Danskcolin: Saturday July 30th 2022

A sleepy, lazy day for Lois and me - it's overcast till about 4:30pm when the sun finally breaks through, and we spend the afternoon in bed, which doesn't help! We had plans to have lunch out today, but we don't go - it's our Australian twin granddaughters' 9th birthday party today, so Lois and I hold ourselves ready to do a zoom with them, but we don't hear anything in the end. We imagine the girls are tired after the party, and that their parents are even "tireder" - it's quite probable isn't it haha!

flashback to 2 weeks ago - Lois and I talk on zoom

to our daughter Sarah and her twin daughters Lily and Jessica

who live in Perth, Australia, together with our son-in-law Francis

10:00 Some nice news comes in about a family get-together planned for early September. Recently my sister Jill in Cambridge was given a DNA test kit by her husband Peter, and this led to the discovery that Jill and I had a "new" cousin, David, that we didn't know anything about. He was born in 1959 to our unmarried Aunty Joan, and adopted as a baby, it has transpired. Who would have thought it, eh? David is a recently retired BBC online journalist.

(left to right) David, his wife Zanne, and my sister Jill

at Jill's home in Cambridge

Jill and I also have about 30 or so "old" cousins, that we've known about for 60 years or more, and so sadly aren't a "novelty" haha - and they live all over the UK and Ireland, also the USA and Australia.

David has decided to get the ball rolling on a cousins get-together, initially by inviting just all the surviving cousins who live in the south of England to a meet-up in Oxford - and there are quite a lot just of these so-called "southern cousins". My god!

just part of our cousins' massive family tree - yikes !!!!!

16:00 Lois and I eventually roll out of bed - we have an onerous list of duties here, while we're pet-sitting for our daughter Alison, who's been on holiday with her family on the Isle of Wight during the last week. We have to feed the family's two cats and tropical fish, of course, but we also have extensive watering duties in the family's massive 6.5 acre grounds.

flashback to yesterday: Lois watering part of the massive 6.5 acre

grounds of the crumbling mansion, where our daughter Alison and

our son-in-law Ed live with their 3 teenage children

17:00 We take a rest after all the work and look at our smartphones. It's nice today to catch up with the quora forum website, because one of our favourite pundits, Awane Zaini (crazy name, crazy guy!) has been weighing in on the vexed subject of confusing historical facts.

He looks a bit weird, an "odd fish" you might say, judging from his profile picture, but don't let that put you off. He talks a lot of sense, Lois and I think.

And Awane certainly brings to bear a lot of good old-fashioned know-how, when it comes to confusing historical facts, that's for sure.

Confusing Historical Fact 1: the Queen was the same age - 30 - as Marilyn Monroe was, when the 2 women met, in London at a film premiere.

flashback to 1956: the Queen and Marilyn Monroe were both aged 30

when they met for the first time at a film premiere in London

The two women may have diverged in age later on - we're not sure. Perhaps we should be told?

Confusing historical fact 2: the Aztec Empire was founded in 1428, while at exactly the same time, Oxford University had already been founded, approximately 332 years earlier, in 1096.

Confusing historical fact 3: the first US president George Washington died in 1799, at the age of 67. Tragically he died 25 years before 1824, when the first dinosaur fossils were discovered. Do I need to spell it out? Well, let's just say that, incredibly, Washington never knew of the existence of these mysterious giant animals.

US President George Washington "probably never knew

of the existence of dinosaurs"

Confusing historical fact 4: [That's enough confusing historical facts! - Ed]

17:30 Luckily, at this point, Steve, our American brother-in-law, brings a touch of sanity back with a one of his timely health tips for older people.

And it's all "new science" apparently, which is nice!

20:00 We wind down on the sofa watching Friday's BBC Proms concert, all about sea music.

And it's especially nice to see tonight that the BBC are continuing their policy of booking conductors who don't look like conductors. It's only fair to give the "non-standard"-look guys a chance once in a while. Who cares if they know how to conduct or not - they only have to wave their arms about vaguely, don't they - the orchestra know what to do nine times out of ten we feel!

We begin with the BBC's music pundits giving an introduction to the works to be performed.

Then we see Andrew Manze, the guest conductor, entering the Royal Albert Hall.

He's obviously some sort of school headmaster, and we see him shaking hands with some of the musicians before he takes the podium. I imagine he hasn't met them before. He won't have had time to attend any rehearsals - most schools in England and Wales only broke up for the summer last week.