Thursday, November 1, 2018

05:00 I get up early and take a little look online. I see that Alison and Ed's 3 children, our grandchildren, nabbed a small fortune in Halloween chocolate last night, with the bonus that there was no liquorice in the haul, now they're back in England again.

The kids were living in Denmark for the previous 6 Halloween nights, and sometimes it was a little disappointing for them to come home with so much liquorice - the Danes love their liquorice, that's for sure!

(left to right) Harry Potter (Isaac, 8 years), a "dementor" (Ed, 43)

and Hermione (Josie, 12)

Rosalind (10) with her evening's haul - and no liquorice, hurrah!

flashback to May 2013: Lois and I visit Tivoli in Copenhagen, and discover

how much the Danes love their liquorice - yikes, Halloweeen yes, 
but the liquorice - that's the really scary bit !!!

08:30 I hop back into bed with Lois and we drink our morning cup of tea.

9:00 We get up. We plan initially to drive over to the local Waitrose supermarket to buy some of their giant prawns, but after breakfast Lois decides she is too tired: for some reason she has had no energy for the last few days.

10:00 I get going with reading more lines from Barbour's poem "Brus", which was written about 1375 in Scots English. The poem is about the well-known Scottish hero, "Robert the Bruce", ie Robert the 1st of Scotland, and about the role he played in the Scottish War of Independence. Lynda's U3A "Making of English" group is holding its regular monthly meeting on Friday, and the Brus poem is the group's current project.

The group's method when we meet up is to take turns reading approx. 30 lines each and translating them into modern English. I've already read the first 32 lines of the poem, the lines that have been allocated to me: in them, the poet takes a long time to say that reading true stories (provided they are well written) is even more fun than reading fiction. He also says that great and good men are the most enjoyable subject to read about, and he gives Robert the 1st as an example, and also Sir James of Douglas.

Barbour's "take" on this, that is, that good and great men make the best subjects for stories, poems, etc., seems a bit old-fashioned nowadays: we are more interested in the bad guys, I think, but I'm going to let that one slide.

I now start reading lines 33-156, which other group members have been asked to research and comment on: Margaret (who is a Scot herself), Joe, Cynthia and Lynda. Unfortunately Joy, Anthony and Barb cannot come on Friday.

Cynthia will be our newest member and she has told Lynda on the phone that she has studied Middle English in the past so it will be very interesting to meet her and hear her expert advice etc. The rest of the group - well, we are just amateurs, when it comes down to it. Poor us!!!

The plot of the poem so far: King Alexander of Scotland dies and the local barons cannot agree about who should succeed him, so they hold a big meeting to decide the question. Unfortunately, there was no settled way in Scotland at that time about which kings had the right to succeed which dead kings in Scotland. My god, what madness !!!

Some barons were supporters of somebody called Balliol, others were supporters of Robert. It sounds like a terrible meeting, of the kind I often had to attend at my workplace before I retired. Thank goodness, I didn't have to be there in 13 hundred and whatever, I have to say!

Edward Balliol

Robert (photos from English police files)

Unfortunately, the barons end up by passing a unanimous but risky motion: they decided to ask Edward, the English king who had always been very friendly to the late Alexander of Scotland in the past, to be their arbitrator -  they would let him decide who should sit on the Scottish throne.

Bad mistake ! Unfortunately, the Scottish barons had not noticed how big a bastard Edward was, also that he had used every opportunity already to expand his kingdom to Wales and Ireland.

Edward was in the Holy Land, killing thousands of Arabs when he received the Scottish barons' request for his arbitration, but as soon as he saw the opportunity to add Scotland to his kingdom, he left the Arabs in peace, and immediately hurried back to England.

He already had England, Wales and Ireland - he only needed Scotland to complete the set.

Beware, ye Scots, Edward is coming to get you ha ha!

Edward 1. of England - I was born and raised in England,

but I have to admit, Edward was one big bastard,
there's no serious doubt about that!

"freedom is a noble thing" (copyright John Barbour)

13:00 Lunch and afterwards a giant afternoon nap. We get up at 3:30 pm and I jump up my bike and cycle 6 miles while shaving at the same time - I'm so multitask today ha ha.

16:00 We relax and talk a little about Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia. We believe she had a visit to "Vanilla Face and Body Spa" today, a health spa business located in Scarborough, a small suburb of Perth (the treatment was our birthday present to her - she turned 41 in June).

We hope she was well and truly pampered. Like all working mothers, she has a hard life sometimes, that's for sure. The night Sunday to Monday she spent in one of Perth's emergency rooms with her 5-year-old daughter Lily, who was suffering from croup - just like Sarah herself used to do, when she was the same age in the United States.

Sarah left the emergency room with Lily at 4 am, but she had to attend a meeting at her workplace starting at 7:30 am. My god, what madness !!! Poor Sarah !!!!

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching television. An old episode of Top of the Pops is on, from August 1986.

Chris de Burgh was topping the charts again for the fourth week in a row with his famous song "Lady in Red". And again we see the mysterious woman in a red dress that comes on stage at the end of the song and hands him a bouquet of flowers. Who was that woman and how come she was repeatedly able to get past the show's security? And what does she look like now, when she must be in her 60's - yikes!

Lois and I saw this episode 32 years ago when it was aired for the first time and I'm ashamed to admit that I recorded some of the show's songs on vhs recordings which I still have today (now converted to dvd) and which I sometimes look at.

The same week in August 1986, our daughter Alison celebrated her 11th birthday. Her previous 4 birthdays had been celebrated in the US where we lived for 3 years from 1982 to 1985.

The weather was good in August 1986 and she and her friends ate in the backyard on the dark red picnic table we had bought in Maryland at a local store belonging to Hechingers, the American home improvement chain.

Flashback to August 1986: Alison celebrates her 11th birthday in our backyard: 

the cake shows a clock showing 11 o'clock. Lois is looking over Alison's shoulder

the back of our house, as it used to look then - 

our new extension was added 20 years later

A happy day.

21:00 We continue to watch some television. The latest episode of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory's latest season is on.

A fun episode, though it includes some more serious plot developments: Stuart scores with his new girlfriend in his room in Howard and Bernadette's house, Raj meets his future bride, whom his father back in India has arranged for him, and Leonard and Penny discuss whether to have children or not.

Lois likes these more serious episodes, while I prefer the more crazy ones, but I'm going to let that one slide.

It is interesting that Sheldon tries to defuse an awkward situation in the cafeteria by noting randomly that pineapples were once so rare that King Charles II of England posed for a portrait with a man presenting him with one.

Sheldon's friends respond by asking how the pineapple anecdote helps, but Sheldon has a convincing answer prepared.

Like Sheldon, Lois is also very interested in pineapples and she reminds me about an interesting article she read recently all about their history. https://theweek.com/articles/785763/how-pineapples-became-status-symbol. Like Sheldon she had found an opportunity to side the article into one of our conversations.

I have always imagined that I’m the Sheldon-character in our marriage, but maybe it’s her. But that’s something we’re not completely sure about – the jury’s still out on that one. But she says it's quite a worrying thought. Poor Lois !!!!

Charles II being presented with an almost invisible pineapple.

Is it my imagination or does Charles look a bit embarrassed?

I would have been, that's for sure!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish translation

05:00 Jeg står tidligt  op og kigger lidt på nettet. Jeg ser, at Alison og Eds 3 børn, vores børnebørn, scorede kassen i Halloween-chokolade i går aftes, med den bonus, at der var ingen lakrids i udbyttet, nu hvor de er tilbage i England.

Børnene boede i Danmark de forrige 6 halloween-nætter, og det var nogle gange lidt skuffende for dem, at komme hjem med så meget lakrids – danskerne elsker deres lakrids, ingen tvivl om det!

(fra venstre til højre) Harry Potter (Isaac, 8 år), en ”dementor” (Ed, 43)

og Hermione (Josie, 12)

Rosalind (10) med aftenens udbytte – ingen lakrids, hurra!

tilbageblik til maj 2013: Lois og jeg besøger Tivoli i København, og opdager,

hvor meget danskerne elsker deres lakrids – skræmmende!!!

08:30 Jeg hopper tilbage op i sengen til Lois og vi drikker vores morgenté. Vi tænker om vores datter Sarah i

09:00 Vi står op. Vi planlægger at køre over til det lokale Waitrose-supermarked for at købe nogle af deres kæmpe-rejer, men efter morgenmad beslutter Lois at hun er for træt: hun har manglet energi de seneste få dage.

10:00 Jeg går i gang med at læse flere linjer af Barbours digt ”Brus”, der blev skrevet ca. 1375 på skotskengelsk. Digtet handler om den kendte skotske held, ”Robert the Bruce”, dvs Robert 1. af Skotland, og om rollen han spillede i den skotske uafhængighedskrig. Lyndas U3A ”Making of English” gruppe holder sit regelmæssige månedlige møde på fredag, og Brus-digtet er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Gruppens metode, når vi samles er at skifte os til at læse ca. 30 linjer og oversætte dem til moderne engelsk. Jeg har allerede læst digtets første 32 linjer: digteren bruger lang tid på at sige, at det er endnu mere nydeligt at læse sandfærdige historier (blot de er godt skrevede), end at læse fiktion. Han siger også, at store, gode mænd er det nydeligste emne at læse om, og han giver Robert 1. som et eksempel, også Sir James af Douglas.

Barbours ”take”, dvs at gode og store mænd udgør de bedste emner til historier, digte osv, synes lidt gammeldags nu til dags: vi interesserer os mere for de bad guys, synes jeg, men det springer jeg over.

Jeg går nu i gang med at læse linjerne 33-156, som andre gruppemedlemmer er blevet bedt om at forske og kommentere: Margaret (der selve er skotte), Joe, Cynthia og Lynda.

Joy, Ant og Barb kan ikke komme på fredag. Cynthia er vores nye medlem og hun har fortalt Lynda på telefonen, at hun har studeret middelengelsk i fortiden, så det vil være meget interessant at møde hende og høre hendes ekspert-råd osv. Vi, der danner resten af gruppen er bare amatører, når det kommer til stykket.  

Digtets plot hidtil:  kong Alexander af Skotland dør, og de lokale baroner er ikke enige om, hvem skulle efterfølge ham, så de holdt et stort møde for at beslutte spørgsmålet. Desværre var der dengang ingen bestemt måde, som konger efterfulgte konger på. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid !!!

Nogle var tilhængere af Balliol, andre af Robert. Det lyder som et forfærdeligt møde, af den slags, jeg mange gange var nødt til at deltage i på min arbejdsplads, før jeg gik på pension. Gudskelov, jeg ikke var ved til det – det må jeg nok sige!

Edward Balliol

Robert (billeder fra engelske politi-filer)

Desværre endte baronernes møde med at vedtage et forslag enstemmigt: de besluttede at bede Edward, den engelske konge, der havde været meget venlig med den afdøde Alexander af Skotland, om at være deres voldgiftsdommer, og beslutter om hvem skal sidde på den skotske tron.

Stor fejl !  Desværre havde de skotske baroner ikke bemærket, hvor stor en sjuft Edward var, også det, at han allerede havde benyttet hver mulighed for at udvide hans rige til Wales og Irland.

Edward var i det helllige land, i gang med at slå tusindvis af araber ihjel, da han modtog de skotske baroners anmodning om voldgift, men så snart han så lejligheden til at tilføje Skotland til sit rige, forlod han araberne i fred og ro, og skyndte han sig umiddelbart tilbage til England.

Pas på, i skotter, Edward kommer for at få ram på jer ha ha!

Edward 1. af England – jeg er født og opvokset i England ,

men jeg trænger til at indrømme, Edward var sådan en sjuft !

”frihed er en ærlig ting” (copyright John Barbour)

13:00 Frokost og bagefter en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Vi står op kl 15 og jeg hopper op på min kondicykel og cykler 6 miles, samtidig med, at jeg barberer mig.

16:00 Vi slapper af og snakker lidt om Sarah, vores datter i Perth, Australien. Vi tror, hun besøgte i dag ”Vanilla Face and Body Spa”, et kurbadsforretning, der ligger i Scarborough, en lille forstad til Perth (vores fødselsdagsgave til hende – hun fyldte 41 i juni).

Vi håber, hun blev godt og grundigt forkælt. Ligesom alle udarbejdende mødre har hun et hårdt liv indimellem, ingen tvivl om det. Natten søndag til mandag tilbragte hun i en af Perths skadestuer med sin 5-årige datter Lily, der lider af strubehoste – ligesom Sarah, da hun var på samme alderen i USA. Hun forlod skadestuen sammen med Lily kl 4, men hun skulle deltage i et møde på sin arbejdsplads startende fra kl 7:30. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid !!! Stakkels Sarah !!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser et gamle afsnit af Top of the Pops fra august 1986.

Chris de Burgh toppede hitlisten igen for 4. uge i træk med sin berømte sang ”Lady in Red”. Og igen ser vi den mysteriøse kvinde i en rød kjole, der ved slutningen af sangen kommer på scenen og række ham en buket blomster. Hvem var den der kvinde, og hvordan kunne hun i gentagende gange komme forbi showets sikkerhedsarrangementer? Og hvordan ser hun ud nu, hvor hun må være i 60’erne – yikes!

Lois og jeg så dette afsnit for 32 år siden, da det blev sendt for første gang, og jeg skammer mig ved at skulle indrømme, at jeg optag nogle af showets sange på vhs – optagelser jeg stadig har i dag, og ser på engang imellem.

Samme ugen i august 1986 fejrede vores datter Alison sin 11. fødselsdag. Hendes forrige 4 fødselsdag havde hun fejret i USA, hvor vi boede 3 år fra 1982 til 1985.

Vejret var godt i august 1986, og hun og hendes venner spiste i baghaven på det mørkerøde picnicbord, vi havde købt i Maryland hos en lokal butik, der tilhørte Hechingers, den amerikanske hjemforbedringskæde.

tilbageblik til august 1986: Alison fejrer sin 11. fødselsdag

i vores baghave: kagen fremviser et ur kl 11. Lois kigger over Alisons skulder

vores hus, som det var dengang, før vores bryggersæt blev tilbygget 20 år senere

En lykkelig dag!

21:00 Vi fortsætter at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser det seneste afsnit af sitcommen Big Bang Theorys seneste sæson.

Et morsomt afsnit, selvom det inkluderer nogle mere alvorlige plotudviklinger: Stuart scorer sin nye kæreste i sit lejeværelse i Howard og Bernadettes hus, Raj møder sin kommende brud, som hans far har arrangeret til ham, og Leonard og Penny diskuterer, om de skal få børn eller ej.

Lois kan godt lide disse mere alvorlige afsnit, mens jeg foretrækker de mere vanvittige, men det springer jeg over.

Det er interessant at Sheldon prøver at afbøde en akavet situation i cafeteriet ved at bemærke, at ananasser engang var så sjældne, at kong Charles II af England poserede for en portræt med en mand der forærte ham én.

Sheldons venner reagerer ved at spørge om, hvordan ananas-anekdoten hjælper, men Sheldon har et overbevisende svar forberedet.

Jeg har tendens til at mistænke at jeg er den mest indlysende Sheldon-figur i vores ægteskab, men det kan være, at det faktisk er Lois, men det er vi ikke helt sikre på. Juryen er stadig ude om den.

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzz!!!!!