Saturday June 4th 2022

10:00 There's nothing for it now for Lois and me - our little break is over now, after 7 days staying at our daughter Alison's massive crumbling Victorian mansion in its 6.5 acre grounds in Headley, Hampshire, pet-sitting for Alison's family while they spend a week off-grid in Wales.

I've now got to grit my teeth and face up to the 100-mile drive home - yikes! I'm still just not used to doing this kind of length of drive, after all the privations of the COVID lockdowns.

We do it the whole journey in one go, apart from a "comfort break" in the bushes of a Hampshire wood - safer than stopping at a "Services" with its potential for COVID infection haha! Well, Iris Law does it, so why shouldn't we  haha (again)! [Who she? - Ed]

we take the 96.1 mile option  to shave a half mile off the distance

- for me it's a no-brainer haha!

12:15 We arrive home, only to find that the milkman has disobeyed our instructions and not left us our normal 5 pints of milk, so we go round to the Burgage Stores to buy 3 litres there - which is about 5.25 pints. 

Unlike shops, dairies are still selling milk in the traditional 1 pint glass bottles. Environmentalists applaud this because glass bottles can easily be sterilised and re-used by dairies, and are therefore considered more "ecological" than the plastic metric containers which shops sell.

typical traditional one-pint glass bottles of milk

normally used in dairies' doorstep deliveries

Yesterday Steve, our American brother-in-law, notified us of an astonishing breakthrough for people who prefer the non-metric units, which are without doubt much more practical. 

A litre and a kilogram are about twice what you might want to buy as a "basic" amount of something, Lois says, so they aren't really as good as our standard units like pints and pounds, which have been tried and tested over centuries.

so-called "metric martyr" Steve Thoburn, at his

banana stall in Sunderland - could he now get a 'platinum' royal pardon?

I think we should be told!!!!

Good news, no doubt about that, although we suspect that packaged goods will continue to be in metric units, because it will cost businesses to change the descriptions on the packaging. But it'll be nice to go into a greengrocer's shop and see at once from the price tag what a pound of brussels-sprouts costs, for example.

This is the first (and only) good result of Brexit in my opinion - call me an old fogey if you like haha! 

19:30 It's Lois's 76th birthday tomorrow, and she pops next door to Nikki's house to collect a parcel that was delivered last week during our absence, a parcel which we believe to be our daughter Sarah's birthday present to Lois - Sarah is our younger daughter who lives in Perth, Australia, with husband Francis and their 8-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.

Nikki was away last week too - but in Dubai, so she's feeling really cold this weekend back here in chilly old Britain - poor Nikki!!!! However her mum was popping in from time to time in Nikki's absence, and it was her mum that took the parcel in for us, which was lucky.

I disappear into the dining-room to wrap Lois's birthday presents from me and to design a birthday card on the computer - I always try to make it topical, so this year it's a jubilee-themed card featuring this poster.

Incidentally all information regarding my birthday card to Lois is strictly top secret till about 9 am tomorrow morning, so don't breathe a word about it to her, okay? haha!

My present to Lois is the Sugar Hill Amoret red dress and the striped Compania Fantastica Arya's skirt that I bought for her in the Eliza Wray dress shop in Grayshott, Hampshire, last week.

part of the Eliza Wray dress shop in Grayshott, Hampshire

flashback to last week: the red dress and the striped skirt

resting peacefully in the iconic Eliza Wray bag - awwww !!!!!

20:45 We wind down together on the couch by watching the first hour or so of tonight's 3-hour "Platinum Party at the Palace" pop concert in front of Buckingham Palace.

Of course Lois and I don't recognise the younger stars appearing in this first hour of the concert - we haven't a clue who they are: no surprise there!

However, it's just so nice to see the huge crowd in front of the Palace and down The Mall, all boogie-ing away and having fun, and there are also one or two performers we recognise like Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, and ex-Australian soap opera star Jason Donovan singing a song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Joseph" musical. Tremendous fun !!!!!

The programme starts with the Queen apparently having tea with Paddington Bear - a great idea of somebody or other's: my god!

the moment when Paddington realises he has drunk almost

the whole contents of the tea-pot himself, leaving only a few drops

for the Queen - poor Queen! But gawd bless you ma'am !!!!

And we hope that Her Majesty has her ear-plugs in, because the show opens with a bang, as American singer Adam Lambert sings the vocals on the old Queen hit, "Don't Stop Me Now". Lois and I have never heard of Adam, but he's got a great voice, no doubt about that. My god!!!

Adam Lambert sings the vocals, seen here with

Queen guitarist Brian May

Queen's Roger Taylor on drums

Later we see ex-Australian soap opera star Jason Donovan singing "Any Dream Will Do" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat". 

This musical has special memories for Lois and me. We first saw it at the Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Maryland USA in the early 1980's, and later, in the early1990's, I took our then-teenage daughter Sarah to see it at a theatre in London. Happy days !!!!

Jason Donovan sings "Any Dream Will Do" from the Joseph musical

flashback to the early 1980's: Lois and I see

the musical Joseph at Toby's Dinner Theatre, Columbia Md USA

flashback to 1991 - I take our daughter Sarah to see

the Joseph musical at a London theatre

All in all, a tremendous start to the Platinum Jubilee concert - and we've got another one and a half hours of it that we haven't seen yet, which is a nice thought.

And Lois and I voted Adam Lambert to be a worthy stand-in for the late Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. 

I never met Freddie, but I once took Tünde, my Hungarian pen-friend, to see a wax image of him at Madame Tussauds, London, in 2008.

flashback to 2008: Tünde, my Hungarian pen-friend, sings along

with a wax image of Freddie Mercury at Madame Tussauds, London...

...while I quietly share a few thoughts on the 2008 political scene 

with Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister

[That's enough memories! - Ed]

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!

Friday June 3rd 2022

Day 7 of mine and Lois's stay at our daughter Alison's crumbling Victorian mansion in Headley, Hampshire, pet-sitting for Ali's family while they're away in Wales.

the lovely old cottage at Llanthony in Wales,

once a blacksmith's forge, where the family has been staying

And to be frank, Lois and I have treated our daughter's house like "Liberty Hall" (copyright Oliver Goldsmith), by not being tidy, leaving toiletries and dirty washing in the mansion's various bathrooms and leaving discarded clothing and shoes in the sitting-room, leaving disgusting things in the waste-paper baskets etc. We've been naughty grandparents, that's for sure - my god!

Today the family are due back from Wales - mid-afternoon, they said. So Lois and I spend the morning cleaning up and getting all our possessions back into the double bedroom we were originally allocated. Busy, busy, busy!

Panic erupts when I get a text about 1 pm, saying the family have reached nearby Farnham, and so are easily within about 20 minutes drive from here - YIKES !!!!! And we quickly finish off the rest of our so-called "clean-up".

the distance covered by 1 pm: Llanthony to Farnham - about 150 miles

the journey still remaining (different scale) - the 9 miles or so from Farnham to Headley

13:20 The family arrive back, and it's weird, because Lois and I have been running the house on our own for 7 days, getting meals, feeding the animals, dealing with deliveries and callers, and now suddenly we're guests again, and not expected to do anything. How weird is that!

14:00 We have a cup of tea out on the terrace with Alison, husband Ed, and the two of their 3 children: Josie (15) and Rosalind (13). Isaac (11) is indoors updating his FIFA computer game: apparently it has to be done today or else he'll have to pay an extra subscription - what madness !!!!!!

Ed is tired - now that he works mostly from home he's got out of the habit of doing drives of the order of 150 miles.

Our son-in-law Ed, tired but glad to be home this afternoon,

after the 150-mile drive

Ed says that the traffic was light today, luckily. He thinks that today, Friday, is probably going to be the lightest traffic in this 4-day Platinum Jubilee Holiday Weekend, and that makes sense to us too. Unfortunately there may be more cars on the road tomorrow, when Lois and I drive home, but we'll see.

Alison can't rest - she has to get online and book a grocery delivery tomorrow from the Ocado Supermarket chain, and Josie lends her a hand.

Alison (centre) orders a delivery of groceries tomorrow

from Ocado Supermarkets, helped by Josie (right)

15:00 All too soon it's time for the family to get back to work - owning a crumbling Victorian mansion with 6.5 acres of grounds means it's a potentially 24/7 job to maintain it. Alison sets to work on removing some brambles, and Ed starts burning off weeds from the gravel path round the back of the house - Rosalind stands by with a watering-can in case Ed accidentally sets fire to something - YIKES!!!!!

Ali and Ed - back at work already on their house

and garden, ably assisted by fire-warden Rosalind:

what madness !!!!!!

Lois and I can relax now, because we're just guests. So we have some tea and cake on the terrace. 

Lois and I have some tea and cake on the terrace

We've been looking online at more houses-for-sale today, in Malvern, Worcestershire. The plan is to move there, so that when our other daughter Sarah and her family move back to the UK from Australia, we will be living somewhere near them - Sarah has been offered her old job back in nearby Evesham.

For ourselves Lois and I only really want a bungalow or house with 2 bedrooms, but we want to be able to accommodate Alison and family whenever they want to come and stay. At the moment our idea is to try to find a house or bungalow with 2 bedrooms, but also with something like a conservatory - Lois and I would use that room as a conservatory most of the time, but we would envisage having 3 (maybe folding) put-you-up beds for the children, which we could bring out and put up in the conservatory, whenever they were needed.

See? Simples!!!!

18:30 Josie and Isaac go down into part of this house's magnificent grounds and play table-tennis on the table-tennis table. How surreal is this picture - my god! And how lucky are these kids! My god (again) !!!!!

Josie and Isaac play table-tennis...

... seen here in close-up

One of the main features that Lois and I experience these days when we visit Alison and Ed and their family is that we have so much less conversation with the children than we used to. This isn't because we don't want to talk to them, it's because they're young teenagers now and have so many interests that we can't share, and they spend so much time on their iPads or in their rooms listening to music or doing homework, preparing for exams etc. But that's just life in the 21st century, isn't it. Oh dear!

20:00 Lois and I settle down on the couch with Ali and Ed, and with Otto the cat, and we watch a bit of TV.

Ali and Ed, and Otto, one of their cats

We watch an interesting documentary about the history of the Queen's crown jewels.

Call me a philistine if you like, but I personally am not particularly interested in jewels and that kind of thing, or how many thousands or millions of pounds they may be worth, but I was fascinated by a historical "fun fact" that I'd completely forgotten.

After the English Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament in the 17th century, and the trial and execution of the King in 1649, Oliver Cromwell, the Parliamentary leader, as we know, proclaimed a republic, and installed himself as Lord Protector. 

For Cromwell, this was a once-and-for-all moment in English history: the end of monarchy for all time, and so he had the King's Crown Jewels broken up and melted down - to  him it was evident that they would never be needed again. And there could be no turning back, he believed.

flashback to 1653: Cromwell had only contempt for the King's Crown Jewels

But there was a turning back, of course, and in 1660, only about 11 years later, when, after Cromwell's death, Charles II was invited to come back from exile on the Continent and ascend the throne. 

It was a strange sequence of events - why didn't the Parliamentarians succeed in devising a new political system? They could have come up with a constitution such as was achieved in the next century by the USA, as the Levellers faction wanted, but they never did.

part of "The Agreement", published by the Levellers in the 1640's

Lois says that the Parliamentarians were actually taken by surprise when the defeated King Charles refused to compromise with them, and so after they had decided that they had to execute him, they didn't really have a coherent plan as to what to do next. And they were also very divided amongst themselves: and now that they had defeated the "enemy" i.e. the Royalists, they settled down to fight amongst themselves instead.

She also says that the Parliamentarians, under the influence of their strong Puritan element, got distracted by trying to "ban fun" - outlawing Christmas, and banning music and theatre - all that kind of thing.

What madness !!!!!!

And a fascinating "what if" moment of history, we think.

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!