Yes, Friends, do YOU love "cake time" at YOUR workplace? It's the best time, isn't it, but only if it's properly organised! Look at this story in today's local Onion News for East Hampshire, and then quickly get your coat on, and pop down to local firm Highwood Insurance's plush offices, and hurry, hurry !!!
You'll see why when you read the news!!!
You'll have to be quick, however, because, predictably perhaps, the story was soon picked up by "the nationals" - the Times, the Telegraph etc, and was even the lead story on the BBC World Service's early bulletins today, so you may find a bit of a pretty mixed international group of cake-lovers making their way down to Highwood's break room, so take your phrase books with you! Just saying!!!!
You have been warned!!!!
Oh, and "Good Luck!" haha !!!!!
The story, however, brings a knowing smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois, here in rural Liphook, Hampshire, as we embark on our near-daily local walk, which this morning takes us over the "hallowed turf" of local soccer giants, Liphook United, to put it mildly!!!!
Lois and I are laughing because it's going to be a bit of a "cake day" today for Lois and me ourselves, although in a quiet way - we're doing our best to keep the story out of the papers, so please treat this news as strictly confidential haha!!!
(left) my wife Lois and me this morning, taking a walk over local soccer giants
Liphook United's "hallowed turf" and past their deserted so-called "clubhouse"
and (right) the local birds that we hear singing in some of the nearby trees (!)
You see, Lois will be baking my birthday cake today - because I'll be greeting the day of my "big eight-oh" birthday later this week. Yes, I'll be turning 80, and today Lois is baking what will be my "official cake".
And later today, this afternoon, hopefully, Lois and I will be having some of my real birthday cake, a smallish shop-bought coffee-and-walnut cake, which is my favourite! My birthday guests, especially the 3 of our 5 teenage grandchildren who'll be visiting us on "the big day", don't like fancy cakes, hence what Lois and I are calling our "double cake solution" - see? Simples!!!
our "double cake solution": (above) my 'official' 80th birthday cake, which Lois
will be icing tomorrow, and (below) the shop-bought coffee-and-walnut cake
which is my real, top-secret birthday-cake-for-two that we start sampling, on the quiet, today (!)
Well, we don't feel guilty about "stealing" an early piece of my "real" birthday cake - the coffee and walnut one - because, predictably enough, Lois and I have both had a bit of a hectic day again, would you believe, even though we've both been retired for exactly 20 years !!!!
Yes, busy busy busy again! Not only have we had a bit of a walk this morning, but also Lois been baking a cake, under my supervision (!), plus we even found time this afternoon to chair another rowdy online session of the local U3A's "Intermediate Danish for Old Codgers" group, which we jointly-lead, "for our sins" (!).
Lois and I picked up a bit of Intermediate Danish when our daughter was living in Copenhagen between 2012 and 2018. However, after moving to Hampshire 15 months ago, Lois and I found that local levels of Intermediate Danish are appallingly low, and especially amongst old codgers "in these here parts", as people say "in these here parts" (!) - hence our public-spirited desire to try and popularise the language among local "crinklies", or "old crows" as the Danes call them (!) [Danish: gamle krave"], through our popular online classes.
Happy days!!!!!
(top left) us leading another rowdy online meeting of our local U3A "Intermediate Danish
for Old Codgers" group, and (top right) Lois with our daughter Alison and her 3 kids,
and (below) us on a day trip with Alison to see "Hamlet's Castle" at Elsinore, back in 2017
But what a day (yet again) !!!! Talk about busy, busy busy !!!! [You lazy so-and-so's, Colin! - Ed]
And by 8 in the evening we feel we've earned the right to a bit of relaxation (finally!!!) on the couch with a bit of "telly" - another fascinating programme in Scottish comedienne Susan Calman's eighth series of "Grand Days Out With Susan Calman", which is nice!
A nostalgic programme for Lois and me tonight, because we see Susan boarding the 160-year-old Victorian steam yacht Gondola on Coniston Water, just as Lois and I did ourselves after the wedding of our other daughter Sarah back in 2013, after her wedding to her fiancé Francis, in nearby Brantwood House, home of Victorian polymath John Ruskin.
Susan's mother, she recalls, always said that one of Susan's biggest faults was that you could look at her face and tell immediately what she was thinking, which could mean she would be particularly good at one of the local sports played in the English Lake District area.
"Which local sport is that, Colin?", I hear you cry! And Susan tells us in this sequence:
Kevin, one of the Crab Fair's organisers, explains that the fair's name stems from the notoriously sour crab-apples. It all started back in 1267, when the local Lord of Egremont distributed his harvest of crab-apples to local residents, sparking what is now one of the oldest fairs in the world.
It all started back in the 13th century, when a bunch of farmers, initially delighted by the lord-of-the-manor's kind gift, were having a few beers, and one of them said, "I think I'll have a bite of this apple!".
Oh dear - bad call haha!!!!!
And in tonight's programme, Susan is treated to a special exhibition performance of gurning by one of the two local families who together are joint-champions of this difficult sport, which is nice!
And what a crazy country we live in !!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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