Sunday March 27th 2022

15:30 Lois and I sit on the sofa with a slice of my yesterday's birthday cake and a cup of tea and reflect on the day as it's looking so far.

It's been a largely quiet day, even by our standards. [When do you NOT have a quiet day, that's what I want to know! - Ed] [Well, I've got a duty to tell it like it really is, an all its horrific quietness, and after all, we are still in the middle of a pandemic! - Colin]

Lois skipped the first of her sect's 2 Sunday meetings on zoom this morning, so that she could prepare an early lunch: a lamb and mint burger meal-kit from the Hellofresh company. We need to have our main meal at midday today, because our daughter Alison, who lives with her family in Hampshire, has sent Lois a cream-tea kit for her Mothers' Day present - unlike the rest of the world the UK celebrates Mothers' Day in March - what madness !!!!!

Other than that, we both did more shelf-tidying, so that our bookshelves don't look quite so much as if they're groaning under the weight of book-overload, and ready to collapse. Today I attended to the shelves that are mostly my own books, a lot of them language books, and they certainly look tidier now than they did before, I won't go any further than saying that much.

On Wednesday an estate agent is coming to value the house. Our bookshelves and also our walls, which are pretty much covered with pictures, are going to scare off any potential buyer who's more used to the modern trend for so-called "minimalism" that's for sure. Lois and I are both "maximalists", no doubt about that - and that's what's going to make downsizing a bit problematic - yikes!

I showcase my own 4 shelves, largely my language books,

after I give them a cursory tidy-up today - not bad, eh?!!!

Well, they're certainly looking better than they were early this morning, that's for sure!

16:00 It was my 76th birthday yesterday, and Lois has already given me a birthday card, but today, when she's rummaging through piles of papers, she finds another one, that she bought for me last night when we were meeting our daughter Alison for lunch at a garden centre near Frensham, Surrey, and which got forgotten about.

flashback to last month: we have lunch at a garden centre in

Frensham, Surrey, with our daughter Alison

This is the card (see below) - it's amusing and quite apt in a way, because until recently Lois and I used to lie in bed in the morning discussing (not exactly arguing about) whose turn it was to go downstairs and bring back 2 cups of tea to the bed. 

It's not what we do now, Lois and I - we don't lie there arguing. For the last 4 weeks or so, it's always me that goes downstairs and makes the tea, every day - I find it works out far simpler haha!

But look at the couple in the bed on the card - the room has no storage space, it's just a massive room with a double bed in it. What do they do with their clothes when they get into bed? Throw them out into the garden perhaps? It looks like a weird way to spend the night, but I've got to admit it - when this couple are in their 70's and ready to "downsize", it's going to be pretty easy for them, no doubt about that !!!!

It's a clever little cartoon, however, and it's by "Stand Up with Berger & Wyse", at bergerandwyse.com .

17:00 I take yesterday's post out of "quarantine" and look at it. Yesterday the DPD delivery guy brought a copy of the book of short stories that's going to be our U3A Intermediate Danish group's next project. 

I had already bought an electronical copy of the book, but I also ordered a copy of the book in paperback form to post to Scilla, the group's Old Norse specialist, who comments for the group on all aspects of Viking attitudes still residually present in the characters of today's Danes, which is always interesting. 

Scilla is not good with I.T., so she needs an actual book that she can hold - I'll have to wrap it up for her and we'll hopefully post it to her tomorrow. Since the pandemic began, Scilla has gone to live with her grown-up son Tom in Frome, Somerset.

The book we're all going to read is a collection of short stories by Danish author Sissel Bergfjord (crazy name, crazy gal!), all about a group of Danish allotment owners, and the typically powerful passions that lurk just beneath the surface amongst this set of keen amateur vegetable-growers.

I may have to pick and choose about which of the 13 short stories in the book that I give our U3A group to read. We are, after all, a mixed group of elderly old codgers and old crows.

Keen-eyed intermediate Danish speakers amongst you will probably have noticed, in the blurb above, that one of the stories is about QUOTE Leonora's platonic relationship with her neighbour Karl suddenly being threatened by "his new flame", and an exhausted mother in the midst of a mid-life crisis getting the most surprising orgasm of her life UNQUOTE.

That might be a story to avoid - but we'll see !!!! Maybe the group will find the other stories too tame - who knows? But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

17:00 Lois and I settle down on the couch to have the Cutter and Squidge "cream tea" (scones with jam and cream, plus cake) that our daughter Alison has given Lois for the UK Mothers' Day.

20:00 We watch some TV, the second programme in actress Joanna Lumley's new series on "Great Cities of the World" - this one is all about Rome.

Joanna Lumley is recognised all over the world, mainly because of her role as "Patsy" in the old 1990's sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous", and her fame opens many a door to her, wherever she goes, no doubt about that. 

Tonight we see Joanna browsing the displays in Rome's "Bulgari" fashion store, when former 1950's / 1960's film-star Gina Lollobrigida walks in, now aged 94 - my god!!!!

When I was growing up in the 1960's, Gina's picture would have been on many a teenage boy's bedroom wall - I suppose she would by then already have been classified to the so-called "MILF" category. If there were any justice in the world, though, these pin-ups ought to have been allowed to stay in their late 30's / early 40's. They shouldn't have to age into their 90's, like "ordinary women" haha!

"In our world you are a legend", Joanna tells Gina

flashback to Gina in her heyday: with Frank Sinatra

in "Never So Few" (1959)

It's a delight to see Gina at 94, however. She sits down with Joanna and shows her her personal souvenir pictures on her phone - how modern! Pictures from her old days as a big film-star and celebrity.

We see some pictures of her close film-star friends, Marilyn Monroe for instance. But there are also some surprises in her souvenirs of the old days, like pictures of Fidel Castro - my god! They talked for hours, she says.

You can see why Gina is still around at 94 - she's got the so-called "life-force". She knew she couldn't be a pin-up film-star for ever, and she went on to a career doing other things, including singing, sculpture and photography. And "All the things that I did, I did with my heart", she says. "I am always busy".

What a woman !!!!

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