18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og derefter bruger vi resten af aftenen på at se
lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Kong
Aethelstan, den første angel-saksiske monark der blev kong af hele England. De
walisiske og skotske konger erkendte ham også og accepterede ham som
Storbritanniens ”top-konge”.
Desværre indser vi halvvejs i programmet, at vi har set det før. Dette er
en risiko, man løber, når man har for vane at se en masse dokumentarfilm – uha!
Men det er interessant at se, at Kong Aethelstan førte mange forhandlinger med
landets danske ledere også (danskere, der regerede i det østlige England), og
det åbenbart ikke var noget problem at tale med dem uden tolk – hurra!
21:00 Vi fortsætter at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser Grand Designs, det andet
afsnit i Channel 4s nye serie. Et ungt par, Tom og Danielle, der bor i et
gammelt stenhus i skovene i Cornwall, vil gerne indbygge et stort moderne
træhus.
Jeg må indrømme, at det moderne træhus ser meget godt ud, men det ser også
lidt underligt ud, fordi det er så anderledes end det oprindelige hus. Det er
en skam, at Tom og Danielle ikke indbygger en stenbygning, der mere vil passe
til det gamle (stenhuse ser så meget bedre ud, end træhuse, når det kommer til
det charmerende miljø af en gammel engelsk skov, synes jeg), men Tom og
Danielle er sindsyg vild med træ. De driver en forretning, hvor de fremstiller
træmøbler i hånd.
Selve træhuset ser meget godt ud udenfra,
men
også lidt underligt ved siden af det gamle stenhus.
Et
nyt stenhus ville have set mere charmerende ud – ingen tvivl om det!!!
Det er også en skam, at Tom og Danielle tilsyneladende har ikke meget
møbler, og de har valgt at bygge enorme rum. Resultatet er, at træhuset, set
indefra, mere ligner et hotel end et hjem.
Det er en skam, at Tom og Danielle har valgt
at bygge enorme rum,
der
ligner hotellobbyer,
selvom
de åbenbart ikke har en masse møbler – uha!
Kevin McCloud, programmets charmerende vært, roser det nye træhus til
skyerne, som sædvanligt. Men det er lidt ironisk, at Tom og Danielle nu
foretrækker at bruge mest tid i det oprindelige gamle stenhus, fordi det er
mere hyggeligt, end deres nye enorme træhus. Du godeste! Sikke en skør verden
vi lever i !!!!
Det er lidt ironisk, at Tom og Danielle nu foretrækker at bruger aftener
i
det lille gamle stenhus, end i det enorme spritnye træhus – sikke et vanvid!!!
Det er også interessant, at Danielle, der har brugt en masse tid på at
hjælpe Tom med at bygge det nye træhus og som også er projektleder, og mor til
2 meget små børn, bliver gravid i løbet af projektet, så er tvunget til at
opgive at hjælpe. Hvorfor for fanden syntes parret, at dette ville være et godt
tidspunkt til at begynde på endnu ét projekt-baby? Sikke et vanvid!
Danielle bliver gravid i løbet af projektet. Sikke et vanvid!!!
Men det er sandt, at de fleste kvinder i Grand Designs-serien bliver
gravide i løbet af projektet. Jeg håber sandelig, at Kevin, programmets
charmerende vært, ikke er ansvarlig for alle disse graviditeter. En hel
generation af babys, der ligner Kevin – sikke et mareridt!!!
22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzz!!!!
05:00 Jeg står tidligt op og laver én af mine rutinemæssige danske
ordforrådtester. Bagefter skynder jeg mig ind i køkkenet og laver to kopper te.
Jeg bringer dem op på vores soveværelse og kryber tilbage i vores seng. Vi
drikker teen, står op og spiser morgenmad.
10:00 Vi går begge to i gang med at skrive nogle linjer på dansk, fordi
vores U3A danske gruppes næste møde finder sted her kl 14:30. Jeg har bedt
medlemmerne om at skrive noget om de gamle venner, som de gennem mange år har
holdt kontakt med. Dette emne svarer til dialogen i Lektion 13 af vores
nuværende lærebog, ”Beginners’ Danish”, af Nete Schmidt.
Jeg skriver som
følger: Jeg havde en klassekammerat, Steve, der også var én af skolens præfekter.
Jeg holdt ikke kontakten med ham, efter vi begge forlod skolen.
Jeg vidste kun,
at han ville gerne læse psykologi på universitet. Selv som dreng interesserede
han sig for psykologi, og da han var præfekt, prøvede han at ”forstå” de
uartige drenge, der plejede at bryde skolens regler!
Mange år senere
var jeg overrasket at se en artikel, skrevet af Steve, i vores søndagavis.
Artiklen handlede om ”venskab”, set ud fra et psykologisk synspunkt.
Mange år senere
igen startede jeg at bruge internettet, og jeg ville gerne finder ud af, om jeg
kunne følge med i, hvad mine gamle klassekammerater lavede. Det var heldigt, at
Steve dengang var blevet lektor på et universitet, fordi det er ganske nemt, at
få information på internettet, når det kommer til universitetkurser og
universitetpersonale. Han arbejdede faktisk i et universitet i USA.
Jeg sendte ham
en email, og vi blev til Facebook-venner. Det var lidt af et chok, at se at han
nu er fuldstændig skaldet – i skolen havde han en masse hår.
Lois skriver som følger: Mine ældste
venner bor i Oxford. Vi skulle sidste uge til Oxford for at se dem. Min ven Jennifer (Jen) og hendes søster
Elizabeth, har jeg kendt siden jeg var en lille pige. Jens far bor også hos dem nu. Basil er nioghalvfems år gammel (99). Han fylder
hundrede år næste april, hvis han overlever vinteren. Familien passer godt på ham, så håber vi, der
skal festes i foråret.
Basil går en kort tur hver
dag. Hans hukommelse er ikke meget god
nu, men han kan snakke med én ret godt.
Han er en undselig og rolig mand og
boede i samme hus siden han giftede sig indtil han kom med hans kone Joan at bo hos
Jen, bortset fra nogle år, da de alle sammen rejste til British Guyana som
missionaerer og spiste masser af karry.
11:30 Jeg går i
gang med at støvsuge overalt i huset, og gøre stuen rent, hvor vores danske
møde finder sted i eftermiddag.
12:30 Vi spiser
frokost, og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager mig en gigantisk eftermiddagslur –
zzzzzz!!!
14:00 Jeg står op
og forberede mig på vores danske gruppes møde. Jeg rykker min bærebare ind til
stuen og tilslutte den til fjernsynet.
14:30 Gruppens
medlemmer ankommer: Joe, Joy og Diana. Jeanette, vores danske veninde, kan ikke
kommer, fordi hun passer på sin barnebarn i dag. Scilla gør det samme men
derovre i Kent – du godeste! Bedsteforældre har mange opgaver – ingen tvivl
om det!!!!
Joe har skrevet
noget om en dansk maler, som vi ikke har hørt om: Christen Købke (1810-1848).
Lois og jeg beslutter at finde ud af, om der er nogle af Købkes malerier i
Ordrupgaard, en dansk kunstgalleri, der ligger ikke ret langt fra det hus,
vores ældste datter, Alison, bor i, i Gentofte. Det kan være, at vi besøge galleriet
den næste gang vi er i København.
16:00 Gruppens
medlemmer skal af sted. Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te på sofaen. Som
altid efter en dansk møde, er vi godt trætte, så derfor beslutter vi at bryde
vores slankekur en lille smule, med et stykke brød og marmelade – nam nam!!!
English translation
18:00 We have dinner and then we
spend the rest of the evening watching TV. They show an interesting documentary
about King Aethelstan, the first Anglo-Saxon monarch who was king of all
England. The Welsh and Scottish kings recognized him too and accepted him as
Britain's "top-king".
Unfortunately, we realize halfway
through the program that we have seen it before. This is a risk you run when
you have the habit of watching a lot of documentaries - oh dear! But it is
interesting to see that King Aethelstan led many negotiations with the
country's Danish leaders also (Danes, who ruled in eastern England) and it was
apparently no problem to talk to them without an interpreter - hurrah!
21:00 We continue to see a little
television. They show Grand Designs, the second episode of Channel 4's new
series. A young couple, Tom and Danielle, who live in an old stone house in the
woods in Cornwall, would like to build a large modern wooden house on to it.
I must admit that the modern
wooden house looks very good, but it also looks a little strange, because it is
so different from the original house. It's a shame that Tom and Danielle do not
build a stone building on, that will fit the old one more (stone houses look so
much better than wooden houses when it comes to the charming setting of an old
English forest, I think), but Tom and Danielle are crazy about wood. They run a
business where they manufacture wooden furniture by hand.
The wooden house looks very good
from without,
but also a little odd next to the old stone
house.
A new stone house would have looked more
charming - no doubt about it !!!
It is also a shame that Tom and
Danielle apparently do not have much furniture, and they have chosen to build
huge rooms. The result is that the wooden house, seen from the inside, looks
more like a hotel than a home.
It is a shame that Tom and Danielle
chose to build huge rooms
similar to hotel lobbies,
although they obviously do not have a lot of
furniture - oh dear!
Kevin McCloud, the program's
charming host, praises the new wooden house to the skies, as usual. But it is
somewhat ironic that Tom and Danielle now prefer to spend most time in the
original old stone house, because it is more cozy than their new huge wooden
house. My Goodness! What a crazy world we live in !!!!
It is somewhat ironic that Tom and
Danielle now prefer to spend evenings
in the small old stone house, than in the
huge brand new wooden house - what madness !!!
It is also interesting that
Danielle, who has spent a lot of time helping Tom build the new wooden house and
who is also project manager and mother to two very young children, gets
pregnant during the project, so is forced to give up helping. Why on earth did
the couple think that this would be a good time to start on one more
"project-baby"? What madness!
Danielle becomes pregnant during the
project. What madness!!!
But it is true that most women in
the Grand Designs series get pregnant during the project. I certainly hope that
Kevin, the program’s charming host, is not responsible for all these
pregnancies. A whole generation of babies that look like Kevin - what a
nightmare !!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz !!!!
05:00 I get up early and do one
of my routine Danish vocabulary tests. Afterwards I hurry into the kitchen and
make two cups of tea. I bring them up to our bedroom and crawl back into our
bed. We drink the tea, get up and eat breakfast.
10:00 We both start to write some
lines in Danish, because our U3A Danish group's next meeting will take place
here at 14:30. I have asked members to write something about old friends that
they have kept in touch with over many years. This item corresponds to the
dialogue in Lesson 13 of our current textbook, "Beginners 'Danish' "
by Nete Schmidt.
I write as follows: I had a classmate, Steve, who was also one
of the school prefects. I did not keep in touch with him after we both left the
school.
I only knew that he wanted to study psychology at university. Even as a
boy he was interested in psychology, and when he was a prefect, he tried to
"understand" the naughty boys who used to break school rules!
Many years later I was surprised to see an article written by Steve, in
our Sunday newspaper. The article was about "friendship", from a
psychological point of view.
Many years later again, I started to use the
Internet, and I wanted to find out if I could keep up with what my old
classmates were doing. It was fortunate that Steve had then been an associate
professor at a university, because it is quite easy to get information on the
Internet when it comes to university courses and university staff. He actually
worked at a university in the United States. I sent him an email and we became
Facebook friends. It was a bit of a shock to see that he is now completely bald
- at school, he had a lot of hair.
Lois writes as follows: My oldest friends live in Oxford. We went to Oxford last week to see them. My friend Jennifer (Jen) and her sister
Elizabeth, I have known since I was a little girl. Jen's father also lives with
them now. Basil is ninety-nine years old (99). He turns a hundred years next
April if he survives the winter. The family takes good care of him, so we hope
to party in the spring.
Basil goes for a short walk every day. His memory is not very good now,
but he can talk with people pretty well. He is a shy and quiet man and lived in
the same house since he married until he came with his wife Joan to live with
Jen, except for a few years when they all traveled to British Guiana as
missionaries and ate lots of curry.
11:30 I begin to vacuum
everywhere in the house, and tidy up the sitting-room, where our Danish meeting
will take place this afternoon.
12:30 We eat lunch, and then I go
to bed and take a giant nap - zzzzzz !!!
14:00 I get up and prepare for
our Danish group's meeting. I move my laptop to the living room and connect it
to the television.
14:30 Group members arrive: Joe,
Joy and Diana. Jeanette, our Danish friend cannot come because she is looking
after her grandchild today. Scilla is doing the same but over there in Kent -
my god! Grandparents have many tasks - no doubt about it !!!!
Joe has written something about a
Danish painter who we have not heard about: Christen Købke (1810-1848). Lois
and I decide to find out if there are some of Købke's paintings in Ordrupgaard,
a Danish art gallery, located not far from the house our oldest daughter,
Alison, lives in, in Gentofte. It may be that we’ll visit the gallery next time
we are in Copenhagen.
16:00 Group members have to go.
Lois and I relax with a cup of tea on the sofa. As always after a Danish
meeting, we are very tired, so we decide to break our diet a little bit, with a
piece of bread and jam - yum yum !!!
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