08:00 It's lovely blue skies when Lois and I hope out of bed, but my goodness, the wind is still bitterly cold.
But today is the day to complete our preparations for two of our biggest days of the year - you wouldn't BELIEVE how excited it makes us when one of these days comes up, because it gives us a chance to have a lunch with a nice pudding and then sleep it all off with a leisurely nap upstairs!
Well, yes, I understand. You probably don't care, but we do - these special lunches are just one of the many things that keep us going, no doubt about that!
The first of these days is the UK Mothers Day, naturally a different date from all the other countries in the world apart from Nigeria, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands - what's wrong with us in this country, we always get it wrong, don't we!
Lois and I always celebrate UK Mothers Day with a special lunch on the Saturday, not the Sunday: we want to avoid the crowds. We've booked a table for two at 12 noon this Saturday at the Bluebell Inn in Malvern, a place we haven't tried before, like most places in Malvern - we've only been living here for about 4 months, so give us time haha!!!
the Bluebell Inn, Malvern
And we need to go food-shopping today anyway, so we decide to combine the two jobs and drive over to Warners-Morrison's at Upton-on-Severn, where there's a CookShop concession. And I don't mind too much what we have for the first course, as long as we finish with a Salted Caramel mousse - call me an old stick-in-the-mousse if you like, I don't mind!
It's always the puddings that are the real novelty - we normally have fruit for "afters" on an ordinary day, so it's especially pleasurable to be able to have a proper pudding on special occasions, no doubt about that.
10:00 So this morning we venture out of the house, for the first time since the snow arrived a few days ago. But the snow has all gone now, and it's just blue sky, but also a bitterly cold wind, so we muffle ourselves up in scarves and winter coats.
And when we venture inside the shop, we find that because it's only Tuesday morning it's mainly just a few old fogeys like ourselves shuffling up and down the aisles, which is nice.
On the journey home we stop off at the village of Hanley Swan to admire the duckpond - simple pleasures aren't they, these, one and all. But it's a nice sight to see, because somebody, maybe the local council, has provided some little duck-houses for the sweet little ducks to nest in, on what we're calling Duck Island - awwwww!!!!
[That's enough about your shopping trip and duckpond experiences! - Ed]
We also hear from tonight's phone conversation that next week Alison's husband Ed will be going on his annual visit to Italy to attend his regular yearly legal conference at the Italian lakes, Lake Como, which will be nice.
And it's nice to see the final show of the series open with a burst of passion - a couple of dancers doing an Argentine tango to the show's stately theme tune, a dance you don't see every day - Lois and I try to limit our tangoing to weekends only haha!
I'd like to say that Lois and I manage to get one-up on the contestants in tonight's show by getting an answer right that the contestants get wrong - unfortunately, once more, this doesn't happen, but no surprise there, perhaps.
It turns out that they're all references to joke headlines.
"Foot Heads Arms Body" was apparently written by a Times sub-editor in 1985, just as a joke, and it was never meant to go out in print.
flashback to our Valentine's Day and my
Cookshop Salted Caramel Mousse of the day
before entering the supermarket we look back at the Malvern Hills
7 miles away - the snow is now all gone from the hilltops, which is nice!
On the journey home, we stop off at Hanley Swan to admire
the shiny new duck-houses provided for the duck couples in the middle
of the duckpond. Awwww, they'll love these - awwwwww !!!!! haha!!!!
19:00 A news-packed phone conversation with our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with lawyer-husband Ed, and their 3 teenage children, Josie (16), Rosalind (14) and Isaac (12).
Isaac has won a big part in his school's upcoming production of Peter Pan the musical - he's playing one of the Darling children, John. And he gets to sing a couple of songs and also fly across the stage: not really of course - just thanks to the magic of theatrical wizardry! But wow anyway!
scene from a typical performance of Peter Pan - this one
was at the National Theatre.
We must remember to tell Isaac's 9-year-old cousins in Perth, Australia, Lily and Jessica, about Isaac's stage flying debut. They'll be thrilled to know that Isaac will be flying through the air, we're sure, And hopefully the twins will be able to see the performance in person - it's scheduled for July this year, and our daughter Sarah and her family are hoping to be moving back to the UK in April.
Alison says that Isaac has now chosen his GCSE subjects that he'll be studying particularly for the next 2 years or so: apart from the usual Maths, English and Science, he'll be taking history, drama and Mandarin. Yikes !!!!
flashback to Christmas 2022: Isaac, "styling" his hair,
with a laughing Alison in the background
Here are some souvenir maps and photos from Ed's last attendance at this conference, in May 2022:
flashback to May 2022: Ed's last visit to the conference at Lake Como
20:00 We wind down on the sofa with a much-awaited event - this year's final of the Only Connect quiz, which tests lateral thinking.
this year's final opens with a display of passion - a pair of dancers
doing an Argentine tango to the show's stately theme tune: nice one!
My favourite question tonight is this one: can you see the connection between these 4 items? Bet you can't! We certainly couldn't!
1. Railway service consultation in Northern Ireland
2. Korean UN secretary-general visits LA on the eve of the Oscars
3. Michael Foot to lead committee looking at nuclear disarmament
4. Inverness Caledonian Thistle beat Celtic 3-1, at Celtic
The above are the paraphrases. And the jokes? These are the actual joke headlines:-
1. "Over £100 Million, Is This The Real Price? Is This Just Fantasy? Caught Up In Land Buys, No Escape From Bureaucracy"
2. "Ban Ki Goes To Hollywood"
3. "Foot Heads Arms Body"
4. "Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious"
flashback to 2010: Ban Ki Goes To Hollywood
flashback to 2013: headline in "The Armagh Gazette"
Oops !!!!
[That's enough joke headlines! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!
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