10:00 I recently found out that I had a "new" cousin I didn't know about - David, a 62-year-old online journalist, the son of my Aunty Joan, a hotel receptionist, and of her married lover, Peter, a hotel manager and Joan's boss.
David
my Aunty Joan, 3 years before she gave birth to David Joan gave David up for adoption as a baby and until the last few weeks he didn't have any idea about who his "real family" were on his mother's side.
My sister Gill and I, plus my wife Lois are currently trying to help David find out more about his father Peter, and fill in some of the gaps in what we know about Peter's career: Peter worked in a variety of hotels in the Midlands and Southern England, and a lot of the time we think my Aunty Joan was working in the same place, which must have been nice for them both, to put it mildly!
Yesterday Lois discovered by looking at the electoral register, that in 1974 Peter was living in the same town as us, i.e. Cheltenham, which is a bit of a coincidence, to put it mildly - Lois and I had moved here in 1972, and in 1974 we bought our first house, in Windsor Street. Peter was living there with his wife Elizabeth, his daughter Elizabeth and the son-in-law Thomas. Gill and I suspect that his long affair with our Aungy Joan was long over by this time, but we can't be sure.
This morning Lois and I decide we'll take a drive over to Peter's old housein Cheltenham, on a street called The Verneys: go and see it just for the hell of it, and (also) take a picture of it haha!
this is one of the routes from our home in Windsor Street that we could
have taken in 1974 if we'd known Peter was living on The Verneys,
and if we'd known he was my aunt's former lover, and (most importantly)
if we had decided to go and visit him haha!
I also want to take a picture of the house next door, because by another coincidence we have discovered that his next door neighbour in 1974 was one of my work colleagues - in fact somebody I shared a 2-man office with at around this time. What are the chances of that happening, eh?
11:00 We reach the street where they lived. It's a private road and there are some rather intimidating signs warning that a watch is being kept for anything resembling "suspicious activity", and warning that the police will be called if necessary - oh dear!
Lois takes a picture of Peter's old house - impressive or what!!!
[Looks completely ordinary to me! - Ed]
While Lois is out taking a picture of Peter's old house, I stay in the car trying not to look suspicious, and surreptitiously take a picture of Peter's former neighbour, my ex-work colleague Howard's old house.
My ex-work colleague Howard's old house,
as photographed from the driving seat of my car - wow!
[Doesn't look anything special to me! - Ed]
12:00 We drive away. Luckily nobody has called the police on us, which is nice. We drive over to the local football field because we've never parked in the car park there. We're living dangerously at the moment, looking for new experiences and trying to live life to the full haha!
Lois showcases the new car park with its informative sign: the Whiskers Coffee Stand and Parish Council Offices can be seen in the background
Another new experience - we're hungry for more kicks! And for the first time we try out the shiny new bench provided by the so-called "good" developers A+B Developments Ltd, who are building the shiny new doctor's surgery, which Lois and I are hoping to sign up to when it's finished.
we try out the shiny new A+B Developments Ltd bench
(Wisely I think) we decide not to risk sitting
on the old so-called "Pirie bench" haha!
13:00 We have lunch and go to bed for the rest of the afternoon - oh dear! We don't get up till nearly 5 pm.
This is the third day in a row that we've done this. Is this the start of our much-heralded decline into spending all day and night in bed, like Charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory's aged parents, just ordering meals on our smartphones now and again? I don't know but I think we should be told - yikes, it's a bit scary, no doubt about that!!
the grandparents in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory": staying in bed every day 24/7
our bed in happier times - when it didn't have to carry our weight in the afternoons: poor bed!!!
17:00 We have a cup of tea and some jam and bread on the couch and listen to the radio, today's edition of The Last Word. We try and catch this programme every Friday to see if anybody has died this week or not.
Sadly, Austin Mitchell, the broadcaster and former Labour MP and staunch Brexiteer, has died, aged 86.
He was MP for the fishing port of Grimsby, and he first came to mine and Lois's attention in 2002, when he changed his name temporarily to Austin Haddock, to express his support for Britain's fishermen, who were, he said, being shafted by the fishermen from other EU countries "stealing all our fish". And he staged a stunt on Westminster Bridge when he dressed up in trawlerman's clothes and waved a giant fish finger about, to demonstrate his support for the Grimsby fishing fleets.
"Austin Haddock MP" demonstrating on Westminster Bridge
As a young man Austin was accused of being very much spoilt by his mother - I don't know whether these charges were justified, but apparently, when young Austin was a student at Manchester University he used to send his dirty underwear back to his mother by post every Thursday, and he used to get it back the following Monday washed and ironed.
He was often accused of being "sexist" and a "male chauvinist", mainly because of the favourite tie he liked to wear, which was covered in pictures of naked women, although he would always claim a little implausibly perhaps, that it was meant to be a "homage" to "a Gauguin painting".
Austin Mitchell, who has died, aged 86
20:00 We watch a bit of TV on the couch, the final programme in the fascinating series "Secrets of the Museum", all about the work being done in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London while the museum has been closed due to the pandemic: work to maintain and refurbish some of the hundreds of thousands of artefacts the museum owns, dating from thousands of years of human history.
One of the museum's departments covers theatrical costumes from landmark productions of the past. Tonight we see them preparing to display costumes from "Follies", the Stephen Sondheim musical of the 1970's, a musical which showcased dancers and artistes from the Folies Bergeres in Paris and the Ziegfield Follies on Broadway.
Unexpectedly, however, preparing to put the dresses on display turns out to mean a lot of work for the museum's staff. Because unfortunately they find out that the only mannequins available to display the costumes have all been created in line with today's fashion for very much more slimmed-down female models.
As a result the museum's staff have to do a lot of work on the mannequins' bust and hip areas to make them big enough to display the costumes in the right way.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!
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