09:00 Now that Lois and I have moved to Malvern, we don't get many personal visits, which is a pity, so we cherish what visits we get. Our daughter Alison and two of her 3 children will be visiting us later this month, at half-term. And our former neighbour in Cheltenham, Frances, plans to visit us tomorrow - Tuesday - so we make a plan to make the house seem a bit less like a pigsty today. We have been looking forward to Frances's visit and to hearing how the new owners of our old house have been getting on there.
All this planning for Frances's visit proves to be in vain, however, because later today, she rings up and calls off her visit. She caught COVID a couple of weeks, apparently, and although she tested negative for the first time today, she still feels rotten, with a lot of the symptoms of a heavy cold.
The big question is - when will Lois and I get COVID? We've never had it, and neither have either of our 2 daughters or any of their family members: that makes 11 of us in all. What a madness! And it's making a mockery of Government statistics, which is worse, and this hurts me deeply haha!
flashback to 2021: our former neighbour Frances (back row, third from right)
seen here in happier times
10:15 Our daughter Sarah, who lives in Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twin daughters Lily and Jessica, sends me a few recent family pictures via whatsapp.
The family are currently on holiday in the Margaret River Region south of Perth, and what's nice is that they been visiting places that Lois and I visited with them when we last spent time in Australia, back in 2018. Sarah has sent a couple of pictures of Jewel Cave and one of the beach at Hamelin Bay.
the south-west corner of the Australian mainland,
where our daughter Sarah and her family are currently on holiday
the family at Jewel Cave this week...
...and at Hamelin Bay
Memories, memories! Lois and I will almost certainly never visit Australia again, because Sarah and family plan to move back to the UK this year. Nevertheless we're so glad that we got the opportunity to see Australia - we twice spent a couple of months with Sarah and family in Perth, as well as a couple of weeks with Lois's relatives in Melbourne and Adelaide. And what an enrichment of our lives those visits represented - my goodness, we're so grateful we got the opportunity, and we're never going to forget those times, that's for sure!
We feel we kind of "know" Australia and what it's like to live there, just like we learnt about "livin' in the USA" in our 3 years there in the early 1980's.
Flashback to April 2018, when Lois and I were at Hamelin Bay in the Margaret River region with Sarah and family:
Lois...
...and me.....
...and Sarah with the twins...
...and with Francis, seen here carrying Lily down to the water's edge...
Happy days !!!
11:30 It's a cold day today, but the skies are blue, so we decide to go for a walk round the half-finished new-build estate where we live, just to check that the builders are working hard at their job. We've found in practice that they always try to "look busy" and "make some noise" when we approach, which is a pity!
behind Lois and a little to the right is the large open space in the middle of
this new-build estate, where it's planned to have some greenery, plus a playground
and sitting areas, which will be nice
a little selfie with the lovely Malvern Hills in the background
An exciting little outing, because Lois has at last completed her Lloyds Bank business account form giving her new address in Malvern so we can finally post it off, which will be nice.
We've been living in Malvern for just over 3 months now, but the "business" bank account that Lois manages for her church still has the address of our former home in Cheltenham. But not much longer, because when this form hits the desks at Lloyds Bank and the cashier overcomes his or her surprise and records out new details, then everything will be up to date.
Lois finally posts off her Lloyds Bank business account change-of-address
form, dropping it into the battered local Royal Mail post-box
13:30 I check my emails. Steve, our American brother-in-law, has sent me one of the amusing Venn diagrams that he monitors on our behalf on the web.
I must say it always used to annoy me when our dentist used to leave the room during x-rays, but the last time I was x-rayed, our new dentist stayed in the room, so he's obviously made of sterner stuff - or maybe he's a vampire or some kind of alien, do you think? I hope I'll be told at some stage before my terrifying next appointment which is coming up fast - yikes!!!!
20:30 We watch tonight's edition of "University Challenge", the student quiz, which is one of our favourite TV quizzes.
We're quite tough on ourselves, and only allow ourselves to score points when we get an answer right that the students don't get. This is getting harder and harder now as we approach the quarter-finals, and only the best teams are left in the contest. Plus, tonight's round is between University College London and Newcastle University, and the average ages are greater than normal, so Lois and I can't always play our crucial "That was long before you were born!" card, which is a pity!
We score just 4 tonight, which in the circumstances, isn't too bad, we feel.
1. We correctly identify the singer as Bobby Darin from a short excerpt of a recording of "Mack the Knife" - the students think it's Frank Sinatra.
Our other questions:
2. Inspired by political events, early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", moved to which country in 1792, remaining there for more than a year?
Students: Italy
Colin and Lois: France
3. A question on British rivers that share their names with animals: what is the name of the tributary of the River Trent that forms the boundary between the counties of Derbyshire and Staffordshire?
Students: River Swan [Say whaaaaat????? Isn't that in Western Australia????? - Ed]
Colin and Lois: River Dove
4. Floris V, Count of Holland [who he? - Ed], died at the hands of rebellious nobles in 1296, possibly as the result of a plot by Guy of Flanders [who he? - Ed] and which king of England?
Students: Henry III
Colin and Lois: Edward I.
21:15 Well, not much to boast about is it for Lois and me, and we
do like to go to bed feeling thoroughly triumphant, so we stay up a bit longer to watch an old episode of the 2003-4 pub sitcom, "Early Doors".
You must remember this one - you know, the episode where we finally find out what the "new job" is that's making resident pub misery-guts Tommy even grouchier than usual.
Yes, it turns out that the new job that's making Tommy even grumpier than usual, is as a "lollipop man", you know, the lollipop man, who helps the little primary school children across the road outside the school, morning and afternoon?
Poor Tommy !!!!!
But tremendous fun haha !!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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