A frustrating morning where I try to get a grip on mine and Lois's savings accounts. I start with our National Savings and Investments (NS&I), but I log on to their website, but I find that in future I won't be able to do this without inputting a six-figure passcode, which they say they'll send to my mobile phone.
flashback to September 2020: National Savings slash their interest rates
I can see, however, that NS&I haven't got my up-to-date mobile phone number. I try to update this number online but the site won't let me. I have to ring their helpdesk, for which there's a 30-minute queue. What madness!!!!
I want to be able to withdraw savings if we need to - we're spending a lot of money already in advance of moving house from Cheltenham to Malvern. For example, there was nearly £600 for a survey on a house we decided not to buy, after reading the survey, but I guess you could say it was money well spent. But the saga goes on - it's money for this, money for that - there's no end to it!!!! What a crazy world we live in!!!!
Eventually the National Savings helpdesk woman answers my call but it takes two helpdesk employees to handle this simple request - what madness !!!!! [No more madness today, okay? - Ed]
Then I remember that my investments with NS&I are 3-year so-called "Guaranteed Growth Bonds", so I won't be able to withdraw any money till spring next year anyway, when they "mature". Grrrrrrr!!!!!
09:30 Lois has a better morning - a haircut with her local stylist, James. James has varied Lois's style a little this time - the style that James calls "brushed back from the face". Lois is pleased. She says she thinks this suits her face better, and also she finds it easier to maintain herself, which all sounds good.
Lois after her session this morning with her stylist, James
We've both got to try and look good for my niece Maria's wedding to Tom, which is coming up in a few days. I myself haven't decided yet what I need to do to achieve this - answers on a postcard please haha!!!
11:00 When we come back from the wedding we'll have to really get down to business and work out what pieces of our furniture will fit into the new house, and what won't. And at least we've found a charity - the British Heart Foundation - that will come in a big van and collect things like CDs, DVDs, some categories of books, furniture and various types of bric-a-brac - vases for example, of which we've got a ton. My god!
Our garage is currently filled to bursting with things most of which we won't want to take with us. I plan to get a house clearance firm to take most of that away, just like we did with my mother's house and garage after she died in 2011.
flashback to June 2011 - Lois and I finish clearing out my mother's
house after she sadly died in March of that year
My mother lived to a good age, at least - 91. A lot of people do. Only yesterday I was browsing the "urban aunty" website, to check on how many ageing celebrities are actually still alive, even though one tends to assume they're probably dead because they've mostly been out of the public eye for a few years.
People like Angela Lansbury (96), for instance. Also Ann Margaret, Bob Newhart (92), Chubby Checker, Dick Van Dyke (96), Jerry Lee Lewis, Jon Voight, Julie Andrews, Mel Brooks (96), Nancy Sinatra, Richard Chamberlain, Sophia Loren, Tony Bennett (96), Anthony Hopkins, Kim Novak, Harry Belafonte (95), Marion Ross (93 - happy days haha!!!), Glynis Johns (98), Leslie Phillips (98), Clint Eastwood (92) and Kris Kristofferson, to name but a few.
All still alive and kicking. Who would have thought it, eh? !!!!!!
16:00 We've been having funny weather for a few days now - overcast, uncomfortably close, warm and humid, pretty airless and dry except for the occasional short spell of very light drizzle. This afternoon the sun comes out, however, and there's a pleasant breeze, so Lois and I celebrate with a currant bun and a cup of tea out on the patio.
Lois and I enjoy a cup of tea and a currant bun on the patio
Meanwhile, next door at Nikki's, her brother's building firm have been getting on with building the extension at the back of her house - nice!
In next door's back garden, Nikki's brother and his building firm
have been getting on with building the extension she wants
21:00 We wind down with a bit of TV, a documentary about Pompeii - always a favourite, but this one turns out to be different, with not a single dusty archaeological dig, and no sign of TV's favourite Roman pundit Mary Beard.
And Lois and I certainly didn't expect to be watching a naked couple embracing passionately in a wood for what seems like several minutes - they're supposed to be depicting what is apparently one of the Pompeiians' favourite myths, Leda being seduced by Zeus, who comes to her in the form of a swan.
a scene from a documentary about Pompeii on the Sky Arts channel
The Leda myth, sometimes depicted as a rape, sometimes as a consensual encounter, is the theme of many of the paintings and frescos found by archaeologists on Pompeii's city walls, it turns out.
The details of Greek myths are so hard to remember, aren't they. They pop up all the time in questions on TV quizzes, and although I've got an A-Level in Ancient Greek, I never took much interest in the myths - they weren't real, were they haha - so it's still mainly a closed book to me really.
While we're watching the programme, I draw a quick family-tree sketch of Leda's 4 children, who were all famous in their day. If I see a drawing or a diagram, I'm more likely to remember it, I find.
Do you?
It was a busy night for Leda, when Zeus came for her, looking like a swan, because Leda also had sex with her husband Tyndareus either directly before or directly after her sex with Zeus.. She ended up with two fertilised eggs, from which four children, the sons Castor and Pollux, and daughters Helen and Clytemenestra, popped out nine months later.
"Oh, what a night! What a Leda, what a night!"
[Copyright: Frankie Valli, writer of "December 1963 BC (Oh, what a Night)", adapted]
And tonight's programme makes the point that Leda's daughters Helen and Clytemnestra both wreaked terrible revenge on the male sex. 'Was it all to avenge Leda's seduction by Zeus?', the programme speculates.
Leda's daughter Helen is famous for leaving her husband Menelaus to run off with Paris, her Trojan lover, and this caused the Trojan War, where the Greeks got together to attack the city of Troy to get Helen back, and lots of men got killed.
Helen, with her Trojan lover, Paris
And Leda's other daughter, Clytemnestra, took a lover, Aegisthus, while her husband Agamemnon was off fighting the Trojan War, and when Agamemnon came back, she and her lover killed him while he was having a bath. A pity really - it's normally so nice to come home and have a bath, especially after a 10-year war overseas, isn't it! [How do YOU know? - Ed]
See? Simples!!! I must try and remember these characters now, in case they come up again in a quiz question. This time I'll be ready haha!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!
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