Danskcolin: Monday May 31st 2021

08:00 Lois had a bad night, so we are postponing today's shower till tomorrow. She's got lots of planting to do today so she wants to sleep in a bit longer to get her strength up.

Luckily there's a bit nicer weather in prospect for a change, in the forecast by the BBC's Louise Lear for today and tomorrow, which is nice.

We had a brief chat last night with Alison, our elder daughter, who lives in Headley, Hampshire, with Ed and their 3 children. Today Ali texts us with a plan for us to go and see them some time over the weekend. It would mean that I couldn't host a zoom meeting of Lynda's U3A Middle English group, as I agreed to, even though I have already sent the invitation out - oh dear, if this plan goes ahead I will have to find out how to cancel a zoom and how to let everybody know. Yikes!!!!

One of my problems these days is that I don't cope well with sudden changes of plan, particularly if it involves making a 100 mile journey for the first time since Christmas 2019, due to the lockdowns. Yikes (again) !!!!

I check my latest Google Maps Timeline for last month (April), just to make sure I haven't been too adventurous lately or made any reckless trips. I find I walked 4 miles and drove for 32 miles, which sounds rather a lot. I wonder if they've got that right?

I've only visited one "city", according to Google, and a total of 3 "places" in that "city". That sounds pretty adventurous, doesn't it, but I can't for the life of me remember where those places were, apart from the local football field (new official name: Prestbury Play Park).

Yikes - but a journey of 100 miles: that still sounds a bit scary, even taking account of the above wild living !!!!

I think that Steve, my American brother-in-law, has sent me an advert for a suitable T-shirt, which warns people of what might happen if they were so bold as to suggest a new plan to what I've been expecting to do. Yes, this is the one, I think:

Oh dear - I don't like surprises, it's true! For myself, I've sort of got used to not going anywhere, but I don't think Lois has. I'd better just go with what Lois decides, I suppose. Steve has a t-shirt for that as well, luckily!

17:30 We go over to our near-neighbour Frances's house to water her garden in her absence. It's becoming a little bit annoying now that the weather has improved - I think there's a 20% chance of a shower on Wednesday evening, but apart from that it's going to be dry this week: damn!!!! Needless to say, Frances has stuffed plants and vegetables in every available square foot of her garden and every available pot - my god!

we water Frances's garden in her absence

19:00 After dinner I check my smartphone. Lois and I have two twin granddaughters, Lily and Jessie, who go to a catholic school just outside Perth. I see that their teacher has put up a picture of the class's lesson today on healthy eating.

This gives me a chance to hone my "blurring" skills, so I blur out all the children's faces except Jessie's. She's the blonde girl right at the back on the right. It's nice that they're learning all this stuff - in mine and Lois's day, nobody cared about eating healthily, that's for sure !!!

Leaning how to eat healthily -

I've successfully blurred out all the faces except for Jessie's,

the blonde girl at the back on the right.

Isn't technology wonderful !!!!

20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, another programme in ex-Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo's series "Great British Railway Journeys" - at the moment he's travelling around the London area.

The current map of the London Underground railway system, first designed in the 1930's by a man called Harry Beck, is really famous in the UK - it was radical because it was modelled on a circuit diagram rather than on the real geography of London and real distances etc. This "circuit diagram" approach was the only way to do it clearly, as it turned out.

The old-style maps had, by the 1930's, become a total nightmare to follow.

the old-style maps of the London Underground railway system,

like this one (above), had by the 1930's become a nightmare to follow

Beck had the bright idea of remodelling the map like a circuit diagram, without regard for physical distances and directions. Unfortunately, as reward for his revolutionary work, he was only paid 10 guineas (£10.50 in today's money).

Poor Beck !!!!

Also in tonight's programme we see Churchill's underground, bomb-proof War Rooms at Westminster, where he held all his important cabinet meetings, safe from the German bombing raids which hit Downing Street on more than one occasion. The Rooms have been laid out to resemble one such cabinet meeting in October1940.

Churchill's chair is still there, and you can still see the marks on the chair arms made by his signet ring and fingernails, perhaps from whenever he was getting agitated - oh dear!

Fascinating stuff!

Strangely enough, I'm sure I have visited the War Rooms, but it wasn't with Lois - she confirms that she's sure she's never seen them. I think I visited them in 2008 with Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, who was on a visit to this country at the time. I can't find any photos, however. Perhaps photography was banned inside the Rooms in those days?