09:30 Lois and I roll out of bed in good time this morning for our 9:30am zoom call with Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, and with our twin grandchildren Lily and Jessica. We zoomed with them on Saturday morning, but this is a bonus call, because today is a public holiday for ANZAC day in Western Australia: the day that commemorates the part played by the Australian and New Zealand forces, helping out the mother country in two world wars.
we zoom with our daughter Sarah in Perth, Western Australia,
a bonus zoom call because it's a 3 day weekend in WA.
See Lily texting us on mummy's phone at the same time - it's internet madness!!!
Yes, for once Western Australia (WA) is going along with the other states and celebrating ANZAC day on the same day as the rest of the country. Sarah always says that Western Australia is normally the least cooperative state: for instance they uniquely celebrate the Queen's Birthday at the end of September, whereas it's generally June for the other states. What madness !!!!
Sarah says WA "likes to be awkward" whenever it can, as revenge for tending to be ignored by the people "over east", as Western Australians say - i.e. the eastern states. WA has refused to join the rest of the country in going in for daylight saving, for instance - that's another way they can be awkward, and they've grasped it with both hands, Sarah says. My god !!!!!
As we sit on the Pirie Bench and make short work of the fruit cake, we admire the two new saplings donated to the Parish by residents: one to commemorate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this year, and the other to commemorate 100 years of the Women's Institute in the village. Yes, you can never say that Prestbury isn't "with it" or "not up to date" - we like to keep on top of current events, that's for sure!
with Lois's teeth still a bit sensitive, after Friday's visit to the dentist,
we make the most of a so-called "soft target" - a piece of fruit cake: yum yum!
behind us can be seen a newly-planted sapling
to commemorate 100 years of the Women's Institute in Prestbury..
... and (far left) a second sapling to commemorate the Queen's
platinum jubilee
On our Monday walk we always look forward to seeing the parish's brave Old Codgers soccer fanatics turning up for their practice session. We've heard a rumour that the County Air Ambulance is always on high alert at such times, but we can't confirm this - it could be just the scandal-mongers in action again: oh dear!
Behind us, you can just make out the local Old Codgers,
taking part in their weekly 5-a-side soccer practice game: what madness!!!
First the useful one:
Then the amusing ones:
Certainly not Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. Writing the lead article in this week's Radio Times magazine, national treasure Miriam Margolyes writes that, "It's inconceivable to me that [Nadine Dorries], a woman of such limited intelligence, can be given such a vital role. She doesn't know anything about anything".
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries -
"she doesn't know anything about anything", says Miriam
15:00 We're in bed when we get simultaneous texts from our doctor's surgery inviting us to seek appointments for our COVID spring booster jabs at the County Fire Station.
We can either book online or by phoning up the surgery. We decide to phone, because the online system is appalling: it begins by asking you to input your date-of-birth, but you then have to key back month by month from the displayed current month, i.e. April 2022, which I calculate, for us, would take us about 900 clicks to get us back to 1946! And we ask ourselves exactly how many new-born babies are they vaccinating! It's madness !!!!!
Plus, with the online system, we would have no guarantee of getting appointments at the same time or as near to each other's as possible. So we phone up and we get appointments one minute apart in mid-May, which is nice.
17:00 Mark the Gardener arrives with the two 6 ft x 6 ft trellis panels and the two 8 ft posts that we ordered from Webbs Garden Centre. He will aim to fix all that up tomorrow when he comes for his fortnightly visit.
I take delivery of the two trellis panels and posts
from Mark the Gardener
flashback to April 13th: we assess the storm damage to
our trellis with the help of handyman Steve:
the verdict: it's a total victory to the storm - damn !!!!
19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to do a bit of yoga. Last Tuesday she had to miss her great-niece weekly Molly's chair yoga class on zoom because of a tummy upset, so this evening she catches up by taking part in Molly's recording of the session.
Lois catches up on her yoga by viewing a recording of
her great-niece Molly's zoom yoga class from last week
20:00 We relax by looking at yesterday's programme in the "Antiques Roadshow" series, where members of the public bring along heirlooms and treasures from their attics, to have them discussed, and, if appropriate, valued, by experts in the field. And tonight we're at Dyffryn Gardens near Cardiff, Wales.
A woman brings along an unusual clock bought by her father in the 1960's. The clock turns out to have made by Jaeger LeCoultre. Inside it's an amazing feat of design and engineering, called an "atmos clock".
The clock doesn't need winding, and it doesn't run on batteries either. It lives on air.
Inside there's a mechanism, which is like a bellows filled with a gas. As the air temperature and air pressure changes, it expands and contracts, like an accordion. That's connected to a series of levers and chains, and that winds up the mainspring in the clock, and runs the clock. And a change of one degree Fahrenheit is reckoned to be enough to run the clock for 2 days.
The show's clock expert, Alastair Chandler, values it today as being worth between £1000 and £2000.
Yikes!
And finally, here's a challenge for you - can you name a Welsh tennis-player? Not many people can - the most famous was probably the left-hander Ann Jones in the 1960's.
flashback to Wimbledon in the 1960's: Welsh tennis champion
Ann Jones (right), seen here with Billie Jean King
We don't see Ann Jones tonight - or Billie Jean King, come to that - but we do see a Welsh player who played alongside them in that era, Liz James, who played there from the 1967 to the 1971 tournaments.
For this show Liz has brought along some of the outfits worn by her and by Ann Jones at Wimbledon. And they were all made by the big name in women's tennis-wear of the time, Teddy Tinling (crazy name, crazy guy!).
One of Liz's outfits is decorated with the Prince of Wales's "feathers" emblem - especially designed by Tinling to commemorate Prince Charles' investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969.
Liz's outfit for Wimbledon 1969, with its Prince of Wales feathers,
designed by Tinling especially to commemorate Prince Charles's investiture
Tennis-wear designer Teddy Tinling rose to fame in the 1940's by creating a dress for women-players that was felt to be scandalously short, and he also created a pair of frilly lacy knickers to be worn underneath the dress, and which the paparazzi delighted in taking pictures of.
The knickers were famously worn by Californian player Gertrude "Gussie" Moran, also known as "Gorgeous Gussie".
flashback to the 1950's: American tennis star Gertrude "Gussie" Moran,
or "Gorgeous Gussie" as she was known.
Liz used to wear a pair of Tinling knickers too, and in tonight's programme we see an old shot of her in them.
Welsh tennis-player Liz James wearing her "Tinling knickers"
What a crazy world they lived in (and us too!) in those far-off days!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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