07:00 Lois wants to get up and wash her hair because she thinks she's got an appointment for a haircut with James, her stylist, at 10 am. But I persuade her that her hair looks all right, so we get another hour or two in bed, which is nice. I'm such a charmer haha!!!!
Lois - a recent picture: her hair looks all right to me,
but what do I know haha !!!!
Due to lockdowns she hasn't had a hair-cut for a few months, so she's looking forward to today. I think all hair-salons opened on Monday, as part of Boris's easing of restrictions.
We stay in bed and Lois tells me about the latest developments in the book she's reading, Alison Lurie's "The War Between the Tates", about Erica, wife of college professor Brian Tate, who's unfortunately got Wendy, one of his students pregnant. But Brian persuades Wendy to have an abortion, so that's all right!
Erica Tate and husband Brian, a college professor
who's got his young student girlfriend pregnant
The story is set in the 1960's, the time of women's lib and campus sit-ins and that kind of thing. Brian has been thrown out of the marital home, so he's starting to dress "younger", and getting to know some of the female students in his girlfriend Wendy's circle, including Jenny, attractive but "out of Brian's league" in his wife's judgment.
Brian has a feud going on with one of the other professors, Prof. Dibble, a notorious male chauvinist, and in pursuit of this feud he makes the bad decision to get involved with the women students' campaign against Dibble.
Things get out of hand when the women take Dibble hostage in his office. Brian helps Dibble to escape but finds the women take him hostage in place of Dibble, which he's not too pleased about, especially when a photo of him being sat on by Jenny (one of Brian's fantasies but one that's gone horribly wrong - oh dear!) gets him into the papers.
Oh dear - what a crazy world they lived in, in the 1960's - my god!
a typical feminist sit-in from the 1960's
10:00 Lois kits herself out in gloves, face-mask etc and takes the 5-minute walk round to the "Billy Shears" hairdressing salon, only to find out it's actually tomorrow that she's supposed to be there. Uh-oh!
the local hairdressing salon, "Billy Shears"
10:30 We're expecting our elder daughter Alison on a day visit at the weekend - the first time we'll have seen her and her family members for several months due to lockdowns. It's quite a drive from Headley, Hampshire, but her husband Ed won't be able to come, so Alison will have to do all the driving. Ed has to stay behind with Sika, the family's Danish dog, who's recovering from an operation on his leg.
We can't socialise with them indoors - it'll have to be on the patio. The weather forecast suggests the temperature may struggle up to 58F (15C), so we think it'll be all right with warm clothing on. But what madness!!!!
Over the winter months the patio has been used as a place to dump all sorts of unpleasant things - including waste bins, recycling bins, broken garden tables, wheeled garden "dollies", bags of compost, old tiles and garden ornaments - a real load of tat: my god! The chairs and tables are caked with bird "do". And the patio itself needs a good sweep, that's for sure. So we spend half of the morning starting to clear all that stuff away in an operation we call "Phase One".
this morning - the patio at the end of "Phase One" of the tidying up process
flashback to October 2020 - the last time Alison and her 3 children visited
flashback to October 2020 - me with Alison, the last time she visited
flashback to last September - the last time the whole family visited: sob sob!
After we have worked on the patio, I vacuum the whole house, a work-out in itself - Alison and family won't be allowed to come in the house of course, but just in case there's some sort of emergency we want the house to look reasonable inside - we're anxious to keep up appearances. We don't want them to think that Lois and I live here like pigs haha!!!
20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, a programme in Margaret Thatcher's former minister Michael Portillo's series on "Great Continental Train Journeys".
In this episode Michael travels from Budapest to Vienna and beyond.
Lots of nostalgia for me because on the three trips Lois and I took to Hungary (in 1998. 2002, and 2006) we went by train from London each time.
Michael includes lots of the history of Hungary and of Hungarian railways, which is nice.
this map shows the extent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
until the Treaty of Trianon of 1920
Nyugati Station (Budapest West)
Michael approaches the gloriously ornate entrance to Keleti Station (Budapest East),
from where Lois and I left Hungary for the first time, in 1998 - sob, sob!!!
flashback to 1998 - our bedroom on our last night in Budapest
1998: the view from our bedroom window in Wesselényi Street, Budapest
1998:me on Wesselényi Street, Budapest
Happy times !!!!!
21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch some comedy clips from the 1970's to wind down ready for bed.
It's so nice to see a lot of sketches that today would probably be considered politically incorrect, so a chance to see them again before they're wiped irrevocably from the archives haha!
Dick Emery's character Mandy has always been a favourite of ours, so it's nice to see her taken out for a dusting off and a typical vox pop.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!
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