10:15 Another zoom call for Lois and me with our daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia, and with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jessie. We ask for it not to be too long because Lois has strained her back again - oh dear!
The family drove down to Perth and the Nedlands Yacht Club on the Swan River today. Quite a surprise but they decided to go ahead and buy a 30 foot boat - my god! We didn't know whether they could afford that kind of purchase but it seems they can: but it's second-hand and only a few hundred dollars, we think. But we'll see!
The family moved from the UK to the Perth area 5 or 7 years ago. We think Sarah and Francis are still planning to move back to the UK at some point, pandemic and economy permitting. However we think their idea is to get their sailing skills up to scratch in Australia, where there's a nice climate, and then hopefully continue to indulge their hobby in icy British waters where the climate isn't that much to write home about - my god!
We learn that Jess got another swimming certificate yesterday. Sarah says that she always knew Jess would be a water baby when she used to sit and watch it drip from the taps. She says Jess has powered her way through 5 levels in just a year.
I'm so in awe of her, as I personally come from a long line of non-swimmers stretching back for generation after generation: I can't imagine how anybody, let alone a 7-year-old can do this kind of thing, but I have to believe that they can. I guess I'm not the only person that Jess has got her genes from, and I've just got to accept that fact - my god!
10:30 Lois sits down to the first of her sect's two worship services today on zoom. She has dosed herself up on ibuprofen and is sitting on a standard dining-room chair, which she is finding easier than an easy chair - poor Lois!!!!
11:00 I settle down on the couch in the living-room and look at my smartphone. I always watch out for breakthroughs in archaeology: my principal areas of interest are Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking remains in Britain, but I try to keep an eye on other parts of the world at the same time.
A couple of days some exciting news emerged from Egypt on the world's media (source: Onion News).
CAIRO—Speculating that Egyptians began stacking themselves
into triangular structures far earlier than previously thought, professors at Cairo University announced Friday that they had unearthed skeletal remains of the first
human pyramid.
“While little is known about the third dynasty of Ancient Egypt, we now believe King Djoser
ordered the construction of a massive, technically difficult human pyramid by
over a dozen citizens expertly crouching on top of one another,”
said lead researcher Dr. Nour al-Busiri, adding that the nearly 5,000-year-old structure, which was found along the West Bank of
the Nile river, featured the bones of servants at the bottom, family members in
the middle, and finally, the deceased Pharaoh cheering wildly at the top.
“While we have unearthed several human pyramids from the Old
Kingdom under King Sneferu, we now believe Egyptians were likely experimenting
with shoulder stands and basket tosses as early as 2780 B.C. Frankly, this incredible discovery totally
reshapes the way we think of early Egyptians and the way they mourned for, and immortalized, the deceased.”
At press time, Dr. al-Busiri clarified that while conspiracy
theorists were spreading vicious rumours, there was no evidence
that extra-terrestrials had any hand in the elaborate, multi-layered human
cheer formations.
Frankly I'm again in awe at these Egyptians, coming as I do from a long line of non-human-pyramid-participants. I don't know what was wrong with my genes and those of my parents and my grandparents but they obviously just weren't cut out for this kind of thing - what a crazy family I come from!
I suppose it's quite simple - a straightforward lack of a sense of balance, that I must have inherited from my forebears. But I'm not 100% sure about that - the jury's still out on that one.
But is archaeology not totally fascinating? Who would want to study anything else haha!
15:00 We put the seedlings out on the patio table to give them a bit of fresh air haha (again) !
one of my classic "photobombing" attempts - good one, eh?!!
16:00 Lois and I have a cup of tea and a kiwi-inspired "Weetbix Slice" on the sofa. I look at my smartphone. Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend has sent me a touching video clip of a former British ambassador to Budapest, Scotsman Iain Lindsay reciting a beautiful Hungarian translation of Robbie Burn's famous poem "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose". Translation by Kálnoky László (1912-1985).
"My Luve is like a red red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune...." etc
Szép június piros, piros / rózsája, szerelem / tiszta dallam, mit hallok én / szívemben szüntelen..." etc
Lindsay, who is now British ambassador to Bahrain, gave his recitation on Instagram, wearing the Hungarian of national colours of red-white-green.
It's interesting to me that Lindsay is a Scotsman. When I first started learning Hungarian, a native Hungarian visiting Cheltenham told me that Hungarians have always had a soft spot for poets from Scotland and Wales, particularly in the 19th century. They experienced a fellow feeling with the Scots and the Welsh, because they felt that the Scots etc were treated as underdogs by the English, just as they felt they, the Hungarians, were the underdogs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by comparison with the Austrians.
Maybe Kálnoky László, the translator of Burns here, felt a similar affinity with the Scottish poet, even after the demise of the Empire - these fellow-feelings between nations sometimes last longer than we expect, no doubt about that.
My Welsh mother used to claim that we were descended from a medieval Welsh prince who fought the English, but I have to say I found the evidence for this less than watertight. But we'll have to see!
20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, the latest in the reality-show documentary "Meet the Richardsons", all about the life of a married couple of stand-up comedians Jon Richardson and his wife Lucy Beaumont, and their daughter three-year-old Jessica, out in the wilds of Yorkshire, in the sleepy town of Hebden Bridge.
Jon likes peace and quiet and the opportunity to have his own pub-for-one in the couple's back garden, but Lucy is hankering after the bright lights of London, even if it means throwing her own mother out of the second home that Jon and Lucy own down there - oh dear!
Lucy has a friend called Debbie, with whom she shares intimate details of the sex life (or lack of it) that Lucy enjoys (or doesn't enjoy) with Jon.
Jon isn't happy that Lucy talks to Debbie about their most intimate secrets, but Lucy argues, quite reasonably, that sex is all Debbie talks about, so how can Lucy herself do otherwise, which seems fair enough to us, at any rate!!!
Jon is also unhappy about the fact that he finds not just crumbs of bread or toast, but also odd things like pieces of carrot in the margarine tubs that Lucy has failed to put back in the fridge, which does seem a bit eccentric.
Lois and I have noticed that the couple do appear to argue a lot, but their personality differences have their good side too. Jon says that Lucy goes round the house turning lights on, while Jon does the same except turning them off - which Jon adduces as evidence of the couple's innate compatibility.
So we're mildly optimistic about the marriage - call us idiot if you like! [You're idiots - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!
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