08:00 Lois and I spring out of bed and get to work to "clear the decks" for the painter guy that Customer Services supremo Kieran a.k.a. "Harry" had detailed to visit "at some time today". The painter's job was arranged to be the painting of all of our 1930's style "picture rails", so that we can hang a small proportion of our dozens of pictures up on the wall, and clear some of them off the floor where they're languishing at the moment.
What a madness!!!!
And "clearing the decks" for the painter guy today is a BIG JOB - we don't want him splashing paint on anything precious, after all, so we have to bundle lots of stuff away out of sight! Call us obsessively house-proud freaks if you like haha!
"clearing the decks" (1) means making our "table"
temporarily unusable - damn!
"clearing the decks (2)": our white laundry basket is
now strangely filled with a load of ornaments and knick-knacks
"clearing the decks (3)":
see the picture rail going round our walls?
Site manager Graham told us he hadn't seen one of those
since he used to visit his old grandparents' house as a child: oh dear!
08:45 I'm just using the bathroom when I get a call from Kieran a.k.a "Harry" to say the painter guy who was supposed to be coming to do work for us has inadvertently been sent to work on another Persimmon site today, so we can't get him till Friday".
Isn't that just typical?!!!!!!!
Honestly I ask you !!!!!!
09:00 And what's more, now I've got nothing to take my mind off having to visit the dentist tomorrow. Luckily Steve, our American brother-in-law, later in the day sends me an encouraging message, which is nice.
11:00 To work off our feelings of disappointment over the postponed paint job, we go for a walk on the common. It's not such nice weather today as it was when our daughter Alison, with Rosalind and Isaac, were visiting us at the weekend, but we decide to go for it anyway. We're indomitable of spirit some days, no doubt about that!
As we start our walk, mist is beginning to come down over the Malvern Hills that are the backdrop to the common, and it feels slightly damp, which is a pity!
On our way, we see a notice about "Polly's Orchard", which 70 years ago was the site of a flourishing plumtree orchard. Sadly only 3 of the original trees survive today, and so the Malvern Hills Trust, with the help of local volunteers, has started on a project to restore it, planting 12 new plum trees of local fruit varieties, including Pershore Plum and Yellow Egg.
It's been called "Polly's Orchard" after a former local resident Polly Cartland, mother of world-famous "romantic fiction" novelist Barbara Cartland, step-grandmother of Princess Di.
we spot a welcome sign to "Polly's Orchard",
named after novelist Barbara Cartland's mother
Lois showcases the site of the orchard, with its 3 remaining
original plum trees and the 12 new plantings
one of the new plantings: the so-called "Yellow Egg"
(crazy name, crazy plum !!!!)
Like at the weekend, there's a moment of excitement when a GWR (Great Western Railway Co.) train passes
12:30 We go home and have lunch. I check my smartphone, and I see that Sarah our other daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, has sent me a charming picture of our two granddaughters enjoying their pancakes today.
Lily (left) and Jessica, our twin granddaughters, enjoying
their Pancake Day pancakes in Perth, Australia today - yum yum!
Yes, it's Pancake Day all over the world, but here in Malvern it had completely slipped our minds amid all the turmoil of "clearing the decks" this morning. So this is a very fortunate reminder, and Lois has some ideas for some savoury pancakes for our evening meal tonight.
16:00 A couple of years ago, my sister Jill and I discovered that we had a "new" cousin, David, to add to our existing crowd of 30 or so "old" cousins. David was born to our Auntie Joan but was adopted at birth, and it was only thanks to a recent DNA test organised by a family history website, that we realised the connection.
flashback to the late 1920's: our maternal grandparents with the 4 youngest of
their 9 children: (left to right) Ruth, Joan (David's mum) and Babs (the twins), with Hannah (Nan - my mother), in front: a sunny day at the beach near Bridgend, Glamorgan, Wales
Last night David sent me and Jill something we have become really excited about - an aerial picture of a large part of the town of Bridgend, Glamorgan, where our mother and her 8 siblings were living in the 1920's: the aerial photo concerned was taken in 1929.
aerial photo of Bridgend, Glamorgan, taken in 1929: my mother's
family lived close to the church - the church tower is clearly visible
near the bottom left-hand corner of the photograph.
close-up of the area near the church
The big house where the family lived was pulled down in the early 1960's to make way for a roundabout, and this is the first time Jill or I have seen any kind of picture that includes the house. We visited the spot in 1966 with my mother, my late brother Steve and my late sister Kathy, but we were disappointed to find that the house had been pulled down a few years earlier to make way for a new roundabout.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
Flashback to August 1966: a visit to the place in Bridgend where the house
my mother was raised in once stood, before it was unfortunately torn down
(a few years earlier) - some rubble could still be seen, which was not much compensation.
(from left to right) Steve (my late brother), Jill, my mother, and Kathy (my late sister)
- and in the background, you can see the crosses on some old graves in the churchyard
18:00 It's Pancake Day today so we honour the tradition with a savoury pancake each followed by a dessert pancake apiece, the latter being smothered in brown sugar and then dowsed in orange or lemon juice - yum yum!
It's Pancake Day - hurrah!
20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a couple of episodes of 1980's sitcoms "As Time Goes By" and "The Mistress" on BBC4.
While watching, I start to think nervously about my appointment at the dentist's tomorrow, and I find I am licking my loose teeth distractedly - what madness !!!!!
"The Mistress", is a comedy about a florist, Maxine (Felicity Kendal), who has become the mistress of a married man, Luke, who is married to Helen (Jane Asher).
Luke is a busy man - partly because both his wife Helen and his mistress Maxine are keen to have a baby "before it's too late", and there are lots of comments about "biological clocks": I expect you can guess.
This episode is the first in the 2nd series of the comedy. And, unlike the women in the show, even though they are seeing him at close quarters in their beds (not at the same time), Lois and I immediately spot that Luke is not the same man that he was in the first series. They've obviously replaced him with another actor, which we find annoying.
Luke #1: Jack Galloway
Luke #2: Peter McEnery (nothing like the other one, is he!!!!)
We're waiting for one or other of the women to say, "
You've changed, Luke!", but we wait in vain. It's madness, I tell you !!!!!
[That's enough madness! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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