Thursday November 25th 2021

08:00 November 25th and it's Thanksgiving Day in the US and Canada. 

Lois and I lived in the States between 1982 and 1985 with our young daughters Alison and Sarah, and we celebrated Thanksgiving 3 times during our stay over there (I've got a maths degree, so I can assure you that's the right figure haha!).

top: our daughter Alison's last US class picture: she is back row, 3rd from left

bottom left: our last Thanksgiving Dinner in 1984: (left to right) Sarah (7), Me (38),

Lois (38), Alison (9) and my late sister Kathy (36)

bottom right: Sarah's last school photo from the US.

Happy days !!!!!

09:00 Yikes - the mouse is back and we're going to be in trouble, hey la day la, the mouse is back [copyright Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer - well done, boys - great lyric!]. I check the larder for mice droppings but don't find any - but then Lois does a check and she sees them straightaway - what a woman!

Later I finally get to talk to Anna at the Borough Council's Pest Control Department, but it's not till 1 pm. They will send somebody Thursday week (December 2nd): you get 3 weekly visits from the mouse inspector, plus free traps and bait, but the whole thing costs £130 - what madness !!!!!

a typical "mouse inspector" from the Borough Council

Pest Control Department

It's a pity that Mouseman can't come for a week, but I think the whole department has been very busy recently, due to the success of the long-running so-called "Koepka Tests" (source: Onion News).

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Announcing that extensive testing on lower-order rodents has proven the behavioral puzzle fit for general use, a group of Harvard University psychologists who have spent their careers developing a maze with cheese in the center have announced that they have entered human trials following decades of testing on mice. “After thousands of rounds of animal testing going back to the early 1950s, I speak for everyone at Harvard when I say we are overjoyed to have finally reached our end-stage testing goal: placing full-sized adult humans in a labyrinth and forcing them to seek out cheese,” said project lead Dr. Drew Koepka.

12:00 An email from our local surveyors - they will send a crack inspector on December 6th  to investigate a couple of cracks in our walls: the house was built in 1930, so I'm surprised it hasn't fallen down yet, to be honest!

The practice has offices all over our region, and we have used them before, so we're feeling confident in their capabilities, which is nice.

12:30 It's sunny and bright, but a bitterly cold day again. We brave the cold to start putting the garden to bed for the winter, beginning with the patio furniture, which we attempt to cover up with some plastic coverings. 

But already I can hear the local winds laughing in the distance: and if you listen to their whistlings, they're saying, "Hah! Those covers won't stay in place for 5 minutes once we start blowing haha!!!

Brrrr! It's cold, but Lois and I start to put the garden to bed for the winter

20:00 We watch some TV, an interesting documentary about film-star Errol Flynn.

Who knew that Australian-born film-star Errol Flynn was only 50 when he died, an alcoholic, after a heart attack? Or that he learnt most of his acting skills at an amateur theatre in Northampton, England?  [I expect a lot of people knew all of that! - Ed]

Lois and I particularly enjoy hearing about Flynn's early years. He was expelled from Sydney Church of England Grammar School - and on tonight's programme we hear the expulsion followed an alleged sexual encounter with the school's laundress. My god! After that, aged 18, he spent time in Papua New Guinea looking for silver mines. As you do.

Sydney Church of England Grammar School as it looks today

Flynn's first film role ever was in a short, low-budget film by a local Australian director, "In the Wake of the Bounty", where Flynn played Fletcher Christian - and it's interesting that his first role was a swashbuckling one: obviously that was the kind of character he was born to play.

Yes, why did white men mate with the dark-skinned women of Tahiti? I think we should be told - and yes, this story will explain the facts: at last!!!

The critics on this Sky Arts documentary tonight are a bit scathing about this 1933 film, but it sounds just great to Lois and me:

The most amazingly intimate chronicle of the South Seas ever conceived!

Travel perilously through unchartered [sic] seas, into a paradise of passion and liberty, where dryads asked no vows, and knew no shame, and where thoughts of home, wives and sweethearts were buried under the demoralising debris of scented nights and tropic madness !!!!

That sounds great to us - we could do with a bit of tropic madness in a grey late November in England. And a few scented nights wouldn't come amiss, either!

My god - bring it on haha!!!

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