Monday July 20 2020

Alison, our elder daughter, texts us. She plans to visit us on Sunday August 2^nd, hopefully with Ed and their 3 children – we have not seen them since Christmas due to the lockdown. Lois says our house has got very dusty, as we have let things go recently, to put it mildly. She says we will have to start on a thorough dust and clean before they come – damn! But she’s right.

flashback to last Christmas, which Lois and I

spent with our daughter Alison and her family.

Happy days!!!!

My "zoom" attempt at a U3A Danish group meeting failed recently due to members' lack of facility with IT, so I’m now trying to organise a face-to-face meeting of our group on our patio or in our garden one day in the last week of July, weather permitting. But it’s proving hard to agree on a date. I try to ring Scilla this morning, but have to leave a message.

Let's hope the meeting isn't ruined by strong winds or torrential rain as we sit  on the patio 2 metres apart trying to juggle our sheaves of papers - yikes!

14:00 I go upstairs for a short nap while Lois tries to get hold of a recipe for a "Weetbix Slice" - a Weetabix-based cake popular in New Zealand. "Weetbix" is the New Zealand name for what we call "Weetabix" in the UK.

Lois has done lots of baking in the last few months. We like to have a piece of cake with our Earl Grey tea in the afternoon. Cake in the afternoon and chocolate bars in the evening are helping us get through the lockdown, no doubt about that.

She has to get the recipe off the internet, but she says that the ingredients and method are only described in a video with no “pause” option – nightmare! It was recommended by a friend - heaven knows what it will taste like, but everybody likes Weetabix breakfast cereal, don't they??? 

Lois's possibly garbled "Wheatbix Slice" recipe from New Zealand

"Vanya" and her kiwi version - yum yum! 

(vjcooks.com)

15:00 After I stumble out of bed, we go for a 5-mile drive to Bishops Cleeve and back – we try to do this kind of drive every 5-6 days to keep the car battery in good shape.

We drive through Prestbury village – no pedestrians, the Kings Arms bistro-pub car-park virtually empty – the pub has not reopened yet. The Post Office has been closed for months – we understand it’s going to be converted to housing. Only the convenience store, the butcher (who  does not open Mondays anyway) and the chemist are still going strong, and we try to support them as much as we can. But yikes, spooky!!!!

Is it on the way to becoming a ghost town?

We are reminded that some ghost town or other in the U.S. recently hit the headlines when the famed world traveller Vic Coyne, who lives in Lodi NJ, became quickly disillusioned during an outing to the area (source: Onion News).

SAGEBRUSH, TX- An excursion to Sagebrush Wild West Ghost Town ended in disillusionment on Saturday, when Lodi, NJ resident Vic Coyne suddenly came to see the "genuine 1873 frontier village" for the fantasy scam, it always was. "I was at first taken aback by the blacksmith’s shop with its concrete frame," Coyne said. "But I finally figured it could be a reconstruction from old photographs in collaboration with a local historical community."

The final blow, Coyne said, was the "old-time" saloon, where the bartender's nameplate read  'Smilin' Joe', and one of the menu choices was 'Old-fashioned Sarsaparilla', with 'Hires Root Beer' in parentheses."

Good grief, there are scams and traps everywhere nowadays, just waiting for the unsuspecting tourist, no doubt about that !!!

17:00 We go round and water the plants and garden belonging to our neighbour Frances, who is away for a few days. Then we water our own, including Lois’s shiny new raised beds.

Lois showcasing her shiny new industrial-strength “raised beds”

20:00 Lois goes into the dining-room to take part in her sect’s weekly bible seminar, while I relax in the living-room and see the latest edition of the student quiz “University Challenge”.

It’s a pity Lois isn’t here, because she’s got an extraordinary breadth of general knowledge, but I try to answer as many questions as I can – including at least one that the students can’t answer: they don’t seem to have heard of the word “schmaltz”, for instance, which is derived from the German for lard or dripping.

  

Lois comes in for the last 5 minutes of the quiz and is almost at once trouncing the students with her brilliance. One of her triumphs is with a question about a style of wallpaper, which the students can’t think of the name for. The Durham University captain gets a laugh by saying, “You know, everybody’s grandparents have it!”. Amusing and I suspect there’s a lot of truth in that – oh dear, what do they think of us old "crinklies" !!!!!

So, it's Students 0 Lois 1 .

22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzz!!!!