07:00 Lois is still asleep so I creep downstairs and make us a cup of tea each. I find that the reserve milkman is standing in for Mark the Milkman today, which is a nuisance because he always "hides" our 5 pints behind a potted plant - an unnecessary security measure in our view, because in all the 34 years we have lived here, we've never once had any milk stolen from the doorstep. It's security gone mad, I tell you!!!
I have to be up early today, because Mark the Gardener is coming around 8:30 am. I have to be around to unlock the side gate and make sure he knows what we want him to do for us today. Item number 1 on his to-do-list is to dispose of the huge chunk of our greengage tree that Storm Bella tore off in late December.
Later, when Lois and I are both up, we sit having a cup of coffee in the living-room, while Mark is outside in the back garden. He has dragged the torn-off branch on to the back lawn and is attacking it with his chainsaw - isn't it just fascinating watching other people work haha!
Mark the Gardener takes his chainsaw to the branch
that Storm Bella tore off our greengage tree
flashback to late December - the branch as it looked after it was first torn off
flashback: Mark in happier times, having a picnic with his partner
We read the news on our smartphones as we sip our coffee. There's a shocking story in the Guardian suggesting that Donald Trump may be planning to spend Inauguration Day in Britain, on his Scottish estate: I don't think Lois or I mind too much about that, as long as he doesn't bring any of his "proud boys" with him - Lois wonders if he's got any "unassuming boys" as well, in which case they'd be more than welcome, she says haha!
11:30 Connor, my NHS physiotherapist, has scheduled exercises for me today, so Lois goes out on her own for her walk on the local football field, while I go upstairs to run through Connor's programme.
12:00 I remember that Lynda's U3A "Middle English" group has got its monthly meeting on Friday afternoon. I look at a 14th century medieval play, the Towneley Play of Noah, which is the group's current project.
Oh dear - at first glance it looks quite difficult, but I take the first little part of "my bit" and make a stab at trying to work out a few words. Help !!!
What surprise me is that we seem here to have Noah and his wife in the middle of a furious fight. Noah is calling her a piece of ram-shit ("ram-skyt") which isn't very nice - I suspect Mrs Noah isn't happy about something or other: maybe she doesn't want to go on her husband's Ark with a bunch of close relatives and a whole load of pairs of endangered species. And who's to blame her! I don't mind being "locked-down" just with Lois, but I don't think I'd care to be locked down with a boatful of wild animals, some of them extremely dangerous - what madness!!!
Later I look on YouTube and I find a video of a car-park performance of the play before a sparse audience at some Canadian university. I'll have to study this clip, as it may be that the play's been translated into Modern English for the performance, which will be a help, to put it mildly !!!!
Noah and his wife start fighting in a Canadian car-park
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
I will say, it's nice that the play seems to be in the Yorkshire dialect of Middle English, which means that there is more than a fair sprinkling of Old Norse / Danish words in it.
16:00 Lois and I relax on the sofa with a cup of tea and we demolish the last two pieces of Christmas cake - now it's all gone sob sob. But twelfth night beckons, and we'll have to take the decorations down tomorrow.
Lois gets a text from Alison, our elder daughter, who lives in Haslemere, Surrey, with Ed and their three children, Josie (14), Rosalind (12) and Isaac (10). Yesterday Alison started a new part-time job at a local primary school as a teaching assistant. It worked out okay, she says, but it was different from what she was expecting, due to Boris Johnson's announcements of last night.
(left to right) Ed, Josie, Rosalind, Isaac and Alison
Instead of just teaching one pupil with special needs, which is what she was expecting, she found herself looking after a group of about half-a-dozen of the children of local "essential workers". Although in general schools are closed under the new regulations, they remain open for this particular category of children, so that their parents can go out and do their essential jobs. Lois and I think that Alison would do this kind of work well, because she's patient by nature and, having 3 of her own children to bring up, she's used to dealing with them. But we'll see - the jury's still out on this one. If she doesn't take to the work, she can just resign, we guess.
17:30 Lois tells me that Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has ruled out allowing Donald Trump into the country for inauguration day. Typically mean-spirited of Nicola, we feel !!!
20:00 We settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV, the first part of a new drama series based loosely on the life of Catherine the Great of Russia.
Lois and I thought we'd watch this, as we don't know much about Russian history - it never seemed to affect Britain that much; was it too far away? We're not sure.
We didn't even know that Catherine, the future Catherine the Great, was born in Prussia, and travelled to Russia only when asked to be a candidate for the emperor Peter III's choice of empress.
Peter seems to like what he sees of Catherine, when she arrives in the court, and there's a rushed wedding ceremony. And soon we see Catherine's maidservant, Marial, getting her ready for bed, and saying anxiously to her, "Are you ready for tonight? You do know what to expect?"
Catherine replies, "I'm not as naïve as you seem to think! My mother has explained everything.
"The man caresses you softly, pressing his lips to yours. Your breasts and skin awaken and shiver with palpitating joy. Between your legs quivers and moistens with longing. He enters you and you become one. Your bodies meld, your souls mesh. As the sensation takes hold of you, you fall into a black sky filled with the shiniest of stars. You float for a time in ecstasy, before waves of pleasure push and pull you back into your body. Your body summons forth yelps and sometimes song, before he and you explode within, collapsing together, spent and unified.
"Then you lie together, laughing softly, weeping occasionally with ecstatic joy. and finally he wraps his arms around you, whispers poetry softly into your ear, and you fall into a delicious sleep."
To which the maid replies, simply, "Yep, that's pretty much it!"
Needless to say, when Peter "the Great" appears in the bed, the results may be "great" for him, but not for Catherine - oh dear!
Poor Catherine!!!!
I'm not sure if we'll carry on watching this series - there are another 9 hour-long episodes to go: my god! There's a lot of gratuitous violence, and there aren't really any sensible characters in it that we can relate to, sympathise with, or identify with, which is a pity.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!
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