Danskcolin: Sunday May 28th 2023

Our daughter Sarah, with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twins, is, for the weekend, crammed into the house, the just-big-enough-for-two-old-codgers house that Lois and I bought last October in Malvern.

It's Saturday today but Sarah has to do some weekend working-from-home on our kitchen table pretty much all day today, and Francis is going to be out all day buying things, so Lois and I decide to help Sarah out by keeping the twins from getting in her hair.

We're all heart haha!

Sarah's "weekend office" more or less takes over

our dinner-table - it's complete madness !!!!!

10:00 Luckily the twins have arranged a zoom chat with their greatest friends from their 7 years in Perth, Western Australia, little Samara and her little sister Djanna, so that'll keep the little rascals busy for a while haha!

And Sarah also gets a chance for a chat with Samara and Djanna's mother, Clarissa, back in Perth. Clarissa is an American woman married to an Australian guy who works in IT over there.

Lily and Jessie borrow mummy's phone to

speak to their greatest friends back in Perth: Samara and Djanna

I've noticed when the twins have been chatting with Samara, how their Australian accents come back with a vengeance, which is nice!

11:00 After the zoom call, in order to give Sarah a bit more peace and quiet to work in, Lois and I take the twins to the playground at Victoria Park - it's got great play equipment and it's a chance for the twins to hear how the local English children talk, These are the children the twins will hopefully be going to school with, although not just yet - it's half-term week this week, with a Bank Holiday on Monday.

We also take some packed lunches for ourselves, to give Sarah even more time on her own back at the house, which is nice!

we finish the morning with 4 packed lunches

on one of the playground picnic tables

- don't you just love eating in the open air?!!! [No! - Ed]

15:30 Francis comes home with a load of camping equipment he has bought - the plan from now on is for the family to camp during the working week, which will be a lot cheaper than renting an Airbnb, especially as the holiday season is getting nearer and the weather getting warmer.

They will be able to camp nearer to the Evesham accountancy firm that is Sarah's place of work, although the downside for Sarah is that she will have to "look all business-y" when she arrives at work, having spent the previous night in a tent with limited facilities beyond the thoroughly primitive. Not easy, to put it mildly!!!!

some of the camping gear that Francis has bought today

This topsy-turvy life won't be for ever, luckily. Sarah and Francis have contracted to rent a house in the vicinity, but there's a little bit of a wait while the property is vacated. In the longer term they're negotiating to buy a house, also in the vicinity of Sarah's workplace.

And the camping gear should enable the family to have cheaper holidays for years to come, hopefully.

16:00 Lois and I set the twins to do some word-searches, and then we relax on the patio with a cup of tea. In the background you can see the double airbed that Francis has bought for him and Sarah. What a madness it all is !!!

Lois and I sit and enjoy our teas on the patio, amid a forest of irises, plus

the blue air-mattress that Francis has bought for him and Sarah

- what a madness it all is !!!!!!

18:00 Time for salmon, new potatoes and veg on the patio. Luckily Lois and I bought a patio table a week or so back, so we don't have to disturb Sarah's papers and PC on the real dining-table indoors. What total madness !!!!!

dinner on the patio table outside, so as not to disturb

Sarah's work-station on the real kitchen table indoors

- what madness!!!!

When Sarah goes in to do more work, Lois and I get the chance for another good chat with the twins. They're becoming good conversationalists, and expert at telling stories about amusing incidents. I'm impressed to see that Jessie remembers all her birthday parties out in Australia from age 3 onwards, mostly themed or staged at special venues, such as swimming pools etc.

They don't really remember anything of the first 2 and a half years of their life in England, which isn't surprising. However, I'm able to show them a couple of pictures of their 2nd birthday party in Evesham, where Sarah and Francis hired a Bouncy Castle for them in their back garden.

Flashback to July 2015, the twins' last birthday party in England, which was also a party for their cousin Isaac, our daughter Alison's youngest child, who had been born on the same day 3 years before the twins.

Sarah and Francis with Jessica, who's looking with interest

at the 3 birthday cakes: 2 for the twins and a football-themed cake for Isaac

our daughters Alison and Sarah - with Lily

emerging from a little play-tent in the background

Lois and Sarah keeping an eye on the twins

inside the Bouncy Castle

more fun for the twins in the Bouncy Castle

Happy days !!!!!!

20:00 Sarah is still doing her weekend-working on the kitchen table, and Francis has been watching his beloved football team, Leeds United, crash out of the Premier League with a disappointing performance losing 4-1 to pretty much all of our other relatives favourite team, Tottenham Hotspur, i.e. "Spurs".

Poor Leeds !!!!!!

Meanwhile Lois and I keep the twins amused with a game of Uno in the living-room.

21:00 Sarah has finished her work and it's time to put the twins to bed, so Lois and I relax on the sofa, watching a look back at some highlights from the life and career of the late, lamented, Australian comedian Barry Humphries, a.k.a. Melbourne housewife and superstar Dame Edna Everage, and the Australian "cultural attaché in London", the foul-mouthed Sir Les Patterson.

Entertaining stuff, although the programme, of necessity, tries to include as many clips from shows and personal interviews as they can cram into 60 minutes - this is okay, but it means, I think, that we don't get the full force of Barry's humour. You really need to stay with a sketch for a few minutes at least, Lois and I think, to really appreciate Barry's stuff - a bunch of mostly one-liners from this sketch or that interview doesn't really cut it in our view: call us purists if you like! An eight-hour look-back would have been more satisfying, if you ask us, but there probably wasn't room in the schedules for that - but what a tragedy haha!

But it's also immensely touching to hear Dame Edna talking frankly to BBC presenter Terry Wogan about her beloved husband Norm's sad death in 1988.

A truly touching interview - no doubt about that - my goodness!

But who knew that Barry himself, in real life, suffered a near-death experience in Cornwall, soon after he moved to England in 1959 ? Lois and I certainly didn't know.

It was February, and there was snow on the ground. He went for a walk on the Cornish cliff-tops in some Wellington boots, and had to cross a stream which was frozen. He put one of his rubber heels on an icy stone, slipped and sat down in the stream, but the stream's icy flow then carried him over the cliffs. He found himself on a rocky ledge, unable to move, with a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder, feeling stunned. He was thinking that this was how it was going to end - that this was where he was going to die.

Then, miraculously he heard the sound of a helicopter coming to winch him to safety.

Years later, he revisited those Cornish cliffs and recounted the incident to BBC Cornish cooking-show presenter Rick Stein. And Rick is able to show him actual local news footage of the rescue.