An early start because we've got to drive 20 miles over to Gloucester for a 10:20 appointment at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. It's lucky we start off early because the "Orchard" car-park, where we usually park, is closed for repairs - wouldn't you know it! So we have to go into the multi-storey Tower Car Park and we have to go right up to the roof to get a space - what madness !!!!
In February 2020 I experienced an unexpected blackout for about 15 seconds, and as a precaution, a few weeks later they fitted me with a little pacemaker, which is like a little computer chip under your skin.
Was it worth getting one? The jury's still out on that as far as I'm concerned - I've read that you can tell when it switches itself on, but I've never felt anything like that. It's a little bit of hospital madness perhaps. Anyway I haven't had a blackout since, so I guess it can't be harming me, which is a relief.
Every 6 months since Feb 2020 I have had to go into Gloucester and they check it's all working okay. There are always 2 hospital staff in the little checking-room. One of them hangs a little pad over my left shoulder and as a result she gets lots of readings which they check out. I try to guess from what they're saying, or from their tone, whether it's good news or bad, but it's impossible - it's just figures, and the tone is just "science"!
I guess things are going well, however, because the nice young woman checking the figures, Molly, says this time that they don't need to check it again for another 12 months which is encouraging.
in the waiting room with our "his and hers" animal print masks
- stylish!
10:45 All finished at the hospital we get the lift up to the roof of the Tower Car Park, but we don't drive home yet. My "good" pair of black shoes has developed a crack in the sole. We will get this repaired but I want to buy a new pair anyway, and the old pair can be first back-up.
We drive the 11 miles over to Bishops Cleeve to visit the shoe-shop we usually go to, George Lewis.
We don't usually do two things in the same day - one is our limit usually, and sometimes it's zero, I'm afraid - sorry! So feeling exhausted after (1) the hospital and (2) the shoe-shop, we stop in at another of our old Bishops Cleeve's haunts, Lowry's café, for a light lunch of baked potato with cheese (me), and with tuna mayonnaise (Lois), plus salad.
We discover that Lowry's, although it's carrying the same name, must be "under new management" - the tables have been thinned out and rearranged - possibly because of COVID, and, what's worse, the connection with LS Lowry the Lancashire painter seems to have been removed, which is a pity. There used to be prints of Lowry classics hers and there on a lot of the walls, but now the walls are all bare.
lunch at Lowry's - but the walls are all bare,
and there isn't a single Lowry painting to be seen
- it's madness !!!!!
flashback to 2017: Lowry's in happier times
we have a flapjack and coffee out on the terrace
"old style Lowry's", with a nice LS Lowry print up there on the wall
17:30 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part in her great-niece Molly's chair yoga class on zoom.
Lois's great-niece Molly, part-time yoga teacher
20:00 We watch another episode of Atlantic Crossing, the series which chronicles the adventures of the Norwegian Royal Family, in exile in the UK and US during World War II.
In this penultimate episode, a few things happen, which is nice!
Norwegian Crown Princess Martha and the royal children are staying somewhere on Long Island, where their next door neighbour, a Mrs Forbes, is portrayed as a Nazi sympathiser: she's apparently friendly with Quisling, the German-appointed prime minister of Norway. In the TV story, however, there's a bit more to it than that: Mrs Forbes is shown as being mixed up in a German plot to kidnap the royal children, a plot which is foiled by some secret service guys.
Yesterday I discovered a website that "fact-checks" the series, which is useful. It seems that Forbes was indeed a Nazi sympathiser, but there's no evidence of a kidnap plot - this was dreamed up by the series' writers, it seems. FDR wrote a memo to Crown Prince Olav, who was exiled in London, to apprise him of the situation.
As urged by Norway's royals and politicians, Martha has been cosying up to FDR during her exile in the US, and in due course FDR gifts a naval ship, a destroyer, to the Norwegian resistance forces in the UK. It's true about the ship, but there's no evidence that Martha went too far with FDR, or that her husband Olav, the Crown Prince back in England, was jealous about his wife's closeness to Roosevelt. In the TV version this is a strong theme, but again it's all imagination or "creative licence" - there's no actual evidence for it.
a photo from World War II of the "real" family -
Crown Prince Olav, Princess Martha, and their children
It's nice to know, though. Lois and I are history buffs, so we watch a lot of these historical series partly just to get to know "the facts". However, we know how easy it is to take the wrong things away from these series and thereafter assume that they're history, which they aren't always. We're cautious about things like that see !!!!
21:15 We go to bed on this week's episode of a radio serial, "Conversations from a Long Marriage", starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam as a couple who've been married for ever but who still feel passionate about each other.
a typical huge modern multi-storey cruise liner
There's a downside to the cruise, however. After going on board they discover that, as part of the deal with the cruise company, they've been given a free-of-charge, but poky, little cabin. Joanna is particularly annoyed about the bed which has been shoved in between two walls with no space to right or left - they have to "climb over each other" to get out of it. Roger reminds her that this has always been part of the fun! But poor Joanna!!!
Joanna wants to ask the cruise company for an upgrade, however, which means a cabin somewhere near the top of the ship.
But who knew that these top levels of cruise ships are the worst when it comes to rough weather? They sway much more in strong winds, apparently, and you're much more likely to start feeling seasick. This particular cruise is around the Med, but of course to get to the Med from Britain, you have to negotiate the notoriously stormy Bay of Biscay, apart from anything else.
The seas around Britain are pretty calm on the whole, apart from the English Channel, the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and whatever the sea's called around the top haha! The rest are all right haha!!!
the seas around Britain
Lois comments that it shows how bad British roads were in the 18th century - the fact that people still preferred to travel by sea if they possibly could, even if they were just travelling from one part of England to another.
What a crazy world they lived in, in those far-off days !!!!
roads in England in the 18th century
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz !!!!
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