09:15 Runners taking part in the Cheltenham half-marathon are running down the road, so we can't resist the temptation to go out and clap them and take a few pictures.
Runners in the Cheltenham half-marathon run down the road -
what madness !!!!
However we suffer the downside of the half-marathon later on because for some reason they've decide to block all the roads off for the whole morning, so Lois can't drive out to take part in her sect's two worship services. She takes part in them on zoom instead.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
12:00 We have lunch in between the 2 services, and then when Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in the second one, I go to bed to have a quick nap.
14:15 I get up, because I can't relax - the knowledge that I have to give a presentation to Lynda's U3A Middle English group on 1st October has started to prey on my mind. The subject is "The Influence of Old Norse on the Development of the English Language".
I'm supposed to talk for at least 45 minutes, and I haven't got a book specifically about it, so I'm going to have to take bits from here and there, which is more time-consuming than it sounds. Damn!
Speech-writing manuals always recommend that you start off with a joke, but try as I might I can't think of any. Damn (again) !!!!!
I sit down at my laptop I decide to make a skeleton of what topics I want to include, and then I start assembling quotes I can pinch from the 3 or 4 books I've got about the history of the English language. Oh dear this is going to be a LOT of work [TRUMP-style capitals]. Why everdid I volunteer to give this talk?
16:00 Lois rescues me from my toiling and we have a cup of tea and share a Chelsea bun on the patio. The weather's really brightened up and it's actually warm for once. My god!
We put the package into "24-hour quarantine" on the hall floor, just to be on the safe side.
my Fathers Day present from Sarah, our daughter in Australia,
seen here in 24-hour quarantine on the hall floor by the front door.
Poor package!!!!
It looks big, but it's light in weight, Lois says. So we'll see tomorrow!
17:00 We get a text from our other daughter, Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 children Josie (14), Rosalind (13), and Isaac (11).
flashback to Alison's birthday last month: (left to right)
Ed, Rosalind, Alison, Isaac and Josie
It's Josie's 15th birthday on Tuesday. And as Lois and I always say, you know you're getting old when your grandchildren start to get near adulthood. Oh dear !!!!
But leaving that aside, the family are going into London tonight to give Josie a birthday meal at the Wimbledon branch of the Danish restaurant chain Sticks'n'Sushi. The family lived in Copenhagen for 6 years from 2012 to 2018, so it'll be nostalgic as well.
The weather's brightened up so they should have a lovely evening out.
one of the possible routes from Headley, Hampshire to Sticks'n'Sushi, Wimbledon
Later Alison posts some pictures up on social media of the event.
Alison writes "Sticks'n'Sushi was amazing
as always and we loved the British take on the Danish birthday flag tradition".
18:00 Lois and I can't match Alison's family, but we have a nice meal nonetheless based on a Cook'Shop duck'n'juniper:
CookShop's Roasted Confit of Duck with juniper,
plus our own home-grown vegetables: yum yum!
20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest programme in the series "Gone Fishing" with ageing comedians Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse. In this one the pair are fishing in the lake in the grounds of a stately home, Burghley House.
I don't know anything about fishing, needless to say, but Lois has fond memories of fishing trips with her Dad and her brother when she was a child.
There are some softer moments in tonight's programme when the two men talk about their own long-gone parents. Paul says it would have been his Dad's birthday on the day of filming and quite close to his own birthday. He recalls how he and his Dad would often go fishing together as a birthday treat, all so very memorable, even from decades ago.
Paul Whitehouse fondly remembers birthday fishing trips with his Dad long ago
Paul says that he and his sister normally meet up for a meal on their father's birthday. Bob says that he and his brothers always get together on their mother's birthday, toast her memory and tell the same old stories again, and it's fun to remember them.
How touching!
My favourite bit of the programme tonight is the marvellous Cheese Shop that the two visit in nearby Stamford, where they're served by a pleasantly plump immigrant (East European?) cheese woman.
Lois and I visited Burghley House and also the town of Stamford in 2016, partly to celebrate my 70th birthday - I was in the act of becoming an old crow - and it was on the eve of our first trip to Australia to see our daughter Sarah and her family in Perth.
flashback to March 2016 - Lois and I visit Burghley House
we visit a local pub, The Danish Invader - Stamford
was a town where thousands of Danes settled in the Viking Age
Happy days!
:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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