Our daughter Sarah, with husband Francis and 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, newly arrived home from Australia after 7 years, are due to be leaving us today to stay a few days at an airbnb at Ashton-under-Hill, so they spend the morning getting together the things they need to take with them.
Ashton-under-Hill is near Evesham, where Sarah will tomorrow be taking up her old job again at an accountancy firm. It's also near the school where she and Francis are hoping to place Lily and Jessica. Francis has an appointment with the school headteacher tomorrow, where he's hoping to secure the school's agreement to take the twins and also, importantly, not to place them in too high a grade, given their history of their schooling in Australia. Standards are lower down there than they are in the UK, and the twins' social awareness is also probably less well-developed due to the home-schooling that Francis has been given them in their last few months in the country.
flashback to last Thursday - Sarah, with Lily and Jessica
standing at the back entrance to the accountancy firm in Evesham,
where Sarah will be taking up her old job starting tomorrow
11:30 Lois and I realise that we have been stripped bare of some essential groceries during Sarah and family's 4-day stay with us, so we drive over to the Warners-Morrisons supermarket at Upton-on-Severn to stock up.
we replenish our depleted stock of groceries
at Warners-Morrisons Supermarket at Upton-on-Severn
We like food-shopping on Mondays because it's usually only a bunch of old codgers [Don't you mean "a bunch of other old codgers"? -Ed] blocking the aisles with fruitless searches for no-longer-fashionable or obtainable products like Werthers Originals or Barry's Tea, for example.
Barry's Tea - don't waste both your time and the time of staff
by asking for this product at Warners! Face it, you're way behind the times!
Today, however, is a Bank Holiday for the Coronation, so the age-range of customers is much greater than normal. Damn - that means we have to keep out of the way of dynamic young shoppers careering up and down the aisles, which is a pity!!!!!
12:00 Steve, our American brother-in-law, sends another set of the amusing Venn diagrams that he culls on our behalf from the web.
Haha! And I agree, it's hard to imagine people queuing outside bookshops to snap up a copy of Liz Truss's memoirs - sure to be a bit of a "slim volume" if ever there was one!
Lois and I look forward to seeing media suggestions about what to do with the mountains of "unsold copies" that are bound to result from the venture. And we don't think there'll be much future in exporting unsold copies to Australia, like they used to do with the Oldie magazine, do you remember? It was that magazine aimed at a readership of educated old codgers, remember that one?
a typical "Oldie" cover
Liz Truss's book could go the way of Jamie Oliver's Cookery Magazine - remember that one? Straight from publication to recycling?
unsold copies of Jamie Oliver's cookery magazine
Poor Jamie !!!!!!
15:00 Sarah and family depart on the 23 mile journey to their airbnb at Ashton-under-Hill, leaving a lot of their belongings in bags piled up on top of the beds they've been sleeping in - it's madness!!!!
They are able to go off to their airbnb in their tiny car, only by storing most of their belongings on and around our guest beds - oh dear!
Sarah and Francis's belongings - what madness !!!!
The family are still feeling their way towards working out how to manage their first ever electric vehicle, an Austin Mini Cooper. They have to get a proper knowledge of charging points in the area, for starters. The stupid thing is that a full charge only seems to take them 100 miles, which seems ridiculous.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
And now suddenly they're gone, and Lois and I are alone in the house, which now seems incredibly spacious. This house is only a modest size compared to what all of us have been used to, and it isn't really big enough to house 6 people for any length of time, and I think that none of us has found it easy.
If I were to guess, I would say that the people who have had the most difficulty are the two most introverted ones - that is, me and Jessica. Introverted people can put up with sustained socialising and conversation as long as they can get away periodically for a bit of "them time", and be able to concentrate quietly on something for more than about 5 minutes - my goodness, yes!
The worst thing for everybody has probably been the cramped elbow-to-elbow dining-area in the kitchen-diner, and the crowded nature of the bedrooms, where it's a major obstacle course just trying to get around the beds to open or close the blinds.
What a madness it all is!!!
20:00 Lois and I relax on the couch with a concert filmed at this year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival.
I expect you remember Lois and me going to the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in Montpellier Gardens in a freezing cold May 2015! What's that you say? You don't remember?
Well, frankly I'm surprised! Here are some pictures to remind you - forgive the Danish subtitles, but I expect you can handle those haha!
Vi søger de mennesker, vi skal mødes med, men uden succes - du godeste !
Vi sidder på et bord foran Bottle Green open air-baren.
Det er hundekoldt - du godeste (igen)!
Remi Harris kommer på scenen sammen med sin trio - hurra!
I even shot my own little video clip of Remi Harris, as Lois and I sat there
in the marquee audience at Endsleigh Insurance's Free Stage
- how daring we were in those days!
På vej ud af haverne køber vi kaffe og donuts - hurra!
Happy days !!!!!
Tonight Lois and I want to relax in our suddenly spacious house. And aha, it's music at last!
Ian Shaw does a bit of "scatting" for fellow-performer Vanessa Haynes before launching into the perfect song for a very relaxed Lois and me tonight, Bob Dorrough's "Small Day Tomorrow" (1976).
22:30 And after Ian Shaw's encouragement Lois and I stay up a very daring extra 30 minutes past our normal bedtime, before finally giving in - zzzzzzzzz!!!! What wild and crazy people we are haha!
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