08:00 We wake up to the news that Ukraine has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest, which is nice: Lois and I haven't watched the contest for at least 20 years, but it's good to see such a strong sympathy vote for the Ukrainians. And surprisingly the UK came second - my god! We've got used to coming last or nearly last every year these days, and we've more or less come to assume that the whole of Europe hates us: I can't imagine why - we're such a lovely people, aren't we haha!
Steve, our American brother-in-law emails us
with the shock news - my god !!!!
I do know, however, that some people say that the real reason we usually come last is because the songs we enter are complete rubbish, and there may be something in that. Certainly, several years ago, it stopped being "cool" in the UK for a singer to enter Eurovision, so maybe that was what was behind it - who knows?
This year as always, however, most of the pundits, like Sophie Ellis-Bextor, had been predicting another "nul points" for the UK, so they've all got egg on their faces this morning - that's for sure!
my slippers, jeans and shirt peep out around our copy of this week's
Radio Times magazine, in which singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor makes
her pessimistic predictions about this year's UK entry - oh dear!
Our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 children, still watches the show with Ed and the kids, and when the family was living in Copenhagen for 6 years (2012-2018), Ali and Ed even attended one of the finals in person.
flashback to May 2014: Ali and Ed attend the
Eurovision Song Contest finals in Copenhagen
May 2014: Ali (left) meets Molly (centre) the
singer of the UK entry, which was only placed 17th out of 26 -
poor Molly !!!!!!
The Eurovision final that Lois and I remember best - and not in a good way - was in 2006. We had just retired and were on an extended holiday to Hungary, Austria and Belgium. We were staying at the Baross Hotel in Budapest on the night of the Eurovision finals (May 20th), and unfortunately 3 Finnish girls were in the adjoining room. The girls were having a bit of a party in their room because the Finnish entry came out the winners that year - I think it was the only time that Finland has ever won the contest. We complained to the hotel management about the noise the girls were making, but I don't think much was done about it - what madness !!!!!
Finnish group Lordi winning the Eurovision Song Contest May 2006 in Athens - my god !!!!
the Baross Hotel, Budapest, built round a courtyard in Central European style,
where Lois and I were staying in May 2006
Lois and I pretty much had zero sleep that night, but to compensate I remember that we had a nice time the following day, being shown around by my penfriend Tünde and her son Gábor, when we saw the Formula 1 "Hungaroring" motor circuit, and also the 18th century royal palace at Gödöllő.
flashback to May 21st 2006: (left to right) my Hungarian penfriend Tünde,
Lois, and Tünde's son Gábor, at the Royal Palace of Gödöllő,
north-east of the city - happy times !!!!!!
09:00 Today is my little sister Gill's birthday - she's my only surviving sibling, so it's great to see that she is having a nice weekend with a barbecue in the sun yesterday afternoon, attended by 2 of her 3 daughters, Lucy and Maria, together with Maria's husband Tom.
Gill celebrating her birthday with a pre-birthday barbecue
in the back yard of her Cambridge home: (left to right)
Gill, Tom, Maria and Lucy
flashback to summer 1960: me, aged 14, in my school uniform, in the back garden
of our house in Redland, Bristol with Gill, my 2-year-old little sister - happy times !!!!!
10:00 I sit down at the table and start work on the next form I've got to fill in. Lois and I are hoping to move house in the next few months, and our solicitors have sent me a bunch of forms to fill in - my strategy will be to answer the easy questions first and then gradually work through the harder ones. See? Simples haha!
This morning I make a start on filling in what our solicitor calls the "Transaction Information Form", and I make a bit of progress, before coming to a section on "Guarantees" for various bits of work we've had done on the house. Damn! That means that at some point I'll have to start on a "Find the guarantee" hunt in our famously messy filing-cabinet. Damn (again) !!!!!
But what a madness it all is !!!!!!
12:00 We have lunch. Both of us are feeling a bit below par today - we had our 4th COVID jab yesterday, and Lois decides to skip the first of her sect's two Sunday Morning meetings today. She gamely decides to take part in the second meeting but she's late logging on for it - she forgot the time when she was telling me over lunch all about the Anthony Trollope novel she's reading at the moment on her Kindle: it's "Doctor Thorne", which we both saw as a TV serial about 6 years ago.
scenes from Doctor Thorne, by Julian "Downton Abbey" Fellowes:
personally I'm not sure I would ever vote for somebody like Scatcherd -
he looks like a raving lunatic to me: call me superficial if you like haha!
But because Lois is late logging on to the sect's second meeting, the presiding preacher doesn't realise that he's got to "mute" her separately - he's already muted all the other online participants when the meeting started, and he forgets to mute Lois too when she pops up later. So when the hymns start, Lois sings along with the recording, not realising she's inadvertently become the featured "solo singer" on top of a recorded choral backing. How embarrassing !!!!!!!
Poor Lois !!!!!!
Apparently a lot of the sect members attended a nice barbecue at Church elder Andy's house yesterday afternoon, and a good time was had by all, including several of the local meeting's young Iranian Christian refugees, which was nice.
flashback to yesterday afternoon: several sect members,
including a bunch of young Iranians, enjoy a barbecue
at sect elder Andy's home
14:00 Lois and I decide to spend the afternoon in bed again, as we're both feeling a bit rubbish still, after our COVID jab of yesterday. And as we lie in bed we can hear the rain falling gently outside, which is nice!
20:00 We have spent much of the day looking online at houses we might want to buy in the Petersfield area of Hampshire - it's a quiet town, but has a big local meeting of Lois's sect, which means she would be able to attend services there without a lot of travelling.
Petersfield was built by the Normans as a "new town", at the end of the 11th century.
the red marker shows the location of Petersfield, Hampshire,
where we could try to move to
Lois is much better than me at looking online at houses for sale. After about three or four, they all start to get muddled up in my mind - I'm getting old, that's for sure - oh dear!
20:00 We wind down by watching this week's edition of Antiques Roadshow, a series in which members of the public bring along treasures and heirlooms from their attics, to have them examined, and sometimes valued, by experts in the field.
This week's programme is set in the grounds of Portchester Castle near Portsmouth in Hampshire, originally a 3rd century Roman fort, built by the Romans to ward off coastal raids by Saxon pirates. It remains the best preserved Roman fort north of the Alps, which is quite something.
To me, the remains of the Roman fort itself are almost more fascinating than the heirlooms that the public bring along, but then they would be, wouldn't they!
Antiques Roadshow presenter Fiona Bruce showcases
some of the wonders of this 3rd century Roman fort
I've never been a smoker, but I think my favourite heirloom tonight is a Dunhill cigarette-lighter.
In the days when I used to study Japanese at university I sometimes had the pleasure of showing the sights of London to visiting Japanese friends that I had got to know during my student year in Tokyo (1970-1971). Some wanted to see Buckingham Palace, others wanted to see the Tower of London etc, but, without fail, the place they all were determined not to miss was Dunhills - or "Dun-hee-ru-su" as they called it - a fashionable accessories manufacturer with a showcase shop in central London.
What madness!!!!
Tonight we see a woman bringing along a Dunhill so-called "aquarium" lighter, to be valued. Her father worked for Dunhills as a salesman.
The label "aquarium lighter" seems inappropriate in this case, however, because the design features two moths - a creature you don't normally find in an aquarium unless they're dead ones haha!
And as lighter expert Mark Hill makes clear, "aquarium lighters" normally feature fish on the design, but they are all little artworks in their own right. The Dunhill craftsmen would take a panel of Lucite, and then carve the pattern out, from the back, working from a watercolour. The panels would then be sent elsewhere to be painted in bright colours, and they would end up with this kind of shimmering effect because of the Lucite.
Mark says in all his years in the antiques business he has only ever seen one example of a design featuring a moth - and that was just the one moth. He has never ever seen one featuring two moths, so this woman's lighter is a real rarity - my god!
Fascinating stuff !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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