Hurrah - it's wedding anniversary time once more! And Lois and I can hardly believe the time has gone so quickly and that we'll soon be blowing up those wedding anniversary balloons again !!!!
How can it possibly be a year since our last anniversary! It certainly doesn't seem like it !!!
[Well, that's because it isn't a year, is it - it's only a month! -Ed]
flashback to August 19th - Lois sits on our bed and blows up four of
our 50th wedding anniversary balloons, almost a year late.
Yes, it's party time again!!!!!
Well, it's a dull month if you're not celebrating your wedding anniversary in it, isn't it - be fair haha !!!!! Last month we celebrated our 50th, nearly a year late, and tomorrow we're going to celebrate our 51st anniversary, and this time we're only a month late with it.
Our actual wedding day was on August 25th 1972, after which we went on our honeymoon to Åndalsnes in Norway.
flashback to 1972: some of the photos we took
on our honeymoon in Åndalsnes, Norway
Happy days!
Next August - August 2024 - it'll be 52 years, and we'll try and do the anniversary on time, if we're still around, that is. Yikes - don't bank on that, though haha!!!! Maybe we'd better celebrate it next week, just to be on the safe side haha!!! [That's enough hahas! - Ed]
You're never to old to party, though, are you. Do you remember when 79-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg had that big party in 2012 when her parents were away for the weekend, you know, that story that made all the big headlines in Onion News all those years ago?
ALEXANDRIA, VA—With her parents leaving town to celebrate their
98th wedding anniversary, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made plans Friday for a
major house party, inviting all her Supreme Court colleagues
to what she promised would be “a classic Ginsburg throwdown.”
Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee who traditionally votes with the court’s liberal wing and whose 120-year-old parents explicitly told her not to have any friends over, confirmed that she waited until her mother and father had pulled out of the driveway before texting “it’s on” to her fellow justices and telling them to “get ready to drink [their] asses off.”
“My dad is seriously crazy if he thinks I’m not going to throw an epic rager when I have the house to myself all weekend,” said Ginsburg, whose father, a furrier and haberdasher by trade, reportedly wrote down the mileage on his 1928 Ford Model A so he would know if his daughter took it out for a spin. “As far as I’m concerned, when the cats are away, the mice will play.”
Sounds like the justices had a fun evening, doesn't it - and why not? They'd earned it! Young or old, we all like to party occasionally, don't we haha!!!!!
14:00 Lois and I ring up and book our anniversary lunch for tomorrow (Friday), at the usual place, and then we have our afternoon shower and nap in bed, to start getting ourselves into that party mood all over again.
"The usual place" is Buckland Manor Hotel near Broadway, deep in the Cotswolds. You might think it's a bit dull to go to the same place every year, but if you knew Buckland Manor you'd know why we keep coming back. The moment you stroll into the lounge and sink into one of the armchairs, ready to knock back the gin-and-tonics and give your order for the aperitifs and then for the meal itself, you feel like a billionaire, I always say.
What's not to like haha !!!!! And the food is maximum quality without exaggerated quantities, so that you feel like you've dined luxuriously but you don't feel bloated and unable to do anything else when you go home afterwards, which is how Lois and I like to do it. Oh yes!
I don't know exactly how many years Lois and I have been celebrating our anniversary here. It must be about 20 years or so, maybe. We were introduced to the place by my sister Kathy and her American husband Steve, on one of their trips to the UK. Buckland Manor has a very extensive wine list - my goodness yes - and Steve knows about these things, that's for sure.
some of the wines on offer at Buckland Manor hotel and restaurant
The place has a really long history - the first record of a house here dates to the 7th century AD, before England was even a country. The actual building we see today was constructed in the 1200's, when the original manor house was built.
Roll on tomorrow!!!!!
flashback to August 2015 - us on one of our many previous
visits to Buckland Manor for our anniversary: this was no. 43
17:00 The other thing Lois has to do today is to get into a calm frame of mind so that we do everything slowly and calmly tomorrow for maximum enjoyment. Luckily she's scheduled a chair yoga session online this evening with her great-niece Molly in Leeds, which is the perfect preparation.
Molly turned 30 this week - a traumatic event for a lot of people, but not for Molly - as a yoga aficionado, she's always super-calm. She celebrated with a holiday in the English Lake District with her equally calm and phlegmatic partner Sam. Here we see the two of them trying out the "downward dog mountain" pose, which looks challenging, to put it mildly.
My goodness I can't see Lois and me going in for that type of malarkey. Oh dear!
Molly and her partner Sam trying out the "downward dog mountain"
pose up in the English Lake District this week
Lois's yoga teacher Molly (centre) seen here with
her mother Sharon (Lois's niece, left) and one of Molly's cheeky friends
Ommmmmmmmmmm haha!!!!!!
19:00 After dinner, there's just time to see the first programme in a new series,
Why so? Well, the programme says it's because we have so many good dance schools and ballet schools in this country, surprisingly.
Oh dear! We learnt quite a lot from the first programme in this new series, which covered the Ancient World: Greece, Rome, Egypt, and 4th century India. But now that the series has moved on, and is covering British history, Lois and I, who are both history buffs, find that we know most of this stuff already, which is a pity. Oh dear - it's a bit of a tragedy when you just know too much, isn't it, but that's our problem these days increasingly.
What was "la volta" exactly? Can anybody do it? Well, tonight presenter Amanda Holden gets the facts from a dance teacher, who explains the moves.
After the programme finishes, Lois and I discuss the possibility of maybe doing "la volta" ourselves tomorrow, to celebrate our latest "anniversary" - it's a definite possible. But we'll see.
And we didn't know also, that, even if you're good at your ballet training, the ballet companies won't want you if you're too tall - even 5' 9" (1.75m) is pushing it a bit apparently. The male ballet-dancers won't want to risk injury if they've got to pick you up and carry you around, and I don't blame them.
Whereas if you're tall, you're ideal for cabaret, and at the Moulin Rouge, they will be even keener to take you on if you have long legs, because you often have to lift them above your head.
See? It's all starting to make a crazy kind of sense now, isn't it!
20:00 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom, while I take a quick look online at the Oxford Hip Score form that our doctor's surgery have texted me with, because they know I'm looking for something to cut down some of the strain. A lot of people our age seems to be getting hip replacements. No fair! I want one too haha !!!!!
21:15 When Lois emerges from her zoom session, we decide to go to bed on the second programme in the Sky History channel's new series on Sex: A Bonkers History, presented by Amanda Holden and TV historian Dan Jones.
We did, however, learn something - we heard about a dance that was all the rage in Tudor times, you know, that dance that came from Italy, the dance they tried to ban?
Yes, it's.... "la volta" .
[I wouldn't try that at your age, Colin - you'll end up in hospital sooner that you think haha! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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