Danskcolin: Saturday February 25th 2023

Hurrah! Lois and I are still the only couple on our 300-house newbuild estate to have 1930's-style picture rails on our walls, and now the pictures are being hung at an exponential speed. Yesterday there were only 3 on the wall, by tea-time today I find Lois has been busy again and there are now 8 - yikes! When will it end, I ask myself haha! [That's hardly "exponential" growth now is it, Colin! - Ed]

Six pictures in the living-room....

...and another two in the kitchen-diner: where will the madness end haha!!!!

But doesn't it look so much homelier! After all, the bare walls you tend to get in new-build houses can look a bit drab and character-less, can't they!

10:00 Our daughter Sarah, who's been living in Perth, Australia since 2015 with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, is planning to move back to the UK in the next couple of months.

a house similar to the one our daughter Sarah and son-in-law Francis

are hoping to buy in the next month or so, when they move back from Australia

Sarah, Francis and the twins pictured here at Christmas 2021

The twins will have some catching up to do at a British school, assuming the move goes ahead. Australian children start school a couple of years later than British children. Sarah herself faced a similar issue herself aged 8, when Lois and I returned from 3 years in the States in 1985. American children also start school a couple of years later than children do here.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

flashback to 1986: Alison (left), aged 11, and Sarah aged 9,

have to get used to schooling in the UK again, after 3 years in the US,

Plus they have to get used to wearing school uniforms among other bombshells

- what a madness it all was !!!!!

But back to the present! Sarah and family will need to get a smallish mortgage a few months after they've moved back to the UK, to finance the refurbishment and extension of their property. Francis plans to do most of this work himself, but the family need to find the best lender, so I put them in touch with the mortgage broker used by Ed, who's married to our other daughter Alison. See? This is the kind of thing parents can do, if they keep their wits about them, don't have too many naps, and generally try to keep their brains sharp. You know what I mean!!!

Christine, office manager at Ed's mortgage brokers

11:00 Lois's church is going to baptise another Iranian Christian refugee - they have about 20 or so Iranians in all who attend their local services. And they're "broadcasting" the ceremony and the accompanying service on zoom, which is convenient, so Lois will watch from here.

Lois logs on to watch the baptism on zoom. Unfortunately

there's really bright sunshine in our kitchen so it's difficult to make out

the screen, even with the blinds drawn - what madness !!!!

The ceremony is taking place in the back garden of local church elder Andy's house near Eckington, in Andy's hot tub. It's only February so it's a mite chilly out there, so only Andy, plus of course the baptiser and the "baptismal candidate" will be out in the garden, while other church members watch through the window of Andy's kitchen-diner. It's always by full immersion - the church believes that anything less doesn't count as a baptism.

Because it's such brilliant sunshine in our kitchen, it's very hard for Lois to see the detail on the screen, but it's good enough, she says, which is a relief.

February weather in the UK is not the best weather to have for getting into a hot tub, but everything seems to go smoothly this morning.

A couple of years ago I drove Lois to Andy's house because she wanted to witness another baptism, this time of a British candidate, but fortunately that was in summer, so the church members were able to gather outside in relative comfort.

flashback to 2021: another baptism in Andy's hot tub,

carried out by Andy and watched by Andy's wife

14:00 After lunch we go up to bed for a nap, as we usually do on a Saturday, but we decide not to bother with the shower first this week - we had one a couple of days ago, and people say now that you don't need to shower every day. Once or twice a week is fine: it saves on water too, so it makes sense to us! Sue us if you like haha!!!!

20:00 We watch the latest episode of Bettany Hughes' oddly-named series "Treasures of the World".

This is a very nostalgic programme for me, because I went on a business trip to Cyprus in the late 1980's, with 2 of my work colleagues. The government department were I used to work had 3 or so "branch offices" in Cyprus on land ceded to the UK in perpetuity at time of the independence of the island in the 1960's, the so-called SBAs (Sovereign Base Areas).

Two of these "branch offices" were fortunately in the south of the island, but the third was in Famagusta, which fell to the Turks when they invaded in 1974. Lois and I were at the time very friendly with a British couple, James and Judy, work-colleagues of mine, who had been posted to Famagusta shortly before the Turkish invasion. They told us how they had to hastily pack all their belongings into their old and not-very-reliable Renault 4, and drive like crazy to the safety of the south.

Yikes, glad it wasn't us haha!

a typical old Renault 4 - I don't think James and Judy's

was quite that bad, but who knows?

For my business trip in the late 1980's, I was accompanied by my deputy, Yvonne, and an army sergeant Dusty. We were staying on the British army base at Dekhelia. Luckily we had time off in the evenings and at the weekend to have fun and also do some sightseeing.

my travelling companions, Dusty and Yvonne

During our trip in the 1980's I remember seeing some fascinating Ancient Greek and Greco-Roman ruins, of which the most spectacular was a huge stone amphitheatre.

the Ancient Greek amphitheatre that we visited.

I'm the figure in blue shirt and shorts standing on the top

It's interesting to see in tonight's programme a visit by presenter Bettany Hughes to a similar amphitheatre on Cyprus - or is it the same one as the one I visited? I'm not sure - the jury's still out on that one. Still, it's the same principle, I suppose.

the amphitheatre at Kourion, visited by Bettany Hughes

Well, we've seen Bettany touring Greek and Cypriot ruins many times before, so tonight for Lois and me perhaps the most interesting part of the programme is when she's taken through the peace line or green line or no-man's-land that runs through the middle of the capital, Nicosia. It's been pretty much left the way it was in 1974, when the UN took on their peace-keeping mission.

Perhaps the most bizarre sight is a collection of what were around 50 brand-new cars in 1974, all rotting away at a former Toyota car dealership. The cars had all been landed at Famagusta and then driven to Nicosia for sale, so they've all got just 30-50 miles "on the clock". And they have never moved since!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!!

21:00 We wind down with an interesting documentary about the Kemp brothers, guitarists in 1980's band "Spandau Ballet", as part of nationwide celebrations for "Forty Years of Spandau Ballet".

Some interesting snippets emerge from the programme. We see Gary and Martin returning to their childhood home in Islington, North London. One amazing thing is that this was the first time they'd ever been back there since 2019, at the time of the last documentary that was shot about them - who would have guessed haha ??!!!

Programme-maker Rhys Thomas asks the two Kemp brothers why they decided to manage themselves. Their answers are quite revealing:

Martin: We didn't see the point in paying someone else, you know so I manage Gary and Gary manages me.

Gary: I used to manage myself and Martin, but it got too much. So Martin came in to lighten the load, and took me on, and now I can focus more on him.

Not as simple as it sounds, is it - pop management!