09:00 Lois and I get up - we're on high alert for a deluge of February birthdays that we have to send cards out to mark: what madness!! Top priority is our son-in-law Francis in Perth, Australia, whose birthday is in late February. The postal service in Australia is not the world's best, to put it mildly, so we have to send off a birthday card this week to be sure of it arriving in time; what madness (again) !!!!
flashback to August 2013: our son-in-law Francis (left) with our daughter Sarah
and the twins, Lily and Jessie, then only 1 month old - awwwww!!!!
the family is pictured here, while still living in England - they moved to Perth in late 2015
the family as they are now, having Christmas dinner
in the scorching heat of Australia - phew!!!!
11:30 We decide to combine posting Francis's card with a walk on the local football field. Yesterday was a "walk day" for me, according to my NHS physiotherapist Connor's carefully prepared schedule, but I chickened out because of the icy pavements. I did one of my old "switcheroos" and did my exercises yesterday, so I have to face the walk today - damn!!!
We do the walk - it's chilly and drizzling, so we don't see many people about, which is nice: a coupe of joggers and elderly walkers, and one dog-walker. A lot of yesterday's snow has disappeared, but there is still a light covering on the top of the hills.
we go for a walk on the local football field -
Lois wears a mask to keep her mouth warm: makes sense! And eyes closed
to keep her eyes warm.
Lois posts a couple of letters and Francis's birthday card in the local post-box
16:00 We have a cup of tea and a home-made biscuit on the sofa. I look at my smartphone - some sad news: Richard Lewis will not be appearing in the new season of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" sitcom- damn! But poor Richard has had a lot of surgery in the last year or so, so doesn't feel up to it any more.
I always remember Lewis's role with affection, first and foremost for what I call the "sundown conversation". Lewis has a new girl-friend and he wants his old friend Larry to apologise for staring at the girl-friend's breasts the other day at the cinema. I know the scene off by heart, which is a bit sad, admittedly.
Lewis: I've known her for 6 weeks, we've already had intercourse, she's loving, she speaks seven languages,....
Larry: Congratulations on the intercourse by the way!
Lewis: ... and I happen to be a little bit in love with her, okay? ... On Saturday night at dinner is there any way we can have an apology from you?
Larry: First of all there's no way I can have dinner with you on Saturday night.
Lewis: Am I hearing this? Our relationship's at stake right now!
Larry: Get out of here!
Lewis: You'd better call me later on, right? By sundown!
Larry: By sundown, what are you, Gary Cooper? By sundown? Is a posse going to come and get me?
20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV: the final part of the series "The Trump Show", dealing with the end of Trump's presidency.
Lois and I learn a lot from this programme. We didn't realise how long ago Trump's accusations of ballot-rigging go back.
Seeing one of the election debates from 2016, we see him making the "riggin" claim already, when he believed he might not be going to win.
Hillary detailed some of the occasions Trump claimed vote-rigging: he lost the Iowa caucus, he lost the Wisconsin primary, he said the Republican primary was rigged against him; when Trump University got sued for fraud and racketeering, Trump claimed that the court system and the federal judge was rigged against him.
There was even a time, Hillary said, when he didn't get an Emmy for his TV programme three years in a row, and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged. "This is a mindset", she said. "This is how Donald thinks".
It's interesting also that the accusations of rigging makes an appearance in Trump's favourite film, "Citizen Kane".
Author and journalist Tim O'Brien wrote a book, "Trump Nation" in 2005. Trump participated in the book's preparation and the two men travelled all over the country together.
Author and journalist Tim O'Brien (right) with the Trumps in 2005
On a flight to Palm Beach together, O'Brien saw Trump, with a huge bucket of popcorn, revelling in the "Citizen Kane" movie. O'Brien remarks that, in the film, when Kane works hard to be elected state governor, and fails, he decides that his newspaper headline shouldn't be "Kane Loses", but should be "Fraud at the Polls".
a still from "Citizen Kane", Trump's favourite film
Nigel Farage, who brought us out of the EU by scaring Conservative MPs that they would lose their seats at the next election, makes a couple of appearances in this documentary. Lois and I are wondering whether Nigel will express any remorse for his previous obsequious toadying to Trump - by the end of the programme he does seem a bit more detached about Trump perhaps, but he fails to come out with any ringing lack-of-endorsement. Shame on you, Nigel haha!!!!!
21:00 We continue to watch a bit of TV, the latest edition of Winterwatch, which keeps an eye on wildlife in the UK by means of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras.
Tonight we learn a bit about the common shrew. They are tiny creatures, only about an inch or two long, weighing 5-14g, but because they're insectivores they struggle in winter to find enough food. However, they have a high metabolic rate and tend to scurry around. They need to eat 80 to 90% of their own body-weight every single day. And they need to eat at least every 2 or 3 hours, just to get through the day. Lois and I know that feeling - my god!!!
So, how do they manage in winter, when there aren't many insects around? Well, they shrink their body-size by up to 20%: and they don't just lose muscle-mass, they actually shrink the size of their internal organs including their brain and skull. It's a phenomenon known as Dehnell's phenomenon.
But what does the shrew do when springtime comes around? Well, it re-grows those organs, except that it can't re-grow its brain to quite the size that it was before. And as a result of that, it has some "cognitive difficulties" - oh dear!
Lois and I can relate to that also - my god !!!!!
The moral - in springtime don't ask a shrew any difficult questions about maths, physic, astrophysics etc, says presenter Chris Packham. Thanks, Chris, we'll remember that!
My god, what a crazy planet we live on !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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