Monday February 28th 2022

A morning for sorting out a few pressing issues, for Lois and me. 

Sarah, our daughter in Australia, wants to move back, with her family, to the UK, and at some stage buy a house here, possibly our house. We fix March 15th for our introductory zoom meeting with Andrew, a financial adviser - Sarah will take part in that.

flashback to Saturday - the last time we spoke through the magic of  zoom

to Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia

And we also fix for our IT-guy, Mark, to come on Thursday this week to work out why our desktop is so slow, with the cursor freezing while we fume in frustration. 

The desktop is the machine that Lois uses, whereas I use the little laptop - at the moment Lois can't use the desktop because of its slowness, so there's increased competition for using the laptop. To make it fair, we may soon have to institute "sign up sheets", where you "book" an hour at a time - my god, it's just like being back at work in the 1990's haha !!!!

Mark, our local IT "Mr Fixit"

We've known Mark a long time. As an indicator of that, Mark used to come and fix my mother's IT problems. She passed away in 2011 at the grand old age of 91, and she was still sending and receiving emails almost to the end. What a woman !!!! 

flashback to 2009: my mother, on her 90th birthday, talking on Skype

to my sister Kathy and husband Steve in Pennsylvania USA

We also settle on our first "hellofresh" delivery of meal ingredients, to come on Saturday March 5th. Our other daughter Alison has signed us up for 1 free delivery followed by 2 reduced-price deliveries. We sign up for the firm's introductory offer, and we'll get 3 meals a week, each of two portions.

It's a terrible website - and you don't get any confirmation of what meals you've agreed to pay for, so you can't seem to change it if you have second thoughts. It all seems designed to make you carry on with the service after the free and reduced-price offers lapse, because it isn't obvious how to do otherwise. What madness !!!!!

Afterwards I ask Lois to remind me what 3 meals are coming on Saturday. She knows one of them is a some kind of chicken meal, one has got tacos in, and the third one is some kind of penne pasta concoction. But we find there's no way we can get back to check the original order. What madness (again) !!!!!

typical pigeons on a typical chimney (warning: not our chimney)

And one last success for the morning. We persuade Ian, our local window-cleaner, to clear out the little forest of vegetation in a 2 foot long stretch of our guttering at the back of the house, which he does at no charge. We think the problem is caused by pigeons sitting on our chimney, dislodging moss and defecating down into the gutter, making it an ideal spot for plant-life to develop. 

It's pigeon madness I tell you!!!!

11:30 Lois and I want to get some fresh air after all this computer work, so we go for our regular walk around the local football field. We always try to time it just right on Mondays so that we can see the local Old Codgers turn up for their weekly soccer practice while we have our hot chocolates and something to eat - today we share a muffin, which is nice.

I reserve two places on the so-called "Pirie Bench"

while Lois orders 2 hot chocolates and a muffin from the Polish girl

a hot chocolate and half a muffin each - yum yum!

Each week we wonder whether any of the Old Codgers will be carried out feet first on a stretcher or a so-called "gurney", a North American word which Lois and I learnt during our residence in the US from 1982-1985. In the government office I worked in over there, there was always great excitement if anybody was carried out on a gurney.

Simple pleasures haha !!!!

the local Old Codgers turn up for their soccer practice

we pose for a selfie on our way home - in the background to the left

the Old Codgers can be seen limbering up for their soccer game in the netball court.

No sign of a gurney turning up as yet, so fingers crossed haha !!!!

If a gurney can't be found, in an emergency there's always the County Air Ambulance, which is sometimes called upon to ferry old codgers, even sick soccer-playing ones, to Frenchay Hospital, Bristol for expert treatment, which is reassuring.

flashback to February 3rd: the county air ambulance picks up an injured member 

of the public from the football field, and ferries him to Frenchay Hospital, Bristol

17:00 Steve, our American brother-in-law sends us the latest Venn diagram he has spotted.

I can certainly "dig" the middle one. But I can see I'm going to have to brush up on my popular culture, or else some of these Venn diagrams are going to become increasingly opaque to me. I'm vaguely aware that "wordle" is an online word puzzle, but I've never really watched "Love is Blind", although I have heard that it's a kind of a dating game programme where you can't see the other person.

Lois knows all about "wordle" - she tells me that its British inventor has now sold the rights of "wordle" to the New York Times for over $1 million. What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Oh dear, I myself didn't really know all that about "wordle". No question, it's time to sharpen up, Colin. Time to "get with it", my son, before it's too late haha !!!!!

flashback to 2005 and my last attempt to "get with it": me sporting 

a "mullet" hair style for a 1980's-themed party at Lois's work 

- and note the rolled-up jacket sleeves: cool !!!! [Not!! - Ed]

20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch the latest programme in Mariella Frostrup's new series on the landscapes that inspired Britain's most famous female writers.

In this programme, Mariella is in Yorkshire, roaming its iconic moorlands, and talking about the Bronte sisters, and Mariella's particular heroine, Jane Eyre. 

And Lois gives a little cheer and bursts into a round of applause when Mariella reads out this well-known excerpt:

"Women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts, and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings, to playing the piano and embroidering bags."

How's that for a statement ahead of its time haha! And Mariella says what she likes about the Brontes is that you really feel the beginnings of feminist literature.

The novels resonate with the background of the bleak and relatively tree-less Yorkshire moors, but it's interesting tonight to be reminded that this bleakness was man-made. The trees were there to start with, but gradually almost all were burnt or cut down to make space for agriculture, and in more recent times so that the wood could be used for industrial purposes.

The three sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Ann all died before they reached 40, and achieved little or no recognition for their writings in their short lifetimes. All published initially under "androgynous" pseudonyms to avoid the conventional stigma attached to women writers. They would be utterly amazed to know how popular their books remain today all around the world in dozens of languages, 170 years later.

The village of Haworth, where they grew up in their father's rectory, and the surrounding area are full of reminders of the place's most famous past residents.

And it's useful to be reminded that although the area is a quiet, rural, touristy place today, it wasn't like that 200 years ago. It was a boom area because of the burgeoning textile industry, which was making a lot of money for mill-owners, all thanks to the abundance of coal and iron, as well as the local soft water, which was ideal for cleaning wool.

The wealth created for industrialists led to a boom in governesses for women like the Brontes and their literary heroines. It wasn't very satisfying work for the governesses, however, because apparently these rich men only wanted their daughters to be given the manners and polish to be able to move in higher social circles, and to do things like play the harp or write nice letters. 

What madness !!!!!

The Haworth area was also plagued by industrial unrest during this period. Mill-owners were installing machines and getting rid of workers, a process that led to violent protests by the so-called "Luddites" who went around wreaking terror and wrecking any machines they could lay their hands on. One night they attacked the nearby Cartwright Mill, but the ruthless owner was ready for them with some complex defences and local militia, and 2 Luddites died in the attack

The Bronte sisters' father, Patrick, despite being the village rector, kept a gun under his pillow during these years to protect his family, and even Emily, the so-called "quiet sister" became a good shot. My god!

Charlotte was the sister most interested in social issues, and she wrote many times of the hardships suffered by the poor textile workers. When it came to the Luddites however, she would have no truck with them. In her novel "Shirley", she depicts an attack on a mill similar to the one on the local Cartwright mill.

In "Shirley", Charlotte describes the Luddites' local leader as having "cat-like, trust-less eyes, and his men were compared to "vermin" and "hyenas". The mill-owner, however, is depicted as a noble character, described as "a lion", courageous and noble. So not much doubt about Charlotte's sympathies there haha!

But fascinating stuff !!!!!

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

Sunday February 27th 2022

February 27th - the 9th anniversary of my younger sister Kathy's death in Norristown Pennsylvania USA. 

On this date I always try and hunt out some nice pictures of Kathy from the distant past. These two photos were taken about 46 years ago in the back garden of our parents' house in Cheltenham, and show our other 2 siblings as well as my wife Lois, and our first child Alison, still a baby.

flashback to 1976: my brother Steve (23), my sister Gill (17),

Kathy (29), little Alison, and Lois (30)

the picture that Kathy took of the rest of us:

Steve, Gill, me, Alison and Lois

Recently Lois and I were clearing out our attic and we came across a bunch of letters dating from the early 1980's, a time when both Lois and I and Kathy all lived in the US. These were letters that Kathy wrote to our parents back in England, talking about her new life in the Washington DC area, where she worked for the British Embassy.

flashback to the end of January: the letters from the early 1980's 

that we found in the attic, many of them written by Kathy 

to our parents in England

We posted all these letters to Kathy's husband Steve in the US, and he has started reading through them. The earliest one is from November 1983, just before she met Steve. I don't have any photos of Kathy from exactly that date - we didn't see so much of her around this particular time, because she moved out of our house in Columbia Md to get a flat in Washington DC with a girlfriend, I think a colleague from the Embassy. 

However I did find this one picture of Kathy, when in early 1984 when she came in her car to collect out 2 daughters, Alison (9) and Sarah (7), each of whom was hugging (or lugging) their own carefully packed suitcase. They were looking forward to spending an exciting weekend with their Aunty Kathy in her Washington flat. Happy times !!!!!

flashback to early 1984: my sister Kathy (36) comes to our house

to collect our daughters Alison (9) and Sarah (7) for

an exciting weekend at Kathy's Washington DC flat

Happy days !!! [You've done that one already! - Ed]

15:00 Lois and I start looking at houses for sale online - 2 bedroom and above - in Bishops Cleeve, a suburb of Cheltenham. We might be aiming to downsize soon. Currently we live in the Cheltenham house we bought in January 1986, when our daughters were 10 and 8 years old, and it's got a massive back garden. It's far too big for us these days.

It's amazing how many houses on the market have widows in some of the rooms. Do you remember the old Flanders and Swann sketch when they described a hotel at which, according to the hotel's advertising literature, there was "a French widow in every bedroom" ?

Flanders and Swann in their prime:

purveyors of comic songs

Well, the "widow" tradition lives on, we can today exclusively reveal, and this particular house that we saw recently for sale in Bishops Cleeve benefits from more than one widow, which is nice:

Inside an entrance hall offers doors to both bedrooms, sitting room, bathroom and storage cupboard. The sitting room is 16'9 x 11'11 with a window to the rear aspect and a door leading to the sun room. The sunroom benefits from widows to the side and rear, and sliding doors leading to the rear garden. The kitchen comprises a range of base units cupboards and drawers with a single sink and drainer and four ring gas hob inset into the worktops. There is a window to the rear aspect and door leading to the garden.

The proximity of widows is obviously quite a selling point, that's for sure, even if they're not in the actual bedrooms haha!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!!

17:00 So far it's also been a mad day of pictures posted on social media - my god! 

My "new" cousin David, identified a few months ago as a cousin through a DNA test, has been posting pictures of a pro-Ukraine demonstration he took part in yesterday near Downing Street.

And on a more peaceful note, our daughter Alison has been enjoying the day's sunshine with the family pets  - two cats and a dog - at their home in Headley, Hampshire.

And yes, it's been sunny here too, but a trifle chilly, with wind coming in from the east: could it be loony Putin's influence? - brrrrrrrr!!!!!!

20:00 We watch some TV, tonight's edition of the Antiques Roadshow, where members of the public bring along dusty treasures and mementos from their attics etc, to have them identified and valued by experts in the field.

Many of the treasures we normally see in this show are things of beauty, but the first object we see tonight isn't in that category, that's for sure - my god!

The woman (seen on the left, above) who brings the object along says it used to live in her parents' house in a cupboard in the spare bedroom. And the woman's daughter (right, above) says that she and her brother used to sleep in that room sometimes, and they were both terrified by it. And rightly so. Apparently the two kids used to cry until it was taken away and hidden away somewhere. My god !!!!

Expert Steven Moore says that the object was made by the "idiosyncratic" or sometimes called "crazy", Martin Brothers, who had their own pottery business in London between 1873 and 1914. 

The head of the object is clearly that of a crazy bird of some kind - called a "wally bird" in the trade. But the bottom part is a bit of a puzzle: it doesn't seem to belong to the top part.

Moore thinks that the bottom part of the "wally bird" somehow got lost, and a dealer decided to mount it on a different, disparate Martin Brothers bottom part that he just happened to have lying around. Then he sold it.

Although it seems improbable these "wally birds" are highly collectable, Moore says. The unmatching base would fetch easily £2000, and the head, being so characterful, would probably be worth at least twice as much, at over £4000. 

The intriguing thing is that if the woman and her daughter were able to find matches for the two disparate parts, they would be looking at 2 objects worth in total £60 to £70k, Moore says. And it's not out of the question that this could happen and that they could find these matching parts - viewers to the programme often write in to report lif they happen to have similar treasures in their own attics. 

And all the owners could split the profits between them, Lois suggests.

Fascinating stuff !!!!

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

Saturday February 26th 2022

09:00 Oh dear! The usual fight by Lois and me to get ready for our weekly zoom call with Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, her husband Francis and their 8-year-old twins Lily and Jessica. This fight is made all the worse by the struggle to get ready for our weekly delivery of groceries from the village convenience store - they normally deliver about 5 minutes or so after the zoom call starts for maximum annoyance factor - what craziness !!!!

Still it's nice to chat to Sarah and the rest of the family, as always. And who knew that Western Australia (WA) is going to open its state borders on March 3rd (next Thursday)? [I expect everybody in WA knew, for starters! - Ed]

The WA population are living in fear and trembling, Sarah says, not knowing if the opening of the borders will lead to a massive increase in COVID infections. Of course the infection numbers in WA up to now have been far, far below anything else in the world, but that doesn't make them feel any easier about it, and I can sort of see why. Sarah says that WA premier Mark McGowan has finally given in to pressure from Qantas and other travel companies, and the decision is not popular with the general population.

Mark McGowan, prime minister of Western Australia

The children, Lily and Jessica, have both had their first vaccine jab, and the second one is due on 16th March, so Sarah is hoping they'll be able to stay clear of infection till then - it's only 13 days after the borders open, so fingers crossed.

Sarah and Francis have been thinking of going over to online food shopping. Many supermarket shelves in Perth have been empty, but it's because of an excessive amount of rain, which has caused flooding and disruption to the rail link between Adelaide and Perth. What madness !!!!!

11:00 Lois and I go out for our walk round the local football field, followed by a drink of hot chocolate from the Polish girl at the Whiskers Coffee Stand. It's unexpectedly quiet - we were expecting the Junior Soccer to be in full swing, but then we remember that's its half-term week for the county's schools.

Of course - that explains it !!!!!

We walk round the local football field and have 

a hot chocolate at the Whiskers Coffee Stand

19:00 After dinner at 6 pm, my main efforts this evening  are now concentrated on reporting what I suspect is a fraudulent request for payment from somebody claiming to be my former energy-supplier. I'm currently ringing my bank's fraud hotline, and I keep being put on hold. What a crazy world we live in !!!! And what a criminal waste of time !!!!!!

To complicate things, Lois's cousin Iris keeps trying to ring our number while I'm being put on hold by the bank, so the phone keeps beeping - we've got "call waiting" installed on it. Oh dear!

Eventually I get through to the bank, and the woman on "fraud duty" gives me a contact number to call my former energy-supplier, but it turns out their lines are only open during office hours Monday to Friday. What madness (again) !!!!!

20:00 Iris finally gets to talk to Lois, but after the first hour I can tell that Lois is getting a stiff arm from holding the phone, so she makes the excuse that "I think Colin wants to watch something on TV at 9 o'clock, I'd better hang up now". Aren't spouses wonderful when it comes to making excuses for doing something or not doing something! It can be a life-saver!

21:00 We watch some TV, an interesting documentary on the Sky Arts channel about comedian George Burns.

Lois and I both have many happy childhood memories of watching the George Burns and Gracie Allen show when we were kids growing up in the 1950's. They were, of course, husband and wife in real life as well as on their show, with Gracie playing the ditsy wife role, and George as the straight man. It was in his periodic little monologues to camera that he got the chance to play the stand-up, using his trademark cigar to allow pauses for audience laughter. Sheer genius!

The documentary tonight demonstrates how the show became the first real sitcom, and one that paved the way for many others, first and foremost another husband-and-wife show, "I Love Lucy" with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, another show both Lois and I remember fondly from our childhood.

All our favourite Burns and Allen moments are here: in this first one, we see George talking to camera about Gracie's encounter with a famous interior decorator who came to dinner:

And in this second scene, Gracie is talking disparagingly to George about their new doctor's office. George is playing the "straight man" role again.

Tremendous fun !!!!!!!

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