Danskcolin: Monday July 26th 2021

Incredibly, July 26th is the birthday of 3 out of our 5 grandchildren. In Headley, Hampshire, Alison and Ed's son Isaac is turning 11, and in Australia Sarah and Francis's twins Lily and Jessie have turned 8.

Sarah has arranged a zoom call this morning starting at 9:45 am (4:45 pm Western Australia time).

at 9:45 am we talk on zoom to Sarah, our daughter in Australia

and with Francis and their twins, today celebrating their 8th birthdays

The twins show us their birthday presents: Lois and I sent Sarah dollars to buy clothes for them, and we also sent a set of coloured dominoes, the kind you arrange in long rows, then knock down the front domino and watch all the others fall down in sequence - tremendous fun!!!

I think I'll order a second set, just for Lois and me!

the twins showcase some of the presents that Lois and I paid for:

a set of coloured dominoes and some clothes

We watch Sarah light the 8 candles on the cake and then we see the twins blow out the candles, make a secret wish, and then start to eat it. It won't last long, we estimate! Yum yum!

Lily and Jessie blow out the candles and make secret wishes

before starting to eat - what we'd give to know those secret wishes!

I remember my own 8th birthday very clearly because it came towards the end of an odd 3 months, in 1954. My parents and siblings we all had left our home in Bradford, and were staying at our grandmother's house in Oxford, while our father found us somewhere for us to live in London. An exciting time for him, because he'd just got a job as deputy headmaster of a big secondary modern school in Haverstock, NW London.

Haverstock School in the 1970's - the school where Labour Party's

ill-fated leaders, the Miliband brothers, were once students

flashback to Spring 1954 in an Oxford park:

me (right), 8, and my brother Steve, 2 years old

flashback to August 1954: (left to right) a nude study of

my brother Steve (2), and normal studies of my sister Kathy (6)

and of me (8) in our garden in London

16:00 We get news of Isaac's 11th birthday from our other daughter Alison. He's had a nice outing to Brooklands Museum and looked over a Concorde.

Brooklands Museum: left to right Isaac (11), Josie (14) and Rosalind (13)

Isaac and Rosalind looking smart

Isaac and Josie

I wish it were my birthday too - no fair !!!!! I want to be 8 again really, but I'll settle for being 11 haha!!!

a souvenir from the family's 6 years in Denmark (2012-2018)

Gawd bless 'em all, all five of them !!!!

19:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Seminar on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch Episode 4 of the 3rd season of the Danish crime series, "The Killing", which Lois doesn't like.

Gosh, this series is getting more and more complicated, especially with all the political shenanigans. I've decided to stop trying to solve the case for star detectives Inspector Sarah Lund and her sidekicks Borch and Asbjorn, and instead just to sit here and be scared by the horror-aspects of the story, the dark rooms and warehouses, the creepy music etc: that's far less of a strain on my brain haha!

Industrialist Robert Zeuthen, head of shipping giant Zeeland, has had his young daughter, Emilie, kidnapped by somebody with a grudge against Zeuthen and/or his firm, apparently. The kidnapper has been transporting the girl around Denmark in a big van, which the police have now found.

The little girl is no air-head, however. And Inspector Lund discovers that the girl has written with her finger on one of the van's toilet window-panes, and revealed the identity of the campsite that the kidnapper is going to be taking her to next.

Atta girl, Emilie! The girl's got brains, no doubt about that!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom presentation and we wind down before bed by seeing a bit of the enjoyable film adaptation of Stella Gibbons's classic comic novel, "Cold Comfort Farm", starring Kate Beckinsale as sensible 1930's socialite and writer Flora Poste.

Sensible budding-author Flora is forced to spend some time far away from 1930's London deep in the countryside with her country cousins: the crazy, medieval Starkadder family.

Flora's project is to "tidy the Starkadders up" and bring them kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

In this scene, Flora's cousin Miriam is lying up on the hay in the barn and moaning, after having given birth overnight to her fourth illegitimate child. Flora goes to see her to find out what Miriam's moaning is all about.