Monday 9th September

I should have taken a picture of our new garden bench. I was left some money by my godfather who died at a venerable age last year. I've used it to buy a proper, solid wooden bench to go just outside our French windows. It catches the afternoon sun at this time of the year, and is sheltered from the wind which usually comes swooping round the side of the house. 

BB was assembling it in a brief sunny interlude in an otherwise grey and chilly day this afternoon,  while I was on a rather crazy zoom call, with my father, my brother, my uncle (supported by his gangster, my cousin) and her brother. If you can get your head round this. Basically,  my father and his children, and his brother with his children... did that help?

Sadly my uncle has lost most of his mental ability following a series of strokes, but enjoys seeing us all on the screen, recognises us and makes comments as we chat. It's also go for the two brothers to be able to keep in touch this way. They are both into their 90s and very fril these days. 

Today's zoom was enlivened by discovering the 'captions' button, where zoom attempts to autogenerate subtitles. This was almost helpful for my father who often struggles to hear, but can read easily. 

I say 'almost helpful', because zoom's subtitles were frequently some way off from what was actually said, so I spent a good deal of the time collapsed with giggles. Especially when my brother spoke a little French to demonstrate that it would translate it into English. It didn't...