10:45 Lois and I go for a walk on the local football field. It's cold, as forecast, but there is no sign of the threatened snow or sleet - what madness!
we begin another of our epic walks on the local football field
- brrrr !!!!!!
Today was going to be the day when our elder daughter Alison and her family visited us for the first time in several months, but the visit was cancelled yesterday due to a number of factors: the family's Danish dog Sika suffered a fractured leg and is having an operation over the weekend; we would have had to meet in the open air, and the weather forecast is pitiful - oh dear: and Alison had her first Oxford/astrazeneca coronavirus vaccination yesterday in Portsmouth - later today she confirms, that like us when we had our first jab, she is suffering feverishness, aches and pains, and tiredness.
Poor Alison!!!!
We check out the tennis courts. There are 4 old codgers playing doubles and a younger pair possibly a mother and daughter on the do-it-yourself patch, where crazy people bring their own nets and try to make it seem just as good - my god!
we check out the tennis courts,
where old codger-style-tennis is in full swing - yikes!!!
We stop at the Whiskers Coffee Stand to get a flat white coffee (me) and a hot chocolate (Lois). We have two motives - one, so as we don't freeze to death before we get home, and two, to get some change for our visit to one of the County's fire stations (Cheltenham East) on Monday for our own second Oxford/astrazeneca jab.
Lois queues up to get our drinks - she offers the girl a "10-spot",
hoping to get us some pound coins in change
Success - Lois comes away with 3 pound coins and a 2-pound coin. On Monday we're going for our second coronavirus jab, and you have to park in the car-park for the Lido. We have a three-pronged strategy for getting a ticket from the car-park ticket machine:
(1) stay in the car and try the PayByPhone app on my smartphone
(2) try putting a credit card in the ticket machine
(3) put cash in - not the best option because the machines don't give change, but you can't argue with cash can you haha!
when we get back from our walk
we put the precious coins by the phone -
all of our 3 paying strategies are now in place: tee hee!
We are quite forgetful but we remember parking at the lido last time haha (January 30th) and successfully using the phone app.
entrance to the lido car park on the left hand side of the road
the fire station building on the right hand side of the road
where the jabs are given.
We also remember the helpful video that the nice NHS put on YouTube, which is reassuring!
Simples !!!!! What can possibly go wrong??!!!!!
And are we really getting near to "herd immunity" in this country? It seems hard to believe.
20:00 We watch some TV, the third part of an interesting documentary series on the life of Winston Churchill.
Much of this programme covers events fairly familiar to us, but Lois and I didn't quite realise what a lot of big changes happened really suddenly in May 1940.
May 7-9 : debate in the House of Commons on the poor results of the Anglo-French campaign in the north of Norway.
May 10 : Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns: there's a choice of replacement between Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, and a prominent "appeaser", and Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty. Halifax turns down the job and Churchill becomes Prime Minister.
May 10 : the same day as Churchill becomes PM, Germany invades Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, then France.
May 26: beginning of the evacuation of allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk.
The key to Britain's ability to stay in the war depended on the success or otherwise of the Dunkirk evacuation: Churchill privately expected to recover no more than about 50,000 men, but as it turned out, the operation rescued over 300,000 despite the fact that everything was done at the last minute with little preparation or planning.
This was the background to Churchill's famous speech to Parliament, 9 days after the Dunkirk operation began, on 4 June 1940, when he spoke his famous words:
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous
States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious
apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall
fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may
be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we
shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this
Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire
beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the
struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and
might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
But what a close thing it was - both Chamberlain and Halifax had been urging for Britain's surrender - my god!
21:00 We continue to watch a bit of TV, the first part of a new "mockumentary" series on the life of married couple stand-up comedians Jon Richardson and Lucy Beaumont and their now 4-year-old daughter Jessica, in the wilds of Yorkshire, in the small town of Hebden Bridge.
It's amusing that the lockdowns last year suited comedian Jon Richardson down to the ground, and he's revelling in it. He's got his own personal pub in his shed in the family's back yard - the only pub in the country that stayed open, he says. And he particularly likes having the excuse to wear a face-mask when he goes around the town, which means the locals are less likely to recognise him - my god!
Lois and I particular love listening to Lucy's accent - she's from Hull, so as a result "Mamma Mia" means "Mum I'm here [i.e. I've come home] !". And she pronounces "Boyzone", the name of the Irish boy-band, as "Boyzun", rhyming with "poison".
What a crazy country we live in !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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