Lois and I have been living in our new-build home in Malvern for 18 months now, but it's been clear to us this month that it's still not yet ideal for us in many ways. It's still a "work in progress". Oh dear yes.
It's in a better state, at least, than it was when we first moved in, on October 31st 2022. Remember those days, when Lois and I were using torn up flatpack packing-cases to stop the neighbours across the street from seeing us in bed? What a madness that was, wasn't it.
flashback to November 2022: our bedroom - note, in the window, the unstylish
flatpack packaging that shields us from public view, in the absence of blinds
Not that we'd want to of course, anyway haha!
Well, now that we've been having our first mini-heatwave, which saw temperatures this month "soar" to the low 70's F (low-20s C), we've now begun to envy our neighbours' patios with their hoity-toity "awnings" and poncey "umbrellas".
That, in the nutshell, is the kind of "patio fun" that Lois and I now crave. And so today we get that guy Chris round from Hillary's Blinds, the guy who did the blinds in our bedroom, and he agrees to put up an awning for us over the patio. He says they can do it in about 3 weeks' time.
The locals in these parts have certainly been taking advantage of the mini-heatwave on their patios this last week - it's been all over the local Onion News Worcestershire website. Have you seen some of the stories?
I showcase the awning we've chosen from the
Hillary's Blinds catalogue that Chris brings us round this morning
As usual we're just a little bit late with everything we do. We finally get to order our awning for the patio today, just as the mini-heatwave has gone away, an uncomfortable fact that we realise when we go out for our daily "old-codger-style" walk round the housing estate, and have to put our coats on, it's so chilly.
Damn!!!
we go for our daily walk, and realise pretty quickly
that the recent "mini-heatwave" is well and truly over - damn!
Chilly it may be, but Lois and I have just got to keep walking a bit each day, particularly me, because I'm a "what-I-call" recovering hip-o-holic. I had a hip replacement operation on April 3rd at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Redditch.
flashback to last month: our daughter Sarah and granddaughter
Lily visit me, as I recover in my hospital bed from a hip replacement op
I'm now currently going through that annoying first six to eight weeks after the hip operation, when I have to do some tiresome exercises three times a day and go for little walks, always keeping an eye on the angle of my hip flexion, so the shiny new hip doesn't decide to "pop out of its socket".
The most irritating thing to me about these 6-8 weeks, is having to lie on my back in bed all night, because although you may not know it, I'm a natural "side-y" or "side-ster".
Lois is always to my left in the bed, so I like to lie on my left side, and look over Lois's shoulder when she's reading in bed. That way I can "read along" with what she's reading. and laugh at all the funny bits. This is incredibly annoying to Lois, I confess, because I tend to read faster than she does, and sometimes even try to turn over to the next page in my impatience to see a punchline.
like this man, I like to "read along" in bed, and laugh at all
the funny bits, Oh dear, how annoying that must be!
However, unfortunately, just at the moment, lying on my left side, which is my "good" hip, would be one of the worst things I can do. It would tend to force my knees together, down towards Lois's, and maybe even jerk the "shiny new hip" out of its socket.
Imagine - we could be lying there one night and suddenly see my hip fly up and hit the ceiling with a force of several g's.
a typical hole in the ceiling caused by a hip "popping out of its socket"
and hitting the plasterwork with a force of several g's: yikes !!!
a typical couple enjoying their "his and hers" orthopaedic pillows
After all, at our age, you never know what's going to "give out" next, do you. Go on, admit it! Be honest haha!!
The Duke and Duchess of Argyle ran an "open marriage" pretty much from the start, right from when they first got married in the early 1950's, and both of them had dozens, even hundreds, of affairs. The Duke was always threatening to divorce his wife. From the Duchess's viewpoint, however, as she had been born a commoner, Margaret Campbell, she had a strong interest in keeping the marriage going, so that she could hang on to her title, while at the same time "working her way through" man after man, a lot of them much younger than she was.
It's a fascinating programme for Lois and me to watch, because we were both teenagers at the time the scandal really broke, in the early 1960's, when there was a sensational divorce hearing initiated by the Duke.
However, when we talk over our memories this evening, we discover that neither of us really understood what it was all about at the time. The press in those days was much more guarded than it is now in describing sexual activities, and used lots of unhelpful euphemisms, and it was also still quite deferential when it came to talking about the aristocracy, which made matters worse.
Do you remember when the tabloids used to talk about a couple "being intimate", meaning that they were having sex? Or when they described a woman as being "in a certain condition", meaning she was pregnant. What a madness all that was, wasn't it.
It was a strange divorce hearing, also, that of the Duke and the allegedly "sex-mad" Duchess, to put it mildly. In those days, to prove adultery in the absence of a confession, you had to more or less catch a couple in bed and take a picture, or somehow get hold of their bedsheets to analyse the so-called "stains".
In this case, however, in a "first" in the history of UK divorce proceedings, the Duke's detectives had managed to get hold of the Duchess's photo-album of polaroid pictures of her alleged 88 lovers, one of which showed her giving oral sex to a a "headless man". Not literally headless - he hadn't been executed or anything, but his head had been missed off the picture, I imagine deliberately: he had perhaps requested anonymity - well, you would, wouldn't you haha!!!
your polaroid camera - always take it with you,
you never know when it might come in handy haha!
What a crazy world they lived in, in those far-off days!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!!
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