07:15 Lois tumbles out of bed to go downstairs and get us a cup of tea each. No peace for the wicked because we usually talk to our younger daughter Sarah on zoom at 08:30 am on Sundays.
We're not sure, however, whether today's zoom session is going to go ahead, because the family had to evacuate their home in Lower Chittering, Western Australia on Thursday because they were in the path of a bushfire that was threatening to cut off their retreat (literally) - yikes! It's the biggest bushfire the state has seen for several years apparently - most of the big bushfires happen on the eastern side of the country: Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
The family are now all back at home in Lower Chittering, so we'll have to see what Sarah says about doing a zoom this morning.
The danger is now officially over, however, and it started to rain there yesterday and this weather is forecast to continue today, which is good news. Later I look at the WA Government website map which confirms that the emergency is now over.
the current situation map on emergency.wa.gov.au website
As it turns out we don't do a zoom with Sarah this morning, but we talk to Sarah on whatsapp instead. The good news, apart from the end of the bushfire, is all about Sarah and Francis's 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie. The family had planned to send them to a different school this academic year, back at Ocean Reef on the coast, where the girls used to attend until about a year or two ago.
Ten days ago, Sarah and Francis got the shock news that the Ocean Reef school intended to split the girls up and put them in different classes, which would have been a big blow to the twins. Sarah also heard that the school has a policy of mixing children from different age-groups in the same class, another thing that Sarah and Francis are not happy about.
Sarah is pleased today, however, because the girls' former school in Lower Chittering, the private Catholic institution of Immaculate Hearts College (IHC), is willing to take the girls back tomorrow Monday, when the new school year starts - all schools are opening a week late, because the Perth area went into a 5-day lockdown last Monday. The girls have been happy at IHC over the last year or two, so it's a really good result, and a great relief for Sarah and Francis, as well as ourselves.
the entrance to Immaculate Heart College
flashback to September 2020: the twins (right) in their class at IHC
Lois reminds me that we ourselves moved house in Cheltenham in August 1979 because we didn't want our daughters, Alison and Sarah, to go to a school where they mixed different age-groups. We moved only a quarter of a mile from our existing house, but this was so that we could cross the parish boundary, thus moving into the catchment area for a school where they didn't have this "mixed ages" policy.
Result - back of the net haha !!!
flashback to September 1979: our two daughters Alison (left) and Sarah.
Alison has put on her schoolwear and is carrying her school bags
in rehearsal for starting school: she was just 4 years and 2 weeks - awwwwww!
And she was so excited - unbelievably so, I can still remember it!!! Happy days !!!!!
12:00 Lois is still feeling below par after all the anxiety last week generated by the bushfire, so I offer to hurry into the kitchen and make us both some lunch. I choose one of my famous signature lunches: ham and cucumber sandwiches, mini-tomatoes and a banana for dessert - yum yum!
20:00 We watch some TV, the latest edition of the Antiques Roadshow, where members of the public bring along their antique treasures to some stately home or other, and have them commented on, and valued by, an expert in the field. The presenter is, as always, the charming Fiona Bruce.
Tonight's programme comes from the stunning Culzean Castle [pronounced; Cullain] in Ayrshire, Scotland.
the stunning Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, the venue for tonight's programme
The last item on tonight's programme is an antique Chinese table, which the programme's expert suspects came from the Imperial Court at the Summer Palace in Beijing. The Palace was constructed in the 18th century but wrecked and looted by the British and French armies during the Second Opium War (1860), in an attempt to force China to open up to the West.
What a crazy world they lived in in those days, when looting and wrecking a foreign palace was somehow considered "okay" !!!! You could get locked up for that these days !!!!
Tonight we see the table, which the current owner bought for $7000 in Boston, Massachusetts, being valued at between £80,000 and £120,000 if presented to the right auction, and that probably an auction in Hong Kong would be the best place to present it.
this old Chinese table, which the current owner (left) bought for $7000,
is valued by the programme's expert at £80,000 to £120,000
My god!
Lois says the Chinese are currently making a big effort to recover their old historical treasures that have found their way to owners around the world. And she thinks they will snap this one up.
An interesting programme as always - and filmed on a day when, according to presenter Fiona Bruce, they saw "all four seasons in one day" - so a typical day in Scotland then !!!
Presenter Fiona Bruce winds the show up
Lois says that Fiona Bruce, who also presents the news, has become a bit of a sex-symbol for many men. A woman has written to The Sun newspaper's agony aunt to complain about her boyfriend's worrying obsession with pandemic-related news. She said her partner had started to put on the BBC's News at Ten music to get in the mood for sex. "I went along with it once, hoping it would be a passing phase", she wrote. "But now he has suggested I introduce myself as Fiona Bruce. I'm no prude, but I'm not keen on dressing up as Fiona".
And we don't blame her! What a crazy world we live in !!!!
21:00 We switch off the TV and listen to the BBC's World Service radio broadcast, an interesting edition of World Book Club, where listeners from around the world get the chance to ask questions of American author Bill Bryson, who has written some travel books about the UK and other places.
He is asked how he thinks the UK has changed since he first wrote "Notes from a Small Island" in 1973. He still likes London, his favourite city in the world, although he thinks it's not quite as polite and courteous as it was - this fact is counterbalanced, however, by its increased cosmopolitan atmosphere, which has improved the dining possibilities out of all recognition, he says.
He wrote, "I do find London exciting. Much as I hate to agree with that tedious old git, Samuel Johnson, and despite the pompous imbecility of his famous remark about 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life', an observation exceeded in fatuousness only by 'Let a smile be your umbrella', I can't dispute it.
"And after 7 years of living in the country, in the sort of place where a dead cow draws a crowd, London can seem a bit dazzling. I can never understand why Londoners fail to see that they live in the most wonderful city in the world....etc etc"
He stands by this statement tonight, although he now regrets calling Samuel Johnson 'a tedious old git'. He thinks now that he was having a bad day when he wrote that. Well, fair enough, we've all had some of those, to put it mildly!
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), "a tedious old git", according to Bryson's book
22:00 But we'll have to listen to the rest of the programme another day.
We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!
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