09:00 Lois and I get a bit longer in bed this morning, which is a nice surprise! Sarah, our daughter who lives in Perth, Australia with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, can't zoom with us at 9am this morning, like she usually does - she says that the family's packing schedule is getting a bit manic, and they'll try to zoom with us later in the week.
Yikes, things are getting serious for them now, that's for sure!
flashback to February: our little Australian family
holidaying south of Perth in the Margaret River Region
In the last few weeks Sarah and Francis have been madly selling up lots of their possessions including their 20 ft boat, in preparation for a last tour a round bits of Australia they haven't seen, followed by a final return to the UK after 7 years down under.
10:00 More good news: even more time is available in bed for us today - Lois normally attends her church's services in Tewkesbury on Sundays, but Lois, plus a lot of the older church-members, have decided to stay away today from the Village Hall in Ashchurch, where the services are held, simply because so many church members are been suffering from nasty flu or flu-related conditions, including a lot of the Iranian Christian refugees, who now make up around 50% of the congregation. So Lois and quite a few other church members are going to stay home and follow the services on zoom from the comfort of their own homes, which is nice.
flashback to August 2021: we make our first visit to Ashchurch Village Hall
where the church's local services are held
some of the church's many Iranian Christian refugee members (far right),
seen here at the local church's Christmas lunch in December
Andy, the leading local church elder, has been trying to persuade as many members as possible to come along in person, pointing out that today's preacher is coming all the way from Newport, Monmouthshire, but I don't think many are going to risk it, and who's to blame them! Lois and I try to consort mainly with each other as much as possible, and it's paid off so far in terms of keeping us healthy, that's for sure. But everybody knows that it's often the end of winter when people start catching things. So she's playing safe today too, a stance that I support!
Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part
in her church's 2 services today on zoom
Lois and I run a local U3A Intermediate Danish group, and the group is currently reading a short story by Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord. One of our jobs is to read through the next 5 pages of the current story and prepare vocabulary lists of the more difficult words - we then email these lists out to members in advance of the next group meeting, to save members from having to look up a lot of words in the dictionary. We're all heart haha!
young Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord, holding the book of
short stories that we're currently reading in our group
Unfortunately as we progress through the story, the references get more problematic rather than less. In the story's opening pages, the ones that we covered at the last group meeting, we read about a Danish woman married to a husband, Mads, who travels abroad a lot on business and who takes these trips as opportunities to get as many women as he can manage into the bed in his hotel room. Oh dear, bad Mads !!!!!
In a crazy sequence of scenes, the woman appears to work out her frustrations against her husband by chopping in two as many slugs as she can find in her allotment garden. The symbolism is obvious because it's clear that the slugs remind the woman of her husband's penis "in its flaccid state".
These details were embarrassing enough at last month's meeting, but as Lois and I read on through the next 5 pages, it's clear that the slugs, in their turn, are taking their revenge on the woman - hundreds of them begin to target her, crawling all over her, and then into, and under her clothes, going for her nipples and other sensitive parts, digging into her flesh, after which it's clear that she begins to have an orgasm.
Oh dear! What should Lois and I do? Let some of our members potentially squirm with embarrassment, or try and censor the text and come up with a bowdlerised version - not easy to do in somebody else's language, to put it mildly!
We don't really know [phrase copyright: Les Dennis]. What do you think? Answers on a postcard please (deadline: midnight tomorrow night - don't forget!!!!)
Oh dear, it's not always easy being group leaders, that's for sure!!!
a typical "saucy seaside postcard", this one destined for Cornwall,
saucy cartoon on reverse not shown.
20:00 We settle down on the sofa and watch tonight's edition of Countryfile, which covers current issues affecting the UK's rural areas.
Yikes (again) !!!!
But residents' misery can be a bonanza for archaeologists. Who knew that Happisburgh was where the oldest human footprints ever found outside Africa were found "fossilised" into the eroded soft, sandy rock here, as well as loads of hippopotami, mammoths, bears, even spotted hyenas? Lois and I didn't, that's for sure!
Don't forget that this part of Norfolk was connected to the European continent in those far-off, crazy times, until the ice-caps melted 8000 years ago!
The couple were walking in more or less a straight line, so definitely "going somewhere" - shopping perhaps? But the interesting thing to me is that the couple were accompanied by a bunch of their children, who all had children's shoe sizes, and who were dodging in and out, running around like kids do, full of the joys of spring, and oblivious to their parents' concerns!
I sometimes wonder what's changed in people over the last million years. We've got science now, which has soothed some of our irrational fears, and made our lives generally safer and longer, but we're still basically the same aren't we.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
[Copyright: Herman Hupfeld]
Yes, good old Herman Hupfield! I wonder if by chance he was related to Hape, the Anglo-Saxon who used to own Happisburgh? We probably should be told, and preferably sooner rather than later, perhaps. Somebody, help needed haha!!!!
Herman also wrote that great song, "Let's put out the lights and go to sleep" (1932).
And was Mr. Hay of the Hays code perhaps related to Hape, the Anglo-Saxon who used to own Happisburgh? Information please! [That's enough potential Hape relatives! - Ed]
...and song-writer Herman Hupfeld. Could they
by any chance be related?
21:00 We go to bed on tonight's edition of Antiques Roadshow, the series where members of the public bring along treasures and souvenirs from their attics to have them discussed and valued by experts in the field.
The big question is: could this infant Buddha be a relic of a Chinese expedition said to have reached Australia in the 15th century, over 100 years before the first Europeans arrived?
The two metal detectorists who found the Buddha on the beach come from a tiny fishing town in Western Australia.
The expedition is known to have sailed down through South-east Asia, but there's no proof that it ever reached Australia. The Antiques Roadshow expert confirms that it is an infant Buddha and that it is of Ming origin (1368-1644), which would date it to this period. Infant Buddhas were brought out in ceremonies to celebrate Buddha's birthday. The Chinese used to pour purified water or tea across the shoulders of the Buddha - this is why they were always made of bronze, so that they wouldn't get damaged.
The expert says that, as would stand, without the possible back-story of the expedition, the Buddha would fetch between £3,000 and £5,000 at auction. However, given the plausible back-story he says he wouldn't be surprised if it fetched £10,000 on the open market, or even as much as £50,000 or £100,000.
My goodness - this guy will be "quids in" if that ever happens, that's for sure!
yes, the little baby Buddha's pleased too, which is nice!!!
Fascinating stuff !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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