Why do the counties of England all have different education policies, and, in particular, different dates for school holidays?
What advantage could there possibly be in that? Answers on a postcard please, and quickly, unless you've got other more important things to do, which I find hard to believe haha!
Worcestershire County Hall, where faceless bureaucrats choose all
the county schools' half-term dates, favouring the ones
that will most annoy the rest of the country, particularly all
the neighbouring counties - what madness !!!
What total madness !!!! [No more madness for you today, or I'll send you to bed early again!!- Ed]
Warwickshire half-term dates (in green): Oct 30th to 3rd
Hampshire half-term dates: October 23rd - 27th
For Lois and me, the visits of our daughters and grandchildren are racing towards us now, complicated by the different half-term dates. Tomorrow our elder daughter Alison arrives, together with 2 out of hers and Ed's 3 children, and they'll staying here till Saturday. Her children, Josie (17) and Isaac (13) attend schools in Surrey and Hampshire respectively, but luckily schools in both of those counties are on their half-term holidays this week.
And our younger daughter Sarah will be arriving here on Saturday with hers and Francis's twin granddaughters, and they'll be staying here on Saturday night. Their half-term starts this Friday, because of a teacher-training day, so happily each of our two daughters, Alison and Sarah, will have 24 hours to go on some outing or other together, with their children - a nice event, because the two families have been separated for 7 years, while Sarah and family were living in Australia 2015-2023.
So that's nice!
flashback to 1977: one of the early pictures featuring both of
our 2 daughters, Alison (2) and Sarah (a few weeks old) seen here
in our back yard in Cheltenham with Lois, and Lois's mum Ruth
But it's busy, busy, busy for Lois and me today. The first visit starts tomorrow, so the sheets on the beds have to be changed and numerous other moving of things need to take place, to convert this house-for-two-old-codgers, into a family house for 5.
"bedroom 3", normally my "office", in its natural state
bedroom 3 tidied up so guests can sleep there
our dining-table has to be extended to seat 5 guests -
busy busy busy!!!!
And Lois and I have got to take a shower ourselves this afternoon, and then recharge our batteries with a nap in bed, because we may find that, from tomorrow morning, we won't be able to even get into the bathroom at all till Sunday - it'll be in almost constant use - what a crazy world we live in !!!!
I've also got to read the next 5 pages of a Danish crime novel, because the local U3A Intermediate Danish group that Lois and I lead is having its fortnightly meeting Thursday next week. And it's my job to prepare vocabulary sheets for our members.
"Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss), a Danish crime novel by Anna Grue,
the novel being read by the U3A group that Lois and I lead
It's a gripping novel, we know that already, even though we're only on page 13 - reading Danish books can be slow-going for a group of old codgers like us: mainly because they like to chat so much at meetings - and chat all in English of course: you would not BELIEVE some of our meetings!!!!!
[I think I would, knowing you lot! - Ed]
Steve, our American brother-in-law, told me the other day about the real sign that you're old, according to his doctor in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
The number one sign that you're old, according to Steve's former doctor of 30 years, is when you can't get down on your knees without holding on to something AND you can't get back up to a standing position without holding on to something. And Steve has added another criterion: "you are old when you are not open to trying/doing new or different things. LIKE FOODS! [Are you really old?] Some people call it being stuck in a rut!"
Fascinating stuff !!!!! But back to our Danish crime novel......
Anna Grue, the Danish crime writer who's the author of the novel
our local Danish group is reading, published when Anna was 52
Ursula, a college art teacher, who's the main character in our Danish crime novel, is a spring chicken compared to us - she's only 53, a similar age to the book's author, who was 52 at the time it was first published, in 2009.
Art teacher Ursula has started on the menopause. However, she has also suddenly embarked on a passionate affair with a young 29-year-old local paints-maker, Jakob.
The two were having sex on one of the desks in her arts-room at the college "between lumps of unfired clay and a pile of old rags", within about 30 minutes of meeting for the first time - luckily it was the desk nearest to the door, so Ursula was able to kick the door shut with her foot, so that they wouldn't be interrupted.
My goodness - those Danes haha!!!! And the affair is proving to be very heavy on the physical side, and Ursula is increasingly suffering from backache. Poor Ursula !!!!!
a typical college arts-room
We're only on page 13 but our little Danish group is already trying to guess who's going to be murdered in the book - we know there's going to be a murder at some stage from the blurb on the back telling us that it's a murder mystery, so we've put two and two together. We may be old codgers but we're no "mugs" - goodness me, no !!!!
By page 13 Jakob is taking Ursula for a walk "just inches away" from the very edge of some cliffs overlooking the Kattegat, the gulf separating Denmark from Sweden.
"Is Jakob, for some as yet unknown reason, going to push Ursula off the cliffs into the grey-green waters of the Kattegat?", our group has been speculating.
Well, as joint group-leader, I can report that I've now read as far as page 17, and here in this blog I can now exclusively reveal that no, Jakob doesn't push Ursula off the cliff, not yet at least - instead he proposes marriage to her, shows her the pearl and diamond ring that he's bought her, she says "yes", and then they have sex again: this time behind a bush right there on the cliff path.
a typically romantic clifftop proposal
What's going on here, exactly?
Well, my main "takeaway" from the story so far is this: according to page 7 of the book, Ursula has recently become a very wealthy woman, having won millions of kroner on the lottery. This could be a big factor in the eventual murder - just a guess on my part, but you know I'm often right on these things.
So we have, on the one hand, the menopausal Ursula, a kroner-millionairess, and on the other hand young Jakob, who would probably like a bit more money for himself. His obvious plan would be to (i) marry Ursula first, and (ii) only then push her off a cliff so that he would then inherit all of Ursula's lottery millions.
And the book's author, Anna Grue, is a very experienced crime-writer, and I'm sure she would never get such things in the wrong order.
Makes sense to me, anyway!
[That's enough about your Danish crime book! - Ed]
16:30 Lois and I get out of bed, go downstairs, and have a cup of tea and a Kit-Kat on the sofa.
I can relax now, but Lois can't. She's got 2 zoom sessions coming up - at 5 pm it's the chair-yoga-for-old-codger class led by Lois's great-niece Molly, and at 8 pm it's Lois's church's weekly Bible Class.
In between these two zoom sessions we watch an old 1981 episode of "Yes Minister", the political sitcom, and it's brought home to us how "politically incorrect" we all were, back in those crazy, far-off times.
And it's also nostalgic, in a way, to remember the days when the UK was very much part of the EU (European Union), or the EEC (European Economic Community) as it was called then.
But, as regards this sitcom, you would never get away with scripts like these today - be honest, admit it haha!!!!
Ironically Hacker himself is still feeling positive about the ideals of the European movement, but this just makes Sir Humphrey laugh, I'm afraid!
And Sir Humphrey, the civil servant, although cynical about the political motives that nations had for joining the EEC, rather admires the EEC officials beavering away in Brussels. Hacker the politician, however, doesn't agree, using terms you could hardly put in a sitcom today, could you.
Be honest now (again) haha !!!!
Oh dear (again) !!!! You won't repeat anything like that today, dear reader, will you, go on, promise me haha!!!
And now, the three men's discussion moves on to the perks enjoyed by EEC officials, and once more it's Hacker's turn to be cynical....
21:00 Lois emerges from her second zoom session of the evening, and we go to bed on the latest episode in a fascinating new BBC2 series about the British, Canadian and Australian can-can dancers who are keeping Paris's famous Moulin Rouge nightclub going, in the absence of all the French dancers who disappeared from Paris in the pandemic, apparently, and never came back.
Let's face it. Today we're no longer down on people who are "overweight", or people who may be physically unappealing etc. However, if you're in a business like the Moulin Rouge, you know that audiences aren't going to pay to see, for instance, a bunch of overweight or unattractive people kicking their legs in the air etc - the politically correct approach just doesn't make any kind of commercial sense, does it.
The Moulin Rouge doesn't like the fact that Zeak has a traditional tattoo, consisting of flowers, on his chest - he was brought up in the Solomon Islands, an independent member of the British Commonwealth, where tattoos like this are part of the culture. However, the club's artistic managers make him cover it up, because in a lot of the troupe's numbers he has to play the part of a "gentleman".
Tonight the chief choreographer also asks Zeak to get on the scales again, so that the club can keep a check on his weight.
So Zeak is now given strict instructions to keep his weight down.
Poor Zeak !!!!!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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