Friday February 5th 2021

09:00 Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, plus Francis and their 7-year-old twins are now safely ensconced with some friends, safely away from the path of the bushfire that's been raging since Tuesday. They locked up their house in Lower Chittering yesterday and took the road to Joondalup and safety.

Later in the day I run off another map of the bushfire danger zones. Their house is still a bit to the north of the blue zone - let's hope it will still be intact when they decide it's safe to go back. At the moment rain is forecast for Saturday evening into Sunday and Monday - let's hope that turns out to be accurate.

Today Lois is feeling simultaneously relieved and a bit washed-out energy-wise, which is understandable. I think Sarah's situation was worrying her more than she was showing. I do us both lunch - poached egg on toast, one of my signature dishes, but she's reluctant to have it: but then who wouldn't be haha! She changes her mind, though, after we both decide it'll probably do her good to have something to eat, however dull and horrible!

14:30 This afternoon Lynda's U3A Middle English group is holding its monthly meeting on zoom. The text we're looking at is a medieval "Towneley play" from Wakefield, Yorkshire, entitled "Second Shepherd's Play", written sometime between 1400 and 1450.

The play revolves round Mak the Thief and his wife - the couple steal a sheep from 3 neighbouring shepherds. Later they try to pass the sheep off as their new-born baby when the three suspicious shepherds come calling, in a quest to find their missing sheep. When the shepherds knock at the door, Mak and his wife hastily cover the sheep with a cloth and stuff it into one of their spare cradles.

The shepherds become suspicious when Shepherd No.3 lifts up the cloth over the cradle and sees that the baby has a long snout and is unbelievably ugly. However their first impulse is to feel sorry for Mak and his wife - and I admire that: they're obviously willing to give Mak the benefit of the doubt. 

Innocent until proven guilty - that's a good principle I think!!!

It probably works best on stage if they get a really ugly man to play Mac, and a really ugly woman to play his wife. I think that even in those days they understood the basic principles of genetics: i.e. ugly parents => ugly baby.

But what crazy tricks they got up to in those days!

a typical scene from the play

The meeting starts, and I try, as usual, to be "top group-member" by telling the afternoon's most awe-inspiring stories about the interesting words in the lines of text we're covering today - I only tell true stories, by the way - I don't want to cheapen myself just for the sake of a short-lived popularity haha!

When the shepherds realise they've been tricked by Mak and his wife, they call the couple a lot of bad names: this includes calling Mak's wife a "scold". In medieval English this word was used to mean a man or a woman who had "a nasty tongue in their heads" and who were generally unpleasant to have a conversation with. We don't really use that word any more in that way, but we do still have the word "to scold", meaning to bawl somebody out for something they've done.

The other members of the group don't realise where this word comes from, so I'm able to put them wise. It comes from the Old Icelandic word for a bard or poet, i.e. "skald". Icelandic and Viking bards apparently acquired a reputation for putting nasty slanders into their poetry - they used their poems as an excuse to bad-mouth their neighbours under a cloak of "culture". 

It was even written into Icelandic law-books, so that skalds could be taken to court and sued if necessary, and I approve of that - a writ was probably the only language those guys ever really understood! 

 a typical Viking "skald" (right), bad-mouthing some of his neighbours, illustrated with appropriate hand-gestures, under cover of giving them a little culture - what madness!!!!

16:00 The meeting ends and I re-join Lois in the living-room and we have a cup of tea with a piece of bread and butter and Lois's delicious home-made gooseberry jam, made from our own dear gooseberries (2019) - yum yum!

20:00 We settle down on the couch and listen to the radio, the latest edition of "Last Word". We try and hear this programme every Friday to see if anybody has died or not.

Modest race-horse owner Prince Khalid Abdullah has died, sadly, aged 83. Despite his money, the Prince's lifestyle was elegant but not flamboyant - and this is something we admire. We'd like to think we'd be much the same, if we had that amount of money!

Prince Khalid Abdullah

He had a house in Twyford, near Reading, Berkshire, where an aide would welcome visitors, pointing to a 16th century tapestry on the wall, and say, "The prince won't tell you, but that's the original. The one in Windsor Castle is a copy". 

He didn't like to spend money flamboyantly like other Middle Eastern rulers do. Everything on his many stud-farms had to be budgeted for, right down to the last pitchfork. 

He was friendly with a local British couple from the neighbourhood, and on day he heard the wife say she particularly enjoyed shopping at the local Waitrose supermarket, for its choice and variety. The Prince had never been to Waitrose, so he tried it out a few weeks afterwards. He later told the woman, "You know I went into Waitrose, just to see what you were talking about, and I must say I found it terribly expensive."  

My god!!!

the Twyford branch of Waitrose supermarket on a typical morning

He was nevertheless popular in the horse-breeding industry, just because he was so quiet and reticent, so that in that way he kind of stood out. His horses  would often have spectacular wins, but he never went in for big celebrations. His first big win came in 1980, and he was with a couple of friends. They didn't know what to do to celebrate, because the Prince was teetotal. They ended up out on the street next to a fast-food van, and so celebrated by having a cup of tea. 

My god (again) !!!!

That's the kind of prince who always stays rich, that's for sure. But unfortunately nobody can take it with them, as we know. Poor Khalid !!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!