Danskcolin: Sunday May 12th 2024 "Come back, North America, all is forgiven !!!!"

Have you read about the latest astonishing geological breakthrough, you know, the theory that explains the reason the continents broke up and floated apart all those aeons ago [source Onion News Science Supplement] ?

And nice, that the story ends on an optimistic note - could the continents "get back together", making overseas travel more affordable, and putting those awful, polluting, cruise liners out of business?

We can only hope! [That's enough whimsy! - Ed]

Emotional problems caused by fallings-out can certainly hang around, can't they. And Lois and I are realising this a bit at the moment, because we've got our daughter Sarah and her 10-year-old twins staying with us for the weekend. And although on the surface the twins seem as bouncy and creative as ever, at the same time some emotional rifts are in the air, no question about that!

flashback to yesterday morning: my wife Lois (left) welcomes

our daughter Sarah and her twins for the weekend

When you're ten years old, fallings-out can be a bit of a problem, can't they. Do you remember when you were 10, and your friendships were constantly being threatened by "interlopers" trying to be best friends with your best friends etc? It's all very traumatic at that age, isn't it.

Sarah and the twins, with Sarah's husband Francis, moved back to the UK last May after 7 years in Australia, and in general the twins have settled in well at their new English school, but Sarah tells us that the twins have been having a difficult week there this past week.

flashback to December: the twins (ringed) singing

Christmas songs with their new English schoolmates

It's just a little village school near Alcester, and because of the small numbers, two classes are generally combined as one - so Year 5 and Year 6 sit together although they're split up for many of the lessons. The twins' great friend Natalie is Year 6 and the twins are Year 5, which is normally not a problem. Just at the moment, however, the Year 6 kids are taking their "SATS" exams, and the twins have felt a bit out of it, because Natalie is suddenly spending more time with her Year 6 friends. Oh dear, poor twins!

And Lois and I certainly notice the difference in the twins' mood this weekend - they are definitely not as bouncy as normal.

Another factor here, incredibly, is that the twins seem to be feeling the effects of the sudden so-called "heatwave" (a high here today of 79F or 26C). It's making them a bit lethargic, which is weird, considering they were living in Western Australia from 2015 to 2023, where the temperatures frequently rise in summer to over 100F / 38C.

It's not much more than a year ago the their father, Francis, was "hosing them down" outside their home in Western Australia, to prepare them for the English climate. Remember these pictures?

flashback to March 2023: our son-in-law Francis hoses the twins down

outside their home in W. Australia to prepare them for the rigours

of the English climate - what madness !!!

It just shows, doesn't it, how quickly the twins have got used to the English climate in the last 12 months, so much so, that they're now calling temperatures in the 70's F (low 20's C) "sweltering" and saying it's "too hot to do anything", just like Lois and I always say. My goodness!

15:30 Sarah and the twins depart for their home in Alcester. They're anxious to get away promptly this Sunday, because there's a forecast for the hot weather to "break" with the arrival of thunderstorms.

Also it's the Malvern Spring Festival and Flower Show this weekend, taking place about a mile away from us here at the Three Counties Showground, and when that ends, the traffic jams are going to be horrendous.

Lois and I bid a tearful farewell to our weekend visitors,

our daughter Sarah and her twins Lily and Jessica:

let's hope they have a better week at school this coming week!

Meanwhile, at the Malvern Spring Festival, the crowds are larger than ever this year, thanks in part to an appearance by the surviving half of the much-loved "Hairy Bikers" two-man chef team. One of the two bikers, Dave Myers, sadly died earlier this year, but the other half of the duo, Si King, has been making an appearance in the Big Tent, and drawing a large crowd.

16:00 Soon after Sarah and the twins depart, the weather "breaks" and the thunderstorms begin.

Luckily Lois and I are already tucked up in bed for "nap time", all snug and dry, when the thunder and lightning "mayhem" begins outside our bedroom window. We don't waste any time you know! And before we came upstairs, we closed all the windows as a precaution, so we can watch the "mayhem" in complete dryness, from the comfort of our bed, which is nice!

the view from our bedroom window as the thunderstorm "mayhem" begins

We're in a good mood, and buzzing with excitement this afternoon, because we're looking forward to a documentary tonight on Channel 5 about the "Lost Scrolls of Pompeii", a documentary about new computerised methods using AI (artificial intelligence), methods which, it's hoped, will enable experts to read the remains of hundreds of burnt and charred scrolls still surviving from the library of Pompeii and Herculaneum's most grandiose villa.

These scrolls, charred almost to a crisp during the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius, could potentially reveal to the world dozens, even maybe hundreds, of previously unknown works in Latin and Ancient Greek: possible lost treatises by Aristotle, lost plays by Euripides, all that kind of thing.

Exciting, or what?

This project to hopefully one day read all these scrolls has been pursued doggedly for 20 years by Brent Seales, a computer scientist from Kentucky University. He pretty much knows nothing of Greek or Latin or the ancient world, but he's fascinated by the technical challenge - well, who wouldn't be?!!!

Seales has now made his first breakthrough, and he's "proved" the method works, but it's still early days. In the last 5 minutes of this hour-long documentary, the first image is presented of part of the first scroll he has been working on.

But wouldn't you know it? By the time Seales' first results are shown in these final 5 minutes of the programme, Lois and I are both fast asleep on the couch - well, we're no spring chickens are we -we both turn 78 this year! Poor us haha!!!!!

Awwww! Bless us haha!!!!!

Before going to bed, we quickly watch the last 5 minutes again on "catch-up", so all is not lost.

It's just a small fragment, but it contains the Greek word for purple, "porphyra" (πορφύρα), which is the word that we get our English word "purple" from.