Danskcolin: Thursday February 8th 2024

It's been raining for 24 hours so Lois and I decide to get to Warner's Supermarket in Upton-upon-Severn before the River Severn bursts its banks again, and the supermarket gets cut off, like it's been cut off a couple of times this winter.

flashback to last year: the mighty Severn bursts its banks

and creates an island out of our favourite supermarket - yikes!!!

We need to stock up a bit more with groceries. Lois and I are wondering whether our daughter Sarah, with husband Francis and their 10-year-old twins, will decide come to stay the weekend with us, so we stock up with 3 ready meals for 6 from the CookShop concession at Warner's, plus a ton of the twins' favourite Cheerios cereal.

We take plenty of money with us too. We feel we've got to buy proper Cheerios after yesterday's big story in these parts, when a local dad was ostracised by his children after coming home with some "bargain brand" cereals. Did you see the story? Local dad Glen was defiant, however, and defended his choice bravely in this Onion News lead item.

I don't know - kids eh?!!!! What can you do!!!!

Still, slightly unnerved by the story from North Piddle, Lois and I studiously avoid buying either Multi-Grain Hoops" or "Multi-Grain Hooplas", the cheapo versions of our twin granddaughters favourite cereal Cheerios.

some typical "bargain versions" of Cheerios

You should see the twins loading up their bowls with Cheerios when they're with us for breakfast. My goodness !!!! And when they arrive for the weekend, mid-morning on Saturday, say 11am, as they often do, they say they "haven't had breakfast yet".

What madness !!!! What's that all about, eh? When Lois and I were small, in the 1950's, we were warned severely never to go out of the house without having breakfast first, or else risk "fainting dead away by 10 o'clock".

Were we sold a myth? Was a whole generation told a lie? Were we being taken for idiots? I feel I'd like to know - perhaps we should be told?

some of the lies we are told as kids,

according to "Get Geekish" the Podcast

Sarah and family had been planning to travel north this weekend to "see some real snow". They've just moved back to the UK after 7 years in Australia, and the twins are gagging to see some real snow. But I suspect that if they research it, as they're bound to do, they'll find out that it's just one soggy lake from here up to Scotland. My guess is that they'll decide to stay around, at least for the start of the twins' 1 week half-term holiday from school.

Have you noticed how all the online news websites will say e.g. "UK to be hit by up to 10 inches of snow", and when you click on the story and wade through the adverts, you find out that they're talking about the very northern tip of Scotland. It's a kind of a madness, isn't it!

a typically vague "warning of snow" - what madness !!!

the "big story" on my phone later today - complete

with picture "from the archives" - what total madness !!!!!

It'll be just as well, anyway, if Sarah and family do decide they'll be staying in this area, Lois and I feel. With possible flooding on the cards, it could be dangerous out there on the roads this weekend, like it was for this local woman from the tiny nearby village of Bell End, here in Worcestershire.

I myself have only ever had one really "proper" car accident, two weeks before Lois and I got married, in 1972. That afternoon I was driving up to see Lois from my parents' house in Littlemore to Lois's parents' house in Cutteslowe.

A guy called Nixon who ran a small local haulier business drove his lorry illegally straight onto the Northern Bypass in Oxford from the Horspath slip road, right in front of me. And he did it so unexpectedly that, although I hit the brakes, I couldn't stop in time apparently and went straight into the back of him. I say "apparently" because I "blacked out" the moment I was thrown from the car onto the grass of the central reservation, and it was a case of PTA - post-traumatic amnesia. All memory of the crash was totally wiped from my mind, and it has never come back. And I couldn't testify, so the police case against Nixon had to be dropped.

The car had seat-belts, or "safety belts" as we used to call them in those far-off days, but it wasn't yet compulsory to wear them, and I didn't usually bother.

Legislation was to follow, but only after another 9 years, in 1983, so I can't claim the "glory" in this instance, which is a pity. It could so easily have been called "Colin's Law", couldn't it.

I wonder... !!!!

I was lucky in another way, though, because, although my beloved first ever car, a Morris Oxford estate, was a write-off after the accident, I myself just had a few scratches and bruises. Better that way - car put to death, driver not seriously damaged, than the other way round, that's for sure!

flashback to 1972, a couple of months before the accident:

me standing by my beloved first-ever car, a Morris Oxford estate,

parked here on the coast at Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

Before we were married, Lois and I didn't have a ton of money, that's for sure - I was still a student. Having this long car, however, meant we could sleep comfortably in the back of it when we went away on holiday, to save paying for a B&B, which was nice.

Happy days !!!!!

flashback to August 1972: despite local haulier Nixon's best efforts, Lois and I

get married anyway: this is the famous "what's with the folded arms?" photo,

as we're seen here relaxing after the ceremony with my parents,

my sister Jill and my brother Steve.

[That's enough reminiscences! - Ed]

19:00 We relax on the couch with a couple of episodes of Canadian comedienne Katherine Ryan's new TV series "Parental Guidance".

Lois and I don't normally watch programmes about the traumas of working mothers and their "guilt trips", but we make an exception with this one, because Katherine Ryan is our favourite stand-up comedienne - and she's just so funny whatever she's doing or saying, isn't she.

Katherine Ryan, a working mother with a teenage daughter,

a toddler son, and a baby daughter, takes us through her various "guilt trips"

Katherine is clearly the main breadwinner in the family - her civil partner Bobby is a semi-professional golfer, but we get the impression that he only gets peanuts compared to Katherine, who, as she says, makes her money from what she calls her "dick jokes" on the comedy circuit, and from her appearances on late night TV shows.

Because of her childcare duties, Katherine rarely gets time to develop much new material for her comedy act, so she has to repeat a lot of her old stuff, spiced up with some of her typically funny adlibs.

In this sequence we see Katherine here in her dressing-room, preparing to go on stage. Her Canadian civil partner Bobby is on the left. He's come tonight with the couple's 14-year-old "British" daughter Violet to watch her stand-up act.

And Catherine talks about Bobby and Violet in her act, which is nice.

At this point, Katherine explains to the audience that her teenage "British" daughter Violet, "doesn't like me any more at all", and that she just gets "pure eye-rolling" from her. And here she does an amusing impression of Violet's British accent:

Away from her showbiz career, we get some fascinating insights tonight into Katherine and Bobby's home life. Just currently the couple's relationship is under strain, because to solve night-time problems with their toddler son Freddie and their baby, the couple are sleeping apart: Bobby sleeping in Freddie's room and Katherine sleeping in the baby's room.

During tonight's programme it becomes apparent that Katherine is thinking of sending little Freddie to nursery school, which will be a big wrench for her partner Bobby, as little Freddie is Bobby's best buddy. But at least Bobby has his golf to fall back, she tells us.

"I'm a golf widow", Katherine confesses, "but the only trouble with golf is that it takes 5 hours. Of course, golf was invented by men."

Bobby himself says that it's just good to get outside and get some exercise, and it improves his mental health as well. Here we see Bobby's golfing buddy David asking Bobby if Katherine is understanding of his golfing needs.

He tells David that he just has to balance things out, if at any time she gets so that he's "taking the piss from her" too much at any one time,

Oh dear, a bit too much information there, Bobby haha!

And there's something similar going on in tonight's entertaining season finale to the Madame Blanc mysteries on Channel 5.

When Dominic bumps into posh couple Judith and Jeremy in the local doctor's surgery, he gets a bit more information than he bargained for. Apparently Jeremy is waiting to have a nasty "skin tag" removed from his person, as Judith explains to him.