Tuesday December 7th 2021

Well, they warned us 2 days ago that it was on its way - Storm Barra. And here it is: damn! It looks like a day to stay inside as much as possible.

Other people aren't so lucky and have to work outside in the bitterly cold wind and driving rain. Mark the Gardener comes unusually early, at 9 am, forcing Lois and me out of bed (not personally haha!), so that we can unbolt the side-gate for him and give him his instructions.

Mark the Gardener defies Storm Barra to weed some

flower-beds for us - poor Mark !!!!!

And if Storm Barra isn't enough, Mark's got a nasty cough as well. But of course he works for himself - if he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid: he can't take sick leave. Poor Mark (again) !!!!!

And the builders building an extension for our neighbour Matt have to try and start putting a roof on the walls they have already assembled. Perhaps they should have built the roof first, with hindsight - they just didn't know Storm Barra was going to hit at this precise moment, that's for sure.

...and the roofers trying to roof our neighbour Matt's extension

have to keep working - I expect they've got deadlines to meet!

Poor builders !!!!!

10:00 I look at my laptop. There's an interesting email from Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, citing an article on !!444!!! website. Apparently the country's crazy prime minister Viktor Orbán, has taken issue with journalists and other who have castigated the Hungarian Government's poor record on the coronavirus pandemic. 

Orbán is saying that to point to the disproportionate number of deaths in Hungary compared to other European countries is equivalent to making a distasteful attack on the performance of Hungary's healthcare workers. Now that's what I call audacity!

(Daily coronavirus deaths per million inhabitants - the red line is Hungary, the blue line is the EU average).

12:00 Storm Barra intensifies. Lunch and then a nap in bed, while the rain and wind rage outside. 

14:30 Lois starts on this year's Christmas Cake, from the Katie Stewart "Cooking Better All The Time" book (1970), the recipe Lois has used every Christmas, through all our married life, i.e. since 1972, except for when we lived in the US 1982-85, because you couldn't get dried fruits like ours over there, she says.

Katie Stewart's magnum opus (1970)

Christmas cake in the making - yum yum!

16:00 We settle down on the couch with a cup of TeaPigs Extra Strong Earl Grey tea, and some scones with butter and jam on. 

I look at my smartphone and see an interesting email from Steve, our American brother-in-law. He draws our attention to an article in the Daily Mail online. Apparently a senior physics lecturer at Exeter University, Dr Annette Plaut, was sacked for being "too loud" and annoying colleagues with her shouting and vigorous hand-gestures. Fortunately Dr Plaut has now been reinstated by an employment tribunal.

What madness!!!! What on earth persuaded Exeter University that they could get away with that one, in this day and age?!!!

I personally don't like "shouty" people who bellow out what they want to say when there's no real reason to raise their voices. But I quite like shouty people if they're just showing their passion about something. Dr Plaut says she gets passionate about physics, which leads her to get overexcited sometimes.

Dr Plaut - she admitted that she was "inherently loud" and "naturally

argumentative" in conversation, spoke with vigorous hand-gestures,

and was so passionate about physics that she would get overexcited"

Colin says, "You go girl !!!!!"

19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her great-niece Molly's online yoga class, followed by her sect's Tuesday Bible Seminar, both sessions being on zoom. 

Molly tells the class a little about her experience in leaving her native Oxford with her partner Sam and moving north to Leeds, where Molly has got a new job helping the homeless. 

She says that people up there in Leeds automatically assumes she's "posh", just because she speaks with a southern accent. Molly is somebody that makes no claims at all to be "posh", so she says she was initially taken aback by this. 

She says she is trying to compromise with the local dialect a bit by remembering to use only singular nouns after numerals - so "five years" becomes "five year". 

What madness !!!!!

19:30 Meanwhile I settle down on the couch and watch an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "One Foot In The Grave", all about irascible retiree Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife Margaret.

This is the episode set on the day before Victor and Margaret set off on their disastrous holiday in Greece. As usual Victor is moaning about how he never feels comfortable or safe, when he's travelling on a plane.

It's a pity Lois isn't here to hear Victor and Margaret's conversation, because what Victor says is exactly what Lois says about flying - that she doesn't like not having anything much underneath her, which is fair enough, I suppose. 

I personally don't find flying too scary because I think that if you're going to die, you'll probably die quickly, and this comforts me haha!!!

Victor says he's dreading having to lie on the floor of the loo for 45 minutes, like he does on the Isle of Wight ferry, but Margaret reminds him that aircraft loos haven't got the space for lying down flat - you have to either sit or stand. Victor replies that if the airline "serves you disgusting food" they ought at least to have the decency to provide somewhere comfortable to vomit in. And I suppose he's got a point there.

Tremendous fun !!!!!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom sessions and we watch an interesting travelogue documentary about the romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, and in particular about their time living in a cottage in Somerset.

An interesting programme about Samuel and Mary Coleridge, who lived in a cottage in the little Somerset village of Nether Stowey, and their friends William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy who took up residence nearby.

It's interesting that Coleridge, writer of "The Ancient Mariner" and other poems, took the cottage in Somerset in the 1790's with grand plans to do some honest labour there, including working on the house and gardening in the little cottage garden, and refusing to employ any servants. However after moving in, Coleridge actually left all the manual work to his poor wife Sarah. And instead he and the Wordsworths and their poet friends just sat around talking and writing, while Sarah provided meals and drinks, and did all the laundry.

Lois comments that a similar situation arose in the US, after Wordsworth's friend, the poet Robert Southey arrived to set up his poets' "commune" - Southey and his friends went to America with all sorts of idealistic plans about "doing without servants", but in the end it was the poets' wives who did all the work, while the poets sat around and chatted.

What a crazy world poets lived in, in those far-off days !!!!!

flashback to April 2014: Lois and I visit Watchet, Somerset, near Nether Stowey,

and see the statue of the Ancient Mariner on the seafront

Happy days !!!!!!

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