10:30 Lois goes down the road to post a few letters and then go for a walk on the local football field. I've detailed her also to see if the Whiskers Coffee Stand is operating today - this is a monumental issue for Lois and me, as we normally stop there whenever we're on the field. Yesterday the stand was unaccountably closed, despite a prominent sign saying Open 7 days a week from 9am till 5pm.
flashback to yesterday: I stand forlornly outside the Whiskers place,
unable to ask for one of the Polish girl's famous "flat whites" - sob sob!!!
These are the kind of things you become preoccupied with when you get to our age. What madness it is !!!!
I sit Lois down, get her a cup of coffee and tell her about my morning - I've been putting our recycling boxes out on the kerbside for collection tomorrow morning. I've also done the same thing for our near-neighbour Frances, who's on an Anglican pilgrimage to Walsingham this week.
Walsingham is where Anglo-Saxon woman Richeldis had a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1061, exactly 960 years ago this year.
typical Anglican pilgrims at Walsingham
Gill took a DNA test a month or do ago, and as a result she found out that she and I have a cousin we didn't know about: David, a 60-something online journalist. He was born to our Aunty Joan in 1959, but David's father was married to somebody else, and so David was given up for adoption, and was never told any detail about his true origins.
Gill reports that the visit yesterday went very well, despite its bizarre nature. It's not often that you meet a close relative for the first time when you're in your 60's, that's for sure!
Gill has spoken to David several times in the last few weeks, but had never met him in the flesh until yesterday, when he arrived in the morning with his wife Zanne, and stayed a couple of hours to chat.
flashback to yesterday: (left to right) David, David's wife Zanne,
and my sister Gill, pictured at Gill's house in Cambridge
And according to Gill, David is very keen to meet Lois and me, and meet also as many other cousins as he can. There are a few of these in the Oxford area, so not far from where David and Zanne live, which is in the north of the county. Gill also says that David has my voice, which is weird - I thought I'd copyrighted it ! I've also insured it, but only for 50p, so that doesn't matter too much, admittedly!
Both mine and Gill's mother Nan, and David's mother Joan, are buried in the same plot in an Oxford cemetery, which David has now visited: he's also done some maintenance on one of the plaques there at the grave, which was so kind of him. What a nice chap!
David, his wife Zanne, and daughter Rose, visiting
the grave for the first time last month
flashback to 2013: I visit the grave where mine and Gill's mother Nan, and David's
mother Joan are both buried: it's also the grave of our maternal grandparents.
The strange thing is that David says he has countless times driven past the cemetery where his mother is buried, completely unaware of the fact, naturally, that she was there.
Apparently David hasn't had much luck trying to contact relations on his father Peter's side. There aren't many of them to track down in any case, but the trail has gone cold for the moment. Gill asked me to contact one of our cousins, Liz [not shown on the family tree above], who lives in the Headington area of Oxford, to see if she would be happy if David contacted her - earlier in his life David had spent some years himself living in Headington, not knowing he had cousins galore living less than a mile away from him.
Isn't life funny sometimes !!!
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, also on zoom.
I settle down on the couch to watch Episode 8 of the 2nd season of "The Killing", the Danish crime series, which Lois doesn't like.
Suspicion fell first on Islamic extremist groups in Denmark, but that was a few episodes ago now! How long ago that seems haha!!!
For the last few episodes, the suspects have all been Danish soldiers. Each episode brings a new suspect to the fore, who is then subsequently cleared, so that a new suspect can be showcased.
What madness !!!!
Army Colonel Jarnvig's daughter Louise Raben knows all about at least 2 of these military ex-suspects - she's married to one of them, Jens, and now in this episode she starts going to bed with another one, Danish officer Christian Søgaard. There must be something about an ex-suspect, no doubt about that haha!!!
Colonel's daughter Louise likes the programme's ex-suspects, that's for sure !!!!
There's something about an ex-suspect,
There's something about an ex-suspect,
There's something about an ex-suspect
That is fine, fine, fine !
Poor Inspector Ulrik!!!!!
In this first ever episode in the series, security guard Victor Meldrew is forced to take involuntary early retirement, and finds the adjustment to his lifestyle a little difficult to put it mildly.
Tremendous fun !!!!!!
Episode 8's new suspect turns out to be someone whose name hasn't even been mentioned before: Frederik Holst, a Danish Army surgeon, still out there in Afghanistan.
This gives star detectives Inspector Sarah Lund and her sidekick Inspector Ulrik Strange the excuse to travel out to Afghanistan on an army plane.
Inspector Ulrik has been trying to get Inspector Sarah into bed for a few episodes - will the famously romantic atmosphere of Helmand Province lower her defences at long last perhaps?
I don't know, but I think we should be told !!!!
flashback to Episode 7: Inspector Ulrik is on the brink of getting
his colleague Inspector Sarah to go to bed with him, when there's a ring
at the door. It's their boss's boss, Ruth.
21:00 Lois emerges from her multiple zoom sessions and we wind down for bedtime by watching an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "One Foot In The Grave".
His work as a security guard on the reception desk at some large company is now being performed by an electronic "box".
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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