Saturday, December 8 2018

08:30 Lois and I drive over to the local Sainsbury’s supermarket to do the food shopping. We come home and put the food away.

At 10 o'clock I drive Lois over to the local library where there is a craft fair taking place this morning. On the way we pick up Rose, one of Lois' former work colleagues from the time they both worked in the Anglican Church's local nursing home, Capel Court.

I drop the two "girls" off in front of the library and drive home. Lois said she would call me when she and Rose were ready to be picked up.

10:30 I have a little bit of alone time, but not enough to do anything really much - damn! So I get going with just organising our recycling waste and putting it in our containers. I also take our compost material out of the house and put it in one of our 4 giant compost containers at the bottom of the garden.

Managing the organisation of recycled waste has never peaked on the most beloved of household tasks - I know that for sure.

The task is often despised by the specialists and the experts, and so I was very happy last year to see in Onion News, the American basketball club Spurs unveiling a brand new statue of respected ex-star Tim Duncan, throwing  something in a recycling bin in a typically nonchalant way, and demonstrating that you don’t have to be tall to do it – although I don’t know if Tim sometimes misses if he is “off form”: the article isn't 100% clear on that point.

We who have to cope with this sometimes unpleasant task can hold our heads high in future - I know that for sure. If the mighty Tim Duncan is not ashamed to do it, it means I no longer need to be despised by all our neighbours, no doubt about that!

11:30 Lois calls me and I drive over to the library to pick her and Rose up, and we drop Rose off in front of her house. We drive home and have lunch. Afterwards I go to bed and take a huge afternoon nap.

14:00 Lois swings by the neighbours (Bill and Mary). Bill wants to take the bus down to the local stadium and watch the town’s soccer team, Cheltenham Town, play against Grimsby. Lois has offered to look after Mary in his absence - Mary suffers from dementia, and Bill can no longer safely leave her alone in the house.

a typically tense moment in this afternoon's soccer game

15:00 I get up and start vacuuming all over the house. Our carpets really need it, no doubt about that. I usually vacuum just before our U3A Danish meetings, which take place here every other Thursday afternoon. But at the moment, the group is on its annual 2-month break, just until we resume the meetings in January, so I lack this automatic triggering mechanism for vacuuming that the meetings normally provide me with.

16:00 I pop next door to help Lois look after Mary. Lois has already been talking to Mary for 2 hours, which must have been very hard work.

We’re expecting Bill's soccer match to be over by about  5 o'clock and for him to be home again by 5:15 or so. In the meantime I want to support Lois and contribute with my limited conversational skills - yikes!

While we are talking to Mary, I keep an eye on my smartphone to follow along with Bill's soccer match and see when it's over. An exciting match - score was 1-1 until the last (90th) minute when Cheltenham scored the winning goal. Bill will be in a good mood when he comes home - no doubt about that.

It's all been an interesting experience for me. I have never talked before with someone suffering from dementia. It's helpful to experience what it feels like to talk in circles with someone who no longer has a grasp on reality. But Bill, Mary's husband, has this problem all the time from morning to night. Lois has seen the effects of dementia before, when she worked in the nursing home, needless to say.

Later, I discuss Mary's condition with Lois. We come to the conclusion that I probably saw Mary at her worst: she had become more and more anxious because of Bill's absence (at the soccer stadium) and the fact that it was getting dark outside.

However, I cannot help thinking how sad it is for Bill to know that the real Mary, whom he married 61 years ago, has vanished and is never going to return.

How would I or Lois do if we had to fight dementia in the one or other of us? I'm not really sure. It seems quite scary, to put it mildly. But old age ain’t for sissies – that’s for sure.

17:20 Bill comes back, and Lois and I go home. I do not want Bill to tell us too many details about his thrilling soccer game. I myself am not that much of a soccer fanatic, and I recall with nostalgia the years 1982-85 when Lois and I lived in the United States, and could forget all about soccer for a change.

Historians now believe that the original Pilgrim Fathers left England because they had become heartily  sick of all the hype that surrounds the sport (source: Onion News).

It was on September 16, 1620 that a group of puritan separatists set sail from Plymouth in the hope that they could escape persecution at the hands of soccer and its keen followers, especially those who would not allow pilgrims to live a life where they could openly reject traditional soccer practices.

"What they sought in the New World was basically the freedom to practice any sport they wanted," says the historian and author Bruce Wright. "The Pilgrims believed that people should not be forced to endure conformity to a single sport, especially one where their hands were unused."

"We must remember what these radical puritans believed about ‘idle hands’," added Wright. "They saw nothing to dissuade them from the idea that soccer was the devil's workshop."

An interesting point of view and one that has not been explored thoroughly enough in my opinion. How mysterious historical currents are at times!

Is history not totally fascinating? Who would want to study anything else?

18:30 We have dinner and then spend the rest of the evening watching television. An interesting documentary is on, all about the top 20 television shows aired  in 1978. The host of the program is the charming Matthew Kelly.

We notice how many of the year's most loved TV shows were sitcoms. Where are sitcoms today? We only have American ones to laugh at now - the British ones are all crap, which is a bit of a shame, to put it mildly.

flashback to 1978 and

"The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin"

Come back, Leonard Rossiter, all is forgiven!!!!!   [He’s dead – Ed]

Flashback to us in 1978 - a little family of four

in the tiny back yard of our first house

Happy days!!!!!!

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

Danish translation

08:30 Lois og jeg kører over til det lokale Sainsburys-supermarked for at købe ind. Vi kommer hjem og lægger fødevarerne væk. Kl 10 kører jeg Lois over til det lokale bibliotek, hvor der er en håndværk fair finder sted i formiddag. På vej henter vi Rose, en af Lois’ tidligere arbejdskollega, fra dengang de arbejdede i den anglikanske kirkes lokale plejehjem, Capel Court. Jeg sætter de to ”piger” af foran biblioteket og kører hjem. Lois sagde, hun ville ringe til mig, når hun og Rose var klar til at blive hentet.

10:30 Jeg har lidt alenetid, men ikke nok til at gøre noget væsentligt – pokkers! Jeg går i gang med at organisere vores genbrugsaffald og putte det i vores beholdere. Jeg tager vores kompostmateriale ud af huset og putter det i en eller anden af vores 4 kæmpe-kompostbeholdere.

Det, at klare organisation af genbrugsaffald har aldrig toppet hitlisterne af meste elskede huslige opgaver – det ved jeg med sikkerhed.  Opgaven bliver ofte foragtet af specialisterne og eksperterne, og derfor var jeg meget glad sidste år, at se den amerikanske basketballclub Spurs afdække en spritny statue af den respekterede eks-stjerne Tim Duncan, i gang med at putte et eller andet i en genbrugsaffaldbeholder på en typisk nonchalant måde.

Vi der skal klare denne undertiden ubehagelige opgave kan fremover holde hovedet højt – det ved jeg med sikkerhed. Hvis Tim Duncan ikke skammer sig over at gøre det, betyder det, at jeg ikke længere har brug for at blive foragtet af naboerne, ingen tvivl om det!

11:30 Lois ringer til mig og jeg kører over til biblioteket og henter hende og Rose, og sætter Rose af foran hendes hus. Vi kører hjem og spiser frokost. Bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur.

14:00 Lois smutter ind hos naboerne (Bill og Mary). Bill vil gerne tage bussen til den lokale fodboldstadion og se byens hold, Cheltenham Town, spille mod Grimsby. Lois har tilbudt at passe på Mary i hans fravær – Mary lider af demens, og Bill kan ikke længere med sikkerhed forlade hende alene i huset.

en typisk scene fra eftermiddagens fodboldkamp

15:00 Jeg står op og går i gang med at støvsuge overalt i huset. Gulvetæpperne trænger til at støvsuges, ingen tvivl om det. Sædvanligvis støvsuger jeg lige foran vores U3A danske møder, der finder sted hos os hver 2. torsdag eftermiddag. Men for tiden holder gruppen sin årlige pause, bare indtil vi genoptager møderne til januar, så jeg mangler den der automatisk udløsningsmekanisme, som møderne forsyner mig med.

16:00 Jeg smutter ind i nabohuset for at hjælpe Lois med at passe på Mary. Lois har allerede været i gang med at snakke med Mary i 2 timer, hvilket må have været meget hårdt arbejde.

Vi forventer, at Bills fodboldkamp vil være slut ved 17-tiden og han er hjemme igen senest kl 17:15 eller deromkring. Jeg ønsker at støtte Lois og bidrage med mine begrænsede samtalefærdigheder – yikes!

Mens vi snakker med Mary, holder jeg øje med min smartphone for at følge med i Bills fodboldkamp og se hvornår den er slut. En spændende match – scoren var 1-1 indtil det sidste (90.) minut, da Cheltenham scorede det vindende mål. Bill vil være i godt humør, når han kommer hjem – ingen tvivl om det.

Det hele er en interessant oplevelse for mit vedkommende. Jeg har aldrig snakket før med en, der lider af demens. Der er nyttigt at opleve for mig selv, hvordan det føles at tale i cirkler med en, der ikke længere kan gribe fat i virkeligheden.  Men Bill, Marys mand, har dette problem hele tiden fra morgen til nat. Lois har oplevet effekterne af demens før, da hun arbejdede i plejehjemmet, unødvendigt at sige.

Senere diskuterer jeg Marys tilstand med Lois. Vi kommer til den konklusion, at jeg så Mary på hendes værste: hun var blevet mere og mere ængstelig på grund af Bill's fravær (ved fodboldstadiet) og det faktum, at det var blevet mørkt.

Jeg kan imidlertid ikke undgå at tænke, hvor trist det må værer for Bill at vide, at den sande Mary, som han giftede sig med for 61 år siden, er forsvundet og aldrig kommer tilbage.

Hvordan ville jeg eller Lois klare os, hvis vi skulle bekæmpe demens hos den ene eller den anden af os? Jeg er ikke helt sikker. Det virker helt skræmmende, for at sige mildt. Men alderdom er ikke for slapsvanse – det ved vi med sikkerhed!!!!

17:20 Bill kommer hjem og Lois og jeg går hjem. Jeg vil ikke have at Bill fortæller os for mange detaljer om sin begejstrende fodboldkamp. Jeg selv er ikke ret meget af en fodboldfanatiker, og jeg mindes med nostalgi årene 1982-85, da Lois og jeg boede i USA, og kunne glemme alt om fodbold for en gangs skyld.

Historikere tror nu, at de oprindlige pilgrimmer forladt England fordi de var blevet godt trætte af al den hype, der omgiver sporten (kilde: Onion News).

Den 16. september 1620 sejlede en gruppe af puritanske separatører af sted i håbet om at de kunne undslippe forfølgelse fra siden af sporten fodbold og dens ivrige efterfølgere, især dem, der ikke ville tillade pilgrimerne at leve et liv, hvor de åbenbart kunne afvise traditionelle fodboldpraksisser.

"Det, de søgte i den Nye Verden, var grundlæggende talt frihed til at øve enhver sport, de ønskede," fortæller historikeren og forfatteren Bruce Wright. "Pilgrimerne troede, at folk ikke skulle blive tvunget til at udholde konformitet til et enkelt sportsgren, især en, hvor hænderne blev ubrugte."

"Vi må huske på, hvad disse radikale puritans troede på tomgangshænder," tilføjede Wright. "De så intet at afskrække dem fra tanken om at fodbold var djævelens værksted."

Et interessant synspunkt, og et, der ikke er blevet udforsket nok efter min mening. Hvor er historiske strømme dog mysteriøse til tider!

Er historie ikke helt fascinerende? Hvem ville ønske at studere noget andet?

18:30 Vi spiser aftensmad og derefter bruger i resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om top 20-hitlisten af tv-programmer, der blev udsendt i 1978. Programmets vært er den charmerende Matthew Kelly.

Vi bemærker hvor mange af årets mest elskede tv-programmer var sitcoms. Hvor er sitcoms i dag? Vi har kun amerikanske nu – de britiske er alle noget lort, hvilket er lidt af en skam, for at sige mildt.

tilbageblik til 1978 og

”The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”

Kom tilbage, Leonar Rossiter, alt er tilgivet !!!  [Han er død - red.]

Os i 1978, en lille familie på 4 i den lille lille baghave

af vores først hus

Lykkelige dage !!!!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzz!!!!