Yes, it's a brave new era for Lois and me now. Until recently, we spent nearly 3 years of hiding in our home, ordering everything online in a big weekly order, and just peeping out of our front door to greet the occasional delivery guy.
Now we've started going out almost every day, popping into a local convenience store if we run out of a couple of things. We popped into Joyce Arnold's fruit'n'vegetable shop - all casual like - when we were in Bishops Cleeve on Monday. We used to go there regularly for years, but later today I look back in my blog and I realise that we hadn't been inside this shop since January 31st 2020, just before the pandemic hit.
Joyce Arnold's fruit'n'veg shop in Bishops Cleeve
This is now our way of life - to just buy things when we need them. Such fun !!!!!
And today we get out of bed and go out in the middle of the afternoon, just to pop into Simply Fresh, the former Fox and Hounds pub - again just all casual like! - and the reason for the trip is just because we realised in bed that we were out of bread, although we also make use of the trip to get some comfort food in as well - chocolate and some Wagon Wheels. Yum yum!
the Simply Fresh convenience store, in the building
that used to be the Fox and Hounds pub
I expect you remember this building when it was the Fox and Hounds pub. I went there on many a lunchtime 'do' with my work colleagues before I retired. It even had a dear little enclosed and safe front garden for customers' children to play in, or for eating outside in the summer - you must remember that haha! It closed in 2013.
the building seen here in happier times, when it was the
Fox and Hounds pub, which I often visited on lunchtime do's at work
15:30 Lois and I relax on the couch with a cup of tea and a jammy Wagon Wheel each.
we relax on the couch with a cup of tea and a jammy
Wagon Wheel each - yum yum!
Yesterday the Oxfam charity said they would call on us next week to collect our unwanted books, so we've decided to believe them - if they renege on the deal we'll be in trouble because we've already started to pile up our personal "book mountain" in our hallway, waiting for the Oxfam guy to come and sweep them away to a better life.
hundreds of our books are already piled up in our hallway
waiting for their "gentleman caller", the Oxfam guy,
to come and sweep them away to a better life haha
Some of our bookshelves are actually empty - it's a sight I never thought I'd ever see in my lifetime. It's eery, almost. Yikes !!!
Lois showcases a sight I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.
Yes, "Some of our books are missing", luckily with our blessing,
and 3 of our bookshelves are actually empty - what madness !!!!
Steve, our American brother-in-law, tells us it's even harder getting rid of books in the US. Charities won't take them, or second-hand bookshops, or even prisons and jails. Libraries will take them but only at the rate of two bags a week.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Oh dear, I'll have to get the shredder out again tomorrow, that's for sure. Why didn't I spot these before? What a fool I've been!
Damn !!!!!
an 18 inch high pile of bank statements, invoices
receipts etc that our daughter Sarah and her husband
Francis must have left with us when they moved to Australia in 2015.
Young people's speech is peppered with the word "like" - our 14-year-old granddaughter Rosalind is a particular fan of the word "like". I had tended to think that dropping the word 'like' into the middle of a sentence was just to fill a space while you thought of the rest of the sentence, but I can see it's more complicated than that.
Sometimes it signals that the next bit of the information, which is just about to be provided, is the important bit, so listen up now.
Sometimes it's just to "engage" the other person, so that they don't think you're being bossy, authoritative or prescriptive. And sometimes it's just to make clear that you're not completely sure of your facts, and you're just approximating something, so it's a request not to sue them if they're not being 100% accurate.
A separate usage is the verb "to be like" in the sense of "to say", as in "I was like, 'Why did you do that?', and she was like, 'Because I wanted to'. "
When people do this, I'm like, "Pleeeease, give me a break!"
On the programme, linguist Carmen Fought also covers "uptalk", that is, rising intonation at the end of a sentence, which sounds like it's a question, but it's just a check that your listener is following what you're saying and isn't puzzled by anything you're talking about.
For example you might be telling somebody where you work, and you say, "I work at Pitzer? It's in California?" as if you're not sure whether you work at Pitzer, or not sure where it is, which would be crazy, let's face it!
Carmen thinks that the association of many of these uses of the word 'like' with California has helped increase their popularity because of the state's "cool" image - it's relaxed life-style with - like - the sunshine and the beaches. Language often changes because of our desire to be associated with a certain admired identity or life-style - it's not just a question of functionality.
And now, finally, a word to my fellow fuddy-duddies. One thing's for sure apart from death and taxes - you can't stop language change. It's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, and it's not going to stop for you, just because you find it "sloppy" haha!
21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we unwind with this week's edition of "University Challenge", the student quiz.
Or maybe it just reflects the students' ignorance of these fields! We're not quite sure, so the jury's still out on that one.
1. Who served as Home Secretary under Gladstone and Rosebery before becoming Chancellor and then Prime Minister?
Students: Balfour
Colin and Lois: Asquith
2. Which of the men who served as Home Secretary under Asquith later became Prime Minister, having been Chancellor of the Exchequer for several years during the 1920's?
Students: Chamberlain
Colin and Lois: Churchill
3. Who served as Minister of Defence under Churchill, and successively became Foreign Secretary, Chancellor and Prime Minister?
Students: Eden
Colin and Lois: Macmillan
4. A son of John of Gaunt, Cardinal Henry Beaufort was a leading figure in the Regency Government during the minority of which king?
Students: Richard II
Colin and Lois: Henry VI
So there you have it. It isn't much to shout about, but it salvages a bit of pride for us, so we can go to bed in a good mood, which is always a bonus haha!
22:00 Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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