08:00 Lois and I lie in bed waiting to see a text from Mark the Gardener to tell us what time he's coming - it's unfortunately drizzling persistently at the moment, so we're not sure whether he'll be able to do much today anyway. But we'll see.
flashback to October: Mark the Gardener, in happier times,
working on one of Lois's "projects"
While I've got my phone on, I start looking at more dialect maps of the USA - it's addictive after a while. Yesterday I learnt about the so-called "cot-caught" merger, which is supposed to affect the areas of this dialect map coloured blue: areas where "cot" and "caught" are pronounced the same. However Steve, our American brother-in-law, has commented to say that in his experience the red areas, where the two words are differentiated, are less widespread than the map suggests.
Or is it just because it's the nearest bit?
I think we should be told. And quickly!
5. Does "route" rhyme with "hoot" (blue areas, as in the UK) or with "out"?
6. Is crayon two syllables, with second syllable short (red areas as in the UK), or is it two syllables with second syllable long, or is it one syllable?
7. Is "pecan" pronounced PEE-can (green areas, as in the UK) or is it pronounced in one of the three other variations?
Fascinating stuff !!!!!
It's nostalgic to see, on a first date tonight, Carol Cleveland, the saucy Monty Python actress, who was born in London but brought up in Philadelphia, and who is now 78 years old, single, living in West Sussex, and looking for love.
For example:
1. Is "mayonnaise" 2 syllables or 3 ? In the UK it's always three, I believe.
2. In "pajamas", is the middle syllable the same as the 'a' in 'father' (as in the UK) or the 'a' in jam?
3. In "lawyer" does the first syllable rhyme with "boy", or with "saw" (in the UK, I think, there's divided usage here, maybe based more on personal preference than geographical area).
4. Do the first syllables of "merry", "marry" and "Mary" all sound the same, or are there 2 or 3 different sounds in use here (in the UK it's three, like in the green areas below)?
11:30 Mark the Gardener goes, and Lois goes for her walk on the local football field. I stay in and make my periodic call to Scilla. Lois and I run a local U3A Danish group, dating from the time when our daughter Alison and family lived in Copenhagen (2012-2018).
Scilla is the group's Old Norse expert, and she was a student in Reykjavik, Iceland, when she was in her twenties. I like to ring her occasionally to check that she's okay.
Since all the lockdowns began she's been staying away from Cheltenham with one or other of her 3 children: Tom in Frome, Ben in Brighton or Clare in Canterbury. Normally she's living with Tom, the single one, and it was Tom who took her to visit both Ben and Clare and their families over Christmas and New Year. When Tom and her finally arrived back in Frome after the holiday, she said they were both exhausted - and they slept more or less for 2-3 days after their return.
a fewof the routes by which Ben could have taken his mother, Old Norse expert Scilla,
to visit his two siblings: Ben in Brighton and then Claire in Canterbury
I've only had that kind of sleep once in my life - after I came back to England after my year as a student in Tokyo. And I realised afterwards that life in Japan must have been more stressful than I had realised. It felt all right at the time, and even exhilarating while I was there, but when I came back to normalcy in England, where I no longer had to speak and hear a foreign language every day, I more or less collapsed for 48 hours.
Wasn't that madness?!!!
Flashback to September 28th 1971 - I'm greeted at Heathrow Airport by Lois and my sister Gill (then 13) after my flight from Tokyo, at the end of my student year over there.
When I look at this picture now I feel that I look like death warmed up. On the other hand I had just taken a 20 hour flight with no sleep for probably the previous 48 hours. So fair enough perhaps!
19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her great-niece Molly's online yoga class on zoom, followed by Lois's sect's weekly Bible Class, also on zoom.
I settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV. the first programme in a new series of "First Dates", where Channel Four takes a few singles and tries to match them up with somebody for a first date at a London bar/restaurant.
flashback to the late 1960's: Carol Cleveland with Terry Jones
in a sketch from the Monty Python show
with Eric Idle and Michael Palin
It's interesting that Carol doesn't get instant recognition tonight at the First Dates restaurant, perhaps not surprisingly, after 50 years. However it's also apparent that not everybody even remembers the Monty Python show itself, starting with the barman who serves Carol her opening drink.
She has to explain to him a bit of what it was all about.
the barman here struggles to remember the name of Carol's show
... all the films and the state stage shows
But it's nice to hear some of her reminiscences about the show and its cast.
After a divorce and three failed engagements, Carol is now looking for a man with a good sense of humour, a man who dresses nicely, and preferably with some hair on his head that she could "run her fingers through".
Channel Four have arranged for her to go on a first date with Keith, an interior designer, who seems to meet many of Carol's requirements. He's a 76-year-old from Nottingham, although he too seems vague about the Monty Python show, which is a pity.
Keith is looking for somebody who likes being naughty and silly, and just enjoying themselves, which sounds like Carol. and he's also well-dressed, which ticks another box: his shirt is Paul Smith, his trousers are from Vivienne Westwood, but he doesn't pay designer prices, he says. He waits till the sales are on, which makes sense to me.
It sounds like a marriage made in heaven if you ask me. Plus, the date seems to go well, and they're going to meet up again, maybe down in Sussex, so we'll see.
21:00 Lois emerges from her multiple zoom sessions and we watch the latest programme in Alice Roberts's new series, "Digging for Britain", which gives a review of the major archaeological discoveries in the UK over the last 12 months. Tonight's programme is about archaeological digs in the Midlands.
flashback to Jonah Fisher (haha) and his report this week for the BBC
Lois and I didn't know that after its death the ichthyosaur's body was scavenged by another ichthyosaur, which broke one of its teeth on the meal - a very large tooth that has been preserved, near the fin, with the rest of the fossilized remains.
It may well turn out to be the biggest fossil ever found in the UK, and it dates from a time when the whole country was covered by a huge but shallow ocean.
Lois and I are kicking ourselves, because we visited Rutland Water in 2016 as part of the celebrations for my 70th birthday, but we failed to spot the huge fossil. It's true that water levels were higher then, but we regret our decision, that seemed to make sense at the time, not to go for a swim in the ice-cold waters of the reservoir.
flashback to March 2016: Lois and I visit Rutland Water,
but fail to spot the enormous fossil, due to a
decision, now widely considered flawed, not to go for a swim in the ice-cold waters - damn!
No comments:
Post a Comment