08:00 Lois and I get up early - Sarah, our daughter who lives in Perth, Australia, together with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jessie, wants to have a zoom session with us this morning. She's also invited Alison, our other daughter, who lives in Haslemere, Surrey, to take part.
10:15 The zoom call starts, but Alison seems not to be around for some reason. After a while we realise that Sarah invited her to a session starting at 6:15 pm Western Australia time, and Alison must have misunderstood her to mean 6:15 pm British time (ie GMT). Oh dear! It's second nature to Lois and me to be aware of the time difference, but for Alison it's an issue doesn't come up so often - oh dear (again) !!! If Alison had thought it through, she would have realised that 6:15 pm British time is 2:15 am in Perth, but I'm going to let that one slide!
Lois and I phone Alison and explain the confusion, and she quickly joins in the call.
Sarah's family are going away on Sunday for Christmas, down to the bottom of the state, to Albany on the Southern Ocean. They may not be able to zoom from their campsite so the plan is for the twins to open a couple of "Christmas presents" while we watch. Sarah has asked us to pretend that we bought the twins a sleeping-bag each, and asked Alison to pretend she had bought them a couple of camping chairs - nice idea, because it means they don't need to wait till Christmas. That's when they'll open our real presents to them. You know it makes sense!!!!
Lily and Jessie, open their shiny new sleeping bags, a present from Lois and me
the twins open and try out their camping chairs, a Christmas present from Alison
It's a rare treat for Lois and me to "be with", and chat with, our two daughters at the same time - it sadly doesn't happen that often these days, mostly due to the time difference between the UK and Australia.
flashback to 1990: (left to right) Sarah (13), Alison (15) and us (44)
when we four were the centre of the universe -
happy days!!!!
14:30 After lunch and a nap in bed, we start our U3A Danish group's fortnightly meeting on Skype. To our surprise, Scilla, the group's Old Norse expert, puts in an appearance. We'd sort of got into the habit of thinking she wouldn't be joining in any more meetings - she's not very IT-literate, but she's currently staying with her daughter in the Canterbury area, and either her daughter or her grandson must have lent a hand in setting her up to join in the meeting.
The meeting finishes about 4 pm, and Lois and I feel totally exhausted and drained as usual - the strain of trying to hear and understand what the members are saying in Danish, plus a few issues with making a success of Scilla's participation, prove to be quite hard going. And after 90 minutes both Lois and I end up feeling stiff, and with aching backs. My god - we're certainly feeling our age! Still it's nice to get the whole group together for what will be out last meeting of this year.
We fix the next meeting for 4 weeks' time - January 14th. Everybody's looking forward to getting vaccinated - and Jeanette, our only genuinely Danish member, says she's already been contacted by her doctor's surgery to say they're expecting to be "doing" her some time in the next 2-3 months. But nobody else in the group has been contacted yet. Oh dear, let's hope we don't get missed off the list for some reason - yikes!!!!!
Luckily Cheltenham will be staying in Tier 2 as regards pandemic restrictions. And Haslemere is in the only district of Surrey not moving up to Tier 3, which is nice also - hurrah!
20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the second part of an entertaining documentary series following the lives of a celebrity married couple, Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont, both stand-up comedians.
It's interesting to me to see what very little glamour there is, even in the lives of celebrities, when they start to slip under the radar. Jon Richardson, once voted Britain's 3rd favourite comedian, is obviously struggling now.
He gets a bit of a boost when he's asked to switch on the Christmas lights in the nearby Yorkshire village of Hebdon Bridge, after TV weatherman Jon Mitchell pulled out.
Jon (left) gets a bit of a boost for his sagging career when he's invited
to switch on Hebdon Bridge's Christmas lights in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd
in the town centre, after TV weatherman Jon Mitchell pulls out.
Any hopes of a revival of Jon's fortunes, however, appear to be dashed later. He is offered a free Christmas tree by a local supplier, but on arrival at the company's car-park, Jon discovers that, in return for the free tree, he has to host a "Christmas card signing" event for a few hours in the windswept, rain-sodden car-park.
It just shows that the lives of the country's celebrities are not always as glamorous as we tend to imagine!
Poor Jon !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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