Danskcolin: Thursday May 5th 2022

10:00 Things are moving ahead fast on the marketing of our house by a local estate-agent. The details are on the agency's website by early morning, so Lois and I check the details and ring them to say it's okay.

11:30 We take a walk round the local football field, and have a treacle tart and a flat white coffee at the Whiskers' Coffee Stand. And when we come back to the house we discover that there's a "For Sale" sign that's been posted up outside - YIKES !!!!!!!

little do we know, as we're sharing our treacle tart

on a bench by the football field, that somebody is already erecting

a "For Sale" sign outside our house - yikes !!!!!

And later we get a couple of calls from the estate agency to say that there are 3 prospective buyers who want to view tomorrow afternoon (Friday) and another 3 on Saturday morning - what madness !!!!

So we'll just have to keep the house looking all tidy, at least till Sunday, something which just isn't our style, to put it mildly. So we decide to have our lunch and afternoon tea outside on the patio to save getting crumbs on the dining-room carpet - what madness (again) !!!!!!

we have our lunch outside on the patio to avoid getting crumbs on

the dining-room table or carpet - what madness !!!!!

I'm finding this whole experience very unnerving, because as a couple that have been retired for 16 years, we're used to being 100% in control of our lives. And now it just doesn't seem like that any more. I feel we've stepped on to some sort of conveyor belt that will take us who knows where - yikes!!!!!

Plus, our time is not our own any more - we are just like these stressed-out dogs. My god!

And tomorrow, not only will there be 3 prospective buyers coming to look over the house, but also Tim the Energy Inspector, who's going to issue us with a certificate according to how energy-efficient our house is (or isn't) - an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate). What a crazy world we live in!!!!

14:30 Lois and I run the local U3A Intermediate Danish group, the only one of its kind in the UK, and this afternoon it's our fortnightly meeting. And it turns out that Jeanette, the only authentically Danish member of our group, already knows that our house is on the market. Apparently she routinely monitors the local housing market. What a crazy world we live in!!!!! [That's enough craziness! - Ed]

Jeanette, the only genuinely Danish member of our group,

seen here in happier times

17:00 Mark the Gardener calls round to do a bit of work on our back garden. He and his wife and baby recently sold their house, which was about a mile away from here, in order to move out to Woodmancote, a few miles out of town. It's nice to hear that he's pleased to see we're being marketed by the estate agents who also finally sold his house - he switched to them after getting no successful viewings arranged by other agents, so it's nice to get his vote of confidence in the agency we have chosen.

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the first part of a series taking a nostalgic look back at the work of the Clean-up TV campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who started her pressure groups back in the 1960's.

Mary's first target was TV - mainly the BBC, but in 1970 she broadened her campaign to include other aspects of the so-called "permissive society", including explicit material used in sex education in schools, "girlie" magazines with lurid covers on full display in newsagents, and explicit movies like "La Grande Bouffe / Blow Out", "Last Tango in Paris" etc.

It's interesting that, although, during her campaigning, Mary faced furious resistance and ridicule from a wide range of progressive groups, and also, famously, from Hugh Carlton-Greene, director of the BBC until 1969, a lot of her arguments in later years gained a degree of acceptance: the idea that freedom of expression is a good thing in general, but that, despite the views of many at the time, it is possible to take it too far - especially as regards the bad effects of particular types of pornography and its effects on the vulnerable groups it often targets.

anti-porn campaigner Mary Whitehouse, with her husband Ernest

delivering a petition to Parliament in the 1960's

It's interesting also to see again what a powerhouse Mary was - a housewife and ex-schoolteacher, running her campaign from her home, just using her awful old typewriter to write letters to people of influence, and organising meetings attended by thousands. What a woman !!!!!

And how nostalgic tonight to see again some of the old headlines from the time!