Monday December 22nd 2025 "Are YOU relaxed enough to click with a special 'somebody' today? "

Yes, Friends, if YOU want to "click" with somebody, you've got to feel at "home" first, haven't you, even if it's just a nursing home haha!!!! See today's local Onion News for East Hampshire, where page 94 is leading on this heart-warming story for the holidays!!!! 

Kudos, Horace and Helen! 

But it takes a bit of time for any species, including our own, to feel comfortable enough to be willing to even think about doing some "clicking", that's for sure! And you also need to catch sight of somebody attractive enough to do it with - what younger folks call "click-bait" in these crazy modern world of ours - no pun intended !!!!

And reading the story in bed this morning, here in leafy Liphook, Hampshire, this morning, my wife Lois and I had to smile, when we saw that the couple's union was cemented with half a box of windmill cookies - some rituals never die, do they!!!! 

my wife Lois and me - some recent pictures

How interesting thought that yet another couple has "sealed" their union with half a box of windmill cookies. And by coincidence, windmill cookies have been marked in our diaries for today, ringed with a big ring, because we're due to visit our dear daughter Alison today and decorate some windmill cookies, with her 3 teenage kids - Josie (19), Rosalind (17) and Isaac (15), this time for Christmas. Ali's husband Edward, a hotshot London lawyer, is not around - even in the run-up to Christmas he's got a lot of high-level meetings to cope with, we assume! 

Poor Edward!!!!

Yours Truly, however, has got to hold his hand up and own up to not being a part of this pre-Christmas ritual today. I couldn't decorate a windmill cookie "for toffee", an expression you don't hear much nowadays, but it's what people used to say in mine and Lois's youth, which tells you how old we are !!!!

I'm careful take along my laptop this morning, however, when I drive Lois the 10 miles to Alison's family home in nearby Churt, just over the county line in Surrey. And, indeed, if you look carefully at that above picture, you'll see, bottom left, the giveaway "top of my laptop screen", as I surf the web, and also, bottom right, the jumbo slice of chocolate Swiss-roll that I've been in the process of "demolishing" (!).

"cookie Monday": while our daughter and grandkids

get on with it, Yours Truly busies himself with his 

laptop and a huge slice of chocolate Swiss roll (ringed)

Well, you're only old once, is what I say !!!!!

Busy busy busy!!!! 

And in the run-up to Christmas, Lois and I keep saying, in the morning, "When today's over, we'll be all set up for 'the big day' ", and yet, when we get into bed at night, we tend to say "when tomorrow's over, we'll be all set up", which is weird. Today is windmill cookie day, but tomorrow we've got our holiday Ocado delivery coming at 7 am, would you believe, and we've also got to pick up pre-ordered meat from the butcher's in nearby Grayshott, as well as wrap all our presents to each other and to our little family. 

It's total madness!!!!

our mad week - busy, busy, busy !!!!

What a day - talk about stress!!!! 

And when Lois and I flop on the couch again after our afternoon nap (!), like old-timers Horace and Helen (see Onion story above!!!) we want to "connect" too (!), and what better than to watch this week's edition of Only Connect, which tests "lateral thinking", before doing some much-need "horizontal thinking" in preparation for even more madness tomorrow!!!!!

Can YOU see the connection between these four seemingly-unrelated "things"?

Yes, I think you've got it, haven't you! Just replace the three letters of the word 'bus' with the five letters of the word 'train' in all four definitions, and you'll get something which makes a bit of sense, finally!!!!

For example, "rebus" doesn't mean "learn new skills", but "re-train" does, etc etc. Geddit ????!!!!

And that gives you something which programme presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell wittily calls "a train replacement bus service", something harassed rail-commuters know all about, to put if mildly !!!

harassed rail-commuters having to "de-train" and board a replacement bus

when problems on the track make "train travel tricky" - say 10 times quickly haha!!!!

What a crazy country we live in !!!!!

21:00 After the stress of watching Only Connect (!), Lois and I decide to stay on the couch, and to unwind still further by watching "Tea with Judie Dench" on the Sky Arts Channel.

Tonight Judie's guest is fellow Thespian, the Irish actor Kenneth Branagh, and they reminisce about some of the many fluffed lines that they've been guilty of, over their long careers on the stage - 100 years between them, Judie calculates, would you believe!

Oops !!!!

Lois and I didn't know that Dame Judie keeps a parrot, called Sweetheart, that she picked up in the East End from a Cockney parrot-seller. And Kenneth Branagh didn't know either, so Judie has to introduce them in this sequence:

And Kenneth, who's never owned a talking parrot, wants to know what kind of things "Sweetheart" tends to say:

Yikes! Obviously "Sweetheart" has been watching a bit too much of popular Cockney soap-opera, Eastenders, unless I'm much mistaken!!!!

It's no surprise that both Dench and Branagh are keen devotees of the works of William Shakespeare, and here Branagh recounts what he sees as the bard's genius.  Branagh says that for him, the thing that stamps Shakespeare as a genius is his capacity to understand what we might call "the ordinary", because "the ordinary" is always extraordinary, Branagh says, and Dench agrees.

Branagh recalls how a line from Shakespeare can help with life's most difficult moments, such as the death of a loved one, events which, due to the depth of our emotions, often leave us unable to say anything at all.

When we can't find words, Branagh says, we can find Shakespeare's poetry, which go beyond the baldly literal.

The man, in the midst of his grief, knew he would have to speak about his dad at the funeral, but he felt himself at a loss for words.

And these lines gave the bereaved son some comfort in his time of grief, Branagh recalls.

And Branagh's words resonate strongly with Dench, who of course lost her husband, fellow actor Michael Williams, when Williams was aged just 65, back in 2001. 

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

Sunday December 21st 2025 "Christmas is for families - but not always in a good way haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, Christmas is undoubtedly for families - but not necessarily always in a good way, maybe?

Did you read today's "splash" on page 94 of the local Onion News for East Hampshire? Quite a "tear-jerker", isn't it !!!!!

Poor Sargent family !!!!!

And the story puts a bit of a smug smirk on the faces of me and my wife Lois in bed this morning, when we read it in the paper's print edition, that's for sure!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And yes, we've got a right to be smug, because the Sargent family's worries are not something we need to get anxious about in the case of our daughter Alison and family, who are visiting today for a pre-Christmas Sunday "tea" tonight - it'll be all smiles from our viewpoint, although whether they say the same thing about us, their "naughty" Granny and Poppa, will remain to be seen!!!!

Meanwhile, we foresee a busy day for us both, preparing for Alison and family's visit - hoovering, setting the table for 7, preparing the meal etc, not to mention all our other duties as well: Lois's church's Sunday Morning Meeting, plus our commitment to finishing the puzzles in the back of the Radio Times, to show the family that we're not quite senile yet - that's our story, and we're sticking to it haha!!!!

Just look at these pictures of our incredibly busy day - look, and weep haha !!!!! And see how many of these quiz questions YOU can get right haha!!!

[That's enough laughter haha! - Ed]

we brave the cold in the inadequately heated Village Hall near Petersfield

for Lois's church's Sunday Morning Meeting - brrrrr!!!!

we cone home and warm up with the puzzles at the back of this week's Radio Times

- how many questions can YOU answer haha !!!!!!

And we're fascinated, also, further down on the magazine's iconic "Quiz Page", to learn some useful words from Susie Dent's "Dictionary Corner" this week, which is nice!

Bet you've got some "Yule-shards" at YOUR workplace - people who leave work unfinished ahead of the Christmas break - am I right? Or am I right!!!!

And Lois and I are certainly already taking advantage of our respective Yule-holes, as our diets are starting to get forgotten, and with a calorie intake that's increasing exponentially as the holiday season takes its toll on our waistlines, that's for sure!!!!

Witness our meal tonight, with our daughter Alison, husband Ed and their 3 teenage kids: 

(left to right) our daughter Alison, Rosalind (17), Isaac (15), Lois,

Josie (19), Edward and me, gathered tonight for a pre-Christmas "tea"

A big to biggish meal, yes, but at least "camel" isn't on the menu, which is some relief! When the table talk turns to recipes, we find a camel recipe when we take a nostalgic look through Alison's old elementary school PTA recipe book from 1981. At the time, Alison was attending Dasher Green Elementary school in Columbia, Maryland, USA, during our family's three years in the States 1982-1985.

How we laughed !!!!

And here, in case you've got a spare camel in YOUR fridge or freezer at the moment, here's the relevant recipe on page 2, contributed by a kid called Cathy Walker - no relation !!!!

Yikes! On balance, however, I think Lois and I would prefer to "pass" on that one, Cathy, if you don't mind !!!!!

flashback to October 1984, as Lois and I embarked on our final 

12 months in America, touring the Blue Ridge Mountains

of Virginia, with daughters Alison (9) and Sarah (7)

- happy times!!!!

19:00 Our guests depart to their home to nearby Churt, just over the county line in Surrey, to feed their menagerie of pets: two dogs, two cats and a bunch of tropical fish. What madness, isn't it !!!!!

With the house to ourselves again, Lois and I collapse in a heap on the sofa and watch a bit of yuletide "telly" before collapsing into bed. Well, we are both 79, even though we're unquestionably "both very marvellous for our age" (!!!). [I'll be the judge of that! - Ed].

Flashback to Christmas of 25 years ago - for Lois and me, our first Christmas in the UK for three years.

Presenter Grace Dent sets the scene by reminding us about how the world was in Christmas 1985. 

And for some reason, Grace doesn't mention that "Colin and family were having their first Christmas back in the UK for 3 years", which is a bit of a glaring oversight, in mine and Lois's "humble" opinions!!!!

Grace's nostalgic and heart-warming programme reminds Lois and me how rude TV used to be, 25 years ago, before the era of "woke" and "PC" - my goodness, yes! Take the BBC's gardening correspondent Alan Titchmarsh with this saucy "Christmas 1985 Gardening Wrap-Up2, during  the BBC's Breakfast Time's 1985 Christmas pantomime, a "mash-up" of Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella.

That was those naughty 1980's for you in a "bean-pod", wasn't it - no pun intended !!!!!

But fast forward, however, now to Tony Blair's Britain of the new millennium, and here's Victoria Wood's "take" on the crisis in the economy of Northern England, when cheap Chinese imports were starting to throw Yorkshire traditional "fettlers" out of work and thereby threatening the very existence of the village's traditional Fettlers' Brass Band. 

The following clip is from the BBC's then shiny-new "BBC Upmarket" TV channel, excerpts from what Victoria calls the year's big film, "Brassed Up"

Little do the most of the band know, however, in Tony Blair's Brave New Britain, quite the extent of the magnitude of the danger now threatening the very existence of the band.

But is  the band downhearted? No! This is Yorkshire, remember! And the lads are determined to make a final stand, with a gloriously tear-jerking brass band hymn:

Powerful stuff, isn't it!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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