Danskcolin: Saturday April 27th 2024

Driving tests around the world certainly seem to be becoming more and more dangerous these days, aren't they, attracting the fashionable label of "extreme", what with the state of Kentucky introducing more and more difficult challenges for budding drivers, like this latest one - "chicken games", as reported in Onion News.

Yikes !!!!!

Luckily, the English county of Hampshire, where our daughter Alison lives, with husband Ed and their three teenage children, has so far, at least, adopted a more cautious approach to these worldwide trends in so-called "extreme" driving tests, which is lucky for Josie, the eldest of mine and Lois's 5 grandchildren, has been learning to drive over the last few months.

And today she's got the first item in what proves to be a big news day for Lois and me, without a doubt.

Not that it makes us feel extremely old or even fossilized, or anything [I'd like proof of that, Colin! - Ed], but we're very pleased to report that the eldest of our 5 grandchildren, Josie, has passed her driving test in Portsmouth, at the second attempt.

flashback to January: our eldest grandchild Josie (17)

about to take a practice drive to her school near Guildford, Surrey

with her dad, our son-in-law Ed, in the passenger seat [not shown]

flashback to 2011: Lois with Josie, aged 4,

at the family home in Haslemere, Surrey

Yikes! Time goes so fast when you're old, doesn't it! [Don't tell me you've only just realised that, Colin! - Ed]

The second big news-story for Lois and me today is that my "little" sister Jill, at the young age of 65 ['young' to you maybe, Colin! - Ed], has become a home-owner for the first time in her life, I believe; her late husband Peter was a priest in the Church of England, later in the Roman Catholic Church, and so Jill and Peter lived in church-owned properties for all their married life.

the port of Ipswich in the county of Suffolk

Wow, what a life-changing moment for Jill - and it's lovely modern flat in a multi-storey block in Ipswich, Suffolk, and in the same complex as her daughter Lucy. She's hoping to move in in the next couple of months.

The flat's also got lovely views of Ipswich Marina, which is the icing on the cake. Today Jill sends me a little video featuring a walk-round tour of the property, and a look at the marina from her balcony, which is nice.

the view from one of Jill's two balconies

Always something to watch from that balcony, I would imagine, to put it mildly!

flashback to 1958: me with my newborn sister Jill,

in Sale, Cheshire - my late brother Steve is looking over my shoulder

flashback to 1959: (left to right) me, my dear late brother

Steve, my dear late sister Kathy, and Jill

flashback to 1960: Jill and me in the back garden of our house in Bristol

1960 again: me, aged 14, in my Bristol Grammar School uniform,

on the beach at Weston-super-mare, with my little sister Jill (2)

flashback to October 2023: Jill, Lois and I stop for a warming cup of

coffee at the café outside the town museum here in Malvern

Oh dear - well, we all have to get old eventually, don't we! [Especially you, Colin! - Ed]

10:00 Apart from these big-news story, today is a busy morning for Lois and me. It's only 3 weeks since my hip-replacement operation so I'm staying in the house this morning doing my post-op hip exercises, while Lois goes with our daughter Sarah and her 10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, to the nearby Clive's Fruit Farm, a place the twins love for its playground, its disused agricultural engines, and substantial lunches (not necessarily in that order - my goodness !!!! - you should see those twins "packing it away" !!!!

Still, they're growing girls, aren't they - unlike Lois and me, who are rapidly shrinking. Yikes (again) !!!

18:00 Dear reader, are you a gentleman? Some of you may well be, I appreciate that. But if so, are you also a member of a "gentleman's club", I wonder?

And I don't mean the sort of so-called gentleman's club that you unfortunately find in some of the sleazier suburbs of Worcester, like North Piddle, with its notorious Ajax Gentleman's Club - you know, that club that's so often cropping up in the "review" pages of the local Onion News - and not always for very edifying reasons, may I add, as I'm sure you'll be aware!

the famous "One Mile to North Piddle" roadsign

And aren't those kinds of comments just typical of people in North Piddle, with their generally cautious approach to life! "Adequate job" indeed - how's that for damning with faint praise!

Why not live a little for once in your lives, North Piddleans! [You're a great one to talk about not being cautious, Colin! - Ed]

But no, I don't mean those sorts of "gentlemen's clubs" !

Oh no! I'm talking about the posh, if sleepy, London clubs with their plush armchairs, the sort of clubs frequented by the likes of author PG Wodehouse and his character Bertie Wooster - the clubs people like that used to go to in the 1920's.

a typically "busy" afternoon of so-called "activity"

at Bertie Wooster's London Club, "The Drones"

Or, alternatively, the sort of club that top civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleton used to go to, to hobnob with his fellow top civil service mandarin cronies in the 1980's political sitcom, "Yes, Minister"...

Scene from "Yes Minister": Sir Humphrey Appleby (centre)

with his civil service mandarin "chums" at their London club

Lois and I could never have imagined, when we first met our student daughter Alison's then new "squeeze", fellow Cardiff University student Ed, back in 1997 or so, that one day Ed, a legal expert for some of UK's railway companies, would be hobnobbing with people like Louise Haigh, the Labour Party's Shadow Transport Secretary.

Or, indeed, that Ali and Ed would be invited to one of these posh London clubs, that even Sir Humphrey Appleby, would have been glad of an invite to.

flashback to 1997: (left to right) Ed, Ali, our daughter Sarah,

and Lois at Ogmore in South Wales, by the stepping stones

that my dear late mother used to cross on her way to school

back in the 1920's

Yes, tonight, I can now, in this blog, exclusively reveal, that Ali and Ed, now in their late 40's, are dining at the prestigious Ivy Restaurant and Club in central London, after spending the afternoon at a matinee performance of the critically acclaimed "Book of Mormon" musical.

The London Ivy Restaurant and Club, founded in 1917, has been known to attract guests of the likes of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Noel Coward, Kate Moss, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, you name them - you aren't anybody till you've dined or "gone clubbing" at The Ivy.