07:00 Lois and I are in bed but we're aware something is happening outside in the street, or rather not happening. It's that eery dead quiet that you sometimes get when it's cold. Yes, it must be snowing, pretty lightly but persistently.
But enough of that! Let me take you back to this day in 1945 - World War II was still raging, although the Nazis were falling back in Europe, giving rise to optimism that the end of the war was near. And in a quiet registry office in Oxford, my parents were getting married - see? Not so important an event as regards the war, but very important as regards me, and that's why I'm remembering it now!
My father had got a bit of leave from the Army, and after the ceremony my parents went back to my maternal grandmother's house in St Mary's Road, Oxford, and a picture was taken in the back yard.
Twelve and a half months later, I myself was born, and the rest is history haha!
flashback to 1946: an early picture of a smiley-faced me
08:00 But back to the snow!
I take a couple of pictures - here's one. I'm still in my pyjamas, but that's because we're going to have a shower today.
snow from morning...
...until evening and into the night
It's snowing even more at our daughter Alison's crumbling Victorian mansion in Headley, Hampshire today. Ali has put some charming pictures up on social media.
Brrrr !!!!
I wouldn't mind the snow normally, I'd welcome it, because it looks nice, and we're retired and so we can just stay indoors all day, keep warm and just consort with each other. However, as luck would have it, we're scheduled to drive, initially on country roads, to Cheltenham tomorrow for my next unpleasant appointment with our dentist. Damn!!!!!
here come those East European guys
carrying our table - hurrah !!!!!
..and here's the table - it's well wrapped all right!
- this is how we'll use it when it's just the two of us...
...just using the flaps or wings when there are more of us
See? Now we're flexible!
15:00 We get an email from my cousin Susan in Monument, Colorado. She'll be visiting the UK in September, for the first time since the pandemic, and she's hoping to meet up with us, which we're really looking forward to. The last time she was in the UK was, sadly, to attend her mother's funeral in June 2019.
June 2019 - the last time we saw Susan (left), when she flew back
to the UK for her mother's funeral
Before the pandemic, Susan was in the habit of visiting the UK every year, to see her family over here. She had seen her mother for the last time on her visit in October 2018.
Susan's visit in 2018, when she saw her mother for the last time:
(left to right) Susan's brother John's wife Chris, John, Lois and Susan
flashback to the early 1980's: (left to right) Susan, Magda, Alison and Sarah
pictured here on a Colorado hillside overlooking a ghost town - yikes!
20:00 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch last Friday's edition of Gogglebox, the series in which a set of TV-viewers are filmed watching, and commenting on, some of the week's programmes.
It's hard for Lois and me to relate to most of the Goggleboxers, who tend to be a lot younger than us and/or not always very intelligent or measured in their comments, though they might still comment quite amusingly. An exception here is the more elderly couple pictured above, Giles and Mary in Wiltshire, who always strike a chord with us. Oh dear, we're getting old, that's for sure!
Our other problem with the show is that the Goggleboxers tend not to watch the programmes that Lois and I watch, which is a pity. One exception tonight comes right at the end when it becomes clear that they all watched the latest programme in Alice Levine's series "Sex Actually", which we also happened to watch.
flashback to last week - the listing for Alice Levine's new series
There was a nasty moment in the programme, when a silicon woman in Berlin tells Alice she'd heard that the presenter "had been a very naughty girl at school".
Where do these kinds of rumours start? Alice insists that she was an exemplary pupil at her school, the Alderman White School in Bramcote, and that she had actually been appointed head girl in her final year. And Lois and I believe her, no doubt about that!
We live in a crazy world, that's for sure !!!
21:15 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we settle down to watch an old episode of the 1980's sitcom "The Mistress", starring Felicity Kendal as Maxine, the mistress of a man called Luke (Peter McEnery), who's married to Helen (Jane Asher).
Helen has been away somewhere overseas for a week, so Luke has spent the time living with his mistress, Maxine, 24/7. However, when Luke drives to the airport to pick her up from her return flight, Maxine realises that Luke's flat will look too pristine and tidy, which will make Helen suspicious.
So Maxine rushes over to Luke and Helen's flat to make it look "a bit messy" and "lived in", that is, looking like it would look if Luke had been at home all week, like he was supposed to be.
Follow?
Unfortunately Maxine gets it wrong. She makes it look as if Luke has been using the wrong toothbrush, and sleeping on the wrong side of the bed from the one he always sleeps on.
Luke's mistress Maxine, trying to make it look as if Luke
has been sleeping in his own bed all week - what madness!!!
Oh dear - that's going to lead to trouble!
It's no understatement to say that Luke's wife Helen is
VERY suspicious when she first sees their flat on her arrival home
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!
(copyright Sir Walter Scott)
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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