I spend the morning crafting a letter to post to my cousin Liz in Oxford, to tell her the shock news that she's got a cousin, David, that she doesn't know about.
our "long-lost cousin" David, seen here on Monday with his wife Zanne
and my sister Gill, in Gill's house in Cambridge
I will tell Liz that David was born in 1959, the illegitimate son of our Aunty Joan, and he was adopted as a baby. And, what's more, I have to tell Liz that David lives a mere 10 miles away from her, and would like to get in touch - yikes !!!!!
I decided against telling Liz all this shock news by email, in case she doesn't use the internet that much - she's about 82, Lois and I think: so a real old lady - not like us, who are quite the youngsters at "only" 75. My god!
flashback to June 2019: the last time I saw my cousin Liz,
(second from left)
So a letter it is. I don't want to bombard Liz with information, so I just give her the main facts and assure her that if she doesn't want to be contacted by David, there's absolutely no pressure on her to do so. Now I just have to wait, to see what she says.
flashback to the 1990's: my cousin Liz (right) in happier times, pictured
with her mother (left) in the front room of my late mother's house in Cheltenham
12:00 Lois okays the text of my letter to Liz, and then she goes down to the nearest Royal Mail post-box to post it off, while I get our bed ready for our pre-Danish-meeting, shorter-than-usual nap.
13:00 As it turns out we don't get time to go to bed anyway, due to some phone calls. Damn !!!
A gorgeous photo comes in on Facebook from our son-in-law Francis, who lives with our daughter Sarah and their 8-year-old twins Lily and Jessie, in Perth, Australia. It looks like he and the twins have been down at Nedlands Yacht Club today, hoping to "get the family's boat Rioja wet" for the first time, although I gather they didn't get that far as it turned out.
But how's this for a gorgeous photo from earlier today, 9000 miles away, way down on the Swan River?
our 8-year-old twin granddaughters, Lily and Sarah, on holiday from school
till Tuesday, when they start their new school in Tapping,
one of the city's northern suburbs. How tall they're getting!
14:30 Our U3A Danish group's fortnightly meeting starts on zoom. Unfortunately we are plagued by short internet outages, which is a pity, about 5 of them - my god! So the meeting takes longer than usual, and we don't finish till 4:15 pm, and Lois and I feel completely drained, as usual.
We're getting old, that's for sure !!!!!
However it did give us a lift this week when we read about the heart-warming O'Brien story in Onion News. We want to aim now to be as fit as Thomas O'Brien - that guy is a sheer wonder when you think he's simply sailed through the so-called 40 year "old age" threshold and is still apparently without major problems.
A true inspiration for us to emulate, that's for sure!
KEARNEY, NE—Estimating that it could still be years until the
aging man’s sedentary lifestyle finally caught up with him, sources confirmed
Monday that local 40-year-old Thomas O’Brien was
not active enough to realize that his body was falling apart.
“If he’d only take the stairs once in a while, he’d notice that his knees are shot, but he hasn’t done that in close to a decade,” said sources, who noted that the man’s was far too inactive on a daily basis to notice that his muscles had deteriorated and his joints were shot.
“One stumble and his ankle would snap with his bone health, but when’s that going to happen? He doesn’t go to the gym or jog, let alone leave the house. He’d be sore for a week if he carried plastic bags full of groceries for a couple blocks. The poor guy’s totally clueless. His back would be killing him right now if he wasn’t lying down on the couch.”
At press time, O’Brien had proudly declared that he was doing pretty good for a guy his age.
Hail to thee, Thomas O'Brien! You kept us out of war, no doubt about that !!!!
What a guy!!! What a role model, my god !!!!!
17:00 Lois brings me some shock news. Some low cost airlines who have refused to refund fares to prospective passengers barred from travelling by government lockdowns, are within their rights, according to the Government. If the flights themselves weren't cancelled then the airlines aren't liable apparently.
What madness!
Lois and I were due to fly out to Australia in March 2020 when the pandemic first hit, to see our daughter Sarah and her family in Perth.
Luckily the airline refunded us the thousands of pounds we had already spent on our tickets. But my recollection is that these flights were actually cancelled. I hope I'm right. I certainly don't want to have to pay all those thousands of pounds of refunds back to the airline, that's for sure. My god!!!!
the route we would have taken in 2020, but for the pandemic
20:00 We settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV. Yesterday when I spoke on the phone to Scilla, our U3A Danish group's Old Norse expert, I suggested to her that she might like to watch a new travel series about Iceland. Scilla spent a few years living in Iceland when she was a student. So for the last day or two, Lois and I have had it in mind to watch the series ourselves.
In this first programme in the new series, presenter and game-show host Alexander Armstrong has a Saturday night out "with the girls" in Reykjavik.
Who knew that beer was banned in Iceland until 1989 - it wasn't hard liquor, and so was seen as too effete and continental. Interesting to see "continental" used with vaguely derogatory undertones - yes, we Brits aren't the only ones to do that!
It's Saturday night and we spy Alexander first outside a Guinness bar, but that's not where he's heading, for his truly Icelandic night out - it's the local branch of Vínbúðin, the state-owned liquor store chain, the only company that's allowed to sell alcohol outside of a bar.
Berglín explains that people first pick out their beer and wine, and then make a beeline for the spirits section, where they load up with brennevin, the Icelandic spirit.
After they've loaded up the cart, Berglín takes Alexander back to her flat where she's invited some of her girlfriends. First the girls "line his stomach" with some red wine, and then they start him on the brennevin,
Poor Alexandra !!!!!!
Alexander says that the thing he can't quite get his head around is the daylight on summer nights. And Berglin says it can feel a bit frustrating to come out of a club at 4:30 am and find that it's so bright outside.
The girls then drag him up to a rooftop bar, but he's visibly wilting - and at 8:30 am he makes his excuses and leaves.
It's 8:30 am when Alexander and the girls' evening ends, but that's how you do it, in Reykjavik, if you're in your teens or twenties, at least. Alexander is 51, unfortunately.
Poor Alexander (again) !!!!!
Now isn't that just like spending an evening with a bunch of Irish young women in Dublin? Apart from the sunshine of course haha!
21:30 We go to bed early - zzzzzzzzz !!!!!!
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