Danskcolin: Saturday July 15th 2023

08:00 Saturday dawns here in Malvern - and Lois and I are basically exhausted now. We're just hanging on by the skin of our teeth, really.

We decide to stay in bed a bit longer. Well we have been retired for 17 years, so why not!

I glance at my smartphone, and I get some relief from the story about local woman Jean Beech who lives in Lower Hook, which is only a few miles away from here - you must have heard about this. Everybody's talking about nothing else just at the moment, and seeing the story on national media gives me a chuckle all over again - the young generation eh?!!!

And the story has now "gone totally viral" after it was picked up by the influential American news website Onion News.

LOWER HOOK —After she had looked around for a few minutes with no success, local woman Jean Beech reportedly came to the conclusion Friday that she had forgotten her boyfriend in an Uber the night before and that it would probably be easier to just get a new one.

“If I had realized it right away, maybe I could have called, but at this point it definitely makes more sense to find a new one online, or maybe pick one up on my way home from work,” said the 26-year-old, adding that it would actually be refreshing to go a whole day without having to look at her partner of five years.

“I do feel silly, because the driver asked me to check the backseat to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind. I suppose by now another passenger has probably taken him home, but whatever. I’ve been looking for an excuse to get a new one, anyway—that one was pretty slow and barely worked anymore. And you know, if I absolutely needed to, I could probably even get by for a while with the one I had back in college. I’m sure that one’s still around somewhere.”

At press time, sources confirmed Beech was super annoyed after dropping her brand-new boyfriend in the toilet.

Yes, poor Jean!!! But don't forget Poor Us too !!!!

Lois and I, we're exhausted, no doubt about that!

Lois and me - totally exhausted now: oh dear!

We loved it all - everything we've done over the past week, but now we feel totally burnt out. Within the space of 5 days, we've just done two 120-mile drives to/from our daughter Alison's house in Headley, Hampshire, and attended a concert in Guildford and a performance of Peter Pan the Musical just outside Petersfield, not to mention trip here and there with our grandchildren.

We've just got to keep going, though. Our other daughter, Sarah and her 9-year-old twins, Lily and Jessica, arrived early evening yesterday from Alcester and are staying 2 nights.

flashback to last night: our twin grandchildren Lily and Jessica

arrive with their shiny-new scooters and helmets - awwww!!!!

Compare all this to our usual life when it's just us - doing a bit of shopping in the mornings, spending the afternoons in bed and spending the evenings on the sofa in front of the TV.

So far, it's been me that's borne the brunt of the extra hustle and bustle - doing all the driving last week. However it'll be Lois bearing the brunt of the weekend, improvising meals for 5, instead of the usual meals-for-two.

And Sarah's pretty tired herself, having just finished another punishing week at her accountancy job in Evesham, the job she returned to in May after 7 years with husband Francis and the twins in Australia.

Yikes - everybody's tired !!!! Help !!!!!!!

11:00 Well, first and foremost, we want to give the twins something interesting to do this morning, so Lois suggests that she and Sarah take the twins to the nearby Clive's Fruit Farm to pick strawberries and raspberries. The farm is currently advertising "PYO" experiences (Pick Your Own), and the twins agree that it'll be fun.

Lois says understandably that she feels too tired to do the driving - she doesn't like driving anyway. So Sarah gamely agrees to take them all in her little electric Mini-Cooper.

And all four of them have the most tremendous fun, which is nice! And they bring back lots of juicy strawberries and raspberries - yum yum! And meanwhile I get a chance to recharge my batteries by staying at home in the quiet and catching up with my computer work, so everybody wins in a way haha!

(left to right) Sarah, Jessica and Lily

Lily

Jessica

You've got to hand it to Charlie Clive, the owner of Clive's Fruit Farm. He's come through the most awful wet winter, with extensive flooding back in January. His place is only half a mile or so from the mighty River Severn, which burst its banks yet again over the winter.

This is how the influential county newspaper Worcester News reported it at the time:

Poor Charlie !!!!!

13:00 Lois, Sarah and the twins come home and we have lunch.

14:00 In the afternoon, though, the collective tiredness begins to show through again. Lois and I go to bed as usual, but so also does Sarah, and even young Lily, who's got a bit of a cold. Only Jessica stays downstairs reading her current book, bless her. Awwwww!!!!!

21:00 Somehow we all get through the day. Sarah puts the twins to bed, and Lois and I wind down on the sofa by watching an old programme in the comedy series "The Fast Show", starring Paul Whitehouse.

Paul Whitehouse and his troupe rarely get the credit for their wonderfully moving early 19th century dramas. Why is this, I wonder? I think perhaps we should be told.

And we see another cracking episode of their latest costume drama tonight, no question about that - they certainly give Jane Austen a run for her money!