Danskcolin: Thursday December 29th 2022

Who do you know that hasn't had COVID? Lois and I haven't, nor have our two daughters, the one in Hampshire UK and the one in Perth, Australia, each with their families, making 13 of us in all. And none of us has had COVID, which is nice!

But how long can our luck last? Our old friend Jen and her son Daniel, whom we stayed with before Christmas have now since had it, and Stephen, our handyman from Cheltenham, has just had it. My sister Gill in Cambridge has just had it, as well as one of her daughters, and this is all just in the last couple of weeks.

My goodness!!!! It's closing in on us, that's for sure !!!!

09:00 I finally get around to asking a TV engineer to come and survey our house for a TV aerial - we're fed up with just watching catchup TV on the internet. Enough is enough!

I wouldn't have a clue who to call, so I decide to just get in touch with the firm that put an aerial up just down the street from us. Later I hear that the guy will be calling on us tomorrow, some time between 8am and 10am, so another early start for us tomorrow - damn!

flashback to December 13th: the TV guy who fitted an

aerial just down the street from us

I've also been making enquiries about whether there's a local dairy that will deliver milk to our doorstep, so that we don't have to keep popping into shops to buy some any more. Doorstep milk deliveries are an essential part of a civilised existence if you ask us!

11:30 I drive Lois over to our new doctor's surgery. She was asked to take her blood pressure reading twice a day over the last week, but she fell short of that - well, it's really difficult at Christmas time, isn't it, when you're staying in other people's houses, and there's a lot of going on, let alone all the pernickety restrictions about e.g. not taking a reading too soon after eating. People are eating all day around Christmas time, aren't they.

I sit in the waiting-room taking selfies,

while Lois is seeing the nurse

Lois goes in and sees the nurse, who says that her results are encouraging, which is nice. Like me, Lois's blood pressure always tends to go up when she's at the doctor's - it's called "white coat syndrome".

Larry David, star of the US sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm also suffers from "white coat syndrome", especially when he is being seen by Nurse Renée.

a typical check-up as depicted in this scene from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" -

Larry David gets a check-up from from Nurse Renée

And because Lois didn't take as many readings as requested, the nurse asked her to continue testing for another 7 days, and to send her the results. So that's okay then!

15:00 Our daughter Sarah in Australia, and her husband Francis, are planning to move back to the UK next year, and they have asked us to view a property that they are interested in. It's not very far from the new-build home in Malvern that we moved into at the end of October, so we drive round to take a few pictures.

We like particularly the so-called master bedroom at the back, a very effective concept with its simple "bed and not much else", together with its great views of the Malvern Hills.

We are feeling a bit on edge as the estate agent shows us around. Sarah and Francis have told us they are anxious that Lois and I "don't say the wrong thing", when we are being shown round the house by the estate agent. We've sort of got the idea after previous viewings, that we may have given away too much information about Sarah's and Francis's financial and employment circumstances, which allegedly weakened their bargaining position in subsequent negotiations.

What madness !!!!

But it isn't easy viewing a house for somebody 9000 miles away on the other side of the world now, is it! Be fair !!!!

Sarah and Francis have asked us in particular not to appear too enthusiastic about the property, and I think we manage this quite well today. Luckily the owners are nor around, and it's just the agent, Stephen, taking us through the rooms. We are glad the owner aren't here this afternoon, because it's hard to appear blasé and unimpressed, or even contemptuous, when you're talking to the owners - it seems kind of rude after all!

One other thing that Sarah and Francis are quite a bit concerned about is that to the rear of the property lies part of the premises once used by top-secret government defence and security contractor, Qinetiq. The reason for their concern is that this bit of land has been scheduled for commercial redevelopment, with possibly a 4-storey building in the pipeline, overlooking all the back gardens along the street.

I took a picture out of the master bedroom window, which shows the tatty old high-security barbed-wire fencing that can still be seen, and which still marks the boundary of the Qinetiq site.