Thursday 21 June 2018

08:00 Lois and I get up and take a shower.

09:00 I take a little look online. I see that Alison, our elder daughter, who lives in Copenhagen with Ed, her husband, and their 3 children, has posted a charming photo on "Insta": the photo shows her 2 youngest children, Isaac (7) and Rosalind ( 9) about to have breakfast in their now almost empty house - the truck has taken away most of the family's furniture because they are moving back to England on 29-30 June after almost 6 years in Denmark. Exciting times for the family, no doubt about that. Today, the moving company employees will finish the job after 3 days work.

Isaac (7) and Rosalind (9) eat breakfast

in the family's almost empty house before going off to school.

10:00 Lois is meeting up with two of her ex-work colleagues, Sheila and Rose, this morning at the M & S department store café. I had hoped she would be able to drive herself over there because her back problems have eased recently. But unfortunately today she has a pain on the right side of the body - we are not completely sure, but we suspect the pain has come from spending too much time in front of the computer and constantly clicking on the mouse with her right hand. But the jury is still out on that one.

I prefer to spend as much time at home as possible, but Lois's aches and pains mean that I actually have to spend a lot of time out of the house by driving her here and there. I'm very glad to be able to help her, but the whole thing substantially reduces my opportunities for indulging in my hobbies or finishing tasks on my to-do list - there's no doubt about that.

I drive Lois over to the M & S department store. On the way we pick up Rose. I drop them off in front of the entrance. Lois will call me when they are done and I can drive over there and pick them up again.

12:00 I hurry into the kitchen and make two servings of lunch: cheese and cucumber sandwiches with tomato, and 2 bowls of stilton and broccoli soup - yum yum!

12:30 Lois calls me and I drive over to M & S to pick her up and also Rose. We drive home and on the way I drop Rose off in front of her house on Linden Avenue. We come home and have lunch. Afterwards I go to bed and take a huge afternoon nap.

While I'm in bed, I take a little look online at my smartphone. I see that Rosalind, Alison's 9-year-old daughter, has been taking part in the Rygaard School's sports day for the last time; she has developed into a very promising athlete - she has that very slender physique which many successful athletes have.

Rosalind, our 9-year-old granddaughter in Copenhagen,

taking part for the last time in the school's sports day

15:00 I get up and relax with a cup of tea on the couch. Afterwards Lois goes for a short walk on the local football field.

18:00 We have dinner and afterwards go out into the backyard to water the flower beds and vegetable garden. I use our garden hose to fill up our 3 waterbutts from the faucet under the kitchen window.

We spend the rest of the evening watching television. An interesting documentary is showing in the "Supershoppers" series, that advises viewers on various consumer issues. The program's presenters are the charming Anna Richardson and Sabrina Grant.

An interesting program and we learn a lot of useful things, including:

(1) Department stores have their own websites, but they also use the Ebay website to sell discontinued lines of merchandise cheaply, or sell other merchandise at a cheaper price than their official site.

(2) Electricity and Gas price comparison websites must be used with caution because they sometimes hide information about companies that they do not have a contract with - my god, what madness! But this feature reminds me that I have to investigate our own contract with Green Star Energy. I generally use uswitch.com as my main price comparison site.

(3) We were not fully aware of how little butter there is in the spreadable Anchor butter we usually buy, in comparison to the actual Anchor butter. Good grief, what madness (again) !!! Next time we will be buying the actual real butter, no doubt about that!

21:00 We carry on watching a bit of television, an interesting documentary about Marie Curie, the famous Polish-French scientist.

The BBC4 channel is repeating this program as part of their "women's rights" season, to celebrate the centenary of women's right to vote. Lois and I don't think we have seen it before, but it's hard to be completely confident about that because we see so many documentaries - yikes!

Very interesting film. We knew a little about Marie and Pierre's scientific research, but we did not have the slightest idea of how hard her life was. This brilliant scientific brain could quite easily have lived and died a poor governess in Poland without having the opportunity even to study at university. It was fortunate that her big sister managed to move to Paris, and later she helped Marie to become a student at the Sorbonne University, one of the few elite universities in Europe that accepted women in their various faculties.

After Marie and Pierre's discovery of radium, Pierre was the only one of the couple, "as the man in the team" who was nominated for a Nobel prize, but fortunately he insisted that Marie be nominated with him.

For some reason, Lois and I did not know that Pierre was unfortunately killed in a street accident where he was run over by a horse-drawn carriage: perhaps not so surprising, remembering that the couple had become weak and generally in poor health for many years because of their research with radium.

Marie was a passionate woman, and after Pierre's death she had an affair with one of Pierre's students, a married man, and it all led to a big scandal.

In fact she did not die because of her work with radium, but as a result of her volunteer work during the First World War when she ran mobile X-ray services for the soldiers at the front. It was the many years of exposure to X-rays that finally killed her (in 1934).

22:00 I take a little look at my smartphone. I see that Ed, our son-in-law in Copenhagen, has put some touching photos on Facebook, showing the massive double-moving truck driving away with all the family's furniture and belongings, except for a few plastic chairs. The family is moving back to England in 9 days time after almost 6 years in Denmark. The camping holiday begins!

The massive double moving-truck drives away with all the family's

furniture and belongings, apart from a few plastic chairs - yikes!

The house is now almost completely empty - yikes (again) !!!!

The family must now manage for 9 days without furniture and the majority of their belongings. Ed will travel by air to England on June 24th and come back with the family's new English car. They will all move back to England on the 29-30th. The end of an era, no doubt about that.

Lois and I go to bed - zzzzzz !!!!!!

Danish translation

08:00 Lois og jeg står op og tager et brusebad.

09:00 Jeg kigger lidt på nettet. Jeg ser at Alison, vores ældste datter, der bor i København sammen med Ed, sin mand, og deres 3 børn, har lagt et charmerende foto op på ”Insta”: fotoet viser hendes 2 yngste børn, Isaac (7) og Rosalind (9) i gang med at have morgenmad i deres nu næsten tomme hus – flyttevognen har fjernet hovedparten af familiens møbler, fordi de flytter tilbage til England den 29-30. juni efter næsten 6 år i Danmark. Spændende tider for familien, ingen tvivl om det! Flyttefirmaets medarbejdere vil i dag gøre arbejdet færdigt efter 3 dage.

Isaac (7) og Rosalind (9) spiser morgenmad

i familiens næsten tomme hus, før de skal af sted i skole.

10:00 Lois skal mødes med to af sine eks-arbejdskollegaer, Sheila og Rose, i formiddag på M&S stormagasinets café. Jeg havde håbet, at hun ville kunne køre sig selv derovre, fordi hendes rygproblemer har lidt aftaget for nylig. Men desværre i dag har hun smerter på den højre side af kroppen – vi er ikke helt sikre på den, men vi mistænker, at smerterne har stammet af at bruge for meget tid foran computeren og klicke konstant på musen med sin højre hand. Men det er juryen stadig ude om.

Jeg foretrækker selv at bruge så meget tid herhjemme som muligt, men Lois’s smerter betyder, at jeg faktisk må bruge en masse tid væk hjemmefra ved at skulle køre hende her og der. Jeg er meget glad for at hjælpe hende, men det hele reducerer mine muligheder for at dyrke mine hobbys eller at klare opgaver på min gøremålsliste – ingen tvivl om det!

Jeg kører Lois over til M&S-stormagasinet. På vej henter vi Rose. Jeg sætter dem af foran indgangen. Lois skal ringe til mig, når de er færdige, og jeg kan køre derovre og hente dem.

12:00 Jeg skynder mig ind i køkkenet og laver to portioner frokost: ost og agurk sandwiches med tomat og stilton-og-broccoli suppe – yum yum!

12:30 Lois ringer til mig, og jeg kører over til M&S for at hente hende og Rose. Vi kører hjem og på vej sætter jeg Rose af foran hendes hus på Linden Avenue. Vi kommer hjem og spiser frokost. Bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur.

Mens jeg ligger inde i sengen, kigger jeg lidt på nettet. Jeg ser, at Rosalind, Alisons 9-årige datter, har for sidste gang deltaget i Rygaards-Skolens sportsdag; hun har udviklet sig til at være en meget lovende atlet – hun har det meget tynde fysik, som mange succesfulde atleter har.

Rosalind, vores 9-årige barnebarn i København,

deltager for sidste gang i sin skoles sportsdag

15:00 Jeg står op og vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen. Bagefter Lois går en kort tur på den lokale fodboldmark.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bagefter går ud i baghaven for at vande blomsterbedene og grøntsagshaven. Jeg bruger vores haveslange til at udfylde vores 3 vandstønder fra vandhanen under køkkenvinduet.

Vi bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm i serien ”Supershoppers”, der rådgiver seerne om forskellige forbrugersspørgsmål. Programmets værter er de charmerende Anna Richardson og Sabrina Grant.

Et interessant program, og vi lærer en masse nyttige ting, inklusive:

(1)    Stormagasiner har deres egne websites, men de bruger også Ebay-websitet for at sælge gamle varepartier, eller varepartier på billigere pris.

(2)    El- og gas-prissammenligningssider skal bruges forsigtigt, fordi de nogle gange kan skjule information om selskaber, de ikke har en kontrakt med – du godeste, sikke et vanvid! Men dette indslag minder mig om, at jeg må undersøge vores egne kontrakt med Green Star Energy. Jeg bruger generelt uswitch.com som min hovedsagelige prissammenligningsside.

(3)    Vi var ikke helt klar over, hvor lille smør der er i det spredelige Anchor-smør vi plejer at købe, i sammenligning til selve Anchor-smørret. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!! Næste gang vil vi købe selve smørret, ingen tvivl om det!!!!

21:00 Vi fortsætter med at se lidt fjernsyn, en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Marie Curie, den berømte polske-franske forsker.

BBC4-kanalen genudsender dette program som en del af deres ”kvinders rettigheder”-sæson, for at fejre hundredeårsdagen for kvinders valgret. Lois og jeg tror imidlertid, vi ikke har set det før. Det er det ikke desto mindre svært at være helt sikre på, fordi vi ser så mange dokumentarfilm – yikes!

Meget interessant film. Vi kendte lidt til Marie og Pierres videnskabelige forskninger, men vi havde ikke den fjerneste anelse, om hvor hårdt hendes liv var. Denne brilliante videnskabelige hjerne kunne helt sagtens have levet og døde en fattig guvernante i Polen, uden at få muligheden for at studere på universitet. Det var heldigt, at hendes storsøster nåede at flytte til Paris, og senere hjalp hun Marie at blive studerende på Sorbonne-universitetet, en af de få elit-universiteter i Europa, der accepterede kvinder i deres forskellige fakulteter.

Efter Marie og Pierres opdagelse af radium, blev Pierre alene, der ”som manden i holdet” blev nomineret for en Nobel-pris, men heldigvis insisterede han på, at Marie bliver nomineret sammen med ham.

Af en eller anden grund vidste Lois og jeg ikke, at Pierre desværre blev dræbt i en gadeulykke, hvor han blev kørt over af en hestevogn: måske ikke så overraskende, når man mindes om, at parret i mange år var blevet svage og generelt utilpasse på grund af deres forskninger med radium.

Marie var en lidenskabelig kvinde, og efter Pierres død havde hun en affære med en af Pierres studenter, en giftet mand, og det hele førte til en stor skandale.

Hun døde faktisk ikke på grund af sin arbejde med radium, men som resultat af hendes frivillige arbejde under den 1. verdenskrig, da hun drev røntgentjenester for soldaterne på fronten. Det var de mange års udsattelse til røntgenstråler, der endelig dræbte hende (i 1934).

22:00 Jeg kigger lidt på min smartphone. Jeg ser, at Ed, vores svigersøn i København, har lagt nogle rørende fotos op på Facebook, der viser den massive dobbelt-flyttevogn kører væk med alle familiens møbler og ejendele, bortset fra et par stykker plastikstole. Familien flytter tilbage til England om 9 dages tid efter næsten 6 år i Danmark. Campingferien begynder!

den massive dobbelt-flyttevogn kører væk med alle familiens

møbler og ejendele, bortset fra et par stykker plastikstole – yikes!

huset er nu næsten fuldstændigt tomt – yikes (igen)!!!!

Familien må nu klare sig i 9 dage uden møbler og hovedparten af deres ejendele. Ed skal rejse med fly til England den 24. juni og komme tilbage med familiens nye engelske bil. De flytter alle tilbage til England den 29-30. Enden på en æra, ingen tvivl om det!!!!

Lois og jeg  går i seng – zzzzzz!!!!!!