Monday June 6th 2022

The morning starts in deep gloom, as Lois and I get out of bed, weighed down with the prospect of finding a solution to our "broken" gas-fire problem, as well as the prospect of re-starting our merry-go-round of house hunting, now that we've apparently sold our own house. 

Then some of the gloom lifts as we realise we can still light the gas-fire by the antiquated method of striking a match and holding it to the central panel of the gas fire - see? Simples! It would be easier with some longer matches, however, so I order some from Amazon. 

JD: job done haha!

I suddenly remember that you can light gas-fires

with a simple match - what madness!!!!!

Why didn't I think of that before? I grew up in houses where we always lit our gas-fires by striking a match, but we've had a gas-fire with automatic ignition for so long - 36 years - that I'd forgotten about those more "stone age" methods. What madness !!!!!

the long matches I've ordered from Amazon

With that "success" under our belts we steel ourselves to look at the estate-agent sites again and make some bookings for perhaps Wednesday and Thursday this week. So we'll see.

10:30  I stumble across a perfect cure for those post-Jubilee blues - a painting by my second cousin and amateur artist Ruth, which she puts on social media this morning.

I went to see Ruth in her Herefordshire home in 2005, together with my late mother, my late sister Kathy, and Kathy's husband Steve.

Flashback to March 2005: we visit my second cousin Ruth, crouching behind the sofa with her 2 daughters. On the sofa (left to right) my late mother, me and my late sister Kathy

Like Ruth, I'm also a big fan of the illustrations both in the Winne the Pooh books and in the Disney cartoon versions, especially this well-known image. 

It always reminds me of the happy times when Lois and I used to look after our twin grandchildren Lily and Jessica, now sadly living 9000 miles away from us, in Australia - sob sob!

flashback to August 2015: an old man (i.e. me) leads our little granddaughter Lily (2)

back towards our car through Evesham Country Park - awwwww !!!!

Happy days !!!!!!

13:00 An amusing Venn diagram comes in, as part of an email from Steve, our American brother-in-law, taken from the site that he monitors.

Steve points out that "ABBA's 'Abbators' " in Diagram 2 could be understood as meaning, not avatar band-members for a creepy concert, but as meaning "an abattoir or slaughter-house for ABBA's more elderly group-members", which is a fair point, I think!

the four ABBA members, as they are today

And I'm guessing that the "Tamagotchi" in Diagram 1, the original hand-held digital pet, would have to be a Generation 2 model. The Generation 1 model used to die in as little as half a day if it didn't get the requisite care from its owner - a weakness that famously led children to taking them with them to school, with the potential disruption to their studies that that might represent. Poor Tamagotchi 1's !!!!!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!!

19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in a zoom special business meeting of her sect, called to discuss the amalgamation of 2 of the sect's bible seminars: the Monday evening (Tewkesbury) one and the Tuesday evening (Brockworth) one. 

Later Lois tells me they decided to make the new combined seminar a Tuesday one, which will be awkward for Lois because of her Tuesday evening online chair yoga class led by her great-niece Molly - but we'll see!

Lois's online yoga teacher - her great-niece Molly

flashback to last month: Lois takes part in a typical

chair yoga class led by great-niece Molly

While Lois is busy online, I settle down on the couch and watch the last programme in the current series of "Gogglebox", in which ordinary members of the public are filmed watching, and commenting on, some of the week's TV programmes.

One of the shows the Goggleboxers watch tonight is "Dickinson's Real Deal", in which antiques expert David Dickinson helps members of the public to get the best price for some of the treasures and heirlooms from their attics.

The Goggleboxers are surprised, however, when David introduces himself as "The Duke", and nobody seems to know where this previously unknown nickname has suddenly appeared from - they conclude that David must have come up with it himself, but time will tell perhaps!

It's interesting for me tonight, however, to hear Giles (above) tell his wife Mary that Dickinson is "the sort of man my mother fancies". Mary is doubtful, nevertheless, saying that David is strictly "school of Donald Trump". 

This conversation reminds me that when my late mother took a brief part-time job at the HQ of the Oxfam charity in Summertown, Oxford, the staff were visited by David Dickinson, who, she said, "made a pass" at her. And that must have been back in the 1980's, when my mother was in her 60's.

My god - how old must David be now? Well over a hundred surely!!!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her meeting and we settle down to watch tonight's programme in the "Springwatch" series, in which a team of wildlife presenters feature clips showing the varied aspects of spring wildlife in the British Isles, with the help of a nationwide network of hidden cameras.

Who knew that a "mummy badger" can sense if one of her young has a serious congenital problem? Well, they can, it seems.

Tonight, we watch an amateur nature-lover's video clip of a female badger in the act of giving birth to three cubs in the wild - something believed never to have captured on film before with a European  badger.

the moment a wild badger cub is born, squealing and squeaking,

seen here in its mummy's mouth - awwwwwww !!!!!!

But then, 3 days later, sadly, we see the mummy badger taking one of her three cubs and isolating it in the "spare chamber" of the "nest", effectively abandoning it. And later, after it dies, she eats it - my god!

Well, that's nature for you isn't it. Nothing's ever wasted! Oh dear!

22:00 And on that brutal but essential fact of nature we decide it's time to go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!