17:00 Lois og jeg kigger lidt på nettet og vi ser, at Josie, vores 10-årige
barnebarn i København, har sendt os et charmerende billede af de tre børnebørn
i færd med at designe små figurer på spisebordet, ved hjælp af de
kunstværksmaterialer, der blev tilført gratis med de tidsskrifter, vi sendte
dem.
vores 3 børnebørn i København:
Josie
(10), Isaac (6) og Rosalind (8)
Det er meget dyrt, men det er også én af de store nydelser af vores liv, som
et par gamle krager, at kunne købe disse slags tidsskrifter og sende dem af til
vores 5 børnebørn i Danmark og Australien, og tilføre dem dermed en forbindelse
til ”det gamle land”.
18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad. Jeg føler mig lidt slået ud efter min oplevelse
hos tandlægen tidligere på dagen. Lois har lavet et pragtfuldt, men ganske ”blødt”
måltid, så jeg ikke behøver at bide for hårdt – du godeste!
19:30 Jeg tilbringer aftenen foran computeren. Jeg er medlem af Scillas U3A
oldnorske gruppe, og Scilla er ikke ret god til at organisere masserne af
papir, hun uddeler til medlemmer – det må
jeg indrømme! Jeg få det hele i orden på
computeren ved at samkøre halvsider med halvsider osv.
Gruppens seneste projekt er ”Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu”, der blev skrevet
sidst i 13. århundrede, men udspiller sig under regeringstid af den engelske
konge Ethelred II den Rådvilde (968-1016),
Jeg læser til enden af kapitel 7 og oversætter til engelsk, og skriver
notater i min notesbog. Gunnlaug, en 18-årig islandisk skjald, har forladt,
Helga, sin smukke forlovede, i Island og sejler til det nordvestlige Europa for
at finde ud af, hvordan folk i andre lande lever.
Gunnlaug forlader Helga, sin smukke forlovede, i Island,
og
rejser til udlandet for at finde ud af, hvordan folk i andre lande lever.
Han rejser først til Norge, og så til England, hvor han mødes med kong
Ethelred og dræber Thororm, en aggressiv sørøver i en duel ved hjælp af kongens
”specielle” sværd. Sørøveren har kun et
almindeligt sværd ha ha ha!
De to sprog, oldnorsk (oldislandsk) og engelsk (angelsaksisk) var dengang
så lignende, at folk af de to lande kunne forstå hinanden uden besvær. Derfor kan Gunnlaug komponere og fremsige sine
digte foran Ethelred, hvilket for mit vedkommende er lidt af en skam.
Digtene i sagaen er
de sværste dele af teksten, når det kommer til at oversætte til engelsk. Når
jeg læser kapitler, bønfalder jeg konstant Gunnlaug om ikke at fremsige endnu
et digt, men desværre ignorerer han mig og går i gang med det, når som helst
han har lyst til det – pokkers! Slem Gunnlaug!
22:00 Vi går i seng
– zzzzzzz!!!!!
04:00 Jeg står
tidligt op og lytter lidt til radioen, et interessant program, der først blev
sendt sidst i går aftes, og som handler om forfatterer (især digtere) og
alderdom. Programmets vært er den charemerende 74-årige digter, Vicki Feaver.
Hun siger, at ældre
mennesker, set ud fra de fleste folks synspunkt, altid er lidt af et problem,
især når det kommer til deres brug for helbredspleje osv (du godeste!), mens
tværtimod kan digtere, der har tendens til at beskrive ældre mennesker, og se på dem som individuelle personer, der
kunne have levet interessante liv.
Udover digtere, har
børn også tendens til at interessere sig for ældre mennesker, nogle gange ud
af, nogle gange ud af kærlighed (hvis det drejer sig om bedsteforældre), og
nogle gange ud af nysgerrighed.
Digteren Vicki Feaver (til højre)
Da Vicki var
skolelærer, plejded hun at bede sine elever om at skrive digte om deres
bedsteforældre eller ældre slægtninge/venner, og hun gav dem Norman Mackaigs
digt ”Tante Julia” som et eksempel. Som barn plejede Maccaig at besøge sin
tante på den skotske ø Harris. Digtet har et typisk barns klarsyn, siger hun.
Et andet eksempel var William Carlos Williams digt, ”Sidste ord af min
engelske bedstemor”. Den unge digter hjælper sin bedstemor
til at tage på hospitalet og ledsager hende i ambulansen. På vej kigger hun på
vejtræer – det viser sig, at hun nu er godt træt af træer. Jeg kender følelsen,
men det lyder lidt barsk som sidste ord, synes jeg!!!!
Andre eksempler: ”Min bedstemor” af Elizabeth Jennings, også ”Bedstefar”
af Derek Mahon.
Elizabeth
Jennings bedstemor drev en antikvitetsbutik
Derek
Mahons bedstefar arbejdede i Belfasts skibsværfter.
Ligesom mig var han
en morgenmenneske, men jeg foretrækker
at lære fremmede
sprog frem for at dyrke lidt tømrerarbejde ha ha ha
Det er lidt anderledes, hvis man skriver fra den ældre persons synspunkt.
Det ligner at være en krigskorrespondent: nogle gange er der sejre, og nyheden
er god. Andre gange er den ikke ret god - yikes!!!!
Thomas Hardy skrev mange digte til sin langdøde første kone. Men Vicki
synes, at Hardys ”Når jeg kigger i mit spejl” er det mest trøstesløste.
Stakkels Hardy!!! Selvom han skrev digtet sidst i 50’erne, og han var 88,
da han døde (i 1928). Kom så, op med humøret, Hardy!!!!
Vicki Feaver har fundet ud af, at alderdom faktisk er til fordel for os. Da
hun var yngre, så hun sit liv som en stribe fejl og forkerte valg, men nu i
alderdom ser hun det som en krønike af overlevelse.
I sit digt "Gammel kvinde i en forsythia busk", sad Vicki i en forsythia busk og kiggede på
unge lam springende som balletdansere, og mindedes dengang hun var ung, og en
usynlig dukkefører lod hende dingle, udfordrende hende til at smide bh’en og undertrøjen
for at fejre foråret.
Nu, hvor hun er gammel, kan hun være tilfreds med, at dukkeføreren har
slæbt hende gennem de lange gange af endnu en vinter, så hun kan sidde mellem
buskene i solskinnen. En sand krønike af overlevelse.
Kom så, Vicki, du er en af livets vindere - ingen tvivl om det!!!! Men
måske ville det være bedre at holde bh'en på - og husk det gamle udtryk: skift
ikke klud, før maj går ud!
08:00 Jeg drøner 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 går i
bad. Vi står op og spiser morgenmad.
10:00 Min ven, ”Magyar” Mike, komme, og vi lærer ungarsk i en time.
Lærebogen vi bruger i år er lidt gammeldags og morsomt også. Den blev skrevet i
1960’erne under kommunismen, da ”mænd var mænd og kvinder var kvinder”. Da de tre kvindelige studerende (ungarske Kató
og Irén, og tyske Helga) besøger deres veninde, Anna, føler de sig tvunget
straks til at tjekke i spejlet og arrangere håret og påklædningen – du godeste,
sikke et vanvid!!!!
11:00 Mike skal af sted. Vi kører over til det lokale
Sainsburys-supermarked for at købe ind. Vi kommer hjem igen og slapper af med
en kop kaffe i sofaen.
12:30 Vi spiser frokost. Bob, vores nabo, der er en pensioneret bygningsarbejder,
ringer på døren. Vi beder ham om at reparere vores havelåge, også vinduet i
Alisons gamle værelse, hvor vi har et mistænkt fugtproblem. Han siger, han vil
undersøge problemerne i morgen.
15:00 Vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.
16:00 Jeg kigger lidt på nettet, og på www.theonion.com, den
indflydelsesrige amerikanske nyhedswebsted. Jeg ser en bekymrende nyhed, der
handler om den 86-årige bedstemor, Shirley Delahunt. Hendes familie synes, at
hun for nylig har set skidt ud, selvom Shirleys mand har det rigtig godt. Jeg
kender ikke Shirley, men jeg har set fotoet, og jeg er enig med familien i, at
hun ser absolut skidt ud. Jeg kan ikke forstille mig, hvad der er sket med
hende. Du godeste! Hun ser ud som lort – det kan jeg ikke argumentere mod!
Stakkels Shirley!!!!
Stakkels Shirley!!!!
English translation
17:00 I take a little look online and I see that Josie, our 10 year old granddaughter
in Copenhagen, has sent us a charming picture of the three grandchildren at
work designing little figures on the dining table, using the artwork materials
supplied free of charge with the magazines we sent them.
our 3 grandchildren in
Copenhagen:
Josie (10), Isaac (6) and Rosalind (8)
It is very expensive, but it is
also one of the great pleasures of our lives, as a pair of old crows, to buy
these kinds of magazines and send them off to our 5 grandchildren in Denmark
and Australia, thus providing them with a connection to "the old
country".
18:00 We eat dinner. I feel a
little washed up after my experience with the dentist earlier in the day. Lois
has made a wonderful, but quite "soft" meal, so I do not have to bite
too hard - good grief!
19:30 I spend the evening in
front of the computer. I'm a member of Scilla's U3A Old Norse group, and Scilla
is not very good at organising the masses of paper she distributes to members -
that's something I have to admit! I get everything in order on the computer by
combining half-pages with half-pages, etc.
The group's latest project
is "Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu", written in the late 13th century, but which
plays out during the reign of the English king Ethelred II the Unready
(968-1016),
I read to the end of Chapter 7
and translate into English, and write notes in my notebook. Gunnlaug, an
18-year-old Icelandic bard, has left Helga, his beautiful fiancee, in Iceland
and is sailing to northwestern Europe to find out how people in other countries
live.
Gunnlaug leaves Helga, his
beautiful fiancee, in Iceland,
and travels abroad to find out how people in
other countries live.
He first travels to Norway, and then
to England, where he meets King Ethelred and kills an aggressive pirate in a
duel using the king's "special" sword. The pirate only has a regular
sword ha ha ha!
The two languages, Old Norse (Old
Icelandic) and English (Anglo-Saxon) were at that time so similar that people
of the two countries could understand each other without difficulty. That's why
Gunnlaug can compose and present his poems in front of Ethelred, which is a bit
of a shame as far as I’m concerned.
The poems in the saga are the
hardest parts of the text when it comes to translating into English. When I am
reading chapters, I am constantly urging Gunnlaug not to present another poem,
but unfortunately he ignores me and starts doing it whenever he wants to - damn
it! Bad Gunnlaug!
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzz!!!!
04:00 I get up early and listen a
little to the radio, an interesting program that was first broadcast last
night, and which is about old age and writers (especially poets). The host of
the program is the charming 74-year-old poet Vicki Feaver.
She says that older people, from
the perspective of most people, are always a bit of a problem, especially when
it comes to their need for healthcare, etc. (good grief!), Whereas
contrariwise, poets who tend to describe older people look at them as
individual people who may have lived interesting lives.
Besides poets, children also tend
to be interested in older people sometimes out of affection (in the case of
grandparents), and sometimes out of curiosity.
Vicki Feaver (right)
When Vicki was a school teacher,
she used to ask her students to write poems about their grandparents or older
relatives / friends, and she gave them Norman Mackaig's poem "Aunt
Julia" as an example. As a child, Maccaig used to visit his aunt on the
Scottish island of Harris. The poem has a typical child's clear vision, she
says.
Another example was William
Carlos William's poem, "The last words of my English grandmother".
The young poet helps his grandmother to get to the hospital and travels with her
in the ambulance. On the way she looks at the roadside trees - it turns out she is
now heartily sick of trees. I know the feeling, but it sounds a bit harsh as
last words, I think !!!!
Other examples: "My
grandmother" by Elizabeth Jennings, also "Grandfather" of Derek
Mahon.
Elizabeth Jennings's grandmother ran an antique shop
Derek Mahon's grandfather
worked in Belfast's shipyards.
Like me, he was a morning person, but I
prefer
learning foreign languages to indulging in
a little carpentry work ha ha ha
It is a little different if one
is writing from the older person's point of view. It is like being a war
correspondent: sometimes there are victories, and the news is good. Other times
it's not so good - yikes !!!!
Thomas Hardy wrote many poems to
his long-dead first wife. But Vicki thinks that Hardy's "When I Look Into
My Glass" is his bleakest poem.
Poor Hardy !!! Although he wrote
the poem in his late 50's, and he was 88 when he died (in 1928). Come on, lighten
up, Hardy !!!!
Vicki Feaver has found that old
age is actually beneficial to us. When she was younger she saw her life as a
series of mistakes and wrong choices, but now she sees it as a chronicle of
survival.
In her poem "Old woman in a
forsythia shrub", Vicki sat in a forsythia bush and watched young lambs
jumping like ballet dancers, remembering the days when she was young, and an
invisible puppeteer was dangling her, challenging her to throw off bra and undervest
to celebrate spring.
Now that she is old, she can be
pleased that the puppeteer has dragged her through the long halls of yet
another winter so she can sit between the bushes in the sunshine. A true chronicle
of survival.
Come on, Vicki, you're one of
life's winners - no doubt about it !!!! But maybe it would be better to keep
the bra on - remember the old expression: ne’er cast a clout till May be out!
08:00 I zoom 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 go in the shower. We get up and have
breakfast.
10:00 My friend,
"Magyar" Mike, comes and we learn Hungarian for an hour. The textbook
we are using this year is a bit old-fashioned and amusing too. It was written
in the 1960s under communism, when "men were men and women were
women". When the three female students (Hungarians Kató and Irén, and the
German, Helga) visit their girlfriend Anna, they feel immediately forced to
check in the mirror and arrange their hair and clothing - good grief, what
madness !!!!
11:00 Mike has to leave. We drive
over to the local Sainsbury's supermarket to do the shopping. We come back home
and relax with a cup of coffee on the couch.
12:30 We eat lunch. Bob, our
neighbor, a retired construction worker, calls at the door. We ask him if he could repair our garden gate, also the window in Alison's old room, where we have a
suspected damp problem. He says he will investigate the problems tomorrow.
15:00 We relax with a cup of tea
in the sofa.
16:00 I take a little look
online, and at www.theonion.com, the influential American news site. I see a
worrying news item about 86-year-old grandmother, Shirley Delahunt. Her
family thinks she has recently looked like shit, even though Shirley's husband
is very well. I do not know Shirley, but I have seen the photo and I agree with
the family that she looks like absolute shit. I cannot understand what has
happened to her. My Goodness! She looks like crap - I cannot argue with that!
Poor Shirley !!!!
Poor Shirley !!!!!
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