07:30 Lois gets up to make the tea and before she gets back into bed I've switched on my smartphone and got a message from Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia. She wants to move forward our weekly zoom call to today instead of tomorrow - it's not clear why. I agree, but ask if we can make it 9:30 am instead of 8:30 am, to give us time to get ready and have our breakfast etc.
08:30 I go downstairs and swab down with disinfectant our 5 pints of milk, delivered early today. It must have been Mark the Milkman who came again today - and not New Guy who always hides the milk bottles behind a flower-pot, meaning we have to step out into the cold and rain to retrieve them - what madness!!!
As I swab, I sing my merry milk-bottle-swabbing song:
"Mark is back, and you're gonna be in trouble, hey lah day lah Mark is back /
If you see him coming, better cut out on the double, hey lah day lah Mark is back"
to the tune of "My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble".
telltale signs of one of Mark's typical milk deliveries - not hidden, thank goodness!
09:30 The zoom call begins. We check that Sarah has received the card we sent for her husband Francis's birthday on Tuesday. With Australia you have to send cards so long before the birthday, that by the time the day arrives, it's impossible to remember if we remembered to post a card or not, especially if you're mine and Lois's age - my god!
The twins, Lily and Jessie want to show us the seeds they're planting in their little "garden", which is very cute. They are also keen to play a card-game called Uno with us, which works reasonably well, even at 9,000 miles distance, which is nice.
Jessie showcases the seeds the twins are growing in their "garden"
- how cute they are !!!!!
we play a long-distance card-game with the twins: "Uno" at 9,000 miles!
Sounds crazy but it's actually a lot of fun -
and Lily wins, which pleases her no end, needless to say
Lois and I don't have a set of Uno cards any more - we got rid of them after reading a creepy story about them on the influential American news website, Onion News. Apparently Uno cards can attract the attention of not very interesting ghosts, which is the last thing we want at our age!
GURNEE, IL–On the surface, the home of John and Beth Secora
looks just like any other suburban residence. But this seemingly ordinary
dwelling harbours a secret: It is haunted by two incredibly boring ghosts.
"They really don't do much," Beth said. "Once in
a while, John and I will see our Uno cards spread out all over the kitchen
table or the refrigerator door left slightly ajar. If we go out on a Sunday
afternoon, sometimes we come back to find a few coupons clipped out of the
newspaper for things we never use, like cream of mushroom soup or Metamucil. As
haunting goes, it's pretty tame stuff."
Lois and I think that, remembering that lockdowns have the potential to be quite boring, unless you're very creative about them, it can really put the tin lid on the occasionally slow day, if you become haunted when you go to bed by some ghosts that have lost their sense of excitement about life, and about haunting and everything - no doubt about that! Come on, ghosts, you can do better than that haha!!!
a typical packet of the type of metamucil most likely to attract dull ghosts
10:30 The zoom call ends, and right on cue, our next week's groceries get delivered by Budgens, the convenience store in the village. As always it takes us between 30 and 60 minutes to swab all the tinned and packaged items down with disinfectant, and wash the fresh fruit and vegetables in the sink: what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
the fresh fruit and vegetables lie serenely washed on the draining-board.
What madness !!!!
11:30 We have a cup of coffee and a calming biscuit before going for walk on the local football field. We are lucky - there is a short gap in today's rainfall, which is nice.
we go for a walk on the local football field - the rain holds off
for half an hour, which is nice
14:00 After lunch we go to bed for a couple of hours or so. As we lie in bed, we hear the rain and wind battering on the bedroom window-pane. We get up at 4:30 pm and have our cup of tea and bread and jam. We've decided to eat a bit later than usual tonight and try and look sophisticated about it, but I fear it's a bit too late at our age - oh dear!
18:30 We have dinner half an hour late- yikes! And it's lamb kebabs with couscous: yum yum!
lamb kebabs and couscous tonight - yum yum!
When the lockdowns first started, supermarket shelves were emptied, and you couldn't get supermarket deliveries because they didn't have enough drivers back then, I put in a bulk order online for couscous, also rice, fearing that we wouldn't be able to get potatoes. What madness! And one year later we're still working our way gradually through the piles of couscous.
photo sent me by our American brother-in-law Steve.
No, not the UK last year, or Venezuela,
as Steve points out, but Texas two days ago - yikes !!!!!!
20:00 We watch a bit of TV, a repeat showing of BAFTA's 2005 award to the late, lamented comedienne, script-writer and entertainer Victoria Wood, one of our favourite performers.
An enjoyable programme, although, despite the blurb's comments, there are still too many talking heads giving their tributes, and not enough actual sketches and jokes. What could be more infuriating when you're watching a funny sketch, than for the sound to be faded out in favour of a talking head giving some glowing recommendation or other? What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
excerpt from one of Victoria's scripts for her optically challenged
continuity announcer, played by Susie Blake
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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