Danskcolin: Sunday September 15th 2024 "Don't touch that cake

A cup of tea and a slice of cake - throughout British history, it's been the catalyst for so much change and innovation, hasn't it.

Even recently, the need to publicise a local co-worker's birthday cake led to new breakthroughs in email technology, at least in this "neck of the woods", here in rural West Worcestershire. But you know what they say, "Today West Worcestershire, tomorrow the world", so watch this space!

A bit of a trivial example, admittedly, some might say (!), but on a more serious note, wasn't it the sight of a boiling tea-kettle back in the 18th century that prompted Scottish engineer James Watt to invent the steam engine, which led to the Industrial Revolution, and all that "malarkey"?

flashback to the 18th century: Scottish engineer

James Watt (right) becomes fascinated by the power

of a steaming tea-kettle, totally ignoring Mrs Watt's

delicious looking cake - poor Mrs Watt !!!!!

"But why is cake so much on your mind today, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Not me - I've already given up on this post and nipped out to the pub for 'a quick one'. Don't worry, I'll be back later to chop out all this "rubbish" (!) - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're obviously interested (!), "cake" just happened to be one of things "popping up" in my conversation in bed this afternoon with my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois.

Earlier today, I had driven Lois from our new-build home here in Malvern to a village hall near Tewkesbury this morning, so that she could take part in her church's two Sunday Morning Meetings, and she had taken with her a birthday cake for her fellow church-member Lucy, whose birthday it is today. Lois is so kind-hearted and generous - if only I could be more like her. I do try - honest! - but I just can't match her sob sob (!) [takes out onion (!)].

[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]

flashback to this morning: in the lunch break between the two

Sunday Morning Meetings, one of the church's Iranian

Christian refugees (centre) offers Lois's cake round to church members

birthday girl Lucy (ringed) chats to Janet beneath a portrait of our

dear late Queen in the Village Hall: but isn't it high time

this portrait was replaced? Parish Council please note haha !!!!

14:00 When I "bring up" this birthday cake (not physically (!)) to Lois in bed this afternoon, however, she tells me something rather uncomfortable.

She has been reading a shock article in her copy of "The Week" magazine, the edition that "plopped" through our letterbox on Friday. As you know "The Week" magazine gives a digest of the week's main news from home and abroad. And mine and Lois's unease this afternoon is all the fault of the journal's edgy "What The Scientists Are Saying" column.

shock horror! One of the lead stories in "The Week"'s

edgy "What the Scientists are Saying" column

Oh dear! So there's no such thing as "safe cake" then, apparently (!). And Lois and I spend some time this afternoon chewing over (not physically (!)) some possible 'healthy' alternatives to the usual tea-and-cake on the sofa that we enjoy when "nap-time" is over.

Slices of bread, buttered and spread with honey is our best idea so far. But let me know your candidates, won't you - on a postcard of course!

16:00 Later we get pictures of "birthday girl" Lucy celebrating her birthday this afternoon in a park in Stratford-on-Avon, with her extended family.

Lois's fellow church-member Lucy, celebrating her birthday

this afternoon with her extended family in a park

in Stratford-on-Avon

[That's enough cake! - Ed]

And it's a great pity about the "no such thing as safe cake" bombshell story this week, because in all other respects Lois and I are both feeling more relaxed this afternoon.

At last we've had a whatsapp video call with our daughter Sarah, who left the UK a week ago with her family - husband Francis and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica - to start a new life in Perth, Western Australia. And poor Sarah had to start her new job over there, as an accountant working for a concrete block manufacturer, only 4 days after they landed at Perth Airport.

Poor Sarah !!!!!!

flashback to this morning: we sit on our sofa for our first video call

with our daughter Sarah and the twins since the family flew to Perth,

Western Australia, a few days ago to start a new life 'down under'

The family are staying temporarily with friends in the north Perth suburb of Eglinton, and they've already identified a rental home of their own, that they'll be getting the keys for next Friday. They don't have any furniture yet - a minor detail, some would say haha! - but at least they'll have somewhere to put the furniture after they've got it - they're hoping to get mostly second-hand items on local websites to save money.

Lois and I are missing them all terribly because they've been such a feature of our life here over the last 16 months, with Sarah bringing the twins to stay over with us here in Malvern, almost every weekend.

flashback to August 25th - the last time Sarah and

the twins spent the weekend here with us in Malvern - sob sob!

[That's enough sobbing! - Ed]

21:00 We go to bed on this week's programme in the Countryfile series, which details stories making the local headlines in the UK's many rural regions.

Who knew that the Army's main training area in England, Salisbury Plain, was such a godsend to wildlife and plant life, despite all the big tanks thundering here and there over it on a daily basis?

Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, the Army's 300 square mile

training ground for the past 120 plus years

Well, being dyed-in-the-wool history buffs, Lois and I knew all about the neolithic archaeology, but we didn't know about all the wildlife and plant stuff and all that malarkey, to put it mildly.

Here presenter Charlotte Smith talks to Jenny Bennett, one of the Ministry of Defence's 13 ecologists who keep a watchful eye on plants and animals in the area, many of them endangered species in the rest of the UK.

Yes, it's been the UK's main military training ground for over a hundred years, and, just because of that, it's avoided the harmful effects of intensive agriculture and intensive use of pesticides seen elsewhere in the country, leaving intact this vast expanse of chalk grassland.

But what about the destruction caused by military tanks charging across this chalk grassland? Well, it doesn't seem to matter, apparently, and if anything it makes it "eco-friendlier" by creating nooks and crannies for many of the UK's endangered plants and animals.