Yes, Friends, are YOU sure there isn't a shop SELLING cakes in YOUR neighbourhood?
And before you give a confident "No" to that question, why not take a look around, which is what a lot of people are doing today, thanks to the big "splash" in Onion News this morning - check out page 94!!
Quite the "eye-opener" isn't it! Will "baking our own cakes at home" become yet another forgotten art?
I wonder... !
And this very local, but also very "feel-good" story was quickly picked up by the "nationals" this morning, like the Times and Telegraph, and on an admittedly "slow news day" even led the early morning bulletins on the BBC's World Service, would you believe!
And here in semi-autonomous Liphook, Hampshire, reading about the Danvers' game-changing discovery certainly brings a lip-licking smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois today, no question about that!
my wife Lois and me - a recent picture
We're laughing, because, in our role of Liphook's "busiest retired couple", as neighbours have dubbed us, we've unusually got a fairly easy day today, which makes a pleasant change (!).
Today we've simply got one big thing on our to-do list: to drive 10 miles down the busy A3 trunk road to nearby Petersfield, and delivering Lois's latest batch of flapjacks to her church's drop-in centre. It's the first Saturday of the month, on which date, traditionally, the centre holds a coffee morning to raise money for charities and to advertise the church's meetings to local residents, which is nice!
Lois and I looking forward to an easier day today, as we sip our coffee
at Lois's church's drop-in centre at nearby Petersfield
Don't think that we spend the whole morning sitting around and enjoying ourselves, however - dear me, no! I somehow find time to pop by the phone clinic next door, and ask the guy in there to stick the back of my phone on - it keeps coming off, which is annoying. And after that we take the chance to do some food shopping, including an unsliced loaf, because Lois is supplying the bread and wine for tomorrow's Sunday Morning Meeting.
Petersfield's iconic "phone clinic", where the helpful guy
behind the counter, sticks the back back on my phone, which is nice!
And while I'm "lugging" our incredibly heavy shopping bag back to the car-park, Lois even somehow finds the time to drop in at a local art gallery currently featuring paintings by the late local artist Flora Twort. All the famous women in these parts seem to be called Flora, for some reason - which is mad! Remember famous local writer Flora Thompson (1876-1947), if you want "chapter and verse"!!!
Weird, isn't it!!!!
Petersfield's "Two Floras" - (left) Flora Thompson, who wrote the classic
autobiographical novel "Lark Rise To Candleford", which was televised
by the BBC, and (right) local artist Flora Twort
Flora Twort almost married Nevil Shute, author of "On The Beach" and "A Town Like Alice" - he proposed to her, but she turned him down, perhaps preferring to "get on with her painting", deftly avoiding the need to fulfil all the standard marital duties, have babies, and all that "malarkey", as Lois and I call it!
Yes local artist Flora Twort (1893-1985), who lived next door to Petersfield's bustling market square, loved to paint the scene there on market days. "Twort" is a bit of an unusual name, isn't it, and Lois and I are intrigued because the name "Twort" may be entering our family after next month's marriage of my niece Lucy to her Anglo-American fiancee Rosanna, so watch this space!!!
(above) one of local artist Flora Twort's many paintings of Petersfield's
bustling market square, and (below) some recent photos I took of
Lois checking out the local produce in the square on a typical market day
Busy busy busy!
And, summing up, not such a leisurely day as we had predicted, to put it mildly!!!
[Is that all you two 'noggins' have done today, Colin? - Ed]
Well, no, actually, seeing as how you're obviously interested! After lunch we somehow find the time to take an unusually prolonged afternoon in bed, not getting up till after 5pm, which "puts our timing out" for the rest of the evening, if you know what I mean!!!
20:00 We watch a fascinating Channel 4 documentary all about "Hitler's Olympics" - the Olympic Games of 1936, which Adolph Hitler attempted to showcase the so-called achievements of his "Third Reich", advertising to the world a totally false picture of the real Germany that he had started to create.
A fascinating programme about the Berlin Olympics. There's been renewed interest recently in the history of Germany in the 1930's and Hitler's rise to power, because of the presidency of Donald Trump in the USA, but tonight Lois and I don't feel we can face both of these Channel 4 programmes in one sitting (!), so we just watch the first one, and put the other one off, although probably it's going to be the more interesting of the two.
The message of this first programme is that the 1936 Olympics were stage-managed by Hitler and the Nazis to show an apparently peace-loving and prosperous Germany under their leadership, and to hide anything potentially threatening.
Lois and I didn't know that the Games had originally been assigned to Germany when it was still democratic - in the days of the Weimar Republic, and, after the Nazis came to power, there was pressure to boycott the Games. In response to pressure, Germany reluctantly included a half-Jewish fencer in their "squad", and also the German public was exhorted to show their friendly side, and make sure that foreign visitors got a good welcome.
There was a shortage of eggs at the time, so the German public were exhorted to "eat fewer eggs" so that this shortage would not be apparent to their international visitors, and foreigners in the country could eat as many eggs as they wanted (!).
Hitler, of course, wanted the Games to be "the best ever" - sound familiar?! And Lois and I didn't know that the now normal custom of bringing a flaming torch carried from Mt Olympus by a team of runners to open the Games, was actually a German invention for the 1936 Games, although the manoeuvre also carried the uncomfortable subtext that the Germans were the true modern heirs of the glories of Ancient Greece - oh dear!
Also, Hitler wanted Germany to end up top of the medals table, but was thwarted by the US team, thanks in so small measure to the victories of black athlete Jesse Owen, which Hitler didn't like at all, needless to say!
21:00 Wanting to go to bed on some sanity (!), we relax with the good old Prom concerts - what could be better!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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