Well, Ross the Carpet-cleaner came today at 8:30 am - yikes! And he was here till 3:30 pm except for an hour when he had to drive to Tewkesbury Hospital to get his winter flu jab. They wouldn't do his coronavirus booster jab at the same time for some reason, so he's got to go there again at around 6 pm tonight to get that. What madness !!!!!
Also Lois and I had to do the fortnightly meeting of the U3A Danish group that we run - the only one in the UK, and we had to do it in the front room with the vague background sounds of Ross's carpet-cleaning machines coming from the back room, which was a pity. Oh dear!
The carpet in the back room is still damp, but we're going to try and sit in there this evening although we can't use the sofa, so we'll be in the individual armchairs like a proper old couple, Darby and Joan.
a typical Darby-and-Joan couple, settling down in separate armchairs
to watch the latest episode of Bridgerton
a typical scene from the latest episode of Bridgerton
And meanwhile our front room or dining-room is still cluttered with half the contents of the back room.
What a crazy, mixed-up house we live in !!!!
our back-room/ living-room/ sitting-room looking oddly empty and spacious
with a clean but damp carpet and a clean but damp sofa - oh dear!
our front room / dining-room / home-office looking strangely cluttered what total madness !!!!
Needless to say, apart from conducting our Danish meeting, we've achieved almost zero today. But at least now the living-room carpet will be clean when our "new" cousins, BBC online journalist David, identified thanks to a DNA test, and David's wife Zanne, visit us at the end of the month. In a word, all the stains on our living-room carpet are gone, and our faces won't be red haha!
At least I've learnt a new philosophy today, thanks to Steve, our American brother-in-law. He sent me a picture of his favourite "T-shirt" or "t-ing" as we call it in "Hunglish" (Hungarian English).
I hadn't come across this slogan before - "Nobody Cares, Work Harder", so I did some research. Apparently it means "Just focus on achieving your goals, or whatever it is you're trying to do just at the moment. Don't take anybody's personal comments too personally, or wallow in self-pity about them. Don't waste energy thinking up excuses for yourself when things don't go right. Don't waste time seeking to get other people's approval. Even if you don't seem to be making progress, stick with it. Never give up."
Be solution-oriented, not problem oriented.
Who knew all that came from just four words? [I expect a lot of people did! - Ed]
20:00 We settle down in the living-room but everything seems slightly odd - we can't sit together, and there's a smell of carpet-cleaner: damn!
We see a documentary about dancing film-star Gene Kelly on the Sky Arts Channel.
We didn't know that Gene and his two brothers were dragooned into going to dance classes by their mother, and that the three got teased a lot by their classmates at school for being "cissies". Whether it was because of that or not, Gene certainly developed a style of dancing that managed to be strikingly virile and not in the least bit "poncy", so perhaps he has those so-called "school friends" to thank for that, who knows?
I'm not a great fan of watching dancing in movies - I'd rather have plot and dialogue, but I admit that dance sometimes works well with song in musicals, which is very generous of me, I think!
My favourite on-screen dancer would have to be Father Finnegan, the so-called "Dancing Priest", from the Father Ted sitcom, who dances all day, "for peace".
Father Finnegan, the so-called "dancing priest"
Finnegan (left), seen here in a "dancing duet" with Father Ted
22:00 We decide to keep the central heating on all night to help dry out the carpets, and then we go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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