10:00 Since the lockdowns started last year, and even before that, Lois and I have been living in each other's pockets, as we say in England, 24/7.
This morning we go a step further by spending an hour together in a 4ft x 6ft greenhouse in brilliant sunshine, cleaning up, tidying up, and temporary-fixing - with some green bits of wire and "duck tape" - a glass pane that had come out of its place and fallen on the greenhouse floor.
It's so cramped in there and stiflingly hot, that we can't even take reasonable selfies of each other - what madness !!! But I think we know each other even better now, than ever before haha!
job done - simples !!!!
The work in the greenhouse isn't welcome, but it's necessary, because Lois is champing at the bit to start her 2021 veg and fruit growing season, so fair enough!
11:00 We relax with a cup of coffee and a biscuit on the sofa. I have a look at the book I got for my birthday, "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" by David W. Anthony, which traces the origin of the Proto-Indo-European language of 6000 or so years ago, the language that's the ancestor of virtually all present-day languages in Europe and India, and also Iran.
the Proto-Indo-European "homeland" between the Black Sea and the Ural Mountains
A striking thing about these people who spoke an early form of Indo-European is that they had a quite primitive life-style in many ways: they were "foragers" or hunter-gatherers - they didn't know how to keep animals for food, or to grow crops.
They only learnt about keeping animals and growing crops when some clever non-Indo-Europeans migrated their way from Anatolia (Turkey) via Greece to the area north of the Black Sea and that's when the "Indo-Europeans" saw for the first time (around 5750 BC) what these clever "new guys" were doing, and they thought it was kind of smart.
cattle farming etc works its way through Turkey to Greece
eventually reaching the edge of the Indo-European
homeland north of the Black Sea, at the Bug and Dniester river valleys
The languages that these clever cattle-herders / grain growers spoke died out probably thousands of years ago, but the writer of this book, David W. Anthony, thinks that we may have inherited just the one word from them, the word "taurus" - taurus the bull, seen in modern English as in Taurus, the star sign, as well as in the Spanish word toreador and the Greek word "minotaur". Possibly also the English word "steer", which means the same as the word "bullock", but the jury's still out on that one.
This observation makes my day - I love the thought of odd words from otherwise long-dead languages being "rescued" and saved for posterity, usually by pure chance.
Etruscan was a language spoken in northern Italy at the time when the Romans were around. The Etruscan language died out well over a thousand years ago, but language experts think we probably got just one word from Etruscan - but it's one of our most useful words: "person". Where would feminism be without that concept haha!
flashback to last month: I showcase the 3 books I was given for my birthday,
including David W Anthony's book "The Horse, the Wheel and Language" (centre)
Is the history of language not totally fascinating? Who would want to study anything else haha!!!!
16:00 We have a cup of tea and a kiwi-inspired "Weetbix Slice" on the sofa.
flashback to September 2020 - the first time Lois made "Weetbix Slices"
After we finish, I take the car out for a "spin" - we haven't used it for 7 days, and that was only for a short trip down to one of the county's fire stations to get our second astrazeneca vaccination.
Lois doesn't want to come. Her back is still a bit delicate, after she strained it on Friday, and at the moment she's "excused" some of the duties we normally take turns over, like getting out of bed first to make our early morning cup of tea, also cleaning up after we shower.
I take the car up to Southam and back (see map below). It's only just over a mile, so I find a longer way to come back (not shown haha!).
I take the car for a little spin to Southam - only 1.2 miles
but I find a long way to come back (not shown haha!!!!)
When I am out on the road, I start to feel that there's something odd about the experience, until it occurs to me that it's the first time I've been out in the car on my own for over a year. We normally always go together, because it's a bit of a celebration just to be out of the house - my god, what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
20:00 Lois ducks out of taking part in her sect's Tuesday Bible-reading Group tonight so we settle down to watch some TV, an interesting programme in the series "Hollywood Couples", this one being about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Taylor and Burton of course famously first got together while the film "Cleopatra" was being filmed. Lois and I didn't know that the studio first attempted to shoot the film in London, but the project quickly ran into trouble because there were too many grey skies, which didn't look good looming above fake pyramids - so why did they choose London, then, in the first place? What madness!
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in "Cleopatra"
The studio resumed the shooting of the film in Italy, in 1961. At first Burton was unimpressed by Taylor, referring to her behind her back simply as "Big Tits" - oh dear! But after he realised how Taylor really began to sparkle the moment the cameras were trained on her, he changed his mind. One day he rushed on to the set and announced, "I've done it! I've had her in the back of my Cadillac!". Oh dear - again!
Once their affair became known, it was big news in the tabloids and gossip columns, of course. But Lois and I didn't know that this was the first occasion when the Italian paparazzi photographers came to the world's attention through their relentless pursuit of the couple.
It shows what a different world it was then, when you think how even the Pope lambasted the couple, recalling that they were both married to other people. And a US Congressman made a speech saying that they would no longer be welcome in America.
What a crazy world they lived in, in those days!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!
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