Friday, 24 June 2022

Friday June 24th 2022

 A good start to the day - my delayed Fathers Day present from Lois arrived yesterday. It's been languishing in "COVID quarantine" on the hall floor for 24 hours: we still operate a 24 hour quarantine for letters and parcels, even though we've dropped it for food deliveries and milk bottles - which is complete insanity!

When I open the package I find it contains 24 Aero peppermint chocolate bars - yum yum!

I intend to ration myself to one Aero bar a week, to be eaten on Friday afternoons. This is in "homage" to the custom I used to have, when I was still working, i.e. till Feb 2006, of celebrating the imminent end of the week at my office by buying one of these Aero chocolate bars on Friday lunchtimes at one of the workplace's confectionery concessions, and eating the bar around 3 pm with my mid-afternoon cup of tea. 

Ah the memories!

a quiet moment at my old workplace - the confectionery concessions
that sold Aero bars were all on the ground floor: I can still remember that!!!
I could go back to work today and still find those Aero bars blindfolded haha!!!

Lois and I aren't our usual carefree souls at the moment, to put it mildly. Every day we wake up with the feeling that there's something we should have done days ago - and it's all because we've embarked on the process of moving house after 36 years in our current one. 

Today I write an email to our lawyer son-in-law Ed to ask his advice about wills. And I also open up a 16-page letter from our solicitors and read it, and then read it again and try to understand it. Finally I sort all the papers we've already accumulated and put them in one of 4 ring-binders, depending on the subject. 

It's like being back at work! How ridiculous for a couple who've been retired 16 years. My god!!!!!

 a man reading a typical obscurely-worded letter 
from a solicitor (text not shown)

The main thing hanging over Lois and me is to decide what we're going to take with us when we move house, and what we're going to throw away. However we don't feel we can really get down to that task until we've done a lot of other things on our to-do-lists that have been hanging around for far too long. 

Lois, for instance, has for several years been given the task by her sect of trying to engage visiting preachers willing to give talks at the sect's Sunday morning meetings for the next 2 years of Sundays, so at the moment stretching into 2024 - what madness (again) !!!! She's invited a bunch of young preachers to commit to dates, but, typically they tend to be a rather vague group by personality-type, and most of them haven't even replied to her, so she's got to keep chasing them all up - what madness!!!! [That's enough madness for one day! - Ed]

a typical young-and-vague young preacher, in a world of his own,
seen here interacting with his mobile phone

12:00 We take a break from our to-do-lists and go for our usual walk over the local football field. It's not particularly warm - there's quite a stiff breeze, but it's supposed to be summer, and everybody knows it. And I think that's why we find that 2 of the 5 benches by the coffee-stand are occupied today. Usually Lois and I are the only people around, and we have our pick of all five benches- I guess this is a sign of our theoretical summer being on the way, and from now on, Lois and I are going to have to get used to other people competing with us for seats, especially when we get the occasional warm day. Damn !!!!

our local football field this morning - at first glance it looks quiet and peaceful...

Yes, at first glance the football field looks as quiet and peaceful as it usually does, but if you look carefully at the scene in the background over Lois's head, you'll see a different story: yes, it's still quiet and peaceful, but 2 of the 5 benches are occupied - my god!  Such an "almost full house" has been unprecedented in recent times. My god (again) !!!!!

a close-up of the scene behind Lois near the entrance to the football field:
the coffee stand is to the right, but the shock horror story
is to the left: two of the 5 benches are occupied today: my god!

slightly upset by the proximity of other punters,
Lois and I decide to carry on as near to normally as we can,
and enjoy a hot chocolate and half a flapjack each.

14:00 Our time of the week has finally arrived and we can indulge ourselves with a shower and a couple of hours in bed - hurrah, at last!

16:30 We finally struggle out of bed and sit down on the sofa with a cup of tea and half a snail bun each. We try to do some of the puzzles at the back of next week's Radio Times, but I think our brains have been addled by too much time spent in bed. 

We strike out almost completely on the Popmaster: only 1 out of 10 correct. But we think the questions are getting more and more obscure by the week, so that's Ken Bruce's fault not ours. That's our story anyway.


And only 6 out of 10 on "Eggheads", but we think they're putting too many sports questions into it these days, so, again, our poor score isn't really our fault, is it haha!


What a narrow little world Lois and I live in, some days, when it comes down to it, don't we!


20:00 We wind down with an old episode of the 1980's sitcom "Ever Decreasing Circles", all about obsessive suburbanite Martin, his long-suffering wife Ann, his hyper-conventional neighbours Howard and Hilda, and his cool, relaxed bachelor neighbour Paul, who has his eye on poor Ann.


I like to think I'm not as obsessive as Martin, but in each episode he seems to do something that strikes a chord with me. Oh dear!

As we join the episode, Martin is designing a poster for the local charity fete he's organising, which will include a Civil War re-enactment. His wife Ann thinks it's a lovely poster, but as usual Martin is not satisfied with it. 






And when Martin reveals his plan for the fete to Ann and to their neighbours, Howard and Hilda, and Paul, it turns out that he's planning a re-enactment of the Battle of Naseby (1645). 



Everybody except Martin thinks this is way too ambitious, as only 30 people have volunteered to take part. The actual battle involved 12,000 cavalry and 20,000 foot soldiers. Martin, however, insists on going through with his plan, explaining that each participant has to represent 1000 men. It's obvious when you think about it, isn't it!

What a coincidence for Lois and me though! Just a couple of days ago we booked a couple of nights at a B&B near the site of the Naseby battle - what are the chances of that happening eh?

Do coincidences like this prove the existence of God, or are they just chance events and nothing more? Perhaps we should be told! 

The late jazzman Humphrey Lyttelton had an opinion about that.


Well, I think that settles it, doesn't it haha!

Martin's re-enactment goes ahead, and Paul gets one of his rich "mates" to supply the costumes. And it's reassuring, tonight, to see that ultra-conventional neighbours Howard and Hilda, are keen to swap their everyday matching knitwear for everyday matching 17th century jerkins, which is a nice touch!




Tremendous fun !!!!!

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


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