Tuesday September 15th 2020

09:30 Lois and I ring up our daughter Alison in Haslemere to ask about the latest in her family’s quest to find a larger, 5-bedroom, house to move to, and most importantly one which isn’t on a busy road.

They brought 2 former Danish alley-cats back from Copenhagen when they moved home to England 2 years ago, after 6 years over there: one of the 2 cats then unfortunately got run over by a car outside their house in Haslemere, and Alison being Alison, an extreme cat-lover, she no longer lets either the surviving cat, Dumbledore, or the family’s newly acquired kitten, Otto, out of the house. So it’s a bit of a nuisance to have to always have to block the two cats’ “escape-plans”. Oh dear!

Flashback to last year: (from left to right) Ed, Josie (now 14), Isaac (now 10), Alison,

and Rosalind (now 12) at a Chelsea Women’s Soccer Match

Alison and Ed have already found a buyer for their house, but the move is on hold at the moment, because the owners of the house they most wanted to buy is no longer certain  when exactly they want to move – what madness!

We tell her about the online Cheltenham Literary Festival, which starts at the beginning of the month, and she’s on to it like a flash – she has almost always got her nose in a book, so the festival is even more appealing to her than to us.

This year’s online Cheltenham Literature Festival

10:30 The call ends and Lois and I then take a look at the Hay-on-Wye “Europa Festival” which is on at the same time, although it’s shorter. One of the themes is “What it means to be a European”, but we tend to feel it’s a bit late for that in this country, what with Brexit coming up. We want one on “What it means not to be a European any more” perhaps. What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Hay’s digital Europa 28 Festival due to take place in Zagreb next month

- too late for us Brits ????

16:00 Lois takes some more of our raspberries round to our neighbour Frances. Frances has at last found out how much the horrible new houses next door to her are being sold for: £680,000 Lois thinks Francis said, which seems incredible – good grief, for those little boxes with their miniscule, dark, back-yards, each surrounded by 6 ft fences !!! Can it be true?

flashback to last Thursday: We water our neighbour Frances's greenhouse and plants,

and take another opportunity to make scathing comments

about the horrible modern houses being built just feet away.

She comes back and books us in for a few more talks at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. Yes, Festival Fever is upon us, with a vengeance.

Later I find out she has bookmarked another dozen or so talks – yikes, it’s festival madness!!!!

1.      “More than a Woman” – Caitlin Moran

2.      Maidens, Myths and Monsters – Nikita Gill

3.      Will Coronavirus Cure the NHS?

4.      After the War

5.      African Europeans – an untold history

6.      “What the Dickens” – Jack Noel (Great Expectations)

7.      “Au revoir tristesse” – lessons in happiness from French Literature

8.      Stories of Colonial Experience

9.      Raphael, Prince of Painters

10.   Why Dante Matters

11.   Shakespearean – on life and language in Times of Disruption

12.   Ravenna – Capital of empire, crucible of Europe

13.   Did We Get Happier in Lockdown?

14.   The mystery of Charles Dickens – AN Wilson

21:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest installment of “All Creatures Great and Small” on Channel 5.

Some people are a bit sniffy about Channel 5 for often allegedly doing things on the cheap, but you can’t fault them here – a superb recreation of the series about a Yorkshire veterinarian practice, that was shown on the BBC in the late 1970’s early 1980’s. 

Channel 5 have found a cast of very good actors, all very believable in the roles, and a good script. And of course the original plots stand up just as well now as 50 years ago. Sadly, Diana Rigg, who plays Mrs Pumphrey in the series, died a few days ago.

Tonight Siegfried, the head of the practice sends his younger brother Tristan into town to find some of the farmers who owe the practice money for past work on their animals. He finds that the pub is a good place to approach them, as they’re always in a good mood with a pint of beer in their hands. He succeeds in collecting  a lot of the money owed, but loses it all again by enthusiastically buying the farmers extra drinks at the same time.

He gets the money back from the bookmakers, nevertheless, by betting on a horse which is not expected to win in the big race – it’s second favourite in the betting. Tristan, however, has some insider knowledge. He knows that the favourite, that everybody else is betting on, has just been found to be dangerously ill and has had to be put down by his father’s assistant, James. So Tristan cleans up – but is that all above board? I worry about this as we go to bed. Still, it's only a story, isn't it haha!!!

22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzzz!!!!