Wednesday April 20th 2022

Hold the front page! At last Lois has revealed her latest One Year Plan for the raised beds in our veggie garden, a plan also known as "The Great Leap Forward" [known by whom, may I ask? - Ed].

Some plants are already in there and still growing, from last year. The rest are just seeds at the moment, seeds that Lois plants this morning, so the jury's still out on whether they'll come up or not.

I envy Lois her hobby, and I've never been able to understand it, but she's a real enthusiast, no doubt about that. I used to think she did it as a chore, because that's what it looks like to me. But no, it seems crazy but she actually really enjoys planning it all out, looking after it throughout the growing season, and then harvesting the results. What a woman !!!

A lot of people look on vegetable gardeners as a pretty stolid bunch, incapable of any fiery passions - but it isn't true, I know that for a fact! 

Lois and I run the local U3A Intermediate Danish group, the only Danish language group of any kind in the UK's U3A organisation. Currently, by coincidence, our group is reading a book of short stories by Danish writer Sissel Bergfjord, all about the fiery passions lurking beneath the outwardly impassive surface of a bunch of Danes whose weekend hobby is to work their little vegetable patches just outside Copenhagen.

Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord here showcasing the collection

of short stories that our group of old codgers and crows is currently reading

In the UK, "allotments" are pretty uninviting places, just a miserable few square feet of soil with a dismal-looking greenhouse or shed where the allotment-owner keeps his spades, hoes etc. And usually British allotments are located within towns, near the housing estates where the gardeners come from. 

In short, not the sort of setting to live out a secret life of passion in, to put it mildly! 

a typical higgledy-piggledy set of allotments in the UK - little plots of land

furnished only with an old greenhouse or horrible shed to keep your tools in 

- what madness !!!!!

Our group has realised now, however, that Danish allotments are much more sumptuous, with lovely lawns and not much space for vegetable-growing - they're usually way out of town, and their owners have generally built nice looking summer-houses on them, the sort where you can conduct a passionate affair if you're that way inclined, which many of them are, on the evidence of this book. Plus, the allotments are mainly laid out to lawn, so they're not a lot of work, leaving time for other things.

The Danes know how to live, that's for sure!!!

 a mice complex of Danish allotments -

they call it a "kolonihave": the sort of place where you can conduct

passionate affairs after you put your spades away - yikes!

But what a crazy continent we live near !!!!!!!

Luckily there's still a part for me in Lois's gardening plans for this year - it's my job to get the 40 litre bags of compost the 30 yards from the front doorstep, where our milkman leaves them, to the raised beds at the bottom of the garden. Today we ordered two of the bags by phone, which the milkman should be dropping off tomorrow morning.

flashback to February: the last time the milkman delivered us

some of his bags of compost

For the task of getting the bags down to the vegetable beds, I use my ingenious "six-wheeled trolley", which I showcase later today in this photo. It's the ideal "tool for the job", because it can climb up and down the edge of the patio like a D-Day landing vehicle from 1944, which makes me feel important again!

I showcase my 6-wheeled trolley, designed to carry two of

Lois's 40-litre bags of compost down to the "sharp end" of her veg-growing

I once saw Tim Allen demonstrate the deluxe model on his "Tool Time" show, but that one is way beyond the reach of my pocket, that's for sure!

Flashback to the 1990's: Tim Allen demonstrates 

the deluxe model on his "Tool Time" show

So, in summary, a good season of veggie growing looks in to be in store, which is nice. Today's bad news, however, is that we've broken our diet after only about 3 days - my god!

This morning on our walk over the local football field we get overexcited by the sight of the enormous crane on the nearby building-site, and end up accepting Monica's offer of 2 treacle tarts at the Coffee Stand.

we get overexcited by the enormous crane,

 which has reappeared on the building site..

...and give into temptation with 2 whole treacle tarts

from Monica at the coffee stand

What fools we are!!!!

And more bad news is on the way - Lois's dental appointment to get a horrible tooth-extraction done is now looming. It's only 48 hours away, and today she has to fill in the ludicrous COVID form that the dental surgery has emailed her with. You know - the one that you have to "sign" with the mouse.

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

Damn, damn, damn!!!!

19:00 We watch a bit of TV, a programme in the series "The Great British Dig", where presenter Hugh Dennis and a small team of archaeologists dig up people's back gardens in the hope of finding traces of some long-buried building.

Once more Hugh and his team are knocking on doors asking residents if they're happy to have their back gardens dug up in the interests of historical research. What madness !!!!

In tonight's programme, the team are in the town of Odiham, Hampshire, looking for traces of the Tudor house owned by Elizabeth I's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. 

Walsingham was England's first spymaster, and so was the spiritual ancestor of today's MI5 and MI6, presenter Hugh Dennis tells us.

aerial view of the town of Odiham, Hampshire, as it looks today

old map of the town appearing to give the location of

Tudor spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham's house

Lois and I always think of this series as a bit of a poor man's version of 'Time Team'. Time Team was a Channel Four programme of a few years back, sadly missed today, which used to feature much more organised and extensive archaeological digs, usually out in the countryside, where you could carry out a thorough operation of a suspected historical site. 

In "The Great British Dig" by contrast, the actual finds that the team digs up are quite small and not very impressive - we suppose that's because so much was destroyed by the builders of the houses that now cover the site in question.

tonight's tray of finds - oh dear, is that all you've got haha!

It's interesting, however, also to see some of Walsingham's work, which certainly affected our history in a big way. The big threat to England in those days was the fear that the protestant Queen Elizabeth I would be overthrown by Mary, Queen of Scots, her Catholic rival and cousin.

The programme recreates an encrypted letter sent to Mary by Catholic plotters, a letter which Walsingham intercepted, decrypted and translated for the Queen to see. Superficially looking like an ordinary, harmless, chatty letter, to read its actual message you had to apply a stencil to pick out the words that mattered.

If you apply the stencil, the letter reads, "We will undertake the delivery of your royal persons from the hands of your enemies for the dispatch of the usurper, Elizabeth. Six noble gentlemen, who, for the zeal they have for the Catholic cause, will undertake that tragical execution".

As a result of this letter, Mary was arrested on a charge of plotting to kill the Queen. 

Yikes, gruesome !!!!!

Poor Mary !!!!!

One useful result of tonight's programme is that Lois and I finally learn to pronounce the town's name Odiham correctly. We've passed the town hundreds of times on our way to see our daughter Alison and her family, and we've always pronounced it "Odd-ee-ham". Tonight we learn that it's more correctly pronounced the same way as the word 'odium'. 

Who knew? I mean, who actually knew?!!!!

And who would want their town to be called "Odium" ??!!!!

What a crazy country 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 last week's edition of Gogglebox, the series in which ordinary viewers are filmed watching, and commenting on, some of the week's programmes. Once again, the Goggleboxers fail to watch any of the programmes that Lois and I watched, which is disappointing. Let's hope for better luck next week - my god!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we wind down with an old programme from the 1980's sitcom series "Ever Decreasing Circles", starring Richard Briers as obsessive suburbanite Martin Bryce, and Penelope Wilton as Martin's long-suffering wife, Ann.

And it's nice tonight to see again Martin's obsessive impulse to pick up the handset of the telephone receiver in his hallway and replace it  the right way round. Tremendous fun !!!!

Martin once more correcting the alignment of the couple's telephone handset

- tremendous fun !!!!

Lois always says that there's something of Martin in me, and I'm not sure that's exactly a compliment, necessarily. 

Ann frequently gets infuriated by Martin's often obsessive nature, but when this week he organises a day's activities for old ladies from the local care home, she has to admit that his heart is in the right place.

Ann: You really are a good man, Martin.

Martin: You didn't say that last night when I tested the alarm clock when you were asleep!

Ann: That was you being an annoying man!

Martin: How would you get tea in bed in the morning if I was asleep? I need to know that the alarm's working.

Ann: But you always wake up and switch it off one minute before it rings!

Martin: It's knowing that it would ring if I didn't wake up, that makes me wake up!

[Ann turns away in despair!]

Poor Ann !!!!!

But fair enough, I think I can see Martin's point there too. Perhaps, after all, I have got a bit of Martin in me - oh dear, what an awful thought to go to bed on!!!!

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