Danskcolin: Monday July 27th 2026 "Are YOU waiting to get first glimpse of Beyonce's latest twins? Well, join the club haha!!!"

Yes, Friends, are YOU finding it hard to cope, waiting to see what Beyonce's new twins will look like - well, at least those two scamps now have a couple of adorable feet "sticking out", which will satisfy her fans for five minutes at least (!), according to this morning's Onion News!

Kudos, that woman, for not forgetting her fans at this latest seminal moment in her career, which is nice!

And reading her story this morning, here in semi-lovely Liphook, Hampshire, brings an ironic grin to the faces of me and my wife Lois, no doubts there!!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

It's ironic that Beyonce is debuting her latest set of twins' little "tootsies", because we're due to be revealing the delights of our own feet this morning to a woman we've never met, although we've talked on the telephone - Julie, who's going to be our new "toes-woman" from now on, all being well.

Getting a good "toes-woman" is a big deal for us, that's for sure - because nothing says "You're old!" more clearly than having to pay somebody to cut your toe-nails for you, that's for sure!

(left) the advert from Age Concern Hampshire, which first caught our eye,

and (right) local toes-woman Julie, attending to Lois's feet this morning

Julie, who recently moved to Liphook from Epsom, just over the county line in Surrey, is trying to build up a local clientele in this area. And you don't even have to get the car out to go and see her, because she comes to your home, plus she's about a third the price of our former toes-woman Janice, over in Beacon Hill, so what's not to like haha!!!

And like all professional "toes-women", Julie talks non-stop so we don't need to prepare an agenda of "current issues" and "talking points", or try to think up an armoury of "corny" or "toe-curling" foot-jokes (no pun intended!!!) in advance, which is a plus, also! As you'll be aware already from this blog, Lois and I are famous locally as Liphook's "busiest retired couple" (2026), so any cutting of our humongous "to do list" is "key" to our survival, which isn't putting it too strongly, almost, would you believe!

[No, I wouldn't! - Ed]

a typical foot-joke to tell your podiatrist

To put it mildly, the stress of having our toes massaged by a new toes-woman will, later today, make our usual afternoon in bed even "keyer" to our day-to-day survival, if that's a word!

[No, it isn't! - Ed]

One of our many jobs is keeping up with Australian customs, since our daughter Sarah moved to Perth, Australia a couple of years ago, with husband Francis and their 13-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.

flashback to September 2025: Lois with our daughter Sarah, with her

husband Francis, and twin daughters Lily and Jessica, outside

the Royal Oak, Alcester - our final meal with them before

their move 9000 miles away, to Perth, Australia, sob sob!!!

Who knew, that "Christmas in July" is "a thing" down-under, particularly in Western Australia? It's all about events staged with a Christmassy feel, apparently invented to make the state's many British immigrants feel more at home in the country's topsy-turvy climate. Over there, crazily, Christmas is the hottest time of year, and July, the coldest month, doesn't have a Christmas in it, which is bad planning, we think!

What a crazy planet we live on !!!

Our twin granddaughters were celebrating their 13th birthday just yesterday, and our daughter Sarah decided to take them out to a "Christmas-in-July" event at a local pub with their two "besties", followed by a visit to the local Treetops Adventure near their home in Yanchep, just north of Perth, ending up with a lovely birthday cake, which the twins baked and decorated themselves, which is nice!

Awww!!!!! Those loveable little scamps! They're really growing up, and how we miss them !!!!

Poor us !!!!!

At least we've got another new Prime Minister this week, and dare we hope it, a sensible one, and a popular, likeable one, which will be a comfort to us, in our old age!

And tonight Lois and I watch Burnham's first interview as Prime Minister, with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, 4 days into his new job, an interview in which he rules out drama and rhetoric, and, importantly, rules out any early general elections. There's no need for one, he says: we live in a parliamentary democracy, he's got the support of his colleagues there, and he'll be following the manifesto from the last election, which the majority of the electorate voted for last time.

"There'll be no early general election," he says tonight. "I don't think people want it.... What I most need to do is to get Britain focussed on getting the country back where it should be, getting it working."

He's got a lot to do, also, to put it mildly, so Colin and Lois say, "Let's let him get on with the job, and stop all the drama and all the shouting!"

And he continues: