Yes, friends, having a tank of tropical fish in the home is very much "trending" at the moment, isn't it, and it's being reflected in more and more news stories! Have you noticed?!
Take a look at the "doozy" in this morning's local Onion News - and you don't even have to "thumb" your way very far through the print edition - it's the big story today, and it's even on the front pages of some of the "nationals", which is nice !!!!
And reading the story brings a bit of a wispy smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-transparent Liphook, Hampshire, that's for sure!!!!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
At last people are noticing that not all fish are alike, and that's mine and Lois's chief "takeaway" from today's news. Yes, fish have all got their own little "quirks", which is nice in a way!
Take the fish on the menu at local watering-hole The Deer's Hut, where we're lunching this morning as part of our celebration of Valentine's Day, so as to make more time for the afternoon - busy busy busy!!!
We've booked an early table, as always, for 12 noon, and we even arrive extra-early for that, so find ourselves killing some time strolling around the grounds, finding some nice trees to take a selfie in front of, as is our way, whenever we're getting over-excited and need to calm down !!!!!
And the big news in Liphook is "IT'S NOT RAINING TODAY !!!!!", for once!!!!
we arrive super-early for our 12 noon Valentine's lunch date
at iconic Liphook pub, the Deer's Hut (apostrophe optional !!!)
And I think of Ferguson's multi-faceted tropical fish (see Onion story above!) as I peruse the menu in the as yet empty-ish bar.
The fish is the only item that the restaurant has decided to "honour" with its own little picture on the menu, and the cheeky look on that fish's face is a "hook" that drives me to "haul it in" and choose it as my mains for this special day - could YOU resist it! Am I right? Or am I right !!!!
Who could resist that cheeky little fish! Answer Lois (!), because she decides to go with the local pheasant - it's "a local bird for local people", but no picture, which means that in a very real sense Lois is "flying blind", probably much like that pheasant!!! But Lois likes to live dangerously, so fair enough, I say !!!!!
It's called "Palmer's beer battered large fish and fish", so it may have been pre-ordered, and reserved, by somebody called Palmer I guess, but the waitress doesn't demur when I ask for it, and serves it on demand. Maybe Palmer, whoever he is, has been unavoidably detained or "called in sick" (???) - who knows?
Bad luck, Palmer, it's gone now haha !!!!!
The staff are all really friendly here. The bar-manager turns out to be a wise-cracking Australian guy, so Lois and decide we must bring our daughter Sarah and family here in the summer, when they'll be over in England from their home in Perth, the "down under" Perth, not the Scottish one!
Lois with her "local pheasant for local people" and me with
my battered cod, battered and bruised but still smiling (!)
- the one that local man Palmer ordered,
but failed to turn up for. His loss haha !!!!
At the bar, we also bump into our window-cleaner, Jason, who is either working here, or is a frequent boozer: we're not sure which, but, certainly, everybody seems to know him. We ask him why he hasn't been round to clean our windows recently, and he says it's the wet weather, so fair enough - fair play to him, we see his point, in spades!!!!!
Our window-cleaner, Jason, seen here in happier times: (left) Jason (ringed)
parks his van, and (centre, right) starts cleaning our windows with his long brush-thingy (!)
14:00 Back home from the pub and ready for "statutory nap-time", we have the odd, and long-forgotten, experience of the sun shining through our bedroom window, which makes a pleasant change, to put it mildly - no pun intended !!!!
Before we start our nap, however, we stop on our way into the house, to admire some little signs of spring emerging in the flower bed of our little front-garden.
getting back home from our lunch, and before our nap, we stop to admire
some little signs of colour coming up in our tiny front-garden, which is nice!
Spring is on the way - that's for sure!!!!!
21:00 Still feeling frivolous, we decide to go to bed on a re-run of a 1975 "Good Old Days", the series which recreated shows from the music-hall era of the early 1900s, staged in Leeds, with the audience all dressed up to the nines in Edwardian costume, you know the one.
It's all the most tremendous fun, isn't it !!!
[I'll have to take your word for that, Colin! - Ed]
The star of tonight's show is actor-comedian Bernard Cribbins, a favourite of ours, and he does us proud with this iconic number from the heyday of music-hall.
That says it all, really, doesn't it - life, the universe, pretty much everything!!!!
Awww!!! They don't write songs like that any more, do they!!!
[Thank goodness for that! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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