Tuesday June 14th 2022

Well, we've got our offer accepted on a house-for-sale in Malvern - much to our complete surprise. And now we feel confused: we've seen so many houses in the last few weeks that we're not sure that we remember much about the house we've actually agreed to buy - what madness!!!! And, we ask ourselves, are there any nearby shops, or places to go for walks? We have to admit that we don't remember - my god, how crazy is that!!!!

So today we're steeling ourselves to drive over there again, and properly check out the neighbourhood. And yes, we find that there are indeed a couple of convenience stores not too far away, plus a wine shop, and even a post-office - local post offices, sadly, are like gold dust in the Britain of today. 

the local Co-op convenience store with Post Office counter inside...

...and the Londis convenience store not far away, with a cash machine, which is nice..

..and the local pub, the Anchor Inn

Won't that be great to have a Post Office counter in a convenience store? Sadly many local post offices have been closing all over the UK in the last few years, and I often wish that our Post Office would copy some of the more imaginative initiatives that the US Post Office (USPO) have implemented in recent years to drum up business, as reported on the influential American news website, Onion News.

WASHINGTON—In an effort to reach out to a previously untapped customer base, the struggling United States Postal Service announced Tuesday that it would extend its business hours to 3 a.m. to meet America’s late-night mailing demands.

The move comes after a trial run of the extended hours in six urban markets, where post offices saw a 137 percent spike in overall revenue—most of which was conducted in the 15 minutes after last call. There was also a threefold spike in passport applications, largely the result of drunken individuals stumbling in at 2 a.m. and making spur-of-the-moment plans for a road trip to Mexico.

“We’re busier than ever, though to be honest, a lot of these people’s packages never even make it to the processing centre,” Loftus continued. “The address will be illegible, or the envelope soaked in beer or hot sauce. You’d be surprised how many people try to mail themselves hot sauce at 2:30 in the morning.”

While the programme has been an economic boon, it has also created its share of problems: Bouncers have been brought in to deal with violence at several of the participating branches, and complaints of overflowing mailboxes have been voiced by residents of the small north-eastern port town of Fuck, ME.

"Last night I had to stop a guy from climbing behind the counter to check for his Netflix arrivals,” Las Vegas postal security guard Darius Whitman said. “And people get angry when they wait half an hour in the package-pickup line and then find out there’s no bottle service. Sometimes it’s rowdy, but mostly it’s just people laughing, making out, mailing off Bacon of the Month Club orders, and having a good time.”

“That’s what people come to the post office for,” Whitman added.

Why can't we do that kind of thing over here? What's wrong with us haha !!!!!

12:00 Time's getting on, and Lois and I look for somewhere green and leafy to have our packed lunch - there are plenty of green areas in and around Malvern but a shortage of benches, we can exclusively reveal. As we're almost certainly now going to be moving to Malvern, a must-have is obviously going to be a pair of fold-up garden chairs that we can load into the boot of the car: that's for sure.

In Malvern there are lots of "commons", which in England, means areas of land for public use, often delineated centuries ago. These are usually areas in or around towns, where locals can walk or walk their dogs. We pick on the nearest one - Malvern Link Common, to have our lunch at, and we park our car in one of the untarmacked car-parks.

an aerial view of Malvern Link Common, with a white circle

indicating the car park where Lois and I have lunch today - see !!!!

[You do realise there's far too much detail being trotted out here, don't you? - my god, who's going to  care where you parked!!!! -Ed] 

[Well, it's just for completeness - Colin]

we sit here and have lunch in our car, in the central untarmacked 

parking area, totally surrounded by greenery - how refreshing !!!!!

19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her great-niece Molly's chair yoga class on zoom.

Lois's great-niece Molly, seen here in a rare off-duty moment

Molly also leads in-person yoga classes in Leeds, where she works

20:00 When Lois emerges from her zoom session, we watch tonight's edition of Springwatch, the series that monitors wildlife in the British Isles with the help of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras. 

Not that Springwatch again, I hear you cry! Well, it's the last week of this 3-week series, so we've got to take advantage! And when Springwatch is over, well, spring is over really isn't it haha!

Lois and I often have trouble hearing each other, and it's getting impossible to communicate if, for example, we're in different rooms, no matter how loud we shout - my god! And that's why we tend to sit together on our 2-seater sofa, with me on Lois's right hand side (her "good" ear), and when we're in bed, again, it's me on Lois's right hand side, to save having to repeat everything. Oh dear!

So it's interesting tonight to see that ageing barn owls have the same problem, which they somehow have to counteract. And recently scientists have been comparing barn owl ears with human ears.

Inside the hollow tube of our cochleas there's a viscous fluid and sticking into the fluid are our stereocilia. 

When there's a sound near us, this fluid in our cochleas moves in response to the vibration. This movement then triggers the stereocilia to send a signal to the auditory nerve which goes to the brain, translating into something that we hear. See? Simples haha!

both human and barn-owl ears have stereocilia inside

the cochleas in their ears: stereocilia which tend to deteriorate with age - oh dear!

As we get older, our stereocilia begin to break down, and as a consequence we can't hear as well as we did, in fact from our mid-twenties onwards - yikes! 

And ageing Springwatch presenter Chris Packham (61) says he can't, for instance, any longer hear goldcrests and some species of bats. 

Poor Chris !!!!! But at least he doesn't have to catch goldcrests or bats to get his supper every night - or at least, I assume he doesn't. 

Owls, on the other hand, need to have good hearing to be able to hear their prey. When they age, they also, like us, suffer decay in their stereocilia, but unlike us, they are able to regenerate them. And scientists are trying to work out how they do this, so that maybe some day they'll be able to figure out how humans can do the same.

Who knew???!!!!!!

I suppose it's a survival factor in owls. Lois and I don't need to hear our food, or even hear what the groceries delivery guy is saying to us when he drops off our shopping. We can just pretend, and if we think he's making a joke, we can give him a pleasant laugh to speed him on his way, which is nice! 

Fascinating stuff !!!!!

21:15 "Springwatch finishes, but Lois is already asleep by this point - in fact she's already slept through the bit about barn owls' ears on Springwatch,  so I'll have to update her later.

As she sleeps, I watch an old episode of the 1980's sitcom "Ever Decreasing Circles" starring Richard Briers as obsessive suburbanite Martin, and Penelope Wilton as Martin's long-suffering wife Ann.

In this episode Martin is chosen to represent the company he works for - Mole Valley Valves - at a 2-day conference at a hotel in Bruges. As he prepares for the trip we see how proud he is that his firm has chosen him, and how he is trying to prepare for the trip by trying to cater for all possibilities.

Martin - feeling so proud that his company has chosen him

to represent them at a conference in Bruges, Belgium

Although it's just a 2-day conference, Martin has packed two large suitcases, and his wife Ann asks him whether he might perhaps have overpacked.

Yes, Martin's right - things can spill on shirts: e.g. ink, wine, soup, lubricants, he says. So he's taking 14 shirts with him, just to be on the safe side.

He's also packed a fountain pen, a fountain pen refill, "biro", spare biro, biro refills, propelling pencil, rubber, ordinary pencil - how very 1980's haha!

He also has a multi-page list of reminders for Ann, things she has to remember to do while he's away.

 The list starts:

1. Close doors and windows at night.

2. Lock doors and windows at night.

3. Leave light on to imply someone in house at night.

4. Make sure you eat properly...

5. ..... etc etc for 6 pages....

I like to think that I'm not obsessive in the way that Martin is, but, in almost every episode I watch, I see something Martin does that somehow strikes a chord with me. Oh dear!

Oh, but I remember the excitement of my first business trip abroad, to the US in 1980. Like Martin, I packed masses of "biros" and pencils etc. And I liked it so much over there, when I experienced it, that I signed up to work in the US for 3 years from 1982 to 1985.

On the 1980 business trip I travelled with my boss Harvey, who let me drive our left-hand-drive automatic rental car some of the time, and showed me some of the nearby tourists spots like Harpers Ferry just outside Washington, where there was a shop selling the world's best custard. I don't know if it's still there - probably not, I would think. But who knows.

flashback to 1980: me on my first business trip abroad,

sampling the world's best custard at a shop in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Happy days !!!!!

22:00 I wake Lois up and we go to bed haha - zzzzzzz!!!!!