Wednesday March 30th 2022

11:00 Our third estate agent, Alan, arrives to value our house if we decide to sell it. Lois and I are feeling exhausted by the time he arrives, because this time we've tried to make the house look a bit less like a disaster area.

We even managed at last to hang up on the wall Lois's Christmas present from me: it's an "abstract" print created by Lois's yoga-teaching ex-art student great-niece Molly, a print which has been languishing on top of one of our spare beds for 3 months - what madness !!!!

on the wall behind me you can see the abstract print that Lois's great-niece

Molly created for her, and which I gave Lois as a Christmas present

However, we're still not sure we've had the print framed correctly or whether it's upside-down. We were too shy to ask Molly, and now it's too late - what madness (again) !!!!

12:00 Before he leaves, estate-agent Alan gives us his valuation of the house. He gives us exactly the same minimum and maximum prices as the other 2 estate agents who we asked to value the house. I find this incredible, and I can only think that all estate agents use the same software, probably using input from all the recent sales in the area, and that kind of thing.

He's been nice about the house, up to a point, but more about the outside than the inside. He particularly mentions our back garden as a big selling-point, and the house's location - a bus stop outside the house, shops and pubs within a quarter of a mile, Cleeve Hill (an AONB - area of natural beauty) within a mile or so.

Unfortunately it's a house that he sees as needing updating - we knew he'd say this of course. And updating not just of the decoration, but taking into account the fact that it's "old school" - two reception rooms and a kitchen, whereas young people nowadays want a big open-plan kitchen-and-dining-room. 

What a crazy world we live in !!!! Much better to have the privacy if you want to concentrate on anything - that's what Lois and I think! 

And of course, like most houses lived in by old codgers and old crows, it's crammed full of furniture, with walls plastered with pictures, surfaces crowded with ornaments and photos etc.

Our dining-room doubles as an office, which makes it super-crowded and "busy", that's for sure.

our super-busy dining-room-office - yikes!

But Alan has a useful tip for us - when the estate agency sends round their photographer, you've got time to quickly move a bunch of furniture items temporarily into the hallway and then put them back after he's gone on to photograph the next room. The photographer takes his time, Alan says, giving house-owners loads of time to stash things out of sight, which is nice, to put it mildly!

Alan has left us with a lot of information about the current house market, which we'll have to digest in the next few days. He's going to ring us early next week to get our thoughts.

13:00 Exhausted and confused, we have lunch. After lunch I take a look at a Middle English poem, "The Debate of the Carpenter's Tools", possibly written in about the 15th century, by an unknown author.

In the poem, a carpenter's tools can all speak. And they all debate with each other about how useful they are, and which of them is the most useful and most likely to make their owner rich.

how the poem begins

A bit later on in the poem there's an interesting verse about ale-wives. Who knew that in medieval times, people on average drank a gallon of ale a day? What a crazy world they lived in in those far-off times!!!

In this verse the carpenter's saw is telling one of the other tools - I think it's the pair of compasses - that the guy who owns them is never going to get rich, however hard his tools work. He "lives too near the ale-wife", says the saw, implying that he's always popping into the local tavern in the middle of a job. 

What madness !!!!

Yes, and as I said it wasn't uncommon for people to drink up to a gallon of ale a day. I think that the problem was that the water wasn't safe to drink in those days, whereas ale was safe, which created a massive demand for it. 

And being an ale-wife - a female tavern-keeper - was one of the few lucrative professions open to women, that were also legal.

a typical medieval ale-wife

The fact that the work was technically legal for women didn't protect these women from wagging tongues, however. Being a so-called "ale-wife" was felt to be synonymous with indulging in sexual promiscuity or being involved in the running of local prostitutes. In 1540 the city of Chester tried to limit the ale-wives' age range to either younger than 14 or older than 40, in an attempt to limit their sexual activities. My god!

And who knew that the word "alewife" also refers to a North American fish that the English settlers first saw over there in the 1600's? They called it an "alewife", because it had a huge abdomen. 

What a crazy world we live in  !!!!

20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch an old episode from the 1980's political sitcom "Yes Prime Minister".

In this episode Prime Minister Jim Hacker has been annoyed by a draft of his predecessor's memoirs, in which Hacker is the subject of an unflattering verbal portrait. Hacker is wondering whether the Government can put pressure on the book's intended publishers by claiming that it breaks the Official Secrets Act.

At a high-level meeting in tonight's episode top civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby seems to take a lot of pleasure in reading out one of the offending paragraphs: "Hacker is more interested in votes than principles. He runs for cover at the first whiff of unpopularity. [His presence] raised the age of cabinet but lowered its IQ."

Hacker is visibly annoyed when Sir Humphrey quotes the paragraph.

Sir Humphrey then draws attention to one of the book's chapter headings, provoking one of Principal Secretary Bernard Woolley's delightfully frank interventions: 

Fortunately Woolley goes on to take a full part in the meeting, drawing attention to incorrect phrasing and mixed metaphors in his usual charming manner, which is nice.

Hacker is told that the press has already got wind of the story, and predictably Hacker is annoyed by the press's sudden renewed interest in him:

Fortunately, at this point, Bernard is again on hand to give us some of his typically astute "nature facts", which is nice.

And when Jim asks Bernard to say exactly what vultures do, Bernard gives the best impression of a vulture that I've ever seen, and I've seen a few, to put it mildly! This one is sheer genius: Bernard has a real "feel" for the natural world, no doubt about that!

Bernard [left] giving his "vulture impression"

Tremendous fun !!!!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch the latest episode in the 17th century sitcom "The Witchfinder" about rubbish witchfinder Gideon Bannister, who is taking his prisoner, suspected witch Thomasine Gooch across country from Norfolk to Chelmsford, where he's hoping to try her in the presence of Parliament's Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins.

In this episode Gideon and his prisoner Thomasine continue with their perilous journey through many a god-fearing village in the Dedham Vale on the way to Chelmsford.

two of the routes that Gideon and Thomasine could have taken

- let's hope they took the shorter one, which cuts out a whole 3 minutes!

Along the route, suspicious villagers catching sight of Thomasine and suspecting she's a witch, are all for "stringing her up there and then". The couple then try to pretend that they've just got married, to ward off the suspicions.

However when the couple retire to their room at the village inn for their so-called "wedding night", they find that a gaggle of young local girls are hanging around in the hallway outside their door, waiting to hear some "action". Gideon and Thomasine then have no choice other than to initiate a simulated so-called "sex scene" - my god!

Gideon, as a good Puritan, is a virgin, of course, but he has to do his best, obviously, to put up a convincing audio show for the village girls. Lois and I suspect that Thomasine knows a lot more about it than Gideon does, but we'll see that in the next episode perhaps!

Lois and I are greatly relieved to see that the couple don't take things any further at this point, to put it mildly! 

But how historically authentic is this series? The villagers seem to have their suspicions allayed by Gideon and Thomasine's simulated kissing noises, but Lois thinks that in real life they would surely have insisted on examining the sheets. And when it comes to the 17th century I always trust Lois's instincts - she's got the 17th century down to a tee, no doubt about that!

But fascinating stuff, all the same !!!!

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