Danskcolin: Sunday June 2nd 2024 "Sooner or later everybody has to renew the elastic in their pants, don't they!"

It's never too late, is it, to shake off one's "public" personality and take on a brash, new one, is it.

Lois and I are in our late 70's now - and Lois's birthday is coming up next week. We look like a typical quiet elderly couple who don't do much all day and then fall asleep in front of the "telly" in the evenings. But we have a secret "fantasy life" that might surprise you, I'm thinking!

us, now in our late 70's - we look like a typical quiet elderly couple,

but just hear a bit now, about our secret fantasy world!

I bet you didn't know that we've always fantasized about winning the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, and bringing home millions of US dollars home to our quiet new-build housing estate in Malvern, to "splurge", gradually of course, in small bills, perhaps a few each week, so nobody notices, at some of our local shops like OneStop or maybe Clive's Fruit Farm.

our local OneStop convenience store on Poolbrook Road

We don't really know the rules of poker yet, but we've got a magazine article somewhere, if only we could find it, that is!

We downsized to this new-build home in Malvern in October 2022 from our old house in Cheltenham, and we still haven't found a lot of books and magazines that mysteriously went missing in the move, including this copy of "Cigar Aficionado", which is a real "doozy", no question about that!

one of our missing copies of "Cigar Aficionado"

- a pity, because we remember that it's a real "doozy" !!!!

But maybe we won't need to learn the rules in advance, after all, because there's some good news for elderly couples like ourselves in this morning's Onion News, which is nice.

So - it looks like it's just a matter of getting hold of a couple of airline tickets, and then we're good to go! Las Vegas, here we come !!!!

I still have my doubts however. Do we have that "will to win"?

I wonder.....!

Lois and I, famously in our family, have enormous trouble remembering the rules of the much simpler board games that we play with our grandchildren, like Cluedo and, even worse, Scotland Yard, and they normally "wipe the floor" with us, I'm ashamed to say!

In this picture our granddaughter Jessica gently helps Lois to move

her piece correctly. We both struggle to remember the rules of

board games like "Scotland Yard", and our grandchildren

normally have no difficulty in "wiping the floor with us" - oh dear!

It wasn't always like that, believe me! When Lois and I were just a thrusting young couple, not even married yet, we were normally desperate to win games, especially playing against each other - you should have heard some of the anguished cries of "THAT'S not a word!" that used to echo around the living-room.

flashback to 1970 - us before we were married

My goodness - yes, those were the days!!!!

one of our early hard-fought scrabble games

as a thrusting young couple

I think the rot set in when we started having children [Had several hundred have you? - Ed], because it's a hard parent who stays committed to winning games against their small children at games, especially immediately after patiently teaching them how to play. Be fair - you know I speak the truth!

Nobody wants to be "Competitive Dad" (The Fast Show, BBC), do they. Remember when Competitive Dad (Simon Day) had that dispute with his young son over the rules of Monopoly, which he insisted on settling by various "trials of strength"?

flashback to the 1990's: Competitive Dad Simon Day

engaging in "trials of strength" with his young family

It was all a bit of a madness, wasn't it.

14:30 Lois and I get into bed, as usual. We're having a quiet day today, because we've got a busy day tomorrow (Monday), travelling up to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch for my first physio "group" meeting, organised for recent patients with one thing in common: they (and I) are all "sporting" new hips.

flashback to April 6th: me in my hospital bed at Redditch,

recovering from my hip replacement operation,

here being visited by our daughter Sarah and granddaughter Lily

I can't imagine what we'll be doing - let's just hope there won't be any hip-wrestling or other "trials of strength" to see if anybody's new hip "pops out", flies away, and lodges in the plasterwork: I think it's a bit too early for that sort of test, at barely 2 months post-op, don't you?

But what WILL we all be doing at the meeting? Will they simply just sit us all down in a circle, where we give our names, confess our weaknesses and discuss our experiences?

Lois is already referring to it in front of our neighbours as 'Colin's "Hippoholics Anonymous" meeting'. Well, we'll see.

Watch this space! [Well, I'm not holding my breath! - Ed]

16:00 We roll out of bed for a cup of tea and a "bite" or two on the couch. And finally I finish off the synopsis of my so-called "presentation" that I'm due to give next Friday to our local U3A "History of English" group, which is a relief, to put it mildly!

flashback to 2022: me, with a print-out of a talk in front of me,

as I wait ready to address a previous zoom meeting of our local

U3A "History of English" group

20:00 We go to bed on a fascinating special edition of the TV programme "Antiques Roadshow", one of several programmes on at the moment to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

We see some fascinating souvenirs of the D-Day campaign tonight, that contributors have brought along for Fiona and her team of experts to look at.

the D-Day landings into occupied Europe: June 6th 1944

We see lots of historical documents and relics: including the weather map produced for Eisenhower by his meteorology team - the map that meant the landings were postponed briefly, which particularly interests Lois, when she realises that the landings, if gone as scheduled, would have happened on her (future) birthday, had it not been for a burst of nasty weather. The corresponding German weather charts weren't so accurate apparently, because at this stage of the war, they just didn't have the data sources over the Atlantic that the allies had - makes sense, doesn't it, looking back!

Also we see lots of more human-interest souvenirs, from some of the 150,000-plus Americans, Brits and Canadians who took part in the landings.

My favourite exhibit is the illustrated diary of a British lieutenant brought along by his daughter-in-law.

Lt Sindall called his diary "Whew!!!! Praise the Lord, the ammunition passed me!"

His daughter-in-law explains that Lt Sindall tried to make it a humorous diary, because it was like a note to his mother. He tried to make it enjoyable to read through, rather than something really serious.