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 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:
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!
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
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 !!!!!
In this scene, Frank visits a Fruit and Veg shop to buy some apples to take to his wife Betty, who's in hospital.
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.
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.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!
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