Wednesday August 30th 2023

06:00 I try, and fail again, to get on with preparing my so-called "presentation on Elizabethan English" which I'm scheduled to give to Lynda's local U3A "Making of English" group in October. The problem is getting a big enough slice of time to really get into the subject, which demands a lot of concentration. Ten minutes here and ten minutes there between everyday chores just doesn't "cut it". Oh dear!

a typical example of Elizabethan English

Lois has the same problem with one of her big duties: booking visiting preachers to speak at her church's Sunday morning meetings, and the biggest issue of all: keeping track of which preachers she's asked and whether it's a yes or a no or no reply, and, hardest of all, getting the preachers she's invited to JUST RESPOND! Why don't they just say YES OR NO - it isn't exactly rocket science is it haha!

a typical young-and-vague young preacher, in a world of his own, 

looking at his phone, probably the notoriously vague 

and uncommunicative Brother Taylor or somebody similar!

I manage to get a little look at my Elizabethan English websites this morning, but time is short, and I don't get very far, because I have to spend a bit of time working out where I am with my research. Oh dear! 

I just get the time to notice, from my sources, that people were quite cheerfully ending sentences with prepositions, as they had done for hundreds of years, until the poet John Dryden decided it wasn't good English, for some reason, and a lot of gullible people went along with that, just because Dryden was a good poet.

Dryden's damning criticism of Elizabethan playwright, Ben Jonson

What a crazy world they lived in, in those far-off days!

Winston Churchill was having none of it, and the controversy famously gave rise to one of his most memorable quotes and put-downs:

It was all madness, as Churchill could see !!!!!

08:40 I have to break off my important research" to drive Lois into Barnard's Green to the "Divine" Hair Salon, because Lois has an appointment with Rachel, her hairdresser and stylist, at 9 am, and I sit with Lois in the waiting-area till Rachel calls her. 

Don't you just love to sit on one of the comfy sofas in the waiting area of a hair salon? I always think that it's the nearest thing today to entering a harem in the days of the Sheikh of Araby. 

Well it is, isn't it! You get to smell all the perfumes and the oils, to listen to the seductive background music under the soft, subdued lighting, and to see the self-satisfied single-minded determination and excitement on the faces of the the women as they come into the salon for their much-anticipated 30 minutes or 60 minutes of  pampering. There are the male stylists around too, admittedly, but then, there were men in the harems too, weren't there - you know, the eunuchs etc and the occasional sheik perhaps.

[I really think it's time you sought professional help for this addiction, Colin ! - Ed]

we park outside the Divine Hair Salon and wait for them to open up at 9 am

I sit on the comfy sofas in the waiting area, while Rachel cuts Lois's hair

All finished, and Rachel helps Lois on with her coat

Lois steps out into the sunshine outside the Divine Hair Salon 

and showcases her new shorter hair, for me and the general public - nice!

09:30 But oh what a contrast comes next - my goodness yes!

Within minutes of leaving the pampered perfumed atmosphere of the Divine Hair Salon, we're scrambling through the blackberry bushes on the common, because we want some blackberries for tonight's much-anticipated blackberry-and-apple crumble. 

We only pick about 3 pounds - obviously the locals have been stripping a lot of the biggest ones off the bushes over the long weekend, which is a pity, but nevertheless we come away satisfied with our efforts. Three pounds is more than enough for a "humble crumble", isn't it.

We scramble around in the bushes on the common, 

picking as many blackberries as the locals have left for us

It's great to be out on the common in the sunshine and to feel that we're really getting back to nature, however, and the sun is really warm this morning. By the time we've finished, it's getting towards lunchtime and our afternoon nap is beckoning. 

we come home with only about 3 lbs of blackberries, but it'll be enough

to guarantee a lovely blackberry-and-apple crumble tonight - yum yum!

A lovely morning, but this is what I mean about the time going nowhere, sometimes whole days going by and just vanishing without trace. So what, though, eh!

13:00 We had a nice time on the common in the sun this morning, but what would have been even nicer would have been to have a couple of folding chairs so we could sit and soak up the sun just for 10 minutes or so - there aren't any seats in the part of the common with the blackberry bushes, and the grass was wet from yesterday's rain. 

After lunch we decide to impulse-buy a couple of folding chairs online from Argos, a clearance item much reduced in price and advertised in one of my emails today. And they arrive about 4:30 pm - Argos do same-day delivery and don't charge any extra, which is nice. 

However, unfortunately, the delivery driver can't find our house, so I have to give him directions over the phone. Then I have to stand on our doorstep and wave frantically to him when his van appears from around the corner. 

What a madness it all is !!!!

Persimmon, the builders, have produced this plan for the estate,

which will have two main entrances: the left-hand one is open, 

but the right-hand one  is still barricaded off, and inaccessible 

at the moment, but nobody seems to have told Google Maps etc. 

What madness !!!!

That's one of the big drawbacks to buying a new-build home - it takes a while before satnavs, Google Maps etc have the new streets correctly on their satnavs. The problem at the moment is that these devices are all ahead of the builders. Our road is planned to continue on right down the hill to the edge of the estate, but the builders haven't "enabled" this yet. 

So, delivery drivers coming from an easterly direction will tend to arrive at what will be one of the two entrances to the estate to find that it's all closed off, with huge barriers blocking access.

Still, the driver finds us in the end, thanks to my "Colin Maps" [patent pending] verbal instructions over the phone, and my frantic waving on the front doorstep, which is a relief.

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Who's that poor little old man on the folding chair?

Yes,it's me, just 'trying it out' in the living-room!!!

Poor me haha !!!!!

18:00 Before dinner we watch an old episode of the 1970's sitcom "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em", starring Michael Crawford as the young, inept, childlike, accident-prone husband Frank Spencer and Michele Dotrice as his long-suffering but equally childlike young wife Betty.

It's quite nostalgic for Lois and me to be suddenly transported back to the 1970's. Do you remember how, after decimalisation of the coinage, people used to go around talking about "new pence" - 100 to the £ - to distinguish them from the old pennies - 240 to the £, the system we'd been using since Roman times. Can you remember? 

In this scene, Frank visits a Fruit and Veg shop to buy some apples to take to his wife Betty, who's in hospital.

Oh dear, sounds like it's "chaos as usual" at the Spencers' house again. My goodness !!!!

Chaos is Frank's calling-card, though, isn't it. For some complicated reason that I don't understand, after Frank visits Betty in hospital, he finds himself helping Betty and 3 other women to "escape" from the ward, all sitting on, or clinging to, one of the hospital trolleys or "gurneys", which Frank is pushing.

Well, that was a real allegory of life in the 1970's wasn't it!!!  A crazy old time, no doubt about that!!!!!

And it's nostalgic, also, to see Frank walking past an old Radio Rentals van, parked outside the fruit-and-veg shop. Radio Rentals was the firm I used to work for in holiday times when I was still at school - the company doesn't exist any more, although when Lois and I visited our daughter Sarah in Australia we saw that it was still going there, which was nice to see, and we saw that Woolworths was still going down there too.

Happy times !!!!

Although I found out later that the Australian Radio Rentals chain closed in 2020 - sob sob ! Woolworths is still flourishing there however, and it's one of their major supermarkets. 

flashback to March 2018: Lois (in white hat) being served at the

Woolworths checkout, Currambine, Western Australia

20:00 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom. 

When she emerges, we decide to go to bed on the latest episode in the repeat run of the 1990's sitcom "The Upper Hand", the UK version of the US sitcom "Who's the Boss?".

You must remember this episode - you know the one where Caroline's old college friend Trish turns up for the weekend to go with her to the big college reunion event on Saturday night. And we see there's the beloved sitcom theme of the two women each trying to prove that they've been more successful in their careers, since leaving college, than the other one has.

You know the kind of thing I mean! Caroline is creative head at a major ad agency, but she's trumped by Trish, who's a CEO of one.

Poor Caroline !!!!!!

In this scene Trish is introduced to Caroline's young son, Tom.

Tremendous fun !!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!

Tuesday August 29th 2023

Another day for me to try and begin to sort out the chaos that's looming over Lois and me for the month of September - yikes!!!!

First off, I book our old-codger flu jabs and manage, using Lois's phone in my left hand and mine in my right hand to get us there at exactly the same time, because it's obviously nicer when we synchronise - 10:49 am at our local doctor's surgery. Good!

The surgery say that they're planning to lay on another COVID booster for later in the year, but it hasn't been confirmed yet. It's only for those who are "eligible" but Lois and I think that will include us, so that's nice!

flashback to April 2023: we stand in the queue behind a bunch

of other old codgers for our last COVID booster jab

Next up, I book two nights in a hotel for us so that we can attend the get-together in Beaconsfield, Bucks, of some of my cousins - there are around 30 of us in all, although every time I try to count them mentally  I get a different result: oh dear, and I've got a maths degree, which is a pity !!!!

flashback to 2007: a previous cousins get-together for cousins,

plus spouses/ partners and children

I go on booking.com, as usual and the first hotel on the website's list looks really weird, but then it IS called "The Crazy Bear", so I suppose that's what you expect - what a madness it is !!!!

I don't think so, somehow. Call us unadventurous if you like, but I think our days of booking rooms like that are over and done with haha !!!!

09:30 A text comes in from our daughter Sarah, who's on holiday camping in the Lake District this week with husband Francis and their 10-year-old twins, Lily and Jessica. They've pitched their tent by the shores of Lake Coniston, where they got married in 2010.

That last picture also shows Brantwood House on the opposite shore of Lake Coniston, where Sarah and Francis got married in June 2010. It's the former home of Victorian artist John Ruskin.

flashback to June 2010: Sarah and Francis's wedding at Brantwood House 

on Lake Coniston, the former home of Victorian artist John Ruskin

Let's hope the weather isn't too bad for them all this week - the Lake District is in the county of Cumbria, which has a bit of a reputation for rain, to put it mildly.

This is the last week before the twins start their first English school, a local Church of England primary school - in May this year the family returned to England after 7 years in Australia. And it's their first school of any kind for 2 years or so: Sarah and Francis weren't happy with their Australian school and decided to home-school them, which might have been good for them academically, but will inevitably have held back their social development. 

some typical students at the local Church of England primary school,

where the twins will be starting their first ever English school since moving 

back from Western Australia in May this year

So we'll see how they get on. The twins are certainly looking forward to being at a school again, and the great thing is that they've always got each other, so going to a new school isn't such a big thing as it would be for a child on their own. 

I envy them because I know what it's like to start at a new school. My siblings and I changed schools an awful lot when we were growing up because of my father moving from job to job across the country. At age 11, entering secondary school, I was already starting at my 6th new school, and in my teenage years I had another 2 to start at eventually, after that one - what a madness it all was!!!!

flashback to 1958: me, back row second from left, aged 11, 

just after starting my 7th new school - what a madness it all was !!!!

20:00 We wind down with a documentary about artist David Hockney on the Sky Arts channel. A few days ago I took the plunge and paid for a 6-month subscription to Now TV, which means that for the first time we can watch several new channels, and also watch on catch-up some of the channels we were only able to see live before, like Sky Arts. So we'll see - so far, it's looking good.

We're neither of us great fans of a lot of modern artists, but with Hockney you can definitely see what it is that he's painting - no doubt about that! And they're generally quite happy paintings, with lots of sunshine and a feeling of space in the scenes he depicts, so they add those feelings to any wall they hang on. And David himself is a very pleasant man, not pretentious and with a sense of humour, which is something you don't always get with artists do you.

Yes, joy, sunshine and plenty of space - Lois and I like those things too, that's for sure. His sister once told him that "Space is God" and we know what she means. And "Painting landscapes should be a joy", he tells us in tonight's programme. 

And it's nice to see David's sense of humour coming out in these interviews. 

An inveterate smoker, David has always resented all the campaigns against smoking which he regards as officious, overbearing and dictatorial. During one interview tonight he is seen sporting a badge he designed himself, "End Bossiness Soon". He says he rejected the slogan "End Bossiness Now", because it would perhaps sound a bit too bossy, and you can see what he means.

Hockney, proudly wearing his "End Bossiness Soon" badge

But tremendous fun !!!!

Plus, it's always interesting to see what artists' parents were like, isn't it. David's father's business was reconstructing baby's prams, which Lois and I never knew was "a thing", although the father too had wanted to be an artist, and liked drawing posters in his spare time.  

David grew up in Bradford, Yorkshire - and it's funny to think that when my parents were living there for a couple of years 1952-4, that David was somewhere else in the city, although several years older than me and my little sister Kathy and little baby brother Steve. David left school aged 16 and was a student at the Bradford Art School between 1953 and 1957.

1953: (left to right) me (7 years), my little brother Steve (1)

and my little sister Kathy (5), by the greenhouses in Bradford Moor Park.

Happy days !!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!