Sunday February 14th 2021

 07:00 Another brutally early start this morning - it's Lois's turn to go downstairs and make the tea, but she's sleeping soundly, so I decide to do it. Sarah, our younger daughter, who lives just outside Perth, Australia, with Francis and their 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie, will be calling us on zoom at 8:30 am as per their usual Sunday schedule. No time to exchange Valentine cards and gifts in bed in a civilized way: we have to be up and about.

08:30 I've just finished my breakfast when Sarah's call comes in. We have a lovely time with her and the twins, playing a remote game of "Pairs", trying to find matching pairs of dog pictures. Unfortunately the pictures are very small on our little laptop screen so, as always, I end up choosing cards at random - oh dear! But it makes the twins happy because they beat us easily, and that's the main object of the exercise, needless to say!

09:30 The call ends and Lois and I relax with a cup of coffee and exchange our cards and presents: socks for me, and flowers and chocolate for her.

10:00 Then we set to work continuing to clear some of the clutter in our rooms. A lettings agent is calling us tomorrow on whatsapp to have a remote "look round" the property. 

Sarah and Francis want to buy our house from us, maybe next year some time, and let it out to tenants. They plan to continue the letting of it until they are ready to move back to the UK themselves, at which point they will end the tenancy agreements and live in the house themselves, while Lois and I move into something smaller - simples!

12:00 We have our Valentine's Day lunch, as supplied by Cookshop. Starter: smoked salmon and pesto tartlets, main course: lamb shanks, dauphinoise potatoes, peas and leeks.

the starter: smoked salmon and pesto tartlets

the main course: lamb shanks with dauphinoise potatoes peas and leeks - yum yum!

Then it's off to bed for a nap. We get up at 4 pm and have a cup of tea and our Valentine's Day dessert on the couch - the cheesecake. But when we finally get off the sofa, we find that the storm, which has been blowing all day, has broken a panel off our neighbour Nikki's front fence, and it's now causing an obstruction: what madness!!!!

No peace for the wicked haha !!!!!

19:00 We feel like we've been eating all day, so we just have a couple of pieces of toast for now, and settle down to watch a film, "Room With A View", based on EM Forster's classic novel.

The heroine, Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) has two suitors: her mild-mannered but supercilious fiancé, Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis) and the more passionate George (Julian Sands).

Cecil gets engaged to Lucy but only afterwards I think, does he ask to kiss her: and he makes a mess of it when the suspension chain of his pince-nez somehow gets caught up and ruins the moment - oh dear! He only tries again much later, and this time Lucy takes his glasses off for him first: wise move! However, the eventual kiss is little more than a "peck".

Cecil's attempt to kiss Lucy ("lacks passion")

By contrast George kisses Lucy very passionately, and without asking her first. Lois comments "That's the way you do it!", but is it okay? Would it be okay nowadays in the era of the #metoo movement? 

George kisses Lucy ("That's the way you do it!" haha)

Lucy doesn't resist George's kiss, although afterwards she feels ashamed and talks about him having "insulted her". But it's George she ends up with. So the jury's still out on that one (literally these days ha ha !!!!).

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