16:45 Jeg står op på min kondicykel og tilbagelægger endnu 8 miles (13km).
Jeg tænder for min smartphone og ser på 1966s 100 bedste sange, mens jeg
cykler. Hver gang jeg hopper op på cyklen, stiller jeg året 1 år tilbage – det
føles som om jeg er i frit fald ned denne lange kaninhul tilbage til mine
rødder.
jeg ser på 1966s 100 bedste sange, mens jeg cykler.
Mens jeg hører sangene, prøver jeg at mindes 1966 årets rolle i min
livshistorie, i et forsøg på, at udskyde demens ha ha ha. Frygten for demens er
det ældre menneskes værste mareridt – du godeste!
I 1966 fyldte jeg 20 år, og var 1-, og senere 2-års studerende. Jeg boede i
byen Bristol, sammen med mine forældre, min 14-årige bror Steve, og min 8-årige
søster, Gill. Jeg havde også en 18-årig søster Kathy, men hun har allerede
forladt hjemmet, og var flyttet ind hos sin kæreste – du godeste, hvor var hun
dog dristig! Hendes forhold til min far var ikke godt, og vi så hende meget
sjældent hele året. Jeg har kun ét foto af hende fra 1966, og et andet taget i
foråret 1967.
Clifton
House: i august 1966 besøgte vi Clifton House’s tidligere stedet
i byen Bridgend, huset,
hvor min mor blev opdraget i 1920’erne.
I dette foto kan vi
se min 46-årige mors skuffelse over, at huset
et par år tidligere
var blevet revet ned som del af et
vejforbedringsprojekt,
der faktisk blev ikke til noget – du godeste!
Fra venstre til
højre: Steve, Gill, min mor, Kathy.
min 19-årige søster, Kathy – foto taget
lige
uden for bagdøren af vores familiehus i byen Bristol
Mig
under påskeferien, 1966:
jeg venter i Southampton-havnen på færgen til Isle of
Wight.
Jeg
havde vokset mit hår lidt længere i stil med Beatles,
i
et desperat forsøg på, at ser mere sej ud – du godeste,
ræk
mig lige opkastningsposen, Alice!!!!!
Lykkelige dage!!!!
17:30 Gloucester Honda ringer tilbage til mig, og jeg bestemmer en tid hos
dem, når de kan installere nye airbags, som del af et enormt projekt
involverende en masse Honda-modeller, inklusive min Honda Jazz. Pokkers!
Arbejdet vil vare 1 time, og tiden er bestemt til den 2. juni.
18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se
lidt fjernsyn. De viser et gamle afsnit af Toppen af Poppen fra den 13. oktober
1983.
Lois og jeg så ikke dette afsnit, da det oprindeligt blev sendt af
BBC-kanalen, fordi vi for 1 år siden var flyttet til USA, og den amerikanske
levemåde var godt og grundigt indgroet i os. Vi havde fået kabel-tv
installeret, og vi havde for vane at se på MTV (popvideoer), når de ikke viste
noget interessant på de større netværker.
MTV viste mange britiske popvideoer af nye sangere og popgrupper, som Lois
og jeg ikke før havde hørt om, og det føltes som om scenerne i disse videoer,
der blev skudt i Storbritannien, var på
en anden planet, når Lois og jeg kiggede på dem. En video, som jeg specielt
godt kan huske fra denne periode, er
Tracey Ullmans ”They don’t know about us”, som vi ser igen i aften i dette gamle
afsnit af Toppen af Poppen, hvilket for os er meget nostalgisk.
Tracey Ullman spiller en mor til et barn, der går på indkøb.
Det
var lidt af et chok for Lois og mig,
at
se et engelsk supermarked igen – du godeste!
Traceys kæreste, Paul, i sin typiske engelske bil,
en
gammel Robin Reliant – ræk mig nu opkastingsposen Alice (igen)!!!!
Tracey i sin fantasiverden, denne gang med Paul Macartney
I oktober 1983, boede Lois og jeg i Columbia Md, sammen med vores 2 små
døtre og min søster, Kathy. Min 64-årige mor besøgte os alle, og det var hendes
første gang i livet at sidde om bord på et fly.
ColumbiaJetty:
Tilbageblik til oktober 1983 i Maryland.
Fra
venstre til højre: Lois, Alison, mig, Sarah og Kathy
min mor sidder på sofaen i vores hus i Columbia Md,
sammen
med vores døtre, Alison (8) og Sarah (6).
Hun
må have været så glad for, at se dem igen.
Det
kan Lois og jeg godt sympatisere med, nu hvor alle vores
5
børnebørn bor i udlandet – uha!
Lykkelige dage (igen) !!!!!
Minx, Alisons kat, ser fjernsyn sammen med os,
siddende på Lois’s skød
22:00 Vi går i seng. Jeg læser 8 sider af min nye sengetidbog, ”Digte af Philip Larkin, valgt af Martin
Amis”, inden jeg glider over i søvn – zzzzzzz!!!!!
04:45 Jeg står tidligt op og laver én af mine rutinemæssige danske
ordforrådtest.
08:15 Jeg lunter ind i køkkenet og laver to kopper te. Jeg tager dem med op
i soveværelset og kryber tilbage under dynen til Lois. Vi drikker téen og står
op.
10:30 Jeg går i gang med at male den nye poststolpe, som Bob, vores nabo, i torsdags installerede, med en sjat grå grundmaling/mellemstrygning.
jeg har
nu malet vores nye poststolpe
med grå grundmaling/mellemstrygning
Vi går ud i
baghaven og fortsætter med at luge lidt mellem frugtbuskene – dette område er
nu 100% ukrudtsfri. Hurra!
13:30 Vi spiser
frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage mig en gigantisk eftermiddagslur
– zzzzzz!!!!
15:30 Gill, min
58-årige søster, ringer til mig fra sit hjem i byen Cambridge. Hun og hendes
stærkt handicappede mand, Peter, tager til det sydlige Spanien på ferie den 7.
maj. Det er første gang for både Gill og Peter at gå om bord på et fly, så
føler de sig lidt nervøse for tiden, hvilket er helt forståeligt. De vil bo på
et specielt hotel, designet til handicappede gæster. Hotellet ligger i nærheden
af byen Cordoba. Gill og Peter er begge to katolikker – faktisk har Peter et
deltidsjob som præst, så vil der være mange seværdigheder i området, der
interesserer dem.
Tilbageblik til maj 2015. Gill (i døren) og Peter (i kørestolen) fejrer
deres 30-års
bryllupsdag, sammen med deres 3 døtre,
døtrenes kærester, Gills bedste ven Jill og Jills mand.
Gill og Peter har 3
voksene døtre, Zoe (31), Lucy (29) og Maria (26). Zoe arbejder i feltet af
kræftforskning på Manchester University. For et par dage siden var der en
frygtelig brand i hendes laboratorium, og mange vigtige organiske prøver og en
masse computerdata blev ødelagt, hvilket desværre er lidt af en katastrofe for
Zoes forskning. For tiden er universitets forskere lidt bekymrede over, hvor
længe det vil være, før deres arbejde kan genoptages.
Lucys sidste
eksaminer finder sted i midten af juni, og fra september vil hun arbejde for en
lokal advokatfirma, Birketts. Efter 1 år bliver hun fuldt kvalificeret som
advokat.
Maria og sin
kæreste, Tom, flyver til Sydafrika sidst i maj måned, for at blive ved med til
brylluppet af Toms kusine. Derefter tager de på safari, og til sidste besøger
de Cape Town og omegn.
16:15 Lois og jeg
slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.
English translation
16:45 I hop up on my exercise
bike and notch up another 8 miles (13km). I turn on my smartphone and look at
1966's 100 best songs while I'm cycling. Every time I jump on the bike, I set
the year back by one year - it feels like I'm in free fall, down this long rabbit
hole back to my roots.
I watch 1966's 100 best songs
while cycling.
As I listen to the songs, I try
to recall the part played by the year 1966 in my life story, in an attempt to
postpone dementia ha ha ha. The fear of dementia is the worst nightmare of the
elderly - my god!
In 1966 I turned 20, and was a
first, and later a second year student. I lived in Bristol, along with my
parents, my 14 year old brother Steve, and my 8 year old sister, Gill. I also
had an 18-year-old sister Kathy, but she has already left home and moved in
with her boyfriend - good grief, how bold she was! Her relationship with my
father was not good, and we saw her very rarely throughout the year. I only have
one photo of her from 1966, and another taken in the spring of 1967.
In August 1966 we visited the
former site of Clifton House
in the town of Bridgend, the house where my
mother was raised in the 1920s.
In this photo we can see my 46 year old mother's
disappointment that the house
had been demolished just a couple of years
earlier as part of one
road improvement project that actually came
to nothing - good grief!
From left to right: Steve, Gill, my mother,
and Kathy.
My 19 year old sister, Kathy - photo
taken
just outside the back door of our family
house in the city of Bristol
Me during the Easter Holidays, 1966:
I'm
waiting at Southampton Harbour for the ferry to the Isle of Wight.
I had grown my hair a little longer in the
style of the Beatles,
in a desperate attempt to look more cool - good grief!
Pass the sickbag, Alice !!!!!
Happy days !!!!
17:30 Gloucester Honda calls me
back and I fix a time when they can install new airbags as part of a huge
project involving recall of a lot of Honda models, including my Honda Jazz. Damn! The
work will last 1 hour and the appointment is scheduled for 2 June.
18:00 Lois and I eat dinner and
spend the rest of the evening watching television. An old episode of Top of the
Pops from October 13, 1983 is on.
Lois and I did not see this
episode when it was originally broadcast by the BBC channel because we had
moved to the United States one year earlier, and the American way of life was
well ingrained in us. We had had cable TV installed and we used to watch MTV
(pop videos) when there wasn't anything interesting on the major networks.
MTV showed many new British pop
videos of new singers and pop groups that Lois and I had not heard of before, and it felt as though the scenes in these videos shot in Britain were playing out on
another planet when Lois and I looked at them . A video that I especially
remember from this period is Tracey Ullman's "They Don't Know About
Us", which we see again tonight in this old episode of Top of the Pops,
which for us is very nostalgic.
Tracey Ullman plays the
mother of a child going shopping.
It was a bit of a shock to Lois and me to
see an English supermarket again - my God!
Tracey's boyfriend, Paul,
in his typical English car,
an old Robin Reliant - Pass the sickbag, Alice (Again)!!!!
Tracey in her fantasy world,
this time with Paul Macartney
In October 1983, Lois and I lived
in Columbia Md USA, together with our 2 little daughters and my sister, Kathy. My 64-year
old mother visited us all and it was the first time in her life that she had
been on a plane.
Flashback to October 1983 in
Maryland.
From left to right: Lois, Alison, me, Sarah
and Kathy
My mother is sitting on the
couch in our house in Columbia Md USA,
along with our daughters, Alison (8) and
Sarah (6).
She must have been so happy to see them
again.
Lois and I can certainly sympathise with
that, now that all of our
5 grandchildren live abroad - oh dear!
Happy days (again) !!!!!
Minx, Alison's cat, watching
television with us,
sitting on Lois's lap
22:00 We go to bed. I read 8
pages of my new bedtime book, "Poems of Philip Larkin, chosen by Martin
Amis" before I drift off to sleep - zzzzzzz !!!!!
04:45 I get up early and do one
of my routine Danish vocabulary tests.
08:15 I amble into the kitchen
and make two cups of tea. I take them up to the bedroom and crawl back under
the covers with Lois. We drink the tea and get up.
10:30 I get going with painting
the new gatepost, installed by Bob on Thursday, with a grey primer/undercoat.
I have now painted our new
gatepost
with grey primer / undercoat
We go into the backyard and carry
on doing a bit of weeding between the fruit bushes - this area is now 100% weed
free. Hurray!
13:30 We eat lunch and afterwards
I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap - zzzzzz !!!!
15:30 Gill, my 58 year old
sister, calls me from her home in Cambridge. She and her severely handicapped
husband, Peter, are going to southern Spain on vacation on May 7th. It's the
first time for both Gill and Peter to board a plane, so they are feeling a
little nervous at the moment, which is quite understandable. They will stay at
a special hotel designed for disabled guests. The hotel is located near the
city of Cordoba. Gill and Peter are both Catholics - in fact, Peter has a
part-time job as a priest, so there will be many attractions in the area that
are going to interest them.
Flashback to May 2015. Gill (in the doorway) and
Peter (in wheelchair) celebrate
their 30th wedding anniversary, together
with their 3 daughters,
daughters' boyfriends, best friend Jill and her husband.
Gill and Peter have 3 grown-up
daughters, Zoe (31), Lucy (29) and Maria (26). Zoe works in the field of cancer
research at Manchester University. A couple of days ago there was a terrible
fire in her laboratory, and many important organic samples and a lot of
computer data were destroyed, which unfortunately is a disaster for Zoe's research.
Currently, university researchers are a little worried about how long it will
be before their work can be resumed.
Lucy's final examinations take
place in mid-June, and from September she will be working for a local law firm,
Birketts. After 1 year, she becomes fully qualified as a lawyer.
Maria and her boyfriend, Tom, are
flying to South Africa at the end of May to attend the wedding of Tom's cousin.
After that they are going on safari and finally visiting Cape Town and
surrounding area.
16:15 Lois and I relax with a cup
of tea on the couch.
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