09:00 Before we get out of bed, Lois and I find ourselves discussing a Danish short-story, you know, the one with the title "Seagull Island". We run the local U3A Intermediate Danish group, and this is the current story that the group is reading.
"Seagull Island", Denmark
The above may not sound very interesting to you, but how's the following as a talking-point, to get you excited, even at this time of the morning: Lois and I can't decide on an important issue - is the 15-year-old narrator a boy or a girl ?
The narrator, who's working a summer job at an ice-cream stall, is tempted every day to kiss the sun-tanned girl called Anita, who's also serving at the stall. And now they've finally started doing it.
a typical Danish ice-cream stall or "is-bod" (ice-booth)
So you'd think that the narrator is probably a boy, right? On the other hand, the narrator's older brother, who's gay, tells the narrator that the narrator and he are "like two peas in a pod". So maybe the narrator is a girl after all, one with leanings toward gayness.
[I don't see that as a fascinating talking-point! - Ed]
Well, then, here's the clincher perhaps - the narrator says, "Now for the first time [ie after the kissing started], I knew immediately that I had always been like that... and I felt it as both a wonderful, an as an unbearable, radiation from the innermost inn'ards of my bones". Doesn't this imply that the narrator is a gay woman who suddenly realises that she's always been gay?
[Sorry, Colin, it's just not that interesting a point! - Ed]
That's what we think anyway! Anyway I expect you'll all be reading the story now after the above "taster", so we look forward to hearing your views - on a postcard of course! And no doctoral theses as well, as per usual, thanks very much haha!
10:00 Anyway we can't stay in bed forever. We stumble awkwardly on to our feet, remembering suddenly that our quiet existence this week, when we're just consorting with each other, is nearing its end, and that our daughter Sarah, together with husband Francis and their 9-year-old twin daughters, will be coming back to us again on Friday to spend another weekend in our tiny home.
flashback to April 29th: Lois and I track Sarah and family's progress
from Australia to Dubai, and Dubai to London Heathrow
Newly arrived back from Australia after an absence of 7 years, the family are waiting to buy a house in the UK. At the moment they're staying at a local Airbnb during the week, but when the weekend comes around they end up staying here with Lois and me - for 3 nights, every Friday through Sunday. The Airbnb is booked up every weekend, and that's why they come to us, despite all 6 of us thus having to lead a very cramped existence together here, given the smallness of our new house.
Yikes!
for now it's just Lois and me, and we can afford to take things easy,
but in a couple of days' time our daughter and her family will be arriving back again - yikes!
It's time to start preparing for them, and Lois sensibly begins with a meal plan, as usual, and on the basis of that, we put in an order with the local Morrisons supermarket for a delivery tomorrow morning (Thursday).
The Morrisons groceries will be coming mid-morning tomorrow (Thursday), and I've also ordered, from Argos, a 50 ft garden hose plus attachments. We've moved to this little house in Malvern as a downsizing operation from our previous house in Cheltenham. And we've realized that our existing garden hose, which is at least 200 ft long, is just too cumbersome for our new garden. Makes sense to us anyway, plus we can pass the old hose on to Sarah and Francis.
Also, in preparation for Sarah and family coming, we've been doing a lot of cleaning and dusting today. Tomorrow morning I'll be vacuuming throughout, which will leave us clear to have a shower and a nap in bed tomorrow afternoon, so we don't have to use the shower while Sarah and co are here.
It all takes careful planning you see. And yes, yet again, it makes a weird kind of sense to us, if to nobody else!
19:00 After dinner we've got an hour before Lois's church starts its weekly Bible Class on zoom, so we decide to watch the first half of this week's film of the week, all about Colette (1873-1954), the French writer.
We think that Colette's husband, "Willy", has a real cheek claiming to be a major writer, when all his so-called writings, including his talked-about newspaper articles and reviews, are all written by his staffers, or, in the case of his novels, by his wife Colette. We imagine that at some point Willy was "exposed" as a fraud, however, probably in the second half of this film - let's hope so anyway.
What a bastard!!!!
It's interesting to see how Colette can't stop herself from writing novels, however, once she starts. Even when she's furious with her husband for coercing her into doing it, the ideas just keep coming, flooding into her brain and she's just got to write them all down and turn them into another novel. And I guess this is the real sign of a born writer.
Also in this first half we see her growing sexual interest in women, culminating in an affair that she starts with Georgie Raoul-Duval, a Louisiana debutante.
When Colette visits Georgie's flat, Georgie comments on the schoolgirls in Colette's first novel, who go for midnight swims. Georgie said she always wanted to do that as a girl growing up in Louisiana, but she was told that "all the lakes have alligators", so she passed on that one, although she's always regretted it since, as a missed opportunity - and fair enough!
However, Lois and I can't agree at this point. Georgia's comment "
You have the most beautiful teeth. Like an alligator." - is that strictly a compliment? Whether it's a compliment or not, it doesn't stop Georgia going for the kiss anyway, so Colette's "alligator teeth" obviously aren't too much of a deterrent. Something to think about perhaps?
[I don't think I'll bother, if you don't mind! - Ed]
included for comparison purposes: a typical alligator's set of teeth
21:15 After Lois's zoom session ends, we decide to go to bed on the first half of a programme based on some of the favourite sketches of the late, great, and much-missed comedienne, playwright and song-writer Victoria Wood.
And it's so nostalgic tonight to see so many of Victoria's most memorable sketches, especially those starring Victoria with her long-term collaborator, actress Julie Walters.
Tremendous fun !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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