Saturday, 25 July 2020

Saturday July 25 2020


10:00 The delivery man from the village Budgens convenience store calls at the door with our groceries for next week – everything we wanted bar the courgettes – the breakfast cereals and frozen shortcrust pastry  came through, despite Lisa’s pessimism when we rang the shop yesterday – hurrah! As always we swab everything down with disinfectant before putting them away.

13:00 Our twin grandchildren, Lily and Jessie, have their 7th birthday tomorrow. This afternoon a text comes in from Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, showing what she has got the twins, Lily and Jessie, for their 7th birthday present from us – a wooden coffee shop and a wooden cake set: seems an odd choice, but there’s no doubt that that’s what they want. They are totally obsessed by cookery, watching Masterchef Australia on TV, and throwing tea parties for their soft toys – goodness!

a snapshot of the twins taken during a whatsapp call to Australia
earlier this month. How cute they are!!!

the birthday gifts our daughter Sarah has got the twins on our behalf

flashback : party dresses - Sarah's own 7th birthday, in 1984:
Sarah is on the left at the far end of the table


flashback to June 1984 and Sarah’s own 7th birthday party in Columbia Md:
a pre-tea table tennis match in the basement followed by a lovely “spread” and cake
- yum yum!

By coincidence (obviously) tomorrow is also the 10th birthday of our grandson Isaac in Haslemere, Surrey. We have got him a football computer game for his Xbox.

our 10th birthday present to our grandson Isaac

a recent picture of Isaac - what a cheeky chappie!!!!
.. as well as already having his own football blog on the internet!!!!
What a "wunderkind"!!

This is what makes being grandparents so worthwhile, when you can get the grandchildren some things they really want – and you can’t beat that feeling – it's grandparent gold, all right.

15:00 After a gigantic afternoon nap I hop up on my exercise bike and cycle 6 miles - hurrah! Back up to my usual standard at last.


20:00 We spend the evening watching TV, “Trump in Tweets”, an interesting documentary detailing the recent history of Donald Trump through his use of twitter on social media.


A rather chilling reminder of all the controversies that have raged around Trump, many of them started by Trump, before and after he started his campaign to be elected President.

One of the more trivial but nonetheless frightening episodes in the programme is the case of Lauren Batchelder, a 17-year-old student who asked Trump a question at one of his campaign meetings in New Hampshire in 2015, challenging him on his views on equal pay for women and the right to have a abortion. 





Trump actually gave a short but fairly reasonable answer to her question – but afterwards a mendacious tweet by Trump about Lauren kicked off a absolutely terrifying campaign of harassment and intimidation against her on social media and elsewhere, organised by Trump’s supporters.





The big question for us is, “Could the Trump phenomenon happen here?”.  Some think that a more parliamentary and less presidential system is stronger proof against a Trump-like leadership style. But I’m not so sure –  – the jury is still out on that one!

22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzz!!!!!




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