Monday November 28th 2022

08:00 Lois and I look at our phones as we lie in bed sipping our cups of tea.

Our daughter Alison has been posting a suave photo of herself and husband Ed on social media, after the pair attended a fancy Railway Ball in the middle of London this week - there were about 1500 guests, seated at 150 or so tables, Ali says. And Ed got an invite because he's a lawyer who works for a number of railway companies.

our daughter Alison with her husband Ed at 

a fancy Railway Ball  held in Central London this week,

at the Intercontinental, near the O2 

Ironically the dinner went on so long that Ali and Ed and a lot of other guests - railway executives and managers and the like - missed the last train out of London to the south: which left at 11:30 pm. How "provincial" London is for some things!

Ed rang for an Uber driver to take them home to Headley, Hampshire, but the journey took longer than expected, and they didn't arrive home till after 2 am. It was difficult getting away from the O2 area apparently, because a Rod Stewart concert finished at around the same time. Then, night road closures for road repairs meant that their Uber car had to get off, first, the M25 and then, later, off the A3 - and their amended route took them through Kent, Ali says. What an enormous detour!

And what a crazy country we live in !!!!!

And who would have guessed, when Ali was just starting out in life in the mid 1970's, that our little baby girl would end up going to fancy Railway Balls in the middle of London?

1975 - the first picture

1976 - the heatwave summer, on holiday in Minehead, Somerset

1976 - Ali's first brush with the railways, 

at Blue Anchor Railway Station, Somerset.

11:00 We roll out of bed and eventually we go out for a walk. We manage to post off the first of this year's Christmas cards: all the overseas ones, to Australia, US, Japan, France and Hungary.

we post off our first Christmas cards for 2022: all the overseas ones

Don't ever accuse us of being unable to prioritise haha! After all, it isn't rocket science is it!

12:00 My shiny new smartphone arrives from Virgin. Oh dear - that will mean a lot of work this week to find out how I get the new phone going. I want to keep the same phone number so I suppose I have to take the SIM card out of the old phone and then try and put it in the new. But do I try and copy the old phone's data over first, using SmartShift? Or do I put the SIM card into the new phone and then do the transfer? Beats me!!!!!

I think I'm going to leave all this till tomorrow.

Oh dear. Sometimes I think I can't cope with the modern world And I think my brain is starting to flatline again, which won't help - damn!!!! 

my new phone - but how do I set it up? Beats me !!!!

14:00 Steve, our American brother-in-law sends us another of the amusing Venn diagrams that he monitors for us on the web.

Yes, we think it's crazy that Matt Hancock has been able to dominate this year's "I'm a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here" reality TV show, and avoid being evicted week after week. Lois and I don't watch the show of course, but we feel sorry for the other celebrities who've been upstaged by him - much more worthy souls like Boy George for example.

Poor "Boy" haha !!!!!

Hancock says he's going to give to charity some of the enormous £400k fee he got for appearing on the show. Well, let's hope he makes good on that promise. What madness !!!!!