Mine and Lois's two-person isolation due to lockdown is relieved for 2 days - it's the long-awaited visit of our daughter Alison, together with Ed and their 3 children: Josie (14 in a week's time), Rosalind (12) and Isaac (10) from Haslemere, Surrey.
They arrive about 1 pm and we have a cheesy lunch on the patio, followed by a tent-erecting afternoon.
a cheesy lunch on the patio
the children's tent goes up on our back lawn
Ali and Ed's tent goes up
some brief excitement - a drone hovers over the next-door house:
this is the first time Lois and I have seen one - yikes, scary!!!!
a sausage supper
21:00 It's an early bed for everybody. All that fresh air, which we're not used to - yikes! They're not supposed to come in our house too much, but they've got access to our kitchen and utility room, with sink and toilet.
Lois and I feel quite exhausted. Usually, during the last 4-5 months of lockdown, it's just been the two of us on the sofa in the afternoon and again in the evening - with only each other to talk to, plus the TV. Today it's been all fresh air outside, no TV, and non-stop chatter - my god, what madness!!!! But really really nice, at the same time.
The morning after the night before. Next door's dog wakes everybody up at 6 am - my god!
next morning, and a rude awakening at 6 am - damn !!!!
We go for a walk around the Boating Lake. Then on the way back to the car we stop at the Boathouse Ice-cream place - another big shock to the system, because we're eating a commercial establishment's food for the first time for 4-5 months. Scary!!!
yikes - now we're at the Boathouse ice-cream place in the park,
by the boating lake, eating somebody else's food - scary !!!!!
16:00 Time for the family to head off again, back to Haslemere, leaving Lois and me on our ownsome again - sob, sob!
We feel totally exhausted, although in a good way. It'll be early bed again for us tonight.
What madness!!!!!
20:00 We settle down on the sofa and watch a bit of TV, the latest
edition of University Challenge, the student quiz. Tonight’s contest is between
St Andrews University and Darwin College, Cambridge.
We find that we can answer
about 1 question in every 5, and we also answer 7 questions that the students
get wrong, so not too bad an evening for us.
1.
Edward Thomas’s poem “Addlestrop”, which
recalls an era of rural tranquility before WWI, names two English counties in
its final line. Give either of them.
Students: Yorkshire
Colin and Lois: Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire
2.
Name this German city and the state for which
it’s the capital.
Students: Lubeck, Jutland
Colin and Lois: Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein
3.
“An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice”,
described as an “anarchist masterpiece”, is a work of 1793, by which author?
Four years later he married a prominent feminist author, and in 1818, their
only daughter published a novel, “Frankenstein”
Students: Shelley
Colin and Lois: William Godwin
4.
Including snowdrops and daffodils, which
family of flowering plants is named after a Greek country girl in classical
poetry? In “Lycidas”, Milton speaks of “sporting with her in the shade”.
Students: Eurydice
Colin and Lois: Amaryllis
5.
The unscrupulous financier, Augustus Malmotte,
is a principal character in which major work by Anthony Trollope, published in
1875?
Students: “The Wind in the Willows” (!)
Colin and Lois: “The Way We Live Now”
6.
In which English National Park are Miller’s
Dale, Monsal Dale, and Longdendale located?
Students: Yorkshire
Colin and Lois: Peak District
7.
In which English National Park are Littondale,
Langstrothdale and Niddeldale located?
Students: Lake District
Colin and Lois: Yorkshire Dales
Good enough!
At the gong, it’s St Andrews 255, Darwin College Cambridge 90, Colin
and Lois (65?)
21: 45 We go to bed – zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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