Wednesday April 5th 2023

Another funny old day really - a nasty day weather-wise, with drizzly rain most of the morning.

Lois and I had been planning to drive over to Headley, Hampshire, to our daughter Alison's today to spend Easter with her family - husband Ed and their 3 teenage children, Josie, Rosalind and Isaac. However, we found out yesterday that Isaac had come down with a virulent tummy bug, so we've put the journey off for a few days, until it becomes clear whether the infection is going to run through other members of the family. 

See? You know it makes sense!!!

flashback to Christmas 2022: us with Alison and family, seen here in happier times

(left to right) Isaac, Ali, Lois, Rosalind, Josie, me and Ed

This has meant a rethink on shopping and meals. We had already cancelled our doorstep milk deliveries so we're running out of milk, and we'll need to get some other essentials. We plan to drive over to the local coffee shop, Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop, and then get a few groceries at the One-Stop shop next door. 

Disappointment awaits us however, when we find that the coffee shop has already closed for Easter - it's overenthusiastic public holiday madness, I tell you !!!!!

the local Poolbrook Kitchen and Coffee Shop, seen here

in happier times: when it wasn't shut for Easter - sob, sob!

We decide at least to use some of our time today to fill the car up with petrol for the journey. It's always a bit mad trying to get petrol immediately before Easter because everybody else is doing the same. 

Good! So we're all "tanked up" now, and ready to go, which is nice! Once again, being retired, we can beat the competition!

We finish our mini-expedition this morning by getting milk and a few other groceries, plus 12 loo rolls. It seems incredible but we're only now just coming to the end of the huge quantity of loo rolls that we stockpiled at the start of the pandemic. Those loo rolls have seen us through hard times, no doubt about that!!!!

I showcase on our bed the 12 loo rolls that we buy today. 

It seems hard to believe, but the huge quantity of loo rolls 

that we stockpiled at the start of the pandemic, are only now 

beginning to run out. Such are the benefits of foresight haha!!!!

15:00 An unexpected benefit of not driving down to Hampshire today is that we're still here in the house, and not away, when Martin, our friendly local window-cleaner, rings our doorbell in preparation for doing his monthly clean.

Martin doesn't use a ladder, he uses some sort of cleaning device on the end of a long pole. This is a definite plus, because if we're having a nap we don't have to get out of bed, which is nice!

 

Martin, at work cleaning our bedroom window

15:30 Martin goes off after pushing his bill through the letterbox,  not using a long pole as far as I can see, and I pay him later by online bank transfer. See? That's the way people do it these days - and you'll find that Lois and I are as modern as anybody else!

Martin uses a pole to clean windows, but not to push

his bill through our door, which is a relief!

19:00 We settle down on the couch to watch Monday's edition of one of our favourite TV quizzes, University Challenge, the student quiz.

Tonight's quarter-final contest is between Southampton University and Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.

Lois and I have a great time during the quiz tonight, and get 8 answers correct that the students don't know or get wrong. Woweee!

See how many of these "doozies" that you know - bet you draw a complete blank haha!

1.    Three questions about constellations, as described in the ancient Greek work Katasterismoi, attributed by some to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. 

(i) Some say that it is a reminder of the first labour of Heracles, since he, thirsting after glory, killed this animal without a weapon, strangling it with his hands.

Students: the Bull

Colin and Lois: the Lion (Leo)

(ii) She was placed among the stars because of Athena to commemorate the feats of Perseus. Her arms are outstretched as when she lay exposed to the sea monster.

Students: Hera

Colin and Lois: Andromeda

(iii) He carried Europa from Phoenicia over the sea to Crete. The stars named Hyades make up the forehead and face. Toward the edge of the backside are the Pleiades.

Students: Orion

Colin and Lois: the Bull (Taurus)

2. Identify this city, which houses multiple Max Planck research institutes:

Students: Dresden

Colin and Lois: Leipzig

3. Identify this city, which houses 8 Max Planck research institutes:

Students: Stuttgart

Colin and Lois: Frankfurt

4. According to Schopenhauer, life swings like a pendulum, to and fro, between pain and what undesirable state? Bertrand Russell said that half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Students (Robert Gordon U.): suffering, (Southampton): despair

Colin and Lois: boredom

5. The Zimmermann telegram of 1917 proposed an alliance between German and which country? Its publication helped gain support for US entry into the First World War on the allied side. 

Students: Russia

Colin and Lois: Mexico

6. Created using death masks, the tomb in Westminster Abbey of which English king and his consort is described as England's greatest memorial of the Italian Renaissance?

Students: Henry VIII

Colin and Lois: Henry VII

Enough said - Lois and I are going to be in a good mood when we go to bed tonight, that's for sure!

20:00 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I help her to set up the stereo speakers in case the sound is bad again.

21:15 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we sink down on the couch to watch a bit more TV to go to bed on, an old episode of the Cuckoo sitcom from 2014.

Yes, I know the synopsis is a bit complicated, but you must remember this episode! You know the one where Ken and Lorna's teenage son Dylan plans a party for when his parents are away, with the idea of losing his virginity to Zoe, teenage daughter of family friends Steve and Connie. 

You know the one, don't you!!

Dylan's mother is actually keen for her son to hook up with Zoe, but unfortunately his mum lets the secret out about his plans to Zoe's mum Connie, who is horrified. 

The two mums then gate-crash the party and surprise Dylan and Zoe in the bath about to have sex - you must remember this one?  

And you definitely remember this bit, don't you haha !!!!! When the two mums start hammering on the bathroom door!

The mums burst in, and then Dylan throws up all over Zoe in the bath, because like everybody else at the party the couple have been eating potato with a home-made dressing made from 2-year-old fish sauce that's just been kept unrefrigerated in the garage.

Meanwhile downstairs, all the other kids at the party are starting to throw up over each other.

Lois and I had to look away at this point, but thinking back, it was all the most tremendous fun, wasn't it haha!!!!!! [I don't think you've really shown that! - Ed]

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

Tuesday April 4th 2023

A busy morning - Lois has an appointment at 9:30 am with her stylist at "Divine" ("that's just the name of the shop, dear!") at Barnard's Green, Malvern. All very routine on the surface, but the non-routine part is that Lois is actually driving herself into the area without me being in the car, and then parking, also unaided by me, in a pay-car-park.

She hasn't done this since before the pandemic, so it's going to take a bit of courage. Needless to say, Lois passes the test with flying colours - what a woman!!!!

Lois gets into our car this morning for her first "solo drive"

since the pandemic started 3 years ago

flashback to January - we stop by "Divine" to book

Lois's first ever hair-stylist appointment since we moved to Malvern

the Divine Hair Salon's Rachel

The reason I can't drive Lois down there myself this morning is that I've got a "foot care" appointment with Joanne at 10:15. As it happens, Lois gets back home before Joanne arrives, but that wasn't guaranteed. 

Lois pictured later today in our kitchen

10:15 This is our first appointment with Joanne, so it's nice getting to know her, and to have our feet pampered by her. She says what lovely feet Lois has, and I have to agree. She doesn't say the same thing about my feet, and I'm not really surprised. She even takes a photo of one of my toes, and says she's going to put it onto her footcare specialist whatsapp group, to see if anybody has any ideas about what to do with it - my goodness!!!

Still, that's one more item ticked off on my bucket list: my long-standing urge to have "famous feet", i.e. feet on the internet, although I realise that Joanne's picture of my problem toe [not shown] will not necessarily "go viral". 

I know that Emma Watson and Meghan Markle have possibly the world's most beautiful feet, and Jackie Kennedy has two of the world's biggest feet. I've just got to decide which category of foot I most want to be in the Top Ten for - should be a cinch, once I've made the choice: I might go for the "big and lovely" category, because there's no doubt that there's much less competition in that one !!!!

Emma Watson's feet

12:00 A shock text message from our daughter Alison in Hampshire blows apart the way Lois and I had planned to spend the rest of today. We were going to spend the rest of the day packing up in preparation for setting off tomorrow to spend Easter with Alison, husband Ed and their 3 teenage children, Josie (16), Rosalind (14) and Isaac (12). 

flashback to Christmas 2022: (clockwise from the left) Rosalind, Isaac,

Josie, Ed, Ali, Lois and me in the kitchen of their crumbling Victorian

mansion in Headley, Hampshire

Ali says that Isaac has come down with a tummy bug today, and it's not certain yet how infectious it will prove. So we decide with Ali to postpone our visit for a few days, to see how Isaac gets on, and whether he passes the bug on to other members of the family.

We had already started filling our suitcases, so there's a bit of a hold on that called for now. When you're our age, sudden unexpected changes-of-direction can be a bit bewildering, but I think we'll probably cope in the end haha. Oh dear - we are getting old, that's for sure!

19:00 We settle down on the couch after dinner and turn on the BBC rolling news channel, whatever it's called now. We wait expectantly to see some rare pictures - pictures of Donald Trump being made to do something he doesn't want to do, not 100% at least, i.e. to make a brief appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. 

And yes, eventually we see some glimpses of pictures on this historic theme. Something to tell the grandchildren about some day, no doubt about that! [Haven't you already got five grandchildren? - Ed]

It's not all bad from Trump's point of view, of course, and he'll have been calculating the advantages and the disadvantages of it all. There's no sign of Melania at his side, but according to the New York Times's Andy Borowitz, her thoughts and prayers are with him, which is nice to know!

After that Lois and I are really waiting to see him walking through some corridor that the BBC's reporter keeps talking about.

The wait seems to be taking forever unfortunately, so in the end we switch channels and see an old Mary Beard documentary about Julius Caesar. It's Lois's choice, not mine, because I've got a strong feeling we've seen it before, confirmed for me when it starts, but Lois doesn't remember it. That's what happens when you get to our age, though, isn't it. We're both liable to do this - and we both probably see far too much TV, I suspect.

The documentary was first shown in 2018, and there are lots of references to Donald Trump in particular, as well as to other modern populist politicians around the world. It turns out that there are a lot of parallels - in Trump's case,  both he and Julius Caesar were helped to power by speaking direct to their supporters amongst the ordinary people, tending to bypass national institutions and the political elite classes. 

I'd forgotten that the documentary records another of Caesar's innovations - putting his own head on the coinage. Nobody in the West had done that before him. This strikes a chord with Lois and me, because we're waiting to see the first "King Charles" coins and notes, as well as the postage stamps etc, coming out - it's bound to happen soon now isn't it!

Have you got yours yet????!!!!

Later I check my pockets just in case, but no - they're all still "queens". No "caesars", though, either, so that's probably all to the good!

no Charles coins yet, but it's bound to happen soon!

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

Monday April 3rd 2023

We'll be going off to visit our elder daughter Alison and her family down in Hampshire in the next few days, so I have to "get down and dirty" anyway, to check the tyre pressures.

Yuck - mucky fingers!  And now, now that I've checked the tyre pressures, should I wash my hands, or should I take the opportunity to do another "dirty job" and investigate the chamber for our water meter, which our neighbour Matt has told us has been buried in the pavement outside our house - who would have guessed??!!!!!

What lunatic devised this system for water meters? Matt himself admitted that he had had trouble opening up his meter chamber, because the builders of this half-finished 300-house new-build housing estate, Persimmon Homes, keep tarmacking and re-tarmacking around it, so it tends to become completely tarred-up and a real swine to get the lid off of, if you want to take the water meter reading. 

It's a total modern-day madness!!!

I demonstrate some of the tools you'll need to open up

one of these Persimmon Homes water meters: 

the one thing missing is a phone to take a picture of the meter display with

we finally get the lid of the meter chamber off, 

wipe the meter display to semi-clean with an old washing-up stick

and then take a picture of the display using a smartphone: at a depth of about 12 inches

the figures are far too small for anybody to read with the naked eye

It's utter utter utter meter-madness !!!!

I know it looks from the above pictures that Lois is doing most of the work, but that's not entirely true - it was a team effort, and it's just that she's more photogenic than me, plus it's easier for me to wield the phone/camera while she does the poses. 

That's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it!

our water-meter: could you read the figures haha???!!!!!

later I tell Severn Trent, our water company, that it says 00037.2

- and that's genuinely my best guess !!!!!

If your interpretation is different, please send it - on a postcard pleeeease!!!!

(And don't forget haha!!!!)

I get onto the chatline operated by our water company, Severn-Trent, hoping to persuade them to set up an account for us before we start owing them hundreds of pounds. 

Sadly I get the same result as I did last week. Despite the fact that I give them an up-to-date reading, they promise only that they will ask the "concerned team" [sic] [how concerned are they, really, the team-members, in all honesty haha], requesting them to register this new-build property, after which I will have to wait 4-6 weeks to be contacted by Severn Trent with details of my account number and specifics of how much I owe them.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!  [That's enough madness for today! - Ed]

14:00 Relaxing on the couch after lunch we see that our son-in-law Francis has put a charming picture of Sarah and Francis's 9-year-old twins Lily and Jessica onto social media.

The family are camping near Perth Airport, in preparation for moving back to the UK later this month, after 7 years down under. They have vacated their house in Perth, and are having a short holiday before their flight. They'll also be spending a few days in Dubai on the way home, which will be nice.

19:00 After dinner we settle down on the couch with an after-dinner drink: Lois with her usual Redbush tea, and me with one of the hot chocolate made from one of the chocolate hearts Lois gave me as an extra Christmas present last weekend. Yum yum!

I enjoy a post-dinner hot chocolate made from one

of Lois's chocolate hearts with marshmallows included - yum yum!

20:00 Having seen, and been disappointed by, the first 2 episodes of the BBC's new jazzed-up version of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations", we decide to watch Armando Iannucci's recent documentary about the writer, as an antidote.

An interesting programme, reminding us about the quality of Dickens' writing and also about the way Dickens can't quite help looking for the comic side of everything, even when telling stories of great tragedies.

We gather some interesting insights on Dickens' mental state also. He was certainly a very driven man, and a look at the original manuscripts of some of his works reflect an almost manic desire for perfection in the words he uses.

a sample of a page of Dickens'  manuscripts 

with some of his copious hand-written alterations

Was Dickens a bit like his famous character Mr Dick in David Copperfield? 

Mr Dick suffers from delusions, but instead of being shut up in an asylum, he's been taken in by David's Aunt Betsy. 

For most of his life, Mr Dick has been working on a historical document which he calls "The Memorial", but we never really find out what it's supposed to be about. And every day his work on it is interrupted by thoughts in his head about the execution of Charles I. And the only thing he can do in order to get these thoughts out of his head is to write them down on big pieces of paper, to gather those pieces together and make a giant kite out of them. And then he goes outside and flies the kite.

Now, that really is madness! 

Mr Dick flies his kite, from a green slope, 

with the young David Copperfield sitting beside him

And Armando reads us a passage out of the novel.

David Copperfield says about him, that "I used to fancy as I sat beside him on a green slope and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it into the skies. As he wound in the string and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light till it fluttered to the ground and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a dream, and I remembered to have seen him take it up and look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that I pitied him with all my heart".

It's interesting also that Dickens hated writing the endings of his stories and novels. As Armando points out, David Copperfield ends with a whole host of characters, including Mr Micawber, sailing off to Australia to start a new life. And they succeed - Micawber grows prosperous, while at home David marries again and lives happily ever after. But this ending "doesn't feel so happy when we close the book", says Armando. 

For Armando, Dickens' endings are disappointing. Dickens, he feels, hated finishing his novels, and his heart wasn't in it. It's when his characters are restless and struggling and energetic that they're at their most animated, and it's when they become static that something goes out of them. 

For Dickens, Armando thinks, a happy ending is dull.

Fascinating stuff!!!!

21:00 We go to bed on yesterday's edition of "Antiques Roadshow", in which members of the public bring along treasures and heirlooms from their attics, garages and storerooms, to have them discussed, and valued, by experts in the field.

At the close of tonight's show, presenter Fiona Bruce showcases an old election poster from the 1860's designed to counter false rumours that had been spread around that one of the area's 2 Conservative MPs was preparing to stand down as a member of Parliament. 

Fiona asks whether this could be the first ever case of fake news. Well, I think we should be told, don't you!

Well, I don't know! So "fake news" is nothing new, it seems!

What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off 1868 days !!!!!

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