Danskcolin: Monday March 28th 2022

This morning Lois and I actually get out of the house for a couple of hours, which is nice, to put it mildly! We've got to stop at the local Murco petrol station and fill the car up with petrol - it's getting low, and then we've got to take it for a "spin", as we haven't used it for 8 days: what madness!!!!

our friendly local Murco petrol station

Lois wants to go to Gotherington Nurseries to buy some plants or shrubs to fill in some empty spaces in the flower beds in the back garden. The whole thing is totally over my head, I have to admit - I haven't a clue either about gardening or about what leads people to take up this unquestionably popular hobby!

Nevertheless it's an outing, and it's a 5 mile drive (- yikes!!!!) , and I'm very grateful for that, don't get me wrong!

Some non-gardeners would find a trip like this a bit on the dull side - essentially, my job is to stay in one spot with the trolley, while Lois busies herself searching the entire store for the plants she wants. I'm a bit of a people-watcher, however, so it's all good fun for me too, which is nice. I just wish there were a few more people to watch, that's all.

But we like Gotherington Nurseries because it's always so spookily quiet, especially on a weekday - hardly any customers, and hardly any staff, which is nice too!

I stand in the middle of the store with the trolley, while Lois

seeks out the plants and shrubs she wants

Gotherington Nurseries - always so spookily quiet, especially on a weekday -

what's not to like haha !!!

After we come home I post a review on GoogleMaps and later I get a nice "Thank You" from the nurseries owner, which is heart-warming - I didn't think they'd notice. You see, sometimes I can make a difference!

GoogleMaps have told me several times already that I'm "popular", and that a lot of people have been reading my so-called "reviews" - if only GoogleMaps had been around when I was young: that was when I most wanted to be popular, I'm not so bothered about it now haha!

12:30 We have lunch and then relax on the couch with a cup of tea. I look at my smartphone, and I see that my sister in Gill in Cambridge had a nice Mothers' Day yesterday - it looks like one of her 3 daughters, Maria, went out for a meal with her, and all 3 daughters joined her for a virtual "cream tea". What a difference a zoom makes, doesn't it.

my sister Gill and her youngest daughter Maria enjoy

a Mothers' Day meal out....

...and this is Gill's virtual Mothers' Day "cream tea"

What a crazy world we live in nowadays, with our "virtual cream teas". Who would have thought 20 years ago that we'd be having these!!!!!

14:00 The prospect of Wednesday's visit from another estate agent is hanging over Lois and me a bit, and we're trying to make the house look a bit less like a disaster area.

This visit will be our third valuation. It's weird that, for the first two valuations, we didn't to to a lot of trouble to tidy up the house very much - we just let the agents see us as we really are, "warts and all", almost shamelessly proclaiming (although silently haha!) that we "live like pigs", as I often say! But something's changed now - the probability that we'll be moving and downsizing in the next few months seems much more likely and more real now.

What can I say, except perhaps YIKES !!!!!!

16:00 Luckily, to lighten the mood, another amusing Venn diagram has come in from Steve, our American brother-in-law, and it references the UK's Mothers' Day, which happened yesterday, so it's very topical.

We think we understand almost all of these, this week, which suggests we're staying vaguely "on top of things", which is a relief.

The diagram we're less clear about is the first one "Me to mum on Mother's Day: Sorry for taking everything x". We think the writer of this diagram maybe has offspring in the throes of becoming independent and setting up in their own place somewhere, and so "borrowing" some key household items. Overall mine and Lois's experience is that offspring often fail to take lots of their own stuff with them, which can make downsizing a challenging experience for an ageing couple like ourselves, to put it mildly! What madness !!!!

But have we got this right? I think we should be told - answers on a postcard please!!!!

18:00 After an earlier-than-usual dinner, we settle down on the couch to watch the first half of the first part of an interesting documentary about the Falklands War of 1982 - it started 40 years ago this week - how time flies.

An interesting start to the programme, but as Lois and I have already guessed, it's mainly a chance for a bunch of ageing military buffers to say "I was right all along about such and such, and all the other old buffers were wrong", or "Our men did their job splendidly, but they were let down by some other old buffer's men". What madness !!!!

But yes, plenty of mistakes were made on the path to the British victory, no doubt about that. However, Lois says that "wars are won by the side that makes the fewest mistakes", and I think she's right there.

It was certainly a huge challenge for the Brits - the British recapture of the islands has been called the most difficult opposed amphibian operation since D-Day in 1944, and one that was achieved at a distance from home of 8000 miles, and without any accompanying air superiority. My god!

It's well-known that for the Argentine leaders their invasion of the islands was a useful distraction for the people from their vicious internal conflicts. However, there's a revealing interview in the programme tonight with one of the Argentine infantry officers involved, who describes his feelings when his men first invaded the islands in March 1982:

He says that all Argentinians supported the recovery [of the islands]. It's a very strong feeling of sovereignty, he says, and "the islands are part of our home".

It's a strange mentality though, isn't it, to see a territory as a location on the map, and not be troubled by the feelings and wishes, and the lives, of the people who actually live there. It's basically the same with Putin, isn't it, really. Why do these awful countries breed such thinking in their leaders and officers?

It's a crazy world, no doubt about that.

We can only see the first half of the programme tonight because we've signed up to listen to a zoom talk by a member of Oxfordshire Family History Society at 8 pm - busy busy busy!!!!

However we've just got time to see the start of the British campaign, with the recapture of South Georgia from the Argentines - South Georgia is a dependency of the Falklands.

And how nostalgic it is to see Maggie Thatcher at the height of her powers, showing the men how it's done haha! And the early recapture of South Georgia at the start of the campaign must have been a huge relief for Thatcher, the programme emphasises - the first moment when she would have felt her judgment vindicated.

We see her here with Defence Secretary John Nott, as he announces the recapture of South Georgia:

You tell 'em, Maggie!

20:00 We settle down to take part in the Oxfordshire Family History Society's meeting on zoom. Lois has been a member for years, but of course all its meetings normally take place in Oxford or surrounding towns, so she's never attended one before.

Tonight's talk is all about how to research your relatives and ancestors who lived in South Africa. And Lois and I are watching tonight, because, incredibly, we both had great-uncles at the siege of the British township of Ladysmith in Natal during the Boer War (1899-1902).

My Great-Uncle Willy was a journalist, we think working in Ladysmith for the Pretoria News, who got trapped there with his family during the siege; and Lois's Great-Uncle Mark was in the British forces who came to chase off the Boers and relieve the town, in February 1900.

Then later, after an interval of 72 years, Willy's great-nephew Colin married Mark's great-niece, Lois - what are the chances of that happening, eh???!!!!!

And apart from mine and Lois's personal interests, it's also a reminder of the days when the Brits (and the Boers) themselves weren't too interested in the views of the people who originally lived in these kinds of places, that's for sure. Oh dear.

Still, that was then and this is now, I guess you could say.

the British Empire in 1886

Nevertheless, a fascinating talk and we come away with lots of websites we can use to find out about Great-Uncle Willy and Great-Uncle Mark, no doubt about that.

It's geneally an uphill struggle doing family history research on relatives or ancestors in South Africa - the government there basically isn't interested in answering genealogical enquiries, and you can't order BMD (Births, Marriages and Deaths) records from them like you can from the UK Government.