09:00 A surprise email from Sarah, our younger daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jessie. Many months ago they talked about the idea of them moving back to the UK in 2022, pandemic permitting. However, they haven't mentioned the idea for many months now, and Lois and I imagined that it was off the agenda, for financial or other reasons.
They moved out to Australia at the end of 2015.
flashback to 2015: Francis collects
his water sports equipment from our garage,
where he'd been storing it
.. and the furniture from their house starts its long journey down under
November 2015: the family's last day with us
the twins watch one last programme on our TV before leaving for Heathrow
November 2015: a tearful farewell with the twins
December 2015: first picture of the family from Australia
Now today, from Sarah's email, it looks like they're still regarding a move back to the UK as one of their next options. It would involve them buying our house and letting it out to tenants for 12 months. At the end of the lease they would come back to the UK and move into our house, and convert the mortgage to an owner/occupier one.
Yikes, that has "put the cat among the pigeons" as far as Lois and I are concerned. Of course we want to help them come back to the UK if that's what decide they want in the end, although I think they have alternative options in mind at the same time. But if they go ahead with this particular idea, then Lois and I will have to find a house to move to - yikes, help !!!!!
11:00 Lois and I are hoping to enter the BBC Countryfile programme's 30th anniversary "Nature Photography" competition, so we are looking out for any possibilities to achieve some world-beating snap, while doing our Monday walk this morning on the local football field.
at the start of our walk this morning, I'm confident, perhaps
a bit TOO confident, that I can get a stunning photo
of something or other "natural" on the football field
We see a few bees in hedges, but I'm not quick enough to "snap" them, before they fly somewhere else: I have a habit of "fumbling" with my phone, sometimes pressing some area of the screen incorrectly, thereby making the camera app disappear, and sometimes the phone doesn't react when I press the (virtual) "shutter". Damn !
All is not lost, however. I manage to snap a few wild mushrooms - a bit easier than snappng bees, because mushrooms are obviously not going to fly away haha!
Lois showcases some tiny wild yellowish mushrooms
in the middle of the football field today
I'm quite pleased with this picture, but Lois doesn't think it's a potential competition winner. However I'm going to keep it on my phone just in case I don't get anything better. There's no point in not sending anything in at all to the BBC, is there!
The only other thing I can see to photograph is 8 old codgers playing "doubles" on the two tennis courts, but Lois doesn't think this qualifies as "wild life". Damn!
a possible 2nd entry by me in the photography competition: a study
of 8 old codgers playing doubles tennis on the tennis courts
12:00 On reflexion, this hasn't been such a successful trip as a photographic "safari" perhaps, and we can't even get a cup of coffee today at the Whiskers Coffee Stand, because some more other old codgers are occupying the benches. Damn (again) !!!!
we can't get a coffee this morning either, because some
other old codgers are monopolising the benches
selfish old codgers are already occupying all 3 benches - damn!
16:00 We have a cup of Earl Grey tea on the couch, and while we're drinking it, I get a message from Gill, my sister in Cambridge. She recently sent her DNA sample in to a database, and found to her surprise that a BBC online journalist, David, who was adopted as a child, is actually a close relative of hers (and of mine too, obviously), one that we didn't know about - my god! What a surprise for us both, in our old age.
a typical recent TV series reunitinglost relatives
In Gill's text this afternoon she says that she's just talked to David on the phone. She says he's a really nice guy, and is very excited about this first hint that he may be able to get in touch with his real relatives. Gill will ring me tomorrow afternoon to give me more info - wow, what else will be revealed, I wonder!
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 to watch Episode 18 of the massive 20-part Danish crime series, "The Killing", which Lois doesn't like.
Two Copenhagen detectives, Sarah and Jan, have been trying to pin down who raped and murdered high-school student Nanna after a Halloween party at the school. In this episode Jan gets shot, presumably by the real murderer, and although hospital treatment is initially successful, Jan ends up by dying. I should have guessed that he was for the chop - I've noticed already that Soren Malling, who plays Jan, isn't in the cast list for Series 2, which was a bit of a clue haha!!!!
I've sussed out how this series works - in pretty much each episode the writers put a new chief suspect in the frame, who eventually turns out to be "not the murderer". At the moment it's still Leon, the creepy removal man, who's suspect no.1, but any viewer, even a child, can tell he's not the real killer - he's too feeble, physically and emotionally: a bit like me haha!
But it comes to something when even the actors in the cast can spot this pattern in the plot. In this short exchange we see the actors who play the murdered girl's parents, Theis and Pernille, at the moment when they realise the game that the writers are playing. My god!!!
That conversation should have been cut from the final version, obviously, but somebody must have overlooked it - oh dear !!!!!
21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom seminar and we watch the last episode of Susan Calman's series on the British seaside, this episode being about Blackpool, so we can wind down before bed.
Who knew that Blackpool was used by the RAF as its main training location during World War II? They chose it, apparently, because it was on the west coast - so further away from German bombers.
Also Blackpool had masses of hotels and guest-houses that were sitting empty, because people weren't going on the usual seaside holidays any more. So there was plenty of accommodation free for RAF personnel who were engaged on training or system development.
Makes sense to me !!!!
And who knew that most of the development work on RAF fighters and bombers was carried out from Blackpool? [I expect a lot of people knew that - Ed]
Fascinating stuff !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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