Another unsatisfactory day with little achieved - oh dear!
Another unsatisfactory day with not much achieved - oh dear!
07:30 The day starts with another "forced" early start today, because Mark the Gardener is coming at 8:30 am. We have to postpone our usual Friday shower.
flashback to February: Mark weeding in our flower-beds
Poor Mark was supposed to come mid-morning on Tuesday, but he's been having a stressful time. His wife gave birth to their first child a few days ago, but the baby had to be rushed down to the BRI (Bristol Royal Infirmary) children's hospital, because the little girl got some kind of blockage between its stomach and its intestines, the poor little mite. The blockage can be corrected by surgery but it's too early to do that just yet, so she's being fed intravenously.
As if that wasn't enough to cope with, Mark's mother has gone into hospital in Warwick, so Mark has been dashing between the two, poor Mark. I think things have stabilised, however, and Mark did his usual two hours for us.
10:00 We sit down and think about what groceries we need for next week. Busy busy busy!
11:00 We phone in our order for next week's groceries to Budgens, the convenience store in the village. Lois says that Lisa sounds a bit flustered, because they're having trouble getting various lines of products, due to the general shortage of delivery drivers etc.
You can usually get more or less what you want, but sometimes not exactly what you want. They didn't have the ricotta and cottage cheese we wanted, for instance, but they had something similar to one of them - that kind of thing.
We always ask for two Yorkshire Provender soups, and they only had two left, so, as we're regular customers, she agreed to "hide" them for us in the store-room, which is nice!
11:00 Lois and I go for a walk over the local football field, and have a coffee and a delicious yoghourt bar at the Whiskers Coffee Stand next to the Parish Council Offices. We see another mother-and-toddler group has started regular meetings on Friday mornings at the Sports Pavilion, which is nice.
a new mother-and-toddler-group is meeting at the Sports Pavilion
we shamelessly sit and snack on a Yoghourt bar
- what madness !!!! Isn't it great to be retired haha !!!!
12:00 We come home and look at news media (Onion News) and see a highly topical story.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki warned, “While we’re
working with shipping stakeholders around the world to fix the problems, we
also need Americans to prepare themselves to learn the real reason for the
season. Of course we understand that no one is happy about this
situation, but millions of people will have to contend with the reality that
their Christmas tree may be shrunken and their presents few, but there’s love
abounding for all hearts that are true. Certainly, no one wants to find out that what’s really important
is love and having people to share it with.”
At press time, concerns about
holiday-season shortages had increased after reports from around the country
that thousands of Americans were already attempting to stockpile that magic
Christmas feeling.
That does sound ominous, we have to admit. And what happens in America today happens in the UK tomorrow, we have always found. But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
12:30 We go out and inspect the back garden.
Mark has planted some raspberry canes in pots - our daughter
Alison can take them home with her when she visits in a week's time
Mark has cut down our so-called "meadow" which
we've been maintaining to promote biodivesrity.
How generous we are haha!
Lois showcases a teeny-weeny cucumber - these are
the last of the season, no doubt about that!
... and loads of tiny, green tomatoes,
destined to be put in chutney probably - what madness (again) !!!
Lois is so determined - she doesn't like to admit she's beaten, ever. So she takes a long-handled broom to the cooking-apple-tree to get the big apples that are out of reach.
this one is nearly 14 ounces (400g) - what a whopper!
Yes, what a whopper! And what a woman !!!!!!
13:00 I rush into the kitchen and prepare one of my signature dishes: poached eggs and chips - yum yum!
I prepare one of my signature lunches for us today:
poached eggs and chips - yum yum!
14:00 We have our postponed Friday shower, which makes us sleepy, so we go to bed for a nap and don't get up till 5 pm.
What madness !!!!! [That's it. You've had enough madness for today. I don't want to see any more! - Ed]
19:30 A text from our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 children. They recently moved into a crumbling Victorian mansion there, one that is in serious need of refurbishment. Tonight Ali has sent 3 photos of their new kitchen - the windows are still boarded up, but the inside is good enough for them to start using, which must be a relief for them: my god!
How different it looks from what it was like when Lois and I visited in August. My god!
Flashback to August: Ali and Ed's kitchen in unhappier times:
what a mess it was !!!!
20:00 After dinner we settle down on the couch. I can feel myself starting to feel a little nervous, because a social occasion has been planned for tomorrow - yikes! The chief "elder" at Lois's sect has invited us to lunch at his house, with two other sect-members also invited. I've just got completely unaccustomed to that kind of thing these days. Oh dear !!!!!
We watch a bit of TV. an interview with Monty Python star Eric Idle on the Sky Arts Channel.
I'm guessing this interview was filmed a couple of years ago, because they mention the milestone of "Fifty Years of Monty Python", which I think has come and gone.
I find this interview a bit disappointing. I think I'm always expecting Monty Python stars to be funny still, but I guess they've long passed through that stage, and prefer to reminisce about some of their best-known sketches, like tonight with Eric talking about his "Nudge nudge" sketch and singing his "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" song from the "Life of Brian" film.
This is what happens to ground-breaking comedies - they achieve their breakthroughs, and then after that it's just the stars, and also their fans, repeating the best-known sketches and funny lines, to the point where it becomes a bit annoying. They become a bit of a religion for their devotees.
Before the Pythons, it was the Goon Show radio programme that went through that cycle. The participants - Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe - and their devoted fans paid everlasting homage to the show after it had ended, with their fans endlessly repeating some of the famous lines and funny voices from the show, until it started to become really irritating. Oh dear!
Presenter Pamela Stephenson introduces a hard-hitting
discussion about a new film "The General Synod's Life of Christ"
Presenter Pamela Stephenson first showed viewers a clip from the new film.
After showing the clip she commented, "That was an excerpt from the controversial and some would say scurrilous new British picture, the General Synod's Life of Christ. The film deals with the rise to fame of a humble carpenter's son named Jesus Christ. But many have seen it as a thinly disguised and blasphemous attack on the life of Monty Python. Python worshippers claim that the film sets out to ridicule by parody the actual members of Monty Python, men who, even today, are worshipped throughout the western world."
Python-worshipper Alexander Walker, one of the show's guests, commented, "I was appalled. I find it deeply offensive to a country that is still ostensibly Python worshipping. Even a 14-year-old child can see this film. There is little enough proper Python around now without this distorted garbage!"
Controversial, yes, and thought-provoking! But fascinating stuff !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!
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