Wednesday March 9th 2022

A really quiet day, even by mine and Lois's standards. My god!

We go for our usual walk over the local football field and have a hot chocolate, but there's no big crane in the adjoining building site to excite us today - damn!

flashback to yesterday: us in happier times, with an exciting

crane at work in the building-site adjoining the football field

Once again I don't make any progress today with getting a grip on our finances, which we're due to discuss with Andrew, our first-ever financial advisor next week on zoom.

The latest idea is that we would move somewhere near Alison, our No.1 daughter and her family in Hampshire, and then Sarah, our No.2 daughter and her family will move back from Australia and buy a house in the same area. Then it'll be a "happily ever after" story at last. 

We envy those old codgers and old crows that have their children and grandchildren within a reasonable distance. Lois and I looked after both our sets of parents in their old age - now we're old ourselves, but we don't have anybody within 100 miles: sob sob !!!!!

It's going to mine and Lois's golden wedding this summer - yikes!!!! I remember my parents' golden wedding celebration at our house in 1995.

1995: my parents' Golden Wedding celebration - we gather in our

back garden with our daughters Alison (20) and Sarah (18) - happy times!

But this Golden Wedding picture is probably the last picture I have of my father where he isn't sitting down in his chair at home. By 1996 his health was beginning to deteriorate, and Christmas 1996 was his last Christmas while he was still living at home - he moved into a care home in 1997.

flashback to 1996: my father in his armchair with all his essentials

on the table next to him: TV remotes, tea cup and pens for his crosswords,

with his dictionaries and his Kleenex on the other side.

Yikes - just like me today haha !!!!

Christmas 1996: my father's last Christmas before he moved 

into a nursing home - again with our daughters Alison and Sarah 

in our front room

Anyway, today has been a wasted day as regards my "real work". I'll just have to do my financial summary tomorrow, or maybe on Friday. Lois and I lead the local U3A Intermediate Danish group, and it's the group's fortnightly meeting tomorrow afternoon. 

Yes, Friday will be clearer, that's for sure. I'll leave it till Friday - that's soon enough haha!

15:00 Before settling down to our cup of tea and half a snail bun each, we accomplish our only solid achievement of the day - to order online Lois's beauty product requirements from the No.7 site. She has some unusual skin qualities - I don't really understand - qualities that mean a lot of products don't suit her.

the beauty product items we try to reorder for Lois - of course

the company have changed the names of the products slightly,

just to make it more  of a challenge - damn !!!!

16:00 A cup of tea and half a snail bun each on the couch. 

Are we getting fat? Perhaps. But only a little. And it isn't our fault anyway - it's either the food manufacturers or it's Nigella Lawson that's to blame: so the jury's still out on that one.

letter from the letters column of next week's Radio Times,

that dropped through our letter-box today

18:00 Tonight we have our second-ever Hellofresh meal kit - tonight it's the Thyme Roasted Chicken with roasted veggies and sweet chilli glaze. The jury's still out on whether we'll continue with this service after the free and reduced-price offers run out - one thing Lois doesn't like is all the plastic packaging that's wasted - oh dear!

This meal turns out to be my favourite out of the 2 we've tried so far. But there's another load of 3 meal-kits arriving on Saturday, so we've got to "get busy". We're also turning each meal-kit for two into two  meals by reducing the portion sizes, so they're more economical than we first thought, that's for sure.

Thyme Roasted Chicken with roasted veggies and sweet chilli glaze:

our 2nd Hellofresh meal-kit, and my favourite so far - yum yum!

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, an interesting documentary about the life and career of Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

As the Radio Times blurb says (see above), Marin has had to cope with a massive barrage of the music world's male prejudice in the course of her career. 

Lois comments that, all throughout history, men have always come up with the same two arguments in particular, whether it's the world of music or the world of anything else: (1) the work is too demanding for women's "fragile" constitutions, and (2) because men find women attractive the men themselves will be too "distracted" by the woman's presence to be able to concentrate on the performance, or whatever, that she's doing.

Marin says that a question people always ask about women in the public eye is "Who's her husband? What does he do?". This is a question that is never put to famous men - nobody cares about what their wives do, it seems!

In 2005, by the skin of her teeth, Marin managed to become the first ever female conductor of a major orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony. This was a true "glass ceiling" moment in the world of music, but the fact remains that 16 years later she's still the only woman in that position.

The orchestra board's search for a new conductor and their eventual appointment of Marin caused a real furore at the time.

All this furore caused enormous emotional damage to Marin, she admits. "What should have been a moment of great joy turned into the worst nightmare of my entire life."

And the orchestra board members who eventually confirmed Marin's appointment found that they were harassed by angry protests from people in the music world that they have never heard from before in their lives.

 

Marin says that even today she still has to be careful - if men are conducting a passage of emotionally gentle music, they're often praised for the sensitivity of their baton movements. Women in the same situation, on the other hand, may find that they're being labelled as "weak" - what madness !!!! 

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

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