Danskcolin: Friday December 2021

09:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower, and soon afterwards we find ourselves in our car on the way to the shops at Bishops Cleeve (and intentionally so, we haven't been kidnapped, you'll be pleased to know!). [I'll be the judge of that! - Ed]

We park in the giant car-park at the Tesco-supermarket - it's only the second time in a week that we've done this, after over a year of avoiding busy car-parks and supermarkets. Yikes - scary!!!!

flashback to last Friday: Lois, in her trademark pink coat, showcases our car,

which had not seen the inside of a supermarket car-park for about 18 months.

We get out of the car, and pick up Lois's shoes from the local Macdonald's Shoe Repair business in Tarling's Yard. But "Old Macdonald" hasn't put a new strap on my watch yet, which is a pity. He says he'll give us a ring when it's done.

The entrance to Tarling's Yard - Macdonald's Shoe Repairers

is the first shop on the left - the one with the blue sign by the door

We also want to get some cash out, but we find out that there doesn't seem to be a single cash machine left any more in Bishop's Cleeve except the one outside the Tesco Supermarket. All the banks and building society branches seem to have closed.

This is a nationwide trend, we've heard, where banks and financial institutions are closing a lot of their local branches - it suits them, and if it doesn't suit their customers, that's tough luck, apparently. What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

the Bishops Cleeve branch of the Cheltenham & Gloucester

Building Society - now it's no more: what madness !!!!!

Although we now pay for almost everything by contactless debit or credit card, it's nice to have a bit of cash at home as well - for paying Ian the Window-cleaner, for example, or for stuffing inside birthday cards for great-nieces and great-nephews, that kind of thing.

11:00 We come home and take a walk round the local football field. We order two of Polish waitress Monika's new creations: mint-flavoured hot chocolate, plus a Bakewell raspberry flapjack. Yum yum!

We notice that on the nearby building-site where builders are building some horrible blocks of flats, two silos have appeared, something to do with concrete-mixing, so I suppose they've got as far as laying some foundations. Damn - Lois and I were hoping that they would go out of business and that the site would "return to nature". That's obviously not going to happen - damn (again) !!!!!

14:30 After lunch I settle down in front of the laptop. Lynda's local U3A Middle English group is holding its monthly meeting today on zoom.

Lynda has sorted out something "Christmassy" for us to look at today, and it's a set of medieval carols written by John Audelay in the early 1400's. Each member of the group has been given a different carol to put into modern English.

Lynda makes efforts to get us each to try singing our carol, but only Ant makes an attempt at this. Ant claims it works to the tune of "I Saw Three Ships", and he tries singing it on that basis, but I don't think anybody is convinced.

Bad luck, Ant !!!!

the medieval carol that Ant makes unsuccessful attempts to

convince us can be sung to the tune of "I Saw Three Ships"

Poor Ant !!!!!

20:00 We watch some TV, and interesting retrospective on the life and career of comedian and actor Grouch Marx (1905-1976).

Did anybody do Marx Brothers-style humour before the Marx Brothers did it? If they did, they kept quiet about it, that's for sure. And even if they did, the Marx Brothers deserve a lot of credit anyway - as somebody says tonight, if there'd been no Marx Brothers, there'd have been no Monty Python, that's for sure.

Lois and I didn't realise that the group did most of their early work in the theatre, on Broadway, and in their first films, for Paramount in 1929, they simply transferred a lot of their stage routines to the film set.

They did a lot of verbal humour as well as the slapstick, which is nice. One of their first films was "The Cocoanuts" (1929), where Chico and Harpo turn up at a hotel where Groucho is the receptionist. They claim that they've got a reservation.

Chico: We made a reservation.

Groucho: Reservation?

Chico: We want room and no bath.

Groucho: Oh, you're just here for the winter? Sorry, boys, no vacancies. Plenty of rooms, no vacancies.

Chico: All right, we'll take a room.

Or this scene from "A Night At The Opera" (1935), where Chico has asked Groucho to explain the contract that Grouch has asked him to sign up to.