Wednesday March 5th 2025 "Husbands, does your wife seldom notice your new look or your new fragrance?"

Men, do you ever complain that your wife doesn't notice when you've combed your hair, or when you've started experimenting with a different after-shave, or the like? 

It's a common 'beef' among husbands, isn't it, but certainly not one you'll hear from area man Mark Gillespie, according to Onion News Local. Did you see the headlines over the past week, just a handful of some of the bigger stories that have come out of Betty Mundy's Bottom and her bottom's  'environs' recently (!) ?

Maybe it's time to look again at YOUR wife, and see, perhaps for the first time, all the "legion" of things that she probably does for you, with "sorting out your social life" surely at the top, although maybe not completely, top of the list (!). 

And this principle goes even for men in positions of power, like Oliver Cromwell, would you believe. 

Have YOU glanced at your this month's Postscript Book Catalogue yet?

If you live in one of the UK's many large cities and towns, you probably got your March catalogue ages ago. But for me and my wife Lois, living here in sleepy, semi-rural Liphook, Hampshire, our copy only "plopped" through our letterbox a couple of days ago, so forgive me if this is all "yesterday's news" to all you 'city slickers' !!!

This is the item that caught our eye this issue:, Julian Whitehead's "Cromwell and his Women". No jokes about it maybe being 'a slim volume' by the way! And hopefully you 'city slickers' will have left a few copies for us "hicks and country bumpkins" to snap up, if and when we get around to ordering our copy, that is!!!

According to the blurb, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland during our brief experiment with republicanism, was a socially awkward man. However, he had a lot of women, and I mean a lot of women (!), to "sort out his diary" and find him republican-minded men-friends of his own age to relax with in the evenings, plus at weekends and on other days off.

Yes, a 'monstrous regiment of women', if ever there was one (!). Lois and I didn't know that Cromwell had six sisters, and that, after his marriage to Elizabeth, the couple went and had four, yes four, daughters! I'm sure there were no 'gaps' in his social diary, that's for sure! 

(left) Oliver Cromwell in bed with wife Elizabeth, listening for

suspicious sounds, and (right) with the couple's four daughters

There's no doubt, in our minds at least, that, with all those women to organise it, even his 'Lord Protector's Diary' would have been "stuffed" with neighbourhood barbecues and the like. No trips to the theatre with republican "buddies", however, we assume - didn't the Puritans ban those????

And coming back to today's world, even Yours Truly's social diary is largely "sorted" for me by my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, may I add! It would pretty much be a blank otherwise, to put it mildly. And on our morning walk today over Lowsley Farm, we discuss plans for Friday morning, when Lois has invited two fellow "old codgers" to coffee and biscuits.

on our morning walk today over Lowsley Farm, we discuss 

plans for Friday's coffee'n'biscuits with two local fellow 'old codgers'

Yikes! Visitors !!!! In our house !!!! And in only 2 days' time!!! Luckily Lois will be doing most of the 'heavy' preparatory work, but I've been assigned the buying of biscuits and the 'hoovering' of the house, so I'm going to be pretty busy over the next 48 hours - so don't expect me to do anything else will you!!!

excerpt from our Ocado delivery order this week - I select a box of

McVitie's Victoria Biscuits and a packet of M&S Ginger Snaps 

for our visitors: last of the big spenders, that's me (!)

Yes, Lois and I tend to 'live like pigs' most of the time, as I describe it, existing in a largely 'unhoovered' house, with only some 'unexciting' McVities Digestive Biscuits available to snack on. 

It doesn't matter, though, because Lois and I mainly hobnob with each other 24/7 - mostly hobbing with the occasional nobbing thrown in -  but we don't want our local friends and neighbours to know this, so all that's medium-to-top secret info, may I add !!!!

"Are you pulling your weight in this marriage, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Well, it's not me doing the 'crying' - I've already given up on this post and if anybody wants me I'll be 'propping up the bar' at the Dog and Duck! - Ed]. 

Well, in my defence, I do do most of the computer work hereabouts, and all of the driving now, and I do get Lois to where she wants to go and do 'things', plus I do all the 'heavy' sitting and relaxing in waiting rooms while she does those 'things', so it's not all 'beer and skittles' ! [You lazy bastard, Colin!]

I drive Lois to our doctor's surgery so she can get results of her annual blood test (left),

and we stop off at Liphook Eyecare (right) to have her new hearing-aid follow-up visit

It's all good news this morning for Lois, I'm glad to say, and she deserves good news, which is nice. It turns out that there's nothing abnormal in her blood test results, so she may be able to relax her recent strict low-sugar, low-salt diet now, plus we find out that her new hearing-aids are working just fine. 

We're both old codgers, and our hearing is not what it used to be, so our neighbours also will be glad that we won't be shouting at each other as much as we have been, which is good for our image locally - 

I'm sure they must think we're fighting all the time, when actually we're really either 'hobbing' or 'nobbing' (!), and just making a lot of noise while we're at it. 

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!!