2009 — 20 November: Friday
Crikey, it's suddenly already 01:17 or so. When did that happen? Just time for another relatively recent picture of Christa — again March 2007, in fact. During our little mystery outing down to Durlston (just above Swanage):
Right, that's it for tonight. Hatches battened. G'night.
And, unbrightly shines...
... the new-born day, at least at 08:13. It's very grey, quite windy, and somewhat wet. Must be November, I guess.
Big Bro's suggested I make a flying visit up to see dear Mama. As he says: "The options remain as status quo, resthome, your place or my place. There are no more, and the stubborn streak combined with the inability to trust her words to the Social folk and get us a POA, suggest the resthome solution would be a battle royal. Suggest you make a quick visit, assess the smoke or fire, apply bandaid, and retire so we can contemplate just how different things have really become since I/we were there last. I suspect things will not be much different."
Here he is, by the way, 30 minutes before sending his advice...
... It was just after 8 pm on the other side of the planet. As Lis says, he loves his mower. (Mind that gnome, Bro.)
I shall call dear M first, but such calls are rarely productive. One of us (at least) is getting old... There are times (and this is one of them) when I suppose I could wish my few remaining relatives were not quite so thinly scattered!
Back from the necessary...
... precursor to any visit, with two new tyres on the back and the two newer tyres shifted to the front. They are also all now stuffed with nitrogen. I used the excellent place at Micheldever station. Added motion lotion back at my local garage and am good to go. However, having just spoken to a much calmer old lady, it looks like no immediate panic. It's 13:42 and I've earned a cuppa and the chance to (as Christa would say) "put my feet up". Still got supplies to go get before it's time to blag a cuppa from Roger and Eileen.
I wonder what happened to the morning? What a life.
This buying for one...
... lark is capable of delivering the odd spot of amusement. Take the entirely mundane matter of toilet "tissue". Waitrose is quite happy to sell me an economy multi-pack (including three free rolls) but it's far too big to fit in their deep green (quick scan as you go checkout) bag. And, skating around the edge of a poor pun (or should that be "pan"?) it would last approximately until the crack of Doom. Meanwhile, the wind obviously shifted, as there's a little pile of white polystyrene balls accumulating in one corner of the (badly-fitted by Anglian pirates) kitchen window frame. Out with, and on with, the all-purpose duct tape. Sorted.
Whatever next? It's 15:13 and I feel a freebie cuppa in my near future.
Later
I persuaded Roger to lend me one of his books as, when I flipped through it more or less at random, my eye had been caught by this wonderful story:
When Pope Innocent IV (1243 - 1254) left Lyons, where he had been because of a Council of the Church, after ten years, Cardinal Hugo said, in a
farewell speech to the citizens:
We have made great improvements since we have been here. When we arrived, we found three or four brothels. We are leaving only one
behind us. We must add, however, that this one brothel stretches from the east to the west gate.
Kahl had filched this from the 1953 book "Sex in history" by Gordon Rattray Taylor who was, if memory serves, not only the author of the "Biological Time-Bomb" but also the editor of the rather too short-lived magazine Science Journal1 in the 1960s.