Danskcolin: Saturday September 14th 2024 "Who wants to get into a cold bed haha!"

Me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois - we've been married now for 52 years, but we don't agree about everything, to put it mildly. One thing we're of one mind on, however, is that bed is the best place to be in the afternoon, and preferably a bed that's been heated up before we get into it (!). And it's been like a thread in our relationship since we first went away together, to Norway, back in 1970.

Norway isn't always the warmest of places, however, at the best of times. And how would YOU feel on some cold afternoon in a cold hotel room, closing your curtains for privacy, and seeing this kind of a scene in the street below: a freezing old ageing Norwegian couple selling fish on the street, wrapped up to the gills - the couple, I mean, not the fish. The fish don't care about the cold - they're all dead of course (hopefully!). Brrrr !!!!!

we look out of our freezing hotel room and see an ageing couple,

wrapped up as if for winter, selling fish in the street below

In that kind of a climate you don't want to have to get into a cold bed, after a hard morning's sight-seeing in the frozen wastes of the northlands, now, is it - be fair haha !!!!!!

flashback to 1970: we smile and try to "put a brave face" best

on the freezing weather along the Norwegian fjords

Brrrrr (again) !!!!!

Thank goodness for electric blankets, we say. Sometimes I think about some of the really cold hotel rooms Lois and I have shared on holiday, and all those really cold beds, in the days when lots of hotels switched all their heating off centrally in the daytime, to save money, thinking that all their guests would be out, here and there, doing things, and not in one of their beds - it was total madness!

Luckily the preference for a warm bed is one point we've always been both fully agreed on. But in our lovely cosy bed here in our new-build home in Malvern this afternoon, we're chatting about a union seemingly "made in heaven" but which went bad.

Do you remember former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn? He's a forgotten man these days, but once he was in the papers every day - and surely, you'd think, the ideal soulmate for Jeremy would have been left-wing Labour MP Diane Abbott.

flashback to the 1970's: left-wing Labour MP for

Islington (North), Jeremy Corbyn, campaigning

with his then "squeeze", Diane Abbott, who later

became Labour MP for Hackney (North), and

the UK's first black woman MP

Their secret affair, however, all went horribly wrong for Jeremy and Diane, it appears.

In Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, which "plopped" through our letterbox yesterday, Abbott writes that, while she had a range of interests, Corbyn was "99% involved in party politics". On a road trip to France, he was shocked when she told him that she wanted to eat in restaurants. "But I've brought with us enough instant macaroni to last a week!", he explained to her. What madness!!

And Christmas chez Corbyn was a frugal affair, she adds, "with boiled vegetables and no alcohol".

flashback to the 1970's: Abbott (left) eventually told

Corbyn (right) that they "needed to get out more"

At one point Diane explained to Jeremy that she felt that they needed to get out more, and socialise a bit. He seemed to take the point, and a few days later he told her that he was taking her out. She got all "dolled up", thinking he might be taking her to a wine bar, for example, or something similar. But it turned out that Jeremy's idea of a date was to drive her to Highgate Cemetery and show her the tomb of Karl Marx.

What madness (again) !!!!

And poor Diane !!!!!!

16:00 Lois and I struggle out of bed and go downstairs for a cup of Earl Grey tea and a couple of Lois's delicious home-made scones, garnished - is that the right word? [No! - Ed] - by a "dollop" of Lois's delicious home-made blackcurrant jam: yum yum!

Lois's delicious home-made scones

garnished with her delicious home-made

blackcurrant jam (archive picture)

We needed our afternoon nap-time and jam-garnished scones badly today after a hard morning in and around Upton-on-Severn, shopping at Warner's Supermarket and at Clive's Fruit Farm, two of our favourite haunts.

we drive to Upton-on-Severn and shop at the town's

Warner's Supermarket....

...before stocking up on fruit and veg at Clive's Fruit Farm...

...ending up with a well-earned coffee-and-cake in Clive's café

We're pleased, too, that we've heard a bit more today from our daughter Sarah (47), who left the UK last week to start a new life in Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, and hopefully we'll be able to do a first whatsapp video call with some or all of them tomorrow. After the family landed in Perth Thursday the 5th, poor Sarah only had 3 days before starting her brand-new accountancy job at a concrete blocks manufacturer (?) over there. But it's nice to know that the family, who've been staying initially with friends, have already found a rental home they can move into.

flashback to Sunday September 1st - Sarah and Francis

preparing to leave their home in Alcester, Warwickshire,

to start a new life in Perth, Australia

Lois and I treat them to a farewell lunch

at Alcester's 18th century "Royal Oak" pub

19:00 We spend the evening on the couch together, enjoying the final concert in the summer series of BBC Proms from the Albert Hall, London, which, as always, is the best anarchic and chaotic fun you can have while staying within the law (!), as established by the often-cited landmark case of Smith vs. Jones, Worcester County Court (1384), and tested numerous times in the courts of the land haha!

This is at least one occasion in the year (!) where we can feel lucky to be brits, Lois and I (!), and celebrate our country's history in a musical kind of way. And I don't think any other country in the world has any crazy celebration remotely like this, do they?

And for me, the highlights are not just the old tear-jerkers "Rule Britannia", "Land of Hope and Glory", "Jerusalem" or "God Save the King" (still sounds odd with "King" in it (!) ), but also the sad old naval tune, "Tom Bowling", the 1789 lament for sailor Tom, from the Fantasia of British Sea Songs.

Lois always says that I first "caught her eye" back in the late 1960's, when I played "Tom Bowling" on my autoharp at a party we were both attending.

Awwww !!!! Poor Tom !!!!!!

And the rest of the concert's good too, which is nice. And how nice also, to see Alan Thomas on trumpet - or was it, as Lois suggests, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, making a cameo appearance? I think we should be told, don't you?

A great honour, Sir !!!!

It's always been a bit of a tradition, hasn't it, for celebrities to "jam" with the professional musicians on special occasions - remember, back in the 1960's, "Into Outro" by the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band, fronted by favourite songster, Viv Stanshall, introducing his famous "drop by" big-names for his monster "jamming" session?

Right now - back to tonight's Proms concert! [Finally! - Ed]

And here they come now, those famous tunes, so you'd better duck, for your own good haha! They're the same every year, so look away now if you watch every year like Lois and I do haha! [That's enough hahas! - Ed]

Rule Britannia....