Sunday September 6th 2020

09:00 At last a chance to stay in bed after 8 am – hurrah! And Lois doesn’t have to rush to get ready for her sect’s 2 meetings on zoom today: there’s plenty of time to get herself ready, with her “Sunday dress”, “meeting hat”, slice of bread, and a sherry glassful of red wine.

10:00 Meanwhile I take a look at social media to catch up with our daughters’ families and their news. Alison’s husband Ed has been working from home since the lockdown, but this last week he has been into his firm’s London office on a couple of days. He takes the train from Haslemere into London with an electric bicycle which he stows on board. When he gets off at Waterloo Station, he cycles into his office – simples!!!

Ed at Waterloo Station, London, this week

According to Mike Berners-Lee's new book, "How Bad Are Bananas?", an electric bike is much better climate-changewise, at just 3g of carbon per mile, than is a pedalled-bike, which works out at at least 40g carbon per mile, depending partly on what you've been eating. Berner-Lee's book claims to quantify "the carbon footprint of everything" in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2E.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

Yesterday Ali and Ed's family were at West Wittering, Sussex, on the English Channel coast, as a pre-birthday outing for their eldest, Josie, who turns 14 tomorrow. 

How time flies! I well remember the day Alison told Lois and me that she was pregnant with Josie: it was, by coincidence, the day in March 2006 when we both finally retired from out jobs - memories!!!!

Rosalind (12), Ed, Josie and Isaac (10) at West Wittering, Sussex,

on the south coast.

Meanwhile, our daughter Sarah and her husband Francis are leading a coronavirus-free, lockdown-free life in Western Australia, with their 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie.

two recent pictures of the twins and their classmates.

How far away they seem !!!!

Flashback to April 2018: me, Francis, Sarah, Lily and Jessie
at the Elephant Café on Gnarabup Beach, Margaret River Region,
Western Australia - happy times !!!!!

11:00 While Lois is in the dining-room taking part in her zoom sessions, I settle down in the living-room and take a look at Anna Grue’s Danish crime novel, “The Further You Fall”, which is our U3A Danish group’s current project. We are hoping to hold another group meeting on Skype on Thursday afternoon.

Anna Grue’s “The Further You Fall”,

which is our U3A Danish group’s current project

Danish crime writer, Anna Grue

A body has been found on the beach – it’s the body of Sally, a Nigerian prostitute in her mid-twenties. Her hair had obviously been beautifully braided on the day she died, but several of her teeth had been knocked out, her nose and cheekbone had been broken, and her skull had been fractured in two places, before her body had been wrapped up in a woolen blanket and presumably thrown into the sea.

Yikes – unpleasant!! But our mild-mannered Danish group always get excited over a bit of fictionalized sex and violence. Let’s hope the group never gets really nasty and suddenly turns on Lois and me. We’re safe from them at the moment, while we have online meetings only, but we’d better have an escape plan for when lockdown ends, that’s for sure.

15:00 After an afternoon nap, we go out on the patio and have a cup of tea and a couple each of Lois’s delicious home-made biscuits. For once, the sun is shining. We try our hand at taking a few selfies, but taking selfies is not our strongest suit, despite the fact of having been living in each other’s pockets for several months – what madness!!!!  

our latest selfies - I don't think any of these

are going to win an award, that's for sure!

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, excerpts from a live show in Blackpool recorded by stand-up comic, Jon Richardson, during one of his “Old Man Tours”.

Jon isn’t really old, by mine and Lois’s standards: he’s about 37, we think, but his mind and personality is much older than his years - he’s like somebody in his 70’s maybe, which is why we love his shows. He’s always complaining about not being able to work new technology, for instance.

He comes on stage for tonight’s show wearing an old man’s tie and cardigan. He takes his cardigan off after he gets warmed up, but the audience are delighted to find he’s got another cardigan on underneath.

Back in February we saw Jon Richardson in California fondling his wife back in London, with the use of robotic gloves and a 5G data link. We didn’t mind this too much because Jon’s wife, fellow stand-up comic Lucy Beaumont, is refreshingly down to earth. And she quickly warmed to the experiment when she found out that Jon’s techniques had improved on his previous in-person, hands-on efforts  – but what madness!

22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!