17:00 Lois er træt igen, men lidt roligere – jeg synes, hun føler sig nu
mindre nervøs om næste tirsdag, når hun har inviteret ca 10 veninder til
frokost hos os. Vi følte begge i eftermiddags, at foråret var på vej, og for
første gang siden jul arbejdede hun lidt i baghaven, mens jeg tog mig min
sædvanlige eftermiddagslur. Også, vi købte i morges den mad, hun vil bruge for
tirsdags frokost. Hun har arrangeret frokosten i anledning af Maggies kommende
afgang – Maggie har solgt sit hus i Leckhampton og forbereder sig på at flytte
ind til et plejehjem i Birmingham.
Hvordan er det at flytte ind i et plejehjem? Lois og jeg overtalte min far
til at flytte ind i et plejehjem i 1998, fordi vi var sikre på, at min mor ikke
længere kunne passe på ham – situationen var blevet en større krise mellem dem,
og min mor var tæt på at kollapse følelsesmæssigt og fysisk, troede vi.
Lois og jeg spekulerer stadig ofte, om vi gjorde det rigtige, men vi arbejdede
dengang begge to, og vi havde hverken tiden eller energien til udskyde
beslutningen. Min far kunne ikke lide at være i plejehjemmet, og han spiste
altid i sit værelse og ikke i plejehjemmets spisestue, og han brugte sine dage
på at se fjernsyn (ligesom han gjorde, da han før i tiden boede i sit eget
hus!). Han døde desværre to år senere.
18:00 Vi spiser frokost, en færdigret fra CookShop, og bagefter ser vi lidt
fjernsyn. De viser et gamle afsnit af Top of the Pops fra 1983. Vi genkender
desværre ingen af sangene vi hører, bortset fra Bowies ”Let’s Dance”, der
toppede hitlisten. Vi gik ikke glip af noget meget godt, ved at opholde os
dengang i USA – det ved jeg med
sikkerhed!!!
Årets europæiske melodi grand prix skulle dengang snart ske, og vi hører
Storbritanniens sang, der var helt forfærdelig – du godeste! Lois og jeg har
aldrig hørt denne sang før – og det er der god grund til: den var noget
skrammel!
Sangen blev fortolket af popgruppen Sweet Dreams, som vi aldrig har hørt
om: to kvinder og en mand. De lignede lidt Abba eller Bucks Fizz, men vi synes,
at et skørt menneske valgte kvindernes påklædning – du godeste! Og et andet
skørt menneske må have troet, at kvinderne havde sexede numser – du godeste
(igen)!!! Numserne var måske sexede i virkeligheden, men påklædningen ødelagte chancerne
for at fremvise dem på en attraktiv måde – det ved vi med sikkerhed!!!!
TOTP2
Et skørt menneske må have valgt gruppens påklædning –
ingen
tvivl om det!!!!
Kameramanden gør sit bedste, men...
–
gruppens påklædning ødelægger chancerne for god numse-effekt!!!!
Jeg googler gruppens navn på Wikipedia, og jeg er overrasket at læse, at
sangen senere blev nummer 6 i selve konkurrencen, men det var i de gode gamle
dage før kommunismens kollaps ha ha ha, da de østeuropæiske lande ikke deltog i
konkurrencen – du godeste! Tiden flyver!!!
20:00 Vi taler lidt på Skype med Alison, vores ældste datter, der bor i
København sammen med Ed, sin mand, og deres 3 børn. Det er meget sjovt at
snakke med hende om deres liv i Danmark.
Ali udarbejder for tiden en pub-quiz for den lokale rugbyclubs medlemmer og
deres venner og familier, alle engelsktalende men fra forskellige lande. Hun
siger, det er meget sjovt at finde på passende spørgsmål, og hun afprøver nogle
af dem ved at stille dem til os.
Hun har delt quizzen i forskellige sektioner, og vi hører nogle af
spørgsmålene, der handler om selve Danmark. Jeg er (med rette) stolt af, at jeg
kan svare to spørgsmål rigtigt: jeg ved, at den danske dronnings mor var
svensker. Jeg ved også hvilke to lande det såkaldte Danmarksstræd ligger mellem
– nemlig Island og Grønland. Hurra! Så derfor lider jeg ikke af demens endnu –
det har jeg ikke nogle tvivl om !!!! Men jeg må ikke blive overmodig – suk suk!
21:00 Vi fortsætter med at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser det seneste afsnit af Big Bang
Theory – meget morsomt, selvom artiklen i Radio Times-tidsskriftet påpeger, at
showets længde faktisk kun er 17 minutters
komedie, omgivet af 13 minutters tv-reklamer – du godeste!
Showets plots bliver mere og mere tilfældige, synes vi. Én af aftenens
plotlinjer – dvs, Leonard har tendens til at tage Penny for givet, nu hvor de
er giftede – er kommet ud af ingenting, efter vores mening.
22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzz!!!!!
04:45 Jeg står op og kigger lidt på nettet.
05:00 Jeg finder Morten Ingemanns seneste tegneseriestribe. Du godeste! Jeg
får lidt af et chok, da jeg ser den – det ved jeg med sikkerhed!
Danskeren Ingemann er min yndlingstegner
– ingen tvivl om det! Han interesserer sig meget for grimme,
overvægtige, midaldrende eller ældre folk, de slags mennesker, som de fleste
tegnere sjældent giver opmærksomhed til.
Jeg kan godt lide Ingemanns attitude – han afviser instinktivt negative
følelser om alderdom. Han ved godt, at menneskers bedste år hyppigst er i
fremtiden – i 80’erne og 90’erne. Med andre ord er det bedste endu ikke er
kommet.
Men hans seneste stribe viser, hvor stor er den kulturelle kløft er mellem
England og kontinentale Europa, når det kommer til hvad er acceptabelt og hvad
ikke er acceptabelt – det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om !!!!! Man ville aldrig se
sådan en stribe i en engelsk avis – ingen tvivl om det!!!!
I dagens stribe ser vi en stor dobbeltseng og et nøgent overvægtigt midaldrende ægtepar,
der har smidt alt – dynen, puder, - ud på gulvet og nu er i færd med et
samleje. Parrets overbo deltager også i akten – det er ikke klart, om han har
fået en indbydelse eller ej – og den stakkels ægtemand bliver klemt i en slags
sandwich.
Jeg formoder, at dette slags stribe er helt acceptabelt i Danmark, og
danskerne sikkert synes, at vi englændere er lige lidt snerpede – sikke en skør
verden vi lever i !!!!
Som sædvanligt i Ingemanns striber er nogle af ornamenterne, som parret har
valgt at sætte på deres hylder, og billeder på væggen, alt for grafiske til min
smag – det ved jeg med sikkerhed!!!!
Men en ros til Ingemann for at synliggøre problemerne af at bo i
etageejendomme, og at blive altid på god fod med naboerne. Du godeste!!! Lois
og jeg er heldige i, at vi bor i et halvt dobbelthus, hvor kun stuen og Alisons
gamle værelse på første sal har fælles væg med naboen, gudskelov!!!
06:00 Jeg fortsætter med at kigge lidt på internettet, og på den
indflydelserige amerikanske nyhedswebsted, The Onion. Webstedet bringer en
bekymrende historie fra USA: et pænt halstørklæde i en bunke 15 frakker på en
seng er forsvundet, tilsyneladende uden grund. En tragisk hændelse, fordi disse
slags situationer har tendens til at føre til mistanker, der kan forgive
forhold mellem venner og slægtninge – du godeste! Jeg beslutter mig for at
tjekke på webstedet senere på dagen, for at finde ud af, om det pæne
halstørklædet er blevet fundet, eller ej. Da hjemmesiden gik i trykket, var
halstørklædet stadig forsvunden.
en
bunke 15 frakker – men hvor bliver det pæne halstørklæde af?
08:00 Jeg skynder mig ind i køkkenet og laver to kopper te. Jeg tager dem
med op i soveværelset og hopper op i sengen til Lois. Vi drikker teen og går i
bad. Vi står op og spiser morgenmad.
10:00 Jeg går i gang med at læse igen det uddrag fra Kong Horn, den
middelengelsk chevaleresk romantik, der går tilbage til midten af det trettende
århundrede. Lyndas U3A ”Making of
English” gruppe skal diskutere uddraget på gruppens næste møde (der finder sted
i eftermiddag).
12:00 Vi har frokost og bagefter taler vi lidt på Skype med Sarah, vores
datter i Perth. Det er meget sjovt at snakke om familiens liv i
Australien.
Lois og jeg er glade for at høre, at situationen på Sarahs arbejde er meget
bedre – og der er mindre pres på hende. Hendes nye arbejdskollega er meget god
til at overtale forretningens kunder til at betale regninger uden forsinkelse –
gudskelov!!!
Familien kan godt lide deres nye hus, som de for nogle uger siden flyttede
ind i. Selvom Francis, Sarahs mand, altid er frisk på at flytte til et mere og
mere fornemt nabolag. De bor for tiden i et pænt område af Leederville (forstad
til byen Perth), men Francis vil gerne flytte til et endnu pænere villakvarter
– muligvis Mount Claremont eller Dalkeith – du godeste!
Sarahs tvillinger, Lily og Jessica, er nu 3 år 8 måneder gamle, og Sarah
har allerede indskrevet dem hos en nærliggende børnehave, hvor de kan starte
næste år (2 eller 3 dage om ugen) – Francis vil dengang kunne søge et
deltidsjob.
14:00 Jeg kører ind i byen for at deltage i Lyndas U3A
”Making of English” møde på Everyman-teatret. Mødet går godt og vi har det
meget sjovt. Lynda, Margaret, Joe, Anthony, Barb, Vera, Joy og jeg skiftes til
at læse ca. 25 linjer af ”Kong Horn”- digtet, oversætte den til moderne
engelsk, og kommentere interessepunkter.
Gruppen er enig om, at vi har
fundet den første nogensinde forekomst af den kendte sætning ”Kan du have en
god dag” eller på middelengelsk ”Have wel godne day”. Dette udtryk siger
digtets helt, Horn, til Rymenhild, sin kæreste, lige før han skal af sted for
at deltage i syv års mandlige eventyr i udlandet, hvor han vil prøve at dræbe
så mange saracenere som muligt – du godeste! Vi synes alle, at Horn mangler
lidenskab – Rymenhild, hans kæreste, synes tværtimod at være liderlig
hele tiden, og det synes, at Horn ikke bemærker dette. Stakkels Rymenhild !!!!
16:00 Mødet er sluttet og jeg
kører hjem. Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.
English translation
17:00 Lois is tired again, but a
little calmer - I think she now feels less nervous about next Tuesday, when she
has invited about 10 friends to lunch with us. We both felt this afternoon that
spring was on the way, and for the first time since Christmas, she did a little
work in the backyard while I took my usual afternoon nap. Plus this morning we
bought the food that she wants to use for Tuesday's lunch. She has organized
the lunch on the occasion of Maggie's forthcoming departure - Maggie has sold
her house in Leckhampton and is preparing to move into a nursing home in
Birmingham.
What is it like to move into a
nursing home? Lois and I persuaded my father to move into a nursing home in
1998 because we were sure that my mother could no longer take care of him - the
situation had become a major crisis between them and my mother was coming close
to collapse emotionally and physically, we believed.
Lois and I still often wonder
whether we did the right thing, but we were both still working at the time, and
we had neither the time nor the energy to postpone the decision. My father did
not like being in a nursing home, and he always ate in his room and not in the
care home's dining room, and he spent his days watching television (like he did
when he lived in his own house!). He sadly died two years later.
18:00 We eat lunch, a ready meal
from Cookshop, and afterwards we see a little television. They show an old
episode of Top of the Pops from 1983. We recognize none of the songs we hear
unfortunately, apart from Bowie's "Let's Dance" which was topping the
charts. We did not miss anything very good by living in the United States at
the time - I know that for sure !!!
The year's Eurovision Song
Contest was about to happen, and we hear Britain's song, which was absolutely
horrible - my god! Lois and I have never heard this song before - and there's a
good reason for that: it was a load of junk!
The song was interpreted by the
pop group Sweet Dreams, which we have never heard of: two women and a man. They
looked a bit like Abba or Bucks Fizz, but we think that a crazy person chose the
women's outfits - my god! And another crazy person must have thought that the
women had sexy butts - my god (again) !!! The butts may have been sexy, in
fact, but the outfits ruined the chances of presenting them in an attractive
way - that, we know for sure !!!!
A crazy person must have chosen the
group's outfits -
no
doubt about it!!!!
the cameraman is doing his best, but
...
- the group's outfits destroy any chances of
"good" butt-effect !!!!
I google the name of the group on
Wikipedia, and I am surprised to read that the song later came sixth in the actual competition, but it was in the good old days before the collapse of communism
ha ha ha, when the Eastern European countries did not take part in the
competition - my god ! Time flies!!!
20:00 We speak a little on Skype
with Alison, our oldest daughter who lives in Copenhagen along with Ed, her
husband and their 3 children. It is a lot of fun to talk to her about their
lives in Denmark.
Ali is currently devising a
pub-quiz for the local rugby club's members and their friends and families, all
English speaking but from different countries. She says it's a lot of fun to
think of appropriate questions, and she tries some of them out by putting them
to us.
She has divided the quiz into
different sections, and we hear some of the questions dealing with Denmark
itself. I am (rightly) proud that I can answer two questions correctly: I know
that the Danish queen's mother was Swedish. I also know the two countries, that
the so-called Denmark Straits lie between - namely Iceland and Greenland.
Hoorah! So I am not suffering from dementia yet - I have no doubts about
that!!!! But I must not get overconfident - sigh sigh!
21:00 We continue to watch TV.
They show the latest episode of Big Bang Theory - very funny, although the
article in the Radio Times magazine points out that the show's length is
actually only 17-minutes of comedy, surrounded by 13-minutes of TV commercials
- my god!
The show's plots are becoming
more random, we think. One of this evening's plot lines - ie, that Leonard is
tending to take Penny for granted, now that they are married - has come out of
nowhere, in our opinion.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz !!!!!
04:45 I get up and take a look at
the web.
05:00 I find Morten Ingemann's
latest comic strip. My God! I get a bit of a shock when I see it - I know that for
sure!
The Dane Ingemann is my favorite
cartoonist - no doubt about it! He is particularly interested in ugly, overweight,
middle-aged and older people, the kind of people that most artists rarely pay
attention to.
I like Ingemann's attitude - he
instinctively rejects negative feelings about ageing. He knows that people's best
years are usually in the future - in their 80s and 90s. In other words,
the best is yet to come.
But his latest strip shows how
great is the cultural divide between England and continental Europe, when it
comes to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable - I have no doubts about
that !!!!! You would never see such a strip in an English newspaper - no doubt
about that either !!!!
In today's strip, we see a large
double bed and a naked overweight middle-aged couple who have thrown everything
- quilt, pillows, - onto the floor and are now engaged in a bout of
intercourse. The couple's upstairs neighbor is also taking part in the action -
it is not clear whether he has been invited - and the poor husband is being
squeezed into a kind of sandwich.
I suspect that this kind of strip
is quite acceptable in Denmark, and the Danes probably think that we English
are just a little uptight - what a crazy world we live in !!!!
As usual in Ingemann's strips, some of the ornaments, the couple has chosen to put on their shelves, and the
pictures on the wall, are also too graphic for my taste - I know that for sure !!!!
But kudos to Ingemann for
highlighting the problems of living in blocks of flats, and of trying to stay
on good terms with the neighbors. My God!!! Lois and I are lucky that we live
in a semi-detached house where only the living room and Alison's old room on
the first floor have a shared wall with our neighbors, thank God !!!
06:00 I continue to look a little
at the web and at the influential US news website The Onion. The site reports a
troubling story from the United States: a neat scarf in a pile of 15 coats on a
bed has disappeared for no apparent reason. A tragic incident, because these
kinds of situations tend to lead to suspicions that can poison relationships
between friends and relatives - my god! I decide to check the site later in the
day to find out if the neat scarf has been found or not. When the website went
to press, the scarf was still missing.
a pile 15 coats - but where has the neat
scarf got to?
08:00 I hurry into the kitchen
and make two cups of tea. I take them up to the bedroom and jump into bed with
Lois. We drink the tea and take a shower. We get up and eat breakfast.
10:00 I begin to read again the
excerpt from King Horn, the Middle English chivalric romance, dating back to
the middle of the thirteenth century. Lynda's U3A "Making of English"
group are going to discuss the excerpt at the group's next meeting (which takes
place this afternoon).
12:00 We have lunch and
afterwards we talk a little on Skype with Sarah, our daughter in Perth. It's a
lot of fun to chat about the family's life in Australia.
Lois and I are happy to hear that
the situation at Sarah's work is much better - and there is less pressure on
her. Her new work colleague is very good at persuading the store's customers to
pay bills without delay - thank god !!!
The family like their new house
which they moved into few weeks ago; although Francis, Sarah's husband, is
always keen to move to more and more genteel neighborhoods. They are currently
living in a nice area of Leederville (a suburb of Perth City), but Francis
would like to move to an even nicer residential neighborhood - possibly Mount Claremont
or Dalkeith - my god!
Sarah's twins, Lily and Jessica
are now 3 years 8 months old and Sarah has already enrolled them in a nearby
kindergarten where they can start next year (2 or 3 days a week) - Francis will
then be able to seek a part-time job.
14:00 I drive into town to take
part in Lynda's U3A "Making of English" meeting at the Everyman
Theatre. The meeting goes well and we have a lot of fun. Lynda, Margaret, Joe,
Anthony, Barb, Vera, Joy and I take turns reading about 25 lines each of the poem
"King Horn", translate them into modern English, and comment on
interest points.
The group agreed that we have
found the first ever occurrence of the famous phrase "Have a nice
day" or (as it appears in Middle English) "Have well godne day". This
expression the poem's hero, Horn, uses to Rymenhild, his girlfriend, just before
he goes off to take part in seven years of manly foreign adventures, where he
will try to kill as many Saracens as possible - my god! We all think that Horn
lacks passion - Rymenhild, his girlfriend, on the other hand seems to be horny
all the time, and it seems that Horn did not notice this. Poor Rymenhild !!!!!
16:00 The meeting finishes and I
drive home. Lois and I relax with a cup of tea on the sofa.
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