Wednesday May 25th 2022

16:00 At last Lois and I can relax on the couch with a cup of tea, and think back over our day - what a horrible day, occupied with house-hunting in Malvern, and spending almost 8 hours on it, if you include the travel from Cheltenham and the journey back in the afternoon.

And I don't think we've really found "our new home" yet, after all that.

What madness !!!!!!

It's a lovely town, however, and the lovely Malvern Hills tend to "photo-bomb" a lot of our house-hunting photos - there's usually a bit of a hilltop poking its "nose" into the background of most of our pictures, which is nice.

photos from today's page in our "house-hunting" album -

usually there's a bit of the Malvern Hills sticking its nose in 

somewhere or other - what a cheek haha!!!

These are the hills where Elgar, the composer (1857-1934), once walked a hundred years ago. And where we walked too, 50 years ago, when we were younger - we'd probably find it a struggle now, but who knows? Well, we'll have to see.

Flashback to September 1971: Lois and I spend a week walking the Malvern Hills,

the month I came back from my student year in Japan.

Happy days !!!!!!!

Today, as usual, we seem to have plenty of bad luck on our house-hunt, which is a pity. For instance, the new Malvern Rise development "isn't open" on Wednesdays apparently, so we can't see round the show home - what madness !!!!

we discover that the Malvern Rise show-home

"isn't open on Wednesdays" - what madness !!!!

And today, when we stop by for lunch at a lovely pub, The Three Horseshoes, we find that the manager is away attending a funeral, and so the  cook is having to serve in the bar. As a result there's only a new young lad in the kitchens, and he's not confident about serving anything more than a drastically reduced menu: basically cheese baguette and chips, or ham baguette and chips. 

The pub's young lad does a lovely plate of chips, though. Well done, our lad !!!!!!

here we showcase the pub's drastically reduced menu

- basically cheese baguette and chips (me) 

and ham and chips baguette and chips (Lois)

Lois pictured here showcasing one of "our lad's" chips

We get home just after 4 pm, and I feel I've been driving all day from one house to another. My legs just aren't used to hitting the accelerator, clutch and brake (not all at the same time, however - I choose my moments for each haha), and the whole day has unfortunately given me a bit of an ache in my calf muscles - damn! But I suppose it's yet another post-lockdown adjustment, I need to go through - oh dear!

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

20:00 Having tasted "our lad's" chips, although we are tired now, we're kind of in the mood for the first programme in a new series, Britain's Top Takeaways, presented by BBC radio DJ, Sara Cox.

This is Lois's choice of viewing, really. I like tasting fish-and-chips, but watching other people eat them and describe them isn't quite the same to me - call me picky if you like!

But who knew that big fat chunky chips are less fattening than the little thin ones you get at McDonald's? Well, Lois knew of course - apparently there's overall less surface area for absorbing the oil. 

See? Simples!

It's interesting tonight for Lois and me to see, as one of the 5 competitors, a young woman, Bonny, from Simpsons family Fish'n'Chip shop business, which is only about half a mile away from our house here in Cheltenham. 

Bonny is competing tonight as a duo, with her friend Vic.

We hear a bit about Bobby and Vic's way of cooking the fish. To get what they see as the perfect coating, and aiming for a gluten-free batter, they use tapioca flour, which they say makes it nice and crispy. And Vic says that most of their customers can't tell that they're eating gluten-free.

Bonny and Vic are actually leading their 4 competing duos, as the competition goes into its final round. For the final round the judges are members of a local Manchester boxing team. By the rules of the competition all the points awarded in the final round are doubled - I suppose that's to make it more of a cliff-hanger: but what madness !!!!!

It turns out that the boxers award their top scores to a competing duo  from Yorkshire, Adam and Amber - so the final result is a tie between Adam and Amber and our local girls Bonny and Vic, who would have won outright, without the "double points" feature. 

Poor Bonny and Vic !!!!!

Still to be tied first is not bad, is it?

By now, Lois is fast asleep beside me on the couch, so I have to update her with the results after she wakes up.

22:00 We go to bed. Oh dear, it's another early start tomorrow - zzzzzzzzz!!!!