Sunday October 31st 2021

08:00 Halloween today, but it started a good 8 hours ago in Western Australia, where our daughter Sarah lives, with Francis and their 8-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie.

I wake up and already Sarah has texted me with pictures of what the twins made for their own special Halloween breakfasts: scrambled egg with monster faces - yikes, scary!!!!

 I bet the twins enjoyed making those, no doubt about that - my god!

They'll be all out trick-or-treating in an hour or two, and our other 3 grandchildren in Hampshire, England will be out doing the same thing this evening.

But it's going to be a quiet Halloween for Lois and me, that's for sure. We don't normally get any trick-or-treaters calling, because we live on a busy main road, where the houses are a bit set apart, so it's hard graft for little legs to "shlep" round them all.

All we have is our memories - these pictures are from Halloween 1981, when Alison was 6 and Sarah was 4. And the summer after that (1982) we moved to the US for 3 years, where they really know how to do Halloween. Happy days!!!!

flashback to Halloween 1981 - 40 years ago now,

when Alison was 6 and Sarah was 4: how cute they look!

Yes, how cute they were! Time it was, and what a time it was, I have a photograph. Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you haha! [Copyright Paul Simon, apart from the "haha" (haha!)]

10:30 Apart from that, it's a usual kind of a Sunday. Lois takes part in her sect's 2 worship services on zoom, but she tells me later that the sessions were plagued with technical difficulties, which was a pity. Sect members who turned up to take part in person at the Village Hall were okay, but those watching online had a lot of trouble - picture freezing, metallic sound quality and drop-outs etc. This doesn't usually happen, I have to say.

flashback to August: Lois showcases the Village Hall

where the sect holds its Sunday services

Unfortunately, although the day's visiting preacher was present at the village hall where there were no problems, the president for the two sessions was trying to preside over proceedings remotely, and sometimes didn't know when it was his cue to say a few words etc.

That's modern technology for you!!!

Eventually Lois says that the people in the hall changed the mobile phone that they were using to connect to the internet, and the quality was much better after that. But it was a bit too late as far as most of the sect members were concerned, and many had already logged off.

What madness !!!!!! 

13:30 I go up to bed for a nap, and Lois joins me at 2 pm, when the second service is over. It's a terrible day weather-wise - wet and windy from the southwest, with a few bursts of sunshine in-between-times. But how nice it is to be in bed when it's raining and blowing outside.

I think we're both feeling a bit below par - last night the UK put its clocks back one hour, and it always puts Lois and me a bit out of whack when this happens and we go over to Greenwich Mean Time for the winter - what a madness it is! 

When I was younger, I was more organised, and before going to bed on Saturday night I would go round altering all the clocks in the house, so that we used to wake up on Sunday morning with everything in order. Now, I just change my watch on Saturday night, and then do the clocks round the house gradually as we go through the week. How lazy I've become !!!!

Another annoying thing is that we have to remember that there's now an 8-hour time difference with Western Australia, instead of the 7-hour difference that there is in summer. Western Australia doesn't change its clocks at all, which makes a lot of sense to me, that's for sure!

But what a crazy planet we live on !!!!!

I ask Lois if she knows who thought of the idea first, and this is what she digs up from the Internet: it seems that the original ideas were proposed out of pure selfishness - somebody who wanted more time to study his beloved insects, and somebody else who wanted to play more golf in the evenings - my god!

Willliam Willett, grandfather of singer Chris Martin, 

proposed changing the clocks by two hours,

so that he'd have more time to play golf in the evenings

Well, what do you know!!!! But why is Port Arthur, Ontario, described as a "former Canadian city"? Has it been annexed by the United States??? 

After all several quora forum users who "think outside the box" are often asking "Why doesn't the US just take over Canada?". So perhaps somebody read all that and started to implement the idea, perhaps? 

I don't know, but I think we should be told !!!!

20:00 We wind down by looking at some TV, the last edition of this year's "Autumnwatch", which keeps track of autumn wildlife in the UK with the help of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras.

Who knew that when beavers fell trees, they always fell them so that they fall into the water, where they can process them in safety from predators. And not only that, the beavers fell them in such a way that they fall in the exact direction of the dams they are building, so that it's less work to drag the branches to their destination? [I expect a lot of people knew that! - Ed]

the programme's night-time cameras catch a beaver 

felling a tree near Wild Ken Hill, Norfolk

And who knew that when beavers are doing their gnawing work, they stop every 5 minutes to grind their bottom incisors, which do the bulk of the work, against their top incisors, to sharpen them up?

Presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan showcase

a piece of log that some beavers have been gnawing

Fascinating stuff !!!

Presenter Chris Packham famously has an aversion to using the word "cute" when talking about wildlife. But as it's Halloween, even Chris relaxes the "c-word" ban a little bit, on seeing one of the programme's legendary "cute photos", sent in by a viewer: this one showcasing a vole looking out at the world from the inside of a pumpkin.

Awwww !!!!

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

Saturday October 30th 2021

A day dominated by two zoom sessions where Lois and I see our 5 grandchildren - we are becoming more and more defined by our grandchildren, that's for sure - a sign of our advanced age! 

Every Saturday morning we zoom with our daughter Sarah and her 8-year-old twins Lily and Jessie in Perth, Australia, but today, unusually we have an afternoon zoom with our other daughter Alison, and our 3 grandchildren in England: Josie (15), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (11). 

We were planning to welcome them here in Cheltenham for their schools' half-term holidays, but they cancelled because some of their close schoolfriends had been diagnosed with COVID, and they didn't want to risk passing it on to us, which is fair enough. As it turns out, none of the family has contracted the illness, which is nice, but we think it was the right decision to cancel, just to be on the safe side.

Later today, however, Lois has some good news for us on the COVID front. We both take statins, which seem to have some mild antiviral effects, which is nice!

I just knew those statins would come in handy sooner or later!

10:00 The call with Australia. 

waiting for the zoom call to start

Sarah and Francis are thinking they will maybe move back to the UK next year, but they're not happy with the educational standards at their 8-year-old twins' primary school in Perth, and they're worried that the twins will have trouble adjusting to schooling in the UK. 

Lois and I sent them details of the educational apps that Alison's children have used to hone their maths and English skills, and the twins have been having a go at these: EdPlace, TimesTableRockStars, and above all Squeebles.

If they come back to the UK they may buy our house, initially on a buy-to-rent mortgage, and Lois and I are conscious of how many things in the house "don't work any more" - yikes! We moved here 35 years ago (January 1985) and, particularly recently have stopped working, and we've just ignored them or worked around them - yikes (again) !!!  

Francis is going to get in touch with one of his old business contacts in Cheltenham, Angie, to see if she can come and visit us, and suggest what in our house ought to be fixed, and how, and what can be left, which will be a relief. My god !!!!

The twins are in a really great mood again today during the zoom call, and bouncing around all over the place, especially Lily. They make Lois and me immediately feel about 10 years younger, which isn't a lot, but it's a start!

Both the twins are excited about Hallowe'en tomorrow. Sarah is going to take them trick-or-treating in their neighbourhood tomorrow afternoon, and then afterwards they're meeting their little friends Samara and Gianna and their parents for a pizza tea.

We don't see Francis during the zoom - he's out playing golf, and his golf is going well at the moment, Sarah says - last weekend there was a special competition and he won a $75 voucher, which he's quite proud about. He's just now pondering what to spend it on - a nice dilemma!

Sarah showcases Francis's $75 voucher that he won in last

weekend's golf competition

There have been problems recently with their house's solar panels, Sarah says, but she has arranged a deal with the company where she works as an accountant - they will replace the system at a special price: basically "at cost", which the landlord is pleased about. When that's done the family will be paying much less for their electricity - they have a swimming pool, and the pump is switched on 8 hours a day, so any reduction in their electricity bill will be welcome, to put it mildly. My god (again) !!!!

12:00 Lunch and a nap in bed, and before Lois and I know it, it's time for the second zoom call of the day, with Alison and her 3 children. 

15:00 The call begins. Ed is still away at his legal expert conference on Lake Como, but he'll be flying back to Luton later today, and from there he'll get the train, and Alison will pick him up at the station. 

the approximate flight plan for Ed's return flight 

from Milan to Luton

flashback to last Thursday: Ed waiting to take off

from Gatwick Airport.

Ali says he's feeling quite tired - there are the conference sessions all day, but then there are various social events organised for the evenings. He only got 4 hours sleep the first night, apparently.

Poor Ed!

The whole family are looking forward to having him back again, especially as he's promised to bring them back lots of Italian chocolate - yum yum!

They too will be trick-or-treating tomorrow in the Headley Down area, dressed as black cats we think.

our 3 grandchildren in Headley, Hampshire: (left to right)

Josie (15), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (11)

Isaac is enjoying his Mandarin Chinese lessons. He's enrolled in his school's Language Immersion Programme, which means that he learns Mandarin, but also has some of his non-core subjects taught in Mandarin - yikes, scary !!!!

Isaac showcases some of his Mandarin Chinese homework:

learning to write the characters

Sika, the family's Danish dog, can't resist getting in on the act. 

Sika, the family's Danish dog, can't resist getting in on the act -

he's a souvenir of the family's 6 years in Copenhagen (2012-2018)

Ali says it's getting towards Sika's tea-time, and he's starting to try and remind them and to apply a bit of pressure, although there's an hour to go yet, before he'll get anything, Ali says.

Poor Sika !!!!!

20:00 We wind down by watching an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "The Brittas Empire", which is centred around the Whitbury Newtown Sports and Leisure Centre, and on its well-meaning but unpopular manager, Gordon Brittas.

This is the episode in which the local Whitbury Pentecostal Church has brought along candidates for baptism to be dipped by their pastor under the water in the Leisure Centre's swimming pool.

As the candidates enter the pool their pastor gives a short prayer.

"And as our brothers and sisters step down into the water, let us pray that this baptism may see tongues of fire come down from heaven, as they did of old. May that fire enter their bodies, as they become born again into a new life".

These prove to be unfortunate words, however, as it turns out. The Leisure Centre manager, Gordon Brittas, has told accident-prone deputy manager Colin Weatherby to make sure the water is warm enough for the baptisms, and for some reason Colin decides to do that by lowering a two-bar electric heater down, which he intends will hover over the pool. 

When Gordon discovers this unsafe plan and remotely unplugs the heater, it unfortunately falls into the pool, electrocuting the pastor and the baptismal candidates at one stroke. Oh dear!

Gordon's wife Helen, watching from above while she enjoys a coffee in the Centre's café, comments that it reminds her of the way her uncle used to catch salmon. She says she remembers clearly seeing the salmon floating around on the surface. Apparently her uncle used to pull the stunned fish out of the water with a net and then drop them on their heads to finish them off.

Gordon's wife Helen (right) watching the carnage from the centre's café,

recalls with nostalgia, how her uncle used to catch salmon in the same way

There's a happy ending tonight, however. The leisure centre staff manage to retrieve the stunned, unconscious church members from the pool and lay them out in the Leisure Centre's reception area, while manager Gordon calls urgently for 4 ambulances.

Leisure Centre manager Gordon Brittas rings for 4 ambulances,

and the episode ends happily.

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!!

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

Friday October 29th 2021

It feels like I've been having a very physical day, which isn't like me. It had been raining hard overnight and into the morning, so I make the assumption that Lois and I are not going to be able to do our usual Friday morning walk on the local football field. This leads me to start vacuuming the whole house as an alternative, but when I finish doing the downstairs, the rain stops and the sun comes out, so we do the walk as well. Damn !!!!

11:00 We walk the walk - the field is sopping wet and is pretty deserted apart from the junior soccer practice going on in the netball court. And for once, when we sit down on the bench and drink our coffee and eat our yoghurt bars, nobody comes past us, which is unusual, to put it mildly.

I choose the bench we sit on, while Lois orders the eats and drinks

from the blonde Polish girl serving in the Whiskers Coffee Stand.

Today I select the Prestbury Parish Council bench - it's the one that

always dries out the quickest after rain, because the angle of

the planks making up the bench are tilted at the optimal angle.

I'm no fool - I notice these things haha!

When we get home I do the rest of the vacuuming - the upstairs bit. Phew, this is a tiring day haha!!! And then after lunch we have our Friday shower, which we've recently moved to the afternoon for reasons I won't go into - and it's my turn to clean up after we've finished.

What a work-out: my god !!!!

16:00 We come downstairs and listen to the radio, "Last Word". We try and catch this programme every week so we can see if anybody has died recently or not. Usually there are only about 4 or 5, so not too bad!

The Dutch-born orchestral conductor Bernard Haitink, who conducted in the UK for most of his life, has died unfortunately, aged 92. He had a difficult childhood growing up in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. His father was imprisoned, and his mother, who was Jewish, had to live a secret life to escape being sent away to a concentration camp.

However Haitink had a life-changing experience as an adolescent, when attending a concert in his native Holland, where, surrounded by Nazi officers and their wives, he realised that the Nazi wife sitting next to him was weeping - this made him see the power of music to move people from all sorts of backgrounds.

He was my sort of conductor, no doubt about that. I remember hearing him say that his job was to produce the music in the form that the composer wanted it, and not to try and put his own stamp on it, which unfortunately is something a lot of conductors try to do.

When he started conducting in England in the 1950's there were basically two models of conductors to choose between: 

(1) The Toscanini model: Toscanini normally screamed, swore and beat his musicians [My god! - Ed] 

(2) Wilhelm Furtwangler, who stood on stage trembling slightly, waiting for the spirit to descend.

[My god! - Colin].

Haitink, however, was never going to follow either of those models, which was a relief!

By contrast, Haitink was quiet, professional and charming, and totally focussed on his job. He never hectored or shouted, and never tried to draw attention to himself. He always let the music speak, and speak directly to you.

He was no extrovert, that's for sure. And he wasn't dynamic or lively. He used to say, "I learn the score, and then the rehearsals come. Before the rehearsals come, I feel nervous, but then you rehearse. And on the morning of the concert, there's this dark cloud when I wake up. I'm never sure of myself."

What a guy!

19:00 After dinner we look at our phones. Ed, our son-in-law, our daughter Alison's husband is in Italy for a legal conference of some kind, and today he has posted on social media  a picture of the hotel the participants are staying at, the historic Villa d'Este at Cernobbio on the shores of Lake Como.

I tell Lois about this and she says that the Villa d'Este is a really historic building, dating from the 16th century, when it was created to be the residence of the Cardinal of Como.

The building briefly played a part in British history. In 1815 it was bought up by Princess Caroline, the estranged wife of Prince George, heir to the British throne. Caroline hired an Italian servant to attend to her needs in Italy, Bartolomeo Pergami, and it's widely assumed that the princess and Bartolomeo became lovers. 

Princess Caroline with her servant Bartolomeo Pergami

Lois says that on one occasion a witness is said to have seen the princess and Bartolomeo lying asleep on the seat of her carriage, each with their hands on the other's private parts, which must have looked a bit suspicious, to put it mildly. Oh dear!

At the time, back in England, Prince George was trying to divorce Caroline and marry somebody else, so he sent spies out to Italy to try and catch her in bed with a man, but all attempts at a successful court action failed.

The whole business eventually proved important for British history, because the failure of Prince George and most of his brothers to father legitimate heirs led to the eventual succession to the throne by Queen Victoria in 1837, and it was Victoria who "cleaned up" the monarchy, arguably enabling it to survive to the present day.

Before that, however, at one point, Lois says, all of Prince George's brothers, by then mostly quite elderly, took part in a desperate and demeaning race to father a legitimate heir, but without success. My god!

What a crazy world they lived in, in those times !!!!

20:00 We watch some TV, yesterday's edition of Autumnwatch, which looks at the autumnal wildlife of the UK, with the help of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras.

We hear about the mating habits of wasp spiders - like all spiders, the female will normally try to eat the male after the mating has finished, but can a streetwise male spider escape that fate perhaps, if he's quick about it?

Apparently it takes 10 seconds for the male to complete the act, after which a clever male will make a swift exit, although surprisingly some males then "hang around" - bathed in a post-coital glow perhaps? The female, for her part, needs to eat the male if she can, to boost her energy levels for when she's incubating her up to 800 eggs and nurturing the resulting spiderlings.

We then see a sketch illustrating the incredible measures that the female then takes to protect its eggs.

The female somehow makes something resembling a beaker of red silk, and when she's ready, she produces all the 800 or so (yellow) eggs on the underside of her body, and then she glues them to the bottom of this "beaker". on the outside of it. Then she continues to generate a circular cocoon, which encloses the beaker entirely. Finally she then sticks this whole cocoon into the bushes, with the beaker acting as a plug to stop up the cocoon and keep the eggs and spiderlings safe, but accessible. 

And who knew that wasp spider webs have a thickened ribbon of silk that runs down the middle of them from top to bottom, and it's called the stabilimentum. 

the stabilitmentum, a strip of thickened silk,  runs from top to bottom of the spider's web

It's always been assumed that the purpose of the stabilimentium is to hold the web more rigidly, but more recently it's been realised that the stabilimentum glows under ultra-violet light. And we know that many insects, including insects that are potential prey for the spider, see in ultra-violet light, so perhaps another function of the stabilimentum is to attract those insects.  

a large-scale model of a web with a stabilimentum,

made for the show for demonstration purposes

And researchers have found that webs which have a stabilimentum indeed catch far more insects, than do the webs without them, attracting especially those species of insects that see in the ultraviolet spectrum: in fact they catch about twice the number of prey. 

And suddenly it all starts to makes perfect sense !!!!!

But what a crazy planet we live on !!!!!

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