Danskcolin: Thursday March 30th 2023

Dear reader, are you retired?

Or are you still working?

And if you're still working, do you often wonder what retired folks like Lois and me do all day? No? Well, I'm not surprised, to put it mildly!

Some people seem to think that we idle away the day, drinking tea, eating Belgian buns; going upstairs for naps in the afternoons; dreaming up so-called "important missions" like "we'd better walk down the road and post that birthday card today, or we might miss so-and-so's birthday"; planning the flowers we want to grow in our gardens; putting their wheelie-bins out a full 24 hours before they're due to be collected - "just in case we forget and we leave it too late"; and, finally, taking in parcels from Amazon and elsewhere, on behalf of our working neighbours.

Well, as a matter of fact.... Funny you should say that - is was you that said it, wasn't it? Because today is a bit like that for Lois and me, which is a weird coincidence, not to overstate it haha!

we execute our priority mission for the day: to get a birthday card

for Lois's cousin Brian into the post, to be sure we don't miss the date!

we plan where our shed will go, and what flowers and shrubs

we'll put into our tiny little back garden...

..and we provide a real service for our working neighbours, like young Georgia,

by taking in their large soft parcels (and other sorts of parcels) from Amazon.

And that's the way you do it!

Good! Now you too can retire with confidence haha!!!!!

16:30 I check my emails and I find a big acknowledgment of my victory in my battle against British Gas bureaucracy. The company has finally admitted that they've been "secretly" supplying us with gas, since we moved into this new-build home on October 31st 2022 - hurrah!!! So their little secret is out haha!

There is a slight downside, however. No, let's admit it - it's a BIG downside. Gas and electricity is REALLY REALLY expensive now. And we will now have to pay them for all that gas they've been supplying us with for 5 months - damn!

As Woody Allen once said in his synopsis to the little-known ballet "The Spell", "When the check comes, there is much anger".

And our bill for gas is going to be for hundreds of pounds, no doubt about that! But after that, we'll at least be quits, so it's good news in a way.

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!

21:00 We go to bed on this week's episode of "Cockfields", only the second one we've seen, about a couple, Simon and his girlfriend Donna, who are spending a long weekend on the Isle of Wight visiting Simon's mother and step-father, and step-brother David. The purpose of the trip is to celebrate Simon's 40th birthday.

Lois and I saw this sitcom for the first time last week. It ran for 2 seasons a couple of years ago on a small-time channel, and the BBC have decided to give it a wider airing now on BBC3.

We'll be interested to see how the series develops, because Lois and I at once spotted a major problem with the scenario. Simon and Donna are a fairly ordinary couple, nice, but not particularly funny in themselves. All the humour comes from their interactions with Simon's awful relatives, the ones that Simon and Donna are spending a long weekend with. What will happen to the show's humour when the couple go back home at the end of the weekend, leaving their awful relatives back on the Isle of Wight?

I think we should be told, and quickly!

(left to right) nice couple Donna and Simon, with the oversolicitous mum Sue,

the hypercritical step-dad Ray, and the annoyingly stupid and cheery step-brother David

Like a lot of older people, mum Sue and step-dad Ray get up early in the morning, and today Sue has started the washing-machine going before 6 am, which disturbs Donna and Simon's sleep. They eventually get out of bed and try to seek refuge in the garden, but Simon's annoyingly cheery step-brother David discovers them having a quiet cup of tea.

Oh dear!

Of course Simon and Donna are far too polite to be rude to David, but when the whole family finishes a visit to the local old people's home to see "Aunty Rose", one of the inmates, Freda, is not so reticent with him, to put it mildly.