07:00 Another post-COVID milestone as I bring in our 5 pints of milk from the doorstep and put them in the fridge without swabbing them down with disinfectant first. What steely courage I'm showing today haha!
08:30 A full morning is in prospect for Lois and me. Ian the window-cleaner coming at 9 am, Mark the Gardener coming at about 11 am, and - YIKES of ALL YIKES - an appointment at the dentist for 12 noon, our 6 monthly check-up.
When Lois and I arrive at our dental surgery, we discover that they have dropped most of their COVID precautions. However they still ask you if you have had any COVID symptoms in the last week, and they still require the wearing of face-masks except when you're in the dentist's chair.
I'm expecting that "Kesh", our dentist, will find a lot of problems with my teeth and gums, and so I sit in trepidation in the waiting-room - and he's about 30 minutes late calling me in, which is a bit nerve-wracking, to put it mildly.
I wait for 30 minutes in trepidation in the dental surgery waiting room
I pass the time by saying the what-I-call "Brian Wilson magic spell" - you know, the one that demands repeated invocation of the words "Don't Worry, Everything Will Turn Out All Right". And surprisingly it does turn out all right. I thought the filling that Kesh gave me last time had partly fallen out, but he says no, surprisingly. And he finds no other problems - so I'm clear for the next 6 months, till my next check-up.
In case you're wondering, I only speak Brian's powerful spell to myself - I don't alarm the other patients in the waiting-room by chanting the spell out loud in a mock-Hindu monotone voice or anything weird like that. I've got some discretion haha!
And by the way the "oo oo" in the lyrics at the end of the first verse is strictly optional, which saves a bit of time if you're saying a spell dozens of times, which is nice.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
And what do you know? Lois is also clear of problems. How lucky is that? I don't think we've had a double all-clear for years and years, which is nice.
13:00 And so, with hearts considerably lighter than when we arrived over an hour ago, we say farewell to Kesh, our dentist, and to Ursula, our hygienist. See you in December, guys!
Kesh, our dentist
Ursula, our hygienist
14:00 Lois spends much of the rest of the day looking online at houses-for-sale in the Malvern area. There isn't much on the market, because houses for sale tend to get snapped up pretty quickly at the moment, which is really annoying. But we've got 2 houses we can look at tomorrow, and 2 on Thursday, which is something.
So tomorrow it's back on the road again for us, heading for the hills.
[What a rubbishy blog post this is so far! - Ed]
16:00 We have tea on the patio, with the last piece of Lois's birthday cake sob sob!
[And it's not getting any better, is it! - Ed]
19:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her great-niece Molly's chair-yoga class on zoom.
I sometimes use these absences by Lois to sit in the living-room and "road-test" some of the new late-night TV sitcoms, to see if they're going to be suitable for us. Well, I haven't found one yet, but who knows, tonight could be the night. But we'll see.
Yet another new one started recently on Channel 4, called Big Boys.
Most of these new late-night sitcoms rely mainly on "strong language" and "sexual situations" as a substitute for thinking up some good funny lines and funny, interesting characters. I think this one is different - there
are funny lines and characters. It's written by an Edinburgh Fringe stand-up comedian.
However, I don't think it's one for us - we don't mind a bit of "strong language" but basically there's an awful lot in this one, and anyway it's obviously meant for an audience about 50-60 years younger than us - oh dear!
Being me, nevertheless, I like to analyse some of the fashionable words and phrases, and to try to keep up with young people's English - because, unlikely though it may seem, Lois and I occasionally meet real young people - not very often, though haha!
The main character, Jack, is a student just starting at "Brent University", and he finds himself thrown together with another lad called Danny. They find that neither of them are initially being housed in one of the Student Halls of Residence, due to refurbishment problems, and that they are both being temporarily accommodated in a 2-bedroom outbuilding bungalow on the campus.
In this scene we see unhelpfully-cheery student-counsellor Julie showing Jack and Danny (and Jack's mum who's also come along) to their temporary accommodation.
Later in the programme it emerges that Jack is gay, while Danny is straight.
At a new-students' Freshers Party at the beginning of term, Jack, being gay but sexually inexperienced, is wondering, in a voice-over, how he can work out if any of the other young men at the party are gay also.
I'm already aware that in e.g. the 18th century, both men and women would signify sexual preference, sexual availability or unavailability etc, by subtle signs in their choice of clothing or in their hair-style etc.
But Jack says that nowadays it's really easy to spot other gay men, because "Pesos was invented". What is he talking about here? I google "pesos" and all I find is various currency references for Spain or other Latin countries, so I don't know.
I notice that both Jack and a man who catches his eye at the party are wearing the same top. Is that what a "Pesos" or "Peso" is perhaps?
I ask Lois about "Pesos" when she emerges from her zoom chair-yoga session, but she doesn't know either.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!!
20:00 We watch tonight's programme in the "Springwatch" series, which monitors wildlife in the British Isles, with the help of a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras.
Who knew that many species of birds use strange objects or "bling" that they find lying about, to decorate their nests with?
And also included in this nesting material are lots of green shoots and foliage, that apparently have been shown in studies to have a calming effect on their little brood as well as on the brood's parents.
Fascinating stuff !
Tonight, presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan discuss a pair of red kites and their nest, where the adults have been making a real "dog's dinner" of a nest for their little chicks to sleep in.
Michaela confesses that she wouldn't want all of that clutter in her own bed, and Lois and I agree with that. Chris, however, points out that modern "installation artist" Tracey Emin probably wouldn't mind.
Yes, Tracey Emin - what does she keep in her bed and in her bedroom? We put the programme on "pause" and google her on our phones, just to check.
"My Bed" by Tracey Emin (1998)
It turns out that the "My Bed" installation features, amongst other things, used cigarette packets, vodka bottles, blood-stained underwear, both used and unused condoms, boxes of contraceptive pills, waist belts, batteries, tubes of KY lubricating jelly and other assorted items.
What a mess - my god!!!! But no green shoots or foliage we notice, such as birds like the red kites and buzzards normally include in their nests in order to keep their chicks calm. Perhaps a bit of greenery in her bed would have helped Tracey to get a better night's sleep? We don't know, but perhaps we should be told, and quickly!!!!
Lois and I keep a plant-pot stand (or is it a pot-plant stand?) in our bedroom. It used to stand in my late sister Kathy's flat in Bristol, until she moved to the US in 1983. She gave the stand to my late mother, but my mother didn't really want it, so she passed it on to Lois and me when we moved back from the US in 1985. And we've kept it ever since.
in our bedroom, my late sister Kathy's plant-pot stand,
which we've had since 1985
We're always careful, however, to keep all that greenery and earth etc out of our actual bed. Call us obsessive OCD-freaks if you like, but it makes sense to us haha!
22:00 We go bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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