Friends, have you ever noticed the enormous billboards that you sometimes see when you're travelling round Birmingham, maybe going north on the M5 and looking for the slip-road to the M6, so you can drive eventually. up to the so-called "frozen north", maybe Lancashire or the Lake District?
a typical route taken by a car-driver from West Worcestershire
trying to find the so-called "frozen north" of Lancashire
and the Lake District, by switching from the M5 to the M6
And if you have noticed these billboards, have you ever "clocked" the fact that they don't always advertise the same thing from one week to the next?
billboards - they don't always advertise the same thing
week after week, do they - be honest!
And yet, and yet (!!!!) ..... you hardly ever see a guy up on a long ladder peeling off the old one and pasting a new one in its place with paste and a long-handled broom? I personally have never seen it happen, not even once, in all my 50 plus years of driving experience, and I've come to the conclusion that they must do the whole change-business at night. But if you know different, drop me a postcard, would you?!
Somehow or other, they do change the "product" they're advertising, that's for sure. And this long-touted observation of mine has finally been confirmed by this lovely story this week from the Onion News Worcestershire Desk.
Incidentally I've got a bit of a "private hot-line" to poor old local man Spencer, who features in that Onion News story above, and he tells me that even the Smartwater ad has disappeared now, to be replaced by one advertising popular singing star Sting's forthcoming appearance at the Foxwoods Casino in North Piddle.
But a billboard is the nearest that my long-suffering wife Lois - a secret Sting fan or a "stingie" as they're now called (!) - is likely to get to her idol, let's face facts!
And here in Malvern, Lois and I can't help thinking of that Sting billboard this morning, when our daughter Alison stops by, with husband Ed, daughter Rosalind, and son Isaac. They live in Headley, Hampshire, but they've been in our area for a few days, and we've had some nice outings and chats with them during their time here.
flashback to yesterday: Lois and I go for a walk with our daughter Alison
and family on Poolbrook Common in the lee of the 700-million-year-old
Malvern Hills. Left to right: Ed, Isaac, Lois, Alison, Rosalind and me
Astonishingly, this morning, when Alison and family drop by to see us, Alison drops the "bombshell" news that she and her family actually got to meet somebody off a billboard (!) last night, and quite unexpectedly, would you believe! None of them was prepared for it, and nobody had their autograph books handy, which was a pity.
They had made an arrangement to spend the evening with Vicky, Alison's old student friend from her time at Cardiff University, who now lives on the other side of Malvern.
Lois and I well remember, in the early 1990's, driving a very young and very nervous 19-year-old Alison, with all her "stuff", to what was going to be her "student house" for the next 3 years. When we arrived, the house turned out to be deserted apart from one other new student, Vicky: she and Alison struck up an immediate friendship and they're still friends today, almost exactly 30 years later, although they have only seen each other on rare occasions in recent times.
flashback to the early 1990's: Alison (left), about to start her 3 years
at Cardiff University studying Italian, sitting with her sister Sarah and me
on a trip to Pennsylvania to see my late sister Kathy, and husband Steve
He's recently been dubbed "The New Face of Supermarket Aldi", and "Worcestershire's Mr Tomato" or (as cruder folks call him, due to his "hunky" appearance) "Worcestershire's Mr Sex", from his iconic appearances on cut-price supermarket Aldi's billboards and bus-shelter adverts plastered all over the county.
What are the chances of that happening, eh?!!!
11:00 Well, all good things come to an end. And after a final cup of tea and a chat with Alison and family, Lois and I have to bid them a tearful "goodbye for now", before collapsing in a heap on the sofa.
It's been such an exciting few days that we've had with them all, plus with our other daughter Sarah and her twin daughters Lily and Jessica, and suddenly it's all over, and Lois and I both feel suddenly really really tired.
our tiny back garden as it looks today
Nice try, Hyacinth!
If you live in these parts, you're sure to be very familiar with the guy already, without even knowing it!
Local tomato-grower Nick, partner of Alison's friend
from her Cardiff University days, Vicky.
Nick has been dubbed Worcestershire's "Mr Sex"
They say that you should never meet your idols, don't they, and Lois and I have always tried to follow that rule, but it can be difficult. Celebrities after all are only human, and they have to go to the toilet occasionally, we've always found, which gives ordinary folk like you and me an extra chance to observe them, which is nice!
We once shared an otherwise empty railway carriage, bound for the Eurotunnel, with Anglo-Australian Harry Potter star Miriam Margolyes, and I remember that we observed her exiting the carriage briefly to go along to the Ladies, passing quickly by us, before returning to her seat. And I once bumped into zany comedian Harry Hill in the Gents' toilets at Cheltenham Town Hall, as he was preparing to give his one-man show there, about 20 years or so ago. Apart from that - nothing, which is a pity to put it mildly!
we bid a tearful farewell to our daughter Alison, son-in-law Ed,
plus Rosalind (16) and Isaac (13)
Oh dear, we must be getting old! [You don't say! - Ed]
By evening Lois and I have more or less managed to put the house back to rights again. To accommodate both of our daughters and their families in our tiny, new-build home here in Malvern we had had to bring down several chairs from the upper storey, as well as reorienting our dining-table from its usual east-west position to a north-south one, to fit all 9 of us round it.
And let's face it, those chairs and tables are not going to move themselves back to their normal location and orientation, are they!
[Is that really all you two "noggins" have done today, Colin? And I expect you spent the afternoon in bed again, didn't you - come on, "spit it out" !!!! - Ed]
But just look at it now - a veritable vegetable "factory", on an industrial scale, and it's all Lois's doing, bless her!
Well, seeing as how you ask (!), Lois did also do some 'vegetable work', inspired by Nick, "Worcestershire's Self-styled Mr Sex".
Yes, you've probably guessed it already! The first "fruits" of Lois's raised beds and bean poles in the back-garden have at last been "harvested", and we get the chance to sample a bit of them for tea in the evening, so that's nice!
Lois today (1) showcases, and (2) eats
the first fruits of the veg in our back garden - yum yum!
Remember, our back garden was just a load of earth, not even turfed, when we first moved into this house on October 31st 2022:
our back garden (left) as it looked when we first moved
into this new-build home in Malvern, on October 31st 2022; meanwhile our next door neighbour
Matt is already ahead of us in the "turfing stakes"
- and all thanks to Lois
21:00 We go to bed on the very first programme in the 1990's sitcom series "Keeping Up Appearances", preceded by a brief retrospective on the series recorded earlier this year with the series scriptwriter Roy Clarke, now an incredible 94 years of age.
In this first episode, social climber Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "Bouquet"), played by Patricia Routledge, is visiting her "common" sister, Daisy (Judy Cornwell) and Daisy's crude husband, Onslow (Geoffrey Hughes), to discuss an unpleasant incident involving Hyacinth and Daisy's father.
Onslow drops the comment that the two women's father has been discovered to be "a dirty old man", and Hyacinth asks her sister Daisy what Onslow means by that.
It does seem like a ridiculous idea at first sight, doesn't it. But it turns out to be true, which shows it's never wise to dismiss report like this out of hand. And it's Dad's nurse, Rose, who first "spills the beans":
Give her her due, though, Hyacinth is always loyal to her father, and she lights on what she imagines to be a perfectly innocent explanation for the incident.
But what tremendous fun, at the same time !!!!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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