10:00 I spend some time on the computer, devising the weekly
Hungarian vocabulary test I send to my friend “Magyar” Mike. Incredibly, we’ve been practising speaking Hungarian together for nearly 30 years – one day we’ll get it right haha.
Mike emailed a vocab test to me yesterday, as he does every week, but lately he has seemed to
get muddled and send me a test he’s sent me the week before. This has now happened twice
in the last month. I think his lack of IT expertise is most probably to blame
here, but I’m not 100% sure – I decide not to let him know of the blunders, so
as not to worry him or give him any extra work to do.
Flashback to 1994: "Magyar" Mike in
happier times – on my first ever visit to Hungary:
me (left) with Mike, showcasing for the cameras
our newly acquired
second-hand "excellent worker" medals from the
communist era
Oh dear – old people eh! What can you do?!!!!
11:30 I ring Scilla, a member of our U3A Danish group, who is also
leader of the local U3A Old Norse Group, as well as being a distinguished translator into English of
many Old Norse Viking sagas.
I want to find out why Scilla hasn’t responded to my emails about
our next Danish group meeting, which Lois and I plan to hold on our patio with
appropriate social distancing. It turns out she hasn’t been too well, and her
son Tom came and picked her up and drove her back to his home in Frome,
Somerset, to keep more of an eye on her.
Our Danish group members are dropping like flies at the moment and
it looks like it’s just going to Lois, me and Joy all being “distant” with each
other on our patio at the end of this month. What madness!
Poor Scilla !!!!!!
12:00 Our friend Fran calls to see us for a coffee on the patio (with
a portion of Lois’s delicious home-made kiwi-style “Weetbix Slice”) and to lend
Lois the latest book she has been reading.
It’s a nice treat for Lois and me (but especially for Lois) to be
able to talk to somebody different for once. We’re normally just a twosome all
day and all night, 24/7, which must be quite wearing for Lois, no doubt about
that! Whereas I myself am on the whole not too unhappy with the situation – I have to confess I’m
a hyper-introvert, and don’t need a lot of company.
Flashback
to June 2019:
Fran (left) and
Lois: we visit Fran partly to admire her “wild”
meadow-style garden, complete with
obligatory poppies
20:00 Lois goes into the dining-room to take part in her sect’s
weekly Bible Class. She emerges at 9 pm and we watch the fourth episode
in Dan Jones’s interesting series “Walking Britain’s Roman Roads”.
There’s actually precious little walking seen in the programme, and there’s not
that much about the actual roads, which is a pity. The title is just a hook to
hang various segments on, telling us about the Roman way of life.
This episode is about the Fosse Way, that led from Exeter north
east to Lincoln. And it’s a great thrill for me to see the Roman structure of
the Newport Arch in Lincoln, still standing today, to be seen over one of the main roads
into the city centre.
At the start of the programme there’s an interesting segment in
Bath, where Dr Jane Draycott tells us about the Roman custom of bathing, which
involved not just washing but getting oiled up, rubbed down, working out,
having your body hair singed off with hot walnuts (the Romans disliked body
hair apparently), having snacks, hanging out with the other customers,
listening to poetry or music, being entertained by jugglers, getting massages
with so-called “extras” and the occasional orgy, according to Dr Draycott.
But was it strictly necessary for presenter Dan Jones to interview
Dr. Draycott in a massage parlour? We found it rather distracting. Do producers
think it’s too boring to have people interviewed in a TV studio or in a college
lecturer’s room perhaps? I think we should be told!
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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