Danskcolin: Friday October 3rd 2025 "For us poor glasses-wearers, hot soup can be a big problem, can't it!"

Yes, friends, if, like me, you have to wear medium-to-strong lensed glasses, don't you just DREAD having to get through a bowl of hot soup?

Well, we're not the only ones, according to this morning's local Onion News for East Hampshire, which "plopped" through the letterbox of Yours Truly and my light-to moderate wife Lois today, here in leafy, semi-grassy Liphook, the town we moved to, exactly 9 months ago, back in January, would you believe!

[You don't say! - Ed]

The story is, anyway, the big talking point today in our neck of the woods, so here are the details, if you missed it, slightly edited by me for "adult" content, i.e. to put a bit more of it in, actually haha!

Poor Whittle !!!!!

But the story brings a small-to-medium chuckle to the lower mouths of Lois and me this morning, because "numero uno" on our to-do-list today is to pick up Lois's shiny new glasses from Liphook Eyecare, and, to do that, we're going to have to get our raingear out of the wardrobe, if the weather reports about so-called first-of-the-season Storm Amy are anything to go by (recipe courtesy of Ainsley Harriott's "Fighting Fat - Fighting Fit") !

my light-to-moderate wife Lois, (top left) sporting her shiny new glasses from

Liphook Eyecare, which help her read the recipe and chop up the veg without

chopping her fingers off (!), while the rain continues outside "unabated" (!)

Also today, we've got to book a handyman to take down our shiny new window-blinds so that window-fitters can install a bunch of shiny new windows without messing up our shiny new blinds - what total madness! And we've also got to check up on how the sale of our old house in Malvern, Worcestershire is going - a young couple is trying to buy it as their first ever house, but it's taking forever, while our poor old house stands empty and forlorn, sob sob !!!

(left, centre) our dear old house in Malvern, Worcestershire, still standing empty and forlorn,

and (right) the house we moved to in Liphook, Hampshire, back in January

Poor house!!!!

Busy busy busy - you wouldn't think we'd been retired for almost 20 years, and we still can't "catch a break" and have a nice easy day for once !!!!!

[My heart bleeds for you, Colin! - Ed]

At least Lois and I didn't die this year after we moved house, which is some cause for celebration! [Still three months to go, so the jury's still out on that one, Colin. Just saying !!!! - Ed]

my light-to-moderate wife Lois and me - a recent picture,

still here, after 20 years' retirement and aiming to "power our way through"

to 2026 (and beyond!!!!) - what madness, isn't it !!!!

Sadly we can't say the same for poor ageing Black Sabbath rock legend "Ozzy" Osbourne, whose much-awaited return to the UK from the US this summer featured in a "moving" documentary [no pun intended!] last night on BBC1, a programme we "catch up on" tonight.

Yes, poor Ozzy and wife Sharon, after decades living in the US, finally moved back to their old house in the UK in July this year. Ozzy staged a final "retirement concert" in Birmingham at his beloved Aston Villa soccer ground, and then sadly died a couple of weeks later.

Back in LA, he'd been in a bad way for many years anyway, as his daughter explains in this sequence:

"That's the spirit! Don't stand for any pity, Ozzy!", Lois and I shout at the screen at this point!

Ozzy and family finally came home to England in July this year, and 44,000 people came to watch his retirement concert at the Aston Villa soccer ground in Birmingham - although literally millions had applied for tickets, apparently. And his fans were more than happy just to hear his voice, and didn't mind at all that he was sitting in a chair for the performance and not rushing manically across the stage, which was nice!

Here's Ozzy's daughter again:

After the concert was over, Ozzy and Sharon came back to their house in Bucks, to relax with their children and grandchildren in their enormous garden.

And in this sequence, Sharon sums up what the couple's return to Britain really means for Ozzy, and for them both, as a couple:

For Sharon, her uppermost thought is the time that she and Ozzy can just spend together.

And Ozzy feels the same way:

But Ozzy has one last surprise for us on tonight's programme. It turns out he'd love to build a vegetable garden, if he can try and manage it.

So Ozzy is just like Lois! Who would have thought it !!!!

Whenever we move house, almost before we've unpacked, Lois is out there planning her next vegetable garden. What madness, isn't it!

(above) flashback to 2023: Lois starting her veggie garden behind our then new

house in Malvern, Worcestershire, and (below) flashback to Spring 2025,

Lois clearing the ground for her next shiny new veggie garden here in Liphook, Hampshire

- what madness, isn't it !!!!

There's one crucial difference between Lois and Ozzy, however, which becomes clear when Ozzy "fleshes out" plans for his ideal vegetable garden in tonight's programme.