Danskcolin: Saturday March 1st 2025 "Has local therapist Thea sorted all YOUR 'issues' out yet? Time to make an appointment perhaps!"

Dear Reader - a sensitive issue for you this morning (!). Have you got any "issues"? By "issues", may I add that I mean health-wise, emotion-wise, relationships-wise, you name it!

Most of us do, don't we! And if YOU have and you live in East Hampshire, like my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me do, here in Liphook, I'm willing to bet that your "go-to therapist" is lovely Thea just down the road in Middle Wallop, also known locally as "Ms Fix-it".

Am I right? Or am I right!!! And Thea is always in the local news most days, as I've expected you've noticed if you take Onion News East Hampshire, as your "go-to" buzz-source about "happening exclusives", that is!

And Lois and I had even got to the stage of noting Thea's number down on our memo pad 2 days ago, would you believe, in case Lois's current back issues continued, but fortunately things have been a little easier for her yesterday and today, so fingers crossed!

I'm happy to report we had one of our normal days today, trying things we just haven't tried recently, like going for a walk in the sunshine over Lowsleys Farm, having a shower mid-afternoon, and then going to bed for "nap-time", and all's good so far, touch wood!

we go for a 4000-step walk over Lowsley Farm this morning, with lovely

views of the radio mast on the top of Weaver's Down, and Butser's Hill, 15 miles away

Awwww !!!! What a sweet "older couple" we make, don't we!!!!

[I'd like to see a bit more evidence for that statement, Colin, before I agree to 'go along on that one'! - Ed]

Despite the success of some of the daring things we try this afternoon, however, Lois is still planning to take it easy tomorrow, not going to her church's Sunday Morning Meeting in Petersfield, but staying home and taking part online.

We've got to be careful not to strain her back again too soon, plus there's traffic chaos in this area all weekend, with the A3 closed for resurfacing - damn! We only moved to this area 2 months ago, but we're coming to realise that if the A3 is closed, this quiet little town of Liphook becomes quickly gridlocked

Hampshire News's Sophie "Scoop" Lewis has more....

And today round here, it's A-Road Armageddon, let me tell you !!!!

20:00 We go to bed on James "Top Gear" May's latest programme about explorers, this time celebrating Captain James Cook.

Cook famously discovered New Zealand and Australia, surprising the hell out of the people who'd already been living there for 60,00 years (!), also becoming the first human being to cross the Antarctic Circle, and then going slightly mad on his way to try and find the North West Passage over the top of Canada, finally getting killed by natives in Honolulu - that's what Lois and I call a "full life", for a poor Yorkshire farmer's son anyway, to put it mildly!

Lois and I didn't know that Cook started his career as a map-maker, but what a map-maker, and a scientific one at that, using what May calls Cook's "superpower", i.e. geometry, accurately calculating elevations and doing depth-sounding etc.

Appointed "The King's Surveyor", Cook's super-accurate map of Quebec was a significant help enabling us Brits to take Canada off the French in 1759 - and not only that, but his map of Newfoundland and other Canadian regions remained "the official ones" for 200 years after he drew them.

Lois and I didn't realise either, that when Cook, 9 years later, in 1768, now Captain of the Royal Naval ship HMS Endeavour, went on his voyages of discovery across the South Pacific, his ship, a converted coal tanker from his home port of Whitby, Yorkshire, could only travel at 4 mph, not a great speed, especially when a 3-year journey travelling 25,000 miles is on the cards - what madness!

Poor Cook!!!!

But at 4 mph, after "bimbling their way, as May puts it, to Rio for ship repairs, and then seeing their first penguins round the Falklands, the Endeavour sailed into the mysterious waters of the Pacific, eventually, after 8 months at sea, reaching Tahiti.

"What did the Tahitian women want the nails for?", Lois and I can't help asking, but May passes over that point - a pity!

Cook, however, was well aware of the dangers facing both his men and the local women, and he took precautions.

Oops - presenter James May somewhat showing his age here, surely! And Lois and I can't resist quickly checking his age in Wikipedia, and yes, he's 62, so fair enough, that "talk" he got as a young lad at Sixth Form College was probably right for Rotherham, Yorkshire in 1979, say, or thereabouts!

Cook's talk didn't work with his men, of course, and not only iron nails but other bits of his ship mysteriously started going missing during the expedition's stay in the islands. The Endeavour, like the last Royal Naval ship to visit Tahiti, HMS Dolphin, started falling apart, due to sailors taking iron nails, plus other ship's tools and equipment, and other miscellaneous items to pay the local women.

At least the sailors had something to keep them busy while the scientists were observing the Transit of Venus, so it was probably for the best, let's say!

The worst thing was, Cook himself had his socks stolen while he was taking a nap on the beach.

But there's an important point here, isn't there. Surely the key question here is, "What did the natives want with all nails, planks of wood, tools etc?". Were they secretly building their own version of the Endeavour, maybe with the idea of discovering Europe and giving all the places Tahitian names?

I think we should be told, don't you? But May is strangely silent on this question too, which is a pity.

The expedition's chief scientist Joseph Banks collected specimens from a lot of previously unknown fish species, and preserved them in alcohol, which got the sailors interested whenever supplies of rum were running low, as May finds out when he visits the Natural History Museum in London.