10:00 Is Lois kinder that Mother Theresa? Well, maybe.
Yesterday Janet, one of Lois's elderly fellow sect-members tweeted that she and husband Alan, who have both tested positive for COVID, felt so awful that they were just eating cold food - they weren't up to cooking. Lois's reaction this morning has been to make them a lamb stew, with the last of our lamb steaks, which are very expensive and also incidentally my personal favourite, throwing in also vegetables and some dumplings that she has also made. This is to be a surprise that we'll deliver later this morning.
It would never have occurred to me to do something like that - she's so kind-hearted. I'd have been inclined to say to myself, "Oh it's just for a few days, they can probably manage with what they've got in the fridge etc, eat a lot of sandwiches maybe. But not Lois - I wish I could be more like Lois , that's for sure!
the scene in our kitchen this morning as Lois prepares a stew
for COVID victims, Janet and Alan
11:00 Because of our frantic decluttering activity in the house and garage today we don't do our usual Wednesday walk on the local football field. I glance at our local news, however, and I see that we're living in exciting times hereabouts. The Parish Council seems to have got hold of a lot of money recently - I wonder if they've been dabbling in crime perhaps? I think we should be told!
They're proposing another upgrade to the facilities at the playing field, and they want to know what the parish taxpayers think about it - the plan sounds good to me, but it's all got to be paid for, hasn't it. What a crazy parish we live in !!!!
flashback to last month: the football field in happier times -
Lois queues socially-distanced for our hot chocolates,
while I reserve 2 spots on the so-called "Buddy Bench"
11:30 We've been busy cooking and decluttering so far this morning but at 11:30 am we are back on the sofa having a coffee and preparing to drive out to Janet's house near Tewkesbury to deliver the lamb stew Lois has made for her and Alan. This is when I suggest to Lois that she checks with Janet that she and Alan know we're coming etc, and what we're bringing.
It turns out, however, that Janet doesn't want the stew Lois has made - she says she's cooking again, has got lots of food in the house etc, also that another sect-member has been doing bits of shopping for them.
This at least has the benefit that we can enjoy the stew ourselves, which is a nice surprise, and delightfully unexpected! And so unusually for us, we have our main meal in the middle of the day.
Lois's freshly-made stew with lamb steaks, vegetables
and dumplings - yum yum! Saved, by a miracle, from being "donated" haha!
13:00 Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, calls us on whatsapp. Sarah and her husband Francis want to move back to the UK after about 6 years down under.
Sara had a zoom talk with her mortgage advisor who told her some of the ways she could get a mortgage on a house in the UK. Her salary in Australia as a chartered accountant is higher than it would be for equivalent jobs in the UK. The idea is to buy a house here on a rent-to-buy mortgage, with the amount of the loan based on her Australian salary, and then rent the house out to tenants for 2 years. After the 2 years finish, she and Francis and their 8-year-old twins would then move into the house themselves on the existing mortgage, converted to a "residential" type.
See? Simples haha !!!!!
flashback to Christmas 2020: Sarah, Francis and the twins
on the shores of the Southern Ocean
Before Sarah and Francis and family move back to the UK, Lois and I need to downsize, and this week we've been starting to think seriously about this at last, and how we can possibly fit into a much smaller home.
We've been in our current house for 36 years, and we've got far too much stuff, to put it incredibly mildly. I think it's going to be difficult for Lois in particular to part with most of her books, and also with a lot of objects of sentimental value - ornaments that always used to stand on her parent's mantelpiece, and so on. That kind of decision doesn't bother me so much - I enjoy throwing things away. I'm just a wild and crazy guy haha!
This afternoon Lois has been looking through some of the ornaments we brought back from the house that she grew up in after her widowed mother died in January 1995.
some of Lois's parents' ornaments, wrapped in
newspapers from 1995, which I find more fascinating
than the ornaments - oh dear!!!
Lois showcases her Coronation mug from June 1953: every schoolchild got given one,
although I haven't a clue where mine went to - oh dear (again) !
As regards our untidy and overcrowded shelves, my policy will be to throw away just enough books, ornaments or whatever so that the shelves look tidy and lively without being too "busy". It'll make the house look more attractive to a potential buyer. We don't really want empty shelves - that would look a bit spooky, weird and unlived-in. But nor do we want shelves that are groaning with up to twice as many books as they were intended for - that's for sure - and that's what they look like at the moment, to put it mildly.
one of our sets of bookshelves as it looks today: this one is probably
carrying about 40% too many books and ornaments - what madness !!!!
In this scene Nigel Hawthorne as top civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby wants Bernard to be a "fly on the wall" at one of the Prime Minister's secret consultations, and to report back to him, but Bernard is reluctant, saying that the subject-matter could be confidential.
Bernard is also on top form tonight at pointing out what he believes to be non-sequiturs, or errors of logic, as in this scene.
Here's one example. Sir Humphrey is trying to make Prime Minister Jim Hacker worry about the loyalty of Dudley, his Employment Secretary, suggesting that Dudley is secretly plotting to take the Prime Minister's job.
Jim becomes furious at his Employment Secretary's ingratitude:
21:15 Lois emerges from her zoom session, and we wind down with this week's episode of a new series, "The Witchfinder", all about rubbish 17th century witchfinder Gideon Bannister (Tim Key) and his efforts to get promotion by prosecuting a mouthy local spinster, Thomasine Gooch (Daisy May Cooper).
Bannister and Gooch's 30-mile journey as it looks today -
no picnic in the 17th century, but much easier nowadays, thanks to the A12 haha!
Gideon and his prisoner make slow progress across the Dedham Vale, and as night falls, Gideon says they'll have to camp in the woods for the night. Thomasine objects, however, saying that her mother always told her never to stay outside at night, because of the danger of highwaymen.
In this thought-provoking exchange, Gideon points out that they're in the woods, and not on a highway, so there shouldn't be any highwaymen around:
Lois and I are not entirely sure, however, that Thomasine is convinced. But we'll see!
22:00 I wake up and we go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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