely Cotswold Hills. 

Lois went out from the dining tables to "powder her nose", and got stuck in the ladies loos, because the door jammed - it's a classic isn't it! Lois is nothing if not determined, however, and she eventually fought her way out.

Later, however, when the then "Lord of the Manor", David Lowsley-Williams, came by the tables to say hello, he asked Lois if she'd noticed that her finger was bleeding. She didn't realise that he was the lord of the manor, and cheerfully accepted his kind offer to go and find her a "band-aid".

Sadly, however, David Lowsley-Williams died a couple of years ago, but on a Channel More4 programme tonight we see David's grandson James, a former professional cyclist and presenter on the Global Cycling Network channel, who, together with his wife Emma, is carrying out their plans to make the old place a financial success, offering to tourists regular themed weekends, and the like, at the family's "old pile".

James and his wife Emma have plans to make the house more of a tourist spot, with lots of exhibitions, including maybe the incredible model railway network that his grandfather David had, over the years, built up in the house's extensive attic area of interconnected rooms, just for his own pleasure.

Yes, "the peaceful retreat of one man"... step forward, James's old grandad, David! 

And when James and Emma venture up the stairs to the old attic in tonight's programme, it looks just as if the old guy had been working on his "train set" that very morning, which was nice!

And the sight of it all leads James to reevaluate what kind of person his old grandad was. He'd previously always thought of him as just another eccentric, "out there" kind of a guy, end of story.

And although James and Emma have plans to make grandad's old model railway a tourist attraction, and a bit of a money-spinner for the house as it is today, they recognise that this is probably not what old grandad had in mind.

Awwww!!! How can anybody not like somebody like that!

And it's especially nice for Lois and me to hear about the real David Lowsley-Williams, because it puts a little flesh on the bones of the man whom Lois and I, in our family, became accustomed to refer to simply as "Band-aid guy".

Rest in peace, Band-aid Guy, you kept us out of war!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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