09:00 Lois and I stagger out of bed and dress just in time for our weekly zoom call with Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, plus her husband Francis, and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
The family are planning to move back to the UK in a couple of months' time, after 7 and a half years "down under". We learn today that they're going to sell all their furniture before the trip back, and then they'll buy what they need when they get back to the UK. Apparently the cost of transportation, insurance and storage on arrival here makes it uneconomic to bring their stuff back.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
11:00 This morning we order the "last" major piece of furniture on our shopping list - for now, a drop-leaf table in teak. We'll be getting some bunk beds at some point, but not yet.. It may not come in time for our daughter Alison's visit next Friday, but Lois is certain it's the one she wants. So it'll be worth waiting for.
the drop-leaf table in teak that we order today
The table comes fully assembled, so we can slide it right into the house and into the kitchen/diner, and we won't have to disturb "Flatpack Jim" again, at least for a while: he deserves a holiday from our crazy purchases, that's for sure!
Poor "Flatpack Jim" !!!!!
12:00 It's Saturday, and now we can relax - hurrah! We go for a walk round the building site that has become our home, have lunch, have a leisurely shower, and then, while everybody else on the street is watching the Rugby Six Nations, you'll find us tucked up in bed having our nap: zzzzzz !!!!
we go for a walk around the building-site that now surrounds our home
14:00 Alison, our elder daughter, who's visiting us next weekend with two of our grandchildren, is celebrating today because it's the start of half-term, a week-long holiday in the middle of the Spring Term. She's a teacher's assistant, and she says the last 6 weeks have been particularly hard, what with getting used to the new teacher she works with, and the occasional teachers' strike as well.
Ali and Ed have been outside today working and tidying up on their massive 6.5 acre grounds in Headley, Hampshire. Ali says there are huge amounts of wood to clear up - from trees that fell down in the winter, or which had to be felled. The wood needs to be moved to the backyard so it can be split and stored. It's a big job, but she and Ed have made a good start today, she says, watched over by one of their two cats, Otto, the so-called "Norman the foreman".
Ed (left) works on some of the fallen wood,
watched over by Otto - "Norman the foreman"
20:00 We settle down on the sofa to watch the first part of Bettany Hughes' new historical and archaeological series "Treasures of the World".
The blurb in the Radio Times is misleading, however, because, no doubt because of the current humanitarian crisis in Turkey following the massive earthquake, for the first programme aired in the series, Bettany isn't in Turkey at all, but on the Hisma Plateau in North West Arabian Peninsula, which straddles bits of Saudi Arabia and also Jordan.
the Hisma Plateau in the northwest of Saudi Arabia
Who's ever heard of the Hisma Plateau in the Arabian desert? We certainly hadn't, but we were gob-smacked by its enormous "message board" stretching for miles along its rocky walls - where people have been carving thousands of drawings, some rude, and also messages, some rude, for thousands of years, starting 8000 years ago in the Stone Age, with some as recent as the Middle Ages. It was on the most important route for traders in the region, so it was handy for people when they wanted to get something off their chests.
Don't people just love to draw on walls. I know we do haha!!!
Some of the Stone Age people carved pictures of their cattle, probably to boast about how rich they were, but it's also additional proof that the area was once grassland - now it's just dusty desert, which is a pity. There were once 10,000 lakes in the region as well as thousands of rivers. What a crazy planet we live on !!!!!
Later Bettany moves on into Jordan to see the remains of the ancient city of Petra, which, as is well-known, was not "built", but was carved out of rock, and hear about the people who lived here, the Nabataeans, who over the centuries from 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD, developed from being "simple" goat-herds to controlling a large empire.
Bettany Hughes at the ancient Nabataean city of Petra,
which was carved out of the local rock
Who's ever heard of the Nabataeans? Well, Lois has, but not me - what's wrong with me haha!!!!! Lois says they're not mentioned in the Old Testament, but they're thought to be the people that drove out, or subjugated, the Edomites, who are in the Bible.
The Nabataeans aren't talked about very much because they didn't write much down, and also didn't really write about themselves, which is a nice touch. There are enough egotists in the world, all busy writing their blogs. So what's wrong with them, may I ask haha!!!!
However, they did invent a script, which became the basis of the Arabic alphabet, Bettany says. And they were quite modern. Every house had its own water supply. And also seating was provided just outside every family tomb for the weary tomb-visitor to sit down on after paying his or her respects to his dead ancestors, which was a nice touch.
Fascinating stuff !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!
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