Sunday evening.  Had a fairly pleasant low key day.   Went for 3 terrific walks, nothing like the warm verdant summer countryside, we are very lucky to live beside a brook in the AONB.   But now it's evening, we've had supper, there's only the Olympics on tv;   do I play games on the pc (bridge) or the tablet (killer sudoku, crosswords etc)?  Or read the papers and internet agai for more terribke news about the middle east , local anti immigrants or interesting news about terrible Trump.   None of these.   I have made a resolution to start and maintain my blog.   No one looks at it, or even knows about it,   but one day I'll say didn't you know????   and then all my family and friends will read it with interest.  

​Maybe.

​Anyway I'll publish this now.

In case you are looking for the Watervole Survey here is the link. 
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Aaaah.     I haven't said anything for ages because I couldn't think of anything to say that anyone would be interested in.

​But I realise I am a bad, inadequate, communicator.  I think all the time (don’t we all?). but to don’t tell my family and friends what I am thinking about they and they don’t realise at all how important they are to me,
 
Right now I realise that I am at a change of life.    At Easter we went to Piers and Sarah,   For years and years the family would come to us for an easter egg hunt and a good lunch.   But now we are glad to be invited the next generation down.     Similarly, this weekend we might have had Reuben, grandson, to stay, but he preferred to be in the company of his school mates.      Of course he did, he’s no longer a small dependent child, he’s a young growing person.     We are moving to the back of the stage, or even to the audience, watching rather than leading.    It happens.
 
This week Hector came over to spend time with Reuben and me teaching us to play poker.     He was wonderful.   He was confident, kind, a great teacher, and the clear leader amongst us.   Reuben loved learning and playing th egame and so did I.   Hector awarded prizes and encouraged us to continue playing,    He is wonderful;.
 
Years ago I was happy, delighted, to take the young people to explore all the bridges from here to Bristol, or to take them to London to go to the Tate and the Top of St Pauls and to ride  bikes, through the park and down Oxford Street.  And they were happy to share the experience.  
 
Now they will tell me what to do and where.  That’s if they talk at all.
 
It’s called getting old.

Today many people received a long, pompous and ill-informed email from out MP objecting violently to a proposed solar farm near us.

He signed it with these modest self descriptions
Member, Mr Speaker’s Panel of Chairmen
Chairman, All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Armed Forces
Chairman, Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust
Chairman, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Polar Regions
Convenor, Antarctic Parliamentarians Assembly 2019, 2021
Member, Commons Procedure Committee
Member, Environmental Audit Committee
Commander, Order of St John
Freeman of the City of London
Younger Brother, Trinity House
Veteran Member, Honourable Artillery Company
Member, Royal Wootton Bassett Royal British Legion
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Patron, Operation Christmas Box
President, Chippenham Constitutional Club
Author, Poles Apart (2014); Who Takes Britain to War (2016); Full English Brexit (2018) and Wiltshire to Westminster (2020)

I've replied signing as below.  (notice the last 2 or 3 claims esecially)

Chair Wessex Community Energy
Director Wiltshire Wildlife CommunityTrust
Author Ecological Eating
Freeman of the City of London
Ex Mayor of Malmesbury
12 Year Trustee of Wiltshire Wildlife. Trust
Former Non Exec Director of Great Western Hospital, Wessex Water, SW Courts Board and member  EA Regional Committee
Previous Deputy Leader of North Wilts District Council and Chair of Planning Committee
Member of National Trust
Member of Westonbirt
Member of Co-op, Lidl, Aldi, John Lewis, Waitrose, Tesco ,Morrison, Amazon and IKEA

Actually we have a some things in common, we are both Freemen and we have the same birthday.   (uuuugh)

The trouble is I have set too high a standard.  Interesting, amusing,informative.   v difficult.

Who am I writing for?  No prospect of being followed by 1000s of people (as Reuben was on You Tube till they took him off because he was too young).   So it's just for family I suppose.   And maybe just about family.  Family is v active right now. Alice was supposed to have a Caesarian today- brilliantly on the Ides of March , the day Caesar was assassinated.  But it's been put off till Monday.   Piers and Sarah are in the middle of buying and selling their home and thus embarking on a huge refurbishment and planting project.  Ben is in the middle of negotiating his third cafe development.  Cara is fighting in the local elections.  Hannah is working on a mega party for extended family for Dan's Bar Mitza. (is that what they call it?)..  Daniel is on a shortlish list to have his painting exhibited in MOMA in New York.   And Gabriel is about to graduate with a degree.
I have just resigned as a school governor and am thinking about not going other things too.   I have to organise a conference which is being hosted by Wilts County Council on May 16th.   It's about Community Energy and ways we can work together to get to Net Zero.  

Yesterday I played Clifton Bridge.    That is to say I jumped off and have decided not to play at the club again, had a dreadful time.    From now on I shall concentrate on friendly home based games- particularly with Hector and Reuben.   I'll teach them Bridge and Hec can teach us Poker.

Piers and Sarah hosted a great dinner for 9 of us at the much refurbished Old Bell.  It was good.  We all had a happy Piers' birthday.  
Hector is very very handsome.   He told us about his trip to Amsterdam (watch out for cyclists!) and about his job.   He also told us he reads all D's emails and that's how he keeps up with us.  I am jealous and told him about this blog.   He has promised to look at it.  I suppose I must now make it interesting and amusing and informative.   Here goes.


Interesting:    It has stopped raining.  The sky is partly blue
Amusing ( copied from google--why did the toilet paper jump of the building? ----  To quickly get to the bottom
Informative.  That was a split infinitive, it should have been to get to the bottom quickly.


 I will try harder to morrow.

Tomorrow Piers is 50.  Yesterday Jagger was about 11.  On Sunday Hannah will be two years younger than Piers.  Guy was older on the 16th.   There are others.

Tuesday.   It's alright for people who have work to do.   They get up on the morning, get dressed and go out to be useful.   I get up, get dressed, walk the dog,  put toast in the air fryer, empty the dishwasher, (note the order, the toast needs more than 10 minutes so I do tasks while it's cooking) and the make the big decision about what to have with the toast while I read newspapers on the tablet.  Oh and I do wordle and connections ready to share with friends (I'm stuck today, on go 6. know it ends in EL has another E and not the letters STARCUDLIBVOWJ)

It'll come to me in a minute. ExxEL would be Excel but C not possible) Steel, no st.   WHeel, I'll try that. It's not that, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, only the 7th time I've failed in 753 days.   It's your fault.

Then I have the day to fill.  While we were looking forward to Christmas we were focussed on redeorating the house to make it good fo visitors.    Now there's no focus.  Well today we are going to Bristol to look after Bobbi this afternoon.  I still belong to things but in a v minor capacity always.   I help with Wessex Community Energy (I started that with Pete West) which has about 70 members and meets every 3 months.  I am a governor at the school but have done nothing special since I rejoined. I'm a member, and I'm a director of Malmesbury River Valleys trust  (which i started)and Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy.   I was chair of that for about 5 years and did a huge amount of work for it including sacking the organisation chaired by Ed Davey and finding a better alternative to do our management.  And I'm on a  SW outpatients NHS panel which I think is a huge waste of NHS resources and my only function there  is to try to point that out carefully.  
But those minor roles take only about a day a week,   the rest of the time is spent shoppig for essentials like butter or bread, walking the dog,  doing puzzles, listening to podcasts ad watching tv.   I should be talking to my family and friends, maybe this is a way of doing that- though no one reads it.     Anyway I need to leatn better how to make this interesting, incorporate older blogs. AND

I bought myself a new Widows 11 computer with Xbox capacity and a big screen.   I need to learn that too-- and I hoped that Reuben would be glad to celebrate using it but since he decided not to visit last weekeed I'm worried that his grandparents are no longer relevant, even with an Xbox.    I grow old I grow old, what's that a quote from?

Well I've sorted out most of the stuff but not all.   Now I have to learn how to produce this website a bit better.  There should be access to many other websites  and also a space for comments.  Yes you can comment by clicking on the blue comment box at the top.    
If you go down and down and down you will find only blogs from years and years ago.  I also want to link to  other family sites.
​
​

When I get cleverer at using this website (how do I learn, I'll have to find out that too) I will post pictures not only of Bobbi at one but also many more members of the family at the same age.   But I'm not clever enough yet.

I'm altogether not clever enough to remedy and optimise out home electronics.    The router has stopped transmitting to the kitchen.  The Sonos system (4 speakers) changes its mind about interactions every time I try to use it.  The downstairs tv no longer uses Freeview from the satellite, the tv sometimes uses the extra speakers and boomers, but not always and usually I have to turn them off anyway because the sound id too wafffly.  And the tv keeps telling me I should use a wired connection to the internet but only works with wifi.The upstairs tv gets very snooty about the channels it can access and refuses to use the same numbering as the downstairs tv (when it was working that is). It refuses to use satellite and only ses the tv ariel. I am told I have 4 different wifis TPlink, Linksys, Vodafone and homemesh and some others which i suspect beong to neighbours.  I only use the last one. The Home app tells me about several other devices we own but are not using I could go on.    Does anyone know anyone who could spend a day with us in exchange for generous hospitality, bottles of wine, or even money to help us upgrade and use it all better?

​And grrrrr. as for my Mac where I'm writing this-- I'm typing away and it will suddenly throw me off and lose everything I've added since the last save.    It has thrown me off at least 10 times while I've written this and each time I have to go back to draft and re write the last sentence.  It does the same when I update the bridge club website too.  It's a pain.   And the only way I can type a hashtag (which is the third thing on my number 3 key) is by find one somewhere else on my screen and copy and paste it.     Don;t tell me about option and command and control keys.   They don't work.

I had this email from the editor of Bridge Magazine:
On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 at 15:39, Lou Hobhouse <[email protected]> wrote:

Dear Marcus and Lesley
Lou Hobhouse here, editor of English Bridge. I am compiling the stats for various things from 2023, and you two achieved a whopping 86.25% in a match you played last year. It was the top score in the country for any pair playing in a 20+board match. I'd like to publish this achievement with photos - could you both provide a nice photo of yourselves (together or separately), but preferably against a plain background. It will only be a head and shoulders shot.

Any extra snippets of info such as 'we'd never played together before', or 'we've played together for 30 years', etc would be great, and an idea of how much it pushed your NGS up at the time would be fun, but not necessary (available on MyEBU). Any other info much welcomed, but will only be published subject to space.

I go to press this weekend, so it is always very urgent, but impossible to start doing until the year is out and all results in!

Tons of congratulations on a very very fine result - something most people just dream about.

All the best
Lou
Lou Hobhouse
Editor, English Bridge

But amazing tho this looks it's a nonsense (as I had to tell her).  It's true we made that score and I published it on RealBridge and our website- but the game was an informal one, only 12 of us playing, (3 tables) and it wasn't officially ranked by the EBU or anyone as it was so small.   But hey!!!!    The best score of the year!!! who'd have thought it.

Whatever happened to Sunday Lunches?  It used to be the great famiiy gathering of the week.    When I was a child my father would always go to the pub in the morning (somtimes we'd all go) and then return to a wonderful meal of roast beef or lamb or chicken with lovely fresh vegetables, often picked from the gardenm and followed by an apple crumble or something.   In the afternoon we might watch an old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie on our tv, or else I'd go out for a walk up to the Tithe Barn or out to the countryside.
It changed over the years but still was , in my consciousness anyway, the centre of family life with a meeting of the different generations.   But it's slowly faded away.  Today for example, the only family interaction was a Whats Ap exchange about Liverpool beating Arsenal.    Anyone want to meet next week?

We spent Thursday morning with Bobbi again.   She is utterly delightful and hard work-   not complaining- rather admiring mother and fathers and the committed work they need to do to keep babies, safe, happy, entertained, educated, clean and fed - as well as rested.  After we  left we had planned to do a shop but decided that instead we would just go home and do nothing.   (except tidy up and the jigsaw and cook and talk to the dog who had been left home alone in favour of Bobbi and I went out to bridge i the evening and had a few laughs)

Now it's weekend and again we've had a nothing day, a gentle shop, a gentle hotdog at the coop, a drop in to see P&S who were out (at rugby?). Scruff is not happy again.  Doesn't want to walk or even eat.  (well he did have breakfast).   I wish we could talk.

Ths blog is as boring but I'm determined to keep it up and work our how to make it more interesting.   Just worked out how to add a photo

   We went down to Bristol this morning to look after Bobbi.   She's very good humoured, tolerant and interested in everything.  I love the way she dances when she hears music, she can't quite walk but she bobs up and down and waves her arms when she hears a good tune or rhythm.  She know that the remote control turns on the tv even though she doesn't quite know ho to manage it.     Ad she knows loads of ther things.   (She will be one year old next week.).  The rain finally stopped this morning and the sky is filled with bright lights tonight.   The dog has decided he likes going for walks again.

Unremitting rain.   The Ford joined the stable walls last night and integrated with the roaring new spring from underneath its concrete.  But this morning it was slightly lower.
Scruff refused to go out for a walk in the rain.   My morning routine is to get up around 7, greet the dog and go for a walk of a mile or so before returning to coffee toast and fruit, all the time doing Wordle and Connections.    But with the dog refucing to walk I was a loss.   I relaised that the walk was for me as much as for him.   After coffee I went out anyway, dog still refusing to come with me.   Half an hour later we went by car to Malmesbury and the dog , hearing the word "car" was happy to leave the house and come with us.  It has gone for 18 hours without a pee.

Today is the last Saturday of the year, nothing more significant than that.     I want to talk more about Christmas and the good things that happened.

Hannah and family arrived on Dec 23rd.   They stopped with  us on the way to Bristol.  We had breakfast, Erez and Daniel and Giddy had individual eggs cooked in individual frying pans.  (Now why do I note such an ordinary event as that, totally uninteresting to anyone really... but it was a cozy kitchen situation, a family togetherness, I love remembering it and thinking that I could create something they wanted and which surprised them-- but how does it possible signify beside the huge event of a flight for 5 of them from New York). It was just so lovely to be with them.

They came back with Reuben on Christmas Eve,   More food, more conversation. Marylin and her daughter Bea and her twins arrived too.  Toby visited too.

Christmas Day was extraordinary.   Ben had set up the Crafty Egg for about 25 of us.  There was a huge buffet and tables were set with napkins and crackers and tasty treats.   Piers and Sarah and Toby and D came along with all of us and Alice's family too.   Piers produced matching black hoodies (with Crafty Edd Christmas 2023 written on them) for all the grandchildren.   We never managed to group photo them all wearing them.   It was all wonderful.

On Boxing Day Piers and Sarah celebrated their own lunch with Sarah's father,   meanwhile H&E&G&D came to us, joined later by Hector and Toby and Gabe, we measured them all against the kitchen wall.

Gabe stayed w P&S and went to Malmesbury pubs with Hector and Toby.  One of the joys of the days was that we were a totally mixed up integrated family with different people moving in different directions but all time but essentially together.

They've gone.    We have had the most wonderful Christmas .  We have been with Cara, Piers Hannah and Ben and all their families in a succession of friendly lovely throughtful days. I even spoke to Katherine for the first time for ages when she and Emma Facetimed us.   She told me `i ought to start the blog again and she's right.   It's a good way to communicate.      I have opened up this archive and will try to learn how to update and embelish it,   will try with this post first  (failed a few minutes ago to save it and lost the original).  Let me know if you read it.    

So we went to Rome.
On day one we went with our coach mates to the Via Populo (I shall have to look all the nmes up to be sure I have them right) of Rome, walked down to the Trevi, across to the Tiber and then, alone, wandered back up the Via Corso to our bus.
On day two we bought bus tickets and travelled to Maggiore, walked around St John's Leteran Basilica then up to the Colloseum and around the area to the northwest, unpopulated by tourists and full or splendid parks and buildings.
On day three we return to the Colloseum and then wandered over the Palatine Hills, stunned by the Roman town we had completely missed on a previous trip.
On Day four we went ot theVatican and once again was knocked over by the Pieta .

I was having my mind blown by the opulence of the Roamans and Christianity.  Watching  Trump and the inauguration and the ABC news whenever in our room and catching up on Fb or wherever whenever we stoppped for coffee and Wifi.  Trump metamorophosed into a Roman Emperor (or Pope) embellishing everything with gold, assuming total control and bending the wrold t whatever he say as the right things to do for his own angrandisment.

And we heard of the perennial struggles and battles between tribes and states, fighting for trade, killing thousands, erecting triumphant arches and memorial statues. The spread of the Roman empire with roads, acqueducts sewers and art art art. Then its fall, and the rise of Christianity, nd then the unification of Italy, one nation which of course, to me, was another step on the route to Europpeanism.  Clear as daylight to me, start with triba lvillages, then small provinces, then Regions and then a country... and then of course continue the route o working togethrr instead of fighting by creating a United Europe.. and finally a United world.

I only had one fight with a Brexiter.....more later

Busy weekend.  Yesterday we went to Nailsworth and had a pleasant lunch with old friends.  Today we went to the Bridge Club Christmas Lunch (the formal end of Christmas) and then came home to see Barbara who has come to stay the night.
We all talk about Trump.  And then about Brexit.  We all despair.   We none of us know what to do.  The whole world set of values has changed, there is no left or right or up or down.  We all live in tribes and we know we are right and that the others are appallingly ignorant.  I have one facebook friend, through bridge, who though a lovely (and old) lady is a Leaver.  (Her husband, she told me, said how could we vote to be part of Germany when we had fought 2 wars against them) She often shares pretty pictures of cats but she also shares posts from an organisation called Proud to be British.     Well I'm a follower of We are the 48% and get a non stop barrage about the horrors of Brexit, very comforting it is.  But I've looked at Proud to be British and it has more followers that the 48% one and it too has a non stop barrage- of how awful the EU is.  I know they lie, I know they are uninformed.  But they are as articulate as we are.   Depressing.

Also read three editions of the Financial Tiimes this week.  I thought it would be like the Spectator but it's not.  It's wonderful and everyday has given me new ideas.  Yesterday's was the dreadfulness of speaking English- something I had always thought was a big advantage- no- not at all.  All the Russians and Chinese and Europeans learn English and most educated people are bi lingual.   But few people in the UK or US are familiar with other lanaguages,  The result is as if we are living in a glass house.  They can all look in and understand what we are saying and thinking, we look out only on darkness.  We have a huge disadvantage in negotiations.   What do you think of that?

Saturdays still mean something even when you don't work.  They mean the shops are busier for a start.  D always feels we should have a treat, celebrate it being weekend.  Yeah.  Anyway yesterday we completed our tax returns and in 2 weeks we will be in Italy so it does feel like off time.

Heard Ed Balls on the 9 am radio show this morning.  I've always liked him and like him more and more.  Like most politicians he's a human being,  it really is a dreadful life being in politics, even at my local level poeple treat you as a pre-formed monster, they mistrust you and they delight in putting you down.  Nearly all of the mps, meps, I have met have impressed me with their integrity, ability, and willingness to serve--serve not being a cliched politics word for ruling over you but really meaning trying to do better for us all through the machinery of democracy.  I've met and worked with Graham Watson, for example, over the years.  He's measured, sensible, amazingly hard working, just a solid good, intelligent bloke who puts up with shit and still tries to find ways to make things better.  He was leader of the European Liberals so was well respected in Europe as an MEP.  No doubt  if he had chosen to work for Wessex Water (which I knew of course) he would be a top earner getting twice as much as he got as an MEP.  But the good people of the SW, using proportional representation chose 2 UKs MEPs who are wholly useless over him and therefore lost what useful influence they had in Brussels.   But how do you explain to people who haven't actually met or know them, that whatever the Daily Mail says they are kind honest people not monsters (Though of course all the UKippers are monsters).  

By 11th night I mean of course January 5th, tomorrow is 12th night.   Anyway Christmas is over, the decorations are down and we are resolving to lose weight, do better and be better organised.   and to be more loving and kind to the people we value.

I have been listening to Persuasion downloads while walking (last week it was Northanger Abbey and Busman's Holiday (Dorothy Sayers I know).  I love listening to things, no longer read things except internet and newspapers and Economist and New Stateman and Private Eye.  Anyway I realised how much I miss Jane Austen, used to re-read them all every two years or so and went to look for my collection- and found only Pride and Prejudice.  Where are the rest?  Who have I lent them too?  I hope they are in a good home,  I am dazzled by her writing.  Every time I read (hear) it I see more,find things I missed. When I first read her I thought it was an easy girlie story, well so it is, but she has acidic perception and a huge sense of humour.  What a waste that she died so young.  There are not many books that you can read over and over again.  As well as Dorothy Sayers I've also been listening to 1950s favorites like the Day of the Triffids and the Midwich Cuckoos. ;brilliantly imagnative and also very very interesting to see how our perceptions have changed in 50 years (I mean roles of men and women and Vicars and Majors and the like.)   Thinks are getting better, despite Brexit and Trump and other horrors.