Yes, Friends, are YOU sitting on a train, as you read these words? It's worth taking a look around you for the tell-tale signs: things flying fast "on the move" outside the window, while you're just sitting still - that's Yours Truly's personal "numero uno" "litmus" test, that's for sure !!!!!
Certainly train travel is becoming more and more popular, according to the press. Just look at these headlines from this morning's Onion News, if you don't believe me!!!!!
And these stories bring a peculiarly twisted smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-bucolic Liphook, Hampshire as we tramp the "hallowed turf" of local soccer heroes Liphook United on our near-daily morning walk, that's for sure!!!!
my wife Lois and me, having a quiet giggle over the latest train news,
as we tramp the "hallowed turf" of local soccer heroes Liphook United
We mustn't laugh at the train industry, however, because for our lawyer son-in-law Edward, who's a director of a regional train company with potential business interests overseas, trains are very much his "bread-and-butter", and he's even flying to Boston USA in a week's time to hopefully close a "big money deal", so we'll see!
Fascinating stuff, though, isn't it!
(left) our lawyer son-in-law Edward with our daughter Alison, both dressed up to the nines
for a recent Railway Ball in London, and (right) Lois waving to one of Edward's trains,
the "Hereford-to-Worcester Flyer", as Lois and I have dubbed it, just to encourage
the driver through the Malvern Marshes, which was a nice touch - but what madness!!!!!
By total coincidence, Lois and I will be seeing Edward and Alison later this month, because they've kindly agreed to "chauffeur" us to the wedding of my niece Lucy to her Anglo-American fiancee Rosanna at Ipswich, an occasion to which we've all been invited.
And it'll certainly add a touch of glamour to our arrival in Ipswich to step out of Edward's car, hopefully in full view of all the other wedding guests, no question about that!
flashback to May: (left) Lois and me at Ipswich's leading Turkish restaurant,
with my sister Jill (rightmost), and Lucy and Rosanna and (right)
the happy couple at another recent "upscale" celebration, which is nice!
So all ye photographers among the expected crowds of guests and onlookers, get ye all your cameras ready for the money-shot, as Lois and step regally out of Edward's car!!!!
And Lois and I know all about "turning on the glamour" for big occasions - witness our "get-up" for a recent Millennium Night at "The Clocktower", one of upscale town Cheltenham's leading night-spots!!!!
flashback to December 1999: Lois and me, "dressed up to the nines" for a
playfully mis-spelt "Millenium Eve" dinner at an upscale Cheltenham 'watering-hole',
dubbed "Millenium [sic!] at the Clocktower" by the pub's management (!)
Happy days!!!!
We find out today, Friday, however, that Lois and I unfortunately won't be able to stay for the post-wedding 'brunch' on the morning after the wedding, which is a pity, but it's for a very good, and also rather semi-glamorous, reason. You see, our son-in-law Edward has to fly to Boston USA later that day for that potential "big money deal" mentioned above, and that's one of the penalties you pay for "living the high life" - no pun intended!!!
Busy busy busy!!!!!
Don't think, however, that Lois and I are becoming a bit "hoity-toity" ourselves, perhaps, and no longer willing to mix with our Liphook neighbours and treat them almost as our equals - far from it!!! And this morning, if you had rung our doorbell, you might have peeped through the window and seen us hard "at it" on the kitchen table, mugging up on our "Latin homework", in preparation for a local class, would you believe!!!
Lois and me this Friday morning, hard at it on the kitchen table, with a pile
of dictionaries and reference works, doing our "Latin homework" (!), which is mad!
Yes, in addition to our many upscale glamorous activities, "for our sins" (!) Lois and I also somehow find time to be members of the local U3A "Intermediate Latin for Old Codgers" group, led by a former schoolteacher and local man, Joe. And our group's first meeting of the new term has been scheduled for Monday, and so in the next couple of days Lois and I have got 10 sentences to translate from English into Latin, and those sentences, as we always say, "won't translate themselves", to put it mildly - hence our mild panic today!!!
flashback to last winter-spring: former schoolteacher Joe explaining some point of
Latin grammar to our little group of mainly female students, known as Joe's Harem,
all members of Joe's local U3A "Intermediate Latin for Old Codgers" group
Dubbed by neighbours "possibly Liphook's busiest-looking retired couple", Lois and I are certainly earning that accolade "in spades" today - that's for sure!!!!!
[Is that all you two 'noggins' have done today, Colin - translated 10 sentences into Latin? - Ed]
Well, no, seeing as how you're obviously interested (!). The answer to your question is "No, with a capital 'N'", this time at least !!!!
And it's quite a very definite "no" to your question today, I must stress, because, also today, we somehow find time, not only to spend another afternoon in bed, recharging our batteries, but also later in the evening we find ourselves showing what's been dubbed "our surprising, delightfully lighter side" (!).
Yes, you've probably guessed already! We're watching with (we suspect) millions of our fellow compatriots, the first episode of a new TV series on the More4 channel, "Sandi's Ireland: A Literary Journey", presented by the UK's favourite Dane, Sandi Toksvig, which is nice!
For Lois and me, one of our favourite poets is WB Yeats, and it's nice for us this evening to see Sandi journey to remote Sligo on Ireland's Atlantic coast, where Yeats would work on his poems, so many of which seemed to unlock the meaning of life and to speak to his readers' souls, in the words of Sandi's friend, the present-day Irish novelist Marion Keyes.
We hear about Yeats' extraordinarily quiet life, his quiet days in Sligo - no noise, no radio or TV, just the sights and sounds of nature to inspire him: mostly the sounds, rather than the sights, because Yeats suffered all his life with poor eyesight, but somehow managing without glasses. He was, however, passionate about the need for Ireland to gain independence from Britain, and this uncomfortably shy man with his poor sight campaigned for that independence in the only way he could - through his poems.
Also, Lois and I didn't realise the extent of the poverty in which Yeats lived for most of his life.
In 1923, the year after Irish independence, Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, with the international cultural world in a way, not just honouring Yeats and his poetry, but also welcoming Ireland as a new member of the world's family of nations, as Keyes says.
The financial value of the Nobel Prize, however, meant what was a great deal of money to the financially struggling Yeats and his family. When told the good news of the award by his friend Smillie on the Irish Times, Yeats is reported to have said "How much, Smillie? How much?"
Rest in peace, WB !!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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