Oh dear - Lois and I haven't really achieved much today. The weather has been atrocious, rainy and windy. We've managed to keep the pets fed - our main duty at the moment in this house is pet-sitting, while the house owners, our daughter Alison and family, are away sight-seeing with all the crowds in Florence in temperatures in the high 80's F (32C), compared to 66F (19 C) here. Oh dear!
On the plus side for today, Lois and I did take a shower this morning so we're much cleaner than we were overnight, to put it mildly, but that's not much to write home about, is it - my goodness!
[Well, it would be a bit surprising if you were LESS clean, wouldn't it! - Ed]
But on the downside we, at the same time, somehow managed to pull a second shower-caddies off its suction pads - we pulled the first one off last week, which we're not proud of. And they just won't stick back on. Our bad!!!!!
In our defence, however, I'll say that, well, it's quite a small cabinet compared to our own one, in our house in Malvern. And oh dear, it's so very easy to pull those caddies off by mistake, if you're trying to grab something, my goodness yes!
Suction pads are no good really are they! They promise a lot but tend to disappoint in the end. I must think of an amusing Venn diagram for that.
I wonder........!!!
the two shower-caddies we managed to pull off the wall this morning
We decided provisionally to stash one caddy on top of the toilet cistern and the other on the window-sill, but we're open to suggestions: do tell us where we can stick them haha! And on a postcard please, as usual: no draft PhD dissertations this time haha!
[Is this going to be your "big story" for the day, Colin? If so, I think we should be told now! - Ed]
[Wait - don't you want to see my amusing Venn diagram for today?]
What can we try breaking tomorrow?
I wonder.....!
The shower was, sadly, all part of the masterplan for today, whereby we would get clean and then go out to lunch, but Lois had a bad night last night, and her tummy is a bit upset, so we've decided to shelve that plan till tomorrow at the earliest. She had a bad dream early in the night in which she was being pressured to baby-sit some of my cousin's children, who are all in their 40's, so this "house-sitting" and "pet-sitting" that we're doing here is obviously preying on her mind. What madness!
Meanwhile, Alison and family are enjoying Florence. It's all very nostalgic for Ali because she spent a year at nearby Pisa University from 1996 to 1997, as part of her Italian degree course at Cardiff, so she visited Florence a number of times when she was 21. Happy days!
Alison by the River Arno in Florence today.
Ali says that her middle child, Rosalind (15) has had her ears pierced today in Florence. My goodness, don't they grow up quickly these days.
You know you're getting old when your grandchildren are thinking about what college or university they want to go to, that's what Lois and I always say. Lois was 50 when she had her ears done, with Iris, her close work-colleague - the two women's parents must have finally agreed to the procedure, I guess.
What a crazy world we lived in, back in those far-off days!!!!
Ali and family have one more day in Italy tomorrow and hope to visit Pisa where Ali studied at the university 1997-8. Then on Friday they be leaving Italy and moving on to Geneva, which looks like a long trip to me. Oh dear! Hopefully the scenery will be nice, though - or will it all going through tunnels. I think we should be told!
[Stop wittering on! - Ed]
As we take our well-deserved afternoon nap the rain and wind is still rattling the bedroom window-panes. What a day!
20:00 We unwind for bed by watching an autobiographical documentary written and presented by the actress Joan Collins. It's all about herself, her life and her career [Well, it would be if it's autobiographical, surely! - Ed].
This is nice, undemanding viewing. However, the programme suffers the same weaknesses as autobiographical books, in that the subject seems to be trying to stress that all their decisions were justified and sensible ones, and that everything they touched turned to gold. The mistakes were all made by other people, and any unkindnesses or breaches of faith etc tended to be committed by the other people in her life - discarded husbands and other villains.
Darn it - wouldn't life be so straightforward if it weren't for those "other people" !!!!
This is Joan telling her own life-story, so it's perhaps not surprising that her film career was pretty much "a long string of successes". And although she admits that she was also in many many rubbish films, she tells us that a lot of these became "cult classics". So that's all right then!
Joan came from a theatrical family, and her father was a theatrical agent, so she was used to seeing celebrities at close quarters from an early age. While still a schoolgirl she made a decision to become an actress after coming home from school and seeing Roger Moore in the hallway of the family home.
She had about 5 husbands in all, but who's counting!
And it's sweet to see that she has kept scrapbooks full of pictures of her life with four of these husbands, although her experiences with the first one, Irish actor Maxwell Reed, whom she married at age 17, were obviously less pleasant than with her other husbands. The divorce 6 years later cost her $10,000 and she had to pay Maxwell's legal fees, as well as the little matter of "giving him all the money in my bank account", as she puts it.
All this must have really stung because, in revenge, she's torn out all the pictures on the "Maxwell Reed pages" of her scrapbook.
Poor Maxwell !!!!!
Yes, I get that, Joan!
One last health warning if you're thinking of watching this programme. If you like people to display the traditional British virtue of being self-effacing, be advised that Joan is no shrinking violet in the British tradition. She reminds us several times that she's probably the most successful actress in the world, and that, playing Alexis in Dynasty, she had become the most watched woman in more than 90 countries and other claims of that nature.
To Lois and me, that phrase, "I love you all" reminds of something.
Eventually we realise it was the catchphrase of that rather large woman who used to appear literally "out of nowhere" at the end of many of the "Morecambe and Wise" TV shows in the 1970's. Although she hadn't appeared anywhere in the programme, she somehow managed to get on the stage at the end of the show, and to push aside the show's stars, Eric and Ernie, who were just taking their bow.
And she always made the same little speech, didn't she - do you remember? “I'd like to thank all of you for watching me and my little show here tonight. If you've enjoyed it, then it's all been worthwhile. So, until we meet again, good night, and I love you all.”
You must remember!
Did the BBC ever found out who she was, and how come she managed to get herself on the stage. Lois and I have always wondered about that!
Who WAS she? WAS it Joan Collins after all? I think we should be told! So do let me know, if YOU know haha!!! The mystery has been bugging Lois and me for years haha!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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