Sunday, January 20 2019

08:00 Lois and I take a shower and after breakfast we talk a little on whatsapp with Sarah our daughter in Perth, Australia and her 5-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie. Unfortunately, it has been a bit of a traumatic week for the family.

Wednesday night Lily had an accident in the house - she climbed on a big box and stumbled, falling on another big box with sharp edges. She hurt herself, but at first she seemed to be otherwise okay.

Later, however, Sarah noticed that Lily was bleeding slightly in the area. Sarah hurried Lily to the local suburban hospital - and later in the night they were transferred to Perth's central hospital. Lily was discharged at 11 am the following day. Sarah and Francis were asked to give Lily a salt bath twice a day – good grief! The hospital doctors will examine her again next week.

The city's Royal Perth Hospital

Sarah admits that she felt so desperate in the hospital the following day, after an almost sleepless night, that she was ready to tell Francis, her husband, that their lives over there had become just too difficult and that she could not endure it any more - they had to move back to England. Yikes! But later in the day she felt a bit better - crisis over, it seems. And they were pleased with the way the hospital system reacted and handled the problem sensitively, and the friendliness of staff.

Sarah's job as an accountant at a large Perth-based landscape architecture firm is a bit stressful and she is looking for a more stress-free position. She saw an attractive ad yesterday: one of Margaret River's oldest wineries is looking for a deputy chief accountant, and today she has been working a little on her resume. We must cross our fingers for her - Margaret River is a lovely tourist region, and traffic is much less heavy than in Perth itself, to put it mildly.

The Margaret River wine region, located south of the city of Perth

10:15 I see that the news from Iceland is bad again. Another difficult night in Reykjavik - this time it was a dog. Onion News, the influential US news site, has the story.

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND - "The Icelandic nation was tired and cranky today after being kept up all night by a howling dog. "People were complaining as far away as Seyhisfjórdhur," said President Ólafur Grimsson, brewing an extra jar of coffee. "The sound carries a long way up here." Grimsson said none of Iceland's 280,000 citizens were close enough to the dog - thought to have been stranded on an ice floe near Vestmannaeyjar - to throw a shoe at it. " [my italics]

The news story, which has since gone viral, reminds me that Scilla's U3A Old Norse group is holding its next meeting on Wednesday. Before the group meeting I have to read a few pages of Njal’s saga, written in the 13th century - the saga is the group's current project.

Scilla’s group has not met since December 5, due to the group's regular Christmas break, but I recall that at that time we were at a turning point in the saga. We are about to move from sex-themed to violence-themed adventures - the early chapters of the saga dealt with the the Icelander Hrut's steamy affair with the Norwegian queen mother, Gunnhilda, his disastrous part-consummated marriage with Unna, and the subsequent divorce and legal processes.

Now we have a bit of looting in prospect- the Icelander Gunnar sails off with his Norwegian friend Kolskegg, and we begin to hear about some long-forgotten place names: for example Bjarmarland (historian believes that it lay on the south coast of the White Sea somewhere between Norway and Russia), also Garðariki, an old name for Russia. I advise the Russians to lock in their daughters just to be on the safe side - yikes!

Gunnar at the top of his game, killing a total of 14 men today

10:20 Lois and I go out. I'm already quite sure that today is going to be a very bad day. Lois wants to take part in her sect’s two services taking place today in Tewkesbury library. She has back problems at the moment, and she has asked me to drive her over there. On top of that, one of the Bible seminar attendees, Claire, has called Lois to ask us to pick her up on the way to Tewkesbury. The problem is that Claire lives in Quedgeley, which is on the other side of Gloucester.

We drive over to Quedgeley - I didn't have the faintest idea how long it would take to find her house. She lives in a newly built suburb which our GPS does not seem to be familiar with. We're just about ready to give up the search when Roger Moore (our GPS's celebrity voice) suddenly announces that in 100 yards we will have reached our destination.

Roger Moore - our GPS's famous celebrity voice,

known for its suave, debonaire tones.

Everyone is debonaire nowadays - except me !!!!

Then we drive over to Tewkesbury and I drop them both off in front of the town library and come back home. I have been driving a car nonstop for a total of 1 hour 40 minutes – my god, what madness !!! And later in the day, I have to go to Tewkesbury again to pick them up after the sect's second service.

13:00 I make lunch and after the meal I go to bed and take a very short afternoon nap - only 30 minutes. Damn – not long enough!

14:30 I drive to Tewkesbury again to pick up Lois and Claire. Later we drop Claire off at the bus station and come home. I'm in a bad mood, to put it mildly. Most of all I am angry with myself for agreeing to pick Claire up without first researching the distances involved.

I tell Lois this is definitely the last time I pick up Claire - next time she has to find another driver who can take her, preferably one who lives a little closer to her. It's absolutely ridiculous !!!! And Lois agrees with me.

Needless to say, I haven't read a single word of Njal’s saga today - damn! I need a strong gin and tonic – that’s for sure !!!!

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching a bit of television. On Channel 5 they are showing an archaeological documentary about Stonehenge.

The 4500+ year-old mysterious Stonehenge monument in southern England is always a captivating subject. However, it is a bit of a shame that this is just a Channel 5 documentary. Lois and I tend to suspect that Channel 5 documentaries are made on the cheap - mostly we only hear about discoveries published some years ago: with just a few recent, slightly bland discoveries included to give the programme a little extra spice.

And when it comes to the series’s 2 hosts, Alex Langlands is a genuine archaeologist, but not one of the top ones, to put it mildly. Helen Skelton has a pleasant and humorous personality, and is easy on the eye, but she knows nothing about history or archaeology.

No matter how many documentaries I see about Stonehenge, the whole concept remains quite mysterious to me, except for the fact that the monument was also, incidentally, a kind of primitive clock that was designed to celebrate the winter solstice.

Archaeologists have investigated some of the primitive pots excavated in Durrington Walls, where the monument’s builders lived, and found traces of milk fats on them. It is believed that most people at that time could not tolerate drinking milk because of a general lactose intolerance, but they were able to solve this problem by making cheese, which more people could digest.

Serious stuff here !!!!!

I did not know that most adults at that time suffered from lactose intolerance, and that the ability to digest lactose apparently developed only gradually, in various human populations, over millennia, after the domestication of cows and other animals.

The proportion of lactose intolerance varies between regions, from less than 10% in northern Europe to as high as 95% in parts of Asia and Africa.

Rates of lactose intolerance in Europe

Lois comments that the pattern (north-west to south-east, increasing in intolerance) seems weird, considering that the domestication of cows started in the Middle East and spread gradually in a north-westerly direction across Europe, but we're going to let that one slide.

Researchers have also analysed the pork that Stonehenge's workers ate: and they found out that the animals came from today's Scotland, hundreds of miles away. Why? What was wrong with Wiltshire pigs? We eat Wiltshire pork sausages today, for heavens sake, and they’re jolly nice!

My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Just another manic Sunday -

Wish it was Monday

my I-don't-have-to-run-day

[copyright: the artist formerly known as "Prince" ]

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

Danish translation

08:00 Lois og jeg tager et brusebad, og efter morgenmad taler lidt på whatsapp med Sarah vores datter i Perth, Australien og hendes 5-årige tvillinger, Lily og Jessie. Det har desværre været lidt af en traumatisk uge for familien.

Onsdag aften Lily havde en ulykke i huset – hun klatrede på en stor kasse og snublede, faldende på en ande stor kasse med skarpe kanter. Hun havde ondt, men i begyndelsen syntes hun at være ellers ok.

Senere bemærkede Sarah imidlertid, at Lily blødte lidt i området. Sarah skyndte sig med Lily til det lokale forstadshospital – og senere på natten blev de transporteret til byen Perths centrale hospital. Lily blev udskrevet ved 11-tiden den følgende dag. Sarah og Francis blev bedt om at give Lily et saltbad to gange om dagen – du godeste! Hospitalets lægere vil undersøge hende igen næste uge.

Byens Royal Perth Hospital

Sarah indrømmer, at hun følte sig så fortvivlet i hospitalet den følgende dag, efter en næsten søvnløs nat, at hun var parat til at fortælle Francis, sin mand, at deres liv derovre var blevet for vanskelligt og hun ikke kunne udholde det mere - de måtte flytte tilbage til England. Yikes! Men senere på dagen følte hun sig lidt bedre – krisen var forbi, lader det til.

Hendes job som revisor på en Perth-baseret landskabsarkitekturfirma er lidt stressende, og hun er på udkig efter en mere stressfri stilling. Hun så en attraktiv annonce i går: en af Margaret River regionens ældste vingårde søger en stedfortrædende revisor, og i dag har un arbejdet lidt på sin cv. Vi må krydse fingre for hende – Margaret River er en ferie-region og trafikken er meget mindre stærk, end selve Perth, for at sige mildt.

Margaret River-regionen, der ligger lidt syd for byen Perth

10:15 Nyhederne fra Island er dårlig igen. Endnu en vanskelig nat i Reykjavik – denne gang er det en hund. Onion News, den indflydelsesrige amerikanske nyhedswebsted, har historien.

  

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – ”Den islandske nation var træt og sur i dag efter at blive hele natten forhindret af en hylende hund i at falde i søvn. "Folk klagede så langt væk som Seyhisfjórdhur," sagde præsident Ólafur Grimsson, mens han bryggede en ekstra krukke kaffe. "Lyden kan høres langt væk heromkring." Grimsson sagde ingen af Islands 280.000 borgere var tæt nok på hunden - som man troede at være blevet strandet på en isflod nær Vestmannaeyjar – til at kaste en sko på den.”

Artiklen, der siden da er gået viralt, for at sige mildt,  minder mig om, at Scillas U3A oldnordisk gruppe holder sit næste møde på onsdag. Før gruppemødet skal jeg læse nogle sider af Njals saga, skrevet i det 13. århundrede – sagaen er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Scilla gruppe har ikke samles siden den 5. december, på grund af gruppens regelmæssige julepause, men jeg mindes om, at vi dengang var på et vendepunkt i  sagaen. Vi er ved at rykke nu fra sex- til vold-tematiserede eventyre – sagaens tidlige kapitler handlede om islandingen Hruts dampende affære med den norske kongemor, Gunnhilda, og hans katastrofale ægteskab med Unna og den efterfølgende skilsmisse og proces.

Nu har vi lidt plyndring i vente – islandingen Gunnar sejler af sted med sin norske ven Kolskegg, og vi begynder at høre om nogle for længe glemte stednavne:  for eksempel Bjarmarland (historiker tror, at det lå på Hvidesøens sydlige kyst et eller andet sted mellem Norge og Rusland ), også Garðariki, et gammelt navn for Rusland. Jeg råder russerne til at låse deres døtre ind, bare for en sikkerheds skyld - yikes!  

Gunnar, i færd med at dræbe sammenlagt 14 mænd i løbet af dagen

10:20 Lois og jeg skal ud. Jeg er allerede helt sikker på, at i dag bliver til en meget dårlig dag. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts 2 gudstjenester, der finder sted i dag i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek. Hun har rygproblemer for tiden, og hun har bedt mig om at køre hende derover. Oven i købet har en bibelseminardeltager, Claire, ringet til Lois for at bede os til at hente hende på vej til Tewkesbury. Problemet er, at Claire bor i Quedgeley, der ligger på den anden side af byen Gloucester.

Vi kører over til Quedgeley – jeg havde ikke den fjerneste anelse om, hvor lang tid det ville tage at finde hendes hus. Hun bor i en nybygget forstad som vores GPS synes ikke at være fortrolig med. Vi skal lige til at opgive søgen, da Roger Moore (GPS’ens kendisstemme) pludselig annoncerer, at vi har nået vores destination.

Roger Moore - vores GPS’s sejte kendisstemme,

kendt for sin debonære væremåde.

Alle er debonære nu til dags – bortset fra mig!!!!

Så kører vi over til Tewkesbury og jeg sætter dem begge af foran byens bibliotek og kommer hjem igen. Jeg har kørt bil nonstop i sammenlagt 1 time 40 minutter – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!  Og senere på dagen skal jeg til Tewkesbury igen for at hente dem efter sektens 2. gudstjeneste.

13:00 Jeg laver frokost og efter måltiden går jeg i seng for at tage en meget kort eftermiddagslur – kun 30 minutter. Pokkers - utilstrækkeligt!

14:30 Jeg kører til Tewkesbury igen for at hente Lois og Claire. Senere sætter vi Claire af ved busstationen og kommer hjem. Jeg er i dårlig humør, for at sige mildt. Mest af alt er jeg sur på mig selv for at aftale at afhente Claire uden først at forske de pågældende afstander.

Jeg fortæller Lois, dette er helt bestemt den sidste gang, jeg afhenter Claire – næste gang må hun finde en anden chauffør, der kan tage hende, helst én der bor lidt tættere på hende. Det er helt latterligt!!!! Og det er Lois enig med mig i.

Unødvendigt at sige, men jeg har ikke læst et enkelt ord af Njals saga i dag – pokkers! Jeg trænger til en stark gin og tonic – det ved jeg med sikkerhed!!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. På Channel 5 viser de en arkæologisk dokumentarfilm, der handler om Stonehenge.

Det 4500+ år gamle mystiske Stonehenge-monument i det sydlige England er altid et fængslende emne. Det er imidlertid lidt af en skam, at denne bare er en Channel-5 dokumentarfilm. Lois og jeg har tendens til at mistænke, at Channel 5 dokumentarfilm bliver lavet på den billige måde – for det meste hører vi kun om de opdagelser, der blev offentliggjort for nogle år siden: med bare et par nylige, lidt intetsigende opdagelser inkluderet for at give programmet lidt ekstra krydderi. 

Og når det kommer til seriens 2 værter, Alex Langlands er en ægte arkæolog, men ikke just en af de ypperste, for at sige mildt. Helen Skelton har en behagelig og humoristisk personlighed, og er lækkert for øjet, men hun ved ingenting om historie eller arkæologi.

Uanset hvor mange dokumentarfilm jeg ser, der handler om Stonehenge, forbliver det hele begreb helt mystisk for mit vedkommende, bortset fra, at det for øvrigt var et slags primitivt ur, der fejrede vintersolhvervet.

Arkæologer har undersøgt nogle af de primitive gryder udgravet i Durrington Walls, hvor de arbejder, der byggede monumentet, boede, og de har fundet spor af mælkefedtstoffer på dem. De troede, at folk dengang ikke kunne tåle at drikke mælk på grund af en almindelig laktosintolerans, men de kunne løse dette problem ved at lave ost.

Jeg vidste ikke, at de fleste voksne folk dengang led af laktosintolerans, og at evnen til at fordøje laktose tilsyneladende udviklede sig kun gradvist i forskellige menneskelige befolkninger over årtusineder efter domesticeringen af køer og andre dyr.

Andelen af lactoseintolerans varierer mellem regioner, fra mindre end 10% i Nordeuropa til så højt som 95% i dele af Asien og Afrika.

Lois kommenterer, at mønstret (nordvest til sydøst) synes besynderligt, i betragtning af, at domesticeringen af køer startede i Mellemøsten og spredte gradvist nordvestpå over Europa, men det springer vi over.

Forskerne har også analyseret det svinekød, Stonehenges arbejdere spiste: og de fandt ud af, at dyrene kom fra nutidens Skotland, hundredvis af miles væk.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

Just another manic Sunday -

Wish it was Monday

my I-don't-have-to-run-day

[copyright: the artist formerly known as "Prince"]

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!