More excitement for Lois and me today as we see our daughter Alison and family enjoying the splendours of Barcelona in "sub-scorchio" heat - still hot, though, at mid-eighties Fahrenheit or 30-ish Celsius.
Phew! Luckily it's still "dampio" and "cloudio" here in Headley, Hampshire, where we're house-sitting and pet-sitting for the family, so that's nice!
And here's a reminder of the train route that our daughter Alison, plus Ed and their 3 teenage children took on Saturday/Sunday from London to Barcelona, with a one-night stopover in Paris:
And here's the local weather forecast in Spain for today:
[That's enough Spanish Channel 9 weather forecasts! - Ed]Later, Alison sends us pictures of the family's exploration of Barcelona's magnificent Sagrada Familia, described as the largest "unfinished" Catholic church in the world.
At the time of his death in 1926, the building's architect, Antoni Gaudi, had completed less than a quarter of the planned project - my goodness: that man's mind! Gaudi's family continued to sponsor the project, but a tentative target date for completion - the year 2026 - has again been put back due to the COVID pandemic. Ten more spires are planned, among other "improvements". What madness, but what ambition also !!!!
Alison taking a picture of some of the building's ceiling features
Ed in the foreground
Ed (right) listening to the sightseeing info
(left to right) Alison, Rosalind, Isaac and Ed
Isaac with his enormous shoes
Alison says that the family were finding it unbearably hot outside, but at least it was cool inside the building, so that's a relief.
11:00 For us, by contrast, it's pleasantly mild and chilly, and definitely "light coat" weather, as we take the family's Danish dog Sika for a tour of the house's extensive 6.5 acre grounds.
It doesn't really look like ice-cream and shorts weather, now, does it! Go on, admit it!
14:00 As we go upstairs to bed for our nap, an email comes in from Steve, our American brother-in-law, attaching another of the amusing Venn diagrams that he monitors for us on the web on a weekly basis.
Yes - the Barbie movie promo is a bit overwhelming, isn't it: how are YOU coping (answers on a postcard!) ?!!!!
Even Lois and I have been affected by it, and a couple of weeks ago we bought a second-hand Barbie Dream House: we can't play with it yet, because it's stuffed behind the sofa in our house in Malvern, but I'm sure it'll give us a lot of pleasure before we reluctantly hand it over to our twin grandchildren Lily and Jessica when their 10th birthday comes!
flashback to July 18th: we drive to Alderton to pick up a second-hand,
pre-loved Barbie Dream House, but we need the help of a couple of
NHBC-trained builders to part-disassemble it to fit in our car-boot
the Barbie dream-house sitting snugly behind our sofa in Malvern
- awwwwwwww, I want to play with it now !!!!!
Has the Barbie-bubble already begun to burst, though? Well maybe it has, according to this story yesterday from Onion News:
LOS ANGELES—Drawing disappointing box office returns after
months of excitement and viral marketing, the new Barbie movie reportedly tanked Monday after the nation found
an empty cardboard box to play in instead.
“This is more fun because it can be anything,” said giggling
local man Colton King, 34, speaking on behalf of all 335 million Americans
whose evident interest in the empty 36-by-24-inch LG air conditioner box had
resulted in the blockbuster taking in a mere $125,000 nationwide.
“We made it into a spaceship and then a restaurant that
serves spaghetti and bugs! Then we’ll probably cut out the side and make it a
screen to act out our own Barbie show so our parents can watch us. We even
drew a volume knob on the outside and made a hanger antenna on the top.”
At press time, Warner Bros. had reportedly paid more than
$100 million to acquire and recycle the empty box.
Fascinating stuff !!!!
20:00 We decide after much soul-searching to switch on the TV and watch the rest of the film "Crazy Rich Asians" that we started watching last night. We have some misgivings, because we tend to get the characters muddled up, as they're all dark-haired for some reason, plus we don't hear most of the dialogue because the cast tend to mumble their lines, and we can't get subtitles on the bottom of the screen, because our daughter's family have installed Apple TV, which is annoying.
Not that we're getting old or anything haha!
Singapore's most eligible bachelor, Nick Young, travels back from New York bringing his girlfriend Rachel, to attend his best friend Colin's wedding, and also let his family meet, and get to know, Rachel.
Isn't it nice to hear of young people called "Colin", which you sometimes do now these days. Colin is becoming a popular name again in the States, where it's one of the fashionable new names to give baby boys in Pennsylvania for example, according to information supplied to me by Steve.
Singaporeans, particularly the rich ones, are very British in their speech and attitudes - many of them are educated at private boarding schools in the UK and go to universities like Cambridge. Could it be that rich Singaporeans will make the name "Colin" popular again in the UK? It's maybe a long shot, but we can only hope!
In this scene, Nick is seen flying by helicopter over the ocean to where his best friend Colin is holding his stag party / bachelor party weekend.
Yes, the guests to the stag party are all flying in by helicopter, and the ship where the party is to be held carries the giant welcome sign "Ballin' Colin's Bachelor Party", which I like.
Should "Ballin' Colin" be the new name for my blog perhaps?
I wonder.....!
Disappointingly, the film has the standard modern romcom happy ending, where Rachel decides that Nick's family don't like her, and she gets on a plane to fly back to New York. Then at the last minute Nick arrives at the airport, and gets on the plane in the nick of time (no pun intended), as passengers are just stashing away their hand-luggage in the overhead compartments.
He then makes it up with Rachel, to the applause and cheers of the other passengers, gives her a big kiss, offers her a wedding-ring, and says he's going to leave his family in Singapore and make his career in New York, where Rachel is an economics professor.
See? Simples isn't it really!
Awwww !!!! Yes, awwwww, but how many more modern romcom happy endings like this are audiences prepared to put up with, without protesting? I think we should be told, and quickly, before the next one comes out!
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Will this do? [Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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