It's been another funny old day for Lois and me, and we sit and talk it over on the couch in the evening, as people have done for centuries, millennia even - in their case not about our day, of course, but just about their own day, but with its similar triumphs and disasters.
Lois often "improves the shining hour" during our evenings together by doing some knitting as we chat. Until today I didn't realise that this tradition goes way back, to put it mildly.
flashback to 2022: Lois doing some knitting
at our daughter Alison's house
Did YOU know that knitting isn't a new hobby? I bet you didn't !!!!
If you want proof, here's an artist's impression of an early knitter from Roman times, inspired by a woman's tombstone in North East England. It's the tombstone of Regina, the British wife of a Roman legionary named Barates, a Syrian who was stationed in Britain.
Regina started off by being Barates' slave-girl during his service in Britain, but Barates must have taken a real fancy to her, because he freed her, making her a "liberta" (freedwoman) and then he married her, which was nice.
On her tombstone Regina is pictured sitting on her wicker chair, with her "knitting bag" - a basket of wool - at her feet.
freed slave-girl Regina: her tombstone (left) and an artist's
impression (right) of what she could have looked like, as her tomb depicts:
sitting in her wicker chair, with a basket of wool at her feet.
Awwwwwww!!!!!
And can't you just imagine Regina knitting away in her chair in the evenings in what's now County Durham, England, while her Roman husband Barates sits in his chair, boring the pants off her with all the details about the dreadful day he's had with the Legion, and dozing off with a copy of Radio Times on his lap (or more probably the Roman equivalent: the Acta Diurna (Daily News).
a typical Roman sitting in his chair in the evening,
dozing and reading the day's copy of Acta Diurna (Daily News)
Oh the "colourised" version of her tombstone, Regina is depicted as a blonde. And in case you're wondering why she looks so young, well, it's because she was young - she died aged 30 (or XXX as her tombstone has it), which was a pity. Her tombstone is part of the current "Legion" exhibition at the British Museum, as described in a Guardian report sent me by Steve, our American brother-in-law.
Yes, they're now back in the UK and they need to buy a house. They've got savings, but Lois and I are also helping them out with that, and this involves transferring funds online, and today we have a practice, to see if it works. These funds are larger than the ones I'm used to transferring, so it's a bit nerve-wracking, to put it mildly.
In the event today, I manage to do the practice transfer of funds from one of mine and Lois's accounts to one of Sarah's, and we don't even get a call from our bank to check whether it's all bona fide, which is nice. The family's house purchase is likely to happen soon, hopefully, and Sarah and Francis are currently waiting for their solicitors and the vendor's solicitors to validate the funds, okay the sale and set a completion date.
Is that really something to be proud of, however - a pub with a humorous toilet, and new ways to flush? More and more, Lois and I are beginning to lean more towards the preservation of comforting conventional mechanisms that you don't have to think about because they've always been that way.
Here's another shot of Lois doing some knitting, way back in November 2013, a few months after our daughter Sarah had given birth to twins. As their first-ever winter approached, Lois set to work, knitting the by-then 4-month-old twins some woolly hats and scarves to help keep them warm - see her "knitting bag" beside her on the couch.
Flashback to November 2013: Lois knitting some
woolly scarves and hats for our 4-month-old twin granddaughters
Lily and Jessica, to prepare them for their first winter
November 2013: our 4-month-old twin granddaughters, each
showcasing one of their early smiles - awwwwwww (again) !!!!
When the twins reached the age of two and a half, the family moved to Perth, Australia, where woolly hats and scarves weren't needed, which was a pity.
flashback to Christmas 2015: our daughter Sarah with husband
Francis and the twins, newly arrived in Australia
As of May 2023, however, the family is once more back in the UK, and they need those scarves now, that's for sure - pity we can't find them: damn! Here's a shot of them singing Christmas carols and songs for charity with a bunch of their new English classmates and a couple of teachers, at a local garden centre in December.
December 2023: our twin granddaughters Lily (left) and Jessica (right), in the
freezing cold weather, putting their all into some timeless Christmas
Carols and some modern Christmas songs in front of a small crowd
of mostly parents at a local garden centre
Sarah emboldens me, however. When the family was in Australia, she took various on accountant jobs, including one for Hungry Jack's, which is part of the Burger King chain. She has told me that she once had to transfer several million dollars online.
Yikes!!!
flashback to 2017: our daughter Sarah (second from right)
in Perth, Western Australia, at a party with colleagues
from Hungry Jack's / Burger King Regional Headquarters.
How glamorous she looks in her little black dress (LBD) !!!
20:00 The burdens and worry of major financial transfers now safely behind us, Lois and I relax on the couch. Lois hasn't got any knitting this evening, but I've got "Worcester News" on my phone, so I can regale her. much as Roman legionary Barates used to regale his British wife Regina, with the latest surprise story: in this case pictures from a local pub, and its weird toilets.
Worcester News has put their ace junior cub reporter, James Connell, on the case, which gives you some idea of the story's implications for the city, and for anybody local who's looking for a "humorous toilet".
Mine and Lois's advice - just click on the 'X (see right-hand-side).
You'll find that this makes the irritating suggestion go away, which is nice!
While Lois and I are on our computers, irritating software-developers are continually asking us if we want to "try out" the latest features of this or that computer programmes, but we always give a firm "No!".
I hope the developers are not offended by this response, but we've struggled for years to master web-surfing programs and search engines, so that we can click on their internal links etc without thinking. Who wants to have to grapple with any "new features", which might be difficult for us to understand - it's so hard to know in advance, isn't it!
We are 77, you know!!!! [I'd never have guessed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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