It's June 4th, the day before the big day - my wife of 50 years and 10 months, Lois, will be celebrating her 77th birthday tomorrow - if she's got the strength! And it'll also be the 13th wedding anniversary of our daughter Sarah and her husband Francis, who, with their 9-year-old twins, are spending up to half of every week with us while they wait to get their own house. What a madness it all is!!!!
For the time being, Sarah and family are here, squashed into our too-small-for-six house, for pretty much every weekend from Friday evening on, plus any bank holiday Mondays.
This is joyous but at the same time is proving quite a burden, especially for Lois, and a burden we weren't expecting, or were really prepared for. But at the same time they really need us to be there for them, so what parent would not want to do what they could?
And look at the ton of burdens poor Sarah has to shoulder: family breadwinner with a complex and stressful job, and the main person responsible for looking after the twins in the evenings and at weekends. It doesn't bear thinking about for us - oh dear!
One of the big downsides for Lois, however, is that for the past 4 weeks or so, since Sarah's family moved back to England from Australia, Lois hasn't been able to participate, either in person or online, in her church's Sunday meetings, which are a huge part of her life, and which give her a lot of the strength she needs to keep her going.
We'll have to do something about that, and find a solution for next Sunday. Today, for instance, Lois couldn't log in to the services online because Sarah is spending most of the day on her computer doing weekend overtime on some of her accountancy work, Francis isn't here, plus Lois can see the twins want to do baking, and they need her help - Lois enjoys helping them, of course, and she's so unbelievably warm-hearted, but even so, it isn't really fair is it!
Be fair !!!!
Sarah starts early on her weekend overtime accountancy work,
while Lois is busy on the patio hanging out some of the family's laundry
11:30 The first job of the day is to set the twins to work on an anniversary cake for their parents. Sarah's original plan had been for them to make some little chocolate Rice Krispies cakes as a present to Lois and me, but Francis rings up and suggests that they bake the anniversary cake for their parents today, so our little Rice Krispies cakes - I forget what they're called - will have to wait till next weekend. Oh dear!
Lois shows the twins how to make a sponge cake, greasing the tins, mixing the ingredients, 6 ounces of this and 3 ounces of that etc.
the twins showcase the two halves of the cake they've baked
13:30 Time for a later-than-usual lunch on the patio, and Sarah takes a break from her accountancy overtime work.
time for a later-than-usual lunch on the patio
16:00 It's four o'clock and the twins are now busy decorating their parents' cake, the kind of thing they love: they're really artistic and there's nothing they like more than creating displays like this.
Jessie (left) and Lily decorating the top of
their parents' anniversary cake: "F & S 2010"
A pause, and we can take some time to celebrate the fact that it's also Lois's 77th birthday tomorrow, when Sarah and the twins won't be with us. As compensation, Lois lights the candles on her own birthday cake and we all have a piece. And Sarah plays the Happy Birthday song on the piano, which is nice. I've been teaching Jessie to play it, but she feels she hasn't practised it enough yet, so she asks her mum to step in and do the honours for Lois.
And Sarah and the twins present Lois with their birthday cards - the twins spent a lot of the morning doing their own home-made cards for her.
Lois's "Disney Princess" 77th birthday cake with the 7 candles lit
Sarah plays the Happy Birthday song on the piano
the birthday cards from the twins and from Sarah - awwwwww!!!!!
Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it, which is nice!
The twins have such beautiful handwriting too. I ask them if they learnt to do that at school when they were in Australia, but they say no - it was Francis that taught them that, which is a nice surprise to learn.
The family all have dual nationality, which may turn out to be useful - who knows!
Lily's two passports
17:30 We pack the car, and the boot is chock-a-block, as expected, so that I can drive everybody to the campsite under Bredon Hill, near Evesham, where the family have their tent set up.
our car-boot filling up fast - what madness !!!!
we drive to the campsite where the family have their tent set up
19:00 Sarah makes us a scratch tea with cheese and pickle sandwiches - yum yum!
We watch the twins dancing about and playing with their hula-hoop. Wouldn't it be nice to have their energy, although at 77 that ambition is probably a bit too optimistic haha!
the twins dancing about and playing with their hula-hoop
- what energy they have !
19:30 We drive home - we're mostly driving due west, so it's useful for me to have my sun-glasses on. It's only when we get back to Malvern that the sun starts to dip slightly below the very tops of the Malvern Hills, although it'll stay light till 10 pm or so, now we're getting close to midsummer.
20:30 Lois and I sink down on the sofa, in a state of exhaustion, and watch tonight's edition of the Antiques Roadshow, the series in which members of the public bring along, to some stately home or other, heirlooms and treasures from their attics, to have them discussed and valued by experts in the field.
An interesting programme, although Lois and I are almost too tired to really enjoy it.
We often say how impossible it is for the ordinary person to have much idea of the value of these kinds of things - it's very rare that we guess correctly, and it's usually the things we don't think much of that turn out to be the most valuable.
What a crazy world we live in!!!!
On tonight's show we see the highest valuation we've ever seen since we began watching the series decades ago - some relics and memorabilia from the shooting of the cult and seminal science-fiction film "Blade Runner" (1982), including Harrison Ford's "chair", memorabilia which, as a collection are, incredibly, valued at somewhere between £200,000 and £300,000. What utter utter utter madness !!!!!
[That's enough utter utter utter madness! - Ed]
the collection's owner is suitably flabbergasted by the valuation
- my goodness !!!!!
And finally we find out why 18th century Georgian beer glasses were so small - it wasn't because people limited their drinking, it was because the beer in those days was so strong: a full pint glass, such as we drink from today, would probably knock you out for the evening. What madness! [Just watch it now! - Ed]
The programme's expert in the field was duly "gobsmacked" when he saw the collection.
an ale glass from 1750 - not nearly big enough to take a pint, and for a good reason!
22:00 Lois and I don't need any 18th century beer to knock us out tonight - we're asleep before you can say Jack Robinson!
Zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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