Monday November 24th 2025 "Have you got windows in YOUR house? They tend to be a 'must have' these days, don't they!"

Yes, Friend, have you got windows in YOUR house? Aren't they a wonderful invention?

And we sometimes tend to forget that they haven't always been around, but sadly the guy who invented them, centuries ago, has never been fully identified, simply because he "couldn't be bothered", seemingly, to patent his idea - what madness!

One thing's for sure - the early windows, and the people who installed them, created quite a stir, as this old Onion News report makes patently obvious (no pun intended!!!!). See this report from the paper's popular "From The Archives" column (see page 94!):

Poor Ernault !!!!

The story, which even my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I aren't quite old enough to remember (!), certainly slaps a big grin on our collective 'chops' this morning, here at our new home in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, as we prepare to welcome a couple of window-installers to our home, coming to replace 7 of our windows, would you believe!!! 

It's total madness, isn't it!!!!

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - a recent picture

Little did we realise what a weird day it was going to be, and a bit unsatisfactory in many ways. 

The two guys - our window installers - turn up about 9am, and we soon realise they're probably Eastern Europeans. And they vertainly don't speak much English. So after some initial, unsuccessful attempts to be friendly and chat to them about their "strategy" for the installation (!), we decide to shut ourselves away in the only warm part of the house - the kitchen-diner-living-room area - and just let the two guys get on with it in the bedrooms, bathrooms, stairwell and garage, where we need the new windows put in, to replace the nasty old ones. 

By about 1:30 pm the guys have done 4 out of the 7 window replacements, but then they "bugger off" (to use the technical term(!)) because they've apparently "got another job to do", is what I think they're trying to tell us, adding that "two other guys will be coming tomorrow to finish up here".

What madness!!!! [That's enough madness! - Ed]

Well, 4 out of 7 [windows] ain't bad, you might say, and not a total fiasco, although possibly a "semi-fiasco", because it stops me going to my Intermediate Latin for Old Codgers class this lunchtime, just over the county line, at the Methodist Hall in nearby Haslemere, Surrey. Nobly, I had decided to stay home with Lois to help her negotiate with the window guys, but then they "bugger off" anyway, leaving me with egg on my face [Latin: ovum in facie].

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

We try not to make it a wasted day, however, by sitting down to compile a Snapfish 2026 calendar to send, as a Christmas present, to our little Australian family: our 48-year-old daughter Sarah, husband Francis and their 12-year-old twins Lily and Jessica, who live 9000 miles away from us, in Perth, Western Australia.

flashback to yesterday morning: we chat on zoom to our daughter Sarah

and our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica: the girls were all excited because

they had spent a day visiting the grammar school they'll be starting at in February

The calendar is based on pictures we took when the family were over from Australia in July, including a day-trip to London and other adventures (!), and occasions when they could meet up with our other daughter Alison and family.

Happy days!!!!

The December 2026 page on our new calendar is dedicated to the occasion of the big family get-together at Guido's, Liphook's iconic Italian restaurant, just before Sarah and family's flight the following day, back home to Perth.

flashback to July: Lois and me, with our 2 daughters and sons-in-law

and our 5 grandchildren, outside Liphook's iconic "Guido's" Italian restaurant

Yikes !!!!!

And I always think of that guy in the old Jimmy Rodgers song, who gets married, and they have 4 kids, who then grow up and get married themselves and have kids, so now there are 8 grandchildren - it's all madness isn't it!!! [Final warning! - Ed]

But wait, there's more !!!! After several years....

And finally, the closing verse that Lois and I can identify with today...

Yikes, again !!!!!

We're not ready to go just yet, though, that's the only thing - call us crazy if you like !!!!

[You said it, Colin! - Ed]

flashback to 1970: the first ever picture of me and Lois together

20:00 We decide to go to bed on this week's edition of Only Connect, our favourite TV quiz, that tests lateral thinking.

Can YOU see the connection between these 4, apparently unrelated, "things"?

The best thing the teams can come up with tonight, is that they're all about "fumbling", which is a nice idea, but it turns out that presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell is looking for something a bit more specific.

The precise connection that Victoria's looking for with this question turns out to be "rhyming phrases": with (left to right) "rumpy-pumpy", "higgledy-piggledy", "fuddy-duddy", and "willy-nilly".

Simples, isn't it, when you're told, as we should have been - and as we were, for once haha !!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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