08:00 Lois and I wake up after a disturbed few hours. What a filthy night it's been outside our front door in Malvern last night! Cans and other things rolling all over the street, which is a bit of a wind tunnel, we've discovered. We haven't had much sleep since 4 am, that's for sure!
Both Lois and I can't help wondering if our recycling waste is being blown around all over this new-build estate. Also, we wonder about the poor milkman who started delivering our milk only last Monday. Will he find our "empties" scattered all over the street? And if he delivers our cheese and bread, as requested as our regular "Friday treat", will that bread and cheese also be scattered to the four winds?
At 7 am I can't stand the suspense any longer and I hastily put clothes on over my pyjamas and go out onto the windswept street. But I find out that I needn't have worried - our recycling waste-bin is still intact and in place in front of the house, and the milkman has successfully left our bread and cheese in a sheltered nook in our side passage.
Bless him - he's passed the most rigorous test you could imagine for a milkman, no doubt about that!
He may have been inspired by every milkman's hero, Gary from Exeter, who hit the headlines with his bravery a couple of years back.
Hail to thee, Gary Qualter - you kept us out of war haha!
10:00 Hurrah - we're free!!!! After 3 mornings of having to be up and dressed by 8 am because one or other "trade" - painters, plasterers, handymen or electricians - could be ringing our doorbell to fix one or other defect in our brand-new house, today there's nothing planned, and nobody's coming to disturb us, which is nice!
How will we use our new-found freedom? Well, we decide to go "on the razzle" and paint the town "old codger" style! And the town we decide to paint is Upton-on-Severn, favourite haunt of 18th century author Henry Fielding, and inspiration for scenes in his novel "Tom Jones".
Unfortunately, however, as we approach the town, we find out that it's cut off by floodwater. Later in the local paper we discover that flooding has actually hit many towns near here.
the picture in the paper is of Worcester County Cricket ground -
what madness !!!!!
Faced with "road closed" signs, instead we head back into Malvern and go on an "old codger" style shopping spree in the local Co-op at Barnard's Green.
Then we start to go a little bit wild and pop into "Divine", so that Lois can book an appointment with a hair-stylist. This is her first foray into the world of hair-styling since we moved to Malvern at Halloween, so it's a bit of an experiment.
And then.... we go a bit madder still and pop into The Café on the Green. We have a decaf Americano each, with cold milk on the side, plus a cinnamon-and-nutella slice for Lois and a chocolate brownie for me.
We come home and have lunch, so that's the end of our little adventure... for now, but we're looking forward to a honey sandwich on the couch later - golly, it's felt so good not to be stuck at home, and "having the painters in" again. And that's putting it mildly!
16:00 Later we have our honey sandwich, and afterwards we look at the puzzles in next week's Radio Times - always one of the highlights of our week haha!
We're rubbish on PopMaster - only 1 out of 10 correct. Oh dear, that's a bad start!
We don't do too badly on Eggheads. It's true that we let ourselves down a little bit: after 2 successive weeks with 8 out of 10, this week we drop to 7 out of 10, but that's not too bad, is it!
And we don't have any trouble solving "Only Connect"
Oh what fun we have haha!!!!
old codger fun - after a honey sandwich on the couch
we have a go at the puzzles in next week's Radio Times!
21:00 We go to bed on an interesting documentary about the journeys made by Scottish folk-songs, taken by Scottish families on the move, first from Scotland to Ulster, and then from Ulster to the Appalachian Mountains in the US.
Who knew that it was James I who, in the 17th century, encouraged Scots to settle in Ulster? And of course these settlers took their songs with them, most famously "The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies", based on the true story of Lady Jane Hamilton, who left her husband Lord Cassilis, to run off with a seductive gypsy, John Faa.
In the song, Lord Cassilis rides off hoping to find his wife and bring her back, but when he discovers her, she turns out not to be interested in going back with him.
In tonight's programme, the first of a series of 3, it's pointed out that, in the song, Lady Jane doesn't get punished for her disappearing act - an unusual event in a time when women traditionally had few choices, but had to go along with whatever their fathers or husbands decided for them.
When the Scots settlers later took the song to the US, it didn't make sense to talk about "lords" or "earls", so the wording got changed to "the boss", or something similar, in many of the American versions, usually called "Black Jack Davy", as in folk-singer Woody Guthrie's version:
22:00 We go up to our own bed, with its blankets drawn so comely-oh, feeling slightly sorry for Lady Hamilton. She might have got a handsome gypsy to sleep with her, but who in their right mind would want to sleep in a "wide open field", especially in Britain, which is such a cold and damp country.
It doesn't make any kind of sense, really, does it? Can we have a bit of reality here? What was she thinking of? Answers on a postcard please!
Zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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