Saturday, 20 August 2022

Saturday August 20th 2022

A day of mixed emotions for Lois and me. This is the last day of our daughter Alison's stay with us, now with just her son Isaac (12), since Isaac's elder sisters Josie (15) and Rosalind (14) departed by bus yesterday to spend a couple of nights with their aunt in Oxford.

When Alison's staying with us, it's a good chance for Lois and me, through the magic of zoom, to get together with Sarah, our other daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia. So we go for it!

Unfortunately we can't talk to Sarah's 9-year-old twin daughters, Lily and Jessica, however, which is a pity, but the girls are at a birthday party for one of their friends, Gianna.

I log into zoom and say hello to Sarah, our younger daughter,
who lives in Perth, Australia, with Francis and their 9-year-old twins,
Lily and Jessica

After I log in, it's time for me to round up Lois, Alison and Isaac so we can have a nice zoom all together. 


Alison and Isaac join in mine and Lois's zoom chat
with Sarah, our other daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia,

It's a busy time for Sarah and Francis at the moment. In two weeks' time they're going to move from the Perth's northern suburb of Tapping  to a house nearer the coast, at Eglinton. The longer term plan is for the family to move back to the UK next year, so rather than make the twins start yet another new school, Francis and Sarah are going to home-school them for the rest of their time down under, and that starts on Monday. 


It's a bit of a nervous time for Sarah and Francis - they've never tried home-schooling before, and they're a bit worried about the twins' saying goodbye to their friends and losing out on the social side of school. Luckily they've found out that there's a morning organised by home-schooled kids every Wednesday at a town called Butler, which is halfway between Tapping and Eglinton, and the twins' best friends in Tapping, Samara and Gianna, who are also being home-schooled, attend this session every Wednesday, which will be nice.

Sarah says that she and Francis have discovered that education in Australia really is a two-tier system, with the private and church schools outperforming the government schools by miles. And a surprisingly large proportion of Australian parents send their children to the non-government schools, much greater than the equivalent percentages in the UK, I would imagine. Who would have guessed it? 

Friday was the twins' last day at their current school in Tapping, and when we have a second zoom tomorrow, the twins should be able to take part in that and tell us about their last day at their current school in the suburb of Tapping, which Lois and I know already to have been a bit of a triumph. Sarah has already hinted that the twins both scored highly in the inter-school maths competition, which is something to make their faded old grandparents proud, that's for sure!

11:00 After the zoom call finishes Alison has to concentrate on getting the family's things together for the drive home to Headley, Hampshire. 

And Lois and I have also been encouraging Alison to take back with her some of the many hundreds of books that we need to get rid of, one way or another, so that we can fit into our own new home in Malvern in couple of month's time. 

But what a madness it all is !!!!!

Alison takes the first of a series of cardboard boxes full of books
to stuff into her car boot, as Isaac looks on

The plan is to have lunch at 12 noon so that Alison and Isaac can leave for home at 12:30 pm. The journey is timed for Isaac's benefit. He's a big fan of Spurs soccer team, who have a match starting at 12:30 pm today with rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers, the team known informally as "Wolves". Isaac loves to listen to soccer matches on the car radio, because he says it makes the journey go super fast, and I can see his point.

Later we hear that Spurs beat Wolves 1-0, the winning goal being scored by Isaac's idol, Harry Kane, so Isaac is one happy lad tonight, no doubt about that!

What a lovely family they are! We couldn't wish for better.

And remember those days, not so long ago, when we four - Lois and me, and Alison and Sarah, were the centre of the universe? It was true, you know!

flashback to 1990: (left to right) Sarah (13), Alison (15), Lois (44) and me (44),
somewhere in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire

14:00 After our visitors leave, Lois and I go upstairs and spend the afternoon in bed - we feel exhausted, although in a very pleasant way. It's the first time we've put Alison's family up here since before the pandemic, i.e. 2019 was the last time. And the non-stop conversation these last few days has been delightful, but now, when it suddenly stops, we both find we're feeling incredibly sleepy.

Not that we're getting old, or anything haha!!!!

20:00 Still feeling incredibly sleepy, Lois and I settle down on the couch to watch a retrospective on the popular wartime French-resistance spoof sitcom "' 'Allo, 'Allo ", which ran for 9 seasons from 1982 to 1992.


The sitcom was set around René, café-owner in a French village occupied by a force of incompetent Germans and visited from time to time by incompetent British secret agents.

And it's very nostalgic tonight to see again some of the sitcom's famous spoof characters, like Herr Flick, local representative of the Gestapo, and his assistant, Helga.





The main focus, however, was on café-owner René, played by Gorden Kaye, and on his dalliances, under the nose of his wife, with his waitresses, especially Yvette, played by Vicki Michelle. 

Gorden Kaye as French café-owner René, with his secret
lover, Yvette, played by Vicki Michelle

But who remembers now, that, at the height of the sitcom's popularity, Kaye and Michelle actually released a record which was a spoof of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's erotic French classic "Je T'Aime" (1967) ?

"Je T'Aime" was  a series of breathy exchanges between lovers, over a background of dreamy romantic baroque organ and guitar music.


the 1967 original, by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg

the Kaye-Michelle cover version

The Kaye-Michelle cover version didn't do so well in the charts as the Birkin-Gainsbourg original. Admittedly the dialogue on the cover version wasn't quite so sexy. Sample:

René: Yvette, Yvette, where are you, Yvette?
Yvette: I'm here, René!
René: Je t'aime!
Yvette: I beg your pardon?  Ooooooh! .......Somebody's coming!
René: Who cares?
Yvettte: I sink it is your wife!
René: Oh 'eck, I will meet you in ze larder!

But perhaps the main reason why the record only got to no. 57 in the UK pop charts was the fact that it wasn't banned by the BBC, unlike the Birkin-Gainsbourg original. Nothing succeeds like notoriety, that's what Lois and I always say.

We aren't quite sure about that point, however, so the jury's still out on that one!

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


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