10:30 Mark the Gardener comes and Lois tours the garden with him giving him jobs to do - it's nice to see him doing jobs I don't want to do - haha! Anyway I've got to be working on the songs for my new musical this morning, that's for sure. I've got to be ready for when the theatres reopen - yikes!
Lois gives Mark various jobs to do, which is nice!
11:00 I set to work on my latest verse for "The Farmer and the Forager Should Be Friends", part of my latest musical, "Eurasia! The Musical".
[Forager's Gal No.1 sings..]
I'd like to say a word for the forager,
He walks the shoreline hoping to hook a piece of sole,
He roams that Black Sea strait,
With just a fishing pole for a mate,
[Farmer's daughter No. 2 interjects...] I sure am feeling sorry for that fishing pole!
a typical sand sole
I've checked on Google and there are at least two types of sole in the Black Sea: sand sole and black-hand sole, so that should be enough to satisfy my Editor, who's on leave today by the way! [No I'm not! - Ed]
I'm not quite sure what the difference is between a fishing rod and a fishing pole, but hopefully they're just two words for the same thing. My Editor won't know the difference anyway, that's for sure!!!
Sorted - haha!!!!!
[Don't be too sure about that! - Ed]
On now to my next challenge - to write "I'd like to say a word for the farmer..." - should be a cinch after the forager one. The main worry is I mustn't make it too derivative - I've got a feeling that somebody's done something similar to this already, and I've got to come up with an entirely fresh approach, no doubt about that.
[And there are too many exclamation marks in the logo for the musical. Either choose "Eurasia - the musical!" or "Eurasia! The musical" - Ed]
Damn!
12:30 Mark goes. Lois and I inspect his work and see how our new project - the mini-meadow - is getting on. It's starting to look really "meadowy" and even has some cowslips now - nice!
our cute little meadow - how sweet it looks haha!
one of our sweet little cowslips, bless its little heart !!!!
We have lunch, and then it's a quick pop into bed for a little nap. We need to feel fresh for our U3A Danish group's fortnightly meeting this afternoon on Skype.
14:25 The Danish meeting is due to begin on Skype in five minutes' time. Lois gets us both some Earl Grey tea and biscuits, while I fire up the laptop and wait for everybody to show up. It's lonely sometime being a group leader haha!
I fire up the laptop and get ready for our Danish meeting
while Lois gets us cups of Earl Grey tea and biscuits.
16:00 The meeting ends and Lois and I are completely exhausted, as we always are after what we call a "Danish day". A CookShop meal is on the agenda tonight, Hoisin Duck with noodles: yum yum!
CookShop's Hoisin Duck with noodles - yum yum!!!!
So tired! We're getting old, that's for sure. Oh dear!
19:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's Tuesday Bible-reading Group on Google Meet. I settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV.
I usually use these occasions when Lois is busy in the other room, to watch programmes she isn't interested in, or doesn't like, but I'm running short of these now - damn!
The best I can come up with tonight is a documentary about Liz Taylor. I was never a huge fan of Liz but we saw a programme the other day about her relationship with Richard Burton, so for completeness sake I watch the first half of this other documentary. [I wouldn't call it completeness exactly. When are you going to see the rest of the programme? - Ed].[Well, I watch it up to the moment she gets cast as Cleopatra, so I reckon I've seen her back-story now - Colin]. [That's enough backchat! - Ed]
I've often seen Liz described as "British-born", but I didn't realise she was in fact born to American parents working in England in the 1930's. The family moved back to the States in April 1939 when they saw World War II approaching on the horizon - makes sense to me!
This picture was taken in about 1937 with Liz's father and brother when she was a small child, outside the house in Kent, where the family lived. Her older brother, Harold, is wearing a typical British school uniform for the time, of the sort I was wearing a few years later - and in the same county: spooky!!! Liz apparently always remembered her childhood in the Kent countryside as idyllic, because she was pretty much allowed to run wild.
The family moved to California and both Liz and her mother were keen to get her into movies. This next photo is from the MGM screen test she took in 1943 for her break-through role in "National Velvet". She was apparently wearing a home-made jersey for the shoot, so going for the simple look here: my god! No sign of glamour yet then haha!
The glamour comes out though, in the next photo featured, part of the publicity for her first real "leading lady" role, in "Conspirator", in 1948. She would be playing opposite Robert Taylor who was twice her age, and there was going to be an iconic kiss-scene, so the studio had to give her a more sexual image. Photographer Halsman told her, "You've got bosoms - well, stick 'em out!" So she did - simples haha! But she was still only 16 - my god!
Those above two photos were very much studio-creations, but I prefer to see the more informal ones we are shown. The nicest photo I see of Liz in this half of the programme is of her when she was off-duty and relaxing with James Dean in 1955. At the time she was working with Dean and Rock Hudson on the western movie "Giant". Ironically Dean is shown reading a magazine with a typical studio-inspired feature on Liz's family life, i.e. the Liz that the studio wanted to show the world. Whereas the Liz in this photograph was possibly the real Liz - who knows?
The picture was taken not long before Dean's death, and it could have been on an evening like this one that Dean unburdened himself to Liz about the conflicts he had with his sexuality - who knows (again)?
Fascinating stuff !!!!!!
20:30 Lois emerges from her Google Meet session and we phone our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 children. The two older ones, Josie (14) and Rosalind (12) have been winning prizes in their high school's "Young Musician" awards: Josie won the piano solo award, and she and Rosalind won the piano duet award. My god, almost a clean sweep! Nowadays however, you don't just get some crummy certificate, like in my day - Josie got £50 for the solo prize, and the 2 girls got £25 each for the duet award: nice!
By contrast their young brother Isaac (10) has not had a good few days. He injured his arm in a soccer match on Saturday and although it isn't broken he has to wear a kind of velcro splint for a while.
Poor Isaac!!!!
21:00 We watch a bit of TV, the first episode in a new sitcom called "Starstruck", co-written by, and starring, kiwi comedienne Rose Matafeo.
An entertaining programme with amusing dialogue, although we notice how much sitcoms have changed recently - my god! Two girls sharing a flat, Jessie (Rose Matafeo) and her flat-mate, both get drunk in a nightclub on New Year's Eve. Both of them "pull" - the flatmate takes home a man whose conversation only revolves around one topic: bitcoins.
Meanwhile Rose finds the queue for the ladies' toilet too long so she pops into the men's, where she pulls the man she then goes home with, who later turns out to be a film star. We see the couple depicted having sex to ring the New Year in with, although when they next meet, they both claim they "didn't orgasm" - a claim which each disputes when made by the other.
This puzzles me, but Lois thinks it's because they're too proud to admit they didn't perhaps put in their best performance (through drunkenness???), which could be the motive, I suppose.
What a crazy world we live in!
But what do Lois and I know? - we're only baby boomers after all !!!!
Uh-oh, we forgot to remember the "No Boomers" sign haha!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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