Tuesday September 28th 2021

06:00 Lois and I tumble out of bed about 2 hours earlier than normal - my god! The guy from Team-Know-How, who's going to repair our freezer's broken door-handle, could arrive as early as 7 am, if it fits their schedule. What madness!

 a typical Team Knowhow truck - not the one that comes to us:

the driver of this one is probably taking a so-called "comfort stop",

but it's impossible to be sure, I think!

flashback to yesterday's crazy message from 

so-called "Team Knowhow"  - what madness!!!!

[repair reference number redacted for security reasons]

We have bets on when he'll arrive - he actually comes at 9:15 am. He's a nice chap - a Brummie, and it only takes him about 10 minutes, but after he goes we scoot around disinfecting all the things he touched. Still that's the price you pay, isn't it! Anyway we can't fault his credentials for being in Team Knowhow - he certainly "knows how", no doubt about that.

after the Brummie guy is safely gone, I showcase

the new handle, completely disinfected by

the time I take this photo

flashback to the freezer's door-handle in unhappier times -

after Lois broke it off in a show of strength

It's important to have good chemistry with one's repair guys - that's something we know for sure. I recall that a man from Wilmette Ilinois, Brad Osterberg, a 38 year intellectual property lawyer, hit the world's headlines a few years ago after he put on a country music CD in order to establish a good rapport with a man who had come to repair his dishwasher (Source Onion News).

In an attempt to impress his repairer, Jason Delmar (29), whom he had called to fix a broken dishwasher, Osterberg played Merle Haggard's 1968 album, Mama Tried, all the time that Delmar was in his home, he later told journalists.

 "He did not say much, but I think we had a really good connection," said Osterberg, who later added that he always makes sure that he has something by A Tribe Called Quest blaring when his usual pizza delivery guy comes. "I just wanted him to feel comfortable. After all I have a pretty nice place here."

After leaving Osterberg's home, Delmar resumed listening to the audiobook of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow on his repair van's CD player to quote "get that hillbilly shit out of my head" unquote.

10:15 Lois and I feel all out-of-whack because we got up 2 hours early, and we don't feel ourselves. When will it be lunchtime?

I ring Lynda. She's the leader of the local U3A Middle English group. The group is supposed to be holding its monthly meeting on Friday afternoon, and I'm supposed to be the star speaker, talking on zoom about "How The Vikings Changed Our Language", but Lynda hasn't yet sent out her usual emailed invitation to the group's members.

She apologises and promises to put the email out a bit later today, which is a relief.

15:00 I do some work on my so-called presentation. I've decided to do a complete "brain-dump" of everything I know and then email it out to members tomorrow or Thursday. This will be less taxing for my powers of memory, and I can cut bits out "on-the-go", when I give the talk on Friday afternoon, when I see how the time's going, and whether they ask me lots of questions or not.

Makes sense to me!

19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her great-niece Molly's yoga class on zoom, followed by her sect's weekly Bible Seminar. I settle down on the couch to watch the 5th episode of the 2nd season of "The Killing", the Danish crime series, that Lois doesn't like.

I've had to struggle to get this far with "The Killing", because of having to watch it when Lois isn't around - difficult for two retired old codgers to arrange, admittedly, as we tend to live in each other's pockets. I've now seen all 20 episodes of Season 1, and all 10 episodes of Season 3. More recently I've seen 4 out of 10 episodes of Season 2, so I'm within sight of the end - phew! And I'm determined to stay the course.

A Danish army unit in Afghanistan got mixed up in some atrocities - the killing of civilians in a remote village. The authorities have cleared them of guilt, but now that the ex-members of the unit are back in Denmark, somebody is going around murdering them all, one by one. 

Initially suspicion fell on Islamic terrorist groups in Denmark, but by Episode 4 the finger was pointing at a mysterious Danish officer, nicknamed "Perk" who "went crazy over there", according to one of the unit's female soldiers.

flashback to Episode 4: ex-soldier Lisbeth Thomsen (left) tells Inspector Sarah Lund

that a Danish officer nicknamed "Perk" went crazy out in Afghanistan

I've long realised that the normal pattern in this drama series is that suspects are put up one by one, only to be proved innocent, and to make way for some new suspect or other in the following episode. So it's no surprise to me tonight to find out that "Perk" is apparently already dead and buried, so at first sight can't be the mysterious person who's going around murdering all the former members of the unit.

Near the end of the episode we see Inspector Lund and her assistant Ulrik Strange going out to the local churchyard to  try and find where "Perk" was buried.

Tonight, in Episode 5 Inspector Sarah Lund and assistant Ulrik Strange

search a Danish churchyard at night to find out where "Perk" is buried

However, just because police have found Perk's grave, that doesn't necessarily mean he's dead, Inspector Lund thinks. His mother was apparently not allowed to see his body before the burial, which seems suspicious, so Inspector Lund wonders if the coffin is actually empty - yikes!

The saga goes on !!!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her two zoom sessions and we watch last week's edition of Antiques Roadshow: a series in which members of the public bring along their family heirlooms and other treasures to some local stately home to have them valued by experts in the various fields of expertise.

Lois and I are both keen history-buffs, so the stand-out item for us is the compass that Welshman Edgar Evans took to Antarctica when he joined Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition, in which all the members of Scott's team, all naval men, sadly died.

In tonight's programme Evans's great nephew brings along the compass that went on the expedition.

The expedition reached the Pole but found that Amundsen's Norwegian expedition had beaten them to it, by about 40 days or so.

the expedition reached the Pole but found that Amundsen's

Norwegian expedition had been there already shortly before.

On the journey back, poor Edgar Evans was the first to die, when he fell down a crevasse. His body was never found. 

Fascinating stuff!!!

And interesting to think that the compass, which was left in one of the expedition's huts on the route back, would have been totally useless near the Pole - the needle would have just been going round and round.

What a crazy planet we live on !!!!!

And as Lois and I watch the programme, we're each feeling the effects of the early start to our day, and we both doze off from time to time. 

Lois [only bottom half visible] dozes as I take this souvenir selfie

Oh dear, we must be getting old, that's for sure! [You don't say! - Ed]

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