Saturday, 7 March 2026

Friday March 6th 2026 "Friends, look after YOUR feet, and, in your old age, your feet will look after you!!!"

Yes, Friends, make sure you look after YOUR feet - and the benefits will be legion, especially if you're old, as the luckless residents of this local nursing home have discovered to their cost, according to thsi morning's Onion News!

Yikes!!! And when the time comes - not too far away in my humble estimation (!) - for Yours Truly (and my wife Lois, a.k.a. Mrs Yours Truly) to move into one of these "establishments", remind us not to pick Heartland - it sound friendly from the name, but we're not so sure after reading this article, to put it mildly!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

There's nothing says "You're OLD!" more than having to pay somebody to clip your toenails for you, is there, but once again Lois and I find out today that we've been let down by our local "toe-woman", a.k.a. Zoe, which is annoying. We had made an appointment with Zoe for a session today, but overnight - at midnight (!) - she sent us a text saying that her clinic was closing, possibly permanently, "with effect from today", would you believe!!!

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, either! 

In December Lois and I travelled the five miles from our home in Liphook, Hampshire, over the county line to Grayshott, Surrey for our last toenail-clipping appointment, only to find that Zoe had closed her clinic for a week without even telling her "patients". We had only found out about the closure when we arrived, getting the bad news from Kathy, the chiropractress - is that a word? [No! - Ed], i.e. the Kathy who shares the building with Zoe - what madness, wasn't it!!!!
(left) our toe-woman, Zoe, and (right) 'chiropractress' Kathy, 
who shares the building with Zoe

What's happening to all these young people, on whom, with no exaggeration, mine and Lois's total sanity and well-being so much depends!!! 

And this isn't today's only setback!

You see, Lois has another appointment today, this time with Anna, her hair-stylist, which fortunately goes ahead as planned, although Anna tells us she won't be able to cut and style Lois's hair for her next appointment, in May due to an upcoming operation (details not specified!), so Lois will have to have Zoe's partner, 'Iain with an extra "i" '.

What madness, isn't it !!!!

(above) Lois talking to hair stylist Anna, while Anna gets us our "coffee and biscuits";
(below, left) a packet of Anna's tempting biscuits lying there next to her hair-dryer,
(and below, right) me waiting in the so-called "husband-seat" - what madness !!!!

You just can't depend on the younger generation to help you out when you get old, that's for sure! It's a cruel world out there for us "crinklies", no doubt about that! 

So don't say you haven't been warned!!!!!

[Is that all you two 'noggins' have done today - sat in Anna's hairdressing salon for half an hour?!!! - Ed]

Well, no, actually, seeing as how you're so interested!

Lois has been busy baking a batch of around 60 smartie-laced cookies to take to her church's "Open Coffee Morning" tomorrow at their drop-in centre in nearby Petersfield, and, as for me, I've been busy "snitching" as many of the cookies as I can (as I put it!), for my own personal enjoyment, so you can't say I've been idle (!). Yum yum!!!!

How did we ever find the time to go to work, back in the old days haha!!!!

Lois showcasing the first batch (of the planned 60) smartie-laced cookies to take to her 
church's Open Coffee Morning tomorrow at their drop-in centre at nearby Petersfield

Busy busy busy haha!!!!

To compensate, however, I will confess that Lois and I also do spend quite a bit of time in bed, not just at night, but often in the afternoons too, and I often think we're like a couple of washed-up hippos - mainly me, I might add -  hurriedly (!) haha !!!!

So it's nice tonight to curl up on the sofa together and watch some real hippo couples in action, in the latest fascinating programme in naturalist Steve Backshall's new series "Hippo Watch".


Like hippos, Lois and I have often been described as "magnificent beasts" (see the Radio Times 'blurb' above (!)), so it'll be fascinating tonight to 'compare notes' with the real hippo couples in Steve Backshall's "pods" down near the town of St Lucia, in far-away South Africa, which will be nice!

naturalist Steve Backshall "getting down and dirty with the hippos"
in this new two-part series from St Lucia, in faraway South Africa

Lois and I didn't know that hippos spend 12 to 16 hours of each day submerged in water, in rivers and lakes etc. They have a common ancestor with whales, scientists believe. 

Don't think, however, that that means the hippos stay awake all that part of the day - like Lois and me they like their "kip" too, and they have a special reflex to enable them to sleep under water, which is mad!






Unlike Lois and me, however, hippo couples are herbivores and they also provide a service for other species by fertilising the plants of the African plains for other species to thrive on, by spraying their 'poo' around in the woods and bracken, something else Lois and I don't do, I'm ashamed to say! 

Call us selfish so-and-sos if you like haha!!!




Also, the fact that hippos like to feed on grass means that the African plains where they live all look neat and "trim" most of the time without the need for a groundsman. 







Memo to self: must tip off cash-strapped local soccer giants Liphook United's management team (ashen-faced Ron Knee (59)), to maybe keep a hippo on-site, to cut down on their maintenance expenses, do you think? 

There's plenty of mud for it to wallow around in, that's for sure!!!

flashback to one of mine and Lois's many trips to local soccer giants Liphook United's
"hallowed turf", where capacity crowds of up to 10 can watch in comfort 
in one of the ground's two 5-seater spectator stands - one fully weather-proofed,
the other pleasantly "air-conditioned" (!)

I wonder....!

But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Will this do?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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

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