Yes, Friends, have YOU got YOUR traditional 'August bank-holiday camping-trip' out of the way yet? If not, better get a 'wriggle on' - it'll be September before you know it! Just saying!
And the papers are suddenly full of 'camping stories' today - did you notice it? Today's Onion News has several of them, all jockeying for 'pride of place' - just turn to page 94, if you've got the strength in your little thumb haha!!!!
my wife Lois and me - photobombing a recent picture
of adorable stuffed toy "Floppy Dog"
Awwwww!!!!
lunchtime today (Sunday), and Lois and me are once again on our whatsapp
catch-up video call, talking to our daughter Sarah and twins Lily and Jessica
The twins are a bit apprehensive today, but excited at the same time, because this coming week they'll be going on their Anglican school's 3-night camping trip along the Avon River, way out in the outback, doing rock-climbing, kayaking and goodness knows what, the little scamps!
the Avon River, out in the outback of Western Australia, where our twin granddaughters
Lily and Jessica will be, this coming week, on their school spring camping-trip.
Awwwww!!!
'The Avon' - the very name gives Lois and me a quiet sob, because it sounds so very English, doesn't it!
And it gives me the chance to explain to the twins that there are a total of seven rivers called Avon in England, all caused by a misunderstanding. You see, when the Anglo-Saxons first arrived in Britain, they asked the natives what this or that river was called, and they replied, "Oh that's just the Avon" - because 'avon' is just the Welsh word for 'river'. See? Simples!
And I bet those Ancient Britons had many a laugh behind the backs of those 'invasive' Anglo-Saxons when the Britons heard the Anglo-Saxons talking about "the River Avon", which is just 'River River' from the Ancient Britons' point of view, if you think about it!
It also give me chance to explain to the twins that when the French first crossed the Atlantic and asked the natives where they were, the natives just said "Canada", which the French took as the name of the country, when it actually just means "the village" in the relevant native Indian language.
What madness, wasn't it!
French explorers cross the Atlantic and call their new country 'Canada'
due to an early misunderstanding during 'exploratory' talks with the natives
- what madness, wasn't it !!!
[That's enough misunderstandings! - Ed]
The twins have been doing metalwork at their school this last week, and so I nip upstairs during the call, to fetch an 'ancient' artefact to show them: the old clock made out of scrap metal that their mum - our daughter Sarah (49) - made back in the 1980's when their mum was about their age, at her grammar-school in Cheltenham.
Awwwww (again) !!!!
(left) I showcase the clock made out of scrap metal made by our daughter Sarah
at her school in Cheltenham in the 1980's, and (right) Lois demonstrates
the clock to Sarah's twin daughters 9000 miles away in Perth, Australia which is nice!
Above all, however, today's call to Australia comes as a welcome chance for Lois and me to relax, which is a bit of a 'change of pace'! We don't do it very often, that's for sure!
Dubbed by neighbours "possibly Liphook's busiest-looking retired couple", we've had another busy morning today - no surprise there! However, poor Lois has come down with a sore throat the last couple of days, so she elects to stay home and not attend her church's Sunday Morning Meeting, preferring to log-in to the meeting online so as not to spread the infection to any of the church's members, especially the 'old codgers' among them, which is probably for the best, we think!
(left) the village hall near Petersfield, Hampshire, where Lois's church
holds its Sunday Morning Meetings, and (right) Lois logging in to the
meeting online this morning, so as not to spread her sudden throat infection
14:00 And in bed this afternoon for "statutory nap-time", we get the chance, on our phones, to catch-up with our other daughter, Alison (51), who lives locally, just over the county line in nearby Churt, Surrey, but is not at home this weekend.
She and husband Ed, plus the eldest of their 3 teenage kids, Josie (19), have this weekend travelled 300 miles north, all the way up to Durham near the Scottish border.
other daughter Alison, who is spending the weekend 300 miles away in Durham
with husband Edward and Josie (19) the eldest of their 3 kids
Ali, Edward and Josie drove up to Durham yesterday (Saturday) to transport the bulk of Josie's "stuff" to what will be her new lodgings when she starts the 2nd year of her maths degree at Durham - she'll be in a house-share with 3 other girls, which should be fun, no doubt about that!
our daughter Alison (51) is seen in the mirror as she takes these
pics of her daughter Josie, surrounded by all the 'stuff' that constitute Josie's life
- clothes, shoes, knick-knacks, badminton-rackets, screwdrivers - you name it!!!!
20:00 And it's a fascinating evening on the "telly" tonight, which is a surprise!
We watch the second half of a stimulating documentary about pop duo Wham's two ground-breaking concerts in China in 1985 - the first Western pop act to perform live in the country - a event which caused a sensation at the time, China being a country that had stayed almost completely closed to Westerners for decades, after becoming an aggressively Communist one-party-state in 1949.
In Beijing, the authorities were noticeably uptight about the scheduled concert. And they decided to station police and security guards all over the auditorium to make sure the audience stayed calm and sitting in their seats during the concert there, and any audience-members who stood up or got over-excited during the performance were 'seized' (!) and duly marched away to who-knows-what fate (!).
However, the second concert, way down south in Guangzhou, was, in sharp contrast, a totally relaxed affair, normal by Western standards, with all the Chinese kids in the concert-hall given free rein to express their excitement and enthusiasm.
Being near the then British colony of Hong Kong, the Guangzhou area had been "infected" (in a good way!) by the liberal atmosphere of the colony, and most of the audience were frequent listeners to Radio Hong Kong, so knew all the Wham hit songs already, and were singing along with gusto.
No wonder, comments Lois, that the Chinese authorities were so pleased to take Hong Kong back when the British lease ran out in 1997 !
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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