Wednesday January 4th 2023

Lois and I don't go out of the house again today - we're still coughing and sneezing over each other: Lois got the cold 3 days earlier than I did, so, being not so far on the road to recovery, I'm winning on points at the moment, "landing" more coughs and sneezes on her than she is on me, but that's fair enough isn't it, given that I started later haha!

Still we're both on the road to recovery now, which is nice!

And it's a day of wins for us in the house. At last we're making progress in deciding which wall cupboards and coat hooks we want. And the wood for the shelves in the larder should be arriving within the next 3 days.

Also, I finally work out how the thermostats work on our heating system. This has been a real struggle because the English-language instructions for the thermostats were unfortunately written by somebody who doesn't speak English - what madness !!!!!

And I feel genuinely sorry for the guy who had to write those instructions. He obviously didn't have the nerve to tell his boss that he didn't speak English, and he was just hoping that nobody else in the factory spoke English either, so they wouldn't notice it or say anything about it. 

At last I understand how the thermostats work

on our central heating system - a real milestone!

If you study the above photo carefully you'll see that the temperature in our bedroom, at the time of the photo, was 19.5 degrees, which sounds cold for those of us who were brought up on the Fahrenheit system, but in actual fact I can exclusively reveal that, for some crazy reason, in Celsius it's much much warmer - about 67F or so which is quite comfortable! 

Up till now, I've been mostly adjusting the heating manually, which has its advantages certainly. But from now on, the upstairs heating's going to switch on automatically at 6 am every day, so that everywhere's nice'n'warm by the time we have to get out of our very warm bed - which is heated by electric underblanket. The heating then goes off during the day but then comes on again about 9 pm, so that it's lovely'n'warm when we get into bed again at 10 pm. 

See? Simples, really isn't it - it's not exactly rocket science!

The second big win is that we're going to start getting doorstep milk deliveries as of next Monday: 4 pints of semi-skimmed milk in old-fashioned glass bottles, three times a week, plus 180g of vintage cheddar and a thick granary loaf on Fridays. Isn't that just the perfect order? Copy it for yourselves if you like, and put in the very same order with your own local milkman - I don't mind, there's no charge for my genius haha!

After all, who wants to wake up in the morning and realise that there's no milk in the fridge, and that you've got to go out and pick some up from a local convenience store, before you can even have a cup of tea? Only a madman would vote for that!

17:30 An email comes in from my "new" cousin, David, who my sister Gill found out about recently, thanks to an ancestry.com dna test - he was born to one of my auntie Joan and adopted as a baby. 

David has been enjoying a short break in Bridgend, South Wales, where both our mothers were born and brought up. He and his wife Zanne have been visiting some of the haunts of our mothers' childhoods, like the stepping stones at Ogmore, and the former Marine Hotel at Southerndown, once run by one of our great-grandfather, and now apparently owned by somebody called Nic, who has a darts business - what madness !!!!!

my "new" cousin David 

flashback to the 1920's: our grandfather and grandmother at

Southerndown beach, with children (left to right) Ruth, Joan (David's mother),

Hannah or "Nan" (my mother) and Babs, Joan's twin

a Victorian teapot from the Marine Hotel, Southerndown, 

once owned by mine and David's great-grandfather, Samuel Howells

the Marine Hotel, Southerndown, in its late Victorian heyday

In the above old photo, in front of the doorway, we can see Richard T. Davies, who became the manager for a few years in the 1890's, after the death of owner Samuel Howells in 1885. Richard was Samuel's son-in-law, married to his daughter Margaret, in front to the left. The lady in black in the centre is Samuel Howell's widow, Jane, our great-great-grandmother, and the woman on the right is the housekeeper. The child's identity is not certain but we think it's Margaret's son Stanley - later torpedoed in World War II, but he survived to tell the tale, although not for long.

Poor Stanley !!!!!

20:00 Lois disappears upstairs to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom. When she reemerges, we settle down on the couch to watch the last episode of a 3-part series all about the long-forgotten 1970's scandal of John Stonehouse, Harold Wilson's Postmaster-General. Stonehouse achieved huge notoriety in 1974 when he faked his own death and then tried to start a new life in Melbourne, Australia, with his young secretary, Sheila Buckley.

The episode starts with Melbourne police serving a UK extradition warrant on John and Sheila, on charges of forgery, theft and fraud. 

John Stonehouse, flanked by his wife Barbara (left) and by his 

mistress Sheila Buckley, as they are served with an extradition order by Melbourne police

a newspaper from the time

This 3-part series meanders to a close tonight with Stonehouse and Buckley appearing in court in London for their offences, for a trial which lasts an incredible 4 months, with Stonehouse getting 7 years in jail and Buckley being let off with a suspended sentence.

Lois and I are watching this third and final episode mainly for completeness' sake, to see how the saga  ended, because we don't actually remember - in 1974-5 we were buying our first house and having our first baby, so we had other things on our minds, crazy though that may sound haha!

flashback to 1975: us with our first child, Alison

It's disappointing, however, that this drama ends without our really finding out what Stonehouse's motivations were for the things he did. He strolls through this drama as if he isn't really there. His speeches and explanations all seem false, and most of the time he looks as if he's dreaming, or wishing he was somewhere else. And if he gets criticised, it's always somebody else's fault, never his.

Tomorrow night there's due to be a documentary about the case, which hopefully will provide more answers. Let's hope so anyway!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!