Thursday February 12th 2026 "All this bad weather! People talk about it, don't they, but nobody ever does anything!!"

Friends, how are YOU coping with the current bad weather? Do you need to talk over your issues with somebody sympathetic, perhaps? I think there are some websites, additionally, which offer guidance and support.

Well, if you do to talk to somebody about it, don't call us, we'll call you! Here, in rain-affected Liphook, Hampshire, my wife Lois and I are fed up to our chattering teeth with all the rain this year, to put it mildly - no pun intended !!!!

But it could be worse. Just look at this poor guy in this morning's Onion News, for starters!!!

Poor Tim !!!!!

But also poor us! That's because Lois and I will have been retired for 20 years, come March, and we've got nobody to ring up to "spill" about our own weather-related traumas, and the attendant psychological damage, and to seek their emotional support, which is annoying!

About 11 am this morning, however, the rain seems to stop and we manage to sneak out of the house for a cheeky walk over the "hallowed turf "of local soccer heroes, Liphook United, currently "languishing" in the "relegation zone" of the East Hampshire Premier League. However, by the time we manage to do about 3,000 steps, the rain begins again and we have to "hightail" it back to our car.

What a crazy country we live in !!!!

12:00 We reach home with our coats all drenched and soggy, so, as a quick-fire response, we order Lois a new pale blue, allegedly rainproof and windproof coat, and a couple of high-to-highish-necked sweaters from Cotton Traders, who are running a discount at the moment. 

Then, after lunch, there's a quick spell in bed for "statutory nap-time", and then it's time to lead another rowdy online session of the local U3A "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group, that we "lead" allegedly - for our sins (!). Finally we have to make space on our table for our grandson Isaac, who'll be popping in after school, and staying till his mum, our daughter Alison, can come over and pick him up.

Busy, busy, busy !!!! What a day !!!!! And we've both been retired for nearly 20 years!!! 

How did we ever find the time to go to work, that's the mystery!!

[You lazy bastards! - Ed]

21:00 Finally we wind down for bed with the first bit of a fascinating documentary about one of our favourite funny people, comedienne Victoria Wood.

Painfully shy as a young girl growing up in Lancashire, Victoria says of her childhood, "All I ever wanted to do was to be funny. I can't imagine, really, a better job than that you would write something, and that it would make people laugh". 

Much, much later, in the 1980's Victoria became Britain's first ever female stand-up comedian, and then, later, a successful writer of sitcoms and films. But she was hardly an overnight success. It took her years and years of rejection, and people telling her "You're not funny!", "We don't know how to place you!", "You don't look right!", "You don't sound right!", and if all else failed, "You don't wear dresses!". 

And she adds, "I was always being told no, I was patronised, either for being fat, or for being northern".

Most of all, people in the business wanted her to stick to what first made her famous - comic songs, with Victoria singing and playing at the piano.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it. 

But there's a lesson here for all of us - never care about what people say about you, just be yourself, and keep doing whatever it is that you like doing, and do it every day of your life, if possible, while doing what you can to enable others to do the same. 

You can't do better than that, can you. And as we know, Victoria made it in the end, selling out London's Albert Hall more than once for her stand-up show, breaking records in the 1990's that, incredibly, still stand today, in 2026.

And it's nice for Lois and me tonight, to be able to go to bed on one of Victoria's early comic songs, expressing her uncertainties, as a now middle-aged woman, still trying to break into show business.

"I read it in a magazine,

Oh God, I'm such a barmy sod,

Eek, squeak, I'm practically antique,

Oh God, you know I'm 40-odd,

And yet I feel about 13, well, most days,

"Oh God, I'm such a  barmy sod,

I read the tea leaves in my cup,

But all they ever seemed to say,

Was 'For Christ's sake, grow up!',

"I never learnt to ski or punt,

Ooh, ah, I fasten up my bra,

I could take a header into vintage cheddar,

And still not be mature"

That says it all, really - pushing 40, looking like a piece of vintage cheddar, but still not mature (!)

And for Lois and me, now pushing 80, we say, "That's life in a nutshell, isn't it!" or should we say "life in a cheese wrapper"? 

[I'd rather you didn't ! - Ed] 

Fabulous stuff, though, isn't it!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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