It's a "simples" job to describe what we've been doing today.
Lois and I have got to transform our little house-for-two somehow temporarily into a house-for-five, because our daughter Sarah is coming this evening to stay for the two nights of Friday and Saturday with us again, bringing with her our 10-year-old twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica. This is a transformation we're becoming more used to, so that's a bit of a help!
flashback to last month: the last time that Sarah and
the twins spent most of the weekend with us:
(left to right) Sarah, Lily, Jessica and Lois
First, this morning, Lois and I have to pop along to the local OneStop convenience store, because there are certain things the twins can't get enough of, starting with Cheerios breakfast cereal. It's utter madness to see them piling up their bowls - but heartening at the same time: they don't seem to put any weight on, unlike the way we would if we did the same. Poor us !!!!!
the local OneStop convenience store
And somehow during the weekend I've also got to be doing some more research and analysis for the so-called "presentation" on Shakespearean English that I'm supposed to be giving next month to Lynda's local U3A "Making of English" group. At the moment all my books, papers and source documents are strewn over our guest double bed, making "uneasy bedfellows" with the twins' impressive array of soft toys - it's total madness !!!
16:00 We stop work and relax for a moment on the sofa and look at the puzzles in next week's Radio Times.
There's a bit of a triumph on the Pointless quiz. We get all the answers right, including no.5 - Oliver Sacks. However nobody among the 100 people quizzed by the BBC came up with that name, which is a bit of a boost for our morale, to put it mildly.
so-called Bedroom 3, where on the large double bed
the research books and documents for my presentation on
Shakespearean English are making "uneasy bedfellows"
with the twins' impressive array of soft toys - what a madness it is !!!!
stuff from Bedrooms 2 and 3 begins to arrive in our bedroom
and has to be dumped on the floor between our bed and our wardrobes,
and they can be a bit of a trip hazard at night, if there's total darkness - yikes !!!
..and our usual, intimate table-for-two in the kitchen-diner
has to be reimagined as a table for 5 - it's all a different mindset suddenly!
We score a miserable 3 out of 10 on Popmaster - we're starting to think seriously about whether we ought to stop doing this quiz. A lot of times we can visualise the artist or the song, but can't think of the names. Oh dear, I think we're getting too old for this one, no mistake about that!
And a score of 9 out of 10 on the intellectually more prestigious "Eggheads" questions is another fillip for us.
1. A "librocubicularist" is somebody who likes reading in bed.
a typical "librocubicularist", indulging in her favourite hobby
2. A "ballycumber" is somebody who reads multiple books in one go.
3. A "biblioklept" is somebody who borrows books but never returns them.
4. A "tsundoku" (from Japanese) is somebody who has accumulated a large number of books which he/she hasn't read.
5. And "abibliophobia" is the fear of being "bookless".
To add to that is a new word sent to me today by Steve, our American brother-in-law:
6. "Autoethnography" is a form of research in which the researcher's own reflections upon life, often written in autobiographical form, are passed off as authoritative analyses of broader society.
What a crazy language we speak !!!!!!
19:00 Sarah arrives with the twins in her new car, an electric MG, which she leases from work as part of some tax-saving sort of deal that I don't understand - I'm a bear of very little brain in many ways!
[I think some of us came to that conclusion several years ago" - Ed]
Our daughter Sarah arrives with the twins, and a bunch of their soft toys,
in the white electric MG (right) that she leases from work
and Barbie car that Lois and I bought them for their 10th birthday
more laughter - my goodness how we all laughed !!!!
Oops! What a crazy country we live in !!!!
22:30 The adults go to bed, and the house falls quiet apart from the snoring - zzzzzzzzz!!!!! Lovely day.
The twins' Australian accents have almost completely disappeared now, at least to my ears, so I'm sure they will "blend in" effortlessly when the autumn school term starts at the small village school they'll be attending.
As you probably know, a lot of composers have been inspired to write something by Paganini's well-worn theme, and in the pre-concert discussion session tonight, the colourfully dressed multi-instrumentalist and radio presenter Hannah Catherine Jones tells BBC presenter Georgia Mann that all these "rhapsodies" and variations" were classical music's version of the way pop artists "sample" older hits as part of new songs, which is an interesting idea. [If you say so! - Ed]
Fascinating! And eventually we see Yuja Wang emerge onto the stage in one of her skimpy outfits. My goodness !!!!
The twins go to bed quite late, compared to what Lois and I did when were 10 - back in 1956: yikes !!!! And the whole process takes about an hour. Lois and Sarah put them to bed eventually, and it's "lights out" at 10pm, which seems a bit late to us, but what do we know haha!!!!
Before "lights out", Lois always likes to read them a chapter of whatever is their current bedtime book whenever they stay with us - at the moment the book is a Jennings boarding school story from the 1950's.
"Jennings Goes To School" by Anthony Buckeridge
- the twins' current bedtime reading
The girls are both voracious readers, and particularly Jessica, a fact which also gladdens the hearts of Lois and me. Reading is a good education in itself, isn't it.
While they're all upstairs, I get the chance to see a quick bit of culture on TV: the BBC Proms broadcast, Chinese pianist Yuja Wang playing Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
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