A quieter day for Lois and me, although we do put in an offer on a house for sale in Malvern, so it may turn out to be momentous day in the grand scheme of things. But we'll see. Incidentally the solar panels on the roof have still go 19 years before the lease runs out - I don't think Lois and I will still be around in 19 years' time, to put it mildly! But we'll see - we're going to try haha!
us as we are today - can we last another 19 years
and outlive those solar panels? Well, the jury's
still out on that one haha! [No it isn't! - Ed]
08:30 We speak to an estate-agent and put in our offer, a bit over the asking price, for the house we saw for sale in Malvern yesterday - the first house we've liked after about 3 weeks of house-hunting. My god - it's so hard, isn't it!
after 3 weeks or so of house-hunting in Malvern,
at last we see a house we quite like - my god!
But we don't want to invest too much of ourselves emotionally in our offer. The house has only just gone on the market, and several "viewings" have been booked in for the weekend and for next week, so I expect the vendors will be adopting a wait-and-see approach for the time being.
We could easily be outbid by another would-be buyer, so that's why we're trying not to invest too much of our hopes and our emotional energy into that house and that house alone. And we've decided that the best way to do that is to set up a couple of other houses that we can arrange to view tomorrow, including the brand new one that isn't quite finished yet - oh dear!
another possible house for us - second from the left.
The only problem is that it isn't quite finished yet - what madness !!!!
We see today that, in our absence, the builders have been making some progress with the horrible flats they've been building for a few months next to the football field - some of the roofs are now on, we notice. What a pity haha! Still you can't stop so-called progress, can you haha!
behind me you can see the horrible new flats being built
next to the football field - some of these have had a blue roof
put on them since we were last here - oh dear!
Lois and I sit on the so-called "Pirie Bench"
and share a yoghurt flapjack with our coffees - yum yum!
a typical moonpig greetings card from the UK to Australia
I haven't used moonpig.com for years, but my question is - exactly how long ago was it when I last used it?
Well, I get my answer when I look at the delivery addresses I've "saved" on the site. It reminds me that I used to use moonpig.com constantly on my late mother's behalf to send birthday cards to her many friends and relations. It was ideal for her, because although she was confined to her house, she could choose the card's design on her computer, and make up a personal message... ...and Bob's your uncle!
My mother died in 2011, so seeing that old "moonpig address list" again is like a real message from the old days - many of the names and addresses are people that Lois and I have almost forgotten about, and indeed many of them are dead now, which is sad. But what a blast from the past!
rule number one for royal feasts : don't start eating
Who knew that Puffins can regularly get about 10 to 20 sand-eels in their mouths, and that the world record for a puffin's mouth is over 80? My god! It's a long time since I've had even 10 in my mouth - that's for sure!
And apparently puffins have incredibly flexible jaws - there's a yellow patch on the sides that allows them to open their jaw much wider than most sea-birds.
Fascinating stuff !!!! [You've done that one already too! - Ed]
21:00 We go to bed on what we're expecting to be a nice historical mystery, all about who murdered the Princes in the Tower in the late 15th century - was it Shakespeare's "bad guy", Richard III, or was it somebody else?
I have to say I'm a little disappointed that the programme doesn't really solve the mystery one way or another, but I suppose it would have been a bit surprising if it had- and we'd probably have read all about it in the newspapers already, if presenter Lucy Worsley had made a breakthrough.
17:00 On the news comes the story that divers have found the wreck of the ship that sank when the future King James II was on board.
Lois says that apparently a lot of the sailors on board the ship unfortunately died because they weren't allowed to try leaving the sinking ship until the King had been rescued first.
What a crazy world they lived in in those far-off times!
However I suppose it was a bit like the rule that the courtiers etc in the royal banqueting room weren't allowed to start eating till the King had started. And when the King laid down his knife and fork after he had eaten enough, everybody else had to stop eating too, even if they hadn't had very much.
What a crazy world .... [You've done that one already! - Ed]
till the King starts eating - my god!
rule number one for royal ships that are sinking: don't try and get off the ship
until the King has been rescued - what madness !!!!
20:00 We relax on the couch with yesterday's edition of Springwatch, the series that monitors wildlife in the UK with the help of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras.
Why would you want to carry 20 or even 83 sand-eels in your mouth? Well, if you're a mummy puffin you might have several hungry youngsters waiting back in your nest for their next feed. See? Makes sense all of a sudden, doesn't it!
They also have in there soft little spines in their throats that they can latch the sand-eels on to, so they stay in place and don't fall out when the mummy puffin's on her way back to the nest to feed her little chicks.
See? Simples !!!!
It's also interesting that the fantastic colours that the puffins sport in summer, colours which are mainly designed to attract mates, go all dark and dowdy in the winter, when they're not needed, and puffins temporarily withdraw from the dating/mating scene.
This fading is obviously a bit of a saver on the energy required to "grow" those colours, a bit like when smartphone screens or computer screens etc go all dark when you're not using them actively.
Humans are a bit unlucky, having to date and mate all year round, if necessary, and not to be able to put those flashy clothes completely away for 6 months or whatever it is. How tiresome haha!
As the blurb in the Radio Times (above) suggests, it all comes down to whether you believe Sir Thomas More's account or not. Sir Thomas pointed the finger clearly at Richard III as instigator of the princes' deaths, but More could have been trying to curry favour with the reigning Tudor monarchy. On the other hand More did know some of the people alleged to have been the actual murderers, Forrest and Dighton and their mastermind James Tyrrell, or he at least knew their relatives.
So will we ever know the truth?
Perhaps we need a real detective on the case, for example, Columbo - he'd soon sort it out. He's never failed yet haha!
"Oh - just one more thing, Richard, Your Majesty....."
22:00 We go thoughtfully to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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