Danskcolin: Sunday September 8th 2024 "Are YOU starting a new job tomorrow? A bit of a worry, isn't it!"

Here's a question-and-three-quarters (!) for you, dear Readers - have YOU ever started a totally new job? And I define "new job" as one you haven't done before: perhaps getting unwillingly out of bed, earlier than you want to, on some grey Monday morning, and taking an unfamiliar bus or train ride to spend the next 8 hours with a bunch of people you don't know, and who may well not be exactly "your cup of tea".

A lot of us have that experience somewhere in our "memory banks", haven't we. Am I right? Or am I right?

And yet, however many stories of "first day disasters" there are that we read about with some dismay sometimes (!) on Monday evenings, there are almost as many stories of new hires quickly "coming good": they're 'frequent-to-legion' aren't they, pretty much. Look at these typical Onion News Worcestershire Desk 'bombshells' - there seems to be one "new hire" success story or other breaking almost literally every Monday, isn't there, which sends an incredibly powerful and positive message.

And, better still, did you see this particular "doozy" from last Monday's print edition?

These stories, and more, are very much in the minds of my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me this morning. Our daughter Sarah will be starting her new job tomorrow (Monday) as chief accountant at a concrete blocks manufacturer 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia. Poor Sarah has hardly had a chance to get used to life in Australia, having only arrived there, with her family 4 days ago, on a non-stop 17-hour flight from London's Heathrow Airport.

Yikes !!!! Poor Sarah !!!!! And good luck tomorrow at that Aussie concrete blocks firm - mum and I will be rooting for you! You go girl!

And show those concrete blocks who's boss - without kicking them around too vigorously, needless to say haha (!).

flashback to last Sunday: Lois and I treat our daughter

Sarah, son-in-law Francis to a farewell roast lunch at

one of Alcester's 18th century pubs, The Royal Oak

Little did Lois and I know, when Sarah was born, in June 1977, that she would one day be working for a concrete block manufacturer in Perth, Western Australia, to put it mildly (!).

[It's always a risk with any child, though, isn't it, Colin, if you're realistic! - Ed]

flashback to 1977: us, both aged 31, with our

2-year-old daughter Alison and new-born Sarah

20:00 Lois and I settle down on the couch to unwind.

Sarah will be in bed by now - Perth is 7 hours ahead of British Summer Time, and let's hope she can get some sleep. She and the family are staying with friends initially, a "mixed marriage" of Australian guy with American wife, and two daughters of similar ages to Sarah and Francis' two daughters. In the next few days and weeks, the family must get hold of a car and find somewhere to live - their long-term aim is to buy a house in Perth.

flashback to June 2021: our twin granddaughters Sarah and Jessica

(centre) with their 2 Australian friends Samara and Djanna

We unwind for bed with this week's edition of Antiques Road Show, the series where members of the public dig out old relics from their barns and attics (aged and ageing relatives not acceptable apparently (!)), to have them examined, and valued, by experts in the field.

And I don't know what our daughter Sarah would get for Lois and me on the open market, if we came up for auction - YOUR estimates and "quotes" welcome (postcards only) - be gentle with us haha!

As always, local members of the public have brought along some real "doozies" tonight. And I don't mean "aged parients" [sic] !!!

here's a couple of "aged parients [sic]", in prime condition:

be honest - how much would you give for us if we came up

for auction on the open market - with no reserve price haha !!!

[What do you mean - "in prime condition", Colin?" - Ed]

And we see so many doozies of heirlooms tonight from the people of Essex, you would not believe!

"So what's 'Colin's pick of the bunch' ® tonight, Colin?", I hear you ask! [Not me - I went to bed several, like a billion, 'column inches' ago! - Ed]

Well, seeing as how you're anxious to know (!), if I were to pick the 2 "highlight doozies of the week", it would be these:

First off this lovely piece of jewellery with an astonishing history.

This local woman was left the necklace by her mother, but her mother was left it by a Russian woman called Vera. As a 12-year-old, Vera had had to escape from St Petersburg at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917.

The mob were on the prowl, and the family had to grab everything they could and get out of town. The story was that the family sewed all their jewellery into the hem of Vera's dress and they escaped with just whatever they could carry, literally. After Vera and her husband died, there were no children from the marriage, so the jewellery was simply posted by Vera's cousin to this Essex woman's mother, in a plain brown envelope.

And what about this long (8 foot? / 9 foot?) ceremonial wooden spear from the Cook Islands way out in the Pacific. How did this come into the hands of this other local Essex woman, I hear you cry, as Lois and I wonder too. Apparently it "came with a house" that her husband's parents just happened to buy in West Walers.

The long, exquisitly-carved spear is identified by the programme's "native / indigenous crafts" specialist as of a type made only in the Cook Islands way out in the Pacific.

And it dates from the18th century, so it could even have been acquired by somebody on Captain James Cook's original expedition, when the islands were first "discovered" and claimed for the British Empire, back in 1773.

How the spear ended up in a house in West Wales is a complete mystery however. And my medium-to-long suffering wife Lois is already shouting at the screen copious advice to the woman about how to research the house's past owners and other data on land registry records, family history sites etc.