Danskcolin: Saturday May 13th 2023

A quieter day today for Lois and me - our daughter Sarah has completed her first week back at work at her old accountancy firm in Evesham, putting to an end her 7-year absence 2015-2023 while she and her family experimented with living in Perth, Australia. But as she and Francis have their 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica to cope with, a lot of laundry work has been building up, to put it mildly - oh my goodness, yes!!

Luckily it's a sunny afternoon, so Sarah can dry the clothes out on the patio. Lois and I have been in this new-build home for 6 months but we haven't got a washing-line set up yet - call us hopeless procrastinators if you like, but who wants to prioritise something like that haha! [I expect Lois would! - Ed]

there's laundry galore - oh my goodness, yes!

12:00 We manage to get out of the house with the twins fairly late today, so lunch is going to be delayed, no doubt about that. Francis decides to have lunch in a town centre pub so he can watch his favourite soccer team, the lacklustre Leeds United, currently languishing in the relegation zone of the Premier Division, play against their long-term rivals Newcastle United.

No offence to Francis, but his absence does make the house seem a bit less overcrowded. There are only five of us in it for most of today, plus he's easily the biggest person here, at a height of 6'6", so big that he's easy to trip over if you don't tread carefully.

our tall son-in-law Francis: at 6'6" tall, he's easy to trip over!

After Sarah drops Francis off in the town centre, we take the twins to the playground at Victoria Park, which is nice. The Malvern Hills make a lovely backdrop, as usual, and it's nice for the twins to experience the close company of English children after their 7 years in Australia. Their Aussie accents are barely detectable now - just occasionally I detect an echo of their time down there.

Lois, in her pale pink coat, seen here relaxing on the swings with the twins,

their presence highlighted by my graphics team, i.e. me

16:00 Lois and I relax on the sofa with a cup of tea. We break out next week's Radio Times.

We set the twins to work on this week's Trackword. We've discovered that they love puzzles, and they disappear up to their bedroom with it, and they are very quiet, which is a good sign.

Lois and I get only average results on the Popmaster (5.5 / 10) and Eggheads (6/10). Damn! However, it's quite warm, and we both feel quite sleepy.

The Only Connect turns out to have the categories (a) types of bridges (b) cocktails (c) whales, and (d) Eurovision Song Contest entrants or something similar.

It's the Eurovision Final tonight so that category is topical, if nothing else. Lois and I haven't watched the Eurovision finals for about 25 years - call us old fogeys if you like! [Nobody's going to argue with that one! - Ed]

Our other daughter, Alison, and her husband Ed, are not old fogeys, however, to put it mildly. And they attended the 2104 finals live in Malmo, Sweden, during their 6 years in Copenhagen 2012-2018.

flashback to May 2014: Ali and Ed attend the

Eurovision Song Contest finals in Copenhagen

May 2014: At the British Embassy in Copenhagen Ali (left) meets Molly (centre) the

singer of the UK entry, which was only placed 17th out of 26 -

poor Molly !!!!!!

20:00 We decide to watch the Eurovision final with the twins, with the motive of letting them see something of all the European countries taking part, and helping their European geography after their 7 years in Australia. Australia are actually competing anyway, which seems weird.

The contest has been absurdly popular in Australia for many years, and the country has been given special permission again this year to enter a song, sung by a band from Perth, where Sarah and family have been living, which is a coincidence.

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

The songs turn out to be all unmitigated rubbish, as Lois and I expected. And the songs are, in any case, completely upstaged by the dancing and the pyrotechnic shows which form the backdrop.

What utter utter utter madness!!!!!

one of the 37 rubbish songs we have to listen to

- it's all madness !!!!

And why oh why, in one of the intervals, do we seem to be being shown comedienne Mel Giedroyc pretending to churn butter in front of some crazed Portuguese Eurovision-fans?

Is it a silent tribute to "The Sound of Music" perhaps?

I think we should be told, and quickly!