You never really forget your first time, do you, be honest! And things don't always go 100% smoothly, do they - do you remember all that desperate fumbling etc!
And even if things do go a bit wrong, the experience nevertheless kind of stays with you as a fond memory, doesn't it. Like I'm sure it will have done for Alice Kempton, the first-time skydiver in the local papers the other day. No matter what, you can tell from the smile on Alice's face that this is a memory she's always going to cherish, even if, sadly, she doesn't get to tell her grandchildren about it!
flashback to September 1970: me standing in front of
the Iversen Guesthouse, on mine and Lois's first ever holiday together
And for me also, there's the first time I visited the US, on a business trip with my boss Harvey - remember the day he let me drive the car he'd rented for us?
You can't tell it maybe, just from this photo - except perhaps judging by my secret smile of triumph - but at the time this following photo was taken, I had just, for the very first time, driven on the "wrong" side of the road, on the 73-mile ride from our hotel in Laurel, Maryland to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.
flashback to 1980: me on my first trip to the US, pictured here
after driving 73 miles on the "wrong" side of the road,
rewarding myself with a taste of the world's best custard,
at a custard shop in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
us, leaving New York in 1985, bound for Southampton
after our life-changing 3 years in the States
But yes, all those glorious first times we ever do anything: they stay with us for ever, no doubt about that.
And also that feeling of "doing it again" after an enforced period of abstinence, can be almost as good as "doing it for the first time", can't it.
Like this local couple from the Worcestershire village of Bell End, who've been experiencing rough times recently, now happily brought to an end. And more power to their "joint" elbows (no pun intended!).
It's been a bit like that this week for Lois and me.
Since my operation at the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch on April 3rd we too have been through "hard times", just like the Wheelans, but at my post-op check-up on Tuesday, the nice woman doctor gave us the green light to resume some of the "forbidden" things that we really love doing, which is nice, to put it mildly!
flashback to Tuesday: Lois and I buckle up in our daughter
Sarah's car for the gruelling drive to Redditch
for my post-op check-up at the hospital
SEVEN WEEKS AND THREE DAYS it's been !!!! We knew we would be going through a period of denial and self-abstinence - is that a word? [No! - Ed]. So, in anticipation, we had really "pushed the boat out" on March 27th, as I remember, in case it proved to be our "last hurrah". Oh dear!
Yes, seven and a half weeks ago: March 27th - that was our pre-operation "last day of fun", and Lois and I tried to cram as many "forbidden" things into the day as we could. I drove our car round to the 16th century Bluebell Inn, Malvern's oldest pub, and we indulged ourselves with an alcohol and mocktail-fuelled lunch, followed by an extended 3 hour naptime back at home. Remember that day?
flashback to March 27th - our last day of fun: just read the smiles
on our sweet little faces: after an alcohol and mocktail-fuelled lunch
we were on our way home for an extended 3-hour naptime.
Awwwwwww!!!!! Happy days !!!!!
Yes, happy times, but the good news is that we've already been doing a lot of those "forbidden" things again this week, since my Tuesday check-up, which is nice.
And today I actually get to DRIVE OUR CAR for the first time in seven and a half weeks. I find I can get into the driver's seat and work the pedals, which are the most fundamental requirements, in my eyes at least - call me over-cautious if you like haha!
we celebrate my return to driving with a flat-white
coffee and toasted tea-cake at Clive's Fruit Farm,
just outside Upton-on-Severn
Maybe the rooster is just exhausted, or "in a mood" perhaps. Sulking? But equally, it could just be his "day off", but fair enough, he must be one busy little guy, to put it mildly!!!
the hen coop at Clive's Fruit Farm - no orgies
21:00 We wind down for bed with another programme from the BBC's "Betjeman-fest" of programmes to mark 40 years since the death of former poet-laureate John Betjeman.
Yes, this is the moment in the interview that everybody seems to remember, when Betjeman "wanted to lighten things", as he often did, and not let things ever get too "heavy".
Stedall however has other memories of the films he made with Betjeman all those years ago, this one from Stedall's film adaptation of Betjeman's verse autobiography "Summoned by Bells".
Fascinating stuff, isn't it !!!!
going on, however, it could be a day-off
for Clive's overworked little white rooster
- poor little guy haha!
flashback to our last visit to Clive's Fruit Farm: an obviously
amused Lois showcases the rooster giving one of his 30-strong
hen harem a very public "seeing-to", as other harem-members
queue to be "next up" - my goodness, on a Saturday morning too !!!!
[For heaven's sake, you two noggins, do stop watching programmes about Betjeman - one of these days you've got to "bite the bullet" and see a non-Betjeman-related programme, and you know that, don't you!!! - Ed]
[Well, this one's a bit different, because it's celebrity chef Rick Stein talking about the great man's tastes in food, a subject not often covered when you look at studies of most major poets, I think you'll find! - Colin]
It turns out that celebrity chef Rick Stein and poet laureate John Betjeman had a surprising lot in common, more than you'd expect.
They both came from "outsider" families - Lois and I hadn't "clocked" the fact that they've both got vaguely "Germanic"-sounding names. Their families both must have settled in the UK at some time in the past, I guess.
And both John and Rick "discovered girls" as students at Oxford University, although Stein didn't have much luck: he was already into poetry, especially funny, joyous, Betjeman poetry, but it was the days when girls were mainly into gloomy old Leonard Cohen songs, he says, songs that he personally couldn't abide, and I sympathise with that view!
Poor Stein!!!!
We learn also tonight, that both Rick and John were slightly unpopular with some of the crustier locals, because they had both "popularised" Cornwall and so brought even more hordes of tourists to the county. Well, tough luck, crusty locals!!!
Above all, both Rick and John loved Cornwall, and the seaside, and the mighty Atlantic Ocean. And in tonight's programme, from 2006, Stein talks to some of John's old friends, and cooks for them all the kind of meal he thinks John himself would have liked. This turns out to be some sort of fish pie, made from "local fish", naturally haha!
However, first Stein greets his guests with good old, unpretentious cups of tea, of the sort he thinks John would have approved of: just "ordinary" everyday British tea, not something "poncey" like Lapsang Souchong or Earl Grey.
And then he brings out his fish pie.
And what would one serve with fish pie, what would Betjeman have liked? Again, Stein has the obvious answer.
Yes, "Peas is good food" as that man said once, long ago.
And please note, also: contrary to much of the storm of criticism that greeted that now-famous remark, "peas is good food", the man who coined this particular "bon mot" was actually using the correct singular verb-form here, "is".
The reason is that "pease" was originally a singular noun, from the Greek, "pison". It was later assumed by the English to be a plural form just because it ended in an "s-sound", just like the word cherries, which came originally from the French "cerise". So if we were true to the origin of these words, we'd be counting them as "one pease, two pease, three pease...." and "one cherries, two cherries" etc.
See? It's all starting to make a crazy lot of sense now, isn't it!!!
[That's enough about peas! - Ed]
flashback to earlier today at Clive's Fruit Farm: we inspect
Clive's 'cherries trees', to use the historically correct form
- call me pedantic if you like haha!
But back to the programme! One of the friends that are sitting at that garden table that afternoon, eating Stein's fish pie in the programme tonight, turns out to be Jonathan Stedall, the documentary film-maker who made a lot of programmes with Betjeman, and became a close friend of the poet.
The films shot by Stedall included an adaptation of Betjeman's verse autobiography "Summoned by Bells", and also the intimate "Time with Betjeman", the interview in the last film Betjeman appeared in, before he died in 1984.
[That's enough Betjeman! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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