Danskcolin: Saturday September 16th 2023

The day dawns - it's the day of a hospital appointment for me, at a hospital I've never been to before, in a town I don't know: Bromsgrove, which is 22 miles away from our new home in Malvern.

the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bromsgrove -

this is the road you drive in on, if you ever need to know!

flashback to 1992 - the hospital is officially opened by Princess Di

But yikes!!! When I wake up, all the anxieties awake too, inside my head, anxieties mostly about the journey and about finding my way through the hospital to the right department, about whether all the metal I carry around with me (money, keys, zips etc) might snag the x-ray machine, and - last but not least - about paying for the parking.

What madness !!!! It's ridiculous to worry about these trivialities, it's just a little appointment to have an x-ray, for goodness' sake! Snap out of it, Colin!!!

And as always at these times, I remember Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, and his wise words, "Don't worry, everything will turn out all right".

Brian (rightmost in picture) knows! And he's right again, bless him!

We get to the hospital way too early, of course - about 9 am for a 9:45 appointment. There are only a few cars dotted around in the car-park, and in any case the barriers are out of order, so you don't have to pay to park. We get inside the main building to find that it seems to be more or less deserted, apart from the receptionist, who's talking to a young guy, who turns out to be one of the hospital's x-ray guy, who offers to "do me early", i.e. right now, if I want, in the x-ray room, just a few feet away.

What are the chances of that happening, eh?!!!! Thanks, Brian, that's another drink I owe you haha!!!

09:15 We leave the hospital, and drive to Alcester to spend the day with our daughter Sarah, husband Francis and their 10-year-old twins, Lily and Jessica, who a couple of months ago moved back to England after their 7 years in Australia.

Saturday morning is always "visit the library" time, because the twins are voracious readers, to put it mildly. In a year or so's time, they'll have to face the rigours of the dreaded "Eleven Plus Exam", which will decide whether they can progress to one of the local grammar schools for their secondary education, which is the top option.

when Lois and I arrive, our twin granddaughters are already

sorting out which of their library books they need to take back today

And when it comes to the Eleven Plus Exam, Lois and I always say to each other that, if all else fails, the twins' astonishing reading abilities will see them through. And also Francis will be helping them, out of school hours. He's well used to home-schooling them - they were home-schooled by him in Australia, for periods when they lived out in the bush, or when the local schools proved to be below UK standards - oh dear! And Francis is going to go out today to find the twins even more tutoring books - yikes !!!!

Memories, memories! Lois and I took the Eleven Plus Exam in 1956.

flashback to 1956: my class photo with our teacher Mr Spicer,

- I'm in the middle, in the days before my "growth spurt", ringed in blue,

as also is my then "girlfriend" Jill (back row, right)

Awwwwww how sweet haha !!!!!!

Nowadays, most counties no longer use the Eleven Plus exam: in most areas of the country all children now just go their neighbourhood high school, whatever their ability.

Counties in this part of England, however, including Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, are some of the country's most conservative counties when it comes to education, and they still follow "the old paths". So it's the Eleven Plus for the twins next year, no doubt about that.

11:00 Lois and I drive Sarah and the twins to the town library, where, as always, a good time is had by all, to put it mildly. And Lois herself was a career librarian, so she's in her element also - my goodness, yes!

the library and museum at Alcester, originally a Roman army town,

founded in the early days of the Roman occupation, in 49 AD

And Sarah is delighted to find a book that is sure to make the family's monthly food spend a lot smaller than it is at the moment, which will be nice!

And no, she didn't find it in the "Fiction" section, if that's what you're thinking haha!!!

Eventually I drag everybody away and we go back to the house, where Sarah does us all a lasagne for lunch.

I don't know what it is, but Lois and I feel incredibly sleepy today, and we're struggling a bit, I think it's fair to say. We're definitely not at our best - and it's probably because of the very early start we had this morning, the anxieties about the hospital appointment, and then the sudden relief after the hospital business was all over so unexpectedly easily and quickly.

Nevertheless, despite our tiredness, Lois still finds the energy to be, as always, at her didactic best for the twins, showing Jessie how to sew on buttons and beads etc, and showing both twins how to crack open the hazelnuts we picked in the town carpark by the library this morning.

What a woman I married !!!!!

16:00 Lois and I say goodbye, drive home to Malvern, and collapse on the sofa. And after a soothing biscuit or two, we have a go at the puzzles in this week's Radio Times, our weekly treat.

We're encouraged by some comments made earlier today by our son-in-law Francis, who confirms that doing puzzles and drinking coffee are both good ways to stave off dementia - yikes (again). [That's enough "yikeses" for today! - Ed]

We get a so-so result on Popmaster, 5 out of 10, mainly answering the questions on the earlier decades, needless to say, but we're surprised by an astonishing result on the intellectually more prestigious "Eggheads" questions: 9 out of 10. How amazing we are! [Don't kid yourselves - I know you guess at least half of them! - Ed]

20:00 We don't need to have a big meal tonight, so we just have a couple of pieces of toast and a cup of Earl Grey tea, and settle back down on the sofa to watch yet another documentary about palaces and suchlike: this one's about Osborne House, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's private retreat on the Isle of Wight.

Osborne House wasn't really a palace in the strict sense of the word. The monarch's palaces in London are all owned by the nation, but Osborne House was somewhere that Victoria and Albert bought privately, in 1848, and which they more or less had completely rebuilt, so that they could do whatever they wanted in it, and get it just right for themselves and their needs as a couple, which was nice.

All over Europe, monarchs were cringing and cowering in fear - it was 1848, the great "year of the revolutions", when European kings and queens were falling like ninepins. But, after all, that was there, and this was here, on the good old Isle of Wight, so that was all right!

Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, in its 350 acres of grounds,

as it looked when Victoria and Albert bought it and moved in, in 1848

Lois and I waste no time in getting down to discussing "the elephant in the room" during this documentary. The Victorian era has gone down in history as a byword for prudishness, priggishness, and general stuffiness, and yet, for Victoria herself personally, it's obvious that the things in life she most cared about were food and sex.

What's the explanation for this? Lois and I think we should be told, and quickly!

Victoria had had a sheltered life growing up as a possible future queen, but on getting married, at the age of 20, she took to sex like a duck to water, seemingly - this is what she wrote after her wedding night:

My goodness!

The couple's bedroom was the heart of Osborne House. It contained probably the country's first ever walk-in shower, and featured pictures of classical nudes all over the walls. There was also a special button by the bed that the couple could press to automatically lock the bedroom doors, if they wanted a bit of privacy. After all, Victoria was having children at the rate of about one a year, so they didn't want any of those little princes or princesses wandering in at an inconvenient moment - my goodness, no!

one of the many nude paintings on Victoria and Albert's bedroom walls

the couple had extra strong locks fitted on the bedroom doors,

all operated remotely from a button-press beside their bed

After Albert sadly died young, in 1861, when Victoria was still only 42, she turned to her other great love - food. Still, she could at least grieve and "pig out" in private here, in peace and quiet on the Isle of Wight, which was nice!

And Victoria could also spend a lot of time playing billiards, which she also loved. Albert had had a billiard room installed here, with a table significantly higher than the standard 29 to 31 inches. The idea of this non-standard height was to ensure that Victoria and any female guests wouldn't have to potentially reveal anything embarrassing, by having to bend over too far.