Sunday November 28th 2021

08:00 I get out of bed, go downstairs and bring back 2 cups of tea for Lois and me. 

No sign of the mouse in the larder again this morning. Ever since I arranged a visit from the Borough Council's "mouse inspector" who'll be coming next Thursday, the mouse hasn't deigned to put in a single appearance.

That little bastard!!!!  It's obviously playing an elaborate game of mouse-and-householder with us!

a typical "mouse inspector" working for the Borough Council

09:00 Lois has had a bad night, with a bit of a disturbed tummy, so I offer to do us both a breakfast of boiled egg with toast and marmalade, to calm her system down. It's nice to eat breakfast together, which has become a rare event. Usually I get my own cereal while Lois reads in bed - she tends to come down up to an hour after me.

10:45 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part on zoom in the first of her sect's two "meetings" scheduled for today, as for every Sunday.

Meanwhile I look through our family history boxes. We're getting a visit on Tuesday from my "new" cousin, David, a BBC online journalist, and his wife Zanne. I discovered that he and I were cousins after my sister Gill was given a DNA testing kit as a birthday present in May. 

David was the illegitimate son of mine and Gill's Aunty Joan, and he was adopted as a baby. He has led all his life in ignorance of his "real" family, and he's now in his 60's. 

In the last couple of months he has met Gill and a couple of our cousins in person, and Lois and I are very much looking forward to meeting him ourselves on Tuesday.

David (1959) (left) with my cousin John (1950)

David (centre) with my cousins Jonathan (1959) and Kate (1947)

David and Zanne with my sister Gill (1958)

As David is a BBC online journalist, Lois and I are guessing that he'll be interested to hear more about his (and my) maternal grandfather John, born 1845, who for a short time in his late 40's became editor of a local newspaper "The Chronicle" in Bridgend, South Wales, until his death in 1895. 

At least one of John's sons, Willy, born 1868, also became a news reporter. He and his wife Alice moved to South Africa in 1898 or thereabouts, and Willy got a job on a local paper in the township of Ladysmith. The township was in the British colony of Natal, close to the border of the Boer territory of the Orange Free State.

the British township of Ladysmith, Natal, on the border with

the Boer territory of the Orange Free State

Sadly, the town was besieged for some months by the Boers in the Boer War 1899-1902. Willy suffered severe health problems as a result of deprivations caused by the siege, problems from which he never really recovered. He died in 1904, and is buried at Pretoria, South Africa's capital. After his death his wife Alice and two children Jack and Natalie returned to England, but I haven't been able to discover what became of them.

This morning I have finally managed to locate a copy of a great picture of newspaper editor John and all his children, a photo I can show to David on Tuesday. Now I just have to find the original, which will hopefully be less grainy - oh dear!

flashback to the 1870's or thereabouts: John and wife Elizabeth and their 8 children

Willy is at the back on the right, and my grandfather Sidney

is seated on the rug at the front on the left.

Plus I found a great picture of Willy, his wife Alice and son Jack and "house boy", after they moved to South Africa. Were they also employing an adult servant? If so, what a servant - my god! Dig that turban!

Flashback to the 1890's: My great-uncle Willy and his family and servants(?) 

in Maritzburg, Natal, South Africa, now Pietermaritzburg

What a crazy world they lived in in those days!

12:30 Lunch and then up to bed for a nap. Then we get going on our various late afternoon activities. Lois watches a couple of Christmas TV movies on Channel 5. The first one stars Doris Roberts, the interfering mother-in-law in Everybody Loves Raymond, as guardian angel "Mrs Miracle", which is nice.

Meanwhile I am tearing my hair out trying to put together two 2022 calendars from our 2021 photo collection, the first one for our daughter Sarah and family in Perth, Australia, and the second one for Lois's cousin Stephen in Adelaide, Australia. I find that the photo-calendar software objects to photos taken off social media unless I make them smaller, and also it refuses to recognise photos with a so-called .jfe .jef (??or something like that) suffix.

What madness !!!!!

19:30 We speak on the phone to our elder daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire, with husband Ed and their 3 children, Josie (15), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (11). Ed is a lawyer working for Scottish railway companies, and he'll be jetting off to Scotland for a couple of days this week.

Next weekend the whole family are travelling to Wembley Stadium, London, to watch the Women's Soccer Cup Final between Chelsea and Arsenal, which will be exciting for them. Lois and I make a mental note to watch the match on TV.

flashback to December 2019: the family at Wembley watching a 

women's soccer match: (left to right) Josie, Alison, Rosalind,

Isaac and Ed

20:30 We watch a bit of TV, an interesting retrospective on the comedy writer and performer Victoria Wood, known for her stand-up comedy shows and her sitcom Dinnerladies, set in the canteen of a factory in the Manchester area.

Victoria was a writer and performer who avoided parties and social events, and who used to polish her scripts to the nth degree, even altering them after the so-called "final rehearsal" - my god! My kind of scriptwriter!

Her sitcom "Dinnerladies" was set in a factory canteen in the north of England, where her own character, Brenda, was visited from time to time by her lecherous mother, Petula, who was played by Victoria's great friend, the actress Julie Walters. And it's been noted that Victoria often gave Julie some of the best lines.

In this scene the kitchen staff including Victoria's character Brenda (left) are gathered for a tea-break, when Brenda's lecherous mum Petula (centre) makes one of her flying visits, accompanied by her "toyboy", Brad, who's standing behind her.

Tremendous fun !!!!

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