Danskcolin: Saturday March 23rd 2024

Readers, have you ever moved to a new area and then found that you had to work really hard to make new friends?

It's a common problem, and you probably thought that an easy way would be to join a pottery class at you local Community College, but even there, results in the friendship department aren't guaranteed, as this area woman, Shailene McFadden, from the lovely Worcestershire village of Bell End found out the other day [source Onion News].

Is it possible that a better solution is to "go private" and learn your pottery and painting skills from a locally organised commercial workshop like Barnard's Green's celebrated 'Green Frog Pottery Solutions'?

Lois, my wife of nearly 52 years, thinks that 'the Green Frog route' is the way to go, and this morning she takes our daughter Sarah and our 10-year-old twin granddaughters Lily and Sarah, while I sit down at the laptop to sift and vet the linguistic so-called qualifications of the applicants wanting to join my new local U3A 'Language and Languages' group for "old codgers".

I'm looking to spot the "fakes" and the "phonies", obviously, in my list of would-be members - like Peter, who claims in his application for membership that he studied Mandarin Chinese during National Service in the RAF in the 1950's, during the Cold War. Really, Peter? That must make you at least 100 ! [Really, Colin? Are you sure you've done the maths here?]

"Mandarin Blue", the RAF linguists

defending Hong Kong in the 1950's

Luckily Peter doesn't know that I have a 13-year-old grandson Isaac, who's learning Mandarin Chinese at his school at Liphook Hampshire, so we can just "pull Peter in" sometime for a Red Chinese-style "grilling" before we accept his "crudentials" [sic]! But will Isaac and I need a warrant from the High Sheriff [to question Peter]? Legal advice welcome haha!

[That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

11:00 Lois, Sarah and the girls arrive back from Green Frog Pottery with a bunch of photos, but with no artefacts, because they've got to be glazed or baked, or something like that, by the workshop, before they can be released to the paying customers.

Awwwwwwww !!!!!

It's sunny outside but incredibly cold, so everybody, including me who's stayed in comfort here in the house, "warms up" with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, which is nice.

The twins have an enormous collection of stuffed toys, to whom they've assigned not just names but also birthdays, and "profiles" - brief summaries of each toy's life-story and interests. All these birthdays are marked by elaborate gift-giving of home-made birthday presents and a tea-party.

So it's no surprise to me today to find out that the twins want to assign similar treatment to me, their favourite "stuffed grandpa". It's my actual birthday next week, but since the big day is going to be slightly marred for me by an annoying hospital appointment, they're going to hold a quasi birthday celebration for me here today instead, which is nice. And they've got me a lovely box of Dairy Milk Chocolates from "Nestlé", or "Nestles" as Lois and I used to call it in our youth.

After the gift-and-card giving, we have an M&S Colin-the-Caterpillar-Cake-themed tea party to finish up. What could be better? After all, you're only 78 once, aren't you - to be frank!!!

Guests include Bluebell Mouse and Black-and-White-Cat, who get their share of egg sandwiches, ham rolls and "Caterpillar Cake", which is only fair, we think. And I get the Colin the Caterpillar's Head, which is the icing on the cake (literally haha!).

What a birthday - surely my best ever. After all, what more could anybody ask for!!!!

The twins haven't got a DVD for me to watch tonight as my birthday treat, so we see one of theirs instead, Cats & Dogs (2001), bought recently at a Barnard's Green charity shop for £1, and not yet watched.

Neil Roberts in "The Sun" newspaper, said the film was "more fun than rolling on your back and having your tummy tickled" - I can test that fully later tonight, when Sarah and the twins have gone to bed, so till then the jury's still out on that one haha!

By the time the film finishes (see picture above) Sarah and the twins are getting sleepy, so they retire to bed.

21:00 After 10 minutes of tickling and rough-housing on the rug, for comparison purposes, Lois and I settle down on the couch to watch one of New Yorker John Wilson's documentaries, this one being about "how to watch birds".

This''ll be nice for us to see, because we downsized to a new-build home here in Malvern about 16 months ago, and one feature of new-build housing estates is their relative lack of birdsong. This is due to the shortage of mature trees and bushes, which will probably take several decades to establish themselves, which is something of a pity.

John prefaces his remarks with a bit of background about himself. He writes, "If you're like me, you spend a lot of time indoors. Most of your favourite things within the four walls of your apartment, and sometimes you forget to leave at all."

This is the problem, isn't it - once again Wilson hits the nail on the head.

What DO you do, out there "reacquainting yourself with nature", after you've done all the obvious things, like checking [acclaimed film director] Ron Howard's current net worth on your smartphone and all that kind of malarkey.

Adds Wilson, "Most of the time when you're out, your eyes are focussed on the ground, but usually, whenever you see people looking up, they seem to be fixated on birds."

And in one of Wilson's telling insights, he says, "You never really cared about birds. You're not even sure what they do. But there must be something magic about them for so many people to devote so much time to looking at them.

"So instead of spending another afternoon [in your apartment] staring into space, or feeling cooped up inside, stick with me and I'll show you how to escape your old routine, and start with... just watching birds."

It's an amazing opening to the programme, and it fills Lois and me with excitement and anticipation, but sadly, as so often, Wilson seems to lose interest in the programme's subject matter after the first 5 minutes, and he moves on to something else that grabs him more, like tonight, as soon as he starts looking for equipment to aid his new "birder" hobby.

He buys a "Guide to Birds", and then starts by trying to find a shop that will sell him some binoculars or other surveillance equipment, and he asks the shop guy what kind of stuff he has for long-range surveillance.