Weds Aug 18th noon - Thurs Aug 19th

Wednesday August 18th afternoon

13:00 This is the third and last full day that Lois and I are spending with our daughter Alison and her family in Headley, Hampshire.

After lunch Lois and Alison take Alison and Ed's 3 children Josie (14), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (11) down the road to the Texaco petrol station, where the Budgens convenience store which has a very popular ice-cream machine. 

four guys showcasing the recent opening of the local Texaco petrol station: MD Visvanathan, 

East Hampshire district councillor Anthony, and managers Doreen and Keith

the Beech Hill service station, where there's a Budgens franchise

with an ice-cream machine - yum yum!!!

I opt out of this trip in favour of a nap upstairs, but the family bring me back a Magnum white chocolate special, which is nice. Yum yum!

Flashback to Hungary in the 1990's. I discover 

Magnum ice-creams for the first time - yum yum!

17:00 The builders renovating the family's crumbling Victorian mansion knock off for the day, and Ed takes us on walkabout to see how the renovators have been getting on today. The main focus is on what is going to be the new kitchen.

Ed takes us to see how the builders are getting on with getting

the new kitchen ready.

The plan is, that when the new (large) kitchen is ready, the old (small) kitchen will be converted to being Ed's "study", which he badly needs, as he works from home at least 4 days out of every 5 at the moment. 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

flashback to Sunday and Ali's 46th birthday: the tiny old kitchen

can be seen in the background behind the dining-room where 

the birthday brunch is being put on

We spend the evening with the children watching their favourite programme of the moment: "Good Luck Charlie", a US sitcom from 2010-2014, on the Disney Channel, a pay-channel that the family subscribe to. Josie sits and watches with Otto, one of the family's two cats.

Josie (14) curled up with Otto, one of the family's two cats

During this 5-day visit, Lois and I have made great progress with getting to know the family's two cats, who as the result of the months and months of lockdown and the consequent lack of visitors, have become very suspicious of anybody outside the immediate family. This week both Lois and I have managed to stroke Otto briefly, and Dumbledore, the family's Danish ex-alley-cat, no longer runs away at the sight of us.

Progress indeed!!!!

Thursday August 19th 2021

10:00 Neatly dodging the builders' vans parked outside Ali and Ed's house, Lois and I leave to drive the journey home to Cheltenham. Sob sob! Back to being two old codgers rattling about in a gigantic family-size house again. 

flashback to yesterday morning  negotiating all the builders' vans 

parked outside Ali and Ed's house - what madness !!!

I won't say the trip home isn't gruelling, because it makes my head hurt to concentrate for over 2 hours, particularly when we're on the M4 - I've just become unused to driving more than about 10 miles at a time. We don't stop to have a coffee or to go to the loo, in case we fall victim to any stray COVID germs - makes sense to me anyway haha!!!!

We had travelled the journey down to Headley early last Sunday morning, when there was negligible traffic. That's not true today for the return trip - damn! (entirely predictable of course, but still - damn damn damn!!!!)

the journey home

12:30 We get home, have a bit of lunch and then spend the afternoon in bed - well, wouldn't you? haha!!!

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest programme in the series "Secrets of the Museum" about the work carried out at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to repair and showcase some of the millions of human artefacts they possess from the last 6,000 years of human history.

It's so interesting tonight to see Winston Churchill's battered red "despatch box", that he used for his official papers when he was Secretary of State for the Colonies in the 1920's. 

Churchill took it with him, for example, to the 1921 Middle East Conference at Cairo, where the European powers drew a lot of straight lines and wiggly lines on the map of the Middle East to designate all the new countries coming into being after the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. 

What fun it must have been! But probably loads of tragic mistakes were made - but I'm not too sure about that: perhaps we should be told. Anyway it's too late to put it right now, that's for sure!

These hand-crafted red boxes have been used by the British monarch and government ministers since the 16th century. Only one firm exists today that still makes them now, Burrow, Hepburn & Gale, so that company has finally got it sewn up, the lucky buggers!

The boxes had a cheap, primitive, but effective, "security device" - the handle was always on the other side of the box from the lock. So if you closed it and started to carry it away without locking it, all the papers would immediately fall out, immediately alerting you to your unfortunate lapse of memory.

How clever people were in those days!!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!