10:00 Our daughter Sarah, who lives at Eglinton, a northern suburb of Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica comes through on whatsapp with a text and a few pictures. Usually we zoom with the family every Saturday morning, but not today, because the family are off on a trip to the Margaret River region south of Perth, and they're staying at a campsite at Pinjarra.
She has sent us some pictures of their tent, and of the area.
the family's tent at the campsite: Francis with the twins
our lovely twin granddaughters, Jessica (left) and Lily
in front of the famous Pinjarra Bakery - yum yum!
Incredible though it seems today, a railway line was gradually extended between 1910 and 1927 from Pinjarra to Narrogin, two superficially insignificant places, both out in the sticks. At the time, however, the railway line was important for the local timber industry, which was booming between the wars.
What crazy lives they led, out there in the wilds, in those far-off days!
The railway closed in 1984 after many of the timber mills in the area were closed one by one. More recently the line has been revived as a "heritage railway" - i.e. something for the tourists.
flashback to April 2018: Lois and I visit Pinjarra
and have a look at its "heritage train station" (above)
The temperatures are a bit milder today down there in Hampshire and Ali and Ed are spending the day tidying up in their massive 6.5 acre grounds and getting ready for this year's "growing season". Ali is really into gardening and growing, just like Lois. Isn't it amazing to see how heredity wins out in the end - when she was a teenager-with-a-mind-of-her-own we never suspected she'd get into things like vegetable growing in the same way as Lois. It's madness!
Tidying up the 6.5 acre grounds: Ed having a bonfire
to the amusement of Sika, the family's Danish dog,
acquired during the family's 6 year stay in Copenhagen (2012-2018)
Sika, after inspecting the nearly-cleared-out greenhouse,
all shiny and ready for the new growing season, which is nice!
However, a look online at the local lunch menus doesn't inspire us, so we decide to go out to Warners-Morrisons supermarket in Upton-on-Severn this morning to get some Cookshop ready-meals, firstly for Valentine's Day and then for the expected visit of Ali, Rosalind and Isaac at half-term. Warners-Morrisons have a Cookshop concession, and also we happen to have got a 15% discount voucher for Cookshop meals there, which will come in handy.
We take the 7 mile journey over there, opting for the "blue route" (recommended). The supermarket lies close to the mighty River Severn, where the road got blocked recently by floodwaters, and the supermarket had to close.
flashback to January: flooding at Upton-on-Severn
loading up the car after doing our shopping at Warner's,
complete with a bag full of Cookshop ready-meals (right)
flashback to February 2020 at the Kings Arms, Prestbury:
our final lunch out before the pandemic: yikes: little did
we know what was coming !!!!
14:00 After lunch, we want to have a shower and a nap, so we put our two great brains to work on how to fix our shiny-new "shower caddy" or "shower basket" to the so-called "rising rail" - what an odd name for the pipe that comes down where the controls are. Neither of us had heard the expression before.
And would you believe it - it took our 2 great brains an hour to figure out how to do it. [I have no trouble believing that with you two clowns! - Ed].
What madness!!!!
Finally it fixes on - we'll see how long it is before it comes off again. But at the moment it looks good, and has just about enough space for 2 bath sponges, 2 bottles of shampoo, and a bottle of something else that Lois uses - I forget what it's called.
our "rising rail", complete with shiny-new "shower caddy"
Say what you like about the allies' treatment of the Norwegian royals, but you can't say that the family was offered sub-standard accommodation: King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav were put up in Buckingham Palace, and Crown Princess Martha and the children were offered accommodation in the White House by a flirtatious FDR.
Of these two properties, the White House was in the better location: we see Buckingham Palace being bombed by the Germans, after which Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother made her famous statement to a London policeman, "I'm glad we've been bombed, it makes me feel I can look the East End in the face".
How would an estate-agent have marketed the property after that? "A deceptively spacious older property with many period features, in need of some renovation" perhaps. But I'm not completely sure - perhaps we should be told?
The ship carrying Martha and the children, meanwhile, successfully gets through the American naval blockade and arrives in New York. After sighting the Statue of Liberty, Martha throws her precautionary suicide-pills into the sea, which seems a risk-free move at this point, so fair enough!
We wonder how true it was about FDR flirting with the Swedish-born Crown Princess Martha, but we sort of doubt whether it really gave the critical boost to FDR's eagerness to help the Western war effort against Hitler with the Lend Lease Act, as the series seems to suggest.
Before now Lois and I didn't know anything about FDR's love-life, but tonight we learn about how Eleanor wasn't living in the White House, but somewhere in New York, and on the web we learn that FDR was having a long-term affair with Eleanor's secretary Lucy Mercer, and was also very close to his own personal aide, Missy LeHand.
So there you are - once again we've learned something we didn't know, you see, which is nice!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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