Another bad day, when a lot of things seem to keep going wrong in the house. Today the guy calls to read our water meter, and he says that, over the last accounting period, we've used 3 times as much water as we usually do - yikes!
the meter that measures our water supply, which
is the latest thing in the house to be giving problems - damn!
Are we watering the garden too much? Or is there a mysterious leak somewhere. I don't know, but I think we should be told. We're going to monitor the water meter - we don't usually bother, but those halcyon days are over! And I'll have to try and look back at our old water bills, but the filling cabinet is in a complete mess: I'll have to tidy that up first - damn!
a typical engineer from our water company, Severn Trent
Other things going wrong: the internet has been much less reliable than usual, and at the same time, the phone line seems to have a lot of background static-type noise on it. The TV hasn't been connecting to the internet for a few days, so we can't watch YouTube on it when the proper TV programmes are rubbish.
The freezer door-handle is broken. The stopper in the wash-basin in the bathroom doesn't stay down. Lois's hearing has got worse, and also she can't chew anything very hard at the moment until she gets her teeth completely fixed, which won't be till next month.
What a crazy world Lois and I live in !!!!!
11:00 My sister Gill has sent me the latest results of her family tree research - she and Lois are delving into the past of our "new" cousin David, the online journalist. A DNA test recently revealed that David is related to us - he's the illegitimate son of our Aunty Joan. He was adopted as a baby, and until now he had no idea who his "real" family were.
Gill and I have been intrigued about David's father Peter, who was a hotel manager for most of his career - our Aunty Joan was his receptionist in a lot of the hotels he managed: the two obviously developed a close working relationship haha!
For a long time we've been in the dark about what Peter did in World War II - he was 19 years old when the war started in 1939. Now Gill has found out that Peter was an aircraftman in the RAF. And the great thing about this kind of historical research is that you can turn up old newspaper front pages. Gill has sent me this one from an edition of the paper that actually mentions Peter.
But how fascinating to see the headlines etc, from 1943. The newspapers at that time were basically all about the war, just like now they're all about the pandemic, and so people were reading about the same type of things every day, just as we are today! What madness, isn't it !!!
an edition of a Nottingham local evening paper from 1943, one that
mentions our cousin David's father, who was in the RAF
The war seems to have going well that day on the whole - and nice to see that Britain's health was "good", and that "more babies" were arriving, which is reassuring!
14:00 I do more work on the so-called slides for my so-called presentation: a talk for Lynda's U3A Middle English group all about the effect that the Viking Age Scandinavian settlers had on the Enlgish language. I plan to rehearse my talk later this week, with Lois as my audience. She's really good at spotting missing information and asking interesting questions, so I'm hoping that she will be my "secret weapon".
I discover today that a lot of our words for animals came from Old Norse, the language of the Scandinavian settlers. And particularly it seems, words for the female of the species.
Words like "filly" for a female horse, for example, the word borrowed from Old Norse word fylja literally meaning ‘female horse’.
a typical "filly", a word borrowed from Old Norse (fylja lit. ‘female horse’)
And then there's "bitch", word for a female dog, another word borrowed from the Old Norse word bikkja literally ‘female dog’.
a book-cover showcasing a typical bitch with her puppies
And who knew that way back in Viking times, the expression "son of a bitch" (Old Norse bikkju-sonr) was already in use?
What crazy languages we speak !!!!!
a typical Viking, pictured here with a typical female dog
20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom.
I settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV. I usually use these times when Lois is busy to watch a bit more of the Danish crime series "The Killing", which Lois doesn't like, but it's been so long since I saw a full episode that I've literally "lost the plot" on that one, and I decide to watch a programme in the series "Comedy Legends" on the Sky Arts channel instead.
Tonight's episode is all about Dan Aykroyd. And it's nostalgic for me to see scenes from some old episodes of the series "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute", in which Aykroyd famously played the lead.
And who can forget those old editions of Family Feud, and especially the iconic edition where the Coneman family took part.
21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session, and we wind down before bed by watching an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "The Brittas Empire" on Forces TV, a series that revolves around Gordon Brittas, manager of Whitbury Leisure Centre.
In tonight's episode, as Gordon prepares for another busy day managing the leisure centre, Gordon's wife Helen comes downstairs and tells Gordon she's going to be spending the day looking after her bedridden 73-year-old Uncle Simon, and that she won't be back till late.
Helen Brittas gets ready for another busy day looking after
her 73-year-old bedridden Uncle Simon
Helen finally returns home about 11 pm, and Gordon can't help noticing that she appears to be wearing a nurse's uniform, one that's a bit too tight for her, but she says it's "just to reassure poor Uncle Simon". My god !!!!
Oh dear, Gordon - when are you going to realise what's really going on with Helen and so-called 73-year-old, bedridden Uncle Simon?
Poor Gordon !!!!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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