Lois and I are quite careful what we eat - usually, that is! And we try to keep up with all the trending stories about the latest nutritionist theories. It's useful in a way too, isn't it, because it narrows down the theoretically infinite choices the consumer has when planning the week's meals.
nutritionist Ingrid Swenson MBE with one of
her typical shopping lists
Scientific though we try to be, Lois and I still tend to follow the nutritionists who recommend our own personal favourite foods - we're only human, after all!
[I'd like to see a bit more proof of that! - Ed]
And that's why we were delighted this morning, when looking at our phones while still in bed, to see this recommendation from some of our favourite local experts in the nutritional sciences. Did you see the story (source: Onion News Worcestershire) ?
And it's actually Lois who spots the slightly worrying aspects of this story.
If you read the headline carefully, you can see that these local nutritionists were "drunk"; and also that, during her remarks, nutritionist Rebecca Forrest was gripping the lectern for balance etc. And there are other clues besides that, there for you to find for yourself, and probably some that Lois and I haven't spotted. Jot them down on a postcard for me if you have the time please!
But oh dear! Nutritionists have got a bit of a reputation for excessive drinking, haven't they, and British ones in particular, I'm ashamed to say.
one of local nutritionist Rebecca Forrest's
typical shopping lists
It's lucky that native speakers of the English language are "spoilt for choice" when it comes to so-called "drunkonyms" - words to describe the inebriated condition.
Later today, Lois's copy of "The Week" "plops" onto our doormat, the magazine that provides a useful digest of all the top news stories this week, from home and abroad. And so-called "drunkonyms" are the top story under the "viewpoint" heading, on one of the inside pages, I think it's page 95, but do check your copy for confirmation of that!
Fascinating stuff, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]
But that's not the only interesting story in "The Week" this week. Under the magazine's influential "Spirit of the Age" column, there's an interesting item for menopausal women.
Small things, you may say, but the menopause is an awkward time, so any help is better than no help, that's for sure!
And strangely enough, our legal-eagle son-in-law Ed, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with our daughter Alison and their 3 teenage children, is an adviser for the Avanti train company, and this nifty idea has his "fingerprints" all over it.
Kudos, Ed!
a train operated by one of the railway companies
Ed provides legal advice to
The menopause is just a distant memory now for Lois and me - we are 77, you know [You don't say! - Ed]. However, those crazy days are still very much on our minds, because the local U3A "Intermediate Danish" group that we lead is currently reading a Danish novel, Anna Grue's "Judaskysset" (the Judas kiss), which is all about a menopausal woman in her 60's who's going to bed with a virile young 29-year-old.
Our group, which is mainly composed of women in their 60s and 70s, is in constant fits of laughter, it sometimes seems, over this "mixed-age" Danish couple and their antics in bed - their sex-life is giving the woman constant backache, but on the plus side, her "hot flushes" are keeping her warm when the young guy "steals" the duvet when he rolls over to go to sleep.
So it's not all bad, which is nice.
a typical "older woman younger man" relationship
Younger people don't really understand about the menopause - have you noticed? I think it's one of those things in life that you have to go through yourself, isn't it.
Even in our Danish novel, this older woman Ursula, who's an art teacher at a Danish college, finds that her students are starting to show feelings of revulsion about their ageing teacher's affair with the very young Jakob.
Some of the students have caught the couple "making out" in the college arts room, and others are beginning to express their disgust at Jakob's constant hinting that Ursula, despite her advanced age, is "fantastic in bed". And some of them are starting to make "puke" noises and gestures, like young people do nowadays, whenever the couple's relationship is mentioned.
a young woman demonstrates what she thinks
of the idea of an older woman in bed with a younger man
14:00 The menopause is something you've just got to get out of the way, isn't it, and after that, it's all "plain sailing". And it's just a distant memory to Lois and me today as we get into bed for our afternoon nap.
We're feeling especially good, because at last we can hold our heads up high in this new-build housing estate in Malvern and its community. Why? Because we're no longer the embarrassed owners of a "path to nowhere" - the path that looks like we're going to use it to spy on our neighbours, Matt and Timera (garden to the right). Anyone who knows Lois and me will testify that we're not in the least bit "pervy", and in fact, nothing could have been further from our minds.
flashback to January 30th: our back garden,
featuring the famous "path to nowhere"
- what a madness THAT was !!!!
Yes, earlier today our shiny new shed arrived from D&M Sheds of Evesham, and the best part is that we've paid a bit extra to have the optional erection bit of the service.
flashback to this morning: the lorry from D&M Sheds of Evesham arrives
The guys arrived about 11.45 am, and I had already "prepped" our kitchen facilities with a full electric kettle of water, thinking we would need to supply the two men with constant cups of "builder's tea" for the next couple of hours maybe.
How wrong can you be!!!!
Lois and I are so "old school", you would not BELIEVE! These days, it seems, the shed parts are all pretty much pre-fabricated in the factory, windows already mounted in the sides etc, and the two guys were finished with the erection in a little over 10 minutes - wow!
It's a bit like putting together a Lego kit for toddlers.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
Lois and me - proud owners of this shiny new shed
supplied and erected by D&M Sheds of Evesham
It's just a 6ft by 4ft shed, but, you see, this is only a tiny 30 ft-ish back garden compared to the 130ft long one that we downsized from in Cheltenham 15 months ago. And crucially, our shed is still slightly bigger than our next-door-but-one neighbour Angela's, and she'll be able to see it from her back bedroom window, which is satisfying - call us "keepers-up with the Jones's" if you like haha!
flashback to last November: the slightly smaller
shed bought by our next-door-but-one neighbour, Angela
21:00 We go to bed on the 4th and final episode of the BBC's dramatized version of DH Lawrence's 1920's shocker of a novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover".
Sir Clifford Chatterley is a local mine-owner who becomes paralysed from the waist down due to a war wound. He and his wife, Lady Connie, can't have sex any more, but Sir Clifford is happy to let Connie have affairs, hoping she'll get pregnant, because he's desperate to have a male heir to his title.
Connie's husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley (James Wellby),
impotent and paralyzed from the waist down,
so that the couple can't have sex any more
Connie and "Mellors" start by having it off in the gamekeeper's dark and dreary potting-shed, and later in the undergrowth on Sir Clifford's estate.
Connie and Mellors "hook up" for the first time,
in the gamekeeper's scruffy old "potting shed"
Eventually the couple, perhaps getting fed up with these "venues" for their trysts, try out Mellors' conjugal bed in the relative comfort of his cottage bedroom.
There's no chance of his wife catching them "at it", Mellors assures Connie. She's left him for somebody else, and won't come near either him or their former home any more.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
But there's a happy ending to this life-affirming story. Unlike her class-obsessed husband, Lady Connie, now pregnant with Mellors' child, takes a more modern approach - she doesn't care that Mellors is "only" a gamekeeper, because the couple are in love.
Mellors decides, however, that he's got to get away from England.
Things look gloomy at this stage, but in a modern "romcom" style of an ending that Lois and I aren't sure that the author, DH Lawrence would necessarily have approved of, we see Mellors quitting his job and going off to Southampton to take a liner to Canada to start a new life over there.
Next we see Connie being driven at high speed to Southampton by her flapper sister Hilda, and just in the nick of time managing to board the same liner just before it sets sail.
Mellors thinks that Connie has "dumped" him, but after boarding the ship he hears a message coming over the ship's tannoy requesting "Sir John Thomas" (Connie's petname for Mellors) to come up to the first-class deck, where a "Lady Jane" (Mellors' pet name for Connie) is waiting for him.
in this highly symbolic scene, we see Mellors boldly jumping over
the "First Class Passengers Only" sign to join Connie on the upper deck
And wasn't it nice to see the film's critically acclaimed director, Ken Russell, "mucking in", "getting his hands dirty", by taking the role of Connie's father Sir Michael Reid, the seascape artist, during Connie's short break at her father's seaside home. Did you notice?
acclaimed film director Ken Russell (ringed) filling in for an
absent actor, playing Connie's artist-father Sir Michael Reid
I expect some actor due to play Connie's father, Sir Michael, must have let Russell down at the last minute so he had to "fill in", which was decent of him!
And I suppose if his "top director" plans "go belly up", Russell will be able to get a second career now as an actor.
[I think you'll find Russell is now well-and-truly "pushing up the daisies", Colin ! - Ed]
Overall, a heart-warming evening!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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