Another muddled and muddling day for Lois and me. We struggle out of bed to be ready for the weekly zoom call with Sarah, our younger daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia with Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
flashback to Christmas 2019: Sarah, Francis and the twins
on the shores of the Southern Ocean - next stop Antarctica: yikes !!!!!
The appointed time for the zoom comes - 9:30 am - and then we remember that Sarah can't possibly have the time to zoom with us today. Lois and I have been so preoccupied with our own preparations for downsizing to a smaller house 25 miles away, that we are liable to forget that Sarah and family are going through a similar experience.
And this makes us suddenly feel incredibly guilty, but that's old people for you to a tee, isn't it. We used to notice how our own parents became more and more self-obsessed and more and more preoccupied with their own problems as the years went by. And, what do you know, now we're doing just the same. Weird isn't it haha! [Well I don't think it's weird at all. I knew it would happen, and what's more you two are much worse than your parents were! - Ed]
Sarah and Francis have got to leave their current rental home in Tapping, one of Perth's northern suburbs, because the landlord is selling up. They've got the keys to their new rental home in Eglinton, nearer the coast, but today is their last weekend at the old property, and they have to do a thorough clean, or else they won't get their bond money back.
I remember when Lois and I rented a house in the States from 1982 to 1985, we eventually moved out on a rainy day, and the realtor, Century 21, kept back some of our security deposit because there were a couple of muddy footprints by the front door.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
flashback to 1983: Lois and me, with our daughters Alison (8)
and Sarah (6), outside the house we rented for 3 years in Columbia, Maryland
Sarah and Francis's old rental home, seen here in
happier times: before they had to start cleaning it -
what madness !!!!!
six former PMs wait for the ceremony to begin: Blair, Brown, Johnson,
Cameron, May and Major, with ex-Labour Party leader Kinnock on the far left
behind Keir Starmer, current Leader of His Majesty's Opposition
Charles demands that the ink-pots be taken away to give him more space for his large, sweeping signature, but then the ink has to be brought back again for William and Camilla, because there isn't any ink in the pens they've been given. It's crazy!
Lois notices at once that William is left-handed. She's left-handed herself so always has a huge degree of empathy with other left-handers. Not only is William left-handed but he also writes in that peculiar way, characteristic of many left-handers, of curling his hand round in an awkward way while he writes.
Lois spots immediately that William is a left-hander, like she is
a typical L-shaped sofa with low back and deep seating -
the sort of sofa that young people like to sprawl on: what madness !!!!
included for comparison purposes: our own sofa and
two armchairs. Wouldn't you rather sit on those?
Be honest haha!!!
17:00 We look again at the "book mountain" in our narrow hallway.
flashback to earlier in the week: we start to assemble
our 3-tier "book mountain" in our narrow hallway
[warning: some books not shown]
At least we've had a promise now, from the Oxfam charity bookshop, that they'll come and collect the books on Tuesday. So only two more days when we risk death by tripping over one or other of these books, some of which are really heavy and would do your big toe a big injury if you were unlucky enough to stub it, no doubt about that!
And it's especially hazardous if we're stumbling downstairs in the dark, as we often are. Luckily Steve, our American brother-in-law, has found something on Amazon that will help us here - a smart-looking headlamp, so we're thinking of ordering one each.
What do you think? Stylish aren't they haha!
21:00 We go to bed on the first part of an interesting 2-part documentary about the great London smogs of December 1952, that killed thousands of people, although the real toll was not publicised - or maybe it wasn't even known - at the time.
And the culprit was all the coal fires that people were burning in their homes - it was pretty much their only source of heat in the winter months, and much of it was poor quality coal - the so-called "nutty slack", bought by people who couldn't afford anything better. And the electricity stations of the time were all coal-powered - London had nine of these, all belching out smoke, especially in wintertime.
Christmas shopping in London in December 1952
became a dangerous expedition in near-zero visibility
London had had terrible smogs for centuries, and the Government wasn't inclined to do anything about it. Churchill was Prime Minister in 1952, and the general view at that time was that smogs were an unavoidable price to pay for Britain's high degree of industrialisation.
The diarist John Evelyn had even published a pamphlet about it in 1661,
The smog of December 1952 was made worse by unusual weather conditions - no wind, and high pressure over London that lasted for several days and which didn't allow any of the smoke to escape. Sports fixtures, including all football matches, were cancelled, although, crazily, the Richmond cross-country race went ahead in semi-darkness, as this picture shows:
Cars and even buses were abandoned on the street. People were getting lost going to work or coming home in the evening, because visibility was literally down to zero, and, combined with the noxious fumes, the resulting death toll was horrendous, falling most heavily on the elderly and those with lung conditions etc.
a London double-decker bus being led by a man with a torch
We look forward (?) with trepidation to Part 2 of this series, next week.
What can I say except a very loud "YIKES!!!!"
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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