Another early start for Lois and me - we're talking on zoom at 9:30 am (4:30 pm Western Australia time) to our daughter Sarah in Perth, and to her 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
We had a zoom call yesterday morning with Sarah, but we couldn't see the twins because they were round the corner at a birthday party for one of their many little Aussie friends, Gianna.
It was a mouse-themed party apparently, so mainly for our benefit, the twins are sporting their mice-headbands. I say to Lois, to pleeeeeeaaaaasssssse get us both a set for our upcoming anniversary - and I think she's taken the hint already, which is nice - she was ordering something for us online anyway, so fingers crossed !!
we talk on zoom to our daughter Sarah in Perth, Australia,
and to our 9-year-old twin granddaughters, Lily and Jessie
- note the snazzy mouse-headbands from yesterday's
mouse-themed birthday party for one of their friends - cool !!!!
Lois and I have never worn headsets for our anniversary lunches so now's the perfect time to redress that omission! We're hoping to celebrate at Buckland Manor Hotel again this year - the first time since 2018, due to the pandemic and other factors.
flashback to August 2018 - the last time we celebrated
our anniversary at Buckland Manor Hotel, near Broadway - note the glaring absence of mouse headsets. Oh dear!
This morning the twins show us some of their artwork, paintings that they brought home with them after their last day, on Friday.
11:00 Apart from the zoom call today, Lois has been taking part in her church's two regular Sunday Morning Meetings, also on zoom, while I've been making further efforts to fit our 1930's style furniture and belongings into the brand new home we're trying to buy in Malvern.
17:30 I unwind with a can of beer - one of the few pleasures of downsizing is "using up" odd bits and pieces of food and drink, so I may as well take advantage, that's what I say, anyway!
20:00 We listen to another Larkin poem being discussed on the radio by poet laureate Simon Armitage. Do you remember the old adage - "a Larkin a day keeps the doctor away" ?
"Aubade" is the name given to pieces of poetry etc that are set at the dawning of the day. And in this one Larkin wakes up early and starts remembering that he's going to die some day.
It's a fairly self-explanatory poem expressing Larkin's famous fear of, and obsession with, his own death. It's interesting, however, to hear presenter Simon Armitage and his guest pundits point out some of the stylistic details.
The item that catches my eye is a "globe jigsaw". I didn't know such things existed, and even the programme's expert, Jon Baddeley, has never seen one before.
The woman who has brought the jigsaw globe along today says it belonged to her husband's grandmother, and all her children used to get it down from the attic and play with it at Christmas time.
Lois and I get a chance to see some of the twins' art work from school -
these are Van Gogh-inspired creations, needless to say.
for this one, the twins painted one side of a tiger's face and then
folded the paper over to produce a symmetrical second side.
Is that clever, or is that clever ?!!!!
oh dear - time to say goodbye to our little family in Perth sob sob!
But we'll be seeing them all again next weekend, all being well
Oh dear - I can see now that it's arguably been a mistake for go for a brand new home when we've got a completely 1930's life-style with completely 1930's style furniture and belongings.
Our furniture is going to look really odd in the new house - there's far too much of it for a start, so it'll all be wedged in with not much in the way of gaps in-between. And it's all going to look completely out of place too, as if it doesn't belong there - and Lois ourselves and I will be looking a bit like that too, although at least we won't be wedged up against each other, at least not most of the time haha!
But what a madness it all is !!!!
Today, working imaginatively on the pages of my little notebook, I've managed to squeeze our filing cabinet into the plan for Bedroom 2, the main guest bedroom, but I've realised that this will have to be at the expense of the table we use our laptop on - so that table will have to go. Damn!!!!
And in Bedroom 1 - our own bedroom - my trouser press and clothes stand will have to go, to make room for two sets of bookshelves.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!!
Cheers!!!!
Larkin in his pyjamas
Poor Larkin !!!!!
At the start it's "I do this", "I do that" - the focus is on Larkin himself. But from verse 3 onwards it's all "we" and he transfers his own fate to the fate of all of us. And there's special emphasis on the penultimate line of each verse, which is always conspicuously short and dramatic, e.g. "Not to be anywhere", or "Nothing to love and link with".
A rather negative poem, shall we say. And it's typical of Larkin's mischievousness that he submitted it for inclusion in the Christmas edition of the Times Literary Supplement, on December 23rd 1977 - oh dear, just at the time of year when people are starting to have a bit of fun!!!!
And there are lots of negative words - 'nowhere', 'nothing' etc, especially in verses 2 and 3, as well as words like "soundless", "emptiness" etc. It's a bit of a signature to a Larkin poem that it should be negative, misanthropic, or reactionary, and preferably all three.
Tonight's pundits point out, however that the poem has a tentatively more positive ending. Larkin is still there lying awake with his morbid thoughts, but the morning rush-hour is fast approaching, and postmen will soon be doing their rounds, bringing us some nice letters hopefully!
21:00 We go to bed on tonight's edition of Antiques Roadshow, where members of the public bring along treasures and heirlooms from their attics and have them discussed, and maybe valued, by experts in the particular field.
Apparently, according to the programme's expert, it was made in Nuremberg, Germany, where there was a whole family of map makers and globe makers, the Bauer family.
It was the deal of the century when Russia sold Alaska to the US for just over $7 million, or 2 cents per acre, and that was in 1867. So this globe jigsaw has to be earlier than that, and the expert's best guess is that it probably dates from around 1825.
And this globe jigsaw gives some idea of its own date, because Alaska is marked as "Russian Territories", which is a blast from a distant past, to put it mildly.
See? Simples !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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