Morning: we talk on
whatsapp to our younger daughter Sarah and her family in Perth, Australia:
husband Francis and their soon-to-be 7 year-old twins, Jessie and Lily. Jessie
is a great talker, but Lily won’t keep still for 5 seconds, and keeps bouncing
in and out of shot, bless her!
Lois is engaged with taking part in her church service on Zoom for
the first hour of the call, so it’s just me talking to all 5 of them – which I find quite
exhausting, however pleasurable. I’m getting old – no doubt about that!
The family miss England after 4 years down under, and they are
planning to maybe come back to England next year, depending on the state of the
virus here. Western Australia has gone back to normal now – if you go shopping
there, it’s no different from before the lockdown.
Lois and I would like them to buy our house, it’s a good size
family house, where Sarah and Alison were brought up after our return from the
USA in 1985, when Ali was 10 and Sarah was 8. But it’s too big for Lois and me
now - oh dear! And we miss them so much.
We spend the evening watching TV, the second part of an
interesting 3-part series on the Art of Persia.
It’s interesting to me that Farsi is distantly related to English,
despite its weird appearance in Arabic-style script. I learnt a bit of Farsi in
the 1980’s and discovered that the Farsi word for “twenty” is “bisto”, also the
name of a famous UK make of gravy. “Bisto” = twice ten (my theory, not approved
yet!), just like in French “biscuit” means “twice-cooked”. Simples!
Omar Khayyam is known in the West as a poet, the author of “The
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” (obviously). But he was also a mathematician and
astronomer, who proved for the first time that the Earth spins on its own axis. He also worked out a more accurate frequency for leap years than was
found in the Gregorian calendar: 8 leap years in every 33. His poem’s “Carpe
diem” philosophy proved popular in Victorian Britain, surprisingly, and also
with officers on their way to the front in the First World War – which makes a
lot of sense!
And it was nice in the programme to see some sort of temple in
Persia which had separate knockers for men and women. The knockers made
different sounds, so the priest knew whether a man or a woman was waiting to
come in, giving him time to comb his hair or ruffle it up, as appropriate!
Perhaps Lois and I could install separate door-bells on our front door – it’s
worth considering! Door-to-door salespersons and distraction thieves are seldom women, after all ! It would at least give us time to hide our money away!
22:00 It’s 10 o’ clock and here we are in bed again already.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!
Danish translation: søndag den 12. juli 2020
Formiddag: vi taler på
whatsapp med vores yngre datter Sarah og hendes familie i Perth, Australien:
mand Francis og deres snart 7-årige tvillinger, Jessie og Lily. Jessie er en
stor taler, men Lily holder ikke stille i 5 sekunder og fortsætter med at hoppe
ind og ud af skud, velsigne hende!
Lois er engageret i at
deltage i hendes gudstjeneste på Zoom i den første time af opkaldet, så det er
bare mig, der taler - hvilket jeg synes er meget udmattende, dog behageligt. Jeg bliver
gammel - ingen tvivl om det!
Familien savner England
efter 4 år under, og de planlægger måske at vende tilbage til England næste år,
afhængig af virusets tilstand her. Western Australia er vendt tilbage til det
normale nu - hvis du handler der, er det ikke anderledes end inden lockdown.
Lois og jeg vil gerne have, at de skulle købe vores hus, det er et familiehus i
god størrelse, hvor Sarah og Alison blev opdraget efter vores hjemkomst fra USA
i 1985, da Ali var 10 og Sarah var 8. Men det er for stort til Lois og mig nu -
åh kære!
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