Danskcolin: Wednesday October 28th 2020

10:30 Our daughter Alison and her 3 children, Josie (14), Rosalind (12) and Isaac (10) were staying last night in airbnb accommodation about 1 mile from here. They arrive at our house about 10:30 am piled up with jam doughnuts and muffins for "elevenses" and pizzas for lunch - yum yum. And Lois and I supply the tea and soft drinks.

we have jam doughnuts and muffins for "elevenses" at our specially arranged "socially distanced tables" - Lois and me in the kitchen, and Ali and family in the utility room - speaking to them through the open doorway - simples!

We have plans to go with them this morning to visit the ruined medieval monastery of Hailes Abbey about 12 miles from here, on the other side of Winchcombe, but we spend so long over the tea and doughnuts/muffins that we decide in the end that there isn't time for that 25 mile round-trip before lunch.

Hailes Abbey - which we haven't got time to visit it, as it turns out - oh dear!

As a result we decide to just have a repeat of yesterday and go for a walk over the local football field to the zipwire facility in the new housing estate, more fun for the children than to see another monastic building that became another casualty of Henry VIII's Reformation and ended up being converted to housing by enthusiastic Protestants, before falling into ruins haha!

Instead we take the children to the local zipwire in the new housing estate

13:00 We come home and have the pizzas and then Ali and the children start off on their 100-mile journey back to Haslemere, Surrey.

The children have been so wonderfully good-humoured, not complaining at all about being cooped up in a small room when they visit us, and happy to sit and play cards and laugh with each other and with us.

Lois and I feel, predictably, totally exhausted. It's exhilarating to be surrounded by non-stop chatter and laughter, although it starts to make our heads spin after a while: it's usually so quiet here when it's just us two. But these 2 days have been a real shot in the arm for us - it will keep us going a bit longer, hopefully - yikes!

14:00 The house is quiet again. We go to bed for a couple of hours, and then get up and have our usual cup of strong Earl Grey tea and a couple of Lois's delicious home-made kiwi-inspired Weetbix Slices.

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, a documentary about the 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi, researched and presented by Michael Palin.

What a woman she was! As a teenager she was raped by her private art-tutor, the renowned painter Agostino Tassi, but she then agreed to carry on having sex with him for several months afterwards on the understanding that they were going to be married. When the marriage didn't materialise the case ended up in court, in 1612.

Artemisia was a strong woman, to put it mildly, and she gave some incredibly frank details about the rape when she bore witness at the incredibly long, 10-month trial. "I felt a strong burning and it hurt very much. But because he held my mouth I couldn't cry out. However I tried to scream as best I could, calling Tuzia. I scratched his face and pulled his hair, and before he penetrated me again I grasped his penis so tight that I even removed a piece of flesh. All this didn't bother him at all and he continued to do his business."

Yikes!!!

And a picture she painted at the time of the long trial showcasing Judith, very determinedly cutting Holofernes's head off with a sword, may betray some of the emotions Artemisia was feeling at the time towards her rapist, Tassi.

Yikes (again) !!!!

Later Artemisia produces the first painting of Susannah with the Elders that shows Susannah not wanting to be raped and obviously horrified at the prospect. Previous painters had shown Susannah giving the Elders some kind of seductive "come on" look - what madness!

Artemisia goes on to present new images of various women in history that she considered had been wronged: Lucretia, Bathsheba, Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene for example, painting the critical situations from the women's viewpoint, breathing new life into them and reflecting their complex characters, showing both the good and the bad elements of them, and not just a "tarty" side that male painters always seemed to find and focus on.

21:00 We continue to watch TV, the second edition of this year's live Autumnwatch series looking at close-up pictures of British wild-life.

There is quite a bit tonight about all the feral goats on the Great Orme peninsula of North Wales. They are handy enough to the seaside resort of Llandudno to come down into the town and do a bit of hedge trimming for the residents, both by day and night, which is nice.

We also hear a lot about how male goats on the peninsula approach the females from behind and get a sniff and a taste of them to decide whether they're in season or not, a period which only lasts 2 days, so timing is critical.

example of a particularly popular female - poor her !!!!!

The male goat processes the female pheromones through its diagnostic "Jacobson's organ" up to the hyperthalamus of the brain, and the right signal there triggers the male's mating impulse. Deer use the Jacobson's organ in the same way, while snakes and reptiles use their Jacobson's organ more generally to detect both their enemies and their prey.