A damp, overcast day, but at least it's mild. For the first time since the pandemic started I find my tyre pressure gauge and inflator in the boot of our car, and check the tyre pressures. Shock horror - let's just say that one or two of the tyres are criminally underinflated.
I usually rely on periodic servicing at garages, or the purchase of new tyres, to make me believe that the tyre pressures are okay. This is clearly not good enough. And I tend to think that, as we hardly ever use the car, the tyre pressures are not going to go down. I actually read recently that the opposite is the case - if you don't drive much the tyres are more likely to lose pressure. Oh dear!
Well, I've learnt my lesson. I'm going to start a regular checking routine from now on. And at least today I manage to get down on the ground to check the pressures and also manage to get up off the ground when I've finished, which is good news. I wouldn't want to stay in the position shown in the above photo for any length of time, especially on a damp day, that's for sure!
11:00 I open up my package from the British Museum with my new Hokusai Great Wave tee-shirt inside, only to find it's a woman's size medium. Damn! But luckily Lois likes it and she's the right bust size, so I hand it over to her with a brief informal ceremony, and find a tee-shirt for myself on the Spreadshirt site, so soon we'll have his and her Japanese Wave shirts, which will be nice.
Sarah and the twins as they are today
We talk to Sarah and her 8-year-old twins on zoom every Sunday, but the other day Sarah has said she wants an extra chat with us midweek, where she can talk about whatever she or we want. For example she can tell us what sort of a day she's had at work, or any of us can complain about backache, or chat about what we've been watching on TV or whatever.
Lois and I miss the twins dreadfully. Before Sarah and Francis moved out to Australia 6 years ago, in November 2015, we used to look after the twins 2 days a week, so we feel a really close connection with them. Many's the time we took them to the local library here in Prestbury, or at Evesham, Worcestershire, where the family was living at the time.
Knowing that David, together with his wife Zanne, will be visiting us at the end of the month, has sent shock waves through Lois and me. Since the pandemic started we haven't really done any serious "entertaining" - the whole house is one great rubbish tip, particularly our so-called dining-room, which doubles as a so-called "office".
Synopsis of epsode: Brittas visits Brussels in relation to the job he was offered, so things should be running smoothly at the centre, but even all those many miles away, he still manages to cause a chain of problems involving rats and explosions. Helen is in trouble after trying to kill a teacher.
The news of the explosion makes headlines Europe-wide, but Gordon, still in his hotel room in Brussels, is unfortunately talking on the telephone with his back to the TV when the news of the explosion in Whitbury breaks on Belgian TV with interviews and graphic pictures of the injured staff and visitors being evacuated. Oh dear!
She took the twins to the local Joondalup Library for the first time a couple of days ago. The twins love reading books, so they were in their element. They're each allowed to take out up to 15 books for a month, but Sarah is sensibly rationing them to 5 weeks.
Joondalup Library, Perth, Western Australia
flashback to May 2014 - Lois and I take the twins to
our local library in Prestbury - happy times!!!
flashback to June 2015: we and Sarah take the twins to the tiny
Evesham Public Library, Worcestershire: how cute the twins were!
12:45 At the same time as Sarah comes through to us on whatsapp. I get a message from my sister Gill in Cambridge. Her husband Peter has spent a couple of weeks in hospital, but he's coming home tomorrow Friday, and social services have arranged some sort of after-treatment care package for him when he's at home.
She also sends me the latest picture we have of our "new" cousin, the online journalist David. We didn't know about him until Gill took a DNA test and sent it in to a large database. He was born in 1959 to our unmarried aunt, Joan, and adopted as a baby. He didn't know anything about his "real" family until the connection was revealed by the DNA test.
flashback to the late 1920's: our maternal grandparents with the 4 youngest of
their 9 children: (left to right) Ruth, Joan and Babs (the twins), with Hannah (Nan) in front:
a sunny day at the beach near Bridgend, Glamorgan, Wales
He's been meeting up with some of his cousins already and he's due to visit Lois and me at the end of the month. He's already met (in person) Gill (b.1958), also John (1950), and also Kate (1947) and Jonathan (1959). Kate and Jonathan feel particularly close to David, because their mother Babs was Joan's twin.
Today David has been meeting up with Liz (b.1939), and he sent Gill a picture of the two of them, photographed at Liz's home in Headington, Oxford.
David, our "new" cousin, with Liz (b.1939), another of my cousins,
pictured earlier today at Headington, Oxford
Our plan is to keep David and Zanne out of the dining-room / office. Luckily they're only coming for mid-morning coffee, and not for lunch. But we'll need to do something about the carpet in the living-room, that's for sure. It's got a million stains from tea and coffee spillages. Till now we've been too nervous to invite a carpet cleaner into our home, but we're just going to have to face it now.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
20:00 We settle down on the couch to watch some TV, an interesting documentary about the life and career of actress Sophia Loren.
Carlo Ponti with Sophia Loren
It's interesting, after all the actresses we've seen recently in this series who have had one unsuitable and/or abusive husband after another, like Rita Hayworth or Audrey Hepburn, to see Sophia who married at a young age to a man, Carlo Ponti, so much older than herself, but with whom she had such a long and happy marriage.
Also, Sophia could certainly act, and she could do tragedy and comedy equally well, but, needless to say, the talking heads on tonight's programme, both male and female, keep going into raptures over her beauty. Lois thinks this is unfair. They never do this with male actors, she says. She's got a point, but I can't really see that changing, somehow.
21:00 We wind down by seeing an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "The Brittas Empire", which revolves around Whitbury New Town Sports and Leisure Centre, and its well-meaning but unpopular manager, Gordon Brittas.
In this episode we see Gordon travelling to Brussels to be interviewed for the job of European Commissioner for Leisure.
And it's amusing to see Gordon using his schoolboy French to complain to the hotel waiter about his breakfast tray - "J'ai demandé le Wheat Shreddé, pas le Bix Weeta" [I asked for Shredded Wheat, not Weetabix]; or to make pompous speeches to the European Commission: "J'ai une reve..." [I have a dream...].
Gordon uses his schoolboy French to complain to the hotel waiter -
"J'ai demandé le Wheat Shreddé,,,"
Meanwhile, back at Whitbury New Town, staff at the Leisure Centre are expecting a quiet couple of days with Gordon being away on the Continent.
Unfortunately, however, Gordon continues to micromanage the Centre by telephone from Brussels, even interrupting formal European Commission meetings to do so.
Gordon interrupts a major European Commission meeting
to micromanage by telephone his staff back at the Whitbury Leisure Centre
And Gordon's confusing and contradictory instructions to staff lead to yet another major explosion, after large quantities of weed-killer become combined with large quantities of icing sugar. Oh dear!
Oh dear (again) ! But tremendous fun!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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