Lois and I, exhausted after having a house full of people for 2 days, want to have an easy day today, so it's mainly eating and being in bed. There's lots of food in the house, food that our daughter Alison and family didn't finish. And Ewa, the Polish girl, sells us an almond tart when we go for our walk. Then after a shower we spend the afternoon in bed, not getting up till 5pm.
Lou Reed pictured in a park - not this one, though!
Oh, such a perfect day.... copyright Lou Reed (adapted):
Just a perfect day
Drink coffee in the park
And then later, when it gets towards lunchtime -
We go home haha!
the Parish's new so-called "Sensory Garden", which our daughter Alison
tidied up at the weekend, at no charge to the Parish, which was nice
I reserve a couple of places on the Pirie Bench while
Lois gets a couple of coffees and an almond tart from Ewa, the Polish girl
half an almond tart each - not as fattening as treacle tart,
Lois says. But our threatened "diet" hasn't really started yet - oh dear,
we'll have to start it soon, or lose face with our friends, that's for sure
12:00 We come home and have lunch - more leftovers from the weekend's family visit.
I look at my smartphone, and for once there's good news for us old codgers and old crows. Popular DJ, - Annie Mack - whom Lois and I have never heard of, is planning to open a nightclub for old people just like us, which is good news.
"More than 40 years ago, folk singer Fred Wedlock branded anybody showing a little grey hair who fancied a night on the tiles as that most tragic of figures: “the oldest swinger in town”.
Cause for celebration - I understand all 3 diagrams, which means that my campaign to get with what I call "popular culture", and to "get down with the kids", is finally paying dividends.
"But now, Annie Mac, one of the nation’s best loved DJs, announced on Friday that she is creating a club night for “Cinderellas” that opens at 7pm and ends at midnight.
"Her venture comes amid a growing demand for club nights catering to older people, with a study before the pandemic finding that more than 3.7 million Britons aged 45 and over were going clubbing once a week. Last year, cabinet minister Michael Gove (54) was captured letting loose in an Aberdeen club at 2am."
Good news for us, although we think an 8 pm closing time would be more than late enough for us - any time later than that would be total madness !!!!
flashback to August 2021: Cabinet Minister Michael Gove
caught dancing in an Aberdeen nightclub
13:00 I continue looking at my smartphone. Steve, our American brother-in-law, has sent me one of the amusing sets of Venn diagrams he monitors on the worldwide web.
And I like the reference to "Colin the Caterpillar" cakes, into the bargain. Caterpillar cakes have always been the subject of a keen rivalry among UK cake-makers. And when cut-price supermarket chain Aldi tried to market their own "Cuthbert the Caterpillar" cake last year, superstore Marks & Spencer's, makers of "The Colin", the original and best in my opinion, immediately filed a lawsuit and slapped an injunction on Aldi, in what was being called "The Cake-Suit of the Century".
flashback to 2021: M&S's high-powered lawyers nip Colin's rival
"Cuthbert" in the bud
I remember that the threatened law-suit also scared off Lois from marketing her own version - "Clement the Caterpillar", which she'd already debut'ed at our grandson Isaac's 3rd birthday party on our patio in July 2013.
flashback to July 2013: Lois debuts her own "Clement the Caterpillar" cake
for our grandson Isaac's third birthday party on our patio
20:00 After today's second meal of "weekend visit leftovers", Lois and I settle down on the couch to watch a bit of TV, a programme in the Sky Arts Channel's "Comedy Legends" series, this one being about Joyce Grenfell.
Joyce Grenfell was the queen of the comic monologue. And she also appeared in many of the British comedy films that Lois and I watched when we were growing up in the 1950's and 1960's.
We always thought of Joyce as being the quintessential English actress, so it was a surprise to us tonight to learn that she had an American mother and a half-American father, Her upbringing, however, was that of a "standard" upper-class Englishwoman: posh boarding school in Surrey, followed by finishing school in Paris - that sort of thing.
comedienne Joyce Grenfell (1910-1979)
She had a range of typically-British characters and personality types that she played, with all their voices and body-language down to a tee. She was a great people-watcher, and the sort of woman who, in a restaurant, would always be eavesdropping on the conversation at the next table, perhaps listening out for anecdotes she could use in her next comic monologue.
Lois and I both remember seeing Joyce Grenfell for the first time in a short scene in the classic British comedy, "Genevieve" (1953), where she plays the owner of a small hotel in Brighton.
And who can forget the dialogue in her little scene, where she greets, and tries to register, a female guest and her husband.
Guest: Is the bathroom in our room, please?
Grenfell: No, both the bathrooms are on the second floor landing.
Guest: The second?
Grenfell: Yes, you'll see them on your way up. And when you want to take a bath, would you be so kind as to sign the little book you find just inside the bathroom door?
Guest: I'll sign right now.
Grenfell: Oh, I'm sorry, but hot water is provided only in the afternoons between half past two and six.
Guest: There's no hot water?
Grenfell: Yes, hot water is provided in the afternoons between half past two and six.
Guest: But this is preposterous! Do I have to sign the book in order to have a cold bath?
Grenfell: Well, the rule simply says that hot water is provided...between half past two and six. I'm very sorry but I did not make the rules!
Guest: Well then, who did? Oh never mind, I don't want to know!
[Exeunt female guest and husband]
Grenfell to elderly female resident: Nobody's ever complained before!
Elderly resident: Are they Americans?
Tremendous fun !!!!!
And did the scene influence John Cleese and his wife Connie Booth in the writing of some of the episodes in their Fawlty Towers sitcom? I think we should be told, and quickly!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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